Damascus Gate Page 14

  "Mostly we have individuals," she told Lucas. "Sometimes the families call us. Sometimes they pull a stunt and the police call us. We've had a few disappear."

  "What about the groups?"

  "Well, the groups I can't formally comment on. It takes all kinds."

  "I'm after the more colorful. Or interesting. Or original."

  "OK," said Sylvia. "Know about the House of the Galilean?"

  "I know a preacher there. Never been to their place."

  "Check it out. They're fun."

  "Any further comments? Not for attribution. We'd call you 'a Western diplomat.'"

  Sylvia shook her head.

  "'An informed observer.'"

  She thought about it. "If you stumble on any insights," she suggested, "you might share them with us, OK?"

  Her suggestion smacked of the old pitcheroo, Lucas thought. He felt a pang of nostalgia for the Cold War. Who didn't?

  "Any time, pal." The notion of lunch with Sylvia was always agreeable.

  "They're Christian ultra-Zionists," Vice Consul Chin told him. "Close to the Israeli right wing. Funny, because some of their leadership was once really anti-Semitic. Now they're here and they seem to like it."

  "Their thing is 'Repent, the end is nigh,' right?"

  "Right," she said. "End-of-the-world type thing. Big moneymaker back home."

  "Are they considered legitimate?"

  "Well, like, what's legitimate?" she asked with an expression of bright false naivete. "What about freedom of conscience?" Her expression faded. "You won't quote me by name?"

  "Hey," Lucas said, "stand on me."

  "The question about religious entities here is whether they have political clout. In country or U.S. or third country, whatever. Christian, Jewish, Muslim or anything else."

  "And the House of the Galilean?"

  "House of the Galilean is liked by certain quarters here. And liked by the certain quarters back home that like those certain quarters. And has some drag with evangelicals."

  "In that business," Lucas said, "it's considered more blessed to give than to receive."

  "Right," Sylvia said. "And they're contributors. They don't ask the fat cats for money—they provide it. For political campaigns and whatnot. Investments. Their money comes from cable television pitches and direct mail."

  "Interesting," said Lucas. He also asked her if she had heard of a young man named Ralph or Raziel or Razz Melker.

  Sylvia knew him at once. "Ralph Melker is a major headache. The Ralph Melker file is a tale of woe."

  "Yes?"

  "First a congresswoman gets this angry letter about Raziel's group staking out old synagogues in Safed. Complains that they were Jews for Jesus or something. People do that, you know—they see something here and write their congressperson in the States."

  "Why not?" asked Lucas. "It's their money."

  "The congresswoman sent it to the embassy, and they forwarded it to us. Just buck-passing, no comments on it."

  "Naturally."

  "As it turns out, Ralph really is a former Jew for Jesus. He's also got a DEA file. I mean, a musician and heavy into drugs. Then it turns out Ralph's old man also is a congressman and a former ambassador. Active in politics in Michigan, a Democrat. The family sends Ralph over here to straighten him out—they imagine he's reading Torah and working in the vineyards, singing folksongs around the fire. So this is tucked away. Background for us. In case anyone has to cope on some level."

  "How about an older man named Adam De Kuff?"

  That one called for a short excursion up the diplomatic corridors. Sylvia came back with a shrug.

  "Bubkes on De Kuff." She had picked up some Yiddishisms in L.A. and it amused her to employ them in country. "But there are people here who go in for what they call 'cult awareness.' They may have heard of him. You might also check with Superintendent Smith at police headquarters. He deals with the prophets and messiahs."

  Accommodating as Sylvia was, she declined to let Lucas use the consulate's telephone, even for a local call.

  "A no-no," she told him. "And remember, all the free phones are tapped."

  In June, Lucas finally moved out of Tsililla's. He had seen little of her since her return from London. For a while she had repaired to a horse farm near Tiberias, ostensibly to ride and work on a film script. They kept arranging to meet and talk things over. When a Canadian journalist Lucas knew was transferred out of town, Lucas arranged to house-sit. The apartment was downtown, near Zion Square, on the eighth floor of a sleek, sinister-looking building that catered to jewelry salesmen. It was supposed to be very secure.

