the celestial King and his Queen to unite; this act then raises the defense shield and opens the door of the Well, which is at the very center of the Sephirot, and as long as the shield remains up, invisible to the ordinary eye, the entrance to the Well, which leads to the other world, remains open. And they who wish to leave, I said, can do so safely? Yes, Margareta said. Even now I wonder whether she really believed in it or whether hers was the gesture of a person who had in fact lost all hope. I could understand that, although I didn't believe that the political and social situation in the country was extreme enough to force members of one ethnic group to such a desperate act. Of course what someone from outside might not feel at all may be horrifying for someone seeing it from within. The horror of identity is that it can't be sloughed off the way a snake sheds its skin, and there is no dungeon worse than an identity that one doubts or that others have proclaimed to be bad or evil. I experienced this myself many times in the years of ethnic strife, facing the prejudices about Serbian identity, and I could only assume how that must have seemed from the perspective of being Jewish or of an identity that had permanently been branded as negative. Even so, it seemed highly unconvincing to me to have faith in Kabbalistic documents at the close of the twentieth century, especially considering the popularity the Kabbalah had gained in fashionable circles. On the other hand, I had to feel respect for those who brought their whole beings to this, investing a vast effort to unite the disparate elements into a whole that made sense. They got the idea for it, Margareta said, in the spring of 1992, when the Jewish refugees from Sarajevo arrived in Belgrade. That was when the younger generations of Jews understood for the first time that exile was in their genes, which led them to speed up their preparations for departure, while at the same time the lack of understanding and overt hostile feelings for the Jewish community began growing. The first letter arrived at that time, warning Jews, in poisonous though surprisingly calm language, to watch what they were doing. There were too many of you among us before, the letter said in closing, and now, with the scum arrived from Bosnia, there are many too many, and this means you should reduce your numbers yourselves, because if you don't, we will do it for you, and anything that upsets Serbian harmony will itself be upset. The letter was signed by the Patriotic Army of Unity and Salvation. No one had ever heard of this organization, no one wanted to believe it existed. Margareta learned of the letter from her father, who was on boards and committees in the Jewish community, and that gave her the impetus to keep going. Meanwhile, the community redoubled its efforts to reduce the number of refugees in Belgrade, organizing their departure for Israel, Canada, and a number of European countries. The Patriotic Army of Unity and Salvation wrote a second letter, in which they hailed the news that Jews were leaving Serbia, promising that those who stayed behind would be allowed to live in an orderly ghetto in Kosovo. The first explicitly anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled on the walls of Jewish buildings and cemeteries, tombstones were knocked over and desecrated, and soon thereafter the number of writings of that sort mushroomed in the press, as well as in books blaming the Jews for nearly all the evils of the world. She knew I knew most of this already, Margareta said, but she was giving me the full picture, because that way it would be easier to understand the details, even details that had not been mentioned, and I would definitely, she said, be able to understand how awkward this made everything, especially with what was going on: the war, inflation, political chaos, the isolation of the country, the plunge in the standard of living, the pervasive sense of insecurity. Of course I understood, I had no need to say so. Several concerned members of the Jewish community, she continued, were thinking about what the best solutions would be in such a situation, especially since they were disgruntled by the official position of the community, which did not support the current government, but were doing what they could to evade conflicts, believing this to be the best route to peaceful coexistence. The group of malcontents, including her, believed in a more aggressive handling of the issues, though she herself had been torn about choosing the most apt response, until she remembered the translated manuscript. She couldn't recall who it had been, though more likely she preferred not to disclose who was in her group, which was to her credit but a source of additional frustration for me. Margareta did not relent, she went right on talking about how someone, perhaps that same person, she said, or maybe someone else, noticed a series of similarities between one of the manuscript author's visions and the reality in which they found themselves. Seen in that light, the manuscript could suddenly be read as a concrete set of instructions about how to respond to the situation in which the community found itself, against its will. Meanwhile, as if they felt something was stirring, members of the Patriotic Army of Unity and Salvation ratcheted up their campaign: more letters came in, some were published in the press, and the number of incidents that could be described as anti-Semitic also rose, though chances were that the incidents didn't all stem from the same group, which had inspired imitators among the right-wing organizations. The number of crimes leveled against members of the Jewish community soared, said Margareta, and though it was difficult to be sure that all were planned, it was alarming that apartment break-ins, pickpocketing in public transportation, fires in cellars and attics, smashed windows, and threats made over the phone grew radically from one day to the next, especially as all pertained to community members. This was no time for hesitation, said Margareta, and that was the position our group took, because we sensed that sooner or later we'd be facing an open clash. The Patriotic Army of Unity and Salvation split around that time into several factions, just as the political parties had done in Serbia, as the result of inner power struggles and their inability to cobble together broadly acceptable platforms of action. The main branch abbreviated its name to the Army of Unity and Salvation and soon stopped making itself heard; the peace-loving part, called Salvation for All, extended a conciliatory hand, but no one believed that this reconciliation, even if it had been formally embraced, would have prevented the two extreme factions, the Patriots and the Eagle Avengers, from proceeding with their plans. Worst of all, said Margareta, no one was sure what their plans were. They went underground, they made no public statements, but they were recruiting new members. What with the situation in the country, there were more malcontents than