Early one morning, we went along with a family that was on its way up the valley where the river Jabbok ran. I recognized it from when I’d met Hananiah there, and I wondered if the false prophet and his followers were still in the area. How had they been doing? I asked the family we were walking with if they knew anything, but when I mentioned Hananiah’s name, they asked me not to mention such things. Naomi apologized and told them that it didn’t matter. Still, something had stirred in me, and I asked the eldest in the group if he could help us to find those lost people. He stared at me.
“I think there are still some there,” he said, “but if you go there, may the Lord God be with you.”
We followed the directions the eldest man had given us, and some distance up the valley, we found a path leading into a cleft in the terrain. The cleft was narrow, and a foul stench met us that grew ever stronger the farther we entered. There was nobody to be seen, just rocks, dry, yellow plants, and the foul smell.
I was about to turn when somebody called to us. A person was standing outside a cave farther up the mountainside, dressed only in rags. His head was covered with hair and a grimy and uneven beard. His whole body was dirty. As he gradually climbed down to us, it dawned on me that he had excrement smeared all over him, and both Naomi and I began to move back the way we’d come.
“Have you come because of Hananiah?” the man shouted. “He’s still here, he’s among us.”
He was thinner than when I’d last seen him, smaller, and there were red and black sores underneath all his hair. I recognized the man, but I struggled to understand how it could be possible. It was the one-eyed man my father and I had met all those years ago. He didn’t seem to realize who I was. His gaze was constantly fixed on the air between us and the surrounding rock faces.
“Can we meet Hananiah?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said. “The Master is here, let the poor and the weak come to him, and he will give them salvation.”
Naomi stared openmouthed, and it seemed as if she were having trouble breathing. I lifted up a scarf and held it in front of my face before handing one to Naomi.
“He’ll be pleased to receive you,” the one-eyed man continued. “Come, come, follow me to greet the Lord.”
“Where is he?” I asked. “What’s happened here?”
“Everything’s happened here,” the one-eyed man replied, waving his arms about. “The world has ended, it has risen again, and it will end again, just as our Master has told us. Everything happens according to his will, death and life, life and death, darkness and light, mountain and flood, skin and hair, and the rocks, have you seen the rocks? They can speak, I’ve heard them, down in the water, if you lift them up. Oh God, dear God, he speaks through the rocks, through water.” The man waved his arms even more wildly and bowed to us, before he turned around and began walking back to the cave, climbing back up where he’d come from. I told Naomi to wait.
“Don’t go in there with him,” she said.
“I’ll come back,” I said. “Just wait here.”
“There’s sickness there,” she said. “Watch out, be careful what you touch.” I nodded, held the scarf around my mouth and nose, and followed the one-eyed man up and into the cave.
It was a large cave, and the walls glistened with moisture. There was water running somewhere, and the smell was even worse in there, like clods of earth sticking to the skin. It was dark, and I had trouble seeing. The one-eyed man had gone, and I called after him. I took a few steps and trod on something soft and wet. I bent down to see what it was and felt the cold seize hold of me.
“God,” I said. “Good God.” There were bones and corpses across the ground and along the sides of the cave. I began to step back out of there, but there stood the one-eyed man. He came toward me, and I could feel the sickening warmth emanating from his mouth.
“You shall meet the Lord,” he said. “Hananiah is ready to receive you.”
I stepped backward.
“Greet the Lord,” said the man, lifting up a head in his hands. I recognized the features from some years ago, even though the eyes and mouth were just black holes. The one-eyed man began shouting now, his voice echoing in the cave.
“Come to the Lord, let him taste you, let your body become his,” he shouted.
I turned and began to climb back down. The light outside blinded me, but I didn’t stop. I called out to Naomi, telling her to get away.
We didn’t stop to rest until we made it back to the river Jordan, by which time it was dark. I wanted to wash. Naomi asked what it was I’d seen in the cave, but I told her I couldn’t talk about it.
“It was just death and sickness,” I said. “They’ve been consumed by darkness.”
