“That was nice shooting,” he said. “You’re a natural. A regular Annie Oakley.”
“Oh, come on. How’d I really do?”
“For an urban sissy-pants, you did incredibly well.”
“Sissy-pants, huh? I’ll have you know that I have a black belt in Taekwondo, five years of Aikido and Muay Tai, and I am currently studying Krav Maga.”
Gideon’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“I got the bruises to prove it.” She pulled up her pant leg and revealed a number of purplish blotches on her shin.
“Impressive,” Gideon said. “Okay, I take it back. There is no sissy in your pants.” He smiled. “How long have you been studying martial arts?”
“Since high school.”
“Yeah? Why? I mean, I think it’s great, but I have the impression that most women aren’t interested in turning their shins into totem polls.”
Malkah smiled mischievously. “I enjoy kicking men.”
“Duly noted…again,” Gideon said, crossing his legs.
Malkah chuckled, and then she realized that he had done it again. They were talking about her.
“Hey,” she said. “How come I didn’t get to see your target?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”
“I’m sure you did much better than I.”
“Guess we’ll never know,” Gideon said. “Unless you’d like to come back here again sometime…”
“Sure, it was fun. In fact,” she said, picking up an onion ring, “maybe I’ll even get my own gun. What do you think about that?”
“You’d get no argument out of me,” Gideon said. “But you forget that guns are all but outlawed in the NPF. Between the nearly impossible-to-pass background checks and punitive taxes, it’s hard to get your hands on one. Except if you’re a criminal.”
Malkah sighed. “Is it just me, or does it sometimes seem like everything is criminal, except, well…criminals.”
“Welcome to my world,” Gideon said, lifting his coffee up to his lips. Before taking a sip, he whispered something.
“That’s like the third time I’ve seen you mumble before you eat or drink something. What are you saying?”
“A blessing.”
“A what?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you religious?” she asked.
“Isn’t everybody?”
Malkah chuckled incredulously. “No.”
“Oh.” Gideon shrugged.
“Are you really that daft?”
“Maybe.”
“Seriously, you are joking, right?”
“No, I think everyone is religious. They just don’t think of themselves as so, or prefer the more politically correct term, ‘spiritual.’ But, honestly, I don’t think I’ve met anyone who didn’t believe in something bigger than him or herself. Maybe they don’t believe in God, but they’ll believe in the divinity of nature, an earth goddess called Gaia, or an omnipresent intelligence that just happens to agree with everything the person wants desperately to believe. Or maybe they believe in spirits, pagan archetypes, or extraterrestrials. Others,” he added, “might believe in a charismatic guru, in the panacea of reason or science, or in socialism or communism and the Utopia they promise. Some people even insist that believing in absolutely nothing is the ultimate form of transcendence, and so basically, deify themselves. People believe. Mostly in utter nonsense, but so it goes.”
“And you believe that the world is going down the crapper?”
“The crapper was the good old days,” he said, picking up an onion ring. “We’re way past those gleaming, porcelain times.”
“You don’t seem too concerned.”
“I’m very concerned. Deeply concerned.”
“You don’t show it.”
“Well, I’m not going to stand on a street corner wearing a billboard that says the end is near, if that’s what you mean.”
“Of course not, but… So why the pessimism?”
“You see all these people here,” Gideon said, gesturing to the dozen or so people enjoying themselves around them.
“Yeah…”
“I’m sure that they are mostly kind, well-meaning folks. But I’m afraid that we are all a little on the delusional side. If I can be so bold, I’d even say that we behave like we are all possessed by some sort of fear demons or something. Bogeymen that not only keep us from knowing stuff like true happiness and love, but from even recognizing that we are being used, manipulated. I think that if we could peer inside one another’s minds, we’d be horrified by the monstrosities that we’d find feeding on us. … What’s the matter? Are you okay? You almost look like you’ve seen such a thing.”