one could count, all of them waiting for someone to tell them who was to blame. About that time, continued Margareta, there were rifts in her group too because some felt that there was no longer any point in waiting and testing fate, that they should strike the first blow without further ado, but the feeling also prevailed that violence was unacceptable and that they should focus on defense. Work accelerated on a definitive translation of the manuscript and preparations for what they called their action plan, not without headaches, because now all elements, including the slap, the mathematical calculations, the linguistic-physical structures, the migration of souls, and the revival of the union of the heavenly King and his Queen, all had to be brought into a harmonious whole, or, most important, into an effective whole, because if the plan were to founder, there would surely be no other chance. And so the entire plan was laid out, to be set in motion by the recognition of the slap, which would reveal the person within whom dwelled the soul of the ancient Kabbalist. And all along, I said, I was thinking it was the soul of the water carrier. Same thing, said Margareta, the water carrier quenches the thirst of the body and the Kabbalist quenches the thirst of the soul, but thirst is thirst, one augments the other, and if both are not quenched, the body and soul will not be in harmony. I had to admit I liked the water carrier more, whatever his name was, but I was there to listen and not to bicker, so I went on following Margareta's story, leaving many questions for later. The only thing I couldn't let lie was the way it had all begun, the slap on the Danube riverbank, that had drawn me into the labyrinth of events from which I still saw no exit. Why me, I asked Margareta, and not someone else, someone Jewish? There are many Kabbalists, she said, who believe that the soul may wander off in different directions, as they believe in India, and dwell in the most varied bodies, and not necessarily human, so it was certainly not impossible that the soul of a Jewish man found shelter, for instance, in the body of a person who was not Jewish. The body, after all, is only a vessel, a transport service for the movement of a soul through time, and the only thing that mattered was that the soul be prevented from venturing into a body where an evil soul already dwelt, because then they would clash, which might destroy the body of the host. I hope, I said, this won't happen to me. Margareta looked at me gravely. She shared that hope, she said, at least until Shabbat was over, after that everything was up for grabs anyway. That set her off again on the right-wing factions of what had been the Patriotic Army of Unity and Salvation, factions that became magnets drawing those who disseminated Nazi and racist ideas, in lockstep with similar organizations in Europe and America. Several times, she said, they clashed, literally. They, said Margareta, meaning the Jewish community, had their own extremist faction, which openly called for physical resistance, even violence, and managed to ferret out the seat of the Eagle Avengers, where a fight broke out, shots were fired, people were injured on both sides. How could, I asked, the public not have noticed? The public was preoccupied with other things, said Margareta, and most people weren't able to absorb differing, especially contradictory, information. She reminded me of how the conflict in Yugoslavia was understood in the early 1990s. Everything was shown as black and white, a way of portraying reality in which one side was the culprit and the criminal, while the other, or several others, were the innocent victims, despite the fact that the Yugoslav reality was more of a color picture, with multiple levels of reality, or better, multiple levels of blame, so all were criminals and victims at once. I wasn't sure I agreed entirely with her interpretation, but I'd had trouble and misunderstandings enough with the current reality so there was no point in burdening myself with a question that too many books would be written about. The world in which we lived was coming to an end with the close of the century, and the apocalypse was, so to speak, around the corner, and perhaps all this was unnecessary. I didn't believe in the apocalypse at that point, and the stories about it sounded to me like the futile groaning of terrified humanity, though now that Serbia was bombed, the World Trade Center destroyed in New York, and Iraq was attacked, I am more inclined to doubt, more ready than I was before, should there be further proof in the offing, to repent and convert. Perhaps I should have expected this, having the reach of Europe in mind, America's self-infatuation, the self-confidence of Islam, Russia's instability, the unpredictability of China, the new nomadic tendencies, but to be frank, none of this interested me. When I think about it, I wouldn't have minded spending my whole life in blessed ignorance, far from the noise and fury of crowds, listening to the music of, say, Bach and Mozart, reading Chekhov's stories and an anthology of love poetry from around the world, with a little garden that I could plant and tend, and when the time came, harvest the fruits of my labor: ruddy tomatoes, sweet peas, potatoes, and carrots. Too late now. All I can do is lament like a failed prophet who bemoans his fate, convinced that it could have been different if only he could have forseen it. I was also a failed prophet when it came to the evening, or night, I spent with Margareta, and when I left the book-filled apartment on Thursday morning with a throbbing headache, I couldn't decide what to attribute it to: the story that had gone on too long and the overabundance of information, or erotic frustration. The news that the defense plan would unfold over Shabbat, in the course of the evening and night from Friday to Saturday, offered some consolation, but then it was supposed to be part of a ritual and not out of free choice, and, stripped of spontaneity, it all seemed pointless. There was no turning back for me, however, regardless of the fact that the role had been imposed and that I had chosen none of it. Had Marko been there, and had I told him everything, I know he would have first asked me how I could be so sure that everything Margareta said was true, he would have asked for evidence, substantiation, not castles in the air, and only then would he agree to continue. I can't say I had no doubts. I did have doubts. Everything was too tidy, all the elements dovetailed perfectly, led from one to the next, even the mistakes happened when there was the greatest likelihood they would happen, so it was all too much like a Hollywood movie, thick with paranoid plots, and who still believed Hollywood movies? I consoled myself that I wouldn't have long to wait: in a day and a half the whole truth would show its face, and everything would be clear. I wasn't counting on certain other components, on the unpredictable effect of the text that was being typeset and proofed for the next issue of