Servant of the Bones

It was now that he saw the little boat television set with its built-in handle and tiny screen. I'd probably left it too near the fire. I felt a surge of embarrassment, as though I had spied upon his world while he was gone, as if to verify things he said.

He looked at the thing for a long moment and then away.

"It works? It talked to you?" he asked without enthusiasm. a "News from some local town, network I think, coming through the local channel. The Belkin Temples have been raided, people arrested, the public is being reassured."

He waited a long time before he answered. Then he said, "Yes well, there are some others, perhaps, that they haven't found but the people in them are dead. When you come upon these with their gun belts, and their vow to kill themselves along with the entire population of a country, it's best just to ... kill them on the spot."

"They showed your face," I said, "smooth shaven."

He laughed. "Which means they'll never find me under all this hair."

"Especially not if you cut the long part but that would be rather a shame."

"I don't need to," he said. "I can still do the most important thing of all."

"Which is what?"

"Disappear."

"Ah! I'm glad to hear it. Do you know they are looking for you?

They said something about the murder of Rachel Belkin. I hardly know the name."

He seemed neither surprised nor insulted nor upset in any way.

"She was Esther's mother. She didn't want to die in Gregory's house. But I'll tell you the strange part. When he looked at her dead body, I think he was grief-stricken. I think he actually loved her. We forget that such men can love."

"Do you want to tell me . . . whether or not you killed her? Or is that something I shouldn't ask?"

"I didn't kill her," he said simply. "They know that. They were there. That was early. Why would they bother to look for me anymore?"

"It's all to do with conspiracy, and banks, and plots, and the long tentacles of the Temple. You're a man of mystery."

'Ah, yes. And as I said, I am one who can, if necessary, disappear."

"Go to the bones?" I asked.

"Ah, the bones, the golden bones."

"You ready to tell me?"

"I'm thinking how to do it. There's a little more that I should tell before I come to the moment of Esther Belkin's death. There were masters I did love. I should explain a little more."

"You won't tell me about all of them?"

"Too many," he said, "and some are not worth remembering, and some I can't remember at all. There are two I want to describe to you The first and the last master whom I ever obeyed. I stopped obedience to any master. I slew when called-not only the man who had called me or the woman, but everyone who had witnessed the calling. I did that for years and years. And then the bones were encased with warnings in Hebrew and German and Polish and no one took the risk to call the Servant of the Bones.

"But I want to tell you about the two-the first and the last masters I obeyed. The others which I do recall we can dismiss with a few words."

"You look more cheerful now, more rested," I said. "I do?" He laughed. "How is that? Ah, well, I did sleep and I am strong, very strong, there's no doubt of it. And the story has a way of calling me back."

He sighed.

"I don't know much life in death without pain," he said. "But that I deserve, I imagine, being a demon of might. The last Master I obeyed was a Jew in the city of Strasbourg and they burned all the Jews there because they blamed them for the Black Death." "Ah," I said. "That must have been the fourteenth century."

"The year 1349 of the current era," he said with a smile. "I looked it up. They killed the Jews then all over Europe, blaming them for the Black Death."

"I know. Yes, and there have been many holocausts since." "Do you know what Gregory told me? Our beloved Gregory

Belkin? When he thought he was my master and that I would help him?"

"I can't guess."

"He told me that if the Black Death had not come to Europe, Europe would be a desert today. He said that the population had grown rampant; that the trees were being cut down so fast that the entire forests of old Europe were gone by that time. And the forests of Europe we know now date back to the fourteenth century."

"That's true," I said. "I think. Is that how he justified the murder of people?"

"Oh, that was one of just many ways. Gregory was an extraordinary man, really, because he was an honest man."

"Not mad, to found this worldwide temple and fill it with terrorists?"

"No " he shook his head. "Just ruthless and honest. He said to me the point that there was one man who had utterly changed the history of the world. I thought he would say that that man was Christ or Fyrus the Persian. Or perhaps Mohammed. But he said no. The man who changed the entire world was Alexander the Great. That was his model. Gregory was perfectly sane. He intended to break a giant Gordian knot. He almost succeeded. Almost-"

"How did you stop him? How did it all come about?" "A fatal flaw in him stopped him," he said. "Do you know in the old Persian religion, one legend is that evil came into the world not through sin, or through God, but through a mistake. A ritual mistake?"

"I've heard of it. You're talking of very old myths, fragments of Zoroastrianism."

"Yes," he said, "myths the Medians gave to the Persians and the Persians passed on to the Jews. Not disobedience. Bad judgment. It's almost that way in Genesis, wouldn't you say? Eve makes a mistake in judgment. A ritual rule is broken. That must be different from sin, don't you think?"

"I don't know. If I knew that, I would be a happier man."

He laughed. "What undid Gregory was a flaw in judgment," he said.

"How?" "He counted on my vanity being as great as his. Or maybe he just misjudged my power, my willingness to intervene . . . No, he thought I would be swept up with his notions; he thought they were irresistible. It was an error in judgment. Had he not told me things, key things right at the appropriate moment, even I could not have stopped his plan. But he had to tell, to boast, to be recognized by me, and to be loved ... I think, even be loved by me."

"Did he know what you were? The Servant of the Bones? A spirit?"

Oh, yes, we came together without any question of credibility, as you would say today. But I'll get to that."