God's Grace (13 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
Tags: #Fiction, #Dystopian, #Science Fiction, #Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, #Religious
It seemed to Cohn he had to be wary, indeed, in dealing with God. Theoretically no, but in truth yes. He was constantly slipping up, speaking and acting in error against his best interests; not containing his dissatisfactions; not therefore protecting himself, considering his hunger to survive.
I have to watch my words, also thoughts and dreams.
They had irreconcilable differences concerning whose responsibility the Day of Devastation was. Cohn still had trouble subduing his rage and grief therefrom; but practically
speaking, the event was beyond redoing and one had the future to contend with.
speaking, the event was beyond redoing and one had the future to contend with.
In that matter the Lord held every card in His comprehensive hand; and if Cohn held one it was invisible to him, except perhaps his extraordinary knowledge that God did not know everything.
He
had difficulty with numbers, could not always count accurately; for instance, there were more than only poor Cohn alive on earth. That was the only card Cohn held.
He
had difficulty with numbers, could not always count accurately; for instance, there were more than only poor Cohn alive on earth. That was the only card Cohn held.
Still if he wanted to go on breathing on this less-than-perfect, magic island, as indeed he did if it was at all feasible, he had to invent some practical means of winning God’s favor while not exactly taking Him off the hook for perpetrating His Latest Flood.
Cohn hoped the Lord had appreciated his seder and all the nice things they had said about Him the other night.
What might please God would be some sensible arrangement of the lives of the apes on the island into a functioning social community, interacting lives; and with Cohn as advisor and protector to help them understand themselves and fulfill the social contract. Maybe start with a sort of small family and extend into community? You are not the chimps your fathers were—you can talk. Yours, therefore, is the obligation to communicate, speak as equals, work and together build, evolve into concerned, altruistic living beings.
Not bad if it worked. How would Cohn know unless and until he tried? On this island more seemed possible than one might imagine. A functioning social unit, even as small as seven or eight living beings, would be a civilizing force
inspiring a higher order of behavior—to a former lower order of creatures—highest now that man was more or less kaput.
inspiring a higher order of behavior—to a former lower order of creatures—highest now that man was more or less kaput.
If this small community behaved, developed, endured, it might someday—if some chimpy Father Abraham got himself born—produce its own Covenant with God. So much better for God, Who seemed to need one to make Him feel easy with Himself as Party-of-the-First-Part, even though He found it troublesome, in the long run, to make the Covenant work as it should. One could hardly look after the party of the second part every minute of the day.
It was better to attempt to civilize whoever needed civilizing, the Lord would surely agree—more good that way, less evil. A good society served a good purpose; He would surely approve if Cohn dedicated himself to fostering it.
To do what God might be expecting, now that a common language existed between himself and the chimps, Cohn felt he ought to try to educate them up to some decent level, Eventually to make them aware of the cosmos and of mankind, too, who had fallen from earth and cosmos, because men had failed each other in obligations and responsibilities—failed to achieve brotherhood, lost their lovely world, not to mention living lives.
Therefore Cohn established a schooltree for them, a bushy-leaved, bark-peeled, hard-blue-acorned eucalyptus tree exuding a nose-opening aromatic odor, especially after rain, that kept them alert in the grove of mixed trees, some of which were crabbed live oaks not more than sixty feet from his cave.
The apes, including Buz, who was advanced in schooling but liked to listen to others being taught, attended classes regularly, spending two hours each morning getting educated; except on the Seventh Day, when Cohn preferred not to teach because, since he did not keep track of time, he might inadvertently be working on the Sabbath. God was a great fan of the Sabbath, and it was worth anybody’s life, it said in Exodus, to work on that day.
So he skipped each Seventh Day to show his respect and good will.
Cohn blew on a brass horn to summon them to class.
The apes, some reluctantly, climbed the eucalyptus and moved out on spreading limbs of the blowsy tree, sitting alone or in two’s, chewing leaves and spitting them out; or cracking nuts they had brought along, and eating them out of their palms as they listened to Calvin Cohn lecture; or groomed themselves and their partners as he droned on. When the lectures got to be boring they would shake branches and throw nuts at him. They hooted and grunted, but subsided when Cohn raised his hand, indicating he intended to do better.
He sat on a stool he had assembled at the foot of the shedding schooltree, on a leaf-covered hillock of hard earth he had constructed as a teaching platform, talking fast or slow, depending on the subject. He addressed them on a variety of topics, or inspired thoughts, formally or casually; or he read aloud from one book or another. And Cohn related tales he had made up as best he could the night before as he prepared his lectures; or had culled from memory.
