The Apex Book of World SF Page 23
My heart goes out to him, as if he were twelve.
It’s stupid.
But maybe I’m overflowed with feelings because I haven’t yet overcome Malka’s passing. Parts of me were imbedded in her. Is this clinging narcissistic? Because in every loss we lose the parts of us that were immersed in others who left us? Do we mourn ourselves really?
I refuse to believe that.
Write me back soon,
T.
14
I refuse to believe it either. If love may save us for a moment from our perpetual egoism, then losing it is losing a possibility of salvation. Another way out that has been blocked for us, that keeps us so much in here.
15
Sultana was very stingy with the time left for her son. The ring suspended his life. She put him in the cave, near the hamlet she was told to live in, and she waited. They called for her. Always around midnight. She watched demon offspring, with crooked organs and features, being delivered from human females wombs, and every time refused the food and drinks she was offered. And there was always someone who came and took the hybrids. She didn’t see the takers’ faces, didn’t recognized them. And every morning following the birth, she went to the cave, where she undid the time paralysis she had casted upon her son, and he was beautiful and spoke to her. And she remembered why she was willing to assist the strange births. Why she continued to live in the shadow of the Sitra Ahara.
But this morning Hosea wasn’t there. And she thought, Shlomo, for no reason she could fathom, just out of basic fright. It’s Shlomo’s doing.
16
*Externals: in Jewish folklore the expression serves as a substitute term for the Sitra Ahara, the more common Aramaic name for the powers of evil, whose meaning is literally ‘The Other Side’.
The disciples of the order of the Rose of Judea believe that the Externals are a group of shape-shifting entities whose influence can be traced throughout Jewish history, and that they are the servants of the kings of Edom, a nation whose home world was destroyed and who now roam the other worlds in order to find the keys to the destruction of the Chain of Worlds. These keys, as the Rosaic tradition goes, are implanted in the Name-givers’ consciousness.
Their belief is based on the interpretation of a series of Jewish exegesis from the second half of the third millennium to creation, and is related to the sage Ben-Zoma and his acolytes. These exegeses are not part of the holy canon of mainstream Judaism today.
One of the important exegeses is as follow:
The Rabbi’s mind was not set as to Solomon’s throne till Ben-Zoma explained—
It’s written, It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness, for the descendants of heavens and the offspring of Edom were fighting over its construction, this one says it is my craft and the other says it is my hand making, and it stood between the sky and the earth until the sun retreated.
An extreme interpretation, which isn’t considered valid, claims that the Externals are not connected to the kings of Edom, but are mutant Jews from the future who travel in time and memory, and whose goal is to collect every piece of information relevant to the Rose of Judea and manipulate it for their own ends.
17
Shlomo looks at her bewildered. He doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. He repeats her words, a cave, a ring, a son. Sultana stops midway through the blame and starts anew. Slowly she realizes that he doesn’t have a clue. That’s the first time he’s been hired for a job like this. That he was paid handsomely for it. He’s able to deduce much from what she’s been saying. He is sharp. He has an ear for nuances. The story is clear to him in its fullest extent. Until now he stood in front of her; she sat at the table in the centre of her hut. He sits down heavily. His eyes are ablaze with thoughts. A pretty man, she notices, a soft darkness floats in the irises, and the cloud of thoughts enhances his beauty. Suddenly she’s aware of her appearance. She tightens the cover over her hair, glides a hand down her face, as if she could smooth the skin. She’s four or five years older than he is, but he seems younger to her, a lad.
Shlomo asks if she knows if in this village, outside the borders of Essaouira, demonic forces are more active there. She says she doesn’t know, that she delivers a hybrid once a month at least. But never during the ten days of repentance.
The holiness of the days, Shlomo says, and nods. He asks about Hosea, how the black ring is able to time-freeze him. She looks at the ring for the first time since she left the cave earlier that morning. Shlomo is right. The green and ivory shades faded. It’s totally black.
