ReVISIONS (18 page)

Doyle dropped the pieces of the broken glass into a wastebasket near the sideboard and turned as his mentor pushed the point into the proper vein. “Does it really give you any release?” he asked.

Bell hesitated for a moment, savoring the needle's sting, waiting for the first cold rush. “No, but it dulls the pain,” he answered as he withdrew the instrument and set it aside. “And at least for a little while, it eases the fear.” He closed his eyes, and his head rolled back between his shoulders. “You don't know.”

He smiled to himself. Doyle didn't know, because he disdained the needle and disapproved of his old teacher's use of cocaine. Bell didn't blame him. It was a weakness, if only a small one, but still a weakness.

Soft footsteps on the carpet made him open his eyes. With dreamlike slowness, his student, his friend, and his colleague walked across the carpet and picked up the hypodermic which still contained a measure of the damnable drug.

“Maybe it's time I found out,” Doyle said. He pressed the point deep into his arm.

Beyond the lace curtain (poor Mrs. Hudson!), beyond the window, the wind moaned and the rain drove down.

—Samuel Noah Kramer
History Begins at Sumer

T
here was no question that Enzu had performed all the required actions, and yet his manuscript had been rejected. He had brought an
arua
gift to the temple of Nanna, paid the divination priest to prod a reeking sheep's liver, and, much to his wife's annoyance, he had hired a professional omen reader to untie his dreams.

“And what did she tell you, Enzu-dumu? ‘Opportunities exist, but there are challenges.”' Mari, who made a few coins on the side by reading dreams for friends, shook her head.

“Something like that,” he muttered. In truth, he thought ruefully, the
shailtu
had said his petition would be granted.

“You don't really believe in that nonsense,” Mari persisted.

“No, beloved.” Enzu sighed. “What's important is that influential elders still do, and one does well to be seen adhering to the forms.”

“
Lum
.” She gave him the eye of death and stormed off into the kitchen where he heard her busily rearranging jars.

Her anger was understandable. He brushed dust from his robe and set down the heavy leather bag holding his tablets. Approaching the temple for sponsorship had been expensive, and their savings were nearly exhausted. The high life he'd enjoyed as a school-father had evaporated. Gone were the hordes of aspiring scribes paying cash—and offering up delicious and exquisite bribes for good grades.

Gone with the invention of printing.

 

After months of
arua
and wheedling from Yadidatum, his Introducer, Enzu had finally set up a meeting with the financier-priestess at the temple of Nanna. It had been a frustrating wait since he'd sent the tablets, then, finally, today he had been summoned to meet Ningal-ummi.

Trudging up the impressive stone steps, he noticed once again the profound changes. Ten years ago, the lower temple square would have been full of circus acts to entertain the masses: dancing bears, snake charmers, transvestites, the whole nine
iku
. Now, narrow paths snaked through a huckster's barrow of tablet stalls, some bare wood tables, the higher-end draped in fabric and shaded with awnings. A continuous trickle of Ur's citizens wandered the twisty passages amid racks of texts old and new, and the clink of commerce was constant.

Enzu waited in the inner courtyard. Here there was shade, cool pitchers of water, and the fragrant smell of cedar. Around him strolled and chatted the deal-makers of Ur, dressed in fine-spun clothes, with neatly trimmed beards. Merchants seeking capital for trade voyages down the Gulf rubbed shoulders with engineers looking to publish canal-building texts. He felt isolated and noticed, and wished he'd been able to talk Yadidatum into accompanying him.

When the page called, he was relieved to be led into the dim stone hallways and directed, wordlessly, into a small audience room.

Ningal-ummi sat on a lush cushion, lit from a courtyard door behind, surrounded by stacks of tablets. She offered food and water, and nodded as Enzu presented her with a small silver stylus. Her eyes narrowed as he thanked her for the meeting, formally and correctly, in liturgical idiom.

“You speak
Emesal
well,” she said.

“You are kind. What little I know I learned transcribing for Ugazum, one of your tax collectors.”

“He says your hand followed his mouth accurately.”

“Again, you are too kind.”

“Well, to business.” She frowned. “You speak and write capably. So why, scribe, are these tablets so strange?”

“I'm sorry you find them so. I mean only to tell an interesting story.”

“Do you? But this story
lies
,” said Ningal-ummi tightly. “You talk of real places, people who still live. But then you describe things which did not happen. The story claims that printing was never invented. It says that the Sons of the Left invaded us and took over our temples, our cities, even our language.”

“Your displeasure shames me,” said Enzu, bowing. “I mean only to show what might have been, had things happened differently. I call it ‘fiction-that-continues-a-line. ' What if Ilammadu had not invented molded text? How quickly things might have gone horribly wrong! It serves to show the greatness of our city and our goddess, and the rightness of our path.”

“And you believe that Sargon's daughter would now be high priestess in this very temple?”

“It is, apologies, merely a continued line. A logical next step for the Bin-Shimal, to install one of their own, to try to subvert our people's strong faith.”

She looked at him wordlessly for a long time. Flies buzzed, and tallow crackled and sputtered in the sconces.

