Monday-World
VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
D6-W1 (Day-Six, Week-One)
Chapter 29
Monday was not blue. It was gray with heavy low clouds blown in from the east.
One of the few things permitted to be transmitted from one day to the next was the weather forecast. The meteorology of N.E. 1330 was far superior to that of the early ages, which had been often baffled and fooled by the exceedingly complex forces that made up the weather. Now, over one thousand and five hundred years of research had enabled the forecasters to predict with 99.9 percent accuracy. But Mother Nature, as if determined to show man that he could never have that one-tenth percent in his grasp, sometimes pulled a reverse on him.
Today was an example of her trickery. The meteorologists had smugly announced that it would be clear and hot. But the wind had shifted, and the cloud continent over the mid-Atlantic was charging westward, its forefront now over eastern New Jersey.
Tom Zurvan had resumed his pacing. Will Isharashvili, the Central Park ranger, the gentle soul and henpecked husband, had protested feebly against being barred from the day that was rightfully his. Jeff Caird, in growing Will's persona, had made a mistake. He had gone too far in shaping a nonviolent and passive man. He had, however, given Isharashvili a great stub- bornness and courage in refusing to act violently, and it was these that were causing the death of Isharashvili. Though not quite deceased, he was fading away. Rather than use force, as the others were, he would cling to his principles and so slide back on them into the elements from which he had come.
Not so Jeff Caird and the others. Though Zurvan had slammed and locked the doors on them, he saw them creep out of holes that he had not known existed. When he shoved them back in and cemented the holes, he found them oozing out through the walls in a sort of osmosis.
("This isn't like you, Zurvan," Jeff Caird said. "You're supposed to be religious and noble. Highly moral. A true son of God. You should be glad to be a martyr, to sacrifice yourself for others. But you're not. You're hard and ruthless, as godless as those you preach against. What happened?")
("He's a hypocrite, that's what," Charles Ohm said.)
("Of course, he is," Wyatt Repp said. "He was never fully what he claimed to be. Here he was, preaching absolute truthfulness and honesty. Confess your sins! Confess! Free yourself of all guilt and shame! Become the round man, the round woman! Be complete! Yet he was concealing from his disciples and from the public that he was an immer. He had a gift that he was denying them, the gift of a much longer life. He was and is a criminal, this righteous man. He belongs to a secret and illegal organization. He is indeed a hypocrite!")
"Shut up! Shut up!" Zurvan cried.
("Yes. Lie down whimpering and die," Jim Dunski said. "Make it easy for the hypocrite.")
("Whimper, whimpish whelp, hard-hearted hound of heaven," Bob Tingle said. "You're barking up the wrong tree, Preacher Tom. The dog of deity is following a sour scent.")
"What do you expect me to do?" Zurvan shouted.
That quieted them for a while. Anything that he did would not help them. Or him. He could, not resume the habit of the past and be one man one day and another the next. There was no place to go to where they could be themselves again. There was also no place where he could be Father Tom again. He was facing death as surely as they were. If the immers caught him, they would kill him. If the organics caught him, they would, after the trial, send him to an institution for the mentally unbalanced. If the therapy succeeded, he, Zurvan, would dissolve. So would all of them, Jeff Caird included. The man that walked out of the institution might be named Caird, but he would not be the same persona.
If the therapy failed, he would be stoned and put away until such time as psychic science found a sure cure for him. Inevitably, he would be forgotten. He would gather dust in some vast warehouse along with the millions now there and the billions that would be there.
"Yes, I am a hypocrite," he muttered. "I have failed. Why? I thought that I was a true son of God, that I believed what I urged others to believe. I did believe! I did! But my Maker made me flawed!"
He chewed his lip and stroked a beard that was no longer there.
"Don't put the blame on Him! He gave you free will! You had the power to heal the flaws! You did not have to blind yourself to them! You blinded yourself! Your Maker didn't blind you!"
(Jeff Caird said, quietly though very near, "But you forget that I am your maker.")
Zurvan yelled and fell to the floor. He rolled back and forth on the carpet crying, "No! No! No!"