“Huh?” Malkah said, checking her slackened jaw; Cyrus’s descriptions of various yetzers flashing across her memory banks. “No…sorry. Go on.”
“Nah, forget it,” Gideon said, apologizing with a wave of his hand. “This conversation is a total buzz-kill. Let’s change the subject.”
“No,” Malkah insisted. “I’m fine. It’s just that you—”
“What?”
“Remind me of…never mind. Continue.”
“What?” he prodded.
“Nothing. Not important. You were saying something about fear demons.”
“No,” Gideon said. “Forget I brought it up. It’s bad enough that I took you to a gun range on a first date, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think,” Malkah said. “And I’m the one who brought it up, so continue.”
Gideon considered Malkah for a long second, and then he nodded as if to say, okay, but I warned you.
“I don’t know what else to call them,” he continued. “I’m sure your cousin Ellen has some fancy psychological term for what I’m talking about, but I prefer fear demons, or even better—yetzers.”
Malkah’s eyes widened. “Yetzers?”
“Evil inclinations,” Gideon explained. “We all have them. We are all meant to overcome them. By doing so, we become who we are intended to be, our true selves. This is the secret history of mankind—our eternal struggle with ourselves.”
Gideon paused and searched Malkah’s countenance for a sign as to whether he had better put a lid on it. Her expression was thoughtful, but otherwise blank.
Aware that Gideon was waiting for a signal of some sort, Malkah said, “Tell me a little more about these yetzers.”
“They come in an assortment of species,” he continued. “You got your guilt demons, your victim demons, and your resentment demons; indignation demons, greed and grudge demons, envy and jealousy demons; arrogance, fault-finding, and clueless demons.”
“That’s all?” Malkah cracked.
“Hardly, you also got your self-absorbed demons, your self-conscious demons, and your self-righteous demons. You have your self-doubting, self-deceiving, self-justifying, and self-pitying demons. I’m just getting started, you know.”
“Okay, okay. I get the picture. And these demons, what do they look like?”
“Hideous. A collection of various monstrosities—rabid, snarling, jagged-toothed; some burly, some slimy, but all putrid, disgusting creatures.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“Nah, just their consequences.”
“Good,” Malkah said, relieved. “So, you’re talking metaphorically, of course.”
“On our level, anyway.”
“What other level is there?”
“Dunno. Maybe there are many levels. Ask an angel,” he said, only half-joking. “Maybe he can tell you.”
“You believe in angels?” she rejoined, feigning incredulity.
Gideon shrugged. “It’s not as fanciful as some of the stuff more educated and ‘enlightened’ people than I insist on believing. One or two may have even helped me out of some very tight squeezes over the years.”
“And, um…cupids?”
“Cupids?” Gideon laughed. “Cupid is the Roman equivalent of the Greek pagan god, Eros. If there were such fellows, they’d be
very, very confused angels.”
“Wow,” Malkah said, recalling her conversation with Cyrus. Hadn’t he said nearly the same thing?
“I know,” Gideon sighed. “Now you know why I rarely get past a first date.”
“You talk about such things with all the women you go out with?”
“Of course not. I don’t tell anybody such things. But my rummy views lead me to other thoughts that people find just as uncomfortable, and so it pretty much doesn’t matter what I talk about. Eventually, I’m exposed for the crackpot that I am.”
“Well, I think you could have gotten a few more dates out of me before I figured it out.” Malkah rose and excused herself.
“Hey,” Gideon said. “Look, I can still give you a ride home, can’t I?”
17
Rinse, Repeat
“Relax,” Malkah said over her shoulder. “I’m just going to the lady’s room.”
“Oh…”
Gideon blew a sigh of relief. He swung his legs from under the picnic table to turn his thoughts across the open meadow toward the woolly green hills.
“Kohai,” Virgil said excitedly, “Can you believe that? That is amazing!”
“I heard the same as you, Virge.”
