Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) (69 page)

But Sophie still sometimes reached out, however mechanically, for a dead child's hand. Twice she devoured banquet-meat as she was expected to, then rushed off to vomit between the tombs. Many a shy corpse shambled after her.

Mortensen enthusiastically informed me: This so-called hateful state she's in must be her dialectical maximum. It will intensify, and then she'll be free.

Sophie whispered: I'm not worth anything. I eat filth and death.

Mortensen confided: She's our treasure. She's deeper than any of us.

There came the happiness of another banquet, where we and our dead friends all felt like ourselves, throwing the pallid exoskeletons of crayfish out of our abundant boiling-pot, so that the armless, legless dead could graze them up; and Sophie withdrew into the tall chalky corpse-weeds whose leaves were many-fingered hands. Agreeing with Mortensen that the finest course is to face everything, I drank off another bowl of a highly disagreeable soup—although it had begun to strike me that the eating of death might signify far less than I had imagined, for in death even the sorrow dies, leaving mere innocuous moldiness. Was this the secret we had devoured so much to find? If not, how would we know when we attained it? The greenish-yellow lady with whom I had eaten knowledge reached for another tidbit, moaning: Why did no one save my life?—which I interpreted as evidence that she was closer to us than were we to her.

Now it was winter. The corpses had begun to pillage each other's coffins for firewood, and some of the bolder ones pulled the weaker apart, so there was always something to eat.

We're on the verge, said Mortensen.

The warlock confided: Soon I'll be Lord of the Ten Thousand Things.

Looking up from the fire, Goldman asked: What about us?

His three corpse-ladies sang: Die.

I thickened our broth with the contents of a much-cracked cremation urn, and Mortensen revealed more to us about the peculiar perfections and beauties of death, which do not lead to rest. For Goldman I cannot speak, but Sophie and I already knew everything.

One very cold night Mortensen, shivering, withdrew, and sat against a decrepit monument, saying: Too much unshared death! No matter what we choke down, we'll never reach the bottom of the bowl!— At this, his interlocutor, Mr. Mooncrow, hooted, leaping over a family tomb. The fellow had been literally skin and bones, and now look at him! As for Mortensen, he'd become a creature of angles, gaunt and wretched. Thus both
approached their zenith, there in the place of marble tombs eroded into dead white woman-silhouettes. Through the dreamy dullness which defined us I felt grief's bite, but why? Wearying of my eavesdropping, I stole away to inform Goldman or Sophie of our leader's despair; for in our line of work one of the last enthusiasms to perish is the desire to tell tales. I encountered Sophie first. She was cutting up a dead child. Her hair had gone grey, and she wore dead beetles for earrings. Almost pityingly (although she never opened her eyes), she replied: Now you see the obvious.

Then why go on eating wormy meat?

We'll never get the taste out of our mouths now. And if we run away, we'll die eventually and come back to this.

But if we reach the Red Place—

The same.
Even when I eat their hearts I've stopped believing in sweetness.

Mortensen said—

He's exhausting life and death. He's almost won.

What about you?

I wanted eternal life for you. Don't you remember what we promised each other?

No.

Instead I found myself remembering daylight,
the time of the dead noon;
I remembered standing where the terra-cotta sidewalk tiles are shadowed, and the old man pressing oranges into juice, the ladies smiling thirstily all around him as I stood ankle-deep in the paper ruins of the old year. My greenish-yellow lady was claiming prior acquaintance with me, while the blue man said: Whatever will become of us has already become of us.— Sophie was plucking somebody's long white hairs out of her mouth.

I asked her: Did you ever eat the fruit of the Tree?

Look into the warlock's face, she replied, and tell me what you think he's eaten.

When Mortensen returned to the banquet, Goldman's corpse-women were gnawing soup bones into pieces so that the marrow would come out. They sang:
Die!

Mortensen instructed them: Get ready. Now.
Live!

At once, Goldman sank the pickaxe into Mortensen's head. He fell without resistance. Happily clacking their teeth, all the dead crowded round to get at the blood.

Goldman and I looked at each other with relief. Now that Mortensen had crossed to the other side, he would know everything for us, and tell us what to do.

And so we waited. Sophie sat naked in the weeds, eating Mortensen's liver. I still halfway expected her to find a jewel inside. The warlock's eyes were as beautiful as butterflies. Mr. Mooncrow rose horribly tall, and a hundred dead children awaited carnal knowledge.

