Call Me Ishtar

by Rhoda Lerman

  “Does it interest you?”

  I give Robert my attention. “What?”

  “The band. Getting out of the kitchen for a change.”

  “I don’t necessarily wish to be out of the kitchen.”

  “You women don’t know what the hell you want. I’m going back to talk to the boys before they go on.”

  Silently I answer him, sliding my eyes over the boy’s body again and feeling rushes through my skin. I have descended to save the world. I will not fight you for this one, Robert, this boy whose fruits I covet. I give you, Robert, I address his back and he walks away, these seven creatures from the swamp of your civilization, to mold into your product. If they were mine, I would bring them to immortality and manhood. You would package them to sell. Perhaps the monies and the sense of power will help you. It will only be a sense, never enough. But go. Play. Be happy. I have work to do. So get off my back and shape their destinies. Just don’t mess with mine. Housekeeper and whore is what we want. And all the stops in between.

  “Get in line. I seen her first.”

  “She wants to see Nino, yeah. Somebody loan Nino a sock for his jock. A rubber hose?”

  “Loan me your hair spray.”

  “Maybe we’ll make it big and you can buy your own fucking hair spray for a change.”

  “Yeah, and maybe you can take lessons and get talented.”

  “And maybe you can knock off walking in front of me when I’m singing.”

  “It don’t matter how much you got. It matters how you use it. And I use it better than you. Ask your old lady.” And they laugh at each other and mask the hunger in their faces and climb the stage.

  “Which one is she?”

  “Black dress, fur collar, long hair. Her name’s Ishtar. Old man Moses says it means womb.”

  “Shit. No one calls their kid Cunt. It means star.”

  “Isteddu accurtu a sa luna; tristu chi é deponne.”

  “Meaning …?”

  “My mother always says it at night. Star near the moon. Sad is he who it strikes.”

  “You’re pretty heavy, Mack. Knock the poetry shit, huh?”

  “I repeat. I wanna eat her knees.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay, leader.”

  “Let’s go. One, two …”

  Long ago and far away, Ishtar was hungry. “I am hungry,” she howled from the walls of her city. “Hungry!” She spied Gilgamesh, a hero of Babylonia, returning from the great Cedar Forest where he had slain the dragon Huwawa, whose mouth was fire, whose roaring was the storm flood. Gilgamesh had washed his grimy hair, polished his bloody weapons, wrapped a fringed cloak around and fastened a sash on his waistline. Ishtar saw him approaching her city, Uruk. He wore a dazzling tiara. Ishtar raised an eye at his beauty.

  “Come,” she cried from the battlements, her hair flowing in the sun, her garments whipping around the luxury of her body. “Come, Gilgamesh, be thou my lover. Do but grant me of thy fruit. Thou shalt be my husband!”

  Gilgamesh placed his hands on his hips, his legs, like firm cedars, on the ground. He examined her beauty. “Hah! Ishtar. What am I, a poor man, to give you, that I may take thee in marriage? Can I feed you food fit for divinity? Can I give you drink fit for royalty? And how long will you love me? Which of thy men, thy shepherds, pleased you for all time? Listen, Ishtar. I will name your lovers for you and tell of their fates. And you will know my answer.”

  Gilgamesh, with his fringed cloak and flowing sash, climbed the ramparts and stood with Ishtar. She gloried in the closeness of him. She did not glory in his words. “Tammuz. The lover of thy youth? You ordered wailing year after year for him after sending him to the Netherworld. The dappled shepherd bird, you were not satisfied with men alone, you loved and broke his wing and he cries forever, “My wing, my wing.” And the lion, perfect in strength, you dug pits for him, seven and seven pits. Then for the stallion you ordained the whip, the spur and the lash and condemned him to run forever and drink muddy water. Then the keeper of the herd, who heaped up sacred ash-cakes in your honor, who slaughtered goats for you daily, you turned him into a wolf so his own herd boys drive him off and his own dogs bite his thighs. Ah, that is not all. Ishullanu, your father’s gardener, who brought you baskets of dates and brightened your table, you raised your eyes at him. You went to him when it was dark and the gardens were empty and said, “O my Ishullanu, let us taste of thy vigor. Put forth thy hand and touch our modesty. And Ishullanu said to you …”

  “How do you know, this, Gilgamesh?”