“What’s happened to them?” she asked.
“They are no more,” I said.
We traveled up to Galilee to seek out our brothers and sisters in Nazareth. We said little about what we’d experienced. One evening around that time, while I sat there alone, staring into the starry heavens, I felt everything stopping up again. I got up and started walking about in the dark. I picked up stones and tried to chew them, I scratched the inside of my mouth with my nails, I retched.
When Naomi eventually found me, and I had to speak to her, I couldn’t look at her. I shook my head, my fingers twisted up. Naomi started crying, but she held on to me tightly and kissed me on the forehead, kissed my hair and whispered in my ear.
“Relax,” she said. “Try to take deep breaths. Talk to me, Jacob.”
I tried, but everything was broken, it was stuck.
Naomi wasn’t giving up. She begged me to speak and held me closely.
“It, it’s, d-d-diiifficult,” I said. “It d-d-doesn’t m-m-make sense.”
“Jesus touched you,” she said. “He made you conquer this. You must fight against it, Jacob, it won’t go away. Don’t let it grow, Jacob.”
“D-d-don’t l-l-let it g-g-grooow,” I said.
“Don’t let it grow,” she said.
III
Sarah opened her eyes and got out of bed. She fetched water for herself and her beloved. Her husband woke up with a start when she got over to him.
“A dream,” he said. “A bad dream.”
“It’s morning,” she said. He nodded, looked at her, smiled, and reached out his hands to her.
“Come here,” he said, pulling Sarah toward him. He put his hands around her pregnant form. “When he comes out,” he said, “he’ll be the first of many boys. He’ll be called Jacob. He’ll be big and strong.”
Her hair flowed down over his. He smelled her, all the scents of her long curls, her neck, her stomach, and below.
“It’s a good world he’s being born into,” said Sarah.
Her pains began later that day. He’d already summoned women to be ready to help. They would tend to Sarah, and he promised them whatever they asked if this first child made it into the world fit and well.
3 I SMELL OF THE EARTH
I know there are others. They smell like it too. Just a faint hint, but I’m fresh. I’m almost warm. There are some who don’t have that smell, who can’t be seen with your eyes. There are some who taste of the cold wind.
I can see stars, but can’t fly up to them. I hover, like a fly, before crashing back down like a small child. Oh, it hurts. My name’s Sarah. I don’t need the ground, and the ground doesn’t need me. I’m in the air, I’m under the earth. I tried to dig my way out, but not a single grain of sand moved. I tried to find my beloved, but I have a lover here. He bites at my toes, at my fingers. Black teeth, as hard and cold as rocks in water. I don’t know his name. My name’s Sarah, but he calls me Sahah, Sahah. His eyes are hollow. His fingers are spread out along the ground, like roots. “Sahah, Sahah.”
My beloved, where is he?
And my boy. Jacob. I say his name, and I hear somebody laugh. Others repeat it: “Jacob, Jacob.” Somebody brushes past me and asks me to tell them, tell them.
“My name’s Sarah,�
�� I say.
“You smell of the earth,” they say. “Fresh and warm, but still earth.” I tell them I don’t. They say I do. There are so many of them. One moment they’re here, the next they’re gone.
I’ll never find my way out. The way’s gone. The light always stops just in front of me. The darkness is honey, sticky and soft. It clings to everything.
My boy, Jacob, has grown now. My beloved misses me, he’s counting the days. Like small, dry twigs lying in rows, that’s what time’s like for him. But Jacob’s different. He doesn’t know who I am. I don’t know who he is. But I listen to Jacob. He stutters and falters. He can’t speak properly. The words won’t come out, only sounds. My lover says there’s something inside my son. Something that will consume him, my lover says. Something he’s put in so my son will rot away. And when Jacob rots, my lover will take him.
“You and me and Jacopp, Sahah, you and me and Jacopp, Jaaacooopp.”
I kick at him, but my lover’s teeth are still there. He laughs, and his mouth is just a wider opening than his eyes. He says he’s going to have a son. My son. A son by his side. A son to join him hunting in the darkness.
