He said, "Are you serious?"
"Very."
"Because of Linda Fox?"
"Because I'm sick and tired of this place being a sty. I'm sick and tired of doing dishes for you and your friends. I'm especially sick and tired of Elias; he's always showing up unexpectedly; he never fones before he comes over. He acts like he lives here. Half the money we spend on food goes for him and his needs. He's like some kind of beggar. He looks like a beggar. And that nutty religious crap of his, that 'The world is coming to an end' stuff ... I can't take any more of it." She fell silent and then, in pain, she grimaced.
"Your ulcer?" he asked.
"My ulcer, yes. The ulcer I got worrying about—"
"I'm going to the shop," he said; he made his way to the door. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Herb Asher," Rybys said. "Leave me here and go stand around talking to pretty lady customers and listening to high-performance new audio components that'll knock your socks off, for half a million dollars."
He shut the door after him, and, a moment later, rose up into the sky in his flycar.
Later in the day, when no customers wandered around the store checking out the new equipment, he seated himself in the listening room with his business partner. "Elias," he said, "I think Rybys and I have come to the end."
Elias said, "What are you going to do instead? You're used to living with her; it's a basic part of you, taking care of her. Satisfying her wants."
"Psychologically," Herb said, "she is very sick."
"You knew that when you married her."
"She can't focus her attention. She's scattered. That's the technical term for it. That's what the tests showed. That's why she's so messy; she can't think and she can't act and she can't concentrate." The Spirit of Futile Effort, he said to himself.
"What you need'" Elias said, "is a son. I saw how much affection you have for Manny, that woman's little brother. Why don't you—" He broke off. "It's none of my business."
"If I got mixed up with anybody else," Herb said, "I know who it would be. But she'd never give me a tumble."
"That singer?"
"Yes," he said.
"Try," Elias said.
"It's beyond my reach."
"Nobody knows what's beyond his reach. God decides what's beyond a person's reach."
"She's going to be galaxy-famous."
Elias said, "But she isn't yet. If you're going to make a move toward her, do it now."
"The Fox," Herb Asher said. "That's how I think of her." A phrase popped into his mind:
You are with the Fox,
and the Fox is with you!
Not Linda Fox singing but Linda Fox speaking. He wondered where the notion came from, that she would be saying that. Again vague memories, compounded of—he did not know what. A more aggressive Linda Fox; more professional and dynamic. And yet remote. As if from millions of miles off. A signal from a star. In both senses of the word.
From the distant stars, he thought. Music and the sound of bells.
"Maybe," he said, "I'll emigrate to a colony world."
"Rybys is too ill for that."
"I'll go alone," Herb said.
Elias said, "You'd be better off dating Linda Fox. If you can swing it. You'll be seeing her again. Don't give up yet. Make a try. The basis of life is trying."
"OK," Herb Asher said. "I will try."
17
HAND IN HAND, Emmanuel walked with Zina through the dark woods of Stanley Park. "You are myself," he said. "You are the Shekhina, the immanent Presence who never left the world." He thought, The female side of God. Known to the Jews and only to the Jews. When the primordial fall took place, the Godhead split into a transcendent part separated from the world; that was En Sof. But the other part, the female immanent part, remained with the fallen world, remained with Israel.
These two portions of the Godhead, he thought, have been detached from each other for millennia. But now we have come together again, the male half of the Godhead and the female half. While I was away the Shekhina intervened in the lives of human beings, to assist them. Here and there, sporadically, the Shekhina remained. So God never truly left mankind.
"We are each other," Zina said, "and we have found each other again, and again are one. The split is healed."
"Through all your veils," Emmanuel said, "beneath all your forms, there lay this ... my own self. And I did not recognize you, until you reminded me."
"How did I accomplish that?" Zina said, and then she said, "But I know. My love of games. That is your love, your secret joy: to play like a child. To be not serious. I appealed to that; I woke you up and you remembered: you recognized me."
"Such a difficult process," he said. "For me to remember. I thank you." She had abased herself in the fallen world all this time, while he had left; the greater heroism was hers. Staying with man in all man's inglorious conditions ... down into the prison with him, Emmanuel thought. Man's beautiful companion. At his side as she is now at mine.
"But you are back," Zina said. "You have returned."
"That is so," he said. "Returned to you. I had forgotten that you existed. I only recalled the world." You the kind side, he thought; the compassionate side. And I the terrible side that arouses fear and trembling. Together we form a unity. Separated, we are not whole; we are not, individually, enough.
"Clues," Zina said. "I kept giving you clues. But it was up to you to recognize me."
Emmanuel said, "I did not know who I was for a time, and I did not know who you were. Two mysteries confronted me, and they had a single answer."
"Let's go look at the wolves," Zina said. "They are such beautiful animals. And we can ride the little train. We can visit all the animals."
"And let them free," Emmanuel said.
"Yes," she said. "And let them, all of them, free."
"Will Egypt always exist?" he said. "Will slavery always exist?"
"Yes," Zina said. "And so will we."
As they approached the Stanley Park Zoo, Emmanuel said, "The animals will be surprised by their freedom. At first they won't know what to do."
