In the Talmud, though, Olam Ha-Ba and Gan Eden are used interchangeably enough. So the souls, disembodied until the arrival of the Moschiach, live a blissful, carefree existence in this spirit World to Come. And evil people’s souls, except for those of the most abhorrently evil, only spend a year in Gehinnom, the purgatory more than hell, to then dwell in Gan Eden. And Maimonides taught that only the most evil were condemned to eternal damnation. So, who could just go and herd those souls, by deceiving or enslaving them?
A shiver ran down his spine as he pondered, for a long time, what sort of abomination might the authors of this witchcraft want to inflict on the poor souls of people now resting in cemeteries. Could it be someone from among his own people, seeking some form of revenge on the Judenräte, for things that happened during the Shoah, or nowadays, or both?
Conversely, what if those responsible for this aberration were trying to use Jewish souls as Himmler and his Wotanist cohorts would manipulate souls according to some Norse myths instead?
He took an immense book from a lower shelf and started flipping through it. In the Old Norse belief system—or what has survived centuries of deformation—some souls are supposedly reborn and meet again their loved ones, to suffer again the tribulations of the flesh. However, those not properly sent off into the afterlife, or those whose ‘hamingja’ has been spoiled, can come back to haunt the living as ‘draugar’.
Since ‘hamingja’ is a sort of predestination ordained by ‘guarding spirits’ during incarnation, those whose preordained fortunes have been thwarted can become destructive ‘draugar’. “Again the predestination!” screamed Haim, startling the cat, which hissed and jumped on a Belgian voile curtain, ruining it.
In the mind of wotanists, a few of those people laid to rest in the defaced cemeteries—but most of the six million victims of those concentration camps—sure would have had their ‘hamingja’, their ‘guardian spirits’, their ‘fortunes’, thwarted. So perhaps, whoever has been…creating this sorcery, this matchstick man in prayer, was…trying to hunt, herd, coax those souls in Jewish cemeteries…susceptible to become ‘draugar’, forcing them to join those of the victims of the Shoah? What for…? Elo-ha!
Frustrated, Haim got distracted by his cat hissing again. The heavy book he was reading, released from the pressure of his fingers, surfed down his stretched legs to only stop at his fit, as it would rest open on a lectern. The illustration depicted in the open pages shook Haim to his core: it was Ragnarok, the Norse End of Days.
6—Flying to Paris
Delayed by a few unforeseen hiccups, not one, but two days later, Haim and David were at LAX, bright and early, ready to board their flight to Paris. Having in front of them a three hours wait and almost eleven hours of flight, they got some coffee and sat to have a long chat. Haim started by telling David that, to investigate a murder in Budapest, Tony had to walk backwards a long trail of informers, all the way back to Vatican City. “What he found, or rather what he could not find, led him to strongly suggest we do not discuss anything we talked about at my place on the plane. He said: “If, even after naps, and gobbling airplane food, and movies, and videogames, and books, you guys are so bored you really need to talk about something, even remotely related, do it—in whispers.”
“And I, who, despite Becky’s good offices, had to throw Deb a bone, so she didn’t think I was on a honeymoon with our rabbi…” chuckled David.
“Say…what?” replied Haim, splattering his pants with coffee.
“Well, for the longest time I’ve been promising her a long trip to Paris, no kids, just Deb and I. You know I’m constantly travelling all over the world, away from home, checking bizarre weather one-ofs. Since now weather patterns are breaking down, one-ofs are rather frequent—and so too, her recriminations. Even if he seems more interested in me than in her, I’m jealous of her gym trainer.
When I told her about this impromptu trip to Paris, she thought I was going to take her there, called her mother to get her to house-sit and supervise the kids, then had to explain she had misunderstood and cancel. Not exactly cause for conjugal bliss. We made out and made up, but still had to throw her a bone. She also has problems at work, that old hysterical bitch…”
“That fine lady is a bit eccentric, but she is a generous donor…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. So you know the bitch. She’s paying for your panels, I know. Anyway, I believe, with Becky’s help, while we’re away things should get smoothed out.”
