"You are very persuasive," he said.
"It is my job," she said. "I say these things because I know these things. There is no deceit in you and there is no deceit in me, but just as you curse, I play. Which of us has found the Way? For two thousand years you have bided your time until you could slip back into Belial's fortress to overthrow him. I suggest that you find something else to do. Walk with me and we will see flowers. It is better. And the world will prosper as it always has. This is the springtime. It is now that flowers grow, and with me there is dancing also, and the sound of bells. You heard the bells and you know that their beauty is greater than the power of evil. In some ways their beauty is greater than your own power, Yahweh, Lord of Hosts. Do you not agree?"
"Magic," he said. "A spell."
"Beauty is a spell," she said, "and war is reality. Do you want the sobriety of war or the intoxication of what you see now, here in my world? We are alone now, but later on people will appear; I will repopulate my realm. But I want this moment to speak to you plainly. Do you know who I am? You do not know who I am, but finally I will lead you step by step back to your throne, you the Creator, and then you will know who I am. You have guessed but you have not guessed right. There are many guesses left for you-you who know everything. I am not Holy Wisdom and I am not Diana; I am not a zina; I am not Pallas Athena. I am something else. I am the spring queen and yet I am not that either; these are, as you put it, vapors. What I am, what I truly am, you will have to ferret out on your own. Now let's walk."
They walked along the path, by the water and the trees.
"We are friends, you and I," Emmanuel said. "I tend to listen to you."
"Then postpone your great and terrible day. There is nothing good in death by fire; it is the worst death of all. You are the solar heat that destroys the crops. For four years we have been together, you and I. I have watched as your memory returned and I have regretted its return. You afflicted that miserable woman who was your mother; you sickened your own mother whom you say you love, whom you cried over. Instead of making war against evil, cure the dying dog in the ditch and wipe away thereby your own tears. I hated to see you cry. You cried because you regained your own nature and comprehended that nature. You cried because you realized what you are."
He said nothing.
"The air smells good," Zina said.
"Yes," he said.
"I will bring the people back," she said. "One by one, until they are all around us. Look at them and when you see one whom
you would slay, tell me and I will banish that person once more. But you must look at the person whom you would slay-you must see in that person the crushed and dying dog. Only then do you have the right to slay that person; only when you cry are you entitled to destroy. You understand?"
"Enough," he said.
"Why didn't you cry over the dog before the car crushed him? Why did you wait until it was too late? The dog accepted his situation but I do not. I advise you; I am your guide. I say, It is wrong what you do. Listen to me. Stop it!"
He said, "I have come to lift their oppression."
"You are impaired. I know that; I know what happened in the Godhead, the original crisis. It is no secret to me. In this condition you seek to lift their oppression through a great and terrible day. Is that reasonable? Is that how you free the prisoners?"
"I must break the power of-"
"Where is that power? The government? Bulkowsky and Harms? They are idiots; they are a joke. Would you kill them? The talion law that you laid down; I say:
You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance.
"You must live by your own words; you must offer your Adversary Belial no resistance. In my realm his power is not here; he is not here. What is here is a sport in a cage at a public zoo. We feed it and give it water and atmosphere and the right temperature; we try to make the thing as comfortable as possible. In my realm we do not kill. There is, here, no great and terrible day, nor will there ever be. Stay in my realm or make my realm your realm, but spare Belial; spare everyone. And then you will not have to cry, and the tears will, as you promised, be wiped away.
Emmanuel said, "You are Christ."
Laughing, Zina said, "No, I am not."
"You quote him." 'Even the devil can cite Scripture.'
Around them groups of people appeared, in light, summery clothing. Men in their shirtsleeves, women in frocks. And, he saw, all the children.
"The fairy queen," he said. "You beguile me. You lead me from the path with sparks of light, dancing, singing, and the sound of bells; always the sound of bells."
"The bells are blown by the wind," Zina said. "And the wind speaks the truth. Always. The desert wind. You know that; I have watched you listen to the wind. The bells are the music of the wind; listen to them."
He heard, then, the fairy bells. They echoed distantly; many bells, small ones, not church bells but the bells of magic.