When he stopped rolling and shouting, he lay for a long while on his back staring at the ceiling.
("Hell, why don't we quit prolonging this agony?" Charlie
Ohm said. "Let's turn ourselves in. They're going to catch us, anyway. And we'll be safe from the immers.")
("Too many organics are immers," Jim Dunski said. "They'll get to us, find some reason to kill us before we can talk. Anyway, I don't like to quit.")
("It's shootout time at the Psychic Corral," Wyatt Repp said. "May the best man win. Get off the floor and be a man, Zurvan. Fight! If you lose, go down trying to win! Fight! Don't listen to that loser, the lush!")
Zurvan walked to the kitchen as if he were pushing through cotton candy. He drank a tall glass of water, went to the toilet, relieved himself, and put cold water on his face. After drying off, he picked up his shoulderbag and walked to the hallway door.
("Hey, where you going?" Ohm said.)
("He's going to turn us in," Bob Tingle said. "By the time the organics get through with us, no stone will be left unturned. We'll be turned inside out and then turned to stone. Think about it, man!")
("I didn't mean it," Ohm said. "I was only kidding you, pushing you to see if you really were crazy.")
("Don't do it!" Caird said. "There may be a way out!")
Zurvan closed the door behind him and walked toward the elevator. "I'm not going to turn myself in," he said. "I'm going for a long walk. I can't stand being caged in the apartment. I need to think. I need ..
What did he need? A possibility where all was impossible.
("When the rat in the laboratory can't find the way out of the labyrinth," Caird said, "when the rat runs up against an insoluble problem, when the rat is hopelessly confused, it lies down and dies.")
"I am not a rat!" Zurvan said.
("No," Caird said, "you're not. You're not even a rat. You're a fiction! Remember, I am your maker! I, the real, made you, a fiction! ")
("Then that means the rest of us, too, are fictions," Repp said. "You made us. But so what?, You're a fiction, too, Caird. The government and the immers made you.")
("Fiction can become reality," Dunski said. "We're as real as Caird. After all, he made us from parts of him. He grew us as surely as a mother grows the embryo in the womb. And he gave birth to us. Now he wants to kill us. His children!")
("For Chrissake!" Ohm said. "We all want to kill each other! God, I need a drink!")
("I am your maker," Caird said over and over again. "The maker of all of you. What I can make, I can unmake. I am your maker and your unmaker.")
("Bullshit!" Charlie Ohm cried. "You're not Aladdin, and we're not genies you can put back into the bottle!")
("You would think of a bottle," Bob Tingle said. "Lush, loser, lessening Lazarus! Think of yourself as a hangover we all want to get rid of. You're all hangovers!")
("En garde, you son of a bitch!")
("Play your hand!")
("All fictions. I made you. I now unmake you.")
("Ohm-mani-padme-hum! ")
("Humbug, you alcoholic hummingbird! ")
("I made you. I am unmaking you. Do you think for one moment that I didn't foresee this. I made the rituals that admitted you each day into your day. I also made the reverse ritual, the undoing ritual, the no-entrance ritual. I knew that I'd need it some day. And today is the day!")
("Liar! ")
("Fictions c
alling the fiction-maker a liar? Living lies calling the one who made you truths, though temporary truths, a liar? I am your maker. I made you. I am unmaking you. Can't you feel everything slipping away? Go back to where you came from!")
The wind that blew across Waverly Place was not strong enough as yet to blow off a hat. But the winds howling inside
Zurvan seemed to lift him up and carry him away into the clouds. The light grew dim; the pedestrians around him were looking at him because he was staggering. When they saw him drop to his knees and lift his hands high, they backed away.
Far in the east, thunder stomped its feet in a war dance and lightning flashed its many lances.
Zurvan sped whirling through the whirling grayness. He tried to grab the dark wetness to keep himself from falling. Up? Or down?
"0 Lord," he bellowed, "I'm lost! Snatch me from this doom! Take me away from this gray world to your glory!"
The people on the sidewalk backed even farther away or hurried off as Zurvan clapped his hands to his eyes and screamed, "The light! The light!"
