Simantov

by Asaf Ashery

  But it was not only the title that changed, or the timing. The hourglass and the counting of the Omer were drowning her under the mounting grains.

  Libby discovered that the last few days had been filled with debates over self-definition and their status vis-à-vis the Nephilim. They decided to refer to themselves as POW’s, not abductees. Prisoners were casualties of war, and there were traditions and standards governing their treatment and release. Whilst captive, they were still part of the war. Abductees, on the other hand, were victims, chattels to be traded or ransomed.

  It was pointless to discuss the philological connotations of the agreement, but Hagar Abizu insisted on committing it to writing, if not for use in the present crisis, then for future generations. An expert in negotiations and contracts, she soon identified the weaknesses of her opponents.

  Professor Odem agreed: she could not object to documentation. Milka, bothered by the possibility that she might not enjoy eternal fame, found solace in the records. Estie was not asked, because of her youth and lack of education, and Anat was dismissive of details.

  Libby realized right away that Hagar had assumed the leadership role. The lawyer surprised her by being clear-headed, practical, and free of illusions. The other prisoners had been allotted tasks and missions according to their talents, and Libby felt useless.

  Doula Anat Ashtribu used her time well. She gave Estie Aiello lessons she would have otherwise received at the ranch. They sat in a corner of the room, in their own bubble, far away from the quarrels and discussions of the other prisoners. This suited both sides well. In the Doula, they had a skilled babysitter who excelled at her teaching job, and the scared teenager received the means that would help her deal with her predicament.

  Milka was in charge of liaison with the captors. Whenever a Naphil arrived with their food, she would harangue him their demands and engage him in long conversations to get as much information out of him as possible.

  Every Naphil presented them with the same challenge. Milka assumed different personae in order to check which one of them had been there before. The duty of bringing the food was abhorrent to their captors, and the contact with Lillith’s Daughters was a necessity they tried to shun. Shamhazai’s horde of Nephilim drew lots to see who would meet with the inferior creatures.

  Even the chance to gloat was not incentive enough for them.

  Milka was successful in engaging them, and the chats that started off as strained and halting sometimes lasted several minutes. In addition, with her charisma and amiable personality, Milka persuaded the angels to get to know the women.

  When Libby first arrived, Hagar bombarded her with questions and scenarios, hoping that Libby’s training as a policewoman could help them make a dent in the Nephilim’s armor.

  The one who found fault with Hagar’s plans was Professor Odem, who also furnished them with historical background and mystical sources.

  This entire structure, however, collapsed two days after Libby was captured. The morning that Barakiel arrived with the food.

  Milka was about to approach him when Hagar stopped her. Hagar rose from the mattress that served as her office, smoothed her wrinkled business suit, and walked over to him.

  Barakiel looked discomfited, like a boy caught peeping into the girls’ shower.

  “I was surprised you didn’t show up earlier.”

  “They wouldn’t let me,” said Barakiel.

  Hagar tried to ignore the scent of warm milk and cinnamon he emitted. Perhaps she should have let Milka handle it.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  “I would be happy if you had brought a cake with a saw or a razor blade in it, but just seeing you again is soothing.”

  Barakiel realized that he was missing something, as was the case in most of their conversations, but this time he knew he could ask.

  Most references to popular culture were known to Barakiel. True, his life preceded most of them, but he was familiar with the sources from which they were taken. When you have all the time in the world and a first class home movie system, you are likely to see one or two jailbreak flicks.

  “The saw is for escaping, and the razor blade? So your legs will be smooth while you run?”

  “For the veins, so we can die heroic deaths. If we’re victims, at least it’ll be at a time of our own choosing, so as to spoil your ascent.”

  The idea sounded silly to him, like anything that had to do with honor or the way humans perceived heroism.

  “It’s not going to work. The Key won’t leave you enough time to organize, once the seventh woman arrives.”

  “Will you tell me what might work?”

  “I just came to say hello, I’m not sure why. I wasn’t sure what you were going to say.”

  “You don’t have to play games with me, Barak. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing.”

  This was a line he recognized. He also knew a thing or two about ‘To Have and Have Not.’ He wasn’t sure if she had chosen those words intentionally, but he tried to be charming.

  “I just have to whistle?”

  Hagar found that reference trying. She remembered how they had gone to the Cinematheque, eaten popcorn, and seen Bogart and Bacall meet on the screen. She was amazed at what he chose to remember from that date. What happened later on that enchanted evening had meant a lot to her, and not only because a taboo had been broken. Hagar’s eyes filled with tears she made no attempt to dry as they rolled down her cheeks. Barakiel had not anticipated this reaction. He had to put an end to her weeping. It was too painful.

  “The first one to go down is the Key. The first one to open the Gate must pass through to ensure it stays open. I don’t know any more about the Gate, and I’m not even sure this will help,” Barakiel tried to mitigate the bitter truth.

  Hagar wiped her tears and snuggled against him for a long moment. He knew it made no difference, but they both needed some loving-kindness and all she could give him in return for his desperate attempt to help was a hug.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It was a weird experience for Barakiel. The morning after the encounter with Hagar was marked by some strange excitement, accompanied by a sense of freedom that was even more significant than the hug he had received from his former lover.