“If I know them well enough, when we get back, both of them, and maybe even the bitch, will know more about what we were doing in Paris than ourselves. No worries.”
“Probably. So, I would dispense with asking your advice on conjugal problems. Can I tire you instead with work problems?”
“The bitch…?”
“No, not Deb’s problems. My work problems…”
“We all have them. That’s why I endure ‘the bitch’. But go on, David, please…!”
“Well, you know we used to have rational governments that might like or dislike what science tells us, but, eventually would rely on it, regardless. Now we have a kindergarten/madhouse combo, and the child with tantrums seems to hate science. So we get budget cuts left, right, center, up, down, and in diagonal. Someone has told him to doubt the climate crisis, and he obliges—even if anyone seriously studying man-made climate change sees proof it’s there more often than lint in one’s pockets. So funds for climatological research get slashed faster that teenagers who found an evil book in a log cabin.”
“But if, as you say, if this Catacumbo…”
“Catatumbo…”
“Catatumbo is gluing the atmosphere to the ground and we’re going to go all flying like Mary Poppins, there have to be enough voices among your colleagues to support your expedition…”
“There are various problems. The big bosses are political appointees—nowadays, regardless of any scientific credentials. Out of scientific curiosity alone, were it just for Catatumbo’s contribution to replenishing the lower/secondary ozonosphere, we’d need to know if the phenomenon is simply slowing down—as in 2010 because of ‘El Niño’—or if it is, as I think, steadily diminishing and might soon collapse. That might create an ozone reduction, but solar UV radiation would still replenish the main reservoir, in the stratosphere, anyway. The ozone hole was hideous in 2006, but should be back at pre-1980s levels by 2079 or so, regardless. So, except to avoid sun tanning, there would be no more need to walk with open umbrellas than there is now, in that case,” David explain.
“So, where is the problem? If the problem is not skin cancer, but something easier to measure like the wind…why no ask your colleagues to write an editorial or something?” asked Haim.
“More importantly,” sighed David, “there is not total consensus on the anchoring. Rival theories’ proponents want their own research funds. Given the situation in Venezuela, the less noise in preparation of the expedition the better. So, using ‘the press’ to ‘motivate’ the bosses is out of the question. That’s why it’s so hard to get there and do the study. Many say air pressure and friction between air and soil suffice to explain the atmosphere rotating tethered to the ground, as opposed to independent of it.
Also, if we could identify any particular aspect of the climate crisis—say, the overheating Caribbean—responsible for Catatumbo’s change, we might be able to act on the cause, and so try to reverse the trend. So, if global warming is involved somewhere, there will be backlash from the administration. That’s why we need a very robust model…”
“And the model you have until now is not ‘robust enough’…?” asked Haim.
“We thought it was. But there are many factors incorporated into the model. You still remember math…? You used to be rather good at it in college…”
“Not that bad, until I, as you said then, ‘changed tack’…” Haim admitted.
“Well, a model essentially is a function of many variables. On one side, one puts, say, the average numb
er of discharges in Catatumbo per day; and, on the other, wind speed, a low level north-south air current called MBNLLJ, sea surface temperature, the relative humidity of the air, CAPE (convective available potential energy, a measurement of how stormy the place can get) itself a function of other things, like density of particles of different sizes, and a whole bunch of other things. We measure them all at the same time many times. Then, the computer tries to create some function, which says the number of discharges measured by satellites and such, are directly proportional to this, inversely to that, unaffected by this, and mildly affected by either of those variables, that sort of thing. Now, if there are variables you ignore, the function you get might work well for the datasets you have; but that, in essence, would be cheating. Then you predict things using that, with a fuller or wider dataset, and you fail. And if you fail, your credibility often vanishes faster than storm clouds in a windy day. In normal times, that would be bad. Nowadays, given the temperamental toddler’s adversarial reaction to science, that could kill your project, dead.”
“And what else you think…is not in those datasets?” asked Haim.