  “All men know your ways.”

  “They dream of me.”

  “They fear you too. You are fatal food.”

  “It is their manner that is fatal to them, not myself.”

  “Ishullanu,” Gilgamesh continued, stopping up his ears with his forefingers, “Ishullanu answered you in the garden, ‘What do you want from me? Hasn’t my mother baked in your name? Haven’t I eaten your holy breads? Why, now, should I taste the food of offense and curses?’ He was man enough to spurn your destroying love. And as you heard his talk, you smote him and turned him into a spider. You placed him in the midst of a web and he cannot go up and he cannot go down. If you would love me, you would treat me like them. I will love Enkidu, my friend.”

  “That is unnatural. Enkidu is almost a beast, a wild man. I am a woman. It is necessary that I am loved for the love of the heavens.”

  “I will dwell with Enkidu. I do not want you.”

  Then Ishtar mounted the higher rampart of the city, sprang on the highest battlement and offered a curse. “Woe unto Gilgamesh for he has insulted me.” Ishtar assembled the votaries, the pleasure lasses and her temple harlots and set up a wailing for she had sent the Bull of Heaven to kill hundreds, but Enkidu, the friend of Gilgamesh, slaughtered the Bull of Heaven and tore out its heart.

  Enkidu, from below, from the marketplace, yelled at Ishtar above. “Could I but get thee, like unto him I would do unto thee. Your entrails I would hang at thy side.”

  “Beast,” Ishtar hissed. “Beast. No one shall go up. No one shall go down.”

  Gilgamesh built of lapis his own Bull, offered oil to his own god and washed his bloodied hands in the Euphrates. Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced each other as they went on, riding through the market street of Uruk. The people of Uruk gazed upon them. Gilgamesh said to the lyre maidens, “Who is the most splendid among the heroes? Who is the most glorious among men?”

  And the lyre maidens sang, “Gilgamesh is most splendid among the heroes. Gilgamesh is most glorious among men.”

  Ishtar, enraged, mounted to heaven. The rivers dried. The clay shattered. The wheat burned. Ishtar left and the women did not bear, and the animals had no young and the trees remained barren. The mother opened not her door to her daughter. The child they prepared for food. One house devoured the other. Like ghosts of the dead their faces were veiled. The Womb was bound and issued not offspring. The Mother had left in fury. The temples were empty and strangers entered not the great circles and paths of regeneration. The priests ate from her coffers. Ishtar abandoned her people.

  They deserved it. Ishtar ate peanuts and threw the shells on the floor.

  “Rise, oh my folk, from the dust of the earth, from the checkout counter at the A&P, from the greasepit at Midas Muffler, rise and garb thee in raiment, in see-throughs and tight bells and midriffs baring your first fruits, stuff your holy 32A padded apples into highrise bras and glue your lanuga eyelashes on and drape yourselves on the steps of the sukka bandstand and suffer, succubi, and raise your childlike voices that turn shrill in your demiurge and the hemisemidemiquaver of your voices shall reach the great ones on their pavilion. “Hey, you. You with the mustache. Eat me. Eat me. You want head? You want to go down on me?” Beat your hosanna in the meat market marked with magic markers proclaiming these seven lads. And yes, there they are on their pavilion now near the bar, on the altar, neath the ladies and the gents, and the folk from the dust of the earth shall worship th
em because someday, someday they may be great. Why not?”

  “Phallus worshipers,” Ishtar spat into the broken peanut shells on the floor, cursing the girls who begged near the stage. Slender hands reached to touch Nino’s member and he backed away, whispering huskily, “Later.” And Ishtar spoke her incantation to the peanut shells, remembering her own band of demons, lost in the dust of ages. “They were seven. They were seven and again they were twice seven. Spirit of the sky, remember them. Spirit of the earth, remember them. They who have revolted cause the gods to tremble. They spread terror over the highways and advanced with whistling roar. They were capable of bringing down the sky. Suspending the earth. Making springs to dry up. Sweeping away the mountains. Conjuring the spirits of the dead. They weakened the gods, put out the stars and lit up hell itself. But they were extraordinary. I fashioned them myself. This band of Robert’s is ordinary. And he will fashion them into paste-up images of manhood. I would make them immortal. Ah, if they were ever to be remembered, her demons, she would remember them with a member as large as Nino’s, which, according to the stretch of his knit pants, was considerable. I castrate. I devour. I remember. I heal. Come to me.

