Servant of the Bones

"I would say that here in America I have found the nearest thing to Babylon in the good sense that I have ever found. We were not slaves to our gods! We were not slaves to each other.

"What was I saying? Marduk, my personal god. I prayed to him all the time. I made offerings, you know, little bits of incense when nobody was watching; I poured out a little honey and wine for him in the shrine I made for him in the deep brick wall of my bedroom. Nobody paid much attention.

"But then Marduk began to answer me. I'm not sure when Marduk first started answering me. I think I was still fairly young. I would say something idly to him, 'Look, my little brothers are running rampant and my father just laughs as though he were one of them and I have to do everything here!' and Marduk would laugh. As I said spirits laugh. Then he'd say some gentle thing like 'You know your father. He will do what you tell him, Big Brother.' His voice was soft, a man's voice. He didn't start actually speaking questions in my ear till I was nearly nine and some of these were simply little riddles and jokes and teasing about Yahweh . . .

"He never got tired of teasing me about Yahweh, the god who preferred to live in a tent, and couldn't manage to lead his people out of a little bitty desert for over forty years. He made me laugh. And though I tried to be most respectful, I became more and more familiar with him, and even a little smart mouthed and ill behaved.

" 'Why don't you go tell all this nonsense to Yahweh Himself since you are a god?' I asked him. 'Invite him to come down to your fabulous temple all fall of cedars from Lebanon and gold.' And Marduk would fire off with 'What? Talk to your god? Nobody can look at the face of your god and live! What do you want to happen to me? What if he turns into a pillar of fire like he did when he brought you out of Egypt . . . ho, ho, ho ... and smashes my temple and I end up being carried around in a tent!'

"I didn't truly think about it till I was perhaps eleven years old. That was when I first came to know that not everybody heard from his or her personal god, and also I had learnt this: I didn't have to talk to Marduk to start him off talking to me. He could begin the conversation and sometimes at the most awkward moments. He also had bright ideas in his head. 'Let's go down into the potters' district, or let's go to the marketplace,' and we would."

"Azriel, let me stop you," I said. "When all this happened, you spoke to the little statue of Marduk or you carried it with you?"

"No, not at all, your personal god was always with you, you know. The idol at home, well, it received the incense, yes, I guess you could say that the god came down into it then to smell the incense. But no, Marduk was just there.

"I did, stupidly enough, imitate the habit of other Babylonians of threatening him sometimes . . . you know, saying, 'Look, what kind of god are you that you can't help me find my sister's necklace! You won't get any incense out of me!' That was the way with the Babylonians, you know, to bawl out the god fiercely if things didn't go right. They would yell and scream at their personal gods: 'Who worships you like I do! Why don't you grant my wishes! Who else would pour out these libations for you!' "

Azriel laughed again. I was considering this whole question which was not unfamiliar to me as a historian naturally. But I laughed too.

"Times haven't changed that much, I don't really think," I said. "Catholics can get very angry with their saints when the saints don't get results. And I think once in Naples, when a local saint refused to work a yearly miracle, people stood up in the church and yelled 'You pig of a saint!' But how deep do these convictions go?"

"There's an alliance there," Azriel answered. "You know, there are several layers to that alliance. Or shall I say, the alliance is a braid of many strands. And the truth lies in this: the gods need us! Marduk needed ..." He stopped again. He looked suddenly utterly forlorn. He looked at the fire.

"He needed you?"

"Well, he wanted my company," said Azriel. "I can't say he needed me. He had all of Babylon. But these feelings, they are impossibly complex." He looked at me. "Where are the bones of your father?" he asked.

"Wherever the Nazis buried them in Poland," I said, "or in the wind if they were burnt."

He looked heart stricken at these words.

"You know I'm speaking of our World War II and the Holocaust, the persecution of the Jews, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, I know so very much about it, only to hear that your father and mother were lost to it, it hurts my heart, and it makes my question pointless. I meant only to point out to you that you probably have superstitions about your parents, that's all, that you wouldn't disturb their bones."

"I have such superstitions," I said. "I have them about photographs of my parents. I won't let anything happen to them, and when I do lose one of them, it's a deep sin to me that I did it, as if I insulted my ancestor and my tribe."

"Ah," said Azriel, "that's what I was talking about. And I want to show you something. Where is my coat?"

He got up from the hearth, found the big double-mantled coat, and took out of the inside pocket a small plastic packet. "This plastic, you know, I rather love it."

"Yes," I said, watching him as he came back to the fire, sank down on the chair, and opened the packet. "I dare say all the world loves plastic, but why do you?"

"Because it keeps things clean and pure," he said looking up at me, and then he handed me a picture of what looked like Gregory Belkin. But it wasn't. This man had the long beard and forelocks and the silk black hat of the Hasidim. I was puzzled.

He didn't explain the picture.

"I was made to destroy," he said, "and you remember, don't you, the beautiful Hebrew word before so many of the old Psalms, telling is to sing it to that certain melody: 'Do Not Destroy.' "

I had to think.

"Come on, Jonathan, you know," he said.

"Altashheth!" I said. " 'Do Not Destroy.' "

He smiled and his eyes filled with tears. He put back with shaking hands the picture and he laid the plastic packet aside on the small footstool between our chairs, far enough away from the fire for it not to be hurt, and then he looked again at the flames.

I felt the most sudden overwhelming emotion. I couldn't talk. It wasn't only that we had mentioned my mother and father, killed in Poland by the Nazis. It wasn't only that he had reminded me of the mad plot of Gregory Belkin which had come perilously close to success; it wasn't only his beauty, or that we were together, or that I was speaking with a spirit. I don't know what it was.