It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
"I cannot, myself, produce that sound," he said to Zina. "How is it done?"
"By wakefulness," Zina said. "The bell-sounds wake you up. They rouse you from sleep. You roused Herb Asher from his sleep by a crude introjection; I awaken by means of beauty."
Gentle spring wind blew about them, the vapors of her realm.
CHAPTER 13
To himself Emmanuel said, I am being poisoned. The vapors of her realm poison me and vitiate my will.
"You are wrong," Zina said.
"I feel less strong."
"You feel less indignation. Let's go and get Herb Asher. I want him with us. I will narrow down the area of our game; I will arrange it especially for him."
"In what way?"
"We will contest for him," Zina said. "Come." She beckoned to the boy to follow her.
----------------------
In the cocktail lounge Herb Asher sat with a glass of Scotch and water in front of him. He had been waiting an hour but the evening entertainment had not begun. The cocktail lounge was filled with people. Constant noise assailed his ears. But, for him, this was worth it, despite the rather large cover charge.
Rybys, across from him, said, "I just don't understand what you see in her."
"She's going to go a long way," Herb said, "if she gets any kind of a break at all." He wondered if record company scouts came here to the Golden Hind. I hope so, he said to himself.
"I'd like to leave. I don't feel well. Could we go?"
"I'd prefer not to."
Rybys sipped at her tall mixed drink fitfully. "So much noise," she said, her voice virtually inaudible.
He looked at his watch. "It's almost nine. Her first set is at nine."
"Who is she?" Rybys said.
"She's a new young singer," Herb Asher said. "She's adapted the lute books of John Dowland for-"
"Who's John Dowland? I never heard of him."
"Late-sixteenth-century England. Linda Fox has modernized his lute songs; he was the first composer to write for solo voice; before that four or more people sang . . . the old madrigal form. I can't explain it; you have to hear her."
"If she's so good, why isn't she on TV?" Rybys said.
Herb said, "She will be."
Lights on the stage began to glow. Three musicians leaped up onto it and began fussing with the audio system. Each had in his possession a vibrolute.
A hand touched Herb Asher on the shoulder. "Hi."
Glancing up he saw a young woman whom he did not know. But, he thought, she seems to know me. "I'm sorry-" he began.
"May we sit down?" The woman, pretty, wearing a floral print top and jeans, a mail-pouch purse over her shoulder, drew a chair back and seated herself beside Herb Asher. "Sit down, Manny," she said to a small boy who stood awkwardly near the table. What a beautiful child, Herb Asher thought. How did he get in here? There aren't supposed to be any minors in here.
"Are these friends of
yours?" Rybys said.
The pretty, dark-haired young woman said, "Herb hasn't seen me since college. How are you, Herb? Don't you recognize me?" She held out her hand to him, and, reflexively, he took it. And then, as he shook her hand, he remembered her. They had been in school together, in a poly-sci course.
"Zina," he said, delighted. "Zina Pallas."
"This is my little brother," Zina said, motioning the boy to sit down. "Manny. Manny Pallas." To Rybys she said. "Herb hasn't changed a bit. I knew it was him when I saw him. You're here to see Linda Fox? I've never heard her; they say she's real good."
"Very good," Herb said, pleased at her support.
"Hello, Mr. Asher," the boy said.
"Glad to meet you, Manny." He shook hands with the boy. "This is my wife, Rybys."
"So you two are married," Zina said. "Mind if I smoke?" She lit a cigarette. "I keep trying to quit but when I quit I start eating a lot and get as fat as a pig."
"Is your purse genuine leather?" Rybys said, interested.
"Yes." Zina passed it over to her.
"I've never seen a leather purse before," Rybys said.
"There she is," Herb Asher said. Linda Fox had appeared on the stage; the audience clapped.
"She looks like a pizza waitress," Rybys said.
Zina, taking her purse back, said, "If she's going to make it big she's going to have to lose some weight. I mean, she looks all right, but-"
"What is this thing you have about weight?" Herb Asher said, irritated.
The boy, Manny, spoke up. "Herbert, Herbert."
