Servant of the Bones

  I turned my head, I began to cry. "Where is the Stairway, My Lord? I haven't suffered enough, have I?"

  Then I was Azriel again, as easy as taking a breath, and the needles and other medical connections were not connected to me. I stood up, strong, solid, healed in my own sound body, and in my favorite Babylonian robes of blue with gold. My beard, mustache, all there. I was Azriel.

  I looked at the sleeping Rebbe. I saw the figure of Sarah, asleep, her hand on a pillow, on the cold floor.

  I walked out of the room. Two nurses noticed and came to me gently and told me I couldn't be here without permission, the man in the room behind me was very sick.

  I looked back. There lay his body. He was dead, as he had been since the bullets had struck him. Suddenly they heard the alarms go off. They heard the signals.

  The Rebbe woke. Sarah climbed to her feet. They stared at the dead body of Nathan.

  "He died at peace," I said, and I kissed the nurse on the forehead. "You did everything you could."

  I walked out of the hospital.

  25

  I walked through the city of New York. When I came to the Temple, I found it surrounded by police and military men of many different kinds. Clearly the building had been taken and evacuated of all the evil ones.

  Nobody noticed me much--just a crazy man in velvet robes, I suppose. There were Minders everywhere weeping and crying.

  I went into the park where the Minders lay weeping on the grass and under the trees and singing hymns and declaring they didn't believe it was all a lie. They couldn't. The message of the Temple had been love, be kind, be good.

  I stood still for a moment, and then using all my power I changed my shape into Gregory.

  I found this surprisingly difficult to do, and difficult to sustain.

  I walked towards them and as they stood up, I told them to be quiet.

  In Gregory's voice I told them that I was a messenger sent to tell them their leader had been deranged, but the age-old message of love still had its full truth.

  There was soon a huge crowd around me. I talked on and on answering simple questions about their platitudes, love, sharing, the planet's health, all of this, confirming that this was good. Then finally I spoke Zurvan's words.

  "To love and to learn and to be kind," I said.

  I was exhausted.

  I vanished.

  I drifted invisible up past the windows of the Temple of the Mind. "The Bones," I whispered. "Take me to the Bones."

  I found myself in a room with a kiln. But it was empty and unmonitored now, for the whole system seemed to have been arrested. I opened the door of the kiln and I saw the Bones unharmed. Just the old skeleton.

  I pulled the skeleton out, letting it flip and flop about on its new wires as I did so, and then I called for the strength I needed to make my hands like steel and I crushed the skull to pieces, rubbing the pieces harder and harder together till it was powder dropping from my hands, gold powder.

  All this I did invisibly, and to each and every bone, grinding it between my hands until there was only dust left, a glittering tiny scattering of golden dust, I saw it swirl up into the ventilating system. I opened the window to the street, and it flew out, this dust, on a great gust of fresh air.

  I stood watching until I could see no more dust, only tiny points here and there of gold, and I called down a wind to cleanse the room, to carry it all away into the world, and soon there was not one tiny pinpoint of gold remaining.

  I stood thinking, studying.

  Then I discovered that I was visible, whole, dressed.

  I walked out of the room. But there were so many police now. There were lots of people from the Centers for Disease Control here, and members of the army. No use to parade through these panic-stricken men.

  Besides, I had work to do. I felt no taste for it. But I had to do it. Too much poison was stashed in too many vulnerable places. Too many madmen had a head start upon the officials and soldiers who were coming after them.

  I threw off the body--again the effort surprised me--and went up and out of the building and high over the world, and then descended to the Temple of the Mind in Tel Aviv.

  Soldiers had it surrounded. I entered invisibly and slew every last follower of Gregory who resisted. I slew the doctors who guarded the toxic weapons. I moved fast with swift and certain blows. I made no noise. Death lay in my wake. It was wearisome and sad, but done well and completely.

  At once I moved on to Jerusalem and there found that Gregory's followers had all surrendered. The city was safe.

  Not so in Tehran. Once again, I slew the resisters, and here I must confess to an evil indulgence. I took lavish and splashy physical form to kill, so that some of the more superstitious Persian Minders--converts of Gregory's from desert religions--would be especially affrighted. Vanity, ah, vanity. I disgusted myself with this fancy show. Blood had lost the shine of rubies. Fear in the eyes of my victims wasn't so pretty.

  So I suppose my games were instructive to me, and therefore had benefit. Whatever, I slew everyone in the Tehran Temple who did not bow down and beg for mercy, who did not throw down a weapon and crawl towards surrender.

  There were other temples which required my intervention.

  But I am not going to give you this litany of slaughter.

  Let me say only that I assessed each Temple, whether or not it had been "neutralized," as modern military men would say, and I gave my assistance where I thought it was imperative. I grew more and more tired.

  I knew the modern world must complete this work. I knew that it must appear as if the world itself had conquered Gregory Belkin and the Temple of the Mind. I left the certain victories to the human beings.

  I learnt from this rampage. I learnt that I did not love at all to kill anymore. Nothing of the Mal'ak remained in me.

  My fascination was with love, my obsession was with love.