He inquires about her recollection of the Arab warlock. She says she doesn’t remember a thing. Did he wear the ring? She says that he didn’t. He pronounced a few words and then some windows were torn in the air. They moved very slowly, the windows. The Arab reached into one of them and pulled out the ring.
Windows, Shlomo muses: a similar account is to be found in the stories of Raba bar bar Hana in Baba Batra.
In the Talmud? she asks.
Yes, Shlomo says and adds that bar bar Hana tells about a meeting with an Arab who showed him windows in heaven, where the sky and the earth kiss, and the sky turns as a wheel. The stories were always dismissed as fiction, but he believes they have some kernel of truth in them.
And the home owner, he asks, did she know him?
She says his voice was familiar, but she couldn’t exactly tell where from.
Shlomo suggests they return to that hut: maybe they’ll find a lead.
On the way there he turns his head. The small ass is walking at a moderate pace. He says it amuses him that the daughter of Rabbi Aflalo found a way to cheat death. She asks for the reason. He says Rabbi Aflalo expelled him from the yeshiva because he argued that underneath the Talmud sages’ discussions about necromancy and seers lurks a knowledge they wished to discard. Rabbi Aflalo accused him of idolatry.
18
From: Tiberia Assido
To: Doron Aflalo
RE: Rose of Judea
You’re right. I wasn’t very sensitive in my last mail. I didn’t take into account what you’re going through. But you are also to blame. Whenever we talked about Miriam and what she’d done, you insisted you moved on, that you can’t dwell in sorrow, in guilt. Tell me more about the book you’re writing. In what way does it deal with the impossible language of loss? Once you wrote in a poem, “There comes a moment / you know / your hymn from down under / no soul could speak.” What happened to that moment? Why does it flicker?
Yesterday we held a ceremony. Akko said it would help me let go of Malka. He didn’t say, “Help you let go of Malka,” he said, “Maybe you’d stop nagging.” Midway he cried. Of course, it wasn’t Malka he was missing. He has several servers he calls the Cemetery Cloud. He stores his dead software there. The little conniving bastard. Not once did he mention that it wasn’t the first time a module of solium salomonis has crashed beyond repair. He doesn’t say « store », btw. He says « lay to rest ».
T.
19
From: Tiberia Assido
To: Doron Aflalo
RE: Rose of Judea
I almost forgot. You ask what I mean by “died”?
You push the module icon and the software doesn’t run. Akko said he ran Malka’s code through a debugger (tell you anything?) and he ran diagnostics on the databases built by her. Everything seems to be fine. No reason why she wouldn’t work. Yet she doesn’t, like a body whose life spark’s been extinguished.
T.
20
Out of the urban mischief, out of the wreckage, my sister Miriam rose. Still 17 and not ceasing to rise. And Tel Aviv already fell. In aimless roaming I was nearly run down by bike riders. Sons of bitches. Lately they multiply. The year 5767 and the city is lost. Their eyes hollow, their mouths gaping with a groan. Among the dust-ridden trees, in the delayed autumn. New Year’s Eve at my back, and they’re around me, circling, copies of what they were once, bli
nd urges in flesh golems of streets and traffic lights. Trampling. I have to get out of here. I have to go back to Mevo-Yam.
21
The recently deceased mother’s hut is empty. It’s almost evening. Sultana and Shlomo stand inside and inspect it for traces. The ring on Sultana’s finger is black as a scorched bone. There’s no cradle. No bed for a child. The kitchen is infested with shadows.