Virgil and I had been following Malkah and Gideon all day. We were maintaining both invisibility and thought mode because we didn’t want to chance running into any of Anteros’s men. We still were going on the assumption that if we were interested in these two, so was Anteros.
Virgil said, “His M-record didn’t reveal anything that telling, did it?”
“We’ll have to take a closer look, but no, not that I noticed. Unless we missed something, she really is the first person he ever revealed such thoughts to.”
“Why her? Why now?”
“Beats me.”
“I think I know,” Virgil said. “He’s ready, and he thinks she’s the one.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I mean,” Virgil restated, “I think he is serious, that he really is looking for his bashert—his soulmate.”
“Yeah, so…?”
“He doesn’t want to mess around. You know, waste his time. He is just putting it all out there for her.”
“Testing her,” I remarked.
“In a take-me-or-leave-me kind of way. If she freaks and decides she had better keep clear of such a kook, then he’ll have saved himself a lot of time.”
“Possibly,” I admitted. “Or, it could just be the work of a Self-sabotage Yetzer.”16
Note 16: A Self-sabotage Yetzer is a relatively small, squirrelly rodent of a yetzer that resembles a cross between a skunk and a hedgehog. With its poison-tipped spiny coat and short legs, it is able to roll into a ball for self-defense. It can also spray a sticky stench that will repulse even the most well-meaning person. A human possessed by a Self-sabotage Yetzer is always finding clever ways to avoid or subvert anything that is in his or her own best interest. Not surprisingly, the Self-sabotage Yetzer is often found working in tandem with a venomous Self-doubt Yetzer.
“Well, let’s have a look,” Virgil said.
He walked over to Gideon Baer and waved his hand over the man’s head. After a few moments there appeared a large transparent globe, like a terrarium, and inside of it was an assortment of baby yetzers, including a Self-sabotage Yetzer.
“Wow, I’ve never seen them appear in a bubbly thing like this before,” Virgil said. He tapped on the globe. It gave with the pressure. “But, it looks like you’re right again, Kohai. Good call.”
“No,” I said. “That yetzer is too small to do much harm. They all are. He hasn’t conquered his yetzers, but he’s doing a good job at holding them at bay. That’s the meaning of this orb-like cage they are in. I’ve never seen such a thing either, but the captains taught me about it. It is a sign of a person’s self-awareness. Mr. Baer knows what is going on, but he hasn’t quite figured a way to completely rid himself of these pests.”
“They look…scared,” Virgil said. “Is that possible? Can yetzers be scared?”
“No, but they can be confounded. They want to do their thing. Expect to do their thing. But something is stopping them, and it isn’t us.”
“Fascinating,” Virgil said. “We learned nothing of this at the Academy.”
“That’s because it is so rare. Most humans are at the complete mercy of their yetzers, but somehow this Gideon Baer fellow has figured it out.”
Virgil said, “According to his M-record, he studied Torah with his grandfather when he was young. Do you think that has anything to do with it? Maybe his grandfather passed something down to him.”
“Possibly,” I said. “I guess we’ll have to peruse his grandfather’s M-record too. We may have to shake Gideon Baer’s entire family tree.”
“Wait till the captains hear about this,” Virgil said.
“Captain Volk is with Cyrus right now.”
“He is?”
“Yeah, I told Captain Volk about our little encounter with the Baal Shem Tov. He was very interested. The captain is a big admirer of the Besht.”
“Did he have any ideas how we might replicate such meetings with Cyrus?”
“None off hand,” I said. “As enlightened as Cyrus might be, Captain Volk doubted that he was capable of replicating the Besht’s spiritual flights.”
“Oh…” Virgil sighed, disappointed.
“But I disagreed.”
“Yeah?” Virgil said, hope returning to his voice.
