Requiem (22 page)

The
spiral scroll had reminded him of a certain medallion in his collection which
was of genuine Canaanite origin. He had obtained it by stealth from the
archaeological discoveries at
Ugarit
. He lifted it
carefully from the ottoman.

The
medallion was a coin of smoothed and blackened bronze, drilled and looped by a
length of dirty string. It too contained a spiral invocation, engraved in
cuneiform characters, unreadable to Ahmed despite all his proud scholarship. He
understood it to be a prayer to
Ashtoreth
, rendered
in spiral form so as to represent a maze in which evil spirits may become lost
and trapped. Ahmed hung it around his neck and returned to work on the scroll.

After
completing his revision, he rolled up his sleeves and attacked a new section of
the scroll with augmented vigour.

He assembled new Council of Twelve {which) included
Sicarri
and
Zealot but not Pharisee {and) not
Saducee
. Proclaimed
Prince of the Congregation. The Wicked Priest {Liar) of the Pharisee hated {he)
him because of the marriage in Canaan and his hatred of women.

Then
the
thaumaturge
Lightning {or the Fork of Lightning),
struck. He moved the {calendar) moon in the
sky by {one) month,
thus Righteous Teacher no longer illegitimate. Then
{I was) party to the way of the Fig-tree. Lightning, under another name of
Bethany {made) the snake poison, and the Teacher by aloes and myrrh to
resurrect {him). Who comes to the prophecy will {make the) fig-Messiah
[flourish). Thereafter, the scriptures,
and
by these {the same) means will the Suffering Servant resurrect.
Of the
Council of Twelve, only he, Lightning-Simon, I and the
Sicarri
know. I liked not the plan. Lightning made a gift {bribe) to the Roman that he
{his limbs) be not broken in mercy.

A
shadow passed over Ahmed. He re-read his notes in a fever. He scribbled rapidly
in his notebook. A Teacher of Righteousness. Persecuted by a 'Wicked Priest'.
Married to the female narrator. The fulfilment of prophecy = fig fruiting
generations after planting, i.e. Old Testament. The Council of Twelve
followers. The Suffering Servant/Prince of Congregation, possible death.
Sicarri
= market-place assassins, sub-Zealot. Another name
of Bethany, resurrected = Lazarus? = Simon Magus, i.e. the
thaumaturge
?
Was he Lazarus? The
Sicarri
who was in on the plan,
Sicarri
= Iscariot?

Sounds familiar, Ahmed? Sounds familiar?

37

'
Didit-didit-dididdid-did-did-didit
,'

'Christina,
talk to me. It's Sharon. What have you taken? What did you take?'

Sharon,
returning to the rehabilitation centre that morning, found Christina back in
the White Cloud Room. She took over from
Tobie
. One
of the other residents had seen Christina popping pink capsules over breakfast,
half an hour before Sharon arrived.

'How did she
get hold of the stuff?' Sharon wanted to know.

'Smuggled them
in inside her, I expect, darling. That's the usual way.'

'Leave her
to me,
Tobie
. I'll handle it. Tell my day-care group
they're on their own for a while.'

Tobie
went out and Christina
began rocking, tapping her head against the cushioned wall. 'Did-it-
didit
.
Tobie
pisses me off.'

'Keep this
up, and it's the nuthouse for you. We can't deal with this. We can't cope with
you freaking out all the time. We're' only here for nutrition and macramé, you
with me?'

'Na-
na
-
na
,
sha-na-na-na
.
You
wanna
know how they did-did-did-it?
Sha-na-na
.'

Sharon had been through
withdrawal, detoxification, highs, lows, trips and falls, uppers and downers,
White Clouds and Screaming Blue Funks with Christina. Sharon had had a bad
night herself and had slept little after arguing with Tom. It infuriated her
that after working all day with recalcitrant clients at the rehab centre, she
then had to confront Tom about his making no effort to open up about his
feelings; and she knew he wouldn't be able to face his bereavement until he did.
He was brittle. Each piece of information came out with a tiny snap, as if she
had to break each of his fingers in turn to get it out. He couldn't see that if
only he would talk, or shout, or be angry, or weep, then he might stop being
plagued by phantoms and accept the terrible thing that had happened to Katie.

'
Sha-na-na-nan-nan-na
.'

'I'm
tired of you, Christina.' One thing she'd learned through all this therapy was
to look after her own feelings. If she felt angry with one of the clients, the rule
was to tell them or suffer later. It was a survival mechanism. Anyone who
pretended to be calm, sorted, in control, balanced and unaffected by work of
this kind lasted two years before they became one of the patients. The
transition from therapist to client had, in more than one case, happened
overnight. Depression and hopelessness were more contagious than
scarlatina
.

'I'm
tired of all your games, and I'm sick of you never giving me anything back for
all the help I give you. I don't have any more patience. It's all used up, so
I'm going to ask
Tobie
to take over, or if she can't
do it, someone else. That's it.' Sharon stood up.

Christina
didn't stop rocking. 'Did-did-did, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED,' she shouted
when Sharon reached the door. 'Did-did-did, I'll tell you tell you tell you.'
She began rocking slightly faster, tapping the back of her head against the
cushioned wall.

Sharon
came back and sat down again. 'What pills did you take?
^’

'Never mind never mind
never mind I'll tell you I'll TELL YOU HOW they did it. They did it. They broke
his legs, yes
yes
, broke his fucking legs, that's how
they did it, hey
hey
, I'm trying, hey, broke his
fucking legs,
he wasn't supposed to die no
no
,
wasn't supposed to die he was just supposed to hang there,
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TRYING TO just hang there
until they took him down, not dead, no
no
not at all,
just
pretending to
be dead so he could
live, the whole thing he WASN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE but you know who, you know who
THAT WAS SAUL, he told them to BREAK HIS FUCKING LEGS, he said break his legs,
he's the one. He did it. That's how they did it! Did it!'