Unlike the rest of you, said Goldman presently, I never deceived myself.

O
nce upon a time I built myself a house beneath a delightful tree, but late on a certain afternoon I began to get old. The sounds of the evening unnerved me as they had never done before. I drew my curtains in order to feel more safe. Then it got very dark, and I slept a long time. When I opened the door in the morning, I discovered bulldozers digging everything up. A man in a hard hat told me to get out; this property had been condemned for nonpayment.— Why not? I thought. I'm too old for this.

I bought myself a well-made house in the city and furnished it as comfortably as I liked. This time I made certain that everything was paid for. No noises ever came through the windows. My soft bed whispered ever more sweetly to me at night, and warm air sang to me from the ceiling ducts. I went to the door, but the door said: Do you really want to go out? Stay awhile; you'll be so much happier here.— Warm sticky drops of something fell on my head. I looked up, and saw that the ceiling was salivating. This house of mine meant to eat me! So I rushed to the closet to get my coat, but the closet said: I wouldn't do that if I were you.— I pulled at the doorhandle, but the closet remained as tightly closed as the vagina of my first girlfriend, who had never been in the mood. I sat down on the bed to decide what to do. The mattress felt softer than ever, and I became a trifle sleepy.— Now wouldn't you like a little nap? my pillow whispered. I'll give it to you just the way you like it.— So I lay back on my soft, soft bed, and my pillow wrapped around my face to kiss me. In an instant I couldn't breathe.

After I ripped the pillow's flabby folds off my mouth, goosedown started whirling around me like malignant snowflakes, seeking to choke me. I leaped up, stepped into my shoes and kicked the closet door until it squealed. When I turned the knob, it opened with a sob and a shudder, wetting my hand with its tears.— I thought you loved me, it said.

I do love you, I said. Now where's my coat?

Wouldn't you rather play dress-up? The weather report predicts a cold
front. If you stay indoors with me today, I'll show you costumes you've never seen. You can be either a king or a queen.

If I play with you today, will you try to stop me from going tomorrow?

I've always loved you, said the closet. It will never be easy to let you go.

Well, if I stay here forever, what do you have to offer me?

What do you mean? What way is that to talk to someone who would give you everything?

If you'll give me everything, start by giving me my coat.

Are you saying it's over?

Of course not, I said, stroking the shiny cool doorhandle in just the way it liked. I'm going shopping so I can bring you back some lovely, lovely clothes.

Do you promise? whispered the closet.

I promise.

I put on my coat, but just then the refrigerator spoke my name. It wished to offer me a really, really fancy piece of cheese. The instant I heard that, my mouth began to water, and once
that
happened, the ceiling dripped more saliva on me. That discouraged my appetite, so I went to the window to investigate the weather. But I lacked means to determine whether or not the closet had lied, because rain was running down the inside of the pane—the tears of my house, which feared that it might not be able to eat me.

Since the door refused to unlock, I broke the window with the base of a gooseneck lamp whose head kept hissing, swiveling round and attempting to bite me. By now the world had grown dark. I smashed out every last shard, threw that quacking, squawking lamp into the hole, and poised myself to escape from my grave-house. Perhaps I should have departed sooner. The bathroom door kept slamming to and fro, the lights glowed red, and the oven timer was screaming. To tell you the truth, I wished that I could have seen something more than blackness outside. How far down did the night go?— It's past your bedtime, the house threatened.— Leaping into space, I said to myself: This is the last time I'll ever allow myself to get old.

People also tried to defend themselves with hands and feet, and they twisted around and twitched like frogs. After that he had them also impaled and spoke often in this language: Oh, what great gracefulness they exhibit!

Manuscript no. 806, monastery of Saint Gall (
ca.
1462)

