Servant of the Bones

26

It was morning again, cold and clear and still. He said he had to sleep again, but not before fixing me my breakfast. I ate the hot hominy again, prepared by him, and then we lay down together and slept.

When he awoke he smiled at me, and he said:

“Jonathan, I’m not leaving you here. You’re too sick and you must go home.”

“I know, Azriel,” I said. “I wish I could concern myself with such things, but all I can think about is the story. It’s all there, isn’t it, on the tapes?”

“Yes, in duplicate,” he said with a laugh. “You’ll write it for me when you’re ready, and, Jonathan, if you don’t you will pass it on to someone, won’t you? Now, I think we should get ready and I should drive you home.”

Within the hour we were packed and in the Jeep. He had shut down the fire and all the candles in the cabin. I was running a temperature still, but he’d bundled me up well in the back so I could sleep, and I had the tapes tight in my arms.

He drove fast, fast as a madman, I suppose, but I don’t imagine he put anyone in danger.

Every now and then I’d look up, roll over, and see him in the driver’s seat, see his long thick hair, and he’d turn and give me a smile.

“Sleep, Jonathan.”

When we pulled into the driveway of my house, my wife ran out to greet us. She helped me from the back of the Jeep and my two children came, the young ones who are still at home, and they helped me upstairs to the bedroom.

I was afraid he would go now, forever. But he came with us, walking through the house as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

He kissed my wife’s forehead, he kissed each of my children.

“Your husband couldn’t stay up there. Terrible storm. He got a fever.”

“But how did you find him?” my wife asked.

“I saw the light coming from his chimney. He and I have had pleasant talks together.”

“Where are you going?” I asked him. I was sitting up against a heap of pillows.

“I don’t know,” he said. He came up to the side of the bed. I was covered with two quilts, and the little house, set to my wife’s temperature, seemed intolerably warm, but I was greatly relieved to be home.

“Don’t go, Azriel,” I said.

“Jonathan, I have to. I have to wander. I want to travel and learn. I want to see things. Now that I remember everything, I am in a position to really study, to really comprehend. Without memory there can be no insight. Without love, there can be no appreciation.

“Don’t worry for me. I’m going back to the sands of Iraq to the ruins of Babylon. I have the strangest feeling, that Marduk is there, lost, with no worshipers and no shrine and no temple, and that I can find him. I don’t know. It’s probably a foolish dream. But everyone I ever loved—except you—is dead.”

“What about the Hasidim?”

“I may go to them in time, I don’t know. I’ll see whether it does good or makes fear. I only want to do good now.”

“I owe you my life, and nothing in my life will ever be the same. I’ll write your story,” I told him. “You know what you are now.”

“A son of God?” he asked. He laughed. “I don’t know. I know this. That Zurvan was right, in the end there is one Creator, somewhere beyond the light I saw the truth of this, and only love and goodness matter.

“I don’t ever want to be swallowed by anger or hate again, and I won’t be, no matter how long or hard my journey. If I can just live by that one word it will be enough. Remember? Altashheth. Do Not Destroy. That alone would be enough. Altashheth.”

He leaned down and kissed me.

“When you write my story, don’t be afraid to call me the Servant of the Bones, for that is what I still am, only not the servant of the bones of one doomed boy in Babylon, or some evil magician in a candlelighted room, or a scheming high priest, or a king dreaming of glory.

“I am the Servant of the Bones that lie in the great field that Ezekiel described, the bones of all our human brothers and sisters.”

He spoke the words of Ezekiel in Hebrew, words which the wide world knows as the following from the King James edition:

The hand of the Lord was

upon me, and carried me out

in the spirit of the Lord, and set

me down in the midst of the valley

which was full of bones,

…and behold,

there were very many in the open

valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

“Who knows?” he continued. “Maybe some day the breath will come into them? Or perhaps the old prophet meant only that one day all mysteries would be explained, that all bones shall be revered, that all who have lived will know a reason for what we suffer in this world.”

He looked down at me and smiled.

“Perhaps someday,” he said, “the bones of man will yield the DNA of God.”

I could find no answer. I too smiled, however. And I simply let him go on.

“But I must confess, as I leave you, I am dreaming of a time when the division between life and death will be no more and ours will be the eternity we imagine. Goodbye, Jonathan, my gentle friend. I love you.”

That was a year ago.

It was the last time I actually spoke with him.

Three times I’ve seen him since, and two of those times were on the television news.

The first time I saw him was among the medical workers in a cholera epidemic in South America. He was in simple white medical garments, and he was helping to feed the sick children. His hair, his eyes—it was unmistakable.

The next time I saw him, it was in news footage of Jerusalem. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, had been assassinated the day before.

Azriel was a face in the crowd that saw the CNN camera and turned and moved towards it.

He seemed to peer directly through the lens at me.

The newscaster spoke of a city and a country weeping for its murdered leader. The world wept for the man who had wanted peace with the Arabs, and was now dead.

Azriel stared at the camera, and the camera lingered. Azriel was silent—thoughtful—looking right at me. He was dressed in plain black clothes.

The camera and the news moved on.

The third time was merely a glimpse. But I knew that it was Azriel. It was in New York. I was in a cab speeding downtown, navigating wildly through the early afternoon traffic, and off to the side I saw Azriel walking on the street.

He was handsomely dressed, with his hair untamed, and looked magnificent, striding along, carefree and full of wonder. He turned suddenly as if he had felt me see him; he looked around puzzled. But the cab shot on. Trucks blocked my view. We traveled blocks, weaving in and out of other cars. I couldn’t have told where it was even, the place where I saw him.

Maybe it wasn’t Azriel, I wasn’t sure, or so I told myself. And then, of course, I knew that he could reach me if he wanted me. I did not go back to look for him.

It’s taken twelve months to prepare this book for publication, and then to publish it effectively under the cloak of anonymity so that my own colleagues won’t laugh me out of the university, and those who need to hear this tale won’t be hampered by knowing my identity.

There you have it. The Tale of the Servant of the Bones. And the story of what really happened with the cult of the Temple of the Mind. Or you have one story of one soul and its agonies and its refusal to give up, and its ultimate victory.

Azriel, if you read this, if you are pleased, let me know. A call; a small written note; your presence. Anything. My life has never been as it was.

But I am confident that wherever you are, you are both happy and good. And that is what matters to you most, I am sure of it.

Altashheth.

11:50 p.m.

July 11, 1995