To the Land of the Living (21 page)

“No need to fear,” Gilgamesh said. “I think Herod prefers being prime minister here to any higher responsibility. And surely you know that to rule in Brasil is not a thing that I desire either, Simon.”

“I know what you desire, Gilgamesh. Come to me this time two days hence, and we’ll study the map of Uruk together. We should be thinking of setting forth soon. What do you say, Gilgamesh? King of Uruk that was, king of Uruk that will be! How does that sound to you?”

“Like music,” said Gilgamesh.

Simon laughed and moved on.

Herod, looking troubled, said when the dictator was out of sight, “Is that true? You do want to be king of Uruk again after all?”

“I said Simon’s words were like music to me.”

“So you did.”

Gilgamesh chuckled. “But I am no lover of music.”

“Ah. Ah.”

“And as for the journey to Uruk – well, let’s see what wisdom your great Calandola can offer me, first. When we do the true Opening. And the Knowing that follows it. And then
I’ll comprehend whether I am to make this journey or not. Let’s wait and see, King Herod.”

The room of angles in the cavern of the tunnels. The smoldering torches in the brazen sconces. The drums, the fifes, the masks, the dancers. The long-legged black men pursuing unknown rituals in the shadows. The honeyed wine, the shining oil. This was Gilgamesh’s third visit to the dwelling-place of Imbe Calandola. Once more now he would undertake to make the Opening; once more he would drink of the second and stronger wine, the thick sweet red beverage. Once more he would see beyond the barriers that divide soul from soul; and this time, perhaps, all the veils of mystery would be stripped away and he would be allowed to know the things he had come here to learn.

“I think you are ready,” Calandola said. “For the deeper feast. For the full Knowing.”

“Bring me the wine, yes,” said Gilgamesh.

“It will not only be wine today,” replied Calandola.

In the darkness, chanting and drums. Fires flickering behind the Imbe-Jaqqa’s throne. Figures moving about. A sound that might have been that of water boiling in a great kettle.

A signal from Calandola.

The bearer of the wine came forth, and the bearer of the cup. Ajax once again drank first, and then Herod, and then Gilgamesh. But this time Calandola drank also, and drank deep, again and again calling for the cup to be filled, until his lips and jowls were smeared with red.

“Belial and Beelzebub,” Herod whispered. “Moloch and Lucifer!”

Gilgamesh felt the strangeness of the Opening settling upon him once more. He could recognize its signs now: an eerie hush, a heightened awareness. Invisible beings brushed past him in the air. There was a deep humming sound that seemed
to come from the core of the world. He could touch the souls of Ajax the dog and Herod the Jew; and now there was the formidable presence of black Calandola also revealed to him. Revealed and not revealed, for although Gilgamesh saw the inwardness of Calandola it was like a huge black wall of rock rising before him, impenetrable, unscalable.

“Now will you join our feast,” said Calandola. “And the Knowing will descend upon you, King Gilgamesh.”

He threw back his head and laughed, and made a gesture with his massive arms like the toppling of two mighty trees. From the musicians came a crashing of sounds, a terrible thunder and a screeching. The throne was drawn aside; and a great metal cauldron stood revealed, bubbling over a raging fire of logs.

Calandola’s minions were preparing a rich and robust stew.

Into the cauldron went onions and leeks and peppers, beans and squash, pomegranates and grapes, vegetables and fruits of every sort imaginable. The steaming vessel seemed bottomless. Ears of corn and sacks of figs, huge gnarled tuberous roots of this kind and that, most of them unknown to Gilgamesh. Clusters of garlic, double handfuls of radishes, slabs of whole ginger. A barrel of dark wine, of what sort Gilgamesh dared not think. Spices of fifty kinds. And meat. Massive chunks of pale raw meat, flung in whole, still on the bone.

A troublesome feeling stirred in Gilgamesh. To Herod he said, “What meat is that, do you think?”

Herod was gazing at the cauldron with unblinking eyes. He laughed in his oddly edgy way and said, “One that is not kosher, I’d be willing to bet.”

“Kosher? What is that?”