He was no Martin Buber and the apes no Hasidim, though
they might someday be, Cohn permitted himself to think. These things needed time. It depended, to some degree, on how one addressed the apes and they played it back.
they might someday be, Cohn permitted himself to think. These things needed time. It depended, to some degree, on how one addressed the apes and they played it back.
The chimps seemed, on the whole, to enjoy their schooling although there were occasional truants, Esau, for instance, a prime offender; and Luke and Saul of Tarsus, after a difficult lesson had left them dazed, usually took the next day off. Melchior was steady, he liked to listen; and so did Mary Madelyn, who discreetly applauded certain things Cohn said and some he only hinted at.
Buz, diligently present, sometimes interrupted the teacher’s discourse to disagree with a fact. He also corrected Cohn’s mistakes in usage, when he caught a “which” for a “that,” or “precipitate” for “precipitous.” Buz had been immersed in dictionary study lately. Cohn, when corrected, felt some embarrassment, especially when the other chimps broke out in applause for Buz. However, the amateur teacher —he so defined himself—was good-humored about his little errors, and education went on.
George the gorilla was a part-time scholar, listening from a neighboring cedar, because the apes, particularly after the seder shambles, showed they did not care to have him among them. George could tell and had picked himself this tall coniferous tree twenty feet from the eucalyptus. Cohn argued with the chimps, defending the gorilla’s human rights, but fortunately George preferred to be by himself.
He crouched on the lower branch of the cedar, at times lay outstretched, chewing a weed, seemingly absorbed in Cohn’s remarks and stories, though one never knew for sure
because the gorilla did not talk; yet Cohn was almost certain he comprehended what he heard.
because the gorilla did not talk; yet Cohn was almost certain he comprehended what he heard.
However, his attention to the lesson appeared to be fitful, partly because he seemed to be roused, or struck, by certain things, and for a while was not able to concentrate on anything more. At least it seemed so to Cohn.
George would stay in his tree until some interesting fact, or quotation, or tale, excited his fancy, at which moment he lowered himself to the ground and went reeling off into the forest as though high on reflection, to hoots of ridicule by the students in the schooltree. Cohn pictured him lying in the sun-warmed grass, playing with a thought till it arranged itself in his head. Or was that giving the beast more credit than he deserved? Yet there was something “possible” about George. He looked like himself plus something else he might be.
After the daily lectures, the chimps climbed down the eucalyptus to enjoy a cup of fizzy banana beer that Cohn served to all present.
Melchior, as he guzzled the beer dripping into his beard, stopped drinking long enough to say this was the besht part of the day.
Cohn thought he knew more about fossils than anything else he had studied, but with the help, if not collaboration, of his one-volume encyclopedia he would try to inform them about the major doings of the past.
“Knowing what occurred in the world might favor the future. Yours, I mean, rather than mine. Mine looks scarce; yours, at least possible.”
He said, “There are gaps in my knowledge, large and small, but I will tell it as best I can. If you listen, there may be some morsels to nibble on. I sincerely hope you won’t think I am being reductive.”
The chimps in the eucalyptus, with the exception of sour-faced Esau, who sat on his hairy hands, politely applauded Cohn’s honest declaration.
So in the days that followed he lectured on the cosmos—from Big Bang to Dying Whimper of man (for whom Cohn asked, and got, a full minute’s silence). The apes were curious about practically everything that had happened on earth and heaven. Starting there, the universe expanded.
“What for?” asked Buz.
“Because it’s expansible.”
(Laughter.)
He detailed Descent, Advent, Ascent of Man, as Darwin and Wallace had propounded the theory of the origin of species and natural selection; adding a sketch on sociobiology, with a word about the nature-nurture controversy.
Only George clapped at that, and Cohn could not figure out if he knew what he was doing or was he trying to crush an imaginary fly between his palms?
Cohn then noted man’s ambivalent nature, the no-in-yes, evil-in-good, death-in-life, illusion-in-real, the complex, joyous-heartbreaking way it had worked out. Was the basic split caused by body-soul? Or was it God’s withdrawal from His own presence? How would that go? Freud, an unbeliever, spoke of a secret trauma in His mind, converted to pain Everywhere.
