When Daphna climbed into bed, she could just barely hear the phone from the kitchen. She continued to struggle with the conflicting urges to listen and to block it out. She put her fingers in her ears. She put the pillow over her head. This kept her busy for a while, but at ten, curiosity got the best of her. She had to listen to at least one of the messages. Daphna got up and padded into the living room, but stopped before reaching the phone. It wasn’t a good idea. She might mess something up and prevent the most important call from coming in.
But there was something she could do to satisfy her curiosity safely: check the website. Daphna turned and walked to the office. She didn’t know what to expect when she checked the counter on the site, but it wasn’t 363,3011 hits. She could hardly believe it. Daphna nearly went down to tell Dex, but thought he might actually be asleep. Instead, she went back to bed and laid there awhile, lost in thought, mercifully oblivious of the phone.
Around eleven, the sound of the phone re-intruded into her consciousness, so Daphna got up and checked the computer again: the total was now well over a million. Were there that many deaf people in the world? Then she went back to bed and stared up at the ceiling. She may have fallen asleep for portions of the next few hours, but at around two, she became aware of staring at the ceiling again. She gave up on sleeping for the night.
Dex opened his eyes, momentarily unsure where he was. It was morning, and the house was eerily quiet. He jumped out of bed, realizing only then that he’d slept in his clothes, and ran up to the kitchen. Daphna, showered and dressed, was sitting at the table with the phone between her shoulder and ear, writing in a notebook. She had dark circles under her eyes again.
Daphna looked up at Dexter and said, “Been up half the night listening to these. It stopped ringing at four thirty, but only because the voicemail couldn’t handle any more messages. I’ve been listening and deleting. I think half the lunatics on the planet called, Dex. Some of them are interesting, though. I’ve been jotting them down. Hold on, there are fourteen more.”
Dex was glad not to have had to listen to all that. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and crunched on it groggily while Daphna continued to scribble away. Ten minutes later, she was done.
“So?” Dex asked, “What’s the deal?”
“Well,” Daphna said—she was still in Project Mode—“I starred the ones that seem interesting. Like I said,” she explained, “most seem crazy. Things like this: ‘The Garden of Eden is a story in a book. The book is the world, and we are the main characters.’ Or, this: ‘I live in the Garden of Eden, and I have written four hundred books about my life here. Will you buy them? Credit cards accepted.’”
“I see,” said Dex.
“And how ’bout: ‘It’s all Eve’s fault Adam ate that apple. God should have thrown the book at her. Women are Evil. Look at Pandora.’”
“Who’s Pandora?”
“It’s a Greek—Never mind. I’m thinking we might not have been specific enough in our requests.”
“So, what were the good ones?”
“Right. Hold on—Okay, here’s one. It’s a little hard to read my writing. It says: ‘The Hebrew word for ‘paradise’ is the same as the word for ‘orchard.’”
“And an orchard is a kind of garden,” Dex said.
“Right! Hey, that was good! Maybe you were right about those words being the same!”
“And that has what to do with books?”
“Don’t know,” Daphna said. “But someone earlier said something about the word for paradise, too. Let me find it.” Daphna scanned her page. “Here,” she said, “somebody named Yarmolinsky or something said the Hebrew word for ‘paradise’ has all three letters that make up the word for book, just out of order.”
“That seems pretty weak.”
“Yes, but he said that kind of thing is a really big deal in studies of ancient Hebrew because many people believed back then that the actual letters in the Bible—the Torah—had power. And that I imagine, doesn’t seem so far-fetched.”
“No,” Dex agreed. “Go on. Now we’ve got a connection between paradise and book, and since garden and paradise are connected, then book and garden are too, in a way.”
“Right!” Daphna said. “And how about this—well, first let’s try to remember the story. Dad told it to us once. Adam and Eve were—Dex!”
“Sorry. I tuned out for a second.”
“This is important.”
“All right, all right. Go on.”
