The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg

by Barry N. Malzberg

  “Why do you do this to us?” I say. I look at his bland, pleasant face, masked by the institutional sheen but nonetheless concealing, I am convinced, as passionate and confused a person as I might be, perhaps a little more passionate and confused since he has not had, after all, the benefit of the treatments. “Why can we simply not go through this on our own terms, take what we can take, miss the rest of it? Why must we be monitored?”

  “The procedures “

  “Don’t tell me of procedures,” I say, leaning forward with a sudden intensity, aware that I am twitching at the joints and extremities in a new fashion, emotionally moved as rarely has been the case. Definitely the treatments are affecting me. “The real reason is that you’re afraid that unless we’re controlled we might really be changed, that we might begin to react in fashions that you couldn’t predict, that we wouldn’t be studying religion and fanaticism any more but would actually become religious fanatics and what would you do with us then?”

  “Confine you,” my confessor says flatly, “for your own protection. Which is exactly what we want to avoid by the process of what you call monitoring, which is merely certifying that you are in condition to continue the treatments without damage to yourself.”

  “Or to the state.”

  “Of course to the state. I work for it, you live within it; why should we not have the interests of the state at heart? The state need not be perceived as the enemy by you people, you know.”

  “I never perceived?”

  “You can’t make the state the repository of all your difficulties, the rationalizing force for your inadequacies. The state is a positive force in all of your lives and you have more personal freedom than any citizenry at any time in the history of the world.”

  “I never said that it wasn’t.”

  “In fact,” the counselor says, rising, his face suffused now with what might be passion but then on the other hand might only be the consequence of improper diet, highly spiced intake, the slow closure of arteries, “we can get damned sick of you people and your attitudes. I’m no less human because I have a bureaucratic job, I want you to know; I have the same problems that you do. The only difference is that I’m trying to apply myself toward constructive purposes, whereas all you want to do is to tear things down.” He wipes a hand across his streaming features, shrugs, sits again. “Sorry to overreact,” he says. “It’s just that a good deal of frustration builds up and it has to be expressed. This isn’t easy for any of us, you know. We’re not functionaries; we’re people just as you are.”

  There seems nothing with which I can disagree. I consider certain religious virtues which would have to do with the absorption of provocation without malice and remain quietly in my chair, thinking of this and that and many other things having to do with the monitoring conducted by these institutions and what it might suggest about the nature of the interrelation, but thought more and more is repulsive to me; what I concentrate upon, what seems to matter is feeling, and it is feeling which I will cultivate. “Some questions,” the counselor says in a more amiable tone. “Just a series of questions which I would like you to answer as briefly and straightforwardly as possible.”

  “Certainly,” I say, echoing his calm. “Tres bonne, merci. Maintenant et pourquoi.”

  “Pourquoi?” he says with a glint in his eye and asks me how often I masturbate.

  * * * *

  He looks at the man who has come from the tomb. Little sign of his entrapment is upon him; he looks merely as one might who had been in deep sleep for a couple of days. He touches him once gently upon the cheek to assure the pulse of light, then backs away. The crowd murmurs with awe. This is no small feat; here he has clearly outdone the loaves and the fishes. They will hardly be able to dismiss this one; it will cause great difficulty when the reports hit Rome. “How are you?” he says to Lazarus. “Have you been merely sleeping or did you perceive the darkness” What brang you back from those regions?”

  Documentary sources indicate no speech from the risen man, of course. But documentary sources are notoriously undependable, and, besides, this is a free reconstruction as he has been so often advised. Perhaps Lazarus will have something to say after all; his eyes bulge with reason and his tongue seems about to burst forward with the liquid syllables of discovery. But only an incoherent babble emerges; the man says nothing.

  He moves in closer, still holding the grip. “Were you sleeping?” he says, “or did you perceive?”

  “Ah,” Lazarus says. “Eeeh. Om.”

  He shrugs and dropping his hand moves away. If a miracle is to succeed, it must do so on its own terms; one must have a detached, almost airy attitude toward the miracles because at the slightest hint of uncertainty or effort they will dissipate. “Very well,” he says, “be on your way. Return to your life.”

  The disciples surround him, all but Judas, of course, who as usual is somewhere in the city, probably making arrangements for betrayal. There is nothing to be done; he must suffer Judas exactly as Judas must suffer him; it is the condition of their pact. Peter puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. “What if the man cannot move, master?” he says, always practical. “What if he is unable to complete the journey from the grave.”

  “He will be able to.”

  Indeed Lazarus seems to have adopted a stiff gait which takes him slowly toward the crowd. The crowd is surprisingly sparse after all; it is not the throng indicated by scriptures, but instead might be only forty or fifty, many of whom are itinerants drawn to the scene in their wanderings. Scriptural sources were often only a foundation for the received knowledge, of course; the scribes had their own problems, their own needs to fill and retrospective falsification was part of their mission … still, he thinks, it is often embarrassing to see how hollow that rock is upon which the church was built. Oh well. “I think we had better leave now,” Peter says.

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed,” this man of practicality says. “it will make more of an impression, I think; it will lend more of an air of mystery and have greater lasting effect than if you were to stay around. A certain detachment must be cultivated.”