  It had been decades since he was allowed to fly over Tel Aviv in daylight. Everything was different then. In those days, Tel Aviv consisted of just a few houses in the dunes. Now they towered among cumulus clouds and smog. There was something wild and primeval in this liberating flight. He did not revolt, like Azazel, with his elegant aerodynamic forays over roofs, solar panels, and television dishes.

  Over the last few years, Barakiel had been marginalized as punishment for his illicit love affair, but in recent weeks he felt part of the fold again, the family, the Nephilim. His stay at the police station was not opportune, but at the moment of truth, they came back for him, leaving poor Armaros behind.

  None of the Sons of God mentioned the loss, and Barakiel was not about to break the silence. Armaros’s demise forced him, as it did the other Nephilim, to consider the possibility that they were no longer immortal, that there was someone capable of harming them.

  The dead Naphil’s eyes looked out at him from everywhere; each of his fellows in the flying formation had those eyes, but most of all, they plagued him when he saw them in the mirror. He was the reason that Armaros had ended his eternal life but, curiously, there was something encouraging in that. He had a strong sense of belonging. Overnight he had climbed several rungs up the ladder. Now, when things were about to change and they were on their way back to Heaven, his future seemed to be assured. Azazel and Shamhazai had made it clear that his welfare and future were secure. He knew they trusted him and that he was equal to his comrades. He had an important part in the mission of returning to Heaven and opening the Gate. It was the last link in the chain, the first stage in the building of the b
ridge.

  With the other Nephilim in the formation, he followed Karina’s car from the moment she left home at 5am for rehearsals. He didn’t know her schedule or how long the performance would last, but earlier observers reported that on the way back she would wave to passers-by from her car. It was his turn to watch the hall.

  Barakiel surveyed the exits of the building.

  The plan was clear and simple, and they had practiced it several times from a great height above the clouds.

  Soon they’ll circle over, and as soon as the first cars start pulling out of the parking lot, they will check the area. She’ll come out, the beloved children’s idol, and they will take her away. After that, it’s only a matter of time, of days and for one bloody rite, until Heaven’s Gate is open again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The noise of sawing, drilling, rubble being loaded, and trucks honking finally stopped. The remains of the old station were cleared. Professionals in white plastic helmets were about to start erecting a new building while orange juggernauts and bulldozers waited outside the compound. In the meantime, Goldfinger and his headquarters insisted on maintaining, at least outwardly, a façade of calm and normality. Nobody was allowed to give interviews about the reasons for the rebuild. The official explanation was the need to make the building earthquake proof.

  Large caravans had been hastily brought to the compound the night before to serve as temporary quarters. The view from the window of the caravan was dismal, as was the general atmosphere.

  Mazzy had assembled the Soothsayer team the previous evening. Over many quiet hours, each member focused on their own psyche, trying to dispel the fear and foreboding that gripped them at the realization of what they were up against: rebellious uninhibited angels, hell-bent on achieving their goal.

  The normally inscrutable Larissa was agitated. She mulled over the possibility that her brother had been killed by primordial forces; there was some warped logic to this explanation of the death of a minor security guard. She could thus rewrite the story of a warrior, a veteran of battles and conflicts, and not have to record him as being killed on a paltry security detail. But Larissa could find no solace in this version and was still roiled by guilt. There was no closure. The evil that bereaved her of Borislav now had a face, a face she had beheld in passing while he was being interrogated by the police. Except that she had no idea her brother’s murderer was within striking distance. She could have touched him, could have reached her hand into his chest and plucked his wings.

  But neither knew who the other was. It was this irony of fate that so rankled her.

  Frustration mingled with revenge, humiliation with rage. She shuffled the cards furiously and laid them down. She opened a single card and the hermit showed up, reversed. The bearded wanderer with the cane and the lantern. Right side up, the card was meant to encourage introspection; it betokened wisdom, patience and acceptance, represented by the solitary guide. But when reversed: isolation, alienation, rashness, mistaken identity and bad counsel, fear of the external world, resistance to new ideas, a frustrated search for answers, despair. Larissa felt insult and derision. She knew that the card was the key to solving the riddle of her brother’s death, but even now, when the answer was supposedly staring her in the face, she could not turn it into words or guidance.

  Izzy, who was usually easygoing when faced with the conundrums of the universe, looked confused.

  Mazzy, usually a good source of reliable information, had explained they were up against an army of godly creatures, but what shocked Izzy most was not the fact that there was an army of Nephilim, but that they were the Lord’s servants. The popular Hebrew phrase “There is a God!” suddenly ceased to be something sports fans shouted in the stadium; it became a demonstrable fact.

  “New Age” had not prepared her for this eventuality. God existed and His minions had declared war on the representatives of mighty womanpower, in which she trusted. Peace, brotherhood, serenity and the acceptance of the Other had not prepared her for battle. The belief in benevolent, bountiful Mother Earth did not sit well with the idea that a Supreme Being, a source of goodness, would send His servants to thwart attempts by the ancient women’s Order to bring redemption to the world. Izzy wondered if she was strong and determined enough, and if her crystals could pass the test.