  And the truth is, that the very last of these murderous tasks--the killing of a few very dangerous Minders in Berlin and in Spain--I did with weariness and no small demand on my own endurance and fortitude.

  Temple battles would continue.

  I was finished.

  A great relaxation overcame me. It was easy to return to my own fleshly form. It was the natural result of preoccupation or distraction--to become physical, the creature you see and hear, to feel and smell, and to walk in the world. Invisibility became a feat. I found this compelling.

  For a week I wandered the Earth.

  I wandered and wandered.

  I went into the lonely sands of Iraq. I went to the ruins of the Greek cities. I went to the museums which held the finest of the art of my times and gazed on these things in quiet.

  It took energy to move from place to place in spirit form, but in either state I was quite strong. Indeed to take on any other form than my own became harder.

  And as you know--as you saw yourself earlier--when I called back the body of Nathan to me, there was no wedding of my cells with his cells. His flesh was putrid and from the grave, and I sent it back, humbled, and ashamed that I had troubled it.

  I studied all the time I wandered. I went into the bookstores and the libraries. I read through many nights, without sleep. I watched the television endlessly as the Temples were contained and destroyed in various countries. I heard of the mass suicides. I saw it all blended finally with the other news all over the world. It was headlines at the beginning of the week. By the end it was still first page of The New York Times but much further down.

  And the magazines burst forth with their great flower-colored covers, and then a new issue came out and it was another story.

  The world went on. I knew your books. I read them in the night. I went to your home in New York City.

  I came here after you, to find you. You remember. You had a deep fever.

  All the rest you know. I can still change my shape. I can still travel invisibly. But it gets harder and harder to change into anyone else. You see?

>   You understand? I'm not human. I am the full spirit that I dreamed I would be--in those dark terrible moments when rebellion and hate seemed my only source of vitality.

  I don't know what will happen now. You have the tale. I could tell you more, about those bad masters, about little things I saw, but all will be revealed in God's good time.

  That's the end of my adventure. That's the end. And I am not dead. I am strong, I am seemingly without flaw. I am perhaps immortal. Why do you think? What more does God want of me?

  Will Rachel and Esther and Nathan forget me? Is that the nature of the bliss that lies beyond the light, that you forget and only come when you are called?

  I've called. I called and called and called. But they don't answer. I know they are safe. I know someday I may see that light. Beyond that, the purpose of life is to learn to love and that is all I intend to do now.

  Is it the blood of Gregory himself that keeps me the wanderer? I don't know. I only know I am whole and that this time I served myself as best I could.

  I killed, yes, but it was not for a cause, but to stop one. It was not for a master, but to stop one. It was not for an idea, but for many ideas. It was not for a solution, but for the slow unfolding mystery around us. It was not for death, death which I wanted above all, the rest, the grandeur of the ultimate election to die. No, what I did was not for that. I did it for life--so that others may struggle for it. I turned my back on the light and then I shot to death the man with the great plan.

  Never forget that, Jonathan, when you write the story. I shot Gregory Belkin. I took his life.

  Has God made a special place for me? Has he made it easy for me? Did he give me visions and signs? Was my god Marduk a guardian spirit? Or was he and were all the spirits I saw merely dreams of the lonely human heart that endlessly refurbishes heaven?

  Perhaps the story is chaos. It is another chapter in the endless saga of the blunted yet stunning accomplishments of vicious human wills, the stunted yet dazzling ambitions of little souls. Mine, Gregory's...

  Perhaps we are all little souls. But remember, I told you I've seen these things. And as I turned my back on the Light of Heaven, I committed yet another murder. Death was mixed up in my story from its earliest days.

  And I don't know any more about death finally than any mortal man living knows. Perhaps less than you do.

  Part IV

  LAMENT

  Cry not, my baby.

  Cry.

  I know a frog ate a white moth.

  The frog did not cry.

  That's why he's a frog.

  The moth did not cry.

  Now moth is not.

  My baby, cry not. Cry. There is much to do.

  I will cry too.

  I will cry for you.

  Stan Rice, Some Lamb 1975

  26

  It was morning again, cold and clear and still. He said he had to sleep again, but not before fixing me my breakfast. I ate the hot hominy again, prepared by him, and then we lay down together and slept.

  When he awoke he smiled at me, and he said:

  "Jonathan, I'm not leaving you here. You're too sick and you must go home."

  "I know, Azriel," I said. "I wish I could concern myself with such things, but all I can think about is the story. It's all there, isn't it, on the tapes?"

  "Yes, in duplicate," he said with a laugh. "You'll write it for me when you're ready, and, Jonathan, if you don't you will pass it on to someone, won't you? Now, I think we should get ready and I should drive you home."

  Within the hour we were packed and in the Jeep. He had shut down the fire and all the candles in the cabin. I was running a temperature still, but he'd bundled me up well in the back so I could sleep, and I had the tapes tight in my arms.

  He drove fast, fast as a madman, I suppose, but I don't imagine he put anyone in danger.

  Every now and then I'd look up, roll over, and see him in the driver's seat, see his long thick hair, and he'd turn and give me a smile.

  "Sleep, Jonathan."