By
now Christina was smacking her head quite hard against the padded wall. Sharon
tried to contain the rocking by holding her. 'Who? Who are you talking about,
Christina? I don't know who you're talking about.'

'Who?
Who? Why, I'm trying to tell you, I'm trying, I'm TALKING ABOUT JESUS! JESUS!
POOR JESUS! THEY BROKE HIS LEGS! THAT'S HOW THEY DID IT! JESUS! MY POOR JESUS!'
Christina stopped rocking and collapsed on the floor, howling in anguish, her
body racked with sobs.

Sharon tried
to lift her, to comfort her. 'It's just the drugs, Christina. You're having a
bad . . . What did you take?'

'
Nooooo
-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.
Poor Jesus. Poor Jesus.'

She was inconsolable.
It was as if she was experiencing everything she'd said at first hand. Her body
convulsed; her
howls squeezed out of her,
choking her. Suddenly she stopped crying. She lay full-length on the floor, her
head pressed to the nylon carpet, damp with her own tears. Then quite clearly
she said, 'I'm Mary Magdalene.'

'Yes,' said
Sharon trying to soothe, 'it's all right. And I'm the Virgin Mary.'

Christina sat up, with an indignant
expression on her
face. She brushed her
long brown hair from her eyes. Then she spoke in the same voice Sharon had
heard invading the airwaves on the radio the previous morning. It was a voice
she recognized with absolute clarity. It had brought her that morning to a
standstill in the traffic, and again it chilled her to the core.
'Why are
you trying to shut me out? It's me, Sharon, it's me. I’m trying to tell you
what happened.'

'Christina!'

Christina's
head lolled sideways. She tugged at her collar, as if it was hurting her. 'I
can't breathe,' she said. The words were coming from Christina's mouth. But it
was Katie's voice. '/
can't breathe I can't breathe I can't breathe.'

'I don't know, darling.
I've seen so many things here, all my certainties collapsed a long time ago.'

They were
in
Tobie's
office, drinking a second cup of tea.
After hearing Christina speak in the voice of her dead friend, Sharon had
backed out of the room and had yelled down the corridor.
Tobie
had been around, fixing a door hinge, and had come running. She'd taken one
look at Sharon before escorting her into the office, charging someone else to
sit with Christina: 'Marcia, be a sweetie and step into White Cloud with
Christina. Time for me to counsel the counsellor.'

But
Tobie
hadn't offered any counsel; she'd just listened.

'I
don't know how it happened,
Tobie
. But somehow it's
carried
across.
Tom can't come to terms with his wife's death, and it's infected
me. The first time it happened I could put it down to imagination, but if you'd
been there just now —'

'What
happened, exactly? Tell me again.'

'Christina
was behaving in her usual freaked-out way, and then it was if a switch had been
thrown, and she spoke to me in Katie's voice. Exactly as I'd heard it come
across the radio yesterday morning. It wasn't
like
Katie's voice, it
was
Katie's voice.'

'And what about this Tom? Are you fucking
him?'

'
Tobie
-'

'Look, you
don't know me after all this time? You think I'm judging you?'

'No. But if
you're going to tell me that it happened because I feel guilty, then I'll
scream.'

'So start screaming. It might even help.'

'But I don't feel guilty! I really don't!'

Tobie
tapped the side of her
head. 'Not in here you don't.' Then she moved her hand across her large breast.
'But in here.'

'I don't go along with that.'

'Have you
forgotten what you learned when you first came here?'

'Throw that at me, would you?'

'I'm not
throwing it at you. I only ask you to remember we're all patients.'

Sharon had found her way
to the Bet Ha-
Kerem
rehabilitation centre in the days
when she finally admitted to herself she'd got a problem, and her problem was
cocaine. It was a habit developed during eighteen months of high living with a
rich property developer, and when the relationship ended, all she came out with
was an expensive habit she couldn't possibly support. She sought help, and got
it, at the Bet Ha-
Kerem
.
Tobie
noticed her ability to empathize with, and support, other clients. She had a
real talent,
Tobie
had observed, and was doing more
genuine counselling work than some of the paid staff. She was taken on at the
centre, at first in a part-time capacity, but she learned fast and her status
advanced quickly.

Tobie
was an inspiration. This little grey-haired, big-breasted
Jewish mother, who irritated the hell out of everyone by calling them all
darlink
,
was the wisest person Sharon had
ever met. Her precepts were simple, beginning with the belief that all human
beings have a tremendous capacity for lying and deceiving and that their first
victim is invariably themselves. First stop lying to yourself, she told
everyone, and then we have half a chance. More than that, she told Sharon, she
should not hate people because they lie to themselves, but she should love them,
because this self-deception was an emblem of their humanity. The effort to stop
lying to oneself, she maintained, was the only suitable starting point for all
notions of self-improvement.

When
Tobie
reminded her, 'We're all patients,' she meant exactly
that. The other reason
Tobie
had taken Sharon on to
her payroll was that Sharon reminded the old woman of herself: she,
Tobie
, was a reformed alcoholic.

'So what do you think?' Sharon said,
softening.

'Tom
is haunted, that's plain. From what you tell me, he can't face something
concerning his wife's death. Now you've become lovers, you've shared his
neurosis, if that's what it is. You thought you could get in his bed and help
him; I know you. But you can't keep other people's emotions at arm's length:
they're like sexually transmitted diseases,
darlink
.
They're worse than that: they get on your back and stay there.'

'You're beginning to sound like Ahmed with
his
djinn
.'