  Ishtar amused herself as she watched the band by restoring the shells to the peanuts immediately under her feet. She did not understand the music. It was without focus. Of course. The strength of the beat increased.

  She worked faster restoring the peanuts to their shells. When she was a child, music had always been taught and mechanical. Indeed she had taught herself, picking out “Song to an Evening Star” with one plump finger, translating circles of ink to matching keys on her grand-father’s organ with its carved pushes and pulls and stops until one Saturday, standing on a curb, a Legion parade passed and she heard the drums and wanted to march. She had not known music like that. She wanted to march simply and mindlessly in forbidden directions when the drum beat inside her chest and she had cried wildly until her father lifted her and held her to his chest. But the drums were beating in there too. Six men played their instruments and Sonny sang. Somewhere behind him drumsticks rose and fell. An open-backed organ far from the front line microphones displayed intricate, knotted multi-colored bowels. Ishtar strained to see the back row but could not. She could hear no melody. It was sound, rupturing and total. Her ears vibrated with the mad noise. Nino stopped to wipe his forehead with a towel. The trumpeter shook spit on the floor of the stage, the guitars listened to themselves, tuning to a private perfection and then Nino sang again, but this time his voice was different, oddly broken, keening, melodic. The drums thundered and fought him. His voice rose above them. The horns bleated, rising finally until the melody snapped and Nino stopped singing, picked up maracas and began to move in pelvic jerks. Ishtar was entranced. Robert was beating with his palms wildly on the tabletop, grinning.

  The music spread from Nino’s mouth to his body, ululating and grinding, caressing. A strobe light covered him and his body fragmented into stills, snaking on a thousand joints, orgasmic. His member was erect and he danced, somehow, around it. The room beat with the strobe, like the inside of a stomach wall, pulsing in every cell. Nino was screaming now, punctuating an open spot in the music and in her stomach. Nino’s scream was inhuman. Somewhere between a female dog in rut and a zither. It tore at her nerves. It hurts, the music said to her. It hurts, Mother, right here. Nino stopped. A high note, a lamentation, growing softer and softer from the organ, trembled into the distance from somewhere behind the organ player’s ribs where the pain must have been greatest. She stretched to see beyond Nino. It was the boy in the cape. And she grew frightened.

  “Let’s grab the ball and run, baby. We’ve got ourselves a band.” Robert took her hand.

  In the chamber of fates, the abode of destinies, a god was engendered, most potent and wisest of gods. In the heart of Apsu was Marduk created. He who begot him was Ea, his father. She who conceived him was Damkina, his mother. The breasts of the Goddess he did suck. The nurse that nursed him filled him with awesomeness. Alluring was his figure, sparkling the lift of his eyes. Lordly was his gait, commanding from of old. When Ea saw him, the father who begot him, he exulted and glowed. His heart filled with gladness. He rendered him perfect and endowed him with a double godhead. Greatly exalted was he above them, exceeding throughout.

  Perfect were his members beyond comprehension, unsuited for understanding, difficult to perceive. Four were his eyes, four were his ears. When he moved his lips, fire blazed forth. Large were all four hearing organs, and the eyes, in like number, scanned all things. He was the loftiest of all gods, surpassing was his stature.

  “That Mack, he’s the best-looking one of the bunch. And intelligent.”

  “He’s the tallest, too, is he not?”

  His members were enormous, he was exceeding tall.

  “But Nino is hung. Jesus Christ is that kid hung. We keep him center stage. He’s going to be our image.”

  Robert was excited, grinning, drinking quickly in large swallows. Ishtar left to go to the ladies’ room.

  “What male is it who has pressed his fight against thee? It is but Tiamat, a woman, that opposes thee with weapons. O my father-creator, be glad and rejoice. The neck of Tiamat thou shalt soon tread upon.”

  Mack could be Robert’s weapon against her. It was a weapon that would strike close to her heart. As it had been before, the overthrow of the Mother.