  When we pulled into the driveway of my house, my wife ran out to greet us. She helped me from the back of the Jeep and my two children came, the young ones who are still at home, and they helped me upstairs to the bedroom.

  I was afraid he would go now, forever. But he came with us, walking through the house as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  He kissed my wife's forehead, he kissed each of my children.

  "Your husband couldn't stay up there. Terrible storm. He got a fever."

  "But how did you find him?" my wife asked.

  "I saw the light coming from his chimney. He and I have had pleasant talks together."

  "Where are you going?" I asked him. I was sitting up against a heap of pillows.

  "I don't know," he said. He came up to the side of the bed. I was covered with two quilts, and the little house, set to my wife's temperature, seemed intolerably warm, but I was greatly relieved to be home.

  "Don't go, Azriel," I said.

  "Jonathan, I have to. I have to wander. I want to travel and learn. I want to see things. Now that I remember everything, I am in a position to really study, to really comprehend. Without memory there can be no insight. Without love, there can be no appreciation.

  "Don't worry for me. I'm going back to the sands of Iraq to the ruins of Babylon. I have the strangest feeling, that Marduk is there, lost, with no worshipers and no shrine and no temple, and that I can find him. I don't know. It's probably a foolish dream. But everyone I ever loved--except you--is dead."

  "What about the Hasidim?"

  "I may go to them in time, I don't know. I'll see whether it does good or makes fear. I only want to do good now."

  "I owe you my life, and nothing in my life will ever be the same. I'll write your story," I told him. "You know what you are now."

  "A son of God?" he asked. He laughed. "I don't know. I know this. That Zurvan was right, in the end there is one Creator, somewhere beyond the light I saw the truth of this, and only love and goodness matter.

  "I don't ever want to be swallowed by anger or hate again, and I won't be, no matter how long or hard my journey. If I can just live by that one word it will be enough. Remember? Altashheth. Do Not Destroy. That alone would be enough. Altashheth."

  He leaned down and kissed me.

  "When you write my story, don't be afraid to call me the Servant of the Bones, for that is what I still am, only not the servant of the bones of one doomed boy in Babylon, or some evil magician in a candlelighted room, or a scheming high priest, or a king dreaming of glory.

  "I am the Servant of the Bones that lie in the great field that Ezekiel described, the bones of all our human brothers and sisters."

  He spoke the words of Ezekiel in Hebrew, words which the wide world knows as the following from the King James edition:

  The hand of the Lord was

  upon me, and carried me out

  in the spirit of the Lord, and set

  me down in the midst of the valley

  which was full of bones,

  ...and behold,

  there were very many in the open

  valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

  "Who knows?" he continued. "Maybe some day the breath will come into them? Or perhaps the old prophet meant only that one day all mysteries would be explained, that all bones shall be revered, that all who have lived will know a reason for what we suffer in this world."

  He looked down at me and smiled.

  "Perhaps someday," he said, "the bones of man will yield the DNA of God."

  I could find no answer. I too smiled, however. And I simply let him go on.

  "But I must confess, as I leave you, I am dreaming of a time when the division between life and death will be no more and ours will be the eternity we imagine. Goodbye, Jonathan, my gentle friend. I love you."

  That was a year ago.

  It was the last time I actually spoke with him.

  Three times I've seen him s
ince, and two of those times were on the television news.

  The first time I saw him was among the medical workers in a cholera epidemic in South America. He was in simple white medical garments, and he was helping to feed the sick children. His hair, his eyes--it was unmistakable.

  The next time I saw him, it was in news footage of Jerusalem. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, had been assassinated the day before.

  Azriel was a face in the crowd that saw the CNN camera and turned and moved towards it.

  He seemed to peer directly through the lens at me.

  The newscaster spoke of a city and a country weeping for its murdered leader. The world wept for the man who had wanted peace with the Arabs, and was now dead.

  Azriel stared at the camera, and the camera lingered. Azriel was silent--thoughtful--looking right at me. He was dressed in plain black clothes.

  The camera and the news moved on.

  The third time was merely a glimpse. But I knew that it was Azriel. It was in New York. I was in a cab speeding downtown, navigating wildly through the early afternoon traffic, and off to the side I saw Azriel walking on the street.

  He was handsomely dressed, with his hair untamed, and looked magnificent, striding along, carefree and full of wonder. He turned suddenly as if he had felt me see him; he looked around puzzled. But the cab shot on. Trucks blocked my view. We traveled blocks, weaving in and out of other cars. I couldn't have told where it was even, the place where I saw him.

  Maybe it wasn't Azriel, I wasn't sure, or so I told myself. And then, of course, I knew that he could reach me if he wanted me. I did not go back to look for him.

  It's taken twelve months to prepare this book for publication, and then to publish it effectively under the cloak of anonymity so that my own colleagues won't laugh me out of the university, and those who need to hear this tale won't be hampered by knowing my identity.

  There you have it. The Tale of the Servant of the Bones. And the story of what really happened with the cult of the Temple of the Mind. Or you have one story of one soul and its agonies and its refusal to give up, and its ultimate victory.

  Azriel, if you read this, if you are pleased, let me know. A call; a small written note; your presence. Anything. My life has never been as it was.