"We could get something hot to drink," Zina said.
He murmured, "I just want to sit." I shall sit here until it is time to go to meet Herb Asher, he said to himself. He can tell me about Rybys: his many memories of her will give me joy. the joy that, right now, I lack.
I love him, he realized. I love my mother's husband, my legal father. Like other men he is a good human being. He is a man of merit, and to be cherished.
But, unlike other men, Herb Asher knows Who I am. Thus I can talk openly with him, as I do with Elias. And with Zina. It will help, he thought. I will be less weary. No longer as I am now. pinned by my cares: weighed down. The burden, to some extent. will lift. Because it will be shared.
And, he thought, there is still so much that I do not remember. I am not as I was. Like them, like the people. I have fallen. The bright morning star which fell did not fall alone, it tore down everything else with it, including me. Part of my own being fell with it, and I am that fallen being now.
But then, as he sat there on the bench with Zina, in the park on this cold day so near the vernal equinox, he thought, But Herbert Asher lay dreaming in his bunk, dreaming of a phantom life with Linda Fox, while my mother struggled to survive. Not once did he try to help her; not once did he inquire into her trouble and seek remedy. Not until I, I myself, forced him to go to her, not until then did he do anything. I do not love the man, he said to himself. I know the man and he forfeited his right to my love-he lost my love because he did not care. I cannot, thereupon, care about him. In response.
Why should I help any of them? he asked himself. They do what is right only when forced to, when there is no alternative. They fell of their own accord and are fallen now, of their own accord, by what they have voluntarily done. My mother is dead because of them; they murdered her. They would murder me if they could figure out where I am; only because I have confused their wits do they leave me alone. High and low they seek my life, just as Ahab sought Elijah's life, so long ago. They are a worthless race, and I do not care if they fall. I do not care at all. To save them I must fight what they themselves are. And have always been.
"You look so downcast," Zina said.
"What is this for?" he said. "They are what they are. I grow more and more weary. And I care less and less, as I begin to remember. For ten years I have lived on this world, now, and for ten years they have hunted me. Let them die. Did I not say to them the talion law: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'? Is that not in the Torah? They drove me off this world two thousand years ago; I return; they wish me dead. Under the talion law I should wish them dead. It is the sacred law of Israel. It is my law, my word."
Zina was silent.
"Advise me," Emmanuel said. "I have always listened to your advice."
Zina said:
One day Elijah the prophet appeared to Rabbi Baruka in the market of Lapet. Rabbi Baruka asked him, "Is there any one among the people of this market who is destined to share in the world to come?" ... Two men appeared on the scene and Elijah said, "These two will share in the world to come." Rabbi Baruka asked them, "What is your occupation?" They said, "We are merrymakers. When we see a man who is downcast, we cheer him up. When we see two people quar- reling with one another, we endeavor to make peace between them."
"You make me less sad," Emmanuel said. "And less weary. As you always have. As Scripture says of you:
Then I was at his side every day, his darling and delight, playing in his presence continually, playing on the earth, when he had finished it, while my delight was in mankind.
And Scripture says:
Wisdom I loved; I sought her out when I was young and longed to win her for my bride, and I fell in love with her beauty.
But that was Solomon, not me.
So I determined to bring her home to live with me, knowing that she would be my counsellor in prosperity and my comfort in anxiety and grief.
Solomon was a wise man, to love you so."
Beside him the girl smiled. She said nothing, but her dark eyes shone.
"Why are you smiling?" he asked.
"Because you have shown the truth of Scripture when it says:
I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in love and in mercy. I will be- troth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall love the Lord.
Remember that you made the Covenant with man. And you made man in your own image. You cannot break the Covenant; you have made man that promise, that you will never break it."
Emmanuel said, "That is so. You advise me well." He thought, And you cheer my heart. You above all else, you who came before creation. Like the two merrymakers, he thought, who Elijah said would be saved. Your dancing, your singing, and the sound of bells. "I know," he said, "what your name means."
"Zina?" she said. "It's just a name.
"It is the Roumanian word for-" He ceased speaking; the girl had trembled visibly, and her eyes were now wide.
"How long have you known it?" she said.
'Years. Listen:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough
I will finish; listen:
To wrap a fairy in.
And I have known this," he finished, "all this time." Staring at him, Zina said, "Yes, Zina meansfairy."
"You are not Holy Wisdom," he said, "you are Diana, the fairy queen."
Cold wind rustled the branches of the trees. And, across the frozen creek, a few dry leaves scuttled.
"I see," Zina said.
About the two of them the wind rustled, as if speaking. He could hear the wind as words. And the wind said:
BEWARE!
He wondered if she heard it, too.
---------------
But they were still friends. Zina told Emmanuel about an early identity that she had once had. Thousands of years ago, she said, she had been Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess who represented the cosmic order and justice. When someone died his heart was weighed against Ma' at's ostrich feather. By this the person's bur- den of sins was determined.
The principle by which the sinfulness of the person was deter- mined consisted of the degree of his truthfulness. To the extent that he was truthful the judgment went in his favor. This judgment was presided over by Osiris, but since Ma'at was the goddess of truthfulness, then it followed that the determination was hers to make.
"After that," Zina said, "the idea of the judgment of human souls passed over into Persia." In the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person. If he was evil the bridge got narrower and narrower until he toppled off and plunged into the fiery pit of hell. Judaism in its later stages and Christianity had gotten their ideas of the Final Days from this.
The good person, who managed to cross the sifting bridge, was met by the spirit of his religion: a beautiful young woman with superb, large breasts. However, if the person was evil the spirit of his religion consisted of a dried-up old hag with sagging paps. You could tell at a glance, therefore, which category you belonged to.
"Were you the spirit of religion for the good persons?" Em- manuel asked.
Zina did not answer the question; she passed on to another matter which she was more anxious to communicate to him.
In these judgments of the dead, stemming from Egypt and Persia, the scrutiny was pitiless and the sinful soul was de facto doomed. Upon your death the books listing your good deeds and bad deeds closed, and no one, even the gods, could alter the tabulation. In a sense the procedure of judgment was me- chanical. A bill of particulars, in essence, had been drawn up against you, compiled during your lifetime, and now this bill of particulars was fed into a mechanism of retribution. Once the mechanism received the list, it was all over for you. The mechanism ground you to shreds, and the gods merely watched, impassively.