The Way Back

by Gavriel Savit

  Tell me a secret? This seemed like an impossible examination to pass. Was he supposed to tell a specific secret? Or perhaps one that the man had never before heard? What secret could he possibly possess that would be good enough to merit entrance?

  But Mammon simply smiled and shouldered past Yehuda Leib.

  “No,” said the little demon.

  No?

  “Correct,” said the man at the candle, reaching up to draw back a door hidden in the gloom.

  “No?” said Yehuda Leib. “How can the correct answer be no?”

  “Nothing one learns in Dantalion’s yeshiva is of any consequence whatsoever,” said Mammon. “It is a suit of armor in the shape of an academy. But some benefit can still be gained from studying here—not in information, of course, but in the knowledge of how to discern the truth hidden beneath it. If you were to tell the first door guard a secret as he requested—any secret at all—then you would be divulging it. This would render it no longer secret, which, in turn, would invalidate your answer. Therefore, the only satisfactory response is no.”

  The second chamber, in which the commentaries were studied, was like the first, only much smaller: the books here might all be held, flipped through, even studied in the normal span of a single human life. The scholars, too, were fewer, ranged about a large circular table at which each man sat backward, facing away from the center of the room, protecting his reading from the others.

  Yehuda Leib wanted to linger here and eavesdrop on the muttered reading, but Mammon hurried them along, beneath the circular table and down a spiral staircase to another ancient man who sat reading beside a single candle.

  “Ah,” said the man. “I see you wish to progress into the third chamber.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mammon impatiently.

  The ancient man began to stroke his long, curly beard, and in the flickering light of the candle, Bluma noticed that it had twined around the armrest of his chair, like climbing ivy.

  “I see,” he said. “Yes. You have studied long and learned much. But before I admit you to the third chamber…”

  Mammon heaved a sigh, as if he’d had to endure this speech many times before.

  “…before I admit you to the third chamber,” repeated the ancient door guard, “I must ask you this: In all of your learning and all of your study here, in all the commentaries you’ve studied, the treatises you’ve read, what is the number of secrets that you have learned?”

  Mammon took a deep chestful of air, as if he intended to blow out the door guard’s feeble candle with his answer, but Yehuda Leib stepped forward.

  “None,” he said. “The number of secrets is none.”

  “You are wise,” said the door guard, and he lifted up a hatch in the floor. “Proceed.”

  “How did you guess?” said Bluma as they scrambled down the ladder into the dim third chamber.

  Yehuda Leib shrugged. “It’s the same question as the first,” he said. “Only designed to fool scholars instead of students. If it’s written in a book, and the book is out on a shelf for anyone to read, it can’t be much of a secret, can it?”

  “Very good,” said Mammon.

  The third chamber was as unlike the first as could be—one small square table in the middle of a cramped, earthen room. There were no chairs here, no benches—only a single, battered book sitting open on the table, illuminated in the paltry, flickering candlelight. Before it, a clutch of seven scholars crowded in to read, all at once. As they watched, one of the men leaned forward to turn the page, but his hand was stilled by the tsking of a slower reader.

  There was scarcely enough space for Bluma, Yehuda Leib, and Mammon all to occupy the little room at the same time without disturbing the reading scholars, and Mammon turned directly down a long earthen hallway that sloped toward a single flickering candle in the distance.

  Yehuda Leib followed, but before long, he found himself looking back.

  Where was Bluma?

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Mammon had turned to speak to her.

  Bluma had drawn near the table, eager to peer around the little group of scholars at the open, battered book.

  “That book contains accounts of consultation with Dantalion. It is unbelievably dangerous.”

  “Why?” said Bluma.

  “Because some of it is true.”

  Slowly, Bluma turned away from the table.

  Unlike the two preceding door guards, the man beside the candle at the end of the hallway looked young and hale, with only a smattering of patchy brown beard on his cheeks.

  Yehuda Leib, however, was not fooled by his appearance: his eyes were canny and ancient.

  “Lord Mammon,” said the young man, rising from behind his desk. “The Dantalion gives you welcome.”

  “Yes,” said Mammon. “I’ve come to seek his counsel in accordance with our treaties.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said the young man behind the desk, laying his reading aside and flipping open a thick book beside him.

  But Yehuda Leib was surprised. “Is there no examination here?” he said.

  The man behind the desk smiled. “Lord Mammon’s treaties provide him access to the Dantalion without the ordeal of examination. For others, though, there is a question.”

  “What is it?” said Yehuda Leib.

  “What it is is not worth your time,” said Mammon.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” said Mammon, “if you answer incorrectly, you won’t be allowed to pass through the door, and if you answer correctly, the door will lead you somewhere you don’t wish to go.”

  The young man behind the desk was smiling softly. That didn’t seem fair at all.

  “Well, what’s the question?” said Yehuda Leib.

  “Are you sure you wish to hear?” said the young man behind the desk. “Once the question has been put, it must be answered.”