But Herod made no answer. A shiver ran through him that made his whole body ripple like a slender tree beset by the wild autumn gales. His face was aglow with the brightness that Gilgamesh had seen in it that time when the volcano had erupted. Herod had the look of one who was held tight in the grip of some powerful enchantment.

By the virtue of the dark wine they had shared, Gilgamesh looked into Herod’s soul. What he saw there made him recoil in amazement and shock.

“That meat?”

“They say there is no better one for this purpose, King Gilgamesh.”

His stomach twisted and turned.

He had eaten many strange things in many strange lands. But never that. To devour the flesh of his own kind

No. No. No. No. Not even in the Afterworld.

Gilgamesh had heard tales, now and then, of certain races in remote parts of the world that did such things. Not for nourishment’s sake but for magic. To take into themselves the strength or the wisdom or the mystical virtue of others. It had been hard for him to believe, that such things were done.

But to be asked to do it himself–

“Unthinkable. Forbidden. Abominable.”

“Forbidden by whom?” asked Herod.

“Why – by –”

Gilgamesh faltered and could say no more.

“We are in the Afterworld, King Gilgamesh. Nothing is forbidden here. Have you forgotten that?”

Gilgamesh stared. “And you truly mean to commit this abomination? You want me to commit it with you?”

“I want nothing from you,” Herod said. “But you are here in search of knowledge.”

“Which is obtained like
this?”

Herod smiled. “So it is said. It is the gateway, the way of the full Opening that leads to the Knowing.”

“And you believe this insanity?”

The Judaean prince turned to face him, and there was a look of terrible conviction in his eyes.

“Do as you please, King Gilgamesh. But if you would have the knowledge, take and eat. Take and eat.”

“Take and eat!” came the booming voice of Calandola. “Take and eat!”

The cannibal tribesmen leaped and danced. One who was whitened with chalk from head to toe and wore straw garments that seemed to be the costume of a witch rushed to the cauldron, pulled a joint of meat from the boiling water with his bare hands, held it aloft.

“Ayayya! Ayayya!” the jaqqas cried. “Ayayya!”

The witch brought the meat to Calandola and held it forth to him for his inspection. From Calandola came a roar of
approval; and he seized the joint with both his hands, and put his jaws to it and buried his teeth in it.

“Ayayya! Ayayya!” cried the jaqqas.

Gilgamesh felt the wine of the cannibals flowing through his soul. He swayed in rhythm to the harsh and savage music. Beside him, Herod now seemed wholly transported, lost in an ecstasy, caught up entirely in the fascination of this abomination. As though he had waited all his life and through his life after life as well to make this surrender to Calandola’s foul mystery. Or as though he had no choice but to be swept along into it, wherever it might take him.

And I feel myself swept along also, thought Gilgamesh in shock and amazement.

“Take,” said Calandola. “Eat.”

Joyously he held the great slab of steaming meat out toward Gilgamesh.

Gods! Enlil and Enki and Sky-father An, what is this I am doing?

The gods were very far from this place, though. Gilgamesh stared at the slab of meat.

“This is the way of Knowing,” said Calandola.

This?

No. No. No. No.

He shook his head. “There are some things I will not do, even to have the Knowing.”

The aroma from the kettle mixed with some strange incense burning in great braziers alongside it, and he felt himself swaying in mounting dizziness. Turning, he took three clumsy, shambling steps toward the entrance. Acolytes and initiates drew back, making way for him as he lumbered past. He heard Calandola’s rolling, resonant laughter behind him, mocking him for his cowardice.

Then Herod was in his path, blocking him. The little man was drawn tight as a bow: trembling, quivering.

Huskily he said, “Don’t go, Gilgamesh.”

“This is no place for me.”

“The Knowing what about the Knowing ?”

“No.”

“If you try to leave, you’ll never find your way out of the tunnels without me.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Please,” said Herod.
“Please
. Stay. Wait. Take the Sacrament with me.”

“The Sacrament? You call this a Sacrament?”

“It is the way of Knowing. Take it with me. For me. Don’t spurn it. Don’t spurn me. We are already halfway there, Gilgamesh: the wine is in our souls, our spirits are opening to each other. Now comes the Knowing. Please. Please.”