My lover.
My beloved.
My son.
My lover is in two places.
Missing me is my beloved.
My son will be destroyed. My son will become evil.
I try to stay in the cold light. But it moves, like a fly. I walk back and forth, forth and back, and every time I stop, I wonder: Is that light all I have?
Time passes so slowly here, but time is rushing by for my son and my beloved. They change, they grow and mature, they travel farther and farther away, and when they’ve gone so far away that I can no longer see them, then they’re here. Then my lover’s waiting for them.
Sometimes I’m torn. My lover takes hold of me with all his body and tears me apart. Like I was when I came here. Like I was when he took me. My first son and my first tear. Jacob’s warm shrieks and my lover’s cold grip. My beloved standing next to me, saying, “Sarah, Sarah,” and then I was gone, and then I was here. Torn apart.
“Thhat’ss how I like you, Sahah.”
I slip into the darkness.
My name’s Sarah. My beloved was calling for me. By the sound, by the sound, I followed his voice. “Sarah,” he called. Sarah. My name.
I was right by him. I could hear him breathing. I lifted my hands. But he wasn’t there. Did he see me? Did he see his Sarah torn apart? Did he see his Sarah rotting? My skin is no longer smooth. My eyes are no longer brown. My hair is just a few shreds, my mouth just a hole.
My lover laughs.
“I’mm yourss, Sahah, and you’rre minne.
“Minne, Sahah.”
I screamed, he laughed. He bit at my feet, and down I went.
“You’rre minne, Sahah.
“Sahah, Sahah.”
My name’s Sarah, I try to stay in the cold light. In the darkness, it’s not quiet, but something else. There’s something scratching away. Small feet through the sand. Beetles, maggots. Scratching, scratching, and Sahah, Sahah.
My name’s Sarah. I have ten fingers. I have two feet, two arms. I have a son, I have a husband. My son and my beloved. The cold wind says my beloved has remarried and remarried and remarried. The ones who smell of earth tell me to listen, listen. They don’t laugh anymore, not even when I say, “I’m warm.”
I must find my beloved. I know about my son. I know what’s inside him.
Light, I need more light, warm light. I have cold light and darkness. Insects and honey. I’m my beloved’s queen.
But how can I get out of here? My lover comes up through a gap. His fingers are roots reaching forth everywhere, searching, searching, for me, for me.
“Sahah, Sahah.
“You wantt to be withh themm so muchh, Sahah, but I’mm nott letting you go. I’mm yourss, you’re minne, Sahah, Sahah.”
He took me down here. He tore me away as I gave my son to the world.
He put something evil in my son and became my lover.
I must find my beloved and tell him how to set Jacob free. From his stuttering and from the rot and from my lover’s teeth. I know my lover’s waiting for mother and son, son and mother. He doesn’t care about my beloved. I don’t know why. Maybe he knows that my beloved will come. Maybe there’s hope yet for Jacob.
My name’s Sarah. I’ve got to get out of here.
Out into the darkness, I now see. I mustn’t follow the cold light. Just open my ears and follow the sound.
My lover searches through the cold light. He’s waiting for me. I’m in the honey. Stuck, stuck.
The darkness has a color. Not black, not blue, not gray. The darkness has a color, like a starry sky that’s been beaten, beaten, beaten.
There are sounds everywhere. Women washing clothes, boys calling to other boys, girls giggling, skipping, and crying, husbands talking to sheep and to donkeys. The heartbeats are short and soft. They go thump, thump, thump, thump.
I walk and walk, but where’s my beloved, where’s my son?
“Hey, you,” I hear a voice say. I stop. There’s a man there in the darkness, I can see him. A man, and he can see me. I hear him sniffing, breathing through his nose.
“I’m blind, and yet I see many things,” he says. “I’m what stays in the shadows while the light falls elsewhere. And you smell of earth, but you were so warm, I almost thought …”
“Thought what?” I ask.
