Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies (19 page)

Rebecca Sandia felt a brief
frisson
then, but the dove rubbed its breast feathers against her hand where it lay on the table. “I have never been a strong believer,” she said, “though I have always had hopes.”

“That is why you were chosen,” the dove sang, its voice as dulcet as a summer's evening breeze. The lamb cavorted about the grass; and Rebecca's heart was filled with gladness watching it, for she remembered it had gone through hard times not long ago.

“I have asked only one thing of My creations,” the lion said, “that once a year I find some individual capable of understanding the Mystery. Each year I have chosen the most likely individual and appeared to speak and enthuse. And each year I have chosen correctly and found understanding and allowed the world to continue. And so it will be until My creation is fulfilled.”

“But I am a scientist,” Rebecca said, concerned by the lion's words. “I am enchanted by the creation more than the God. I am buried in the world and not the spirit.”

“I have spun the world out of My spirit,” the dove sang. “Each particle is as one of my feathers; each event, a note in my song.”

“Then I am joyful,” Rebecca said, “for that I understand. I have often thought of you as a scientist, performing experiments.”

“Then you do not understand,” the lion said. “For I seek not to comprehend My creation but to know MySelf.”

“Then is it wrong for me to be a scientist?” Rebecca asked. “Should I be a priest or a theologian, to help You understand YourSelf?”

“No, for I have made your kind as so many mirrors, that you may see each other; and there are no finer mirrors than scientists, who are so hard and bright. Priests and theologians, as I have said, shroud their brightness with mists for their own comfort and sense of well-being.”

“Then I am still concerned,” Rebecca said, “for I would like the world to be ultimately kind and nurturing. Though as a scientist I see that it is not, that it is cruel and harsh and demanding.”

“What is pain?” the lion asked, lifting one paw to show a triangle marked by thorns. “It is transitory, and suffering is the moisture of My breath.”

“I don't understand,” Rebecca said, shivering .

“Among My names are disease and disaster, and My hand lies on every pockmark and blotch and boil, and My limbs move beneath every hurricane and earthquake. Yet you still seek to love Me. Do you not comprehend?”

“No,” Rebecca said, her face pale, for the world's particles seemed to lose some of their stability at that moment. “How can it be that You love us?”

“If I had made all things comfortable and sweet, then you would not be driven to examine Me and know My motives. You would dance and sing and withdraw into your pleasures. “

“Then I understand,” Rebecca said “For it is the work of a scientist to know the world and control it, and we are often driven by the urge to prevent misery. Through our knowledge we see You more clearly.”

“I see MySelves more clearly through you.”

“Then I can love You and cherish You, knowing that ultimately You are concerned for us.”

The world swayed; and Rebecca was sore afraid, for the peace of the lamb had faded, and the lion glowed red as coals. “Whom are you closest to,” the lion asked, its voice deeper than thunder, “your enemies or your lovers? Whom do you scrutinize more thoroughly?”

Rebecca thought of her enemies and her lovers, and she was not sure.

“In front of your enemies you are always watchful, and with your lovers you may relax and close your eyes.”

“Then I understand,” Rebecca said. “For this might be a kind of war; and after the war is over, we may come together, former enemies, and celebrate the peace

The sky became black as ink. The blossoms of the almond tree fell, and she saw, within the branches, that the almonds would be bitter this year

“In peace the former enemies would close their eyes,” the lion said, “and sleep together peacefully.”

“Then we must be enemies forever?”

“For I am a zealous God. I am zealous of your eyes and your ears, which I gave you that you might avoid the agonies I visit upon you. I am zealous of your mind, which I made wary and facile, that you might always be thinking and planning ways to improve upon this world.”

“Then I understand,” Rebecca said fearfully, her voice breaking, “that all our lives we must fight against you… but when we die?”

The lamb scampered about the yard, but the lion reached out with a paw and laid the lamb out on the grass with its back broken.
“This
isthe Mystery,” the lion roared, consuming the lamb, leaving only a splash of blood steaming on the ground.

Rebecca leaped from her chair, horrified, and held out her hands to fend off the prowling beast. “I understand!” she screamed “You are a selfish God, and Your creation is a toy You can mangle at will! You do not love; you do not care; you are cold and cruel.”

