A Lower Deep - A Self Novel About 3300 wds (17 page)

What the hell does that mean?

His smile dropped like a plum stone, and he frowned at me.
You're asking the wrong questions.

You deliberately being contrary?

Who, me?

The desert began to grow cold. I stood and headed down the hill. The coastal plain to the west led thirty-five miles to the Mediterranean, and to the east you could see the salt banks of the Dead Sea.

The New City portion of Jerusalem was quite modern, but due to a municipal ordinance all buildings were built with Jerusalem stone, providing a uniquely archaic and primitive aspect to the city. Its garden suburbs, broad avenues, and modern apartment buildings contrasted with the meager dwellings of the OldCity.

I walked through the Dung Gate, located near the Western Wall. It was low and narrow. A great deal of the city's refuse was taken to the KidronValley by an ancient sewer that runs beneath the passage, giving the gate its name. I headed toward the center of town, past the Ben Yehuda mall, and back to the Jerusalem Tower Hotel. Self kept after the Israeli girls and said they all reminded him of the daughters of David. Long black hair curling in waves, features sharp yet somehow soft. He quivered as he rushed into the onset of night.

When I walked in the door to the hotel room, my father giggled and danced with the little bells of his garb ringing wildly. He bounded into my chest like a happy pet and wouldn't let go until I'd patted his back for a few minutes.

Gawain continued his blind vigil, regarding nothing but seeing everything in focus. I realized that he already knew how this would all end, and that he probably didn't really care one way or another.

He and my father, unworldly in their simplicity, could witness and smile at the unfolding of revelations. Gawain was still dressed in a lavender cloak, and his bleached white hair and pale face appeared to glow in the dimness of the room. The lights of Jerusalem opened over his shoulder through the windows.

He mouthed my name and reached for me. I took his hand, but he no sooner grasped it than he let go and moved away. Whatever guidance or warnings he had would remain locked inside him.

Self flipped the channels around past German, French, and Russian stations. With a frustrated snarl he started kicking the television.
I can't find
Friends
, damn it.

The full moon rose over Israel, and my mother came to me again in the gulf of night, into my uncomfortable seat of dreams.

Dad seemed to feel her as well and sat on the floor whispering unintelligibly to himself. Whatever portion of his soul remained would be curled up in shame deep within the harlequin.

Even Self was unsettled. He trembled at the indistinct presence of my mother. He let out caterwauls in tune with Dad's whines and jingling, all of us lost beneath Gawain's endless sight and silence.

She moved as I remembered her, with a lissome balance as though the earth let her go for a moment as she walked, and then took her back again. She'd sit in the church basement teaching Sunday school, surrounded by a ring of children who didn't care about God or our sins or any kind of retribution. We only wanted to go outside to the lake or the park and play softball and try our hand at the rowboats, catching trout on string lines with wet balls of stolen communion wafer.

My mother understood the nest of shadows stirring behind the altar and between the pews. In spite of ourselves, she tried to prepare us for the inevitable. The priests began to scowl at her lessons and eventually dismissed her. She could read the word of the Lord with a clarity unmarred by ages of canon, doctrine, and ego. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees lives on.

My father's clownish face fell in on itself. The painted smile remained though his mouth didn't quite tug so far at the corners. He seemed to be trying to speak, or perhaps even sing, the way he did on the porch during summers when mother swept through the kitchen carrying icy beer out to him.

He leaned back against the headboard, one knee bent and his arm resting atop it, in the same pose as when he tilted his chair on the veranda. He'd sometimes strum his guitar or smoke hand-rolled cigarettes that made him go into sneezing fits. He understood what was coming but refused to be baited by it. He knew calm back then, short-lived as it was, before he started throwing rocks through the church's stained-glass windows.

I called to him once more, just as I had every day since leaving the mount, hoping to find my way to him again. "Dad?"

He didn't look at me, but his smile widened when Self flicked on to some music video program and they started dancing along to an Israeli pop band.

Familiars watched us, perched all across the city.

Every so often Self went on a hunt and brought some lower-tier imp back in his jaws or crushed in his fist. Two nights ago he returned to the room laughing and giving a piggyback ride to Elemaunder Pondo, who now took the shape of a baboon. Pondo had been handed down through the generations of the Lugbara family in Zambia, but the last tribal leader of the Candomble cult had died recently of AIDS. Pondo could not be controlled anymore and he traveled north across the continent, suckling at the teats of witches when he could. He climbed my shirt and tried to get at my chest, bouncing and screeching.

Self said,
Ain't no man-boy love for you there, buddy, try the Franciscans
. I scrawled a binding charm in front of Pondo's tiny face, and with his fur standing on end he got the point.

They watched television and made fun of everyone's accents. When they got bored they conjured a pair of dice and got up a game of craps in the corner with three shifty djinn. Self cleaned up and made a couple hundred shekels and sixty agorot. The coins and bills had been stolen from the wallets of men murdered in a bus bombing that afternoon. My father let loose with a bark of laughter, watching Pondo trying to make the six point.

The room was already filled with the dead. I could feel them pressing their determination toward us but I couldn't be sure of their intent. Bridgett with her throat slashed, those beautiful emerald eyes turned on me again as she grinned, knowing her place in the much larger pattern. I had survived Oimelc no better than an addict going cold turkey, thrashing and crawling on all fours in my need for Danielle. The desire for redemption had grown stronger each passing minute, year piled on year as my hair became tinged with gray. I had wept and vomited and smashed furniture. Once I'd awoken to find my father holding me in his arms, crying and cackling.