  While he had tended to hole up for long periods in the place he'd shared with Tsililla, Lucas now welcomed every opportunity to get out of the downtown place. One day he volunteered to carry some of De Kuff's things to the Old City apartment. Sonia had given him the key.

  Sonia's place in Rehavia, in the upper story of a peeling, leafy Ottoman building, was not far from Tsililla's, and not dissimilar to it, at least on the outside. Inside, it was decorated with santería figures and Cuban movie posters and mementos of colleagues in various crisis zones. Her souvenir photographs featured groups of toothy young white people in lightweight khakis, posing among thin dark-skinned folk in landscapes that were parched and brown or overbright with fleshy green plants.

  Her living room was awash with De Kuff's possessions, books mostly, and bound monographs. Since Berger's death she had been busy transplanting and transposing tomes, his and De Kuff's. The old Austrian had died after several hours in a coma at the university hospital. Most of his last days at home had been spent with Raziel and De Kuff; it was as though the three of them had gone into some psychic space together.

  Many of Berger's books, diaries and journals remained in his Old City apartment. His writings were in German, which De Kuff could read and Sonia could not. Sonia had inherited his only possessions of worldly value: a few old Persian manuscripts, his small collection of Islamic art—Kufic rubbings and calligraphy—and his furniture. There had also turned out to be several thousand U.S. dollars in an external account in Amman.

  Finally, Sonia had contacted the offices of the Waqf, the Muslim religious authority, to have Berger buried in a Muslim cemetery. The Waqf had not asked for the return of his apartment, which was presumably its property, but it was not yet aware of Adam De Kuff and his followers.

  Lucas carried half a dozen or so cardboard boxes down to his car and drove through the east end of the Lions' Gate, which was as close to the apartment as he could bring the car. While parking, he told himself that his yellow Israeli plate would get his car torched one day.

  As he carried the first load of books up the ancient stairs, he saw Raziel perched on the terrace watching his labor. He returned without a greeting for the next box.

  When he had carried all the boxes up, he saw Raziel smiling up at him from the terrace divan.

  "I should have helped you," Raziel said. "I'm sorry. We've been meditating all night."

  "No problem," Lucas said. There was a peculiar ornament around Raziel's neck that he had not seen before. "What are you wearing?"

  "Oh," Raziel said. He slipped it off and handed it to Lucas. "It's an ouroboros. The serpent swallowing its tail. An Ethiopian silversmith near the Machaneh market did it for us."

  "In all the versions of the stories I've heard," Lucas said, "the snake is the bad guy. Except for the Gnostic versions."

  He could see the yeshiva boy Raziel roused to disputation.

  "The ouroboros is repeatedly cited in the Zohar, the Book of Splendor. There, it refers to bereshit, 'in the beginning.' Actually, 'at the beginning' is more like it."

  Lucas produced his notebook. "May I write this down?"

  "Be my guest," Raziel said. "Write this: it means 'in my beginning is my ending.'"

  Lucas wrote it. This is strong, he thought as he wrote. Something made him feel that Raziel was not to be despised. It frightened him slightly.

  "Are y
ou familiar with kundalini yoga?" Raziel asked.

  "I've heard of it."

  "The forces we work with are similar. Maybe the same. They aren't forces that allow for half measures or for dabbling."

  "But Kundalini is a snake goddess," Lucas said. "That doesn't seem exactly kosher."

  "Kundalini is a metaphor, Christopher. The underlying forces are the same. The sages called the outer garment of the world a snake's skin."

  Lucas wrote kundalini in his notebook.

  "I have to ask," Raziel declared. "Is your father Carl Lucas of Columbia?"

  "He died three years ago."

  "Sorry."

  "Sonia tell you that?"

  "Not at all," Raziel said.

  "You saw an intellectual resemblance?"

  Raziel smiled. "Is there one?"

  "Yes," Lucas said. "But I'm an epigone. The bastard son, a midget."

  "No you're not," Raziel said.

  "What about you?" Lucas asked. "Your old man the congressman?"

  "Yes he is. A friend of the President. Chairman of the House Committee on Education. So I know what it is to be the son of ... that kind of father."