Shlomo asks her what else she knows. All of a sudden she’s indignant. It’s not his business. It’s not your business, she says. He lifts the lamp he brought with him and lights it. It’s requied. The night fell quickly, unnoticeable. His expression is a mix of curiosity and alarm. A rage builds inside Sultana. She says, Hosea, and begins singing, a song her mother sung, when she cradled her son who wasn’t named yet, in his firsts days on this land—
Stahit ana me’a momo lilah fi lilah
Wal’am he’tata yiduz geer fehal ha lilah
Lochan ma tenzar shams, ma tedwi gemara
Geer didlma fi kulal rachan
Wunbit ana wu-momo, geer sehara fi laman…3
(3 I wished to spend with the baby night after night
To be with him a full 12 months like this night
And the sun might not rise, the moon won’t shine
Only darkness all around
And the baby and I would sleep like a coin entrusted in faith. (Jewish Moroccan))
She sings, hums to herself. Shlomo lowers his head. In the lamp light his hair is anointed with glamour. Someone is knocking on the door, beating with urgency.
22
From: Tiberia Assido
To: Doron Aflalo
RE: Rose of Judea
We’re having a little crisis here. It has nothing to do with the Israeli writer inquest. Akko resolved that matter. Something else. I started working with the new linguistic module yesterday. This time I was cautious about getting attached. I typed simple indicative sentences. Something happened at night. It’s not clear what. In the morning I sat in front of the screen. Ozymandias (yeah, maybe such a ridiculous name will prevent me from developing feelings) didn’t react at first to the sentences I fed it. After several minutes words appeared on the screen: ARRGGG, GRRRR, ARRGGGG…
Funny, right?
But then the computer started emitting sounds. The other computers in the lab present similar symptoms. Akko lost his temper. At last he was able to show rage. There’s a good side to it, to see him in a human moment.
I’m scared.
T.
23
The door fell.
In spite of the lamp in Shlomo’s hand, the outside seemed more lit.
The glee of autumn stars in Morocco’s sky, apparently.
The shining heaven above Essaouira.
Against the glare of the busted door a small figure shows.
Its stride slow.
The organs rigid, mechanical.
And still its face is unseen yet.
Shlomo takes out a small chain from his galabia’s pocket.
It shimmers. It has a certain glow.
He throws it. It wraps around the figure’s neck.
Shlomo cries: Shma De-Marach Alech!4 (4 The name of your master binds you (Aramaic)) Shma De-Marach Alech!
The figure continues to advance, oblivious to Shlomo’s cries.
Shlomo retreats.
He puts the lamp on the floor and takes a stool from next to the wall.
He raises it.
His silence releases Sultana from her short paralysis.
She bends to have a better look.
Now she screams.
24
From: Tiberia Assido
To: Doron Aflalo
RE: Rose of Judea
I left Akko alone with his codes in the lab for several days and went on walks in the institute’s grounds. Akko suggested I take the laptop he prepared for me, with all the insane amount of security he put on it. Before I left he asked if the laptop was connected to the lab’s intranet. I haven’t turned it on since he gave it to me. There was enough computing for me with the computer that ran Malka’s module, may she rest in peace, and Ozymandias’s module, curse it.
Akko also said, strangely, that the programs’ codes in the cemetery cloud were corrupted. That they’re full of inexplicable characters. He said, « As if they’ve rotted somehow. »
I was hoping to have my spirit lifted by the gnaw marks autumn left on the trees, the seasonal decline in temperature, the pressure of coolness against the skin, and the architecture, by which I was enthralled when I first got here. Instead, I think of Israel, on my tongue the syllables of the month Tishrey are rolling. Before Rosh Hashanah we called our mother to congratulate her for the New Year. Akko was choked with excitement. He was stricken by longing. Then we called our father. I mean, I called. Akko still refuses to speak with him. Who would have thought we’ll all be here, in 2011, some years after the fall of Tel Aviv.
Well, the architecture is still lovely. The state centre’s game of perspectives are wonderful, I’ll give you that. The placement of futuristic buildings in the gloomy surroundings of New England as well.
I wonder if they burned witches here.
I think about your Sultana.
Where is the story going? I wait for the part in which young Shlomo is entering the Pardes and gets the knowledge of the Chain of Worlds, and becomes Rabbi SBRJ. That’s your intention, right? To illustrate the revelation of the Rose of Judea.
But why tell the story from Sultana’s point of view? Shlomo is the interesting character.
