The Green Face (11 page)

She was filled with horror at the consciousness of her own
share in the enormous guilt which came from merely belonging
to aprivileged class with its quite understandable lack of interest in the suffering of one’s fellow men, a sin of omission whose
cause was as minuscule as a grain of sand, its effect as devastating as an avalanche. The shock was like that of someone idly
playing with what they think is a rope and suddenly discovering
they have a poisonous snake in their hands.

When Shulamite first mentioned Brother Ezekiel’s poverty,
Eva’s immediate impulse was to take out her purse, a reflex
action by which the heart hopes to catch reason by surprise; but
then she felt that it was the wrong moment to offer assistance,
and instead of relieving her sense of guilt by that one action, she
resolved that in future she would make better and more thorough
amends. It was the oldest stratagem in the armoury of selfdeceit: to gain time until the feeling of pity is past.

In the meantime Ezekiel had recovered from his fit and was
weeping quietly to himself.

Sephardi, who, like all the aristocratic Dutch Jews, held fast
to the custom of his forefathers never to enter someone else’s
house without bringing some small gift, used it as an opportunity to draw the group’s attention away from the poor deranged shop assistant by unwrapping a silver incense-burner
and handing it to Swammerdam.

“Gold, frankincense and myrrh, the three Wise Men from the
East”, whispered the `Guardian of the Threshold’, her voice
cracking with emotion and her eyes turned to the ceiling. “Yesterday, Doctor, when we heard you would be accompanying
Eva, Abram gave you the spiritual name of Balthasarand lo! you
have come bringing incense! And King Melchior - in ordinary
life he is called Baron Pfeill, little Kaatje told me that - also
appeared to us in spirit today”, she turned with a mysterious air
to the others who looked up in astonishment, “and sent money.
Oh, I can see it with my soul’s eye: Caspar, the King from the
Land of the Moors, is near at hand,” - she gave Mary Faatz an
ecstatic stare which Sister Magdalena returned - “yes, the end
of time is fast approaching -“

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Klinkherbogk’s
little granddaughter Kaatje entered and said, “You are all to
come up quickly, grandfather is having his second birth.”

Eva van Dniysen held Swammerdam back before they followed the others who were already climbing the stairs to
Klinkherbogk’s attic. “Excuse me, Mijnheer Swammerdam, I
would like to ask you a brief question. All that you said about
hysteria and the power that resides in names made me think; but,
on the other hand …”

“Allow me to give you a piece of advice, Mejuffrouw.”
Swammerdam looked at her earnestly. “I am well aware that
everything that you saw and heard just now has only confused
you. But it could be of great importance to you if you learn from
it the first lesson, and that is to seek spiritual enlightenment not
from others but within yourself. Only the teachings that come
from our own spirit come at the right moment, at the moment
when we are ready for them. You must close your eyes and ears
to revelations made to others. The path to eternal life is as narrow as a knife-edge; you cannot help others when you see them
stumble, nor should you expect help from them. Anyone who
watches others will lose his balance and plunge into the abyss.
Here we do not advance together as in the world outside; a guide
is essential, but he must come to you from the spirit world. Only
in worldly things can a man of this world be your guide and you
should judge him by his actions. Everything that does not come
from the spirit is lifeless clay, and we refuse to pray to any other
God than the one who reveals Himself to us within our own
souls.”

“But what if God does not reveal Himself within me?”

“Then you must fmd a moment of calm and quiet and call to
Him with the urgency of all your longing.”

“And then you think He will come? How easy that would be.”

“He will come! But do not be afraid, first He will appear as
the chastiser of your former deeds, as the terrible God of the Old
Testament who said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.
He will reveal Himself to you in sudden blows of fate. First of
all you must lose everything, even “, Swammerdam said it
softly, as if he were afraid of her hearing it, “even God, if you
want to fmd Him afresh. Only when your vision of Him has been purified of shape and form, of all division into outer and inner,
creator and creature, spirit and matter, will you -“

“See Him?”

“No. Never. But you will see yourself with His eyes. You will
be freed from mortal clay, for your life will have merged with
His and your consciousness will no longer be dependent on the
physical body, which will continue to pursue its path to the
grave like a shadow without substance.”

“But what is the point of the blows of fate that you spoke of?
Are they a test, or a punishment?”

“There are neither tests nor punishments. Physical existence
with all its vicissitudes is nothing other than a healing process,
more painful for some, less for others, depending on the extent
of the sickness our spiritual vision suffers from.”

“And you think that if I call on God, as you say, my destiny
will change?”

“Immediately! Only it will not just `change’, it will become
like a galloping horse that has been going at a slow trot until
then.”

“Did your destiny gallop along then? Excuse my asking, but
from all that I have heard about you…”

“You assume my life must have ambled along at a slow,
monotonous pace, Mejuffrouw”, smiled Swammerdam.
“Remember what I told you before? Do not concern yourself
with what happens to others. For some there is a vast world
outside, to others it seems no bigger than a nutshell. If you are
serious about wanting your destiny to accelerate to a gallop,
then - I warn you about this while I recommend it because it is
the only thing a person should do and at the same time the
heaviest sacrifice one can make - you must call on the innermost
core of your being, the core without which you would be a
lifeless corpse (or not even that), and order it to lead you by the
shortest route to the greatest goal, the only one that is worth
striving for, even if you do not realise it at the moment; you must
order it to be merciless in leading you without rest through
sickness, suffering, death and sleep, through honours, riches
and joy, ever onward, through everything, like a runaway horse
dragging a carriage over ploughland and stones, past flowers and blossoming groves. That is what I mean when I say `Call on
God’. It must be like a vow made to a listening ear.”

