The Green Face (10 page)

Above the gables the reddish glow from the booths and tents
of the summer fairground, which was already in full swing,
illuminated the sky and mixed with the white mist rising from
the city and the glistening reflection of the full moon on the roofs
to create a mysterious iridescent haze in which the shadows of
the church towers hovered like long, pointed triangles of black
gauze.

The putter of all the motors driving the roundabouts sounded
like the thump-thump of a huge heart. The breathless wail of the
hurdy-gurdies, the constant drum-rolls, the shrill voices of the
barkers and the whiplash crackle of gunfire from the shooting
galleries echoed through the dark streets, conjuring up in the
mind a picture of a torchlit crowd milling round stalls piled high
with gingerbread, brightly-coloured candy and hairy cannibal
faces carved out of coconut shells; gaily-painted wooden horses
were whirling round, bobbing up and down, boat-swings rose
and fell like giant pendulums, black faces nodded, white clay
pipes clenched between their teeth as a target for the air-guns,
excited children tried to throw hoops over rows of knives stuck into rough deal tables, glistening seals honked from their tubs
of dirty water, flags fluttered over tents where the flickering
light reflected by the revolving globe covered in mirror tiles
played on the grotesque antics of the monkeys and the parrots
screeching on silver swings; and all around, shoulder to shoulder, stood the tall houses like a silent crowd of dusky giants with
white, rectangular eyes.

Jan Swammerdam lived well away from the noisy throng in
a room on the fourth floor of a building that seemed to lurch
forward over the dark street; in the cellar was the notorious
sailors’ tavern, the ‘Prince of Orange’.

Inside, the whole house was filled with the dusty odour of
dried herbs from a little store by the entrance, and a sign proclaiming that `Spirituous liquors were sold here’ indicated
where, during the day, a certain Lazarus Egyolk ran a gin-shop.

Doctor Sephardi and Juffrouw van Druysen climbed up some
stairs that were as steep as a chicken ladder and were warmly
welcomed at the top by an old lady with snow-white hair and
round, child-like eyes who greeted them with the words, “Welcome, Eva, and thou, too, King Balthasar, welcome in the New
Jerusalem.”

As the two of them entered, the six people, who had been
sitting in solemn silence round the table, rose with gauche
politeness and were introduced by Mademoiselle de Bourignon,
“This is Jan Swammerdam and his sister” - a wrinkled old
woman with a Dutch bonnet and Krulletjes, brass spirals, on her
ears who kept on curtseying - “and that is Mijnheer Lazarus
Egyolk, who is not actually a member of our spiritual circle, but
is `Simon the Cross-bearer’ (“and lives in the same house, your
Honours”, proudly added the man in question, an ancient Russian Jew in a caftan); “then there is Juffrouw Mary Faatz of the
Salvation Army, her spiritual name is Magdalena, and dear
Brother Ezekiel” - she pointed to a young man with a puffy,
pockmarked face, which looked as if it had been kneaded out of
dough, and inflamed eyelids without lashes - “he works in the
herb-store below; his spiritual name is Ezekiel because when
the time is fulfilled he will judge mankind.”

Doctor Sephardi gave his companion a puzzled look. Her aunt, who noticed it, explained, “We all have spiritual names.
Jan Swammerdam, for example, is King Solomon and his sister
Shulamite; I am Gabriela, that is the feminine form of the Archangel Gabriel, but usually I am called `The Guardian of the
Threshold’, for it is my task to collect the souls that are scattered
in the cosmos and lead them back to paradise. You will come
to understand all this much better later on, Doctor Sephardi, for
you are one of us, although you do not know it at the moment.
Your spiritual name is King Balthasar. Have you never felt the
stigmata?”

Sephardi was more confused than ever.

“I’m afraid Sister Gabriela is rushing on ahead a little too
quickly”, said Swammerdam with a smile. “Many years ago a
true prophet of the Lord arose in this very house, a simple cobbler by the name of Anselm Klinkherbogk. You will meet him
this evening. He lives upstairs.

