Chapter 30
Caird slowed down and smiled to show Gril that he meant no harm. When he got within speaking distance, he said, "I'm not an organic. Not now, anyway. Ijust wanted to talk to you for a minute, Yankev Gad Gril. No longer than that, I swear it. I have urgent business; I won't detain you long."
Gril was regaining his color. He said in a deep rich voice, "You know my name. I don't know yours."
"No need to know it," Caird said. "Let's sit down for a minute. Too bad you put the board away. We could have finished our game."
Gril frowned and said, "Our game?"
Caird considered saying, "I make the first move: 1 BL-WC-4. Then you make the second, BL-WC SG."
That would be enough to tell Gril that this was his Tuesday's opponent. Last Tuesday's ex-opponent. But Caird wanted him to know as little as possible about his identity.
("You don't know much about it, either," Ohm said.)
Instead, Jeff Caird said, "I know you're a daybreaker. No, don't be alarmed. I'm not going to turn you in ..
He looked around. There were even fewer pedestrians and cyclists. A taxi, two people in the back seat, went by. The rumbling was getting closer. The storm was flashing open its dark overcoat to expose lightning.
Gril's small green eyes became smaller, and his thin lips squeezed even thinner. He said, "What do you. want?"
"I want to satisfy my overwhelming curiosity. That's all. I just want an answer to a question."
("Are you nuts?" Charlie Ohm said. "What if the organics come while you're indulging your craziness? For Chrissakes, Caird! ")
"If I can answer it," Gril said.
Perhaps Ohm was right, and he was crazy. Or perhaps he was indulging the Tuesday organic in him. Whatever the reason, he had to know the man's motive.
"From what I know of your case," Caird said, "you had no apparent reason to daybreak. Why did you?"
Gril smiled and said, "If I told you, I don't think you'd understand."
("Any second now," Repp said, "any second now, the organics will be coming around the corner. Maybe they won't wonder why you two are sitting under a tree that might get struck by lightning. Maybe they won't come over and ask you why. And then maybe they won't ask for your ID. Maybe they won't already have your description.")
"Try me," Caird said.
"How much do you know about Orthodox Judaism?"
"Probably enough. I know your name, remember? I know who you are."
Gril looked across the table at Caird. He clutched the case so hard that his knuckles whitened. "Then you know how important keeping the Shabbos, the Sabbath, is to us?"
Caird nodded.
"You know that the government does not forbid us to observe the Sabbath? It won't let us have a synagogue, but it doesn't play favorites. No religion has a church or temple or mosque or synagogue."
"The people need the space those would occupy for housing and factories," Caird said. "Also, religions are a form of malignant superstition, contrary to all ..
Gril held up a big red-haired hand.
"I don't want to get into an argument about the reasons."
"I don't either," Caird said, looking around. "It was just that ..
"Never mind. As I said, we are permitted to do what God enjoined us to do. We observe the Sabbath. That is on the seventh day of the week, beginning with dusk on Friday and ending with the dusk on Saturday evening."
"I understand," Caird said.
"Yes, but you don't understand how important it is that we do observe the ancient practice, the ancient law. The law. Not the government's law. Ours. A much more ancient law."
"But you have your Sabbaths."
Gril raised a hand from the case and lifted a finger.
"Yes. But we do not go by the ancient and sacred calendar. Instead of traveling horizontally on the calendar, we travel vertically. Last Monday was the Sabbath, not Saturday. That is, it was if we obey the law of the state."
"I think I know what you're going to say," Caird said. "It's hard-"
"Please. It's going to rain very soon. Since I've been courteous to you, a stranger who came in from nowhere and will probably go nowhere..
("Ain't that the truth!" Charlie Ohm said.)
" ... without telling me who you are and why you're here, I'm not asking too much of you to refrain from interrupting."
"Right," Caird said.
("The organics!" Ohm whispered.)
Caird looked around quickly, but Ohm was just warning him to watch for organics.
"I did not like the idea of observing the Sabbath on the wrong day, on Monday instead of as it should be and has long been decreed ... "
("The man's as windy as you, Caird," Ohm said.)
" ... but I obeyed the state and the rabbis. After all, they reasoned that, regardless of whether it was Saturday or not, the Sabbath still fell on the seventh day. But I was not happy with this reasoning. Then, one day, while reading the book of a very wise man, though he was sometimes mistaken and prejudiced, I came across a passage that affected me deeply."
"Cerinthus?"
Gril's only sign of being startled was a rapid blinking. "How did you know that?"
"Never mind. I'm sorry I interrupted again."
"Actually, the author was Pseudo-Cerinthus. The scholars had established that some books supposedly by Cerinthus were by another man, name unknown, called, for the sake of convenience, Pseudo-Cerinthus. I, however ... "-Gril looked very pleased-" ... I was able to prove that Cerinthus and PseudoCerinthus were actually the same person. His style as PseudoCerinthus was different from Cerinthus' because, when he wrote as Pseudo-Cerinthus, he was possessed by the Shekinah or Doxa ..
"By what?"
"God's presence or the light that His presence shed. The Targumists used that term ..
"Never mind," Caird said. "What was this passage that affected you so deeply?"
("Cerinthus and Pseudo-Cerinthus," Bob Tingle said. "Another schizophrenic. Do you think we have room for him, too? Come on in, sibling sage, seer, and psychotic.")
("I can't believe that we're standing out in the open discussing theology and stylistics while the storm and the organics are closing in," Ohm said.)
"Cerinthus," Gril said, "believed that the angels created the world. And an angel gave the Jews their law, which was imperfect. He was wrong about that, of course. The Shekiriah gave the law to the Jews, and the Shekinah cannot give imperfect laws. Not to His chosen people.
"But Pseudo-Cerinthus, inspired by the Shekinah, wrote that, even if the law had been imperfect in the beginning, it was made perfect by the Jews. Their stubbornness in clinging to their law despite all persecutions and misfortunes and their survival despite everything that should have wiped them from the face of Earth proved that they were obeying the perfect law. After this passage, Pseudo-Cerinthus denounced Cerinthus as being in grave error and, indeed, not too bright. He mentions several letters he sent to Cerinthus explaining the error. These have not been found ..
The first rain fell, large but scattered drops. The wind tried to pry Caird's hat loose. Thunder stomped. Lightning raced toward them on many glowing legs.
"What you're saying," Caird said loudly so he could be heard, "is that you broke day just so you could obey the letter of the law?"
"The letter is the soul of the spirit!" Gril cried.
He paused, and he glared.
"Also, there was another reason. It was strong, though not strong enough to have made me a daybreaker if it had not been coupled with my desire to observe, even if only once, only once, the Shabbos as it should be observed.