The Divine Invasion (15 page)

W
hen Herb Asher awoke he was told perplexing facts. He had spent—not weeks—but years in cryonic suspension. The doctors could not explain why it had taken so long to obtain replacement organs. Circumstances, they told him, beyond our control. Procedural problems.

He said, "What about Emmanuel?"

Dr. Pope, who looked older and grayer and more distinguished than before, said, "Someone broke into the hospital and removed your son from the synthowomb."

"When?"

"Almost at once. The fetus was in the synthowomb for only a day, according to our records."

"Do you know who did it?"

"According to our video tapes—we monitor our synthowombs constantly—it was an elderly bearded man." After a pause Dr. Pope added, "Deranged in appearance. You must face the very high probability factor that your son is dead, has in fact been dead for ten years, either from natural causes, which is to say from being taken out of his synthowomb … or due to the actions of the elderly bearded man. Either deliberate or accidental. The police could not locate either of them. I'm sorry.''

Elias Tate, Herb said to himself. Spiriting Emmanuel away. to safety. He shut his eyes and felt overwhelming gratitude.

How do you feel?" Dr. Pope inquired.

I dreamed. I didn't know that people in cryonic suspension were conscious."

"You weren't."

"I dreamed again and again about my wife." He felt bitter grief hover over him and then descend on him, filling him; the grief was too much. "Always I found myself back there with her. When we met, before we met. The trip to Earth. Little things. Dishes of spoiled food … she was sloppy."

"But you do have your son.

"Yes," he said. He wondered how he would be able to find Elias and Emmanuel. They will have to find me, he realized.

For a month he remained at the hospital, undergoing remedial therapy to build up his strength, and then, on a cool morning in mid-March, the hospital discharged him. Suitcase in hand he walked down the front steps, shaky and afraid but happy to be free. Every day during his therapy he had expected the authorities to come swooping down on him. They did not. He wondered why.

As he stood with a throng of people trying to flag down a flycar Yellow cab he noticed a blind beggar standing off to one side, an ancient, white-haired, very large man wearing soiled clothing; the old man held a cup.

"Elias," Herb Asher said.

Going over to him he regarded his old friend. Neither of them spoke for a time and then Elias Tate said, "Hello, Herbert."

"Rybys told me you often take the form of a beggar," Herb Asher said. He reached out to put his arms around the old man, but Elias shook his head.

"It is Passover," Elias said. "And I am here. The power of my spirit is too great; you should not touch me. It is all my spirit, now, at this moment."

"You are not a man," Herb Asher said, awed.

"I am many men," Elias said. 'it's good to see you again. Emmanuel said you would be released today."

"The boy is all right?"

"He is beautiful."

"I saw him," Herb Asher said. "Once, a while ago. In a vision that—" He paused. "Jehovah sent to me. To help me."

"Did you dream?" Elias asked.

"About Rybys. And about you as well. About everything that happened. I lived it over and over again."

"But now you are alive again," Elias said. "Welcome back, Herbert Asher. We have much to do."

"Do we have a chance? Do we have any real chance?"

"The boy is ten years old," Elias said. "He has confused their wits, scrambled up their thinking. He has made them forget. But—" Elias was silent a moment. "He, too, has forgotten. You will see. A few years ago he began to remember; he heard a song and some of his memories came back. Enough, perhaps, or maybe not enough. You may bring back more. He programmed himself, originally, before the accident."

With extreme difficulty Herb Asher said, "He was injured, then? In the accident?"

Elias nodded. Somberly.

"Brain damage." Herb Asher said; he saw the expression on his friend's face.

Again the old man nodded, the elderly beggar with the cup. The immortal Elijah, here at Passover. As always. The eternal, helping friend of man. Tattered and shabby, and very wise.

Zina said, "Your father is coming, isn't he?"

Together they sat on a bench in Rock Creek Park, near the frozen-over water. Trees shaded them with bare, stark branches. The air had turned cold, and both children wore heavy clothing. But the sky overhead was clear. Emmanuel gazed up for a time.

"What does your slate say?" Zina asked.

''I don't have to consult my slate.''

"He isn't your father."

Emmanuel said, "He's a good person. It's not his fault that my mother died. I'll be happy to see him once more. I've missed him." He thought, It's been a long time. According to the scale by which they reckon here in the Lower Realm.

What a tragic realm this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don't know it; they think they are free because they have never been free, and do not understand what it means.
This is a prison
, and few men have guessed. But I know, he said to himself. Because that is why I am here. To burst the walls, to tear down the metal gates, to break each chain. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox as he treadeth out the corn, he thought, remembering the Torah. You will not imprison a free creature; you will not bind it. Thus says the Lord your God. Thus I say.

They do not know whom they serve. This is the heart of their misfortune: service in error, to a wrong thing. They are poisoned as if with metal, he thought. Metal confining them and metal in their blood; this is a metal world. Driven by cogs, a machine that grinds along, dealing out suffering and death… They are so accustomed to death, he realized, as if death, too, were natural. How long it has been since they knew the Garden. The place of resting animals and flowers. When can I find for them that place again?

There are two realities, he said to himself. The Black Iron Prison, which is called the Cave of Treasures, in which they now live, and the Palm Tree Garden with its enormous spaces, its light, where they originally dwelt. Now they are literally blind, he thought. Literally unable to see more than a short distance; far-away objects are invisible to them now. Once in a while one of them guesses that formerly they had faculties now gone; once in a while one of them discerns the truth, that they are not now what they were and not now where they were. But they forget again, exactly as I forgot. And I still forget somewhat, he realized. I still have only a partial vision. I am occluded, too.