We are not spiritualists, as you might assume, Mijnheer,
almost, I am tempted to say, the opposite, for we have nothing
to do with the realm of the dead. Ourgoal is eternal life. In every
name there resides a hidden power, and when we repeat our
names, with our lips closed, to our own hearts until it fills our
whole being day and night, then we draw the spiritual powerinto
our blood and it circulates through our veins, changing our
bodies little by little. This gradual transformation of the body
- only the body must be transformed, the spirit is perfect and
complete from the very beginning - is expressed in all kinds of
feelings which are the harbingers of the state known as`spiritual
rebirth’. One such feeling, for example, is the sensation of a
gnawing pain that comes and goes without our being able to
explain why. At first it just affects the flesh, but then it begins
to bore into the bones and penetrates the whole body until, as a
sign of the `first baptism’ - that is the baptism of water - the
crucifixion of the first degree appears; that is, on the hands there
appear inexplicable wounds with water coming out.” He and the
others, except forLazarus Egyolk, lifted up their hands to reveal
deep, circular scars, as if made by nails.

“But that is hysteria!” cried Juffrouw van Druysen in horror.

“You are welcome to call it hysteria, Mejuffrouw; our hys teria is not an illness. There are different kinds of hysteria. Only
hysteria which is associated with trances and mental imbalance
is a sickness and leads downwards; our hysteria, on the other
hand, is a matter of mental balance, the achieving of clarity, and
is the way upwards, from insight through rational thought to
knowledge through direct contemplation.

In the scriptures this goal is called `the inner voice’, and just
as ordinary men and women think by letting words run through
their brain without being conscious of it, so within those who
are spiritually reborn there is another, mysterious language with
new words, which are beyond error or even uncertainty. Then
thought becomes a new manner of thought, becomes magic and
no longer a tool of our paltry understanding, becomes a revelation of the truth in the light of which error vanishes because
our thoughts are rings that are no longer separate, but have
linked together to form a chain.”

“And have you reached that state, Mijnheer Swammerdam?”

“If I had reached that state I would not be sitting here,
Mejuffrouw.”

“You say that ordinary people think by letting words run
through their brain”, said Sephardi, whose interest had been
aroused. “How is it with someone who is born deaf and dumb
and has never learnt a language?”

“He thinks partly through images and partly in the primal
language.”

“Me let speak, Swammerdamleben”, shouted Lazarus Egyolk in his grotesque Dutch mixed with Russian and Yiddish; he
had obviously worked himself up into an argumentative mood,
“Now, you have Cabbala, but I have Cabbala, too. ‘In the
beginning was the word’ is not the right translation. ‘Bereshith’
means `head-thing’, not ‘in the beginning’.”

“The head-thing”, murmured Swammerdam and then, after
a moment’s silent reflection, “I know. But the meaning is the
same.”

The others had listened in silence and gave each other significant looks.

Eva van Druysen felt instinctively how at the word ‘headthing’ the olive-green face came into her mind and she shot an inquiring glance at Sephardi who gave her a faint nod.

He it was who eventually broke the silence, since no one else
looked as if they were going to speak. “In what manner was the
gift of prophecy granted to your friend Klinkherbogk and in
what way does it appear?” he asked.

Swammerdam started, as if waking from a dream, “Klinkherbogk?” He collected his thoughts, “Klinkherbogk sought
God all his life until eventually itcompletely occupied his whole
mind and for many years he was so consumed with longing that
he could not sleep. One night when he was sitting as usual by
his globe - you know, I’m sure, that shoemakers use globes
filled with waterthat they place in front of the candle to improve
the light they work by - a figure grew out of the light inside it
and came up to him; then it happened just as it is recorded in the
Apocalypse: the angel gave him a book to eat and said, `Take
it and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be
in thy mouth sweet as honey.’ The face of the apparition was
veiled, only its forehead was visible and glowing on it was a
resplendent green cross.”

Eva van Druysen remembered her father’s words about the
ghosts that bear the Mark of Life openly, and for a moment a
shiver of fear ran down her spine.

“Since that time Klinkherbogk had the ‘inner voice’ “, continued Swammerdam, “and it came out of his mouth and told
him, and me - at that time I was his only disciple - how we
should live that we might eat of the Wood ofLife that is in God’s
paradise. And a promise was made to us: yet a little while and
all the sorrows of this vale of tears would slip from us, and like
Job we would receive a thousandfold whatever life had taken
away.”