  "I see."

  "And your mother sang," Raziel said.

  "Funny," Lucas said. "I'm asking the questions. But you know more about me than I know about you. Yes," he told Raziel, "my mother was a well-known singer, Gail Hynes. She made a good living while she worked. My dad was proud of her. Unfortunately he was married elsewhere."

  "I've heard her."

  "You're putting me on," Lucas said.

  "She sang lieder, right? She made some famous records of Mahler and Brahms for Decca."

  "Yes, that's right," Lucas said.

  "Das Lied von der Erde," said Razz. "Kindertotenlieder. She was wonderful. As good as Ferrier. You must be proud of her."

  "Yes," said Lucas, astonished. "Thank you very much. I am."

  "I suppose her career suffered because of her involvement with the professor. Having to be there and so forth."

  Lucas could only nod. "She died young," he managed to say in a moment. "Like Ferrier."

  "Did she meet your father's friends?"

  "Well," Lucas said, "you know, they were stuffy. Bourgeois. German." Lucas laughed in spite of himself. "Once," he told Raziel, "he took her on a trip to Los Angeles on the Superchief to meet all his pals. The Frankfurt school. Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse and Thomas Mann. At least he took her along when he went to see them."

  "How did it go?" Raziel asked.

  "She thought Theodor Adorno was the guy who played Charlie Chan in the movies," Lucas said. "She asked him, Does it hurt when they do you up Chinese?"

  "Wonder what he made of that."

  "I would venture to say he was clueless," said Lucas. "Then I understand she kept trying to get the conversation back to Oriental makeup. How she'd done Butterfly with the Lyric in Chicago. She drank a little," he explained. "In fact, she drank a lot. In binges. Made her weight unstable, got her into speed to slim, screwed her voice."

  "What did she say about Marcuse?" Raziel asked.

  "You mean, what did she think of permissive repression?" Lucas asked. "She thought Marcuse was Otto Kruger."

  Raziel looked at him blankly.

  "Otto Kruger was one of the actors in the film version of Murder My Sweet."

  "You seem to like music," Raziel said to Lucas. "Your mother sang. Why did you never learn to play? Were you afraid of it?"

  "I appreciate your having listened so sensitively to my mother's work," Lucas said. "Please don't ask me if I'm afraid of things. By the way, where's Sonia?"

  "Sorry," Raziel said. "I think she may be sleeping. She was up meditating with us too." He nodded toward two louvered half-doors.

  "Do you think I could see her?"

  "Sonia?" Raziel called.

  She answered faintly. Lucas went and knocked on the louvered door.

  "Come," she said.

  "It's me," said Lucas.

  "Yes," she said, "I heard you."

  She came out wrapped in her djellaba.

  "Why are you here?" he asked her softly. "Why did you take them in?"

  "Because," she told him, "Berger said I should." Her eyes shone. "Berger knew Kabbala extremely well. He thought of it as Sufic. At the end he called De Kuff el-Arif. That was what he called Abdullah Walter."

  "You know what I think?" Lucas said. "I think you're a believer."

  She laughed, beautifully he thought. It was pleasing to see her so happy, her sad eyes sparkling.

  "I am a believer," she said, "of believers. Because the brotherhood of truth is one in all ages. The sisterhood too."

  "Berger say that?"

  "Yes, he said it. Raziel and De Kuff say it too. Don't you believe it?"

  "Where I come from," Lucas said, "we say, 'Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.'"

  The double doors opened and Raziel came in. Afraid to leave me alone with her, he thought. He felt angry and annoyed.

  "So, can I be in your project?" Sonia asked. "Your story?"

  "You bet."

  "What if I'm boring?"

  "I'll risk it," Lucas said. "I'm not easily bored."

  "As part of your project, Christopher," Raziel said, "I hope you're studying." Both the familiarity and the admonishing tone annoyed him further.

  "Well, I've dropped my Arabic courses at the YMCA. Now I'm at the Hebrew University. Not that it does me much good."

  "No?"

  "I'm not good at languages."