  The first one to recover was Elisha.

  He seemed to have known all along that such forces existed. His God was an avenging God that manifested Himself clearly, in unmistakable signs and wonders. Elisha was always ready for new developments and changing times. There was a time to love and a time to hate, a time to make peace and a time for war. As soon as Rachel had given them the names, he began his calculations, mumbling series, figuring out values and inferences.

  It was clear to all of them that names were the key, the Achilles’ heel of the ancient forces. Names were formed letters, and letters were his business.

  The oppressive silence in the room was interrupted only by Elisha’s pen scratching on paper, the shuffling of Larissa’s cards, the rattle of Izzy’s crystals when she rummaged in her bag, and the whispering of Mazzy and Yariv.

  Elisha was also the first to be hit with an insight. His face lit up in the dim room. On the paper in front of him he had drawn a shape resembling a tree: its top, trunk and roots had circles around them with the words Mercy, Strength, Glory, Victory, Foundation and Sovereignty. Next to the tree he had scribbled numbers and chains of words and verses resembling an equation made of signs and ciphers. The names of the Nephilim that Mazzy had given him were written along and across the signs. Some of the words were underlined with arrows leading to the words Angel and Naphil.

  “We’re looking for a sequence that will allow us to confine the power of the Nephilim. The names we have are not enough, we must see them as part of a series. We have to start with a certain base if we want to find the entire series of names.”

  “If we can achieve this, they will become vulnerable again.”

  “We actually need to find out how an Angel, which is ninety-one in gematria, became a Naphil, which is a hundred and seventy. The difference is seventy-nine, which is equivalent to “he left.” In order to see the difference, we have the names. Those names are remnants of ancient wisdom, wisdom somehow distilled which, by the way, also equals seventy-nine.”

  “Is this what led you to draw this chain? The words of the tree of Sefirot?”

  “Yes, but we’re still missing the name of the Naphil, if we want to harm him,” said Larissa.

  “I don’t want to dampen your spirits,” said Yariv, “but one name won’t be enough. We need names, plural. We need to hit enough Nephilim for them to realize that what they’re trying to do, to open the Gate, is not going to happen.”

  In her hands, Izzy held two smooth green stones. One was the stone Barakiel had picked, which she had been pawing and caressing over the last few weeks in an attempt to squeeze some information out of it. Its circles, stretching from the edges to the center of the stone, resembled the rings on a thousand year-old tree. The other stone looked like a transparent greenish ice drop.

  Izzy turned to Elisha. “Tell me why a tree of Sefirot? Why do you call it a tree?”

  “Tree in gematria is a hundred and sixty. In Genesis it says that God created man “in his image.” Image in gematria is a hundred and sixty. In the Book of Illumination, which is the first book of the Kabbalah, the author, the sage Nehuniah ben HaKana, describes the seven sacred emanations of God, which are reflected in Man. As it is said, ‘In the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.’ These are the right and left thighs, the right and left hand, the torso and the head, that makes six, and the seventh is the wife.” The last sentence he quoted in Aramaic, which prompted Yariv to ask for an explanation.

  “It explains how the calculation of seven parts was reached,” said Elisha. “It includes the woman, for she was created from Adam’s body.”

  “So this tree represents Man,
or God as it is manifested in man,” said Izzy.

  “Sort of. It’s more complicated…” Elisha was interrupted.

  “Because this is very similar to the chakras. There are whorls of energy in the human body called chakras, and they are located at every junction and intersection of the nervous system. There are thousands of such chakras, but seven cardinal ones located along the spinal column alone. The function of the chakras is to keep the body in a state of equilibrium vis-à-vis the universe.”

  “Yes, but the connection between God and Man is not based on energy,” interjected Elisha, “but on prayer and Mitzvoth.”

  It was obvious he was trying to be as delicate as he could with the pagan who was ignorant about sacred Jewish lore.

  “The chakras are also a connection with God, with the force that created the universe, the Supreme Being, or however you choose to call it. Crystals and stones help the flow of energy in the world and us to connect with it. We use crystals to make this connection. Take this prehnite, for example,” Izzy said, picking up the ice pebble. “This could be our key. It operates like a transformer for a divine presence, creating a strong field of energy around us, and it can also enhance our aura.”

  Elisha, it seemed, was quite pleased with that connection, especially when Izzy drew some lines on his drawings. Over the tree she put a human figure in a lotus position, marking the spots of the seven chakras. Elisha then connected the tree, the words and the chakras.

  The other people in the room stared at them in amazement.

  “The tree of Sefirot comprises two parts: Crown, Wisdom and Understanding are the upper worlds of potential power, possibilities that may be realized. From them energies are emanated to the other Sefirot: Mercy, Strength, Glory, Victory, Majesty, Sovereignty and Foundation. If we find the spot where the change occurs, we can build the concentration that you’re talking about.”

  Mazzy and Yariv continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly, but Izzy picked up where he left off.