  “Enough of this nonsense,” said Mammon. “I’m here to consult Lord Dantalion. Give me the ledger.”

  “Very well,” said the young man, turning the thick book to face Mammon. “There,” he said, pointing to a line in the middle of the page.

  With his left hand, Mammon took a spindly ink pen from the desk and scratched away at the paper in the book, crowning his jotting with a large, looping question mark.

  “Very good,” said the young man, and with a practiced motion, he snapped the heavy book shut.

  But scarcely had one hand left its calfskin cover when he reached back again with the other to open it once more. There, tucked neatly into the binding, like a bookmark, was something that hadn’t been there before: a cream-colored card. On it, in Mammon’s own hand, a long string of letters and numbers had been carefully written.

  The ink was still wet.

  Carefully, Mammon reached out and took the card, and, as if in answer, an unseen door behind the young man cracked open in the darkness, spilling a column of soft light into the hallway.

  “Lord Dantalion will see you now,” said the young man.

  Mammon took a deep breath and pushed his way through the door. Yehuda Leib leaned forward to try to see around the jamb, but all he managed to perceive before the door swung shut was the sense of a very large room.

  The young man let out a little sigh. “Ah,” he said, straightening the ink pen on his desk, and he settled into his chair once more.

  But he didn’t resume his reading. Instead, he looked directly down at Bluma and Yehuda Leib and folded his hands, as if waiting.

  Softly, from behind him, Yehuda Leib heard Bluma speak.

  “The question,” she said. “I wish to hear the question.”

  A tiny smirk creased the young man’s face. “Very well,” he said. “But once it has been put, an answer must be given.”

  “I understand,”
said Bluma.

  With a smile, the young man stood, shut his eyes, and in a singsong tone, as if praying, began to speak.

  The one true secret that you know—

  I brought you to this place.

  I am the way that you must go;

  I wear your frowning face.

  I am the fountain of your fear,

  The secret of the cold;

  I’m whispered into every ear,

  Yet I am never told.

  * * *

  —

  Yehuda Leib’s mind was racing.

  The one true secret that you know.

  The examinations at the two previous levels had taught him to understand how rare a true secret was: something that only he knew and no other.

  I brought you to this place.

  Swiftly, as if flying in reverse, Yehuda Leib retraced his path, up through the yeshiva, back out through the Dead City, the Gallows, and the Cemetery, through Zubinsk and the Treasure House and the cold, dark night to that terrible moment in the forest:

  The stillness of squirming legs. The reddening of the snow.

  I am the way that you must go.

  His father, just like him in so many ways—strong, sharp, dangerous.

  I wear your frowning face.

  What would he look like once his beard came in? Once it began to gray?

  I am the fountain of your fear.

  His father’s grasping hands.

  The secret of the cold.

  His father’s freezing corpse.

  I’m whispered into every ear,

  Yet I am never told.

  All the adults in Tupik must’ve known who his father was—it must have been whispered into every ear.

  Could that be it? Could his father be the answer?

  But no—no, his father’s identity had been told. He’d known it in the end, no true secret.

  So what then?

  And then he saw it, standing there in the shadows, just behind his father all the time.

  The Answer.

  * * *

  —

  Bluma’s mind was racing.

  The one true secret that you know.

  The one true secret…

  I brought you to this place.

  Her hand slipped down into her apron pocket for the comfort of finding what she knew was hidden there.

  I am the way that you must go;

  I wear your frowning face.

  The spoon.

  The feeling of turning its handle between her fingers, the pleasant shock in finding herself relieved of the burden of her face.

  I am the fountain of your fear,

  The secret of the cold.

  Even now the spoon’s surface was so icy and frost-kissed that it seemed to cling to the warm skin of her fingers.

  It seemed incontrovertible.

  The spoon. The answer must be the spoon.

  But…

  I’m whispered into every ear,

  Yet I am never told.

  How could that be? Every ear? How could each of the dead scholars who made his way down to this desk be expected to have come into contact with the spoon in her pocket?

  That couldn’t be.

  Unless it could.

  A dim and terrible knowledge had been growing in her mind for some time now, and she was unsure if she could continue to ignore it.

  What was the spoon, after all? Where had it come from?

  The One True Secret that you know…

  Bluma ran the pad of her thumb through the basin of the spoon in her pocket.

  She knew the Answer.

  * * *

  —

  The young man took his seat behind the desk.

  “What is your response?” he said.

  “The answer is—” said Bluma softly.

  “I think it’s—” said Yehuda Leib.

  And “Death,” they said at once.

  Death.

  The young man at the desk showed his teeth in a broad grin. Behind him, the door cracked open.

  “Correct,” said the young man.

  Yehuda Leib took a deep breath. He could see firelight jumping on the other side of the door, irresistibly warm and inviting.