“It used to be a curiosity: how much the presence of uranium mineral in the bedrock attracts lightning; or how much the air above the lake, because of methane leaks from the oil fields, is of higher conductivity than normal air—and how much those two factors might interact, work together. For mainstream science, all that has been reduced to a minor, miscellaneous, possible contributor. However, we…have reason to believe…there is a lot more of one of those components nowadays, making its contribution far from negligible.”
“One of those…? Which one, the methane or the uranium? Uranium or methane freed from drilling for oil?”
“I am…not sure. That’s why the expedition is so important. Our current model says Catatumbo should be going like crazy…”
“… And it isn’t, I guess.” Haim finished David’s sentence.
“Far from it. In normal times, since 10% of the part of lake’s oil production not lost through corroding pipes—or theft—is affected by real and false possible lightning impact warnings, the authorities would love a better model. A refueling boat that crosses the lake to allow fishermen to keep their boats running takes about two hours to cross it, so knowing when days are going to be particularly bad, would also help tailor its scheduling. But now, production is a shambles, the government is more nebulous than the clouds that create Catatumbo…and…there…seems to be some funny business going on there.”
“Funny business…?” whispered Haim, “Is there anything there nowadays that is not?”
“Let’s say we suspect…there are even more reasons to keep the expedition as discrete as possible…” equivocated David.
“Well, we should be happy Tony is as well connected down there as he is, then…”
“Yes! Hey, Haim: I believe that is our boarding call,” he said and both went to board.
After a couple of hours of flight, Haim leaned towards David and whispered in his ear what he had been rummaging over all this time: that perhaps concentrating so much on the Jewish vision of the afterlife and ignoring the possible Wotanist motivation, might miss the point. What if whoever was doing this was trying to ‘herd’ those souls into “draugar”, to enslave them, and use them who knew what for? Speculating about enslavement, David reminded him of the old objection about prisoners in concentration camps going meekly, like sheep to the slaughterhouse, folding their clothing neatly on their way to the gas chambers, raised by some—even if they had done it to spare, not only themselves, but a million others, the backlash, the torture and reprisals that resisting (as those in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, in 1941, or those in the Warsaw ghetto) had provoked. Almost forgetting to whisper, his face red, his fists clenched, David finally asked Haim: “Do these assholes think that even our souls can be herded like cattle? Fuck! A million times!”
“I don’t know what they think, and I’m glad I don’t, my friend,” said Haim. “But if you don’t understand how abhorrent the notion…”
“Spare me,” retorted David. “Ehud would have flailed me slowly with an M240 cartridge if I hadn’t, when he was alive.”
“Well, the notion is hideous, disturbing—not so much that of you getting flailed,” replied Haim, chuckling; “but to defeat your enemy, you have to try to get inside its mind. So we shall discuss it with Tony, in Paris. Now, I need a nap.”
“I’ll play 3D-sudoku and keep watch over those weirdos. I don’t think they are hitting ‘on’ us, but seem rather intent on hitting us, if we get distracted. My IDF jiu-jitsu training might yet come in handy. You still have your black belt, don’t you?” finished David, discretely glancing all around from the edges of his tablet.
“Yes! Good night!” said Haim, tilting his sleeping mask enough to be able to scan the surroundings every so often while pretending to sleep. He too had noticed but didn’t want to alarm David. In a sense, he was relived David’s radar was still working fine.
The flight, though long, went over without anything scarier than some serious turbulence over Newfoundland and some more shaking above Brittany. Through it, however, both Haim and David couldn’t shake two freakily herculean giants, probably Israeli guys with dark sunglasses, which seemingly were after two other freakily ‘hench’ giants, those ones more threatening and of Nordic appearance. The Norse-like giants, who spoke with fake Londoner accents, were seemingly surveying Haim and David since they boarded the plane—if not from earlier on—all the way to landing at CDG. “Perhaps it’s a good thing those two sabras stick around,” Haim said. David nodded.
