To the Land of the Living (30 page)

No, he told himself. That was nonsense. The little man was just what he said he was, a painter. A very great painter, if Herod could be believed. There might be a demon inside him, but it was the same kind of demon that once had been in Gilgamesh, that had driven him onward to go everywhere, see everything, learn everything, devour everything. I understand this man, Gilgamesh thought. He and I are very similar.
The difference is that in the After world I have grown quiet and easy, and this one still burns with the restlessness and the hunger.

“You were always a painter?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Always. From the cradle. Don’t talk now, eh?”

How casually he orders a king around, Gilgamesh thought. Just a little bald-headed man wearing only a pair of ragged baggy shorts, sweat running down the white hair of his chest, a cloud of cigarette smoke surrounding him, and he has no fear of anyone, of anything. It was not hard now to see how he had captured Ninsun. This man, Gilgamesh thought, could probably have any woman he wanted. Even a queen. Even a goddess.

“Do you know?” Picasso said, after a long while. “I think this time it will work. The painting holds. The others, they turned in my hand. This one holds. It is the charm of the Minotaur, I think. The bull rules in the Afterworld! I am a bull. You are a bull. We are in the arena all the time. I could not become a matador, so I became a bull. The same with you, I think. It makes no difference: the power of the bull is in us both. In your city, did they fight the bull?”

“I fought one once,” Gilgamesh said. “Enkidu and I. It was the Bull of Heaven, with the power of Father Enlil in him. He was let loose in the city by the priestess Inanna, and ran wild and slew a child; but Enkidu and I, we caught him, we danced with him, we played him, we fought him down. Enkidu wearied him and I put the sword in him.”

“Bravo!”

“But it angered the gods. They took Enkidu’s life, by way of revenge. He wasted away and died. That was the first time I lost him; but I have lost him again and again here in the Afterworld. I am doomed to search for him forever. It is our fate never to be together very long. That man is my brother; he is my other self. But I will find him again, and soon. They tell me he is in Uruk, a prisoner. You may have seen him, perhaps – he is just as tall as I am, and –”

But Picasso did not seem to be listening any longer. He was lost in his work, and in some private distant dream.

“The bullfight on Sunday,” he said, as though Gilgamesh had not been speaking at all. “How you will love it! We will sit together in the seat of honor, you and I. Sabartes has found a
matador of whom I know nothing, but perhaps he will be good, eh? It is very important that the matador be good. Mere butchery, that is shameful. The
corrida
is art. Lift the arms, yes?”

He has not heard a word of what I said to him about Enkidu, thought Gilgamesh. His mind went elsewhere when I spoke of killing the Bull of Heaven. He hears only what he wants to hear. When he wants to hear, he listens, and when he wants to talk, he talks. But in his soul he is the only king. No matter, Gilgamesh thought. He is a great man. His greatness shines about him like the light from a polished shield. And Herod is probably right: he is a great painter also. Even if the only things that he paints are monstrosities.

“It goes well,” Picasso said. “The image holds true, you know? The power of the bull. No cubism today, no blue, no rose.” His arm was moving so quickly now that it seemed to be not a single arm but three. His eyes were ablaze. Yet he gave no appearance of haste. His face was fixed, still, expressionless. His body, but for that one unceasing arm, seemed totally relaxed. Gilgamesh ached to see what was on that canvas.

The mask was hot and stifling now. The Sumerian felt that if he kept it on much longer he would choke. But he dared not move. He was caught in the little man’s spell. Sorcery, yes, definitely sorcery, Gilgamesh thought.

“Do you know why I paint?” Picasso asked. “I say, each time, What can I learn of myself today that I don’t know? The paintings teach me. When it isn’t me any more who is talking, but the pictures I make, and when they escape and mock me, then I know I’ve achieved my goal. Do you know? Do you understand? No?” He shrugged. “Ah, it makes no difference. Here. Here, we can stop now. Enough for today. It goes well.
Por dios
, it goes well!”

Gilgamesh lost no time working himself free of the mask. He gasped for fresh air, but there was none. The room was heavy with the scent of sweat.

“Is it finished?” he asked. He had no idea how long he had posed, whether it had been ten minutes or half a day.

“For now,” said Picasso. “Here: look.”

He swung the easel around. Gilgamesh stared.