  “We will surround you, Master,” little Mark says, “and leave together hiding your aspect from the populace. In this way you will seem to be attended at all times by a shield.” He beckons to Luke, John, the others. “Come,” Peter says, “nothing can be served by staying here longer. It would be best to move on.”

  He does admire the practicality, the disciples simply acting within the situation to bring the maximum interest, and yet reluctance tugs at him. He is really interested in Lazarus. He would like to see what happens next: will the man leave the area of the tomb or will he simply return to it? The rock has merely been pulled aside, the dark opening gapes; Lazarus could simply return to that comfort if he desired, and perhaps he does. Or perhaps not; it is hard to evaluate the responses of an individual toward death. The man is now shielded from view by the crowd which seems to be touching him, checking for the more obvious aspects of mortality. “Let us wait a moment,” he says. “This is very interesting. Let’s see what is happening here.”

  “It would not serve, Master,” Peter says.

  “It is not a matter of serving, merely one of observation. I am responsible for this man, after all; it is only reasonable that I would take an interest in his condition.”

  “No,” Luke says. He scuttles over, a thin man with bulging, curiously piercing eyes. No wonder he wrote the most elaborate of the gospels dictated, that is to say, all of the disciples being fundamentally illiterate. “That will not serve. It is important that we leave at once, Master.”

  “Why?”

  “The mood of the crowd is uncertain; it could turn ugly at any time. There can be much contremps over miracles, and the superstitious are turned toward fear. The very hills are filled with great portents?”

  “Enough,” Peter says. “You have a tendency for hyperbole, Luke; there is no danger here. But it would be better, from many standpo
ints if we were to leave; an air of mystery would serve best.”

  “Oh, all right,” I say. “Je renounces.” It is, after all, best to adopt a pose of dignity and to give in to the wishes of the disciples, all of whom at least intermittently take this matter more seriously than I … they are, after all, in a position of greater vulnerability. I cast one last look at Lazarus, who is now leaning back against the suspended door of the tomb, elbows balanced precariously on stones, trying to assume an easeful posture for the group almost obscuring him. How exactly is one to cultivate a je ne sais quoi about death? It is something to consider; of course I will have ample time to consider the issue myself, but Lazarus could hardly yield much information on the subject. The man is speechless, highly inarticulate; one would have hoped that for a miracle such as this that I could have aroused someone less stupid, but nothing to be done. All of existence is tied together in one tapestry, take it all or leave it, no parts. Surrounded by my muttering disciples I walk toward the west, kicking up little stones and puffs of dust with my sandals.

  It is disappointing, quite a letdown really, and I would like to discuss this, but not a one of them would want to hear it. I know that they already have sufficient difficulties having given up their lives for the duration of this mission and it would be an embarrassment for them to hear that I too do not quite know what I am doing. Or perhaps I do. It is hard to tell. In the distance I hear a vague collision of stone. I would not be surprised if Lazarus had gone back into the tomb. Of the tapestry of existence je ne sais pas.

  * * * *

  As I copulate with Edna, images of martyrdom tumble through my mind, a stricken figure on the cross, stigmata ripped like lightning through the exposed sky, and it is all that I can do under the circumstances to perform, but thy will be done, the will must transcend, and so I force myself into a smaller and smaller corner of her, squeezing out the images with little birdcalls and carrying her whimpers through me. She coils and uncoils like a springy steel object and at long last obtains sexual release; I do so myself by reflex and then fall from her grunting. It is quite mechanical, but in a highly technological culture sexual union could only be such; otherwise it would be quite threatening to the apparatus of the state, or so, at least, I have deduced. She lies beside me, her face closed to all feeling, her fingers clawed around my wrist. I groan deep in my throat and compose for sleep, but it is apparent then that there will be no sleep because suddenly she is moving against me and then sitting upright in the bed, staring. Hands clasped behind my head, elbows jutting at an angle of eighty-five degrees. I regard her bleakly. “I can’t talk now,” I say. “Please, if you must say something, let it be later. There’s nothing right now.”

  “You mean you have to face your treatments in the morning and you need your rest so that you can be alert for the drugs. That’s all you think about now, those treatments. Where are you living? Here or there? Come on, tell me …

  “I don’t want to talk, I told you.”

  “You’ve changed,” she said. “They’ve destroyed you. You aren’t what you used to be.”

  There comes a time in every relationship when one has approached terminus, when the expenditure of pain is not worth the pleasure input, where one can feel the raw edges of difference collide through the dissolved flesh of care. Looking at Edna I see that we have reached that point, that there is not much left, and that it will be impossible for me to see her again. This will be the end. After she leaves this time there will be no recurrence. It is this, more than anything else, which enables me to turn from her with equanimity, to confront the bold and staring face of the wall. “Goodnight,” I say. “We won’t talk about this any more.”

  “You can’t avoid this. You can run from me but not from what has happened. You’re not living here any more; you’re living in the spaces of your own consciousness. Don’t you realize that? You’ve turned inside; you’ve shut it out! These aren’t experiences that you’re having; they’re dreams, and all of this is taking place inside you. I hate to see it happen; you’re better than this; together we could have helped one another, worked to understand what our lives were, maybe even made progress.”

