Servant of the Bones

I noticed the car some distance away; I had been looking at it all this time, more or less, but had not noticed it because it was all covered with snow. A thought came to me. I hurried to the car, realizing that my feet were already numb, and I opened up the back of it.

There was an old television set there, a portable, the kind they make for fishermen to take on boats. It had a tiny screen, and it was long and with a built-in handle, rather like a giant flashlight. It ran on D-cell batteries. I hadn't used it in years. I picked it up, closed the jeep, and ran back to the house.

As soon as I shut the door, I felt like a traitor to him. I felt as if I wanted to spy upon the world he'd spoken of-the Belkin world, the ugly, ugly world of terrorism and disgusting violence spawned by the Temple of the Mind.

I shouldn't need this, I thought. Well, perhaps it won't even work. I sat down by the fire, took off my boots, and warmed my hands and feet. Stupid, stupid, I thought, but I wasn't shivering. Then I went to the big stash of batteries and I filled up the little television, which I held by its handle, and brought it back so that I could sit in my chair.

Pulling up the aerial, I turned the dial. I had never used this thing here. It had been in the car forever. If I'd remembered it before I had left, I would not have taken it out.

But in a boat I'd used it, fishing five summers ago, and now, as then, it worked. It brought in flashes of black and white, zigzag lines, and then finally a "news voice," very distinct, with the authority of a network, summing up the latest events.

I turned up the volume. The picture danced and wiggled and then flipped but the voice was coming clear. War in the Balkans had taken another terrible turn. Shells heaved into Sarajevo had killed people in hospital. In Japan, the cult leader had been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. A murder had happened in a nearby town. It went on and on, the packing of fact into swift crisp sentences . . . the picture was steadying. I saw an anchorwoman, a news face, not distinct, but I could focus now more clearly on the voice.

". . . horrors of the Temple of the Mind continue. All members in the Bolivian temple are now dead, having set fire to the compound themselves rather than surrender to international agents. Meanwhile, arrests of Gregory Belkin's followers continue in New York."

I was excited. I picked up the little thing and held it close to look at it. I saw blurry fast coverage of those arrested, handcuffed, and chained.

"... enough poisonous gas in New York City alone to have killed the entire population. Meantime, Iranian authorities have confirmed to the United Nations that all members of Belkin's Temple are in custody, however the question of extradition of the Belkin terrorists to the United States will, according to officials, take considerable time. In Cairo, it has been confirmed that all Belkin's followers have surrendered to authorities. All chemicals in their possession have been impounded."

More pictures, faces, men, shooting, fire, horrid fire reduced to a tiny flash of black and white in my hands. Then the bright face of the newswoman, and a change of tone, as she looked directly in the eyes of the camera and into mine.

"Who was Gregory Belkin? Were there in fact twin brothers, Nathan and Gregory, as those closest to the mogul-cult leader suspect? Two bodies remain, one buried in the Jewish cemetery, the other in the Manhattan morgue. And though the remnants of the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, founded by Belkin's grandfather, refuse to talk to authorities, the coroner's office continues to investigate the two men."

The woman's face vanished. Azriel appeared. A photograph of him, coarse and remote, but unmistakable.

Meantime the man accused of the murder of Rachel Belkin, the man who might in fact be deeply involved in the entire conspiracy, is still at large."

Then came a series of still pictures, obviously gleaned from video surveillance cameras-Azriel beardless and without his mustache walking through the lobby of a building; Azriel in the crowd crying out over the body of Esther Belkin. Azriel in close-up, beardless without his mustache, staring directly in front of him as he went through a door. There was a string of shots, almost too blurry to mean anything, obviously taken from other surveillance cameras, including one of the beardless Azriel walking with Rachel Belkin herself, mother of Esther, wife of Gregory, or so the commentator informed me. Of Rachel, all I saw was a slender body, impossibly high-heel shoes, and mussed hair. But there was Azriel, no doubt.

I was enthralled.

The face of a bald male official, also suffering in freezing weather, probably that of Washington, D.C., appeared suddenly with the reassuring assertion:

"There is no reason at all to fear the Temple or its grandiose schemes. Every single location has been either raided by police, burned during the raid by its own members, or thoroughly cleared, with all members under lock and key. As for the mysterious man, we have no eyewitnesses to him at all after the night of Rachel Belkin's death, and he may very well have perished in the New York Temple along with hundreds of others during the fire that lasted a full twenty-four hours before police could get it under control."

Another man, even more authoritarian and perhaps angry, took the microphone. "The Temple is neutralized; the Temple has been stopped; even as we speak, banking connections are being investigated and arrests have already been made in the financial communities of Paris, London, and New York."

There was a crash of static, of glittering white lights on the little screen. I shook the tiny television. The voice talked again, but this time it was about a terrorist bomb in South America, about drug lords, about trade sanctions against Japan. I put down the little thing. I turned it off. I might have cruised a while for another channel, but I had had enough.

I coughed a couple of times, caught off guard by how deep the cough sounded and by how much it hurt me, and then I tried to remember: Rachel Belkin. Rachel Belkin murdered. That had happened only days after Esther Belkin. Rachel Belkin in Miami. Murdered.

Twins. I remembered the picture Azriel had shown to me-the Hasid with the beard and locks and the silk hat.

From some giant filing system in my mind it came to me that Rachel Belkin had been the socialite wife of Gregory, a conspicuous critic of his Temple, and the only time I had even noticed the woman's name, reputation, or existence is when I'd caught a fragment of the funeral of Esther. And the cameras had followed her mother to a black car, voices clamoring for her opinions. Had Belkin's enemies killed her daughter? Was it a Middle Eastern terrorist plot?

A wave of dizziness came over me. It threatened to get worse. I put down the television and went back to the bed. I lay down. I was tired and thirsty. I covered up, then sat up enough to drink more of the water. I drank it and drank it and drank it and then lay back and I thought.