  He was taking classical Hebrew at the university and also a course entitled, with echoes of Broadway, "Tradition." "Tradition" had been recommended to him by Obermann. It was taught by an old Lithuanian Holocaust survivor named Adler and aimed primarily at the young, kids from the United States and Canada taking part in Ulpans and study sessions abroad. There were also a number of Gentiles, some retired clergymen from California, two midwesterners, and a few globetrotting professional students.

  The curriculum was partly a review of Jewish beliefs, from the Hasmoneans through Hillel and Philo, Maimonides and Nach-manides, and on to Buber and Heschel. It was informative on the influence of second-century Neoplatonism and on contemporary applications in a rational vein. But Adler's passion, though he attempted to conceal it, was Lurianic Kabbala. In the modernist critical tradition, he ascribed the Zohar to Moses de Leon.

  To Lucas's surprise, Adler had approached him for conversation. Perhaps because of personal chemistry, perhaps because Adler had heard of Lucas's father and was proud to be the teacher of such a scholar's son, they had gotten on well, and he had suggested to Lucas a number of books not included in the syllabus. One was a Paulist Press translation of sections of the Zohar, and the other, by a Hasidic rabbi, was on Gematria and the otherwise sacred significance of the Hebrew letters. It was, Adler had suggested, a good way to remember and internalize the ancient characters.

  Raziel smiled. "Adler. A mitnag."

  "Not at all," Lucas said.

  "But a good man," Raziel added.

  In the silence that followed, they heard the house sparrows twittering in the old walls.

  "All these Old City houses are full of sparrows," Raziel said, casting his spell. "I like them. Sparrows."

  "Why?"

  "Because," he said to Lucas, "we're all sparrows here."

  Lucas decided it was time to take more notes. He pulled out his notebook and wrote sparrows. The word by itself looked unillumi-nating, so he put the notebook away.

  "Where's Mr. De Kuff?" he asked finally. "Will I be able to talk to him?"

  "He'll spend the day in kavana," Razz said. "Preparing for dvekut." He looked at Lucas with faint amusement. "Want to say it, brother? Hey, say it, don't be shy. You have a right, it's your language. Kavana." He pronounced the word carefully, glottalizing the opening consonant. "Dvekut."

  Lucas realized he must have moved his lips in mute imitation. He was annoyed. But he made himself repeat it aloud, guided by Razie
l. "Kavana. Dvekut." He could almost see the characters that formed the words.

  "Very good, man," Raziel said. "A person might take you for Jewish."

  Sonia laughed, delighted.

  By way of rejoinder, Lucas said to Raziel, "I understand you had a problem with drugs for a while."

  Raziel fell silent for a moment.

  "I told him," Sonia admitted. "I told him about myself too."

  "I was a common junkie," Raziel said.

  "And a Jew for Jesus?"

  "What about you?" Raziel asked. "Who were you for? Who are you for now? What if I ask you why you drink?"

  Always smiling, Lucas wrote in his notebook, ignoring the insolent counter-questions as best he could. Patronizing arrogant but probably sincerely nuts.

  "Don't go to Obermann," Raziel said urgently. "Come to us. She knows your tikkun." Lucas saw that he meant Sonia. Lucas wanted to explain that he was not a patient of Obermann's but a collaborator. But he was so amazed at the notion of Sonia's knowing his tikkun that he said nothing. Raziel had fixed him with a blazing lover's look, a seducer's.

  "She does?" Lucas looked at Sonia. "Really?"

  From his courses at the university he knew that tikkun referred to a primal accident at the beginning of time. According to the doctrines of the mystic Isaac Luria, the Almighty had absented himself in the first and greatest of mysteries, bequeathing to his exiled, orphaned creation emanations of himself. The force of these emanations was beyond the capacity of existence to contain them. Since the beginning, the goal of the universe had been to restore the divine balance, to restore the tikkun, a cosmic harmony and justice, and the task had somehow fallen to mankind to set right. And each person, some Kabbalists believed, labored under his own tikkun, a microcosm, a succession of souls, through a process of reincarnation called partsufim.

  "I do," Sonia said. "I think."

  Nonsense, Lucas thought. But it made him feel close to her.

  "If you know my tikkun," he asked, "what should I do to square it?"