What had he expected to see? The picture of a tall muscular man with a bull’s hideous face, gaping mouth, swollen tongue, wild red eyes looking in different directions, the face that was
on the mask. But there were two naked men in the picture, crouched face to face like wrestlers poised to spring. One was huge, black-bearded, with powerful commanding features. Gilgamesh recognized himself in that portrait immediately: it was a remarkable likeness. The other man was much shorter, stocky, wide-shouldered, deep-chested. Picasso himself, plainly. But his face could not be seen. It was the short man who was wearing the mask of the bull.

Three assassins were waiting for him when he stepped out into the Street of the Tanners and Dyers. Gilgamesh was neither surprised nor alarmed. They were so obviously lying in wait for him that he hardly needed them to draw their weapons to know what they were up to.

They were disguised, more or less, as Uruk police, in ill-fitting khaki uniforms badly stained below the arms with sweat. One, with a big blunt nose and a general reek of garlic about him, might have been a Hittite, and the other two were Later Dead, with that strange yellow hair that some of them had, and pathetic straggly beards and mustaches. They had guns.

Gilgamesh wasted no time. He struck one of the Later Dead across the throat with the edge of his hand and sent him reeling into a narrow alleyway, where he fell face forward and lay twitching and croaking and puking. On the backswing Gilgamesh rammed his elbow hard into the Hittite’s conspicuous nose, and at the same time he caught the other Later Dead by the wrist and twisted the pistol free of his grasp, kicking it across the street.

The Later Dead yelped and took off at full speed, arms flailing wildly in the air. Gilgamesh drew his dagger and turned to the Hittite, who had both hands clapped to his face. Blood was pouring out between his fingers.

He touched the tip of his dagger to the Hittite’s belly and said, “Who sent you?”

“You broke my nose!”

“Very likely. Next time don’t push it into my elbow that way.” The Sumerian said, with a little prod of the dagger, “Do you have a name?”

“Tudhaliyash.”

“That’s not a name, it’s a belch. What are you, a Hittite?”

Tudhaliyash, looking miserable, nodded. The blood was flowing a little less copiously now.

“Who do you work for, Hittite?”

“The municipality of Uruk,” said the man sullenly. “Department of Weights and Measures.”

“Were you here to weigh me, or to measure me?”

“I was on my way to the tavern with my friends when you attacked us.”

“Yes. I often attack strangers in the street, especially when they come in groups of three. Who sent you after me?”

“It would be worth my life to say.”

“It will be worth your life to keep silent,” said Gilgamesh, prodding a little harder. “One shove of this and I’ll send you on your way to your next life. But you won’t get there quickly. It takes a long time to die of a slash in the guts.”

“Ur-ninmarka sent me,” the Hittite murmured.

“Who?”

“The royal arch-vizier.”

“Ah. I remember. Dumuzi’s right hand. And who were you supposed to kill?”

“G-G – G-Gil –”

“Say it.”

“Gilgamesh.”

“And who is he?”

“The former k-king.”

“Am I Gilgamesh?”

“Yes.”

“I am the man you were told to kill?”

“Yes. Yes. Make it quick, Gilgamesh! In the heart, not the belly!”

“It wouldn’t be worth the trouble of having to clean my blade of you afterward,” said Gilgamesh coolly. “I will be merciful. You’ll live to belch some more.”

“A thousand blessings! A million blessings!”

Gilgamesh scowled. “Enough. Get away from me. Show me how well you can run. Take your puking friend over there with you. I will forget this entire encounter. I remember nothing of you and I know nothing of who it was who sent you upon me. You didn’t tell me a thing. You understand? Yes, I think you do. Go, now. Go!”

They ran very capably indeed. Gilgamesh leaned against the
wall of Picasso’s house and watched until they were out of sight. A nuisance, he thought, being waylaid in the street like that. Dumuzi should show more imagination. Persuade some demons to have the pavement swallow me up, or drop a cauldron of burning oil on me from the rooftops, or some such.

He looked around warily to see if anyone else lay in ambush for him. There was a faint ectoplasmic shimmer on the building across the way, as though some diabolic entity were passing through the walls, but that was nothing unusual. Otherwise all seemed well. Briskly Gilgamesh walked to the end of the street, turned left into a street calling itself the Street of Camels, and went onward via the Corridor of Sighs and the Place of Whispers to the great plaza where he was lodged.