I don’t want to push you. I know you too well for that. But what happens here seems to stem from our efforts to find the Ursprechen of the Worlds. It seems we reached some forbidden zone. Years ago Akko told me that this knowledge has the price tag of loss, of guilt, and you said—bad luck.
Well, Doron, bad luck has caught up with us. And I’m scared.
I sit at a café in Cambridge, MA, and I write to you.
I need desperately to understand something. But what is it? This is the awful thing here, isn’t it? That we can’t identify the real mystery. Help me, Doron.
T.
25
*Pardes (Orchard). Entering the Pardes: more than a few visitations of humans to the realms of angles in heaven are accounted for in the Jewish esoteric literature from the second half of the third millennium to creation. The literature of Hechalot (Palaces), for instance, is a detailed one. Yet the term Entering the Pardes is ascribed to one mystical experience only, the experience of four sages of the Mishna around the year 3890. The chronicles of the Entering are mainly reported in the tractate Hagiga in the Babylonian and Jerusalem versions of the Talmud.
No doubt an elementary form of experience is outlined in the exegeses. It’s possible that the four sages represent four different attitudes toward the place of mysticism in Jewish life: Akiva ben Yosef, who goes through the experience unharmed, is its exemplar. According to his method, Judaism is hiding the magical thinking at its base and sanctifies practices of study and memorizing instead. Shimon ben Azay died while entering the Pardes and left no evidence for his method. Elisha ben Avoya turned to heresy, id est, cancelled the validity of Judaism as a worthy practice for gaining wisdom. Of Shimon ben Zoma, it was said that he peered and was harmed or, in the common interpretation, lost his sanity. His experience is the most curious, for what is insanity in the context of mysticism?
The devotees of the Rose of Judea believe that the knowledge ben Zoma unveiled contains a different description of the structure of reality.
26
When the features of the small figure are clear to Sultana, her scream dwindles and she gazes. Parts of the child’s body—it’s a child after all—are blue. An arm and half of the face. The expression is empty. The skin at the other part is sallow, pale, oozes viscous miasma. The right eye is buried in its socket, and worms twist in it. The bare teeth are spreading a sickly glow. And he, the child, doesn’t smile, but his lips are stretched in a spa
sm.
He advances slowly, jerking. His arms are reaching for her. She’s unable to move. Even the stench and the whiteness of the worms turning in the right eye can’t force her nerves to shock her into motion. The child emits guttural syllables, indecipherable. He’s almost upon her; his nails are ready to cut her flesh.
And Shlomo pushes her aside and hits the creature with the stool. The blow is muted, not even the sound of a crushing bone, just a heavy note, the note of an object sinking in soft mud, in clay. The neck is crooked, the head lies on the left shoulder. His stretched lips stay the same and he keeps on moving forward in a rigid, stubborn walk.
Shlomo stands between her and the creature, blocks her view, but she knows nothing will stop it, that what drives it is beyond the decaying flesh, that the flesh is but a realization of a will. She knows that as well as she knows the origin of the organs that have been made into this shape, Hosea, and the baby she helped deliver just a while ago. Shlomo hits it again. Something like a fart escapes its body. The stench grows. The child-thing starts to shrill, a high pitched, ear-shattering shrill, like the cry of a prisoner being tortured in a concealed, underground cell. And Shlomo hits it again and calls to her. He says, get out of here Sultana, run.
27
From: Tiberia Assido
To: Doron Aflalo
RE: Rose of Judea
It’s awful, Doron. I’m here, in the storage room of the lab, with all the pieces of useless equipment.
I’ve just arrived at the lab. Akko was crouched over his keyboard, motionless. I didn’t understand what he was waiting for. I haven’t seen him for a couple of days and he didn’t even turn his head to look at me. Then I realized the screens were all displaying the same words ARRGG, GRRR, ARRGGG, GRRRR, GRRR and some animation of a viscous liquid, a green-yellow jelly, shaking, oozing down the screen, the inside of the screen.