"Yes?" He bent to hear.
"Remember," the boy said.
Puzzled, he started to say Remember what? but then Linda Fox took hold of the microphone, half shut her eyes, and began to sing. She had a round face, and almost a double chin, but her skin was fair, and, most important to him of all, she had long eyelashes that flickered as she sang-they fascinated him and he sat spellbound. Linda wore an extremely low-cut gown and even from where he sat he could see the outline of her nipples; she had on no bra.
Shall I sue? shall I seek for grace?
Shall I pray? shall I prove?
Shall I strive to a heavenly joy
With an earthly love?
Audibly, Rybys said, "I hate that song. I have heard her before."
Several people hissed at her to be quiet.
"Not by her, though," Rybys said. "She isn't even original. That song-" She piped down, but she was not happy.
When the song ended, and the audience had begun to clap, Herb Asher said to his wife, "You never heard 'Shall I Sue' before. Nobody else sings it but Linda Fox."
"You just like to gape at her nipples," Rybys said.
To Herb Asher the little boy said, "Would you take me to the men's room, Mr. Asher?"
"Now?" he said, dismayed. "Can't you wait until she's through singing?"
The boy said, "Now, Mr. Asher."
With reluctance he led Manny through the maze of tables to the doors at the rear of the lounge. But before they had entered the men's room Manny stopped him.
"You can see her better from here," Manny said.
It was true. He was now much closer to the stage. He and the boy stood together in silence as Linda Fox sang "Weep You No More Sad Fountains."
When the song ended, Manny said, "You don't remember, do you? She has enchanted you. Wake up, Herbert Asher. You know me well, and I know you. Linda Fox does not sing her songs at an obscure cocktail lounge in Hollywood; she is famous throughout the galaxy. She is the most important entertainer of this decade. The chief prelate and the procurator maximus invite her to-"
"She's going to sing again," Herb Asher interrupted. He barely heard the boy's words and they made no sense to him. A babbling boy, he thought, making it hard for me to hear Linda Fox. Just what I need.
After the song had ended, Manny said, "Herbert, Herbert; do you want to meet her? Is that what you want?"
"What?" he murmured, his eyes-his attention-fixed on Linda Fox. God, he thought; what a figure she has. She's practically falling out of her dress. He thought, I wish my wife was built like that.
"She will come this way," Manny said, "when she finishes. Stand here, Herb Asher, and she will pass directly by you."
"You're joking," he said.
"No," Manny said. "You will have what you want most in the world . . . that which you dreamed of as you lay on your bunk in your dome."
"What dome?" he said.
Manny said, "'How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star, felled-'"
"You mean one of those colony-planet domes?" Herb Asher said.
"I can't make you listen, can I?" Manny said. "If I could say to you-"
"She is coming this way," Herb Asher said. "How did you know?" He moved a few steps toward her. Linda Fox walked rapidly, with small steps, a gentle expression on her face.
"Thank you," she was saying to people who spoke to her. For a moment she stopped to give her autograph to a black youth nattily dressed.
Tapping Herb Asher on the shoulder a waitress said, "You're going to have to take that boy out of here, sir; we can't have minors in here."
"Sorry," Herb Asher said.
"Right now," the waitress said.
"Okay," he said; he took Manny by the shoulder and, with unhappy reluctance, led him back toward their table. And, as he turned away, he saw out of the corner of his eye the Fox pass by the spot at which he and the boy had stood. Manny had been right. A few more seconds and he would have been able to speak a few words to her. And, perhaps, she would have answered.
Manny said, "It is her desire to trick you, Herb Asher. She offered it to you and took it away again. If you want to meet Linda Fox I will see that you do; I promise you. Remember this, because it will come to pass. I will not see you cheated."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Herb said, "but if I could meet her-"
"You will," Manny said.
"You're a strange kid," Herb Asher said. As they passed below a light fixture he noticed something that startled him; he halted and, taking hold of Manny, he moved him directly under the light. You look like Rybys, he thought. For an instant a flash of memory jarred him; his mind seemed to open up, as if vast spaces, open spaces, a universe of stars, had flooded into it.