  But something was odd. The room into which Mammon had gone had been huge: vast and echoing. But the room on the other side of the door now seemed small—intimate.

  Almost cozy.

  What was in that place?

  He had to know.

  Yehuda Leib reached up, grasped the door handle, and prepared to push inward.

  “Wait,” said Bluma behind him.

  With a start, Yehuda Leib wheeled about. He’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t alone.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Why not?” said Yehuda Leib. “I want to meet Lord Dantalion.”

  “So do I,” said Bluma, and with a lunge and a tug, she grabbed Yehuda Leib’s arm and pulled the door shut again.

  Yehuda Leib was furious. “Hey!” he said, pushing hard against the fixed door, rattling it on its hinges. It wouldn’t budge.

  “What did you do?” said Yehuda Leib.

  Bluma sighed. “Don’t you remember what Mammon said? If you answer correctly, the door leads somewhere you don’t wish to go.”

  Yehuda Leib’s keen eyes widened.

  The young man at the desk grinned. “Your friend is wise,” he said.

  She was right. “Where does it lead?”

  “This door leads to answers—whether they be Lord Dantalion’s or your own.”

  “Our own?” Yehuda Leib was confused.

  Until, with a lurch, he realized:

  The answer they had just given.

  He would’ve walked through the door to meet his Death.

  Yehuda Leib swallowed and looked to the young man, whose grin had not faded.

  “Thank you,” said Yehuda Leib to Bluma quietly, but she was already moving toward the desk.

  “I wish to ask Lord Dantalion a question,” she said.

  The young man at the desk nodded. “You have earned the privilege.”

  Bluma seized the spindly pen from the young man’s desk, and as soon as the thick book was opened, she scrawled out her question on the indicated line. With the same practiced set of motions, the young man at the desk shut the tome and then opened it again to reveal a cream-colored card between its pages, marked in Bluma’s handwriting with a string of letters and numbers. The door behind him cracked open as she removed the card from the book.

  “Lord Dantalion will see you now,” said the man behind the desk.

  With a deep breath, Bluma strode forward and pushed her way inside.

  The young man tugged the door shut behind her and took his seat once more.

  “And you?” he said to Yehuda Leib. “Do you wish to consult Lord Dantalion?”

  “Yes,” said Yehuda Leib. “I do.”

  The book was opened, the pen proffered, before Yehuda Leib had a chance to explain.

  “Oh,” he said, his cheeks warming with a blush. “I want to ask a question, but…”

  The young man cocked his head to the side. “Is there a problem?”

  “Well,” Yehuda Leib said. “I never learned my letters.”

  “Ah,” said the young man, leaning back in his chair. “That is a problem.”

  “Can you just write the question for me?” said Yehuda Leib.

  The young man shook his head. “That would be highly irregular—I might even say unprecedented. And even if I were to do so, it wouldn’t solve the problem.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” said the young man gravely, “Lord Dantalion is a book.”

 
“A book?”

  “Yes.” The young man nodded. “A book in many, many volumes. And if you are unable to read the answers he provides…”

  Yehuda Leib’s cheeks were burning. Tears began to fill his eyes. It was the old story, again and again and again: rough, foolish Yehuda Leib, not good enough, not smart enough, making trouble wherever he went. What could he do now? Even leaving aside the question that burned in his chest, both Mammon and Bluma had disappeared through that door. What if he could not rejoin them? What if he was alone down here for good, buried deep beneath the corpse of the Dead City?

  He was growing angry.

  But all of a sudden, something very strange happened.

  The door behind the desk cracked open of its own accord.

  “Ah,” said the young man, confusion written so clearly on his face that even Yehuda Leib could read it.

  The large room into which Bluma and Mammon had gone lurked palpably on the other side of the doorway.

  Leaning toward it, the young man behind the desk gave a soft whisper. “Are you sure?”

  And, as if in answer, the door inched further open.

  The young man turned back to Yehuda Leib.

  “Very well,” he said. “Lord Dantalion will see you now.”

  When, periodically, each identical page of the thick ledger that sits beside the final door guard of the Dantalion has been filled, having been inscribed with a question by a pilgrim, the volume is retired and replaced with a fresh copy. The completed ledgers are shelved deep in the stacks, and in this way Dantalion himself is fed, grown by the questions people bring to him.

  As of this writing, it is still possible to consult these ledgers, and the volume in use when Mammon, Bluma, and Yehuda Leib made their visit is still on the shelf. Mammon’s florid writing is there, and his question can easily be read:

  Is it possible for the living to overthrow Death?

  On the next page, Bluma’s tidy, quiet script can be found:

  What is my name?

  Even the following page, the record for Yehuda Leib’s entry into the Dantalion, contains a transcription in neat bureaucratic capitals of the only question he managed to ask while in conference with the Dantalion:

  Father? Hey! Hello?

  But in order to understand what happened next, one must flip backward three pages to the page immediately preceding Mammon’s.