Herod was there, bubbling with news.

“Your friend is indeed a prisoner in Uruk,” he said at once. “We’ve found out where he’s being kept.”

Gilgamesh’s eyes widened. “Where is he?” he demanded. “What have they done to him? Who told you?”

“Tukulti-Sharrukin’s our source, the Assyrian courtier who likes to drink too much. Your friend is fine. The Assyrian says Enkidu hasn’t been harmed in any way. He’s being held at a place called the House of Dust and Darkness on the north side of the city. The House of Dust and Darkness! Isn’t that a fine cheery name?”

“You idiot,” Gilgamesh said, barely containing his anger.

Herod backed away in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“Your Assyrian is playing jokes with you, fool. Any man of the Two Rivers would know what The House of Dust and Darkness is. It’s simply the name we used in the old days of Sumer for the place where dead people go. Don’t you see, we’re
all
in the House of Dust and Darkness!”

“No,” Herod said, edging still farther back as Gilgamesh made menacing gestures. “I don’t know anything about Sumer, but that’s what the building is actually called. I’ve seen it. The name’s written right over the front porch in plain English. It’s just a jail, Gilgamesh. It’s Dumuzi’s special upscale jail for his political prisoners, very nice, very comfortable. It looks like a hotel.”

“You’ve seen it, you say?”

“Tukulti-Sharrukin took me there.”

“And Enkidu? You saw him?”

“No. I didn’t go inside. It’s not
that
much like a hotel. But Tukulti-Sharrukin says –”

“Who is this Assyrian? Why do you have such faith in what he tells you?”

“Trust me. He hates Dumuzi – something about a business deal that went sour, a real screwing, he and the king going partners on a land-development scheme and the king goniffering up the profits. He’ll do anything to stick it to Dumuzi now. He told me all about it the night of the feast. He and I hit it off like
this
, Gilgamesh, just like
this
. He’s a member of the tribe, you know.”

“He’s what?”

“A Jew. Like me.”

Gilgamesh frowned. “I thought he was an Assyrian.”

“An Assyrian Jew. His grandfather was Assyrian ambassador to Israel in King David’s time and fell in love with one of David’s nieces, and so he had to convert in order to marry her. It must have been one devil of a juicy scandal, a royal niece not only marrying a
goy
but an Assyrian, yet. David wanted to murder him, but he had diplomatic immunity, so the king had him declared
persona non grata
and he was sent home to Nineveh, but somehow he took her with him and then the family stayed kosher after he got back to Assyria. You could have knocked me over with a straw when he said he was a Yid, because he’s got that mean Assyrian face with the nose coming right out of the forehead, you know, and the peculiar curly beard they all wear with the tight ringlets, but when you listen for a little while to the way he speaks you won’t have any doubt that he’s –”

“When I listen for a little while to the way
you
speak,” said Gilgamesh, “I feel like strangling you. Can’t you ever keep to the point? I don’t care who this ridiculous tribesman of yours did or did not marry. What I want to know is, will he help us to free Enkidu or won’t he?”

“Don’t be an anti-Semite, Gilgamesh. It doesn’t look good on you. Tukulti-Sharrukin promises to do what he can for us. He knows the guy who runs the main computer at the House of Dust and Darkness. He’ll try to bugger up the software so that Enkidu’s name gets dropped from the prisoner roster, and maybe then we can slip him out the back way. But no guarantees. It isn’t going to be easy. We’ll know in a day or
two whether it’s going to work out. I’m doing my best for you, you know.”

Gilgamesh closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Herod was a colossal pain in the fundament, but he did get things done.

“All right. Forgive me my impatience, Herod.”

“I love it when you apologize. A minute ago you had that I-suffer-no-fools-gladly gleam in your eye and I thought you were going to knock me from here to Nova Roma.”

“Why
should
I suffer fools gladly?”

“Right. But I’m not all that much of a fool.” Herod grinned. “Let’s get on to other things. You know that Dumuzi has a contract out on you, don’t you?”

“A contract?” said Gilgamesh, baffled again.

“Zeus! Where did you learn your English? Dumuzi wants to have you killed, is what I’m saying. Tukulti-Sharrukin told me that too. Dumuzi’s frightened shitless that you’re going to make a grab for power here, and so –”