Servant of the Bones

I didn't answer her but I knew she was going to die. Her heartbeat was too slow. Her fingers had a bluish tinge to them.

I lay down beside her, and covered her with the tapestried draperies that lay all over the bed, what are called "throws" and "lap blankets," though I had not realized it or thought of it.

She was nice and warm and she lay against me.

"I laughed so hard when he said you were a ghost and you killed Esther to get into the world. And yet I knew you weren't a human being. I knew it. You'd vanished from the plane. I knew it. And yet I thought Gregory was so hysterically funny telling me all this black magic, that Esther had to be sacrificed like a lamb so that you could come into the world and evil beings had done it. He said you'd kill me. He said if I didn't come back, he'd alert the police. I don't want him coming in here, disturbing me. I don't want him to."

"I won't let him," I said. "Rest now. I want to think. I want to remember the laboratories and the men in the orange suits. I want to see the great scheme."

It was a horrid thing to look at, her purplish bruises, and I felt shame that I hadn't been more delicate, hadn't even watched for such a thing, hadn't looked for anything but the age-old juiciness, and for all the rest, what did I care.

I held her arms. I kissed these places, and I could see where needles had made holes in her, and I could see where bandages had been ripped from her, and all the fleece was gone.

"Rachel, you are suffering, and I've made this worse for you," I said. "Let me get for you what you need. Send me. Tell me. I can get anything in the world for you, Rachel. That's my nature. Do you have doctors of great skill? Only tell me who they are. I'll be lost in the winds if I roam searching for doctors and magicians. Guide me. Send me. Send me now for whatever it is . . ."

"No."

I studied her silent face; her smile had not changed. She seemed half-asleep; I realized she was singing, or humming with her lips closed. Her hands were too cold.

I sighed; this was the agony that comes with loving; this was just as fresh as if it had never happened to me before. This was just as hurtful and cruel as if I were breathing and young.

"Don't worry," she whispered. "All the best doctors in the world have done their damnedest to cure Gregory Belkin's wife. Besides . . . I want to ..."

". . . be with Esther."

"Yes, do you think I will be?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "I saw her go up in a pure light." I wanted to add, "One way or another, you'll be with her." But I didn't add it. I didn't know whether she believed we were all tiny flames that went back into God, or that we had a Paradise where we could kiss and hold each other. As for me, I believed we had a Paradise, and I had a dim memory of flying high once, to the very heights, and of gentle spirits up there concealing something from me.

I lay back. I had been so sure I wanted to die. And now the flame of life that blazed still in her, melting her like a candle, seemed utterly precious to me.

I wanted to try to cure her. I looked at her and tried to see all the workings of her, each thing connected to the next thing, and all bound with veins like woven gold thread.

I did lay my hands on her, and I did pray. I let my hair rest on her face. I prayed in my heart to all the gods.

She stirred. "What did you say, Azriel?" she said. She uttered some words. At first I didn't understand them. Then I realized it was Yiddish she was speaking. "Were you speaking Hebrew?" she asked me.

"Just praying, my darling," I said. "Think nothing of it." She took a deep breath and laid her hand on my chest, as if the very act of lifting her hand and setting it down exhausted her. I put my hand over hers. Too cold, her little hands. I made a heat for us both.

"You're really staying with me, aren't you?"

"Why does that surprise you?" I asked.

"I don't know. Because people try to get away from you when they know you're really dying. Those bad nights, when I was at my worst, the doctors didn't come, the nurses stayed away. Even Gregory wouldn't come. The crisis would pass, and then they would all come. And you, you are staying with me. Doesn't the air smell good? And the light. Just the light of the night sky."

"It's beautiful, a foreshadowing of Paradise."

She laughed a little laugh. "I'm ready to be nothing," she said.

What could I say?

Somewhere a bell rang. It throbbed. I sat up. I didn't like it. I was staring into the garden, at the big red flowers, like trumpets, and realized for the first time that there were dim electric lights there on these flowers. Everything was perfect. There came the bell again.

"Don't answer it," she said. She was damp all over.

"Look," she said. "Stop him, you stop the church. He's what we call a charismatic leader. He's evil. Laboratories. I don't like it. And these cults, these cults have killed people, have killed their own members."

"I know," I said. "It was always that way. Always."

"But Nathan, Nathan is so innocent," she said. "I can remember his voice, it was beautiful, and I thought of what Esther had said, that it was like seeing the man Gregory could have been. That's what the voice was like ..."

"I'll find him and make sure he is safe," I said. "I'll find out what he knows, what he saw."

"The old man, is he so terrible?"

"Holy and old," I said. I shrugged.

She laughed a sweet delighted laugh. It was wondrous to hear it. I bent down and kissed her lips. They were dry. I gave her some more water, holding her head up so she could drink.

She lay back. She looked at me and only gradually did I realize that her expression meant nothing. It was only a mask for her pain. The pain was in her lungs and in her heart and in her bones. The pain was all through her. The soothing drugs she'd taken before she left New York were gone out of her body. Her heart was faint.

I cradled her hands in mine.

There came that noise again, the bell ringing, the alarm buzzing, and this time there was more than one. I heard the noise of a motor. It came from the elevator shaft.

"Ignore it," she said. "They can't get in." She pushed at the covers with her hands.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Help me, help me get up. Get my heavier robe for me, the heavy silk. Please . . ."

I got the robe, the one to which she pointed, and she put it on. She stood trembling beneath the weight of the ornate robe.

There was huge noise outside the main door.

"Are you sure they can't get in?"