“Anyway, Adam and Eve were allowed to eat from any tree in the Garden, except for the Tree of Knowledge. But the Snake talked Eve into doing it anyway, so she could taste the source of Wisdom and know right from wrong, like a divine being. She took a bite from an apple and offered it to Adam, who bit it, too—willingly I might add. And then God got mad and worried they’d eat from the Tree of Life and be even more divine by becoming immortal. So, anyway, he banished them.”
“Yeah, I remember all that.”
“Anyway, so this other caller said that the Tree of Knowledge in Hebrew is Etz Ha-da-at, and that the word Etz is also used in the term Etz Chayim, which means ‘Tree of Life, which is also the name of the handle that the Torah is rolled around. The Torah is a scroll, but that’s also a kind of book.”
Dex tried to gather what all this meant. “Translation?” he requested.
“Well,” said Daphna, “I think the point is that more words connected to the Garden of Eden are connected to books, especially religious books.”
“Okay. That much I get.”
“Just saying all that out loud is helping it make more sense to me,” Daphna said. “In part of some other bizarre message,” she continued, “someone said that the Hebrew word for book is also the word for “volume,” which could mean part of a larger work or a series of books, or in other words, lots of books.”
“Hmmm.” Dex had to admit that all this felt like it was leading somewhere significant. He felt like a bunch of loose strings were being pulled together in his mind, though they weren’t tied up yet.
“And one more,” said Daphna. “‘Fruit is the product of a tree, and so are books,’ which is very inter—What? You get it, don’t you?” Dex had the unmistakable look of breakthrough on his face. “Tell me!”
“The Garden of Eden was a library,” Dex declared, “a library full of books. And it wasn’t fruit Adam and Eve weren’t supposed to eat—”
“It was a book they weren’t supposed to read! That’s it, Dexter! That’s it! The Book of Nonsense! It’s—it’s—the Tree of Knowledge! Reading it makes you kind of like a god, not because it teaches you about good and evil, or not only because of that, but because it contains the First Tongue!”
Dex felt an electric charge. They were right, he knew it. Of course, he’d had the exact same feeling about fifty times since they’d first started trying to get to the bottom of all this, and he’d been totally wrong on just about every occasion. Even so, the certainty he felt now was deep and bracing. Then something occurred to him.
“When were books invented, anyway?” he asked.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Daphna replied. “Maybe God destroyed all the books when he kicked Adam and Eve out, so they had to be re-invented later.”
“But he didn’t destroy the Book of Nonsense, and he obviously wouldn’t have let them just take it.”
“Well, maybe he didn’t know,” Daphna speculated, brainstorming as she spoke. “Maybe when God told them to get out, they stole it! Maybe he was worried about the other tree, the Tree of Life, or the Book of Life. Hey! Ruby told us that the one Word of Power not in the Book of Nonsense was the Word of Immortality! That was in the Book of Life! Maybe God got distracted protecting it.”
“Maybe,” Dex allowed, “but God is supposed to know everything. That’s why he’s God. He’d’ve known they were going to read it and steal it. And if he knew that ahead of time, why punish them? Why not just stop it from happening to begin with? The only thing that makes sense is t
hat they killed him, probably before they ever read it, and then maybe they ran for it, and that’s why they left the Garden, or the Library, I mean.”
“But he’d’ve known they were going to do that, right? How does that make more sense?”
“Maybe he did know,” Dex said. “Maybe he let them.”
“Dexter, you seem to be suggesting that God basically committed suicide.”
“Nothing else makes sense,” Dex insisted, but he could tell his argument was pretty much smashed. He was trying to force the truth to be what he wanted it to be again. “Did Adam and Eve actually see God?” he asked. “Like, could they physically touch him?”
Daphna considered the question for a moment, then said, “We did a unit on creation stories last year, and one of the groups had a version of the Eden story. I think they said God was supposed to have actually walked through the Garden with Adam and Eve. So, if that’s true, I guess they did have access to him.”