"Then we will teach them," Zina said. "As we always have. What they know they have learned from us; we are their guide."
"So be it," he said, and placed his hand on the first metal cage. Within it a small animal peered at him hesitantly. Emmanuel said, "Come out of your cage."
The animal, trembling, came to him, and he took it in his arms.
From his audio store Herb Asher called Linda at her Sherman Oaks home. It took a little while—two robot secretaries held him up temporarily—but at last he got through.
"Hello," he said when he had her on the line.
"How's my sound system coming?" She blinked rapidly and put her finger to her eye. "My contact lens is slipping; just a second." Her face disappeared from the screen. "I'm back," she said. "I owe you a dinner. Right? Do you want to fly out to California? I'm still at the Golden Hind; I will be for another week. We're getting good audiences; I'm trying out a whole lot of new material. I want your reaction to it."
"Fine," he said, enormously pleased.
"So can we get together, then?" Linda said. "Out here?"
"Sure," he said. "You name a time."
"What about tomorrow night? It'll have to be before I go to work, if we're going to have dinner."
"Fine," he said. "Around 6 P.M. California time?"
She nodded. "Herb," she said, "you can stay at my place if you want; I've got a big house. Plenty of room."
"I'd love to," he said.
"I'll serve you some very good California wine. A Mondavi red. I want you to like California wines; that French burgundy we had in New York was very nice, but—we have excellent wines out here."
"Is there a particular place you want to have dinner?"
"Sachiko's," Linda said. "Japanese food."
"You've got yourself a deal," he said.
"Is my sound system coming along okay?" she asked.
"Doi
ng fine," he said.
"I don't want you to work too hard," Linda Fox said. "I have a feeling you work too hard. I want you to relax and enjoy life. There's so much to enjoy: good wine, friends."
Herb said, "Laphroaig Scotch."
In amazement, Linda Fox exclaimed, "Don't tell me you know about Laphroaig Scotch? I thought I was the only person in the world who drinks Laphroaig!"
"It's been made in the traditional copper stills for over two hundred and fifty years," Herb Asher said. "It requires two distillations and the skill of an expert stillman."
"Yes; that's what it says on the package." She began to laugh. "You got that off the package, Herb."
"Yeah," he said.
"Isn't my Manhattan apartment going to be great?" she said enthusiastically. "That sound system you're putting in is what will make it. Herb—" She scrutinized him. "Do you honestly believe my music is good?"
"Yes," he said. "I know. What I say is true."
"You are so sweet," she said. "You see so much ahead for me. It's like you're my good luck person. You know, Herb, no one has ever really had confidence in me. I never did well in school ... my family didn't think I could make it as a singer. I had skin trouble, too; really bad. Of course I actually haven't made it yet—I'm just beginning. And yet to you I'm—" She gestured.
"Someone important," he said.
"And that means so much to me. I need it so bad. Herb, I have such a low opinion of myself; I'm so sure I'm going to fail. Or I used to be so sure," she corrected herself. "But you give me—Well, when I see myself through your eyes I don't see a struggling new artist; I see something that ..." She tried to go on; her lashes fluttered and she smiled at him apprehensively but hopefully, wanting him to finish for her.
"I know about you," he said, "as no one else does." And, indeed, that was true; because he remembered her, and no one else did. The world, collectively, had forgotten; it had fallen asleep. It would have to be reminded. And it would be.
"Come on out to the West Coast, Herb," Linda said. "Please. We'll have a lot of fun. Do you know California very well? You don't, do you?"
"I don't," he admitted. "I flew out to catch you at the Golden Hind. And I always dreamed of living in California. But I never did."
"I'll take you all around. It'll be terrific. And you can cheer me up when I'm depressed and reassure me when I'm scared. OK?"
"OK," he said, and felt, for her, great love.
"When you get out here, tell me what I do right in my music and what I'm doing wrong. But tell me most of all that I'm going to make it. Tell me I'm not going to fail, like I think I am. Tell me that the Dowland is a good idea. Dowland's lute music is so beautiful, the most beautiful music ever written. You really believe, then, you're sure that my music, the kind of things I sing will take me to the top?"
"I'm positive," he said.
"How do you know these things? It's as if you have a gift. A gift that you in turn give to me."
"It is from God," Herb Asher said. "My present to you. My confidence in you. Accept what I say; it is true."
Gravely, she said, "I sense magic around us, Herb. A magic spell. I know that sounds silly, but I do. A beauty to everything."
"A beauty," he said, "that I find in you."
"In my music?"
"In you both."
"You're not making this up?"
"No," he said. "I swear by God's own name. By the Father that created us."
"From God," she echoed. "Herb, it scares me. You scare me. There is something about you."
Herb Asher said, "Your music will take you all the way." He knew because he remembered. He knew because, for him, it had already happened.
"Really?" Linda said.
"Yes," he said. "It will carry you to the stars."
18
THE SMALL ANIMAL, released from its cage, crept into Emmanuel's arms. He and Zina held it and it thanked them. Both of them felt its gratitude.
"It's a little goat," Zina said, examining its hooves. "A kid."
