Judith (27 page)

Then – But that is not why I came to this hotel!

Jason comes in. He gives me my typescript. I think – Does he in fact know?

He might say – Is not the father the one who goes across the desert with the child on a donkey?

He says – Well, what is it, do you think, that we will know at the end of your story?

I went into the town one day because I was thinking of getting my ticket away from the Garden. I was in the streets when a mob went past; they were breaking one or two windows; there were the sprightly, shining faces of people having a good time – the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs.

There were rumours that God was also thinking of getting his ticket to leave the Garden: he continued to appear each morning and to sit silently in the enormous hall. In the afternoons extracts from his old discourses were relayed from the ceiling. It was noticeable that many of the passages chosen contained references relevant to what was going on in the town: there were scathing stories about Christians and Hindus: ridiculing people who committed themselves to a cause. This was humanity's way, God seemed to be saying, of self-destruction: words, of course, were agents of this: which was why (he had always said) he might one day have to be silent.

Local people turned up in increasing numbers to listen to these recordings: there was even a group of local boys and girls who turned up now to sit and watch silently in the mornings. God's eyes moved over the multitude: he was looking for – what – is it you? is it you? But what would he require of some people rather than of others?

Then Shastri asked me, after all this time, if I would take him into the Garden. I said – But you can go in on your own! I wondered – There is some reason why he does not want to go with his friends into the Garden?

He said – They say your God is plotting to abandon you
people here: he will move to where there are more pickings in California.

I said – I thought you said he was plotting to die, and to come alive again.

Shastri said – California is the headquarters of the entertainment and armament industries.

There was an anxiety that God might be assassinated: not so much because of his blasphemies against local religions (this could be an excuse) but because the time and events seemed ripe for assassination. Why were local people showing such interest when they were hostile to the Garden?

Once I came across my old friend who was like Lilith standing again at the gate into God's inner garden. I thought-She is like a child looking for its mother. She beckoned me in. I had not seen her for some time. I followed her down a path and into the main part of God's house. I had not been here before: there was a hall, bare and whitewashed, and a tiled floor. Through a door to the left there was a room with walls covered with books from floor to ceiling; there were books and magazines piled on the floor. In another room there was just a bed, a wooden table, a wooden chair, and a washstand of the kind in which there is a hole and a china bowl. The bed was narrow with a brass headpiece; there were clean white sheets neatly tucked and straightened. There was no one in the room. My friend said ‘He was here.' It was as if she might start looking under the floorboards. I thought – But there never is anything in the holy of holies, is there? I said ‘Is he ill?' After a time she said ‘Yes.' She went on towards the back of the house where there were two of God's closest disciples coming in from the Garden. She turned and gestured to me as if I should go. I thought – God has fallen out of bed? he went floating up to the ceiling?

There began to be stories that God had been seen in two places at once: that he had learned how to leave his body, or was employing some sort of double.

When I went to the town to decide about my ticket I found the door of the travel agency boarded up. It was said to be
impossible to get tickets out of the town now because so many people were leaving.

Many of those in the shanties by the sand-dunes no longer bothered to come to the Garden: they sat in their lairs and smoked; there were just their eyes and the tips of their tiny weapons in the darkness. I thought – Or they are eggs, waiting to hatch and begin their run down to the sea.

In the enormous hall, in the mornings, the Indian boys in their white shirts and black trousers gathered in a group near the perimeter like a lump just under the skin.

In the afternoons God's voice came down –

‘Death is part of life. A cancer is a form of life. Cut it out, and you are likely to destroy the whole. A cancer is life that runs away with itself. But the whole may have to be allowed to die, in order to start again.'

There began to be a wind blowing day and night in and around the Garden. Dark sheets of rain came down. I thought – This is the lowering of a curtain. But where do we go when we leave the theatre?

With the wind there came in huge waves from the sea: there was something like a waterspout, and fishes appeared on dry land. A huge wreck was washed up – not a ship from the present storm but a much earlier wreck: it had wooden ribs, and looked like Noah's Ark.

I thought – What would be the equivalent, now, of Noah's Ark?

Shastri came in and sat with me during God's non-existent discourses; he seemed deliberately to be separating himself from the knot of his friends by the perimeter. I had stopped asking myself why he was doing this. I thought – So what should you do, about the form of life that runs away with itself?

It did sometimes seem that God, lying back in his chair, might by dying.

Shastri was sitting by my side one day –

What is it that stops people in Plato's cave coming out
into the sun? The fear of the fact that they are dying anyway?

