The cartons are arranged impeccably. The gods are many, but the years are long, dozens of years, and there’s nothing else to do but categorize them, apart from chess and stargazing. It was as if the missing top of the ruined ziggurat had absented itself specifically to make room for the spectacular night sky. Not a single bulb was lit within a radius of more than one hundred kilometers of the archives, so there was no light pollution to obscure the nightly bonfire. The new star beamed down, casting short shadows in the stillness of the archives. The gods, too, gaze at the stars at night, biding their time until they can return home. They will remain hostages until the king, in his mercy, decides to go a little easier on the conquered nations from which they’ve been plundered.
The man in charge of the archives is unsealing some new cartons this morning, accompanied by his dog. The archivist is always given lots of warning before a new shipment arrives. The procedure is for the military always to alert the archivist to make ready to receive new artifacts from wherever it is they’ve set off to on a new campaign. And so the man and his dog proceed to the library and read up about the gods of the nation that the King of Babylon is about to engage in battle, in order to learn a little something about their new guests. The King of Babylon is always the victor, of late. According to the royal fortune-teller, if he found a fish with a missing left fin, his enemies would be swiftly defeated. And, indeed, such a fish was then hauled up in a net. That was the sign.
Not that anyone is even certain who the king is, nowadays; the old man thinks probably Nabopolassar is still the one exiting and returning through the gates of Ishtar. It’s not important. He receives a memo faxed by the adjutant in charge, who gives them an evaluation, based on intelligence reports, of whom and what to expect, how many and when. Today the fax noted several gods from the city of Tyre and a number of temple utensils from the city of Judah, also known as Jerusalem. The archivist estimates that he probably won’t need more than six large cartons to store them—six for Tyre, six for Jerusalem—though at the last minute he orders not a dozen but fourteen cartons, adding one carton for each city, just to be on the safe side. But then he only assigns eight: four and four. Spare cartons he can always fold and return to the office-supply warehouse. It has happened before that he ordered cartons for spoils that wound up being negligible, and consequently, having already labeled all the cartons, he was obliged to throw away a brand-new one—such a pity. Tyre and Jerusalem. He looks at the map. The King of Babylon must be heading south to wage war in the Land of Hatti. The old man has by now become highly proficient at his job and can estimate how many meters of bubble wrap and masking tape he needs to have ready. He prepares two shelves, and the dog helps him and writes place-names in his own unique calligraphic paw—the penmanship of someone for whom writing is hardly second nature, who indeed learned to write with some difficulty—on new white labels. The dog likes to stick the labels on the aluminum shelves. The old man spells out for him the name of this or that place, and the dog repeats the name after him, bow-wow, and writes in the appropriate cuneiform, while at the same time sticking his tail straight up and sticking his tongue partway out of his mouth.
They’ll have approximately half a year until the gods and the temple utensils arrive, but they like to be prepared ahead of time. Order and preparation are the bread and butter of the new empire. It’s as vital for the king and for the captain of the guard and for each and every eunuch and for each and every talking dog. When the trucks arrive in the middle of some night after a week on the road, there will already be room for whatever they contain. There will already be an empty carton waiting. For half a year, the man and his dog will be keeping the carton clean and dusting the shelf and dreaming of the spoils. There is no greater excitement in their lives—understandably so!—than the moment the trucks unload their merchandise and all their dreams at once take form and no less quickly are stored away in cartons: gold and wood, copper and flint, ironwork and textiles, embroideries and silverwork, calyx and petals, a statue, a mask.
And sometimes, at night, the guard and his dog stroll side by side past the shelves in the enormous hangar and gaze at them all. Hundreds of high-powered gods, amassed, exalted, pillars of strength, and the guard whispers to them softly, even prays to them. Yes, to all of them. For he knows perfectly well that his warehouse is the largest temple on the face of the earth, containing an unparalleled concentration of gods from across the entire world. He doesn’t know who among them might still wield his or her full divine power and who has become irrelevant; consequently, he assumes that they are all thriving and robust. He doesn’t ask any of them, Are you the one true god? He accepts the burden of worshipping every one of them, and he sings to every one—actually, the dog is the one who does the singing—songs of praise. And he consults with them about his health and his good dog’s health, and about the souls of his parents who descended into the World of No Return a long time ago, below the sweet waters of the abyss surrounded by the seven ramparts, and about his son and his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen ever since he was assigned to this wretched position by order of Nabopolassar, so many years ago now it’s no longer possible to number them. I want to see my children, they’re undoubtedly old by now, he tells the exiled gods swaddled in masking tape and bubble wrap. I want to see them and then return and fulfill my duty until the day I die, without complaint. I take careful care of you. I wash you like babies. Every morning, I push aside what remains of the roof and allow you to breathe in the sunlight, even though I wasn’t instructed to do so, even though it might even be forbidden. Won’t you help me just a bit? Maybe you can, eh? Or maybe you, Your Ladyship?