“Then I still say they killed him,” Dex decided. “The story’s obviously been changed over the years, if it ever was accurate. Maybe it got changed so people wouldn’t panic. People would freak if they thought God was murdered, wouldn’t they?”
“I think most religions believe in a savior coming,” Daphna mused. “I think they either want God to come or to come back. Either way, it seems like everyone agrees that—God’s gone—”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! He’s dead!”
“If that’s true,” Daphna said, refusing to treat the idea as anything more than that, an idea, “where does Adem Tarik fit into the picture?”
“Maybe he knows everything we’ve figured out. Maybe he knows God is dead and wants to take his place!”
“Is that why he’s trying to remake the Library? That’s what he’s doing, isn’t it?” Daphna asked.
“He’s setting up headquarters,” Dex declared. “And he thinks he’s going to get us to—What? What did you figure out?”
Daphna had gone white.
“What?” Dex repeated.
“Dexter,” Daphna said, “he’s wanted all along for us to read from the Book of Nonsense. He offered it to us, remember? And we bit. Oh, boy, we bit.”
CHAPTER 26
news travels fast
“He’s the snake!” Dex cried. “Adem Tarik is the Snake!”
“He got rid of Adam and Eve,” Daphna said, “so he could have Eden all to himself! Then he got rid of God!”
“But then why did he ever have to leave the Library?” Dex asked, despite the fact that Daphna had supported his general theory. “What was with the kids he taught the First Tongue to? What was with Fikret Cihan and all those copies? What’s with us? What good does it do him to remake the Garden—or the Library?”
“Okay,” Daphna said, “Adem Tarik, the Snake, who was obviously not really a snake, for whatever reason can’t read the First Tongue. So, he talks Eve into reading the Book, who talks Adam into it. Then he trains them to use the Words of Power to take over the Garden for him. They were the first two kids he ever tried to train! Maybe he got them to kill God!” Daphna paused, shaken by the increasing plausibility of this thought.
“So then,” she continued, “maybe they realized he was evil, or maybe they just felt terribly, so they decided to run away from Eden. They were never banished! Or maybe they ran away because Tarik was going to somehow kill them! But anyway, they left Eden.”
“And started having kids.”
“And their kids had kids, and their kids had kids, and soon there was a whole world full of people—”
“Who weren’t under Tarik’s control. I’ll bet his plan was to make the whole world his private Garden of Eden.”
“And since he couldn’t read the First Tongue, he had to find some more people to train—and he’s been trying ever since to find someone who can give him his world back. Is—is he the Devil, Dex? Is that who the Snake is?”
Dexter, shocked by the suggestion, considered it awhile. He’d thought about the Devil even less than he’d ever thought about God. Was there such a thing? Did that explain all the horrid things that happened in the world? Was it the Devil that had it in for some people? He wondered if Antin had ever considered the idea. If the Devil was real, then God, dead or alive, obviously couldn’t stop him.
“Well,” Dex concluded, “that would explain why God might not have known what was going on. Maybe the Devil’s not under his—Wait a minute,” Dex said, interrupting himself. He’d suddenly gone slightly green. “If he’s the Devil, that would make us—”
“Yeah,” Daphna agreed, going green herself. “Couldn’t be.”
“There must be another explanation, something we’re missing.”
“There must be.”
A period of awful silence ensued. It reached up and around the twins, threatening to annihilate them, but the phone started ringing again, snapping them out of it.
“Maybe we should head out,” Dex said.
“Where?”
“To school.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. We should do that. We better hurry.”
The twins walked toward school with their minds nearly shut down. The possibility they’d raised was simply too atrocious to contemplate. The sky was cloudless and the sun full and warm, but neither of them noticed.
In fact, they were so wrapped up in not thinking that they failed even to notice they were walking to school together for the first time in their lives. The pair just shuffled forward with their eyes on the ground. It was only when they merged with a crowd of fellow walkers that they gradually began to take notice of their surroundings.