“You are a strange one, Enzu,” she said finally. “Despite my protests, I do like this idea of continued lines. But your work is not something we can take up. This is not what the people in the lower courtyard want to read. And certainly not something which can come from the temple, in a year when Sargon's minions still harass the outskirts of Nippur.”

Enzu felt like a hammered ox. He stood, but the world wavered darkly.

“You write well,” she said, “And your thought is true. We do always live trapped inside our narrow everyday world until something—a vision, new learning, tragedy—knocks us out of it. It is intriguing to imagine how things might be different. With your mind, perhaps you should think about teaching.”

“I was a school-father. With less copy work, fewer seek training.”

“There might be other opportunities . . .”

Enzu summoned his courage. “You are very knowledgeable about the printing houses. Do you have any thoughts about who might be interested?”

With a look of dismissal, she clapped for her servant. “I can suggest, but not recommend, that you offer this continued-line idea to the printing house of Beretegal.”

Her page scooped up his tablets and guided him out.

“You might think about a different story line, though,” she called after him. “Some might think it a bit obvious for an unemployed scribe to imagine that his nemesis had never been invented.”

 

“Don't take it so hard, Enzu,” Yadidatum consoled. “This isn't about making the word of Utu manifest, this is about moving product.”

They sat amid accountants and bureaucrats in a beer parlor in the temple sector. A half-empty crock waited in front of him, and a pleasant warm buzz had at least partially whitewashed his despair.

“So what do you think of her suggestion. Who do you know at Beretegal?”

Yadidatum studiously played with his straw.

“You taught math as well as writing; you know it's all about numbers. I love your work, but it's just too different. Tablet houses need to sell 500 copies to break even. Bronze for plates doesn't jump out of the river into your basket.”

“Well, suppose I publish it myself. Copy it by hand, take tablets around and sell them out of a cart.”

Yadidatum shook his head. “You've seen people who do that. How do you think readers see them?”

Enzu sighed. “Hopeless losers who couldn't find a publisher.”

“Finish that beer, let's have another round,” said Yadidatum brightly, waving to the barkeep. “Say. You know what I
could
sell? Have you seen these new children's tablets? Stories with simple words and pictures, made for teaching kids to read. Got any ideas that might work?”

“No.”

“How about trying your hand at
tesh
? There's a lot of action around the New Year's ceremony. If you could give me two tablets on the king plowing the sacred harlot, it would make a great seasonal tie-in. I work with a top cylinder-seal carver who could do a couple of images.”

“Not interested.”

“Look, Enzu-dumu, you need to build up a track record. Right now, you're an unknown scribe with a couple of tablets in the local library, and nothing on the market. There's always series work. I can get you a slot writing for Gilgamesh.”

“
Gishtu
! What else can Gilgamesh possibly
do
?”

Yadidatum glanced around, then leaned over. “Well, now that you ask. You want to talk about fiction that continues a line? Well just suppose Gilgamesh and Enkidu were, you know, different. Different
together
. There's a market for that, too.”

“You would want me to write about the gods coupling just to get your ten percent?”

“Hey, Enzu-dumu. That's my job.” The server set down two fresh
silas
. “I want to make you a success. We'll get past this small roadblock.” He lifted his jar.

“Beer to you.”

“Beer to you.”

 

Mari noted that he “stank like a Gutian,” and suggested he spend the night in the tablet room. He didn't argue, and fell asleep at his table, trying to read. His head felt like broken pottery the next morning when Mari shook him awake, announcing a well-dressed visitor waiting in the guest room.

“He says it's business—about your writing.” She handed him a basin of water and some aromatic oil. “Make yourself presentable.”

The visitor was dressed in bright, dyed robes, and sported a fistful of ornate silver rings. When Enzu entered, Mari was filling his goblet from their last good bottle of date wine. She bowed, and on the way out, gave Enzu a look that had only one meaning: don't mess this up.

But Enzu saw trouble as soon as the stranger introduced himself.

“I am Ikuppi-Adad, chief administrative scribe of Badizi,
ensi
of Kish.”

“I'm honored to have you visit me.” Scribe of the mayor of Kish. Ally of Sargon. Not good. “How might I be of service?”

“I'd like to talk about your writing. A friend of mine at the Temple of Nanna shared with me a copy of a most intriguing and fanciful story, which he said was your work.”

Here was what Enzu had been expecting, but he was shocked at the brazen disclosure. A spy within the temple?

“Your kind words far exceed the merits of my humble text.”

“For someone like me,” Ikuppi smiled, “A mere scribe, your work is a revelation. You must have a
rabisu
who speaks such visions to you, no?”

“A
mashkim
?” Enzu detected no reaction to his insistence on Sumerian. “No, no spirit voices. I call it fiction-which-continues-a-line. Like following the curve in a geometric figure; I look at events and project the world. I make it up.”

“So. From your mouth to your hand,” Ikuppi stared intently into Enzu's eyes, then, “And does the speaker
believe
in what he makes up?”

“I . . . I . . . write . . .” Enzu stammered.