He fell forward on his arms and lay still for a moment.
"Call an ambulance," someone said.
He rolled over, staring and blinking, and got unsteadily to his feet. "That won't be necessary," he said. "I'm all right. Just a bit dizzy. I'll go home. It's near. Just leave me alone."
Jeff Caird, whispering, "The light! The light!" walked across the bridge over the canal. By the time that he was a block away from Washington Square, he felt steady and strong.
("He's gone?" Tingle said.)
("Like the Indian that folded his tepee and stole away into the night," Wyatt Repp said.)
("He almost took me with him," Charlie Ohm said. "God! The light!")
("It was sword-shaped," Jim Dunski said. "It came down and lifted him on its blade and tossed him up into blazing sky.")
Their voices were faint. They became a little louder when they discovered that Caird was now in control of the body.
("Oh, my God," Ohm said, "we're sunk!")
("Look at it this way," Repp said. "Zurvan's bit the dust.
Now ... it's Caird's last stand. We'll have his scalp before this is over.")
Zurvan had not been sure that he had not been making up the voices of the others. Caird was equally unsure. It did not matter that they might be imaginary. Nor did it matter that the voices might be those of personae as real as his. What mattered was that he was master. And he knew what he was going todo.
He walked against the increasing wind toward the tall yellow vertical tube on the northwest corner of the park. This was one of the entrances to the underground system of transportation belts and power and water lines. A strip by its side warned that only SCC workers could use it. There were no workers or uniformed organics in sight, and the few people who had lingered in the park were leaving it.
He stopped. Under the branches of an oak tree in the distance sat a lone figure. The man who had been playing chess with Gril was walking away, shaking his head. Apparently, Gril had asked his partner to finish the game. The man, however, would rather forfeit.
Caird stopped by the entrance to the tube.
("What now?" Ohm said faintly.)
A few leaves blown from the trees whirled by. The wind, cool with the promise of rain, lifted his hair. A bicycler, bent over, feet pumping, sped by.
Gril stood up. His red beard and long red hair were ruffled by the wind. He gathered up the pieces, put them in a case, folded the chessboard, and slid it into the case. Caird began running toward him. He shouted, but the wind carried his words over his shoulder as if they were confetti.
Gril turned and saw Caird running at him. He crouched and looked to both sides as if he wanted to find the best way to flee. Then he drew himself up and waited.
Chapter 30
Caird slowed down and smiled to show Gril that he meant no harm. When he got within speaking distance, he said, "I'm not an organic. Not now, anyway. Ijust wanted to talk to you for a minute, Yankev Gad Gril. No longer than that, I swear it. I have urgent business; I won't detain you long."
Gril was regaining his color. He said in a deep rich voice, "You know my name. I don't know yours."
"No need to know it," Caird said. "Let's sit down for a minute. Too bad you put the board away. We could have finished our game."
Gril frowned and said, "Our game?"
Caird considered saying, "I make the first move: 1 BL-WC-4. Then you make the second, BL-WC SG."
That would be enough to tell Gril that this was his Tuesday's opponent. Last Tuesday's ex-opponent. But Caird wanted him to know as little as possible about his identity.
("You don't know much about it, either," Ohm said.)
Instead, Jeff Caird said, "I know you're a daybreaker. No, don't be alarmed. I'm not going to turn you in ..
He looked around. There were even fewer pedestrians and cyclists. A taxi, two people in the back seat, went by. The rumbling was getting closer. The storm was flashing open its dark overcoat to expose lightning.
Gril's small green eyes became smaller, and his thin lips squeezed even thinner. He said, "What do you. want?"
"I want to satisfy my overwhelming curiosity. That's all. I just want an answer to a question."
("Are you nuts?" Charlie Ohm said. "What if the organics come while you're indulging your craziness? For Chrissakes, Caird! ")
"If I can answer it," Gril said.
Perhaps Ohm was right, and he was crazy. Or perhaps he was indulging the Tuesday organic in him. Whatever the reason, he had to know the man's motive.