The lion sat to lick its chops. ‘And?” it asked menacingly.

Rebecca's face flushed. She felt a sudden anger. “I am better than You,” she said quietly, “for I can love and feel compassion. How wrong we have been to send our prayers to You!”

“And?” the lion asked with a growl.

“There is much we can teach You!” she said. “For You do not know how to love or respect Your creation, or YourSelf! You are a wild beast, and it is our job to tame You and train You.”

“Such dangerous knowledge,” the lion said. The dove landed among the hairs of its mane. “Catch Me if you can,” the dove sang. For an instant the Trinity shed its symbolic forms and revealed Its true Self, a thing beyond ugliness or beauty, a vast cyclic thing of no humanity whatsoever, dark and horribly young—and that truth reduced Rebecca to hysterics.

Then the Trinity vanished, and the world continued for another year.

But Rebecca was never the same again, for she had understood, and by her grace we have lived this added time.

Through Road No Whither

The long black Mercedes rumbled out of the fog on the road south from Dijon, moisture running in cold trickles across its windshield. Horst von Ranke carefully read the maps spread on his lap, eyeglasses perched low on his nose, while Waffen Schutzstaffel Oberleutnant Albert Fischer drove. “Thirty-five kilometers,” Von Ranke said under his breath. “No more.”

“We are lost,” Fischer said. “We've already come thirty-six.”

“Not quite that many. We should be there any minute now.”

Fischer nodded and then shook his head. His high cheekbones and long, sharp nose only accentuated the black uniform with silver death's heads on the high, tight collar. Von Ranke wore a broad-striped gray suit; he was an undersecretary in the Propaganda Ministry. They might have been brothers, yet one had grown up in Czechoslovakia, the other in the Ruhr; one was the son of a brewer, the other of a coal-miner. They had met and become close friends in Paris, two years before, and were now sightseeing on a three-day pass in the countryside.

“Wait,” Von Ranke said, peering through the drops on the side window. “Stop.”

Fischer braked the car and looked in the direction of Von Ranke' s long finger. Near the roadside, beyond a copse of young trees, was a low, thatch-roofed house with dirty gray walls, almost hidden by the fog.

“Looks empty,” Von Ranke said.

“It is occupied; look at the smoke,” Fischer said. “Perhaps somebody can tell us where we are.”

They pulled the car over and got out, Von Ranke leading the way across a mud path littered with wet straw. The hut looked even dirtier close-up. Smoke curled in a darker brown-gray twist from a hole in the peak of the thatch. Fischer nodded at his friend and they cautiously approached. Over the crude wooden door, letters wobbled unevenly in some alphabet neither knew, and between them they spoke nine languages. “Could that be Rom?” Fischer asked, frowning. “It does look familiar—like Slavic Rom.”

“Gypsies? Romany don't live in huts like this, and besides, I thought they were rounded up long ago.”

“That's what it looks like,” Von Ranke repeated. “Still, maybe we can share some language, if only French.”

He knocked on the door. After a long pause, he knocked again, and the door opened before his knuckles made the final rap. A woman too old to be alive stuck her long, wood-colored nose through the crack and peered at them with one good eye. The other was wrapped in a sunken caul of flesh. The hand that gripped the door edge was filthy, its nails long and black. Her toothless mouth cracked into a wrinkled grin. “Good evening,” she said in perfect, even elegant, German. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to know if we are on the road to Dôle,” Von Ranke said, controlling his revulsion.

“Then you're asking the wrong guide,” the old woman said. Her hand withdrew and the door started to close. Fischer kicked out and pushed her back. The door swung open and began to lean on worn-out leather hinges.

“You do not treat us with the proper respect,” he said. “What do you mean, ‘the wrong guide'? What kind of guide are you?”

“
So strong
,” the old woman crooned, wrapping her hands in front of her withered chest and backing into the gloom. She wore ageless gray rags. Tattered knit sleeves extended to her wrists.

“Answer me!” Fischer said, advancing despite the strong odor of urine and decay in the hut.