Pondo and the djinn all perked up in the same moment, glanced about the place, and began squawking. It looked as though they wanted to leave, but Self kept the game going, offering outrageous odds so they'd stick around. My hackles stood on end and a shiver went up my spine as if a wedge of ice had been pressed to the small of my back.

So, something was finally about to happen.

Blind Gawain grabbed my father by the hand and led him from the room. His serpent's tongue flicked out once toward me. Giggling, Dad waved and allowed himself to be dragged into the hall. The door slammed shut behind them and the room cooled by ten degrees.

I knew I was about to have a really bad night.

He's here
, Self told me.

Who?

He isn't alone.

Who?

Shh.

We waited. Pondo started making a comeback and kept counting his money, which irritated the djinn. Self had to calm them all down before a fight broke out. It went on like that for a couple of hours, with the television blaring, the dice clicking, and coins ringing.

There was a knock at the door.

I turned to answer and stopped in my tracks.

A boy of nine stood inside the room. The skin on his face was puckered, disfigured, and discolored, and he had no hair on his head. His lips were gone and what little remained of his mouth didn't work all that well. There was only a tiny hole in the middle of all the seared flesh.

It took him a while to get anything out, but eventually he whispered, "The fireman is coming."

The child climbed onto the bed and crawled beneath the sheets, fading as he did so until only his outline was left in the blankets. The knocking grew more insistent.

Self said,
Don't answer that.

Why not?

You don't want to know.

You're probably right.

Yes.

He tapped his foot in time with the beating of our hearts, waiting it out, his claws clacking together in a steady rhythm. He seemed puzzled, his brow furrowed, as if he were seeing me for the first time in his life. Then he shook his head in disappointment, looking so much like my father that his expression made me suck wind. Perhaps he'd taken so much from me that he finally just wanted to give some of it back.

Can't you just tell me?
I asked.

Can't you ever just listen to me?

Another knock, much louder. I went to answer.

Fine
, Self said.
Don't come crawling to me if you get burned.

I opened the door.

Giant, dim Herod, who had greater power than even Jebediah had ever imagined, stood there ten years dead.

"How're you doin'?" he asked. "How've you been?"

"Herod," I whispered.

"You feeling okay?"

He'd lumbered around the covine tree that final morning, knowing how to laugh and love his enemies. He'd told us all that the invocations would go wrong. He'd wept on Danielle's shoulder, afraid to continue but unwilling to disappoint his friends. For ten years I'd been wondering why I hadn't listened to him.

"You been getting out of the room?" he asked. "You been seeing the sights?"

Herod, the fourth to die, with his eyes bleeding as he was swept backward with open arms, grinning a little while he plunged onto a limb of the covine tree and was run through. His heart had been pierced and dark blood spewed from his nose and mouth across his robes. He'd still held out on the hope of meeting God and being forgiven for all the sins his parents had beaten into him.

"That Pondo over there? Hey, Pondo, long time no see, man. You making some cash? You think you can float me a fifty until payday?"

Herod had been chained in a fruit cellar until he was fifteen years old. He'd learned about life from rats, roaches, and spiders in that time. He'd believed the insane screams of his mother when she branded the devil from him. He was saved by the ministering spirit Reschith Hajalalim and the angel Masleh as his father tried to fight them off with a fireplace poker. I could still see the soldering iron scars on Herod's throat.

He nodded once to me, as if he'd just run out for a six-pack and had returned to watch a ball game. He pawed his sweaty neck and said, "Ah, feel that, fucking amazing, you've got air-conditioning. Mind if I come in?"

I stepped out of his way. Pondo crapped out and stamped his feet.

Herod shrugged with a sidelong glance. "You're wondering about the change, I see.

Well, don't. I can tell you things now that I couldn't then."

He not only teemed with intelligence but he was smooth now, a real schemer. He spoke in the rapid-fire cadence of a used car salesman making a pitch.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Hey, you know me, c'mon now, what kind of question is that? Listen, you've got to listen to me, I've been meaning to tell you something for a long time but I couldn't before. You'll be grateful for this, really. You know who I am."

Maybe I did.

A little help over here?
I called.

Six straight passes! You handle it!

Herod moved with his usual awkward gait, lumbering about as if he might fall at any second. When he got in front of the air conditioner he stood there letting the streams of cold air wash over him. "You're going to cause more trouble, aren't you? Yeah, you are. You might be one of the kings of the earth but you're still a goddamn sap.

"Sounds like you've got issues."

"A few, I suppose. Some things you never get over."

"I'd agree with that."

"Of course you would. But that doesn't matter now. Listen, listen, don't take this wrong, but I think you're going to die here in the dust."

I couldn't yet tell who wore the mask of Herod's flesh. I kept my hands low at my sides and scrawled protective sigils of Machon, Raquie, Sachiel, and Caffiel against my legs.

Jebediah enjoyed playing games with the dead. My father's return, the threat and promise of Danielle being raised, and this whole ludicrous notion of resurrecting Christ proved how much fun he had toying with souls. I tried to get Self's attention but he ignored me.

Little Joe! Papa needs a new Benvenuto Cellini Rolex with sapphire crystal glass and applied Roman numerals with a crocodile skin strap!

"I can make sure you come out on top this time," Herod said, beginning to show irritation. He couldn't quite catch his breath as he continued to sweat. Veins pulsed in his neck, making the scar tissue throb. "There's no need for you to keep being anybody's whipping boy."