Anne Rice - Servant of the Bones

“He looked completely confused. He looked ashamed. At that point the door of the house opened and two very finely dressed Gentile merchant bankers whom I knew came into the room. Both were anxious.

“ ‘We have to hurry, Samuel,’ they said. ‘They’re starting the fires near the walls. They’re killing the Jews everywhere. We cannot help you escape.’

“ ‘Did I ask you to?’ said Samuel with contempt. ‘Give me the proof that my daughters are away.’

“Anxiously they put a letter in his hand. I saw it was from one of many moneylenders whom he trusted most, who was in Italy and in a safe place, and it confirmed that his daughters had come and described the color of the dress of each and every one, and her hair, and gave the special word from her which her father demanded.

“The Gentiles were terrified.

“ ‘We must hurry, Samuel. If you’re determined to die here, keep your word! Where is the casket?’

“At these words I was astonished. Only too quickly did I understand! I had been bartered for the salvation of the five daughters! Neither of these men could see me, but they saw the casket of my bones, which was in plain sight with the books of the Kabbalah, and they went to the casket and opened it and there lay my bones!

“ ‘Master,’ I said in a secret voice to him. ‘You can’t give me to these men! These men are Gentiles. They aren’t magicians. They’re not great men.’

“Samuel was amazed still, staring at me. ‘Great? When did I ever tell you I was great or even good, Azriel? When did you ever ask?’

“ ‘In the name of the Lord God of Hosts,’ I said, ‘I did for you what was good for you and your family and your elders and your synagogue. Samuel! What do you do to me now?’

“The two Gentiles closed the casket. ‘Goodbye Samuel,’ they said as one of them hugged the casket to his breast and they both hurried out the door. I could see the light of the fire. I could smell it. I could hear people screaming.

“ ‘You evil, evil man!’ I cursed him. ‘You think God will forgive you because this fire cleanses you and you’ve sold me for money, for gold!’

“ ‘For my daughters, Azriel. Spirit, you have found a powerful voice too near the end.’

“ ‘The end of what?’ But I knew. I could feel already the others calling, those who had their hands on the bones. They were already outside the city gates. And my hatred and contempt was boiling in me. Their calls were a temptation!

“I came at Samuel.

“ ‘No, Spirit!’ he declared. ‘Obey me, go to the bones. Obey as you always have. Leave me to my martyrdom.’

“There came the call again. I couldn’t hold my form. I was too angry. My body was dissolving. I had in my anger forfeited too much. The voices that called me were strong. They were farther and farther away but nonetheless strong.

“I lunged at Samuel and I threw him out the open door. The street was full of flames. There’s your martyrdom, Rabbi!’ I shouted. ‘I curse you to walk among the undead for all your existence, until God forgives you for what you did to me, leaving me, bartering with me, leading me to love you, and selling me like gold!’

“From both directions terrified people ran to him, people who were suffering then final anguish. ‘Samuel, Samuel,’ they called out his name.

“My bitterness broke for an instant when I saw him embrace them. ‘Samuel,’ I cried. I came towards him. I was growing weak but I was still visible to him. ‘Take my hand. Hold the hand of my spirit, please, Samuel, take me with you into death.’

“He didn’t speak. The crowd surrounded him, sobbing and clinging to him, but I heard his last thought as he rebuffed me as he turned his eyes away. He said as clearly as if aloud,

“ ‘No, Spirit, because if I die with my hand in yours you may take me down into Hell.’

“I cursed him.

“ ‘Not enough grace and goodness for both of us, Master. Master! Leader! Teacher! Rabbi!’

“The flames engulfed the crowd. I rose upwards through the flame and smoke, and felt the cold night pass through me and I sped towards the sanctuary of the bones. I sped away from smoke and horror and injustice and the screams of the innocent. I went through the dark woods, as a witch to a Sabbath, flying with my arms out, and then I saw the two Gentiles at the door of a small church at a great remove from the city, the casket on the ground between them, and wanting only death and silence; I relaxed into the bones.

“All I learnt of them was that they were weeping for Strasbourg, for the Jews, for Samuel, for the whole tragedy. And that they planned to sell me in Egypt. They were not magicians. I was a marketable prize.

“It didn’t seem that mine was a long uninterrupted sleep. I was called, I was taken places, I slew those who called me, and some I can picture, some not. The history of the world was written on the blank and endless tablets of my mind in column after column. I did not think, however; I slept.

“Once a Mameluk in beautiful silk called me forth. It was Cairo, and I chopped him to pieces with his own sword. It took all the wise men of the palace to drive me back into the bones. I remember their beautiful turbans and their frantic cries. They were such a flashy lot, those Moslem soldiers, those strange men who lived all their lives without women, and only to fight and to kill. Why didn’t they destroy me? Because of the inscriptions that warned them against a masterless spirit who could seek revenge.

“I recall in Paris a clever satanic magician in a room full of gaslight. The wallpaper was most intriguing to me. A strange black coat hung on a hook. Life almost tempted me. Gaslight and machines; carriages rolling on cobbled streets. But I killed the mysterious man and retreated once more into the bones.

“It was always that way. I slept. I think I remember a winter in Poland. I think I remember an argument between two learned men. But all this is misty and imperfect. They spoke a Hebrew dialect and they had called me, but neither seemed to know I was there. They were good and gentle men. We were in a plain synagogue, and they argued. And then they decided that my bones must be hidden within the wall. Good men. I slept.”

“When I came to life again, it was in the bright winter sunlight only weeks ago, as a trio of assassins made their way through the press on Fifth Avenue to kill Esther Belkin as she came out of her black limousine and entered the store before her—innocent, beautiful, without the slightest sense of death circling her.

“And why was I there? Who had called me? I knew only these assassins meant to kill her, these hideous rustic evil men, drugged and stupid and enchanted with the pleasure of killing her, in all her innocence. I had to stop it. I had to.

“But I was too late. You know what the papers told you.

“Who was this innocent child? She saw me, spoke my name. How had she known me? She had never called me. She had only seen me in the thin realm between life and death where truths are visible which are otherwise veiled.

“Let us linger on this killing. A death such as Esther’s deserves a few more words. Or maybe I need to recount my coming into awareness. Maybe I need to describe what it was like to see and breathe again in this mighty city, with towers higher than the mystical mountain of Meru, among thousands of people, good and bad, and without luster, as Esther was being marked for the kill.”

Part III

HOW KEEP DARK AND PATTERN OFF

How keep dark

and pattern that any man suffers

off—at the wall, at where the hat