He had never seen such an imploring look on another human being’s face. Not even in battle, when he raised his axe above a foe to deliver the fatal stroke. Herod reached his hands toward Gilgamesh. The Sumerian hesitated.

“And I ask you too,” came a voice from his left. “Not to take depart. Not to abandon loyal friends.”

Ajax.

The dog was flickering like the shadows cast by a fire on a wall: now the great brindle hound, now the strange little wasp-woman, and now, for only a moment, a hint of a human shape, a sad-eyed woman smiling timidly, forlornly.

“If you take the meat you can set me free,” said the dog. “Reach into soul, separate dog and spirit. You would have the power. Send poor suffering soul on to next sphere, leave dog behind to be dog. I beg you, mighty king.”

Gilgamesh stared, wavering. The dog’s pleas moved him deeply–

“Your friends, great hero. Forget not your friends in this time of savioring. Long enslavement must end! You alone can give freedom!”

“Is this true?” Gilgamesh asked Herod.

“It could be. The rite releases much power to those who have power within them.”

“Forget not your friends,” the wasp-woman cried again.

For a moment Gilgamesh closed his eyes, trying to shut out all the frenzied madness about him. And a voice within him said,
Do it. Do it.

Why not? Why not? Why not?

This is the Afterworld, nor is there any leaving of it.

He crossed the room to Calandola, who still held the meat. The cannibal chieftain grinned ferociously at Gilgamesh, who met his fiery gaze calmly and took the meat from him. Held it a moment. It was warm and tender, a fine cut, a succulent piece. Out of the buried places of his mind came words he had
been taught five thousand years before, that time in his youth when he was newly a king and he had knelt before the priests in Uruk on the night of the rite of the Sacred Marriage:

“Take,” Herod whispered. “Eat!”

Yes, Gilgamesh thought. This is the way. He lifted the slab of meat to his lips.

“Ayayya! Ayayya! Ayayya!”

He bit down deep, and savored, and swallowed; and from the volcano Vesuvius somewhere not far away there came a tremendous roar, and the earth shook; and as he tasted the forbidden flesh the Knowing entered into him in that moment.

It was like becoming a god. All things lay open to him, or so it seemed. Nothing was hidden. His soul soared; he looked down on all of space and time.

“Your friends, Gilgamesh,” came a whispering voice from high overhead. “Do not forget your friends”

No. He would not forget.

He sent forth his soul into the dog that was the wasp-woman that once had been a human sinner. Without difficulty he distinguished the human soul from the dog-soul and the wasp-soul; and separated the one from the others, and held it a moment, and released it like a bird that one holds in one’s hand and casts into the sky. There was a long sigh of gratitude; and then the wandering soul was gone, and Ajax the dog lay curled sleeping at Gilgamesh’s feet, and of the wasp-creature there was no sign.

To Herod then he turned. Saw the sadness within the man, the weakness, the hunger. Saw too the quick agile mind, the warm spirit eager to please. And Gilgamesh touched Herod within, only for an instant, letting something of himself travel across the short distance from soul to soul. A touch of strength; a touch of resilience.
Here
, he thought.
Take this from
me; and hold something of myself within you, for those times when being yourself is not enough for you.”

Herod seemed to glow. He smiled, he wept, he bowed his head. And knelt and offered a blessing of thanks.

Gilgamesh could feel the presence of monstrous Calandola looming over him like a titan. Like a god. And yet he seemed no longer malevolent. Distant, dispassionate, aloof: serving only as a focus for this strange rite of the joining of souls.

“Seek your own Knowing now, Gilgamesh,” said the Jaqqa. “The time has come.”

Yes. Yes. The time has come. Now Enkidu –?

Where?

Ah: there. There he was, in that narrow high-walled canyon, amidst the people of the caravan, the transporters of stolen jewels. There was the wagon that had fallen over, and now stood upright. Van der Heyden bustling around, giving orders. And now – now two of those whirling noisy flying-machines of the Later Dead, two helicopters, suddenly darkening the sky, descending out of nowhere, fitting themselves with eerie precision between the walls of the canyon. The caravan people shouting, running for weapons. The helicopters hovering, twice a man’s height off the ground – guns poking from their sides – the brutal sound of machine-gun fire – the caravan people running, screaming, falling –