S
o Abraham took Isaac up onto the mountain, a three days' journey, and tied him hand and foot upon the mound of firewood, so that he could be roasted after he was bled, but Isaac cried:
Why, father?—
It seems that Abraham could not answer. The slaughter-knife trembled in his hand. The boy shouted: Father, please, father, there's a ram in the thicket behind you, caught by both horns! That's what God intends!— The old man declined to look. Ruthlessly he raised the knife. Swallowing, the boy closed his eyes.— My son, said Abraham, you must look me in the face when I slit your throat. Then God will see that you give yourself willingly.— At this, the child commenced to scream, and so the two bondsmen came running. Until then Abraham had preserved hope that God's messenger would call down from the sky that he had acquitted his heart and could slay the ram instead. But when the terrified servants panted into sight, the ram tore himself loose, so that there remained only human victims to choose among. What should the father have done? The servants were of unknown blood; for in their infancy he had found them beneath a blasted tree, their mother dead beside an empty water-skin, and he drove off the jackals which were already grinning in their faces. They owed him life, so why not reimburse himself from the both of them, in order to ransom Isaac, whom he loved more than anything but God? Besides, they ought to pay the forfeit for driving the ram away. So he rounded on them with his upraised knife, while Isaac seized the opportunity to untie himself and flee, since after all no one had obtained his consent to this business. He ran eastward of Eden, this being the direction which Cain had chosen before him; and thence the Lord permitted both those outcasts to depart, for He punishes unto the seventh
generation, and had He slain Isaac then, there would have been no children to slay. Knowing that he could never again enter his father's tent, nor lie in the lap of his mother while she groomed his hair, he aged a hundred years, travelling on into the fabulous lands, and God bore with him, for the sake of the seventh generation. And Isaac bowed low before God every day, offering Him the best of everything that he found, but he was not answered. And in the three-hundred-and-thirty-third year of his age he took to wife Dark-Eyes, a princess of the land whom he had allured in defiance of her father, for, being accursed, he owned neither sheep nor goats; no silver pieces lived in his belt; and his home was a certain cave whose entrance he sealed up from within every night, so that the jackals, men and angels who hunted him would wander away bewildered. Dark-Eyes's father promised him death should he ever visit again, but Dark-Eyes loved him, although why that was she could no longer have said after the first hour of their elopement, when she finally saw his unhooded face. Therefore, thanks to God, she repented that she had given herself to him, and during those morbid cave-nights when he would have slept in her arms, she sat against the wall, cursing him and herself. So she perished, without creating a new generation for God to punish. Then Isaac in his grief entreated forgiveness of her dead carcass, covered her face in an old goatskin, the finest he had, and upraised his slaying-knife to end himself, for he hated the days of his life, and resolved to recompense God for what he had stolen from Him. But had he died then, there would have been no seventh generation, and so the Lord made it fall out that a certain proud and beautiful woman now came riding up upon a camel, calling Isaac by his name. Just as his father had done, he fell into hesitation, and presently rolled aside the stones from his cave, at which she lowered her pitcher to him that he might drink the wine of peace, and carried him away to the mountains where a shady, rapid river flashed near as white as sunlight beneath cloudy green leaves whose like he had never known, and here the gates of a marble city opened unto him, for she was a great queen, whose name was Joy. When she had led him into her palace he knelt before her, touching his mouth to her right foot, and swore an oath to serve her forever as her loving consort, since she had returned his life to him, and together they dwelled in happiness for seven times seventy-seven years, making many children,
so that someday there would be a seventh generation to torment to the utmost and finally blot out. In his great gratitude he drew water for her like a woman, while she protected him like a man, so that even the angels could not find him (God, of course, knew his whereabouts), and he tilled the soil like a man, and she wove their clothes like a woman, and when they were alone he played the harp for her while she sang in her soft small voice, upraised her little hands, and slowly danced, naked but for three silver necklaces. Then came an easy trifling hour of sleep, which resembled both of their conceptions of death. And every morning she said to him: Drink, and every evening he said the same to her. And he fashioned bracelets to gladden her wrists, and she washed his feet in flower-water. Then one night after her hair turned grey she dreamed of the sharp-toothed tomb which already opened its jaws to receive them, and in this dark mouth of death flickered seven red serpent-tongues of eternal fire fashioned and lit expressly to torture them forever, so that God could receive the payment of the first generation, but Isaac kissed her, saying: So wan a curse as death bestows upon our extreme old age need not be feared, for our very souls are worn out now, from too much living. Speaking for myself, eternal misery can be no worse than what I suffered before I met you.— But she replied: I have never been in anguish as you were, so I lack practice and experience. Husband, I'm afraid!— Then he said to her: I promise to lie beside you forever, and so long as God keeps me in consciousness to be tortured, I will say your name in my heart, and call upon you, and make my love for you a prayer for all the ages, and I swear to keep faith that you will do likewise for me.— So they comforted one another, and when their tomb roared out for them with the voice of seven lions, they entered it willingly, and their children, the second generation, walled them up, at which everyone's punishment began.