From Ben-Horin he continued to hear nothing. At last, unable to contain his impatience, Hornkastle telephoned him at home but got no answer. A call to Ben-Horin’s office involved him in a maddening sequence of university switchboard operators; half an hour of persistence got him through at last to someone in Ben-Horin’s department who said he had gone to Athens to deliver a lecture.
“Athens? I thought Haifa!”
“No, Athens. He will be back soon.”
“Please tell him that Thomas Hornkastle would—” But Hornkastle was holding a dead phone. Break in service or just a hangup? He reminded himself that he was in Asia, that however shiny and modern Israel might look, the mentality here was not necessarily always Western. The idea of trying to call back, of going through all those intermediaries again, was appalling. It would be quicker to drive out there and leave a message on Ben-Horin’s desk. Shortly he was on his way, navigating grimly in his flimsy Fiat among the squadrons of Israeli kamikaze drivers. With minor confusions he reached the glossy campus and managed to find a secretary, a trim little Sabra who took his quickly scrawled note and promised to give it to Dr. Ben-Horin tomorrow when he returned from his trip to Geneva. Some communications failures here, Hornkastle thought. He felt like inviting the secretary to lunch. It was absurd; the frustrations of his mushroom chase were translating themselves into random sexual twitches. He got out of there fast, went over to the university library, and used up the afternoon with the five volumes of Farnell’s Cults of the Greek States, looking for veiled Amanita references.
Back at the hotel he ran into Helena and Claudia. They were friendly, even warm, but that moment of unmistakable mutual attraction in the cocktail lounge seemed impossible to recapture, and when he again suggested dining with him, they once more blandly and smoothly refused. To fill their place he found an Episcopalian deacon from Ohio, who suggested an allegedly worthwhile restaurant in East Jerusalem. The Ohio man had come here for Easter services five years in a row. “Overwhelming,” he said, nodding forcefully. “When they surge up the Via Dolorosa under those heavy crosses. The pathos, the passion! And then on Holy Saturday, when the Greek patriarch declares the Resurrection, and the cry goes up: Christos anesti! Christ is risen! You can’t imagine the power of the scene. Bells ringing, people shouting and dancing, everybody going crazy, candles, torches—you’ll still be here for it, won’t you? You shouldn’t miss it!”
Yes, Hornkastle thought bleakly, I will still be here for it and probably for Christmas, too. Restlessness gnawed at him. This night, perhaps, the Arabs were celebrating the eucharist of the magic mushroom, gathered in some cobblestone-walled hut to turn themselves into gods, and he was here in this mediocre restaurant, trapped in the prison of himself, picking at gristly mutton and listening to the raptures of a wide-eyed Midwesterner. He hungered for escape, for the dive into the abyss of the divine, for the whips of oblivion. The Ohioan chattered on and on. Hornkastle, hardly even pretending to listen, wondered about his ex-wife, his ex-house, his ex-life in his far-off ex-city, and asked himself how it had come to pass that in the middle of his journey he had ended up here, scourged by inner demons he barely comprehended. He had no answers.
The next day he phoned the university again, this time getting through quickly to Ben-Horin’s department. Yes, yes, Dr. Ben-Horin had returned, he was leaving for Tel-Aviv tomorrow, perhaps you can reach him at home now.
The home number did not answer.
To Hornkastle it was like being released from a vow. In a sudden access of overwhelming anger, he drove out toward the Kidron Valley, toward the village of the tigla’ users, eyes throbbing, hands tight to the knobby wheel. In the village all was as it had been: the old men outside the shop with the COCA-COLA sign, two or three boys playing dice in the dust, a radio blaring sleazy music. No one paid any attention as Hornkastle stepped from his car and went into the shop. A dark place, cramped—canned goods, piles of sheets and blankets, a rack of used clothes, and, yes, a squat red Coca-Cola cooler that emitted dull clunking humming sounds. Behind the counter was the Arab who looked just like the falafel-seller. They are brothers, Hornkastle thought: this is Mustafa; the other is Hassan. Abdul and Ibrahim and Ismail are out tending the flocks, and they all look exactly alike. The bulging bloodshot eyes regarded him coldly. Hornkastle said, in a tentative, faltering way, “Do you speak English?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
Probably it was meant as a shopkeeper’s What can I do for you? but it came out a lot more hostile than that. Hornkastle moistened his lips. “I want—I am here for—I am trying to learn about—” He halted in confusion and chagrin. This was impossibly stupid. Blurt it out, ask blunt questions about an illegal secret cult? How many months had it taken Ben-Horin to establish contact with these people? I’m ruining everything, Hornkastle thought. He trembled and said, astonishing himself, “Do you sell liquor here?”
A flicker of the dark menacing eyes. “You must go to Jerusalem for that.”
“Wine? Beer?”
“Not here. You are in the wrong place.”
Hornkastle leaned closer. “I am a friend of Professor Ben-Horin. I study the red plant. You understand?” He pantomimed, trying to draw Amanita muscaria’s phallic shape in the air with his hand, and realized that it looked exactly like pantomiming masturbation. The Arab’s expression did not change. Hornkastle was shaking. “The mushroom. You understand me?” he said in a thick throaty voice.
“You are mistaken. This is not the place.”
“I know it is. Have no fear: I’m no policeman. An American, a friend of Ben-Horin’s. I want the mushroom. The closeness to God, do you understand? To taste God, to know the feeling of being divine, of being something greater than myself, of—”
“You are sick. I call doctor.”
“No. Please. Trust me. In the name of the compassionate Jesus, help me!”
The Arab stared. Some changes seemed to be going on at last behind the swarthy facade. Hornkastle, sweating, swaying, gripped the counter to keep from falling.
“You are American. You want only fun.”
“I swear it, no—”
“The mushroom is not for fun.”
“The mushroom is holy. I understand that. It is holy, God is holy, I—I am not holy. I want to be made holy. To be made whole, do you see?” Hornkastle laughed, a little too wildly. I am babbling, he thought. But he seemed to be getting through. He whispered urgently, “I want to be part of something, finally, does that make sense? To enter a world where I feel I belong. And the mushroom will open the gate. I swear to my need. By the compassionate Jesus, by the eyes of Mary, by the Holy Spirit itself—”
“You are crazy,” said the Arab.
“Perhaps I am. I don’t think so. But do you have to be sane to want to enter into God? I’ve been on the outside all my life—looking in, looking for the way, trying to pass that gate and never letting myself do it, never willing to take the last chance. You know, I’ve had mushrooms, in California. But I always took an underdose, I guess, or the mushroom was too mild, because I only got a hint of the experience, the shadow of it, a little light shining through the door to where I stood—” He faltered. “Please,” he said, in a small voice.