  Tiamat, she who bore us, detests us. She has set up the Assembly and is furious with rage. Mother Hubur, she who fashions all things, has added matchless weapons, has born monster-serpents, sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang.

  With venom for blood, she has filled their bodies. Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror, has crowned them with halos, making them like gods.

  “Stand thou up, that I and thou meet in single combat.” When Tiamat heard this she was like one possessed. She took leave of her senses. In Fury, Tiamat cried out loud. To the roots her legs shook both together. She recited a charm, casting her spell, while the gods of battle sharpened their weapons. Then joined issue Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of gods.

  They swayed in single combat, locked in battle. The lord spread out his net to enfold her. The Evil Wind, which followed behind, he let loose in her face. When Tiamat opened her mouth to consume him, he drove in the Evil Wind that she close not her lips. As the fierce winds charged her belly, her body was distended and her mouth was wide open. He released the arrow. It tore her belly. It cut through her insides, splitting the heart. Having thus subdued her, he extinguished her life.

  He cast down her carcass to stand upon it. The lord trod on the legs of Tiamat, with his unsparing mace he crushed her skull. When the arteries of her blood he had severed, the North Wind bore it to places undisclosed. He split her like a shellfish into two parts. Marduk created heaven and earth.

  Of course. And Ra insists to this day that he masturbated and took his seed into his mouth and spat out the first children. They are both fools. But they fight well and I am no match in fisticuffs. Furthermore, I would really rather make love in single combat.

  Ah, baby, which one of you is it this time? Perhaps you will be sweeter? Perhaps we can make it this time.

  There is no mirror in the ladies’ room. My eyes are bleeding and I need a mirror desperately. Flies circle, helpless, above the toilet around the light pull. It is how I feel. Slowly and carefully, the blood running cold at my trembling fingertips, I prepare myself for the toilet. The toilet is green emboweled, the room hung with flypaper and the stench of the netherworld encompasses me. Disease crawls over the flaking toilet seat. A fly lands on my kneecap and I kill it between my fingers.

  “They are olive and sallow and the one, the leader, in the dark, sitting up at his organ, in shadow profile, looks like a lizard.”

  I do not need him. But I have seen his hurt and I remember Marduk of the enormous members, who sucked the breasts of the Goddess. I have seen it all before. And the red silk and the black silk of his circus cape and th
e bad eyes and the Circe female mouth ready to once more annihilate the Queen of Heaven. But there is a sweetness in him, a sweetness in the even smile of his teeth and the pain of his eyes. I am not sure I want to hurt this one. I am intrigued with his mustache.

  Ishtar smoothed her pantyhose over her legs with one hand and walked out, past the leader, who was bent over his keyboard intent on the music. She wiped the remains of the fly on his pants leg as a sign. He thought it was a caress. She was not certain what it meant except she had wanted to touch him.

  6

  I HAVE BEEN AT LAST TO THE GYNECOLOGIST. I HAVE BEEN THERE in utter humiliation, as a fornicator in the Inquisition. I have slept with the devil and confessed that his skin is cold and his penis hot as the glowing coals of his eyes and his smell is foul and I have been myself befouled. I have been shaved and cleansed, powdered and sprayed. Shaved for my sin. Now, not only am I not a member of the Jewish Community Center, but I have fleas. There is a vast difference between being fleabitten and having fleas. I am a carrier. I will not achieve full regrowth until three months have passed, he has told me. I inquired about a hair piece to the gynecologist’s great goatlike amusement and my complete degradation. When I arrived home from the gynecologist’s an older woman stood crying at my doorstep. She had run over my cat, Green, and held it, mutilated and tire-marked in a First Trust Bank shopping bag. I was not certain the cat was dead so the woman and I drove with the sadly bloody cat to the Japanese veterinarian, who pronounced Green dead and I, raising the bank’s bag over my head in the reception room, sobbing, blessed my cat and passed her on. People waiting for appointments shielded their children from my display. I felt responsible for Green’s death. I knew then that Green had given me the fleas and there was an as yet undefined relationship between the death of the cat and the removal of the fleas. It was as if to become a member of Green’s kingdom, I had to accept and really know Green’s suffering with her own fleas. Green gave me her fleas so she could believe in me. This is of course utter madness.