“The maps I know are not for this land,” she sang, doddering before a cold and empty hearth.

“She's crazy,” Von Ranke said. “Let the local authorities take care of her. Let's be off.” But a wild look was in Fischer's eyes. So much filth, so much disarray, and impudence as well; these things made him angry.

“What maps
do
you know, crazy woman?” he demanded.

“Maps in time,” the old woman said. She let her hands fall to her sides and lowered her head as if, in admitting her specialty, she were suddenly humble.

“Then tell us where we are,” Fischer sneered.

“Come,” Von Ranke said, but he knew it was too late. There would be an end, but it would be on his friend's terms, and it might not be pleasant.

“On a through road no whither,” the old woman said.

“What?” Fischer towered over her. She stared up as if at some prodigal son, her gums shining spittle.

“If you wish a reading, sit,” she said, indicating a low table and three dilapidated cane and leather chairs. Fischer glanced at her, then at the table.

“Very well,” he said, suddenly and falsely obsequious. Another game, Von Ranke realized. Cat and mouse.

Fischer pulled out a chair for his friend and sat across from the old woman. “Put your hands on the table, palms down, both of them, both of you,” she said. They did so. She lay her ear to the table as if listening, eyes going to the beams of light sneaking through the thatch. “Arrogance,” she said. Fischer did not react.

“A road going into fire and death,” she said. “Your cities in flame, your women and children shriveling to black dolls in the heat of their burning homes. The camps are found and you stand accused of hideous crimes. Many are tried and hung. Your nation is disgraced, your cause abhorred.” Now a peculiar gleam appeared in her eye. “Only psychotics will believe in you, the lowest of the low. Your nation will be divided between your enemies. All will be lost.”

Fischer's smile did not waver. He pulled a coin from his pocket and threw it down before the woman, then pushed the chair back and stood. “Your maps are as crooked as your chin, you filthy old hag,” he said. “Let's go.”

“I've been suggesting that,” Von Ranke said. Fischer made no move to leave. Von Ranke tugged on his arm but the SS Oberleutnant shrugged free of his friend's grip.

“Gypsies are few, now, hag,” he said. “Soon to be fewer by one.” Von Ranke managed to urge him just outside the door. The woman followed and shaded her eye against the misty light.

“I am no gypsy,” she said. “You do not even recognize the words?” She pointed at the letters above the door.

Fischer squinted, and the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do, now. A dead language.”

“What are they?” Von Ranke asked, uneasy.

“Hebrew, I think,” Fischer said. “She is a Jewess.”

“No!” the woman cackled. “I am no Jew.”

Von Ranke thought the woman looked younger now, or at least stronger, and his unease deepened.

“I do not care what you are,” Fischer said quietly. “I only wish we were in my father's time.” He took a step toward her. She did not retreat. Her face became almost youthfully bland, and her bad eye seemed to fill in. “Then, there would be no regulations, no rules—I could take this pistol”—he tapped his holster—“and apply it to your filthy Kike head, and perhaps kill the last Jew in Europe.” He unstrapped the holster. The woman straightened in the dark hut, as if drawing strength from Fischer's abusive tongue. Von Ranke feared for his friend. Rashness could get them in trouble.

“This is not our fathers' time,” he reminded Fischer.

Fischer paused, pistol in hand, his finger curling around the trigger. “Filthy, smelly old woman.” She did not look nearly as old as when they had entered the hut, perhaps not old at all, and certainly not bent and crippled. “You have had a very narrow escape this afternoon.”

“You have no idea who I am,” the woman half sang, half moaned.

“Scheisse,”
Fischer spat. “Now we will go to report you and your hovel.”

“I am the scourge,” she breathed. Her breath smelled like burning stone even three strides away. She backed into the hut but her voice did not diminish. “I am the visible hand, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.”

Fischer laughed. “You're right,” he said to Von Ranke. “She isn't worth our trouble.” He turned and stamped out the door. Von Ranke followed with one last glance over his shoulder into the gloom, the decay.
No one has lived in this hut for years,
he thought. Her shadow was gray and indefinite before the ancient stone hearth, behind the leaning, dust-covered table.