But I will not be, soon.

"You want a Pepsi?" Zina said.

"It's too cold. I just want to sit."

"Don't be unhappy." She put her mittened hand on his arm. "Be joyful."

Emmanuel said, "I'm tired. I'll be okay. There's a lot that has to be done. I'm sorry. It weighs on me.

"You're not afraid, are you?"

"Not any more," Emmanuel said.

"You are sad."

He nodded.

Zina said, "You'll feel better when you see Mr. Asher again."

"I see him now," Emmanuel said.

"Very good," she said, pleased. "And even without your slate."

"I use it less and less," he said, "because the knowledge is progressively more and more in me. As you know. And you know why."

To that, Zina said nothing.

"We are close, you and I," Emmanuel said. "I have always loved you the most. I always will. You are going to stay on with me and advise me, aren't you?" He knew the answer: he knew that she would. She had been with him from the beginning—as she said, his darling and delight. And her delight, as Scripture said, was in mankind. So, through her, he himself loved mankind: it was his delight as well.

"We could get something hot to drink," Zina said.

He murmured, "I just want to sit." I shall sit here until it is time to go to meet Herb Asher, he said to himself. He can tell me about Rybys: his many memories of her will give me joy. the joy that, right now, I lack.

I love him, he realized. I love my mother's husband, my legal father. Like other men he is a good human being. He is a man of merit, and to be cherished.

But, unlike other men, Herb Asher knows Who I am. Thus I can talk openly with him, as I do with Elias. And with Zina. It will help, he thought. I will be less weary. No longer as I am now. pinned by my cares: weighed down. The burden, to some extent. will lift. Because it will be shared.

And, he thought, there is still so much that I do not remember. I am not as I was. Like them, like the people. I have fallen. The bright morning star which fell did not fall alone, it tore down everything else with it, including me. Part of my own being fell with it, and I am that fallen being now.

But then, as he sat there on the bench with Zina, in the park on this cold day so near the vernal equinox, he thought, But Herbert Asher lay dreaming in his bunk, dreaming of a phantom life with Linda Fox, while my mother struggled to survive. Not once did he try to help her; not once did he inquire into her trouble and seek remedy. Not until I, I myself, forced him to go to her, not until then did he do anything. I do not love the man, he said to himself. I know the man and he forfeited his right to my love—he lost my love because he did not care.

I cannot, thereupon, care about him. In response.

Why should I help any of them? he asked himself. They do what is right only when forced to, when there is no alternative. They fell of their own accord and are fallen now, of their own accord, by what they have voluntarily done. My mother is dead because of them; they murdered her. They would murder me if they could figure out where I am; only because I have confused their wits do they leave me alone. High and low they seek my life, just as Ahab sought Elijah's life, so long ago. They are a worthless race, and I do not care if they fall. I do not care at all. To save them I must fight what they themselves are. And have always been.

"You look so downcast," Zina said.

"What is this for?" he said. "They are what they are. I grow more and more weary. And I care less and less, as I begin to remember. For ten years I have lived on this world, now, and for ten years they have hunted me. Let them die. Did I not say to them the talion law: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'? Is that not in the Torah? They drove me off this world two thousand years ago; I return; they wish me dead. Under the talion law I should wish them dead. It is the sacred law of Israel. It is
my
law, my word."

Zina was silent.

"Advise me," Emmanuel said. "I have always listened to your advice."

Zina said:

One day Elijah the prophet appeared to Rabbi Baruka in the market of Lapet. Rabbi Baruka asked him, "Is there any one among the people of this market who is destined to share in the world to come?" … Two men appeared on the scene and Elijah said, "These two will share in the world to come." Rabbi Baruka asked them, "What is your occupation?" They said, "We are merrymakers. When we see a man who is downcast, we cheer him up. When we see two people quarreling with one another, we endeavor to make peace between them."

"You make me less sad," Emmanuel said. "And less weary. As you always have. As Scripture says of you:

Then I was at his side every day,

his darling and delight,

playing in his presence continually,

playing on the earth, when he had finished it,

while my delight was in mankind.

And Scripture says:

Wisdom I loved; I sought her out when I was young and longed to win her for my bride, and I fell in love with her beauty.

But that was Solomon, not me.

So I determined to bring her home to live with me, knowing that she would be my counsellor in prosperity and my comfort in anxiety and grief.

Solomon was a wise man, to love you so."

Beside him the girl smiled. She said nothing, but her dark eyes shone.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked.

"Because you have shown the truth of Scripture when it says:

I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall love the Lord.

Remember that you made the Covenant with man. And you made man in your own image. You cannot break the Covenant; you have made man that promise, that you will never break it."

Emmanuel said, "That is so. You advise me well." He thought, And you cheer my heart. You above all else, you who came before creation. Like the two merrymakers, he thought, who Elijah said would be saved. Your dancing, your singing, and the sound of bells. "I know," he said, "what your name means."

"Zina?" she said. "It's just a name."

"It is the Roumanian word for—" He ceased speaking; the girl had trembled visibly, and her eyes were now wide.

"How long have you known it?" she said.

"Years. Listen:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,

Weed wide enough

I will finish; listen:

To wrap a fairy in.

"And I have known this," he finished, "all this time."

Staring at him, Zina said, "Yes, Zina means
fairy
."

"You are not Holy Wisdom," he said, "you are Diana, the fairy queen."

Cold wind rustled the branches of the trees. And, across the frozen creek, a few dry leaves scuttled.

"I see," Zina said.

About the two of them the wind rustled, as if speaking. He could hear the wind as words. And the wind said:

BEWARE
!