“That brings us to evil—wherever it begins or how far
goes: a metaphysical dripping, perhaps, we can’t account for, resulting in the appearance of Satan himself, whom I will discourse on for a couple of lectures at a later date—in particular, whether the Lord tore him out of His own mind and flung him into the bottomless pit out of which he afterwards crawled as a smoking snake; and has since then taken out on man his loss of angelic form and privilege—anyway, if Satan is allowed to go slithering around in Paradise, there’s bound to be serious conflict and conflagration. In essence, the old boy envies man, wants to be him. Didn’t he desire Eve when he saw her rolling bare-skinned in the flowers with Adam naked? ‘Where’s mine of that?’ the old snake said when he met her in the wood; and she modestly responded, ‘It isn’t for you, for reasons I can’t say.’ He poisoned her apple after that. Broke her tree, it stopped singing hymns.”
goes: a metaphysical dripping, perhaps, we can’t account for, resulting in the appearance of Satan himself, whom I will discourse on for a couple of lectures at a later date—in particular, whether the Lord tore him out of His own mind and flung him into the bottomless pit out of which he afterwards crawled as a smoking snake; and has since then taken out on man his loss of angelic form and privilege—anyway, if Satan is allowed to go slithering around in Paradise, there’s bound to be serious conflict and conflagration. In essence, the old boy envies man, wants to be him. Didn’t he desire Eve when he saw her rolling bare-skinned in the flowers with Adam naked? ‘Where’s mine of that?’ the old snake said when he met her in the wood; and she modestly responded, ‘It isn’t for you, for reasons I can’t say.’ He poisoned her apple after that. Broke her tree, it stopped singing hymns.”
Cohn then sketchily recounted Freud’s work and to prove it apt began summarizing certain aspects of human history, not excluding major wars fought and other useless disasters. “Man had innumerable chances but was—in the long run—insufficient to God’s purpose. He was insufficient to himself. Some blame it on a poisoned consciousness, caused, for some chemical reason, by our lunatic genes running wild. More about that in the near future. Anyway, man doing a not-so-hot job, by and large, in his relations to other men—he loves only finger-deep. Love is not a popular phenomenon. Talks and talks but the real thing goes only finger-deep. Anyway, in all those ages he hardly masters his nature enough to stop the endless slaughter. What I mean,” said Cohn, “is he never mastered his animal nature for the good of all—please excuse
the word—I am an animal myself—nor could he invent a workable altruism. In short, he behaved too often irrationally, unreasonably, savagely, bestially. I’m talking, obviously, about constant overkill.
the word—I am an animal myself—nor could he invent a workable altruism. In short, he behaved too often irrationally, unreasonably, savagely, bestially. I’m talking, obviously, about constant overkill.
“And more of the same throughout human history. Please don’t say I am hypersensitive—I’m talking at a time of almost total extinction, except us few. I will go into the Historical Past in six lectures I have planned; and the Twentieth Century Up to Now, in another two, the second beginning with the Holocaust that I mentioned yesterday: all that Jewish soap from those skeletal gassed bodies; and not long after that, since these experiences are bound to each other, the U.S. Americans drop the first atom bombs—teensy ones —on all those unsuspecting 8 a.m. Japanese crawling in broken glass to find their eyeballs. I could say more but haven’t the heart.”
Cohn said it wasn’t his intention to exaggerate the extent of man’s failures, willed or otherwise. Nor would he slight his capacity for good and beauty. “The reason I may seem to you to dwell heavily on the sins of man is to give you something to think about so you may, in a future chimpanzee society, avoid repeating man’s worst errors. The future lies in your hands.”
Ongoing hearty applause. Buz waved a green cap of Cohn’s he had taken to wearing lately. Esau reluctantly pat-patted his moist palms. Mary Madelyn’s eyes glowed tenderly, and Melchior, though he called it “pretty dry stuff,” blew his nose and sentimentally frowned.
Cohn took a bow. Here’s Calvin Cohn, one man left on earth, teaching apes concerning man’s failures. Not bad. His
father the rabbi, may he rest in peace, would surely have approved.
father the rabbi, may he rest in peace, would surely have approved.
(—Listen, Colvin, I never liked that you changed your name from Seymour to Colvin—a big naarishkeit—but what you say to the monkeys, this I like.
—Those aren’t monkeys, Papa, those are full-grown primates.
—To me it’s all the same, a monkey is a monkey.)
Cohn, unable to slow down his lecture, speculated that man failed because he was imperfect to begin with. “Never mind free will. How can he be free if the mind is limited by its constitution? Why hadn’t the Almighty—in sum—done a better job? It wouldn’t have been all that hard for Him—whether man appeared first as a gene with evolutionary potential, or as Adam himself and his rib fully formed—to have endowed him with a little more control over his instincts; and if not pure love for the human race, possibly for reasons of natural selection, then maybe at least enough feeling to be moved by their common plight—that many have little, and many have nothing—and that they are alive for a minute and die young? “Am I wrong about that?”
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