"Herbert," the boy said, "she is not real. Linda Fox-she is a phantasm of yours. But I can make her real; I confer being-it is I who makes the irreal into the real, and I can do it for you, with her."
"What happened?" Rybys said, when they reached the table. "Manny has to leave," Herb said to Zina Pallas. "The waitress said so. I guess you'll have to go. Sorry."
Taking her purse and cigarettes, Zina rose. "I'm sorry; I guess I kept you from seeing the Fox."
"Let's go with them," Rybys said, also rising. "My head hurts, Herb; I'd like to get out of here."
Resigned, he said, "All right." Cheated, he thought. That was what Manny had said. I will not see you cheated. That is exactly what happened, he realized; I have been cheated this evening. Well, some other time. It would be interesting to talk to her, maybe get her autograph. He thought, Close up I could see that her eyelashes are fake. Christ, he thought; how depressing. Maybe her breasts are fake, too. There're those pads they slip in. He felt disappointed and unhappy and now he, too, wanted to leave.
This evening didn't work out, he thought as he escorted Rybys, Zina and Manny from the club onto the dark Hollywood street. I expected so much.. . and then he remembered what the boy had said, the strange things, and the nanosecond of jarred memory: scenes that appeared in his mind so briefly and yet so convincingly. This is not an ordinary child, he realized. And his resemblance to my wife-I can see it now, as they stand together. He could be her son. Eerie. He shivered, even though the air was warm.
Zina said, "I fulfilled his wishes; I gave him what he dreamed of. All those months as he lay on his bunk. With his 3-D posters of her, his tapes."
"You gave him nothing," Emmanuel s
aid. "You robbed him, in fact. You took something away."
"She is a media product," Zina said. The two of them walked slowly along the nocturnal Hollywood sidewalk, back to her flycar. "That is no fault of mine. I can't be blamed if Linda Fox is not real."
"Here in your realm that distinction means nothing."
"What can you give him?" Zina said. "Only illness-his wife's illness. And her death in your service. Is your gift better than mine?"
Emmanuel said, "I made him a promise and I do not lie." I shall fulfill that promise, he said to himself. In this realm or in my own realm; it doesn't matter because in either case I will make Linda Fox real. That is the power I have, and it is not the power of enchantment; it is the most precious gift of all: reality.
"What are you thinking?" Zina said.
"'Better a live dog than a dead prince,'" Manny said. "Who said that?"
"It is simply common sense."
Zina said, "What is your meaning?"
"I mean that your enchantment gave him nothing and the real world-"
"The real world," Zina said, "put him in cryonic suspension for ten years. Isn't a beautiful dream better than a cruel reality? Would you rather suffer in actuality than enjoy yourself in the domain of-" She paused.
"Intoxication," he said. "That is what your domain consists of; it is a drunken world. Drunken with dancing and with joy. I say that the quality of realness is more important than any other quality, because once realness departs, there is nothing. A dream is nothing. I disagree with you; I say you cheated Herbert Asher. I say you did a cruel thing to him. I saw his reaction; I measured his dejection. And I will make it up to him."
"You will make the Fox real."
"Is it your wager that I can't?"
"My wager," Zina said, "is that it doesn't matter. Real or not she is worthless; you will have achieved nothing."
"I accept the wager," he said.
"Shake my hand on it." She extended her hand.
They shook, standing there on the Hollywood sidewalk under the glaring artificial light.
As they flew back to Washington, D.C. Zina said, "In my realm many things are different. Perhaps you would like to meet Party Chairman Nicholas Bulkowsky."
Emmanuel said, "Is he not the procurator?"
"The Communist Party has not the world power that you are accustomed to. The term 'Scientific Legate' is not known. Nor is Fulton Statler Harms the chief prelate of the C.I.C., inasmuch as no Christian-Islamic Church exists. He is a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church; he does not control the lives of millions."
"That is good," Emmanuel said.
"Then I have done well in my domain," Zina said. "Do you agree? Because if you agree- "These are good things," Emmanuel said. "Tell me your objection."