The first thing Dex and Daphna noticed was the fogged look in most of the other kids’ eyes, though that was no surprise after yesterday. The surprise was seeing the same look in the eyes of all the parents driving by. This was exactly what the twins needed to free them from their funk.
“Wow,” said Daphna, turning to her brother after watching a string of SUVs go by. “Looks like every one—Do you think—?”
“Let’s find out,” Dex said, his voice tinged once again with excitement. Sitting in class this morning wasn’t a good idea anyway. He spotted a taxi coming their direction, so he stepped off the curb and waved it over.
“Where to?” the driver asked. She had misty eyes.
“How about downtown?” Daphna suggested.
“Sure thing.”
“But let’s not go on the highway,” said Dex.
“Sure thing.”
As they drove down Barbur Boulevard, the twins pressed against the windows to get a good look at the people they passed. It was as they’d hoped: everyone had misty eyes. Downtown, Dex and Daphna got out and walked around for a while. It seemed their message had gotten out all over the city. In a bank, every customer and every teller had misty eyes. At the bus stops, everyone waiting had them, too. Only the eyes of small children with their mothers were clear.
“Let’s go in here,” Daphna said when they wandered by an electronics store. Dex saw that she was looking inside at a display of television sets all showing different stations. He understood what she was thinking, so they went inside to get a closer look.
A few morning news shows were on, which was perfect. Ann and Anthony were talking to the screen, fortunately not about them. Both had misty eyes, as did all the people captured by the camera when it swept the audience.
“Look!” Dex said. He’d turned to a national show. The hosts had the same misty eyes as Ann and Anthony. The camera swiveled away from them to capture a mob of people on the street peering at the set through a giant window. They were all jumping up and down and waving signs, and they all had misty eyes.
“And look!” Daphna cried. She’d moved down another few sets and found one with a cable news show on. A clip was being shown of the President shaking hands with a group of foreign dignitaries. They all had misty eyes. “Dexter,” Daphna gasped, “that’s the President!”
“It’s everywhere!” Dex cried. Anot
her clip was on, this one of a Western scientist shaking hands with the medicine man of a jungle tribe somewhere. Both had misty eyes.
“We’ve got nothing to worry about, Dex,” Daphna sighed. “No one on earth is going to help Adem Tarik. He can just sit in his little Library of Eden and scheme until he rots.”
“We just have to get Latty home now.”
“Right. We need to go home and wait for her to call. Dex, I feel badly. We’re skipping school. We should go back. I’d like to talk to Mr. Guillermo again.”
“I’d like to talk to him, too, but we shouldn’t waste time. We need to talk to Latty.”
“But—“
“Look,” Dex said, “you’ll go through one of your other lives without ever skipping school.”
“Oh, all right, but that’s a really low blow.”
Back at home, the twins sat staring at the phone. Of course, now it wouldn’t ring. They didn’t know what to do with themselves while they waited, so they started to clean. The house had slowly become a mess, mostly because Dex didn’t care and Daphna didn’t have time to deal with it. They’d talked about hiring a maid but hadn’t gotten around to it, which was fortunate because sweeping and spraying and dusting was the perfect way to make the time go by. Time did go by—the entire day went by—but that didn’t make the phone ring.
“What do you think will happen when she gets back?” Daphna called out. She was setting the table for dinner.
Dex was carrying in Evelyn’s evening delivery from the porch. It was chili, along with grapes and strawberries and chocolate.
“Don’t know,” he said, stepping into the kitchen. “Can Latty adopt us?”
“Wouldn’t they need Dad’s approval?”
“Well, he’s not Dad anymore. We’ll say he abandoned us. He did abandon us.”
Dexter served up the chili, and the twins sat down to eat. As usual, it was delicious.
“First thing I want is to get our pictures back,” Daphna said after a few forkfulls. “I want mom’s face back on the walls.”
Book of Knowledge Page 22