Ishmael i-1

by Daniel Quinn

  “They wanted to put the herder’s land under cultivation.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “Ah, I see. They were increasing food production to support an expanded population.”

  “Of course. Now you’re ready to do some more reconstruction. You can see that these tillers of the soil have no sense of restraint when it comes to expansion. They don’t control their population; when there isn’t enough food to go around, they just put some more land under cultivation.”

  “True.”

  “So: Whom did these people say yes to?”

  “Mm. Yes, I think I see it. As in a glass, darkly.”

  “Think of it this way: The Semites, like most nonagricultural peoples, had to be wary of becoming overbalanced between the sexes. Having too many men didn’t threaten the stability of their population, but having too many women definitely did. You see that?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what the Semites observed in their brothers from the north was that it didn’t matter to them. If their population got out of hand, they didn’t worry, they just put more land under cultivation.”

  “Yes, I see that.”

  “Or try it this way: Adam and Eve spent three million years in the garden, living on the bounty of the gods, and their growth was very modest; in the Leaver life–style this is the way it has to be. Like Leavers everywhere, they had no need to exercise the gods’ prerogative of deciding who shall live and who shall die. But when Eve presented Adam with this knowledge, he said, ‘Yes, I see; with this, we no longer have to depend on the bounty of the gods. With the matter of who shall live and who shall die in our own hands, we can create a bounty that will exist for us alone, and this means I can say yes to Life, and grow without limit.’ What you should understand is that saying yes to Life and accepting the knowledge of good and evil are merely different aspects of a single act, and this is the way the story is told in Genesis.”

  “Yes. It’s subtle, but I think I see it. When Adam accepted the fruit of that tree, he succumbed to the temptation to live without limit—and so the person who offered him that fruit is named Life.”

  Ishmael nodded. “Whenever a Taker couple talk about how wonderful it would be to have a big family, they’re reenacting this scene beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They’re saying to themselves, ‘Of course it’s our right to apportion life on this planet as we please. Why stop at four kids or six? We can have fifteen if we like. All we have to do is plow under another few hundred acres of rain forest—and who cares if a dozen other species disappear as a result?’ ”

  16

  There was still something that didn’t quite fit together, but I couldn’t figure out how to articulate it.

  Ishmael told me to take my time.

  After I’d sweated over it for a few minutes, he said, “Don’t expect to be able to work it all out in terms of our present knowledge of the world. The Semites at this time were completely isolated on the Arabian peninsula, cut off in all directions either by the sea or by the people of Cain. For all they knew, they and their brothers to the north were literally the whole race of man, the only people on earth. Certainly that’s the way they saw the story. They couldn’t possibly have known that it was only in that little corner of the world that Adam had eaten at the gods’ tree, couldn’t possibly have known that the Fertile Crescent was only one of many places where agriculture had begun, couldn’t possibly have known that there were still people all over the world living the way Adam had lived before the Fall.”

  “True,” I said. “I was trying to make it fit with all the information we have, and that obviously won’t work.”

  17

  “I think it’s safe to say that the story of Adam’s Fall is by far the best–known story in the world.”

  “At least in the West,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s well known in the East as well, having been carried into every corner of the world by Christian missionaries. It has a powerful attraction for Takers everywhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is that so?”

  “I guess because it purports to explain what went wrong here.”

  “What did go wrong? How do people understand the story?”

  “Adam, the first man, ate the fruit of the forbidden tree.”

  “And what is that understood to mean?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know. I’ve never heard an explanation that made any sense.”

  “And the knowledge of good and evil?”

  “Again, I’ve never heard an explanation that made any sense. I think the way most people understand it, the gods wanted to test Adam’s obedience by forbidding him something, and it didn’t much matter what it was. And that’s what the Fall essentially was—an act of disobedience.”

  “Nothing really to do with the knowledge of good and evil.”

  “No. But then I suppose there are people who think that the knowledge of good and evil is just a symbol of… I don’t know exactly what. They think of the Fall as a fall from innocence.”

  “Innocence in this context presumably being a synonym for blissful ignorance.”

  “Yes… It’s something like this: Man was innocent until he discovered the difference between good and evil. When he was no longer innocent of that knowledge, he became a fallen creature.”

  “I’m afraid that means nothing at all to me.”

  “To me either, actually.”

  “All the same, if you read it from another point of view, the story does explain exactly what went wrong here, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the people of your culture have never been able to understand the explanation, because they’ve always assumed that it was formulated by people just like them—people who took it for granted that the world was made for man and man was made to conquer and rule it, people for whom the sweetest knowledge in the world is the knowledge of good and evil, people who consider tilling the soil the only noble and human way to live. Reading the story as if it had been authored by someone with their own point of view, they didn’t stand a chance of understanding it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But when it’s read another way, the explanation makes perfectly good sense: Man can never have the wisdom the gods use to rule the world, and if he tries to preempt that wisdom, the result won’t be enlightenment, it will be death.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I have no doubt about that—that’s what the story means. Adam wasn’t the progenitor of our race, he was the progenitor of our culture.”