Doctor Sephardi was tempted to object that it was fooling
oneself and dangerous to putone’s faith in such prophecies from
the subconscious, but he was stopped by the memory of Pfeill’s
story of the green beetle. Anyway, it was clear that the time for
warnings was past.

However, the old man seemed to have guessed the train of his
thoughts, more or less, for he continued, “It was fifty years ago
that the promise was made to us, but we must exercise patience and continue to pour our prayers into ourhearts without ceasing,
until the rebirth is complete.” He spoke the words calmly and
apparently full of confidence, but there was a tremor in his
voice, like the foreboding of dreadful despair to come, which
betrayed how much he had to keep himself under control so as
not to shake the others’ belief.

“You have been doing this for fifty years? That is terrible!”
Doctor Sephardi exclaimed before he could stop himself.

“Oh, it is so beautiful, so divine to see how everything is
fulfilled”, lisped Mademoiselle de Bourignon ecstatically, “and
to see all the sublime spirits flock together round Abram - that
is the spiritual name of Anselm Klinkherbogk, for he is the
Patriarch - and lay the foundation stone for a New Jerusalem
here in Amsterdam, in lowly Zeedijk. Mary Faatz (she used to
be a prostitute and now she is our pious Sister Magdalena)”, she
whispered behind her hand to her niece, “has come and … and
Lazarus has been raised from the dead. But of course, I didn’t
tell you about that miracle in the letter I wrote inviting you to
come and join our circle: just imagine, Lazarus was raised from
the dead by Abram!” Jan Swammerdam stood up, walked over
to the window and stared silently out into the darkness. “Yes,
oh yes, raised bodily from the dead! He lay dead on the floor of
his shop and Abram came and brought him back to life.”

All eyes were fixed on Egyolk, who turned away in embarrassment and whispered into Doctor Sephardi’s ear, with much
gesticulation and shrugging of shoulders, that there was something in it, “Unconscious I was, certainly, perhaps dead, who
knows? Why should I not have been dead? I ask you, an old man
like me?”

“And that is why I beseech you, Eva”, Mademoiselle de
Bourignon urged her niece: “to join our brotherhood, for the
Kingdom is at hand and the last shall be first.”

The druggist’s assistant, who until then had not said a word
but sat next to Sister Magdalena holding her hand in his, suddenly rose to his feet, thumped the table with his fist and stuttered, his inflamed eyelids wide apart, “Ye-ye-yes-, th-th-the
f-f-first shall b-b-be last and it is easier f-f-for a ca-ca-ca-“

`Tfhe spirit has come upon him. It is the Logos speaking through him”, cried the Guardian of the Threshold. “Eva, harbour every word in your heart!”

“-ca-camel to g-g-go through the eye of a n-n-n-“

Jan Swammerdam hurried over to the possessed shop assistant, whose face was gradually taking on an ugly expression, and
calmed him down with a few mesmeric passes over his forehead
and mouth.

“That is only the `inversion’ as we call it, Mejuffrouw”,
explained Sister Shulamite to calm down Eva van Druysen, who
had rushed in horror to the door. “Brother Ezekiel sometimes
suffers from it, and then his lower nature gains control over his
higher. But it’s over now.” Brother Ezekiel had dropped down
onto all fours and was barking and growling like a dog whilst
the girl from the Salvation Anny was kneeling next to him,
stroking his hair. “Judge not, lest you yourself bejudged; we are
all miserable sinners and Brother Ezekiel spends his whole life,
day in, day out, down in the dark store-room, so it sometimes
happens that when he sees rich people - excuse me speaking so
openly, Mejuffrouw - a great bitterness comes over him and
clouds his spirit. Believe me, Mejuffrouw, poverty is a great
burden; where should a young soul such as his find enough trust
in God to bear it?”

For the first time in her life Eva van Druysen found herself
looking into the lower depths, and things which until then she
had only read ofin books suddenly took on a terrible reality. And
yet it was only a brief flash of lightning that was scarcely enough
to illuminate the darkness of more than a small part of the pit.

`How many much more dreadful things’, she thought to
herself, `must there be slumbering in the depths where the eyes
of those favoured by destiny seldom reach.’

It was as if a kind of spiritual explosion had blown away all
the veneer of social conduct and revealed to her a soul in all its
ugly nakedness, reduced to a wild animal in the very same
moment as the words of Him who died upon the cross for love
came from his lips.