Shastri was sitting by my side on this particular day: the sun was bright outside: there was the knot of his friends by the perimeter. I was thinking how I must get back to England: I would start off by bus even: what were the shadows on walls, now, that were preventing me? It was terrible, yes, that people died. I would try to go to a university: there were one or two people I wanted to see. I became aware that Shastri was restless beside me. He had once before half stood up as if to put some question to this silent God: I had pulled at his arm and he had sat down. Now he seemed to be getting himself ready to stand again. I did not care much now. I thought – It was not I, after all, who enabled him to come into the Garden: does not God at last have to accept responsibility for the snake and grow up? For all these centuries, have we not been treating God as an infant? I had noticed that there was a figure moving at the perimeter of the enormous hall. You must remember (events are, are they not, in the form of stories) how extremely unusual it was for anyone to move in the hall during God's discourses or silences; perhaps people's attention had already been distracted by the movements made by Shastri. The figure at the perimeter was that of one of the Indian boys in white shirt and black trousers; he had got right round towards God's platform; no one seemed to notice him; I had noticed him, perhaps because I had my hand on Shastri's arm and thus was free to look. Even the attention of God's special guardians seemed to have been distracted – those figures suspended like Byzantine frescoes a few inches off the floor. I let go of Shastri: Shastri stood up; the guardians moved forwards; Shastri moved towards them, pushing his way between the shoulders of acolytes like someone walking through waves. I thought I might go after him: but I was watching the boy who had emerged from the group like a lump just under the skin and who had reached God's platform. Two of the disciples took hold of Shastri and held him by the arms: beyond him behind the disciples, as in some mirror image, as it were (I thought – This is some counterpart
of myself and the picture painted by Anita Kroll?), the other boy in a white shirt and black trousers had climbed up on to the platform of God's throne. I imagined for a moment that I understood what was happening absolutely. Then, of course, the understanding went. Someone cried out; a wailing began. The boy who had climbed on to the platform seemed to throw something in the direction of God. I thought – A knife? a bomb? a rope? a token of esteem? God did not seem to move from his position of sitting as if exhausted in his chair. Then some women, one of whom was my friend Lilith, climbed on to the platform from the front row of the audience and took hold of the boy who had thrown whatever it was in the direction of God: then God sat upright immediately and made a decisive gesture towards them; they let the boy go; the boy ran out from the hall. Then God sat back as if collapsed. Then the disciples who were holding Shastri, who had seen this last scene, let Shastri go. There were people now standing up in the crowd and calling: God was lying twisted; it did seem as if he might have been wounded. Shastri came back towards me through the sea of faces: he sat down beside me. Lilith was kneeling by God, who might be dying; or he might be pretending to be dying; or he might not mind whether people thought he was dying or pretending to be dying. Lilith put her head against his knees. Afterwards there were different versions of what had happened: some people said they had actually seen the boy on the platform throw a knife towards God; some said he had only reached out as if to try to touch God's garment; some said Shastri had deliberately caused a diversion; some even said they had seen Shastri prepare to throw something towards God. I had put my hand again on Shastri's arm. I thought – Here, this time, poor snake, I will protect you.

What everyone agreed about, was that God had sat up in his chair and had ordered his disciples not to hold on to anyone; and then had fallen back as if wounded.

Shastri said – I did not do anything.

I said – I know you did not do anything.

Shastri said – I wanted to ask a question.

I thought – The answer is, I suppose, that God is getting himself, and us, out of the Garden.

So God was carried off in his litter round the perimeter of the enormous hall; bouncing (for the last time?) like someone who has been shot on a fun-fair shooting-range. The funny hat that he sometimes wore fell off; was put on again; fell off; I thought – He would like it that this, his last exit, or deposition, is ridiculous. Are not depositions so often romantic; almost sexual?

Then there were other scenes like farce in the enormous hall; some people were crying; some were laughing; everyone seemed interested, as usual, not so much in what had actually happened as in their own reactions: they were looking round now not really even for a story: they were asking – what am I? I am still I, am I not? No one seemed to know, or really to want to know, if God had in fact been hurt; whether, being ill already, he had suffered some further shock; or was he (of course) taking advantage of the situation to do whatever it was he wanted – indeed, perhaps to get us out of the Garden. Certainly no one seemed to want to leave the enormous hall. I suppose they all realised that some scene had occurred that was to alter their lives; they could not yet know what it was; they wanted to hang on to what was there. Well, this is what life is like, is it not: and then after a time you can carry on with your story – or complaint about lack of a story. Discussions, arguments, broke out, but without much energy: what was there to say? God might be dying: God might not be dying: but had he not so often said – What is life without death? What does it matter if I die? If I do not die, how will you get out of the Garden?

There was no hostility shown against the group of Indian boys. They had stayed to listen, to watch. After a time the police arrived. They stood in groups talking with the disciples. They seemed to be passing the time. After a while both the Indian boys and the police went off.

Shastri had gone. I did not go with him. No one tried to stop him.

The eyes of one or two of the disciples sometimes wandered off into the distance and they were the eyes of figures in Byzantine frescoes who suddenly find themselves with both feet on the ground.

It was announced later that God was, yes, gravely ill: that the celebration tonight would be a special one: it would be in respect of his ordeal; or in his memory; or for his recovery: or with regard to whatever it was that was supposed to be happening.

Well, this is nearly all, isn't it? We will be moving on soon to the practical part of our demonstration. (It takes seven years, does it, for some events to come to fruition?)

They built an enormous bonfire down by the estuary. Rain blew about like smoke. In fact they could not that night celebrate God's death, or deliverance, or whatever, for the water itself seemed to be on fire.

I thought – At least God's disciples won't have to creep down and steal those ashes after dark: there will be no one in the theatre.

In our hut, packing our cases and rucksacks, we did not speak much. I thought – To talk would be like putting one's finger down one's throat, to see if anything is growing there.

I wondered – How is that baby?

I tried to remember my last sight of Lilith in her golden robe as she walked by God's litter as he was carried from the platform: was she distressed, was she watchful, was she laughing?

I thought – I do hope God will pop up again in California: and there will be Lilith, and Anita Kroll, on either side of him, as his prophets.

It was actually announced on the radio that God had died: then that he had had a heart-attack and was in hospital: then that he was to be flown abroad for special treatment.

People can't really know what is going on, can they? What they can do is not destroy themselves with convictions, blinkers, drama.

When I walked down to the estuary I found some of the disciples looking up at the sky: to see whether there might be a gap in the clouds? for that finger to come down? that cosmic seed, or bonfire?

I had been nine months in the Garden. Hullo, hullo, do you hear me?

So it is now, yes, seven years later. All the cells of your body change every seven years. What is it that stays the same – the pattern; the child; the heartbeat?