“But, Master, what if destiny should come over me like that
and I weaken and … and want to turn back?”

“Once on the spiritual path the only ones who can turn back
-no, not even turn back, stop and look back and turn into a pillar
of salt - are those who have not made the vow. A spiritual vow
is like an order and, in this at least, God is the servant who is
charged with carrying out that order. Do not be shocked,
Mejuffrouw, it is not blasphemy. Quite the contrary. Therefore
- what I am going to say to you now is foolishness, I know; I say
it out of pity and everything that is done out of pity is foolishness
- therefore I warn you: do not pledge too much! Otherwise you
might end up like the thief whose bones were broken on the
cross.”

Swammerdam’s face had gone white with the intensity of
feeling.

Eva grasped his hand. “I thank you, Master. I know now what
I must do.”

The old man drew her to him and, choking with emotion,
planted a kiss on her forehead. “May the Lord of destinies be a
merciful doctor, my child.”

They went up the stairs.

Just outside the attic Eva stopped, as if struck by a sudden
thought. “Tell me one more thing, Master. The millions who
bled and suffered: none of them had made the vow. Why all that
suffering?”

“Do you know forsure that they had not made the vow? Could
it not have happened in a previous existence,” answered Swammerdam calmly, “or while they were in a deep sleep, when
men’s souls are most wide-awake and best know what theirneed
is?”

It was as if a curtain had been rent in two, and Eva was blinded
by the light of a new insight. Those few last words had told her
more about the goal of human existence than all the religious
systems in the world could have. All complaints about the supposed injustice of fate were silenced by the knowledge that we all follow the road we have chosen.

“If the things that happen in our group mean nothing to you,
Meffrouw, do not let that bother you. Often you find a track that
goes downhill and it turns out to be the shortest route to the next
climb. The fever that accompanies spiritual convalescence
often looks very like satanic corruption. I am not `King Solomon’ and Lazarus Egyolk is not ‘Simon the Crossbearer’; he is
called that because, in Mademoiselle de Boungnon’s somewhat
too external conception of things, he once lent Klinkherbogk
money when he was in great need; but that does not mean that
this mingling of Old and New Testament is necessarily nonsense. What we find in the Bible is not only the record of events
from past times, but the road from Adam to Christ which we
have to follow through the magic of inner growth from `name’
to `name’, that is, with the unfolding of ever greaterpower”, said
Swanunerdam, giving Eva his arm as they climbed the last few
steps, “from the expulsion from the garden of Eden to the resurrection. For some it can become a road of terror and …”, again
he murmured to himself the words about the thief whose bones
were broken on the cross.

Mademoiselle de Bourignon and the rest had waited outside
the attic for them to arrive (apart from Lazarus Egyolk, who had
gone down to his own room) and deluged her niece in a cascade
of words before they entered, in order to ensure that she was
suitably prepared.

“Just think, Eva, an event of indescribable magnitude has
taken place. And today of all days, on the precise date of the
summer solstice! Oh! it is all so unutterably meaningful and -
now what was I going to say? Oh yes, the long-awaited event
has come to pass: the spiritual man has been born in Father
Abram, and he heard it crying within himself as he was nailing
the heel to the sole of a shoe, and that, as is well known, is the
`second birth’, for the first is the stomach-ache, it says so in the
Scriptures if you know how to read it aright, and soon all the
three Kings will be together because Mary Faatz told me
recently that she has met - though only briefly - a black savage
who lives in Amsterdam, and an hour ago she saw him through
the window sitting in the tavern below, and I immediately saw it was the hand of Divine Providence, since it can be none other
than King Caspar from the land of the Moors; oh, that it is I who
have been found worthy of discovering the third of the Wise
Men! I am so blissfully happy I can hardly wait for the moment
when I can send Mary to bring him up.”

The door to the attic opened and they all trooped in.

Stiff and motionless, Klinkherbogk was sitting at the end of
a long table covered in shoe leather and tools, with his head
turned away from them; one side of his profile was illuminated
by the bright moonlight shining in through the window, so that
the white hair of his sparse Dutch sailor’s beard gleamed like
threads of metal; the other side was in pitch darkness.

On his bald head he wore a pointed crown cut out of gold
paper.

The room was filled with the acrid smell of leather. The
cobbler’s globe shone like the malevolent eye of some cyclopean monster, whose body was hidden in the darkness of the
room, and glinted on a pile of ten-guilder pieces on the table in
front of the prophet.

Eva, Sephardi and the members of the spiritual circle stood
close to the wall and waited. No one dared move; it was as if a
spell had been cast over them all. The poor shop assistant’s gaze
was fixed on the glittering coins.

The minutes crawled past in absolute silence, as if they
wanted to stretch themselves out into hours; a moth fluttered in
out of the darkness, circled in a white blur around the candle and
went up in a crackle of flame.

Motionless, as if carved out of stone, the prophet stared at the
globe, his mouth open, his fingers like claws tensed over the
coins, and seemed to be listening to words that came to him from
a great distance.

Suddenly a dull thud came from the tavern below and as
suddenly died away, as if someone had opened the outside door
and then slammed it to; the sound seemed to rush into the room
and then choke on the congealed air.

Then the deathly hush reigned once more.

Eva wanted to look over to Swammerdam, but was held back by a vague fear that she would read in his face the same foreboding of some approaching catastrophe that was almost choking her. For the length of a heartbeat she thought she remembered hearing a quiet, scarcely audible voice at the table say,
“Lord, let this cup pass from me”, then the impression faded as
scraps of noise from the distant fairground fluttered past the
window.