A Lower Deep

It wasn't his provocation but mine. It had the old familiar feeling. Temptation in the desert was not unknown.

Into this land came a man named Yashua, a stoneworker-not a carpenter-who traveled from a small village to work in the cosmopolitan city of Galilee, during the time of the first zealots. There he learned of the rebellion against the tyranny of Rome, and grew aware of himself within a political tinderbox. He learned at the knee of a man who ate locusts and wild honey and dressed in camel's hair clothes. He returned home to Nazareth and was rejected by his own people, and was forced to start a new and active community with his own disciples.

Just as Jebediah had done.

Is he here yet? I asked.

You know, the fur-lined leather cuffs are just as nice. Twin straps.

It got like this on occasion, when he glided among my weaknesses and took advantage. Is he here?

Yes.

Why hasn't he made his play yet?

Who's to say he hasn't? His grin grew wider. In the coming darkness his mouth was no longer crimson but now hung open filled with moonlit fangs. Why haven't you made yours?

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.