  Too late. I stand. “You’d better leave now, Edna.”

  Arms folded across her little breasts, she juts her chin at me. “That won’t solve anything at all. Getting rid of me won’t change it.”

  “The only truth is the truth we create within ourselves.”

  “I don’t believe that. That’s what they tell us, that’s how you got started on these treatments, but it isn’t so. There’s an objective truth and it’s outside of this and you’re going to have to face it sooner or later. You’re just going to have to realize.” I look at her with enormous dispassion and my expression must be a blade which falls heavily across her rhetoric, chopping it, silencing her. At length, and when I know that she is ready to receive the necessary question, I pose it as calmly and flatly as I have ever done and its resonance fills the room, my heart, her eyes until there is nothing else but her flight, and at last that peace which I have promised myself.

  “Why?” I say.

  * * * *

  At Bruck Linn they do not start the pogrom after all, but instead seize me roughly and burl me into detention. It seems that it was only this in which they were interested; they entered in such massive numbers only to make sure that they could scour the area for me if I were not at my appointed place. In detention I am given spartan but pleasant quarters within what appears to be their headquarters, and a plate of condiments on which to nibble, as well as the five sacred books of the Pentauch, which, since they know I am a religious man, they have obviously given for the purposes of recreation. I look through them idly, munching on a piece of cake, but as always find the dead and sterile phrases insufficient on their own to provoke reaction, and it is almost with relief that I see them come into the room, obviously to explain themselves and advise what will happen next. It is high time. There are two of them, both splendidly uniformed, but one is apparently in the role of secretary; unspeaking, he sits in a corner with a recording device. The other has a blunt face and surprisingly expressive eyes. I would not have thought that they were permitted large wet blue eyes like this.

  “You are giving us much difficulty,” he says directly, sitting. “Too much and so we have had to arrange this rather dramatic interview. Our pardon for the melodrama but it could not, you see, be spared; we needed to seize and detain as quickly as possible, and we could not take a chance on riots.”

  “Certainly,” I say rather grandly. “I am a world figure. My abduction would not be easy.”

  “It is not only that.”

  “But that in itself would be enough.”

  “No matter,” he says. He looks at me intently. “We’re going to have to abort the treatments,” he says. “You are becoming obsessive.”

  “What?”

  “It has leached out into your personal life and you are beginning to combine treatments and objective reality in a dangerous fashion. Therefore under the contract we are exercising our option to cut them off.”

  “I have no understanding of this,” I say. “Treatments” I am the Lubavitcher Rabbi of Bruck Linn and I have been torn from the heart of my congregation in broad daylight by fascists who will tell me this? This is unspeakable. You speak madness.”

  “I am afraid,” he says, and those expressive eyes are linked to mine, “that you are displaying precisely those symptoms which have made this necessary. You are not the Lubavitcher Rabbi, let alone of Brooklyn. You are Harold Thwaite of the twenty-third century; the Lubavitchers are a defunct, forgotten sect, and you are imagining all of this. You have reconceived your life; the partitions have broken; and we are therefore, for your own good, ceasing the treatments and placing you in temporary detention.”

  “This is an outrage,” I say. “This is impossible. Pogrom? Pogroms I can understand, I can deal with them. But this madness is beyond me.”

  The uniformed man leans towar
d me and with the gentlest of fingers strokes my cheek. “It will go easier if you cooperate, Harold,” he says. “I know how difficult this must be for you, the shock.”

  “My followers will not be easy to deal with. You will have to cut them down with rifle fire. I am sure that you can do this, but the cost in blood and bodies will be very high, and in the long run you will not win. You will find a terrible outcome. We are God’s chosen; we and only the Lubavitchers carry forth his living presence in this century, and you cannot tamper with that presence lacking the most serious consequences.”

  And I see to my amazement and to my dismay that the interrogator, the one who has come to intimidate and defile, this man in the hard and terrible uniform of the state, appears to be weeping.

  * * * *

  I part the Red Sea with a flourish of the cane but the fools nonetheless refuse to cross. “What is wrong with them?” I say to Aaron. “It’s perfectly safe.” I move further into the abyss between the waves and turn, but the throng remains on the shore staring with bleak expressions. Only Aaron is beside me. “I’m afraid they don’t trust the evidence of sight,” he says, “and also they don’t trust you either; they feel that this is merely a scheme to lead them astray and as soon as they step over, the waters will close upon them.”

  “That is ridiculous,” I say to him. “Would I take them this far, do so much, walk with the guidance of the Lord to betray the Children of Israel?”

  Aaron shrugs, a bucolic sort. “What can I tell you?” he says. “There’s no accounting for interpretation.”

  * * * *

  At the first great hammer to the temple it comes to me that they were all the time as serious as I. More serious, in fact. I was willing to trust the outcome of my rebellion to a higher power, whereas they, solid businessmen to the end, decided to make sure that the matter rested in their own hands.

  Nevertheless, it hurts. I never knew that there was so much pain in it until they put me down at the mosque and oh my oh my oh my oh my no passion is worth any of the real blood streaming.