“What kind of person is she?” Rybys said. “Nothing but talk about her career, probably.”
“She is tender and gentle and modest,” he said, “and totally informal. We talked about a lot of things.”
“Could I meet her sometime?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “I’ll be flying up there again. And she said something about flying down here and visiting the store. She goes all over the place; her career is taking off at this point-she’s beginning to get the big breaks she needs and de- serves and I’m glad for her, really glad.”
If she only hadn’t been having her period.., but I guess those are the facts of life, he said to himself. That’s what makes up reality. Linda is the same as any other woman in that regard; it comes with the territory.
I like her anyhow, he said to himself. Even if we didn’t go to bed. The enjoyment of her company: that was enough.
To Zina Pallas, the boy said, “You have lost.”
“Yes, I have lost.” She nodded. “You made her real and he still cares for her. The dream for him is no longer a dream; it is true down to the level of disappointments.”
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“Which is the stamp of authenticity.” “Yes,” she said. “Congratulations.” Zina extended her hand to Emmanuel and they shook. “And now,” the boy said, “you will tell me who you are.
CHAPTER 16
Zina said, “Yes, I will tell you who I am, Emmanuel, but I will not let your world return. Mine is better. Herb Asher leads a much happier life; Rybys is alive . . . Linda Fox is real-”
“But you did not make her real,” he said. “I did.”
“Do you want back again the world you gave them? With the winter, its ice and snow, over everything? It is I who burst the prison; I brought in the springtime. I deposed the procurator maximus and the chief prelate. Let it stay as it is.’,
“I will transmute your world into the real,” he said. “I have already begun. I manifested myself to Herb Asher when you kissed him; I penetrate your world in my true form. I am making it my world, step by step. What the people must do, however, is remember. They may live in your world but they must know that a worse one existed and they were forced to live in it. I restored Herb Asher’s memories, and the others dream dreams.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Tell me, now,” he said, “who you are.
“Let us go,” she said, “hand in hand. Like Beethoven and Goethe: two friends. Take us to Stanley Park in British Columbia and we will observe the animals there, the wolves, the great white wolves. It is a beautiful park, and Lionsgate Bridge is beautiful; Vancouver, British Columbia is the most beautiful city on Earth.”
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“That is true,” he said. “I had forgotten.”
“And after you view it I want you to ask yourself if you would destroy it or change it in any way. I want you to inquire of yourself if you would, upon seeing such earthly beauty, bring into existence your great and terrible day in which all the arrogant and evil-doers shall be chaff, set ablaze, leaving them neither root nor branch. OK?”
“OK,” Emmanuel said.
Zina said:
We are spirits of the air
Who of human beings take care.
“Are you?” he said. Because, he thought, if that is so then you are an atmospheric spirit, which is to say-an angel.
Zina said:
Come, all ye songsters of the sky,
Wake and assemble in this wood;
But no ill-boding bird be nigh,
None but the harmless and the good.
“What are you saying?” Emmanuel said.
“Take us to Stanley Park first,” Zina said. “Because if you take us there, we shall actually be there; it will be no dream.”
He did so.
Together they walked across the verdant ground, among the vast trees. These stands, he knew, had never been logged; this was the primeval forest. “It is exceedingly beautiful,” he said to her.
“It is the world,” she said.
“Tell me who you are.”
Zina said, “I am the Torah.”
After a moment Emmanuel said, “Then I can do nothing re- garding the universe without consulting you.”
“And you can do nothing regarding the universe that is con- trary to what I say,” Zina said, “as you yourself decided, in the beginning, when you created me. You made me alive; I am a living being that thinks. I am the plan of the universe, its blue- print. That is the way you intended it and that is the way it is.”
“Hence the slate you gave me,” he said.
“Look at me,” Zina said.
He looked at her-and saw a young woman, wearing a crown, and sitting on a throne. “Malkuth,” he said. “The lowest of the ten sefiroth.”
“And you are the Eternal Infinite En Sof,” Malkuth said. “The first and highest of the sefiroth of the Tree of Life.”
“But you said that you are the Torah.”
“In the Zohar,” Malkuth said, “the Torah is depicted as a beautiful maiden living alone, secluded in a great castle. Her secret lover comes to the castle to see her, but all he can do is wait futilely outside hoping for a glimpse of her. Finally she ap- pears at the window and he is able to catch sight of her, but only for an instant. Later on she lingers at the window and he is able, therefore, to speak with her; yet, still, she hides her face behind a veil . . . and her answers to his questions are evasive. Finally, after a long time, when her lover has become despairing that he will ever get to know her, she permits him to see her face at last.”
Emmanuel said, “Thus revealing to her lover all the secrets which she has up to now, throughout the long courtship, kept buried in her heart. I know the Zohar. You are right.”
“So you know me now, En Sof,” Malkuth said. “Does it please you?”
“It does not,” he said, “because although what you say is true, there is one more veil to be removed from your face. There is one more step.”
“True.” Malkuth, the lovely young woman seated on the throne, wearing a crown, said, “but you will have to find it.”
“I will,” he said. “I am so close now; only a step, one single step, away.”
“You have guessed,” she said. ‘But you must do better than that. Guessing is not enough; you must know.”
“How beautiful you are, Malkuth,” he said. “And of course
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you are here in the world and love the world; you are the sefira that represents the Earth. You are the womb containing every- thing, all the other sefiroth that constitute the Tree itself; those other forces, nine of them, are generated by you.
“Even Kether,” Malkuth said, calmly. “Who is highest.”
“You are Diana, the fairy queen.” he said. “You are Pallas Athena, the spirit of righteous war; you are the spring queen, you are Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom; you are the Torah which is the formula and blueprint of the universe; you are Malkuth of the Kabala, the lowest of the ten sefiroth of the Tree of Life; and you are my companion and friend, my guide. But what are you ac- tually? Under all the disguises? I know what you are and-” He put his hand on hers. “I am beginning to remember. The Fall, when the Godhead was torn apart.”
”Yes,” she said, nodding. ”You are remembering back to that, now. To the beginning.”
“Give me time,” he said. “Just a little more time. It is hard. It hurts.”
She said, “I will wait.” Seated on her throne she waited. She had waited for thousands of years, and, in her face, he could see the patient and placid willingness to wait longer, as long as was necessary. Both of them had known from the beginning that this moment would come. when they would be back together. They were together now, again, as it had been originally. All he had to do was name her. To name is to know, he thought. To know and to summon; to call.
“Shall I tell you your name?” he said to her.
She smiled, the lovely dancing smile, but no mischief shone in her eyes; instead, love glimmered at him, vast extents of love.
Nicholas Bulkowsky, wearing his red army uniform, prepared to address a crowd of the Party faithful at the main square of Bogota, Colombia, where recruiting efforts had of late been highly successful. If the Party could swing Colombia into the anti- fascist camp the disastrous loss of Cuba would be somewhat offset.
However, a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church had re- cently put in an appearance-not a local person, but an Ameri- can, dispatched by the Vatican to interfere with CP activities. Why must they meddle? Bulkowsky asked himself. Bulkowsky. He had discarded that name; now he was known as General Gomez.