"How kind of you," the kid said to them. "I have waited a long time to be released from my cage, the cage you put me in, Zina Pallas."
"You know me?" she said, surprised.
"Yes, I know you," the kid said, as it pressed itself against her. "I know both of you, although you two are really one. You have reunited your sundered selves, but the battle is not over; the battle begins now."
Emmanuel said, "I know this creature."
The little goat, in Zina's arms, said, "I am Belial. Whom you imprisoned. And whom you now release."
"Belial," Emmanuel said, "My adversary."
"Welcome to my world," Belial said.
"It is my world," Zina said.
"Not anymore." The goat's voice gained strength and authority. "In your rush to free the prisoners you have freed the greatest prisoner of all. I will contend against you, deity of light. I will take you down into the caves where there is no light. Nothing of your radiance will shine, now; the light has gone out, or soon will. Your game up to now has been a mock game in which you played against your own self. How could the deity of light lose when both sides were portions of him? Now you face a true adversary, you who drew order out of chaos and now draw me out of that order. I will test the powers that you have. Already you have made a mistake; you freed me without knowing who I am. I had to tell you. Your knowledge is not perfect; you can be surprised. Have I not surprised you?"
Zina and Emmanuel were silent.
"You made me helpless," Belial said, "placed in a cage, and then you felt sorry for me. You are sentimental, deity of light. It will be your downfall. I accuse you of weakness, the inability to be strong. I am he who accuses and I accuse my own creator. To rule you must be strong. It is the strong who rule; they rule the weak. You have, instead, protected the weak; you have offered help to me, your enemy. Let us see if that was wise."
"The strong should protect the weak," Zina said. "The Torah says so. It is a basic idea of the Torah; it is basic to God's law. As God protects man, so man should protect the disadvantaged, even down to animals and the nobler trees."
Belial said, "This runs contrary to the nature of life, the nature you implanted in it. This is how life evolves. I accuse you of violating your own biological foundations, the order of the world. Yes, by all means, free every prisoner; loose a tide of murderers on the world. You have begun with me. Again I thank you. But now I leave you; I have as much to do as you have—perhaps more. Let me down." The goat leaped from their arms and ran off; Zina and Emmanuel watched it go. And as it ran it grew.
"It will undo our world," Zina said.
Emmanuel said, "We will kill it first." He raised his hand; the goat vanished.
"It is not gone," Zina said. "It has concealed itself in the world. Camouflaged itself. We cannot now even find it. You know that it won't die. Like us it is eternal."
In the other cages the remaining imprisoned animals clamored to be released. Zina and Emmanuel ignored them; instead, they looked this way and that for the goat whom they had let out—let out to do as it wished,
"I sense its presence," Zina said.
"I, too," Emmanuel said somberly. "Our work is undone already."
"But the battle is not over," Zina said. "As it said itself, 'The battle now begins.'"
"So be it," Emmanuel said. "We will fight it together, the two of us. As we did in the beginning, before the fall."
Leaning toward him, Zina kissed him.
He felt her fear. Her intense dread. And that dread lay within him, too.
What will become of them now? he asked himself. The people whom he wished to free. What kind of prison will Belial contrive for them with his endless ability to contrive prisons? Subtle ones and gross ones, prisons within prisons; prisons for the body, and, worse by far, prisons for the mind.
The Cave of Treasures under the Garden: dark and small, without air and without light, without real time and real space—walls that shrink and, caught tight, minds that shri
nk. And we have allowed this, Zina and I; we have colluded with the goat-thing to bring this about.
Its release is their constraint, he realized. A paradox; we have given freedom to the builder of dungeons. In our desire to emancipate we have crushed the souls of all the living.
It will affect every one of them in this world, from the highest to the lowest. Until we can return the goat-thing to its box; until we can place it back within its container.
And now it is everywhere; it is not contained. The atoms of the air are now its abode; it is inhaled like vapor. And each creature, breathing it in, will die. Not completely and not physically, but nonetheless death will come. We have released death, the death of the spirit. For all that now lives and wishes to live. This is our gift to them, done out of kindness.
"Motive does not count," Zina said, aware of his thoughts.
Emmanuel said, "The road to hell." Literally, he thought, in this case. That is the only door we have opened: the door to the tomb.
I pity the small creatures the most, he thought. Those who have done the least harm. They above all do not deserve this. The goat-thing will single them out for the greatest suffering; it will afflict them in proportion to their innocence ... this is its method by which the great balance is tilted from rectitude, and the Plan undone. It will accuse the weak and destroy the helpless; it will use its power against those least able to defend themselves. And, most of all, it will devour the little hopes, the meager dreams of the small.
Here we must intervene, he said to himself. To protect the small. This is our first task and the first line of our defense.
Lifting off from his abode in Washington, D.C., Herb Asher joyfully began the flight to California and Linda Fox. This is going to be the happiest period of my life, he said to himself. He had his suitcases in the back seat and they were filled with everything that he might need; he would not be returning to Washington, D.C., and Rybys for some time—if ever. A new life, he thought as he guided his car through the vividly marked transcontinental traffic lanes. It's like a dream, he thought. A dream fulfilled.
The VALIS Trilogy Page 44