  “This is why he’s always been a figure of such importance to you. Even though the story itself made no real sense to you, you could identify with Adam as its protagonist. From the beginning, you recognized him as one of your own.”

  TEN

  1

  An uncle arrived in town unannounced and expected to be entertained. I thought it would be a day; it turned out to be two and a half. I found myself beaming these thoughts at him: “Isn’t it getting to be time for you to move on? Aren’t you homesick by now? Wouldn’t you rather explore the city on your own? Doesn’t it ever occur to you that I might have other things to do?” He was not receptive.

  A few minutes before I left to take him to the airport, I got a call and an ultimatum from a client: No more excuses, not one word—do the work now, or send back the advance. I said I’d do the work now. I took my visiting relative to the airport, came back, and sat down at the word processor. It wasn’t that big a chore, I told myself—pointless to make a trip downtown just to tell Ishmael I wasn’t going to be there for another day or two.

  But in the water of my bones and bowels there was a tremor of apprehension.

  I pray about teeth—doesn’t everyone? I don’t have time to floss. You know. Hang in there, I tell them; I’ll get around to you before it’s too late. But during the second night a molar that was way, way in the back gave up the ghost. The next morning I found a dentist who agreed to take it out and give it a decen
t burial. In the chair, while he gave me shot after shot and fiddled with his equipment and checked my blood pressure, I found myself thinking, “Look, I don’t have time for this—just yank it out and let me go.” But he turned out to be right. Oh my, what roots that tooth had—and it seemed to be a lot closer to my spine than my lips. At one point I asked him if it wouldn’t be easier to go in from the back.

  When it was over, another side of his personality emerged. He became a Tooth Policeman, and I had been well and truly pulled over to the curb. He scolded me, made me feel small, irresponsible, and immature. I nodded and promised and nodded and promised, thinking, Please, Officer, give me one more chance, set me loose on my own recognizance. Eventually he did, but when I got home my hands were shaking and the gauze pads that came out of my jaw weren’t pretty. I spent the day gobbling pain–killers and antibiotics and drinking myself silly with bourbon.

  In the morning I got back to work, but that tremor of apprehension was still singing in my water.

  “One more day,” I said to myself. “I’ll be able to get this in the mail tonight, and one more day won’t matter.”

  The gambler who puts his last hundred on odd and watches the ball hop decisively into slot 18 will tell you he knew it was a losing bet the instant the chip left his hand. He knew it, felt it. But of course if it had taken one more hop and landed in 19, he would cheerfully admit that such presentiments often prove to be wrong.

  Mine was not.

  From the head of the hallway, I saw an industrial–sized floor scrubber parked outside Ishmael’s half–open door. Before I could get there, a middle–aged man in a gray uniform backed out and started locking up. I called to him to wait.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, somewhat inelegantly, when he was in range of a normal tone of voice.

  It didn’t really deserve an answer, and he didn’t give me one.

  “Look,” I said, “I know it’s none of my business, but would you mind telling me what’s going on here?”

  He looked at me as if I were a roach he was sure he’d killed a week ago. Nonetheless, he finally worked his mouth a bit and let a few words through: “Getting the place ready for a new tenant.”

  “Ah,” I said. “But, uh, what happened to the old tenant?”

  He shrugged indifferently. “Got evicted, I guess. Wasn’t paying her rent.”

  “Her rent?” I had momentarily forgotten that Ishmael was not his own caretaker.

  He gave me a doubtful look. “Thought you knew the lady.”

  “No, I knew the uh… the uh…”

  He stood there blinking at me.

  “Look,” I said again, floundering, “there’s probably a note in there for me, or something.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ at all in there now, ’cept a bad smell.”

  “Would you mind if I had a look for myself?” He turned back to the door and locked it. “You talk to the management about it, okay? I got things to do.”

  2

  “The management,” in the person of a receptionist, couldn’t think of any reason why I should be given access to that office or anything else, including information of any kind, on any subject, beyond what I already knew: that the tenant had failed to keep up with the rent and had accordingly been evicted. I tried to unnerve her with a piece of truth, but she rejected scornfully my suggestion that a gorilla had once occupied the premises.

  “No such animal has ever been kept—or ever will be kept—on any property managed by this firm.”

  I told her that she could at least tell me if Rachel Sokolow had been the lessor—what harm could that do?

  She said, “That’s not the point. If your interest was legitimate, you would already know who the lessor was.”

  This was not your typical receptionist; if I ever need one of my own, I hope I find one like her.

  3

  There were half a dozen Sokolows in the phone book, but none was named Rachel. There was a Grace, with the right sort of address for the widow of a wealthy Jewish merchant. The next morning, early, I took my car and did a little discreet trespassing to see if the grounds sported a gazebo; they did. I got the car washed, polished my serious shoes, and dusted off the shoulders of the one suit I maintain in case of weddings and funerals. Then, to be sure of not running into lunch or tea, I waited until two o’clock to make my appearance.

