Kazam Collects
Kazam Collects
“HAIL, JEWEL IN THE LOTUS,” half whispered the stringy, brown person. His eyes were shut in holy ecstasy, his mouth pursed as though he were tasting the sweetest fruit that ever grew.
“Hail, jewel in the lotus,” mumbled back a hundred voices in a confused backwash of sound. The stringy, brown person turned and faced his congregation. He folded his hands.
“Children of Hagar,” he intoned. His voice was smooth as old ivory and had a mellow sheen about it
“Children of Hagar, you who have found delight and peace in the bosom of the Elemental, the Eternal, the Un-know-ingness that is without bounds, make Peace with me.” You could tell by his very voice that the words were capitalized.
“Let our Word,” intoned the stringy, brown person, “be spread. Let our Will be brought about Let us destroy, let us mould, let us build. Speak low and make your spirits white as Hagar’s beard.” With a reverent gesture he held before them two handfuls of an unattached beard that hung from the altar.
“Children of Hagar, unite your Wills into One.” The congregation kneeled as he gestured at them, gestured as one would at a puppy one was training to play dead.
The meeting hall—or rather, temple—of the Cult of Hagar was on the third floor of a little building on East 59th Street, otherwise almost wholly unused. The hall had been fitted out to suit the sometimes peculiar requirements of the unguess-able Will-Mind-Urge of Hagar Inscrutable; that meant that there was gilded wood everywhere there could be, and strips of scarlet cloth hanging from the ceiling in circles of five. There was, you see, a Sanctified Ineffability about the unequal lengths of the cloth strips.
The faces of the congregation were varying studies in rapture. As the stringy, brown person tinkled a bell they rose and blinked absently at him as he waved a benediction and vanished behind a door covered with chunks of gilded wood.
The congregation began to buzz quietly.
“Well?” demanded one of another. “What did you think of
ur
“I dunno. Who’s he, anyway?” A respectful gesture at the door covered with gilded wood.
“Kazam’s his name. They say he hasn’t touched food since he saw the Ineluctable Modality.”
“What’s thatr
Pitying smile. “You couldn’t understand it just yet Wait till you’ve come around a few more times. Then maybe you’ll be able to read his book—The Unravelling.’ After that you can tackle the ‘Isba Kazhlunk’ that he found in the Siberian ice. It opened the way to the Ineluctable Modality, but it’s pretty deep stuff—even for me.”
They filed from the hall buzzing quietly, dropping coins into a bowl that stood casually by the exit. Above the bowl hung from the ceiling strips of red cloth in a circle of five. The bowl, of course, was covered with chunks of gilded wood.
Beyond the door the stringy, brown man was having a little trouble. Detective Fitzgerald would not be convinced.
“In the first place,” said the detective, “you aren’t licensed to collect charities. In the second place this whole thing looks like fraud and escheatment. In the third place this building isn’t a dwelling and you’ll have to move that cot out of here.” He gestured disdainfully at an army collapsible that stood by the battered roUtop desk. Detective Fitzgerald was a big, florid man who dressed with exquisite neatness. “I am sorry,” said the stringy, brown man. “What must
Idor “Let’s begin at the beginning. The Constitution guarantees
freedom of worship, but I don’t know if they meant something like this. Are you a citizen?”
“No. Here are my registration papers.” The stringy, brown man took them from a cheap, new wallet
“Born in Persia. Name’s Joseph Kazam. Occupation, scholar. How do you make that out?”
“It’s a good word,” said Joseph Kazam with a hopeless little gesture. “Are you going to send me away—deport me?”
“I don’t know,” said the detective thoughtfully. “If you register your religion at City Hall before we get any more complaints, it’ll be all right”
“Ah,” breathed Kazam. “Complaints?”
Fitzgerald looked at him quizzically. “We got one from a man named Rooney,” he said. “Do you know him?”