When David and Haim were going down the crisscrossing see-through tubes in the terminal at Roissy, to their horror, they briefly lost all various stalkers from sight. Moments later, however, they spotted them again, this time in another tube: the two Israeli-looking ‘hench’ giants, trying to get to the Nordic looking ones, but suddenly stopping—when the Nordic ones met two very Slavic-looking muscled monsters, and started a brutal brawl, pushing and shoving, barreling through terrified people, some obviously screaming. For a moment, things stopped. A lone elderly lady had started hitting one of the Slavic-looking guys with her steel walking cane. Before the angry colossus could do anything to her, one of the Norsemen jumped on him, and then the two fell on top of the old lady.
By then, out of nowhere, French military police had emerged, a few Gaulish muscled monsters, with biceps like melons, attired as commandos entering a war zone. At this point, the entire tube was one big mêlée, worthy of a rowdy soccer match, complete with British hooligans, onlookers, panicked bystanders running and slithering and crawling to try escape the chaos—and, somehow the little old lady, was rescued by the French police, safe if ruffled, emerging in the arms of her new hero, holding tight to his neck, wider than her waist, hitting her attackers with her cane as she exited the tube, hollering insults that made a nearby nun turn red as a ripe tomato.
Fortunately, Tony’s limo awaited Haim and David, and spirited them away before any of the giants could approach. On it, besides Tony, there were two Italian-looking muscle mountains of very non-ecclesiastical countenance.
“What do people eat here?” asked Haim, entering the limo.
“These two giants are my guardian angels,” explained Tony. “Ever since Father Lajos was butchered, my superiors sent them to keep me in one piece. So now you can benefit of added protection, free of charge.” One of the stone-faced-giants almost smirked.
“We had an interesting flight,” Haim began, proceeding then to tell Tony all about the stalker giants and how the mêlée had started at the airport.
“I see. Well, I was going to take you to your hotel. Change of plans. You will stay at the residence with me. You will have some time to shower, eat something, and rest.
If, until now, you were skeptical about sorcery and the supernatural, you will soon see definitive proof you were mistaken: Severian, the ‘man’ we are going to meet is no ordinary ‘m
an’. He was the one who used to help Lajos find new leads.
You will then understand why he could not protect him during the day, something his killers seemingly knew when they planned Lajos’ assassination. Our best estimate—someone tinkered with the hotel’s surveillance systems all too well—put his death time at about 6AM or so.”
“Severian?” asked David, “A Romanian man, who cannot protect people at daytime? Either he works nightshifts to supplement his job as bodyguard…or…”
“Are we going to see Dracula?” joked Haim.
Tony smiled, but did not comment. Overhearing them, one of the bodyguards most definitely smirked, letting one of his fangs show.
Tony glared at him, but then snorted, shook his head, lightly rolling his eyes. Then he threw up his hands, and shrugged his shoulders, as the other bodyguard smirked as well.
7—A Visit to Severian
Paris has many elegant “hôtels particuliers”, codename for moat-less fenced city castles for the opulent. “In a lovely one of those, in the 7ème Arrondissement, near Les Invalides,” Tony explained, “Severian lives.” Apparently he was ‘an eccentric’—a descriptor that nowadays could mean all sorts of things. When Tony first mentioned that, David and Haim imagined Severian might as well be an affluent, modern-day Bela Lugosi, convinced he was Dracula, living by night, biting people, that sort of thing. However, as Tony kept sketching Severian’s C.V. while the limousine made its way along Paris’ nightmarish Péripherique, they became increasingly intrigued by him: “A lawyer, a confiseur, owner of a croissanterie; also a history connoisseur, PhD in economics; he’s also some kind of Illuminatus, who, on the side,” Tony explained, “administers convoluted trusts, a host of rather exotic investment firms and other hard-to-describe corporations; a mysterious man, who only travels by night; and one who, despite having created the original recipe for ‘the best croissants in Paris’, has never been seen doing anything but masticating and spitting the product, purportedly to avoid getting fat. Also, he has only very rarely been seen eating anything other than ice, or drinking anything other than water. Every person who claims to have ‘observed’ him eating, according to our most reliable sources, looks ‘anything but normal’,” Tony said, making a pause to let his visitors take it all in.
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