“I thought you belonged to the living,” he said, “but the way you are now, I have no use for you. You’re earth, you’re soil, you can’t rot anymore. You’re nothing to me, the dead are useless.”
“How can you say such things?” I ask.
He stops sniffing. I can’t hear him anymore. Where is he?
“Hey, where are you?” I call out, but there’s no answer. I shout out.
“I need help,” I cry.
I hear a soft whisper, asking what the matter is.
“I’ve got to find the way,” I say. “The way to my beloved. I need to find my son.”
At that same moment, something pierces my side.
“There you go,” says his voice. “Be still.”
“What did you stab me with?” I ask, and he smirks.
“You’re so fresh,” he says. “You could’ve been mine, but somebody else has taken you. You’ve got a lover, haven’t you? He took you down here. I can smell him on you.”
“Let go,” I say.
“Your son,” he says. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Let go,” I say. “It hurts.”
“Listen to me,” he says. “I can help your son.”
“My lover’s put something inside him,” I tell him. “He’s going to rot, and my lover will consume my son.”
“You must tell me his name, so I can find him,” he says.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“If you give me his name, I’ll help him,” he says.
“Let go, it hurts,” I tell him. “You’re evil.”
“Evil?” he says, and I sense something in front of my face. A hand, I see a hand, and out of the hand comes a light, so strong. It shines on the ground beneath us, on a beetle, then on a spider, then on the beetle.
“Evil, good,” he says. “It depends where the light falls, and on whom. The whole world up there, the one you can barely hear, lives for stories. Some of them are mine. I tell the stories they want. They need my doubting ways. Faith and doubt. Good and evil. People always need to correct the balance. I’m not like your lover. I don’t collect dead things. But maybe your son, maybe he needs help from me.”
“You must promise not to hurt him,” I reply.
“I’ll give him a story. I can free your son from the mark your lover has put on him,” he says.
“A story?” I ask.
“A place where he can belong, who knows what I can give him?” he says.
“Do you promise to free him?” I ask.
“His name,” he says.
And I tell him: “Jacob, Jacob.” He lets me go and whatever was stabbing my side vanishes.
“Do you know my lover?” I ask, trying to stand up, but it still hurts, even though the sharp object has gone. Whoever the man is, he sniffles again and wanders off.
“Your lover needs dry land. Go to the sea,” his voice says softly. “Give him water.” Then I hear laughter drifting away.
“Hello?” I say. “Are you there? It hurts. What do you mean dry land? Go to the sea, give him water?”
There’s nobody there.
“My name’s Sarah,” I say, and at that same moment I hear my beloved. It’s not my name he’s saying. He seems tired. Rows of small, dry twigs have formed. I close my eyes. The darkness is honey but, with my eyes closed, it turns into water. I float toward my beloved. Not there, but not here either.
“My beloved,” I say softly. “My dear, it’s me, Sarah.” And then I hear him say my name. I’m so close to him.
“Sarah,” he says. “What should I do? I’m alone with him. If only you were here, Sarah. You would have known.”
“My beloved,” I say. “My dearest, I’m here. I’m back.”
“I have nobody,” he says. “I don’t even have Jacob. I can’t stand him. The sound of him, at night and during the day. I give him away. Can you believe it, my dear? I give him away to others all the time. If you’d seen the women here now, Sarah, you would have scratched off my face. None of them are like you, but they take care of Jacob.”
“My dear,” I say. “My darling. I’m here, reach out your arms! Feel me! It’s me, Sarah!”
“Every time I see Jacob, I see you,” he says. “You’re there, right next to him. You’re crawling around there in the darkness, all black and decayed. I can hardly recognize you.”
“My dear,” I say. “Don’t talk like that. I’m yours. I’m here. It’s me, Sarah.”
“You’ve gone,” he says, his voice becoming weak, cracking like dry flower stalks. “You are no more. What should I do? Should I go to your grave and dig you up? Should I lie down there myself? Should I take Jacob with me?”
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