  The Beaux–Arts style isn’t to everyone’s taste, but I happen to like it when it doesn’t confuse itself with a wedding cake. The Sokolow mansion looked cool and majestic yet ever–so–slightly whimsical, like royalty on a picnic. After ringing the bell, I had plenty of time to study the front door, a work of art in its own right, a bronze sculpture depicting the Rape of Europa or the Founding of Rome or some damn thing like that. After a while it was opened by a man I would pick for secretary of state just on the basis of his clothes, his looks, and his bearing. He didn’t have to say, “Yeah?” or “Well?” He asked my business just by twitching an eyebrow. I told him I wanted to see Mrs. Sokolow. He asked if I had an appointment, knowing full well that I didn’t. I knew this was not a guy I could stiff with a statement that it was a personal matter—meaning, none of his business. I decided to open up a little.

  “To tell the truth, I’m trying to get in touch with her daughter.”

  He gave me a leisurely going–over with his eyes. “You’re not a friend of hers,” he said at last.

  “No, frankly, I’m not.”

  “If you were, you would know that she died almost three months ago.”

  His words went through me like a dose of ice water.

  He twitched another eyebrow, meaning, “Anything else?”

  I decided to open up a little more.

  “Were you with Mr. Sokolow?”

  He frowned, letting me know that he doubted the relevance of my inquiry.

  “The reason I ask is… may I ask your name?”

  He doubted the relevance of this inquiry as well, but he decided to humor me. “My name is Partridge.”

  “Well, Mr. Partridge, the reason I ask is, did you know… Ishmael?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “To be completely truthful with you, I’m not looking for Rachel, I’m looking for Ishmael. I understand that Rachel more or less took charge of him after her father died.”

  “How do you come to understand that?” he asked, giving away nothing.

  “Mr. Partridge, if you know the answer to that, you’ll probably help me,” I said, “and if you don’t know the answer to it, you probably won’t.”

  It was an elegant point, and he acknowledged it with a nod. Then he asked why I was looking for Ishmael.

  “He’s missing from his… usual place. Evidently he was evicted.”

  “Someone must have moved him. Helped him.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t suppose he walked into Hertz and rented a car.”

  Partridge ignored my witticism. “I honestly don’t know anything, I’m afraid.”

  “Mrs. Sokolow?”

  “If she knew anything, I would know it first.”

  I believed him but said: “Give me a place to start.”

  “I don’t know of any place to start, now. Now that Miss Sokolow is dead.”

  I stood there for a while, chewing on it. “What did she die of?”

  “You didn’t know her at all?”

  “Not from Adam.”

  “Then that’s really none of your business,” he told me, without rancor, just stating a plain fact.

  4

  I considered hiring a private investigator. Then I rehearsed in my head the kind of conversation it would take to get started, and decided to skip it. But because I couldn’t just up and quit on it, I made a phone call to the local zoo and asked if they happened to have a lowland gorilla in stock. They didn’t. I said I happened to have one I needed to get rid of and did they want it, and they said no. I asked if they could suggest someone who might want it, and they said no, not really. I asked them what they’d
do if they absolutely had to get rid of a gorilla. They said there might be a laboratory or two that would take it as a specimen, but I could tell they weren’t really concentrating.

  One thing was obvious: Ishmael had some friends I didn’t know about—perhaps former pupils. The only way I could think of to reach them was the way he had probably reached them—through an ad in the personals:

  FRIENDS OF ISHMAEL: Another friend has lost

  contact. Please call and tell me where he is.

  The ad was a mistake, because it gave me an excuse to turn my brain off. I waited for it to appear, then I waited for it to run for a week, then I waited a few more days for a call that didn’t come, and in that way two weeks passed during which I didn’t lift a finger.

  When I finally faced the fact that I wasn’t going to get any response to the ad, I had to look for a new heading, and it took me about three minutes to come up with it. I called city hall and was soon talking to the person who would issue a permit to a traveling show if one turned up and wanted to squat on a vacant lot for a week.

  Was there one in town at the moment?

  No.

  Had there been any in the past month?

  Yes, the Darryl Hicks Carnival, with nineteen rides, twenty–four games, and a sideshow, had been here and was gone now for a couple weeks or thereabouts.

  Anything like a menagerie?

  Don’t recollect anything like that being listed.

  Maybe an animal or two in the sideshow?

  Dunno. Possible.

  Next stop on its route?

  No idea at all.

  It didn’t matter. A dozen calls tracked it to a town forty miles north, where it had stayed a week and moved on. Assuming it would keep on moving north, I located its next stop and present location with a single call. And yes, it now boasted of having “Gargantua, the world’s most famous gorilla”—a critter that I personally knew had been dead for something like forty years.