I bought presents for my boy and girl, he said. They’re still wrapped and still sitting in the plastic bag from the toy store in Lagash, the city the old man was born in, where he bought them twenty years before—in fact, on the very day he was assigned to this post. The king sent a car to collect him, and he told the driver, Wait a minute, I want to give my children their presents. And the driver said: Oh no, there’s no time. Bring them later, when you’re on leave. But he never got any leave, and even if he had, the time it would have taken to reach Lagash and to return would have been longer than the vacation itself. So he’s kept the plastic bag containing the toys—not on the shelves alongside the gods and sacred utensils, to be sure, but in his bedchamber. Two small boxes in gift wrap whose colors have long faded. After a few years, he couldn’t remember what he’d bought them. But he’d never tear open the gift wrap to peek, needless to say.
His private pantheon hasn’t answered him as yet. And even if they did try to respond, the languages they represent are so numerous, how could they ever conduct a conversation? So the old man just goes on devoting himself diligently to their well-being. Even the little gods pulverized to dust in their cartons receive a monthly airing. He opens the lids, each in its turn, to let in some sun and air. And there are even gods here who are shaped like dogs, so the old man shows them to the dog who assists him, and the dog, as you might expect, kneels and howls.
22
MATTANIAH AND TUKULTI pushed their way through the multitude thronging the gates of Teddy Stadium. As they stood in line, the odor of hummus—tons of the stuff—was borne through the air like the lush scent following the first rains of the season, but not very much like it: in fact, it couldn’t have been more different. It’s like standing by an active volcano, someone blurted out. The ceremony was supposed to start at twelve, but in light of the ongoing holdup—which wasn’t explained to the crowd, but which would soon enough be understood as having been the result of flying in the forlorn crown prince from Vienna—the grand opening was delayed by close to five hours. Many wanted to turn back, but the area had been sealed off on orders of the king. That would have been all he needed, empty bleachers at such a major event; it would have made him a media laughingstock the whole world over. Mattaniah was put in mind of how he’d stepped onstage once at a poetry reading and found there wasn’t anyone in the au
dience, not a single soul; the few who’d attended had taken advantage of the interval after the poet who’d read before him and quietly slipped out with her in search of the nearest beer garden. So the hummus crowd was gently herded in, and loudspeakers blared orders to stay put for a couple of minutes while water and small portions of pita with hummus, leftovers from the decanting of the hummus, were distributed to the multitude who’d been corralled into the dense shadows cast by the bleachers. Mattaniah tried to feed Tukulti half a pita with hummus, but Tukulti growled and turned his muzzle away in disgust. Mattaniah ate the dog’s portion and then his own.
What chutzpah! Listen, they promised us an enormous plate of hummus. I thought they were going to fill up the entire stadium with hummus—isn’t that what they said? C’mon, the entire stadium? What’s got into you? It couldn’t be the entire stadium. It’s a huge bowl inside the stadium; does it look to you like anyone could fill the entire stadium? For this you dragged me here? Look, I’ve got big bowls at home, too, okay? Big? Not as big as this one—don’t be a blowhard. A blowhard? Me? No, no, you’re not a blowhard, you’re just plain conceited; for all I care you can get up and leave, Mr. Balloon—I married a helium balloon, cut you open and that’s all I’d find. Find? Find? What are you going to find, what are you talking about? Helium, helium! Cut it out, why don’t you shut up, how long have we been waiting? Let’s go home—whose idiotic idea was it anyway to come and see a plate of hummus? You’re such a drag. Well, I never, you’re such a baby! What’s there to see, yeah. You run everything down, nothing excites you; it isn’t the hummus, it’s the size of the thing, the spectacle, knowing there’s something bigger than us in this life, making room in our hearts for a grand and bountiful purpose, a great human enterprise; it isn’t eating just for the sake of staying alive, it’s food at its most grandiose; I mean, it’s an embodiment of the divine! You must be joking, the divine in hummus tahini? Hummus that slaves lugged here on their backs in sacks and poured into cement mixers—that’s what you call a great human enterprise, that’s what you call divine. So you’re saying the pyramids and the ziggurats have no value? After all, they, too, were built with slaves and cement mixers—I guess none of that is of any significance to you? It isn’t without significance, but, yeah, they stand on blood and bones. I’m not going to stand there like you did on that tour on our honeymoon, applauding the royal tombs in Ur where slaves were locked up and forced to drink poison so they could accompany the nobility to the next world. No way, I’m not about to take a vacation and gawk at the pyramids and ziggurats, thanks very much; I’m not buying any tickets; I can die a hopeless death here, too, and free of charge, okay? And while I’m at it— Say, you two, can you shut your traps? For an hour now you’ve been drilling a hole into my