"From what I know of your case," Caird said, "you had no apparent reason to daybreak. Why did you?"
Gril smiled and said, "If I told you, I don't think you'd understand."
("Any second now," Repp said, "any second now, the organics will be coming around the corner. Maybe they won't wonder why you two are sitting under a tree that might get struck by lightning. Maybe they won't come over and ask you why. And then maybe they won't ask for your ID. Maybe they won't already have your description.")
"Try me," Caird said.
"How much do you know about Orthodox Judaism?"
"Probably enough. I know your name, remember? I know who you are."
Gril looked across the table at Caird. He clutched the case so hard that his knuckles whitened. "Then you know how important keeping the Shabbos, the Sabbath, is to us?"
Caird nodded.
"You know that the government does not forbid us to observe the Sabbath? It won't let us have a synagogue, but it doesn't play favorites. No religion has a church or temple or mosque or synagogue."
"The people need the space those would occupy for housing and factories," Caird said. "Also, religions are a form of malignant superstition, contrary to all ..
Gril held up a big red-haired hand.
"I don't want to get into an argument about the reasons."
"I don't either," Caird said, looking around. "It was just that ..
"Never mind. As I said, we are permitted to do what God enjoined us to do. We observe the Sabbath. That is on the seventh day of the week, beginning with dusk on Friday and ending with the dusk on Saturday evening."
"I understand," Caird said.
"Yes, but you don't understand how important it is that we do observe the ancient practice, the ancient law. The law. Not the government's law. Ours. A much more ancient law."
"But you have your Sabbaths."
Gril raised a hand from the case and lifted a finger.
"Yes. But we do not go by the ancient and sacred calendar. Instead of traveling horizontally on the calendar, we travel vertically. Last Monday was the Sabbath, not Saturday. That is, it was if we obey the law of the state."
"I think I know what you're going to say," Caird said. "It's hard-"
"Please. It's going to rain very soon. Since I've been courteous to you, a stranger who came in from nowhere and will probably go nowhere..
("Ain't that the truth!" Char
lie Ohm said.)
" ... without telling me who you are and why you're here, I'm not asking too much of you to refrain from interrupting."
"Right," Caird said.
("The organics!" Ohm whispered.)
Caird looked around quickly, but Ohm was just warning him to watch for organics.
"I did not like the idea of observing the Sabbath on the wrong day, on Monday instead of as it should be and has long been decreed ... "
("The man's as windy as you, Caird," Ohm said.)
" ... but I obeyed the state and the rabbis. After all, they reasoned that, regardless of whether it was Saturday or not, the Sabbath still fell on the seventh day. But I was not happy with this reasoning. Then, one day, while reading the book of a very wise man, though he was sometimes mistaken and prejudiced, I came across a passage that affected me deeply."
"Cerinthus?"
Gril's only sign of being startled was a rapid blinking. "How did you know that?"
"Never mind. I'm sorry I interrupted again."
"Actually, the author was Pseudo-Cerinthus. The scholars had established that some books supposedly by Cerinthus were by another man, name unknown, called, for the sake of convenience, Pseudo-Cerinthus. I, however ... "-Gril looked very pleased-" ... I was able to prove that Cerinthus and PseudoCerinthus were actually the same person. His style as PseudoCerinthus was different from Cerinthus' because, when he wrote as Pseudo-Cerinthus, he was possessed by the Shekinah or Doxa ..
"By what?"
"God's presence or the light that His presence shed. The Targumists used that term ..
"Never mind," Caird said. "What was this passage that affected you so deeply?"
("Cerinthus and Pseudo-Cerinthus," Bob Tingle said. "Another schizophrenic. Do you think we have room for him, too? Come on in, sibling sage, seer, and psychotic.")
("I can't believe that we're standing out in the open discussing theology and stylistics while the storm and the organics are closing in," Ohm said.)
"Cerinthus," Gril said, "believed that the angels created the world. And an angel gave the Jews their law, which was imperfect. He was wrong about that, of course. The Shekiriah gave the law to the Jews, and the Shekinah cannot give imperfect laws. Not to His chosen people.
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