I nodded. “I told Captain Volk that the Besht said that he “expected” to see us. That he said he always knew that those like us were here. I suggested to the captain that perhaps ‘expecting’ is the key. The Besht believed we were here because of his perfect faith. His mind was doubt-free. I told Captain Volk that Cyrus not only has the requisite faith, but first-hand knowledge. He knows absolutely that we are here because he was once one of us.”
Malkah Stern returned to the table and sat back down across from Gideon. He was lost in thought and hadn’t noticed her arrival until she popped him on the head with a rolled-up poster.
“Hey,” she said. “Want to explain this?”
Gideon turned to face her. She unrolled the poster and spread it on the picnic table. It was Gideon’s shooting target.
She tapped at the blown away sections in the center of the man’s forehead and heart. The rest of the target was clean, except for one bullet hole in the base of the man’s throat.
She pointed at the stray shot. “You missed one.”
“No, I didn’t,” he replied confidently.
“Oh…”
“Okay,” Gideon said, “so I’m a better shot. But really, you did remarkably well.”
“Had I known it was a competition,” Malkah rejoined wryly, “I might have shown a little more…focus. But what I’d really like to know is how you got so good.”
“It’s a long story, and I think I’m already in the dog house.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I, Fido?”
Gideon smiled, grateful. “Yes, you are.”
He launched into a summation of his career: his time in the military and special forces, his work with the Secret Service, then the CIA, and later with the NPF State Department.
Malkah listened intently, and when he finished, remarked, “That’s some résumé you have there, Mr. Baer. You’ve certainly been around.”
“And around and around,” he rejoined. “Yet, oddly, it was just such circumnavigation that led me to that hallway where I met you.”
“And how’s that?” she asked.
“It was through one of my connections that I was put in touch with Professor Matterson. I was there to deliver some bad news to him, hence the slam of the door that knocked the cake from your hands. Maybe I should thank him. What do you think?”
“I think that if he deserves anything, it’s one of these.” Malkah tapped a bullet hole in the target.
“That’s a little extreme, even for me,” Gideon said.
“So why the animosity?”
“He hurt my cousin.”
“Aren’t there two sides to every story?”
“No doubt, but I’m not interested in hearing his. I took a class from him once, long before he started seeing Ellen. I didn’t like him then. I thought he was full of…himself. When I learned that they were seeing each other, I told Ellen what I thought about him.”
“And she ignored your female intuition?”
“Yup. She said it was just my ‘anti-intellectualism.’”
“Was it?”
“Hey, I have nothing against intellectuals. Just the moronic, arrogant ones. It’s not my fault that happens to be most academics.”
“Which includes your cousin?”
“Yeah, well, she’s still my cousin, and I still have lots of memories of the two of us when we were young, before she headed down this poison ivy-laden path. She was a good gal and a lot of fun. Then she entered university and the metamorphosis began.”
“Are you saying she’s not good any more?” Gideon asked.
“She’s a good person. And now and then, when she drops her mask, she’s a wonderful person. But the mask is very important to her. The mask is her meaning in life, her sense of purpose.”
“But you went to university too. How come you didn’t end up like her?”
Malkah shrugged. “I guess I was born with a bigger BS detector than she.”
“And what about your meaning and sense of purpose?” Gideon asked.
“I’ve got more than I know what to do with,” Malkah replied, her tone conspicuously absent of jest.
“Yeah? Well that’s refreshing. Want to tell me about it?”
“Not really, no.”
Gideon picked up on the finality in her voice. A more insecure person would have taken her brush off personally. He admired it.
“Well,” he said, “I see you obviously care about Ellen, but you also seem to hold a lot of resentment towards her.”
“Maybe I have a ‘Resentment Yetzer’ lurking inside me,” she wisecracked.
“Probably,” Gideon rejoined, but he wasn’t joking.
Virgil stepped over to Malkah and waved his hand over her head. A huge Cyclops of a yetzer with a glowing green eyeball leaped up roaring, taking a swipe at Virgil. The beast’s filthy, long, razor-sharp finger nails just missed him.
Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3 Page 44