head, like it isn’t enough that my head’s already stuffed will all this foul-smelling ground chickpea and ground cumin, I’ve also got to listen to you two grinding away at each other? An hour already, and you haven’t shut your mouths—an hour! Why’d you get married if you can’t even agree about something stupid like a plate of hummus? An hour jabbering. I checked my watch—you started an hour ago. An hour? An hour? So I talk in a whisper for something like thirty seconds and already you’re the conversation police? Fascist! We’re talking, a husband and wife are talking; so a husband and wife aren’t allowed to talk anymore? But my ear’s right next to your mouths; I’m stuck here, waiting, with the two of you, and I’m not married to either of you, thanks be to Baal, or Asherah, or to you—so what did I do to deserve you both as punishment? Hey, buddy, what do you want from them, let them talk; I’ve been listening to them and actually find it pretty interesting; it’s a sensible argument; my wife and I never argue, but neither do we agree on anything, I mean we just don’t talk, we’re silent as Pharaoh’s tombs for ten years now. And I visited those tombs on a package tour, by the way; the hotel was amazing; we really got royal treatment, there was always a bonbon waiting on the pillow— Oh, can you give me the name of the hotel with the bonbons? My daughter’s going to Egypt and she’s looking for a nice place … Oh no, that’s all I need, Jews camping out in my secret hotel; when I find a nice, classy hotel I keep it to myself; I don’t need your daughter, forgive me for saying so, in the room next to mine, partying all night with champagne and Persian coke and keeping me awake! Believe me, you’re right—I know his daughter, and when she parties, she parties; I mean, parties? She goes wild, is more like it, I lived next door for ten years, and every Friday afternoon she’d bring someone over to have a good time, like clockwork; I wouldn’t hear the male, but her, ho-ho, what a concert; she’d always say, Yeah, baby; yeah, baby; yeah, baby; yeah, baby. The babies kept changing, but her dialogue stayed the same: Yeah, baby; yeah, baby … One more word and I’ll throttle you; I knew you looked familiar; you still owe me that building maintenance money, you pervert, eavesdropping on neighbors … I’m a pervert? And what’s your daughter? Do you want me to tell all these people the sorts of things I’ve heard her say? Every week a different guy, I swear to you, no repeat customers! It wasn’t a different guy every week, you louse, it was her boyfriend all the time, the same steady boyfriend for ten years, a modest yeshiva student; sometimes he’d cut his hair and grow a beard, and then he looked like someone else. That’s a good one, a beard! Let me tell you, he also grew twenty centimeters week to week, and got an amazing tan, and then turned totally pasty-faced—I saw everything. When are you going to Egypt? I’m not going, though I’d like to go. So why are you squeezing hotel info out of me for a trip that’s not going to happen? I told you, my daughter is going! They swallowed poison and lay on their sides and waited, and then the tomb was sealed. Maybe the hummus they’re handing out is poison and we’re going to drop dead and they’ll shut us up in Teddy Stadium? Hey, it’s a bit late to think of that, you’ve already eaten three pita halves. Oy vey! Don’t worry, I’ll say Kaddish over your grave, and one day they’ll come here and dig you up, archaeologists from the future, and they’ll let you into a museum for nothing, you’ll live in the museum; I’ll come visit you on free days … Hey, enough, be quiet. Enough, what enough? What enough? Let me talk; I haven’t said anything yet. Enough is enough, will you shut up? I’m begging you. Sir, take care with that dog of yours; did you see the size of that dog, like a donkey? Dogs aren’t allowed in the stadium in the first place. And you, you’re begging now? I only wanted to say …
And when it looked as if the day was about to turn and the event would be canceled, the soft voice of the herald was heard. Eyes were borne up toward the helicopter, and it seemed as if a hand was waving at them, and there were some who even swore they identified Jehoiachin, the king’s son, who hadn’t been seen in the city for the last decade—all that remained was his portrait as a one-year-old infant impressed on one-shekel stamps. And there were those who said, Certainly, Jehoiachin, and how he resembles King David, and he’s such a brilliant musician, just like David was. And the hummus contest was all but forgotten, as the mounting stench from the tons of paste wafted over them and turned sour in the stadium from inside the inverted observatory dome. And the herald announced that, to compensate for the delay, the Prince of Judah would play for his people on the piano. And, indeed, a second helicopter appeared, bearing a grand piano fastened to cables. It started drizzling, but there was nowhere to go, and the slanting stands provided some protection, and many simply dozed off in the meantime; hearing the king’s son playing was after all a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, though, to tell the truth, they were far more interested in seeing him and ascertaining whether he actually did resemble King David, whom no one alive had ever set eyes on, of course, though pictures of how people imagined him to have looked were spread all over the kingdom, in schools and at military camps and in the palace itself and on stamps and on money, too.
Muck Page 21