Russell Hoban - Pilgermann

I say, ‘No, Lord, I cannot even contain that thought.’

Jesus says, ‘If it be God’s incomprehensible will that the universe shall flower to the end of all things and from that end of all things seed itself anew, will you question the slaughter of Jews? You see on the cobbles the dead who were alive, who sprang from the leap of the lightning that cleaves the dark that waits for the leap after the stillness, the stillness after the leap. You see the dead: backward into their life and forward into their death extends the black-body spectrum of their being; their diffraction is as yours. Will you offer an opinion?’

I say, ‘I have no opinion, Lord.’

Jesus incorporates me in his glance and I begin to see him in more than one way. Jesus is the great dead Lion of the World and in his mouth is the live black body of Christ Radiant. The great dead lion is walking the rocks and desert, walking the mountains and the high ground, looking down on deep gorges where rivers serpentine, and in his mouth the live black body of him the one radiant, him the Christ flickering his black-body spectrum, flames all dancing on the live black body of him in the mouth of the great dead lion of himself. The black body opens, it is a sky of lightning, a sea of fire, mountains of ice. The sky grows tiny, contracts to one black dot, absorbs the sea of fire, the mountains of ice. The black dot opens out into the great live Lion of the World. In his mouth the tiny dead golden body of Christ. In the mouth of the tiny dead golden body of Christ is the world, the sun, the moon, the stars, the wheeling heavens of night. Far and far the thunder of his silence rolls, the lion roars, the stars shake, flicker, burn to paleness and morning.

Silence. The lion is a great paper kite, blue and yellow, the paper fluttering in the morning wind. Far, far down goes the string to Jesus winding in the kite. The lion-kite bursts into flame, the flame runs down the string, Jesus is on fire.

All round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon dance the avatars of Burning Jesus, Christ as fire in perfect silence dancing. One for every degree of the circle, three hundred and sixty avatars of Burning Jesus dancing the colour of Jew, dancing the full black-body spectrum of Jew. One by one the emissions cease, one by one the colours disband, the burning avatars rejoin each one the next and all go back to one, the live black body of Christ Radiant in the centre of the great circle of fire, the burning world-circle. The motion of the dance continues, it is bursting the skin of the sky. The colour of Jew is rent with a great ripping down the centre of the sky.

Leaning on Jesus and held up by him, suddenly I rage at him. Feeble, unmanned, weak from loss of blood I rage at him the Christ, him the anointed one. ‘Who are you to put these pictures in my eyes!’ I say to him. ‘Thou Jew! Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God, the Lord is One! The Lord is not three and you are not the One. What kind of a Jew are you to turn the world against your people? Images are worshipped in your name! In your name Jews are slaughtered!’

‘Whatever I am,’ says Jesus, ‘I’m the one you talk to from now on.’

I think: O God, what if he’s right? What if God’s gone and I never really had a chance to talk to him. Forgotten prayers crowd my head, I look away from Jesus, I look up to the sky. ‘Answer us, O Lord!’ I cry, ‘answer us on the Fast day of our Affliction, for we are in great trouble; turn not to our wickedness, and hide not thy presence from us, nor conceal thyself from our supplication; be near, we pray, to our cry, let thy kindness we beg, comfort us; answer us, even before we call unto thee, according to that which is said: “And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer; while they are speaking, I will hear!” For thou, O Lord, art the one that answerest in time of trouble, redeemest and deliverest in all times of trouble and distress! Blessed art thou, O Lord (Blessed be he and blessed be his name!) who answerest in time of trouble. (Amen!)’

There was a long silence after my prayer, then Jesus said, ‘Did you feel that prayer going anywhere or did it just go out of you?’

‘It just went out of me,’ I said.

‘You’re shaking an empty tree,’ said Jesus. ‘You’re letting down your bucket in a dry well. There was no answer when the knife was on your flesh and there’ll be no answer now. And for what do you pray now? The thing has already been done and you are cut off from your generations.’

Thou Christ!’ I say, remembering suddenly whom I’m talking to, Thou Christ who fed the hungry, cast out demons, healed the sick and raised the dead! Surely thou wilt restore me to my manhood!’

Jesus shook his head. The fig tree stayed barren,’ he said, ‘and you will stay a eunuch; it is what you wished.’

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, I couldn’t believe what he was saying. When he said this we were not walking, I was in my bed, dispersed in two-dimensional sunlit patterns like an infinitely extending oriental carpet. I seemed to have been there for some time. ‘What did you say?’ I said.

Jesus said, ‘I said it is what you wished.’

I said, ‘Can you have seen Sophia and say that? I am young, the blood in me runs hot, I lust but I am unmanned. I lust, I long, I yearn, I hunger, I hum like a tuning fork, I flutter like a torn banner in the wind. That which I was I can never be again, that which I am is intolerable, that which I shall be I cannot imagine. I glimmer like a distant candle, I mottle like the sunlight on the carpet, like the shadows of leaves. I am something, I am nothing, I am here, I am gone.’

‘It is what you wished,’ said Jesus. ‘Only now do you hum, flutter, glimmer, mottle, be something, be nothing, be here, be gone with me. Only now are you tuned to me.’

‘Never did I wish to be a eunuch,’ I said, ‘and never did I wish to be tuned to you.’

Jesus said, ‘And there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs on account of the kingdom of the heavens. The one being able to grasp it let him grasp.’

I said, ‘I never made myself a eunuch.’

Jesus said, ‘Life moves by exchanges; loss is the price of gain. Some pay with one thing, some with another; whatever is most dear, that is my price.’

I said, ‘Why is that your price?’

Jesus said, ‘What is dear is what is held dear, and there can be no holding by those who go my road; there can be no holding by those who will be here with me and gone with me.’

I said, ‘Never did I ask to go that road, never did I wish to be here with you, gone with you.’

Jesus said, ‘Always you wished it, and most of all when you put hand and foot to that ladder of love and pleasure. In your soul you called to me, you longed for me when you climbed that ladder. With eager hands you reached for pleasure and held it fast but whoever holds on wishes to let go because attachment is not wholeness: the only wholeness is in being with everything and attached to nothing; the only wholeness is in letting go, and I am the letting go.’

I said, ‘I know nothing of all this.’

‘You will know,’ said Jesus, ‘and your knowing in time to come will make you know it now.’

‘What is between us, you and me?’ I said.

‘Everything,’ said Jesus.

‘Why me?’ I said.

‘Why not you?’ said Jesus.

I, Pilgermann, poor bare tuned fork, humming with the for-everness of the Word that is always Now. Unbearing the Unbearable, intolerating the Intolerable, being not enough for the Too-Muchness. I, poor harp of a Jew twanging incessantly in the mouth of Jesus, in the lion-mouth of Christ Pandamator, Christ All-Subduer. There is a point where pattern becomes motion; the pattern has found me and I must move, must be aware of moving, must be a motion, an action of the Word. Poor bare tuned fork.