Judith

by Nicholas Mosley

  I thought I might begin crying again. Sometimes during those days, yes, I sat on the edges of paths and cried.

  You had said, had you not? – It was not your fault!

  – Everything both absolutely is, and is not, your fault.

  Who was I talking to?

  The woman who was looking at me had such bright blue eyes: I thought – But let me have your darkness! I found, as before, that I had opened my mouth. I thought – The hook has been taken out? It is this taste that is like a smell?

  Do you know that piece of natural history about elephants in central Africa who have some terrible need for minerals, for some sort of salt-lick. They can only get these minerals from stalactites that hang from the roofs of caves in mountains. So the elephants have to make their way to these mountains; they lumber into the caves – huge potholers hanging on to each other’s tails in the dark. When they are deep inside they break off the stalactites with their tusks; they chew them: they give them to their children. They have to do this or they would die; they cannot get the minerals on the plains. The minerals are to do with old encrustations, do you think, that you need from time to time to stay alive.

  This has something to do with a mother and her tinned milk – do you think?

  Why are these particular crystals, liquids, to be found in the body of a particular person – is it what was once to do with smell?

  I had a cat, once, that used to burrow, burrow, into my armpit.

  I still did not speak to the woman. It is difficult to say – Can I come into your dark?

  She was standing at the entrance to God’s inner garden. She opened the gate for me to come in.

  I thought I might say as I went in – You know the natural history of those elephants in the cave?

  When I first arrived in the Garden God had not been making his customary appearances each day. It was said that he was ill, or resting; or just that he had decided not to appear.

  So we listened to the recordings of his voice from the roof of the enormous hall. He said many of the things I came to expect – There has to be an opening, an emptying, before you can grow: you have to become hollowed, so that music can be made through you.

  But God also said things which seemed to be particular to himself at this time: these were to do not so much with his message as with the effect or lack of effect of his message: he was looking down on it, I suppose: he was seeing it falling like seeds on to this or that ground.

  – I do not want to be a god to you. I do not want to be a father-figure to you. I want to make you free. But it is true, perhaps, that you will not be free unless I have been some sort of god to you.

  – I do not want you to be serious. I am not serious! One is thinking of oneself when one is serious. When you laugh, you are taken over by something other. Then you can grow.

  – You cannot make yourself true by willing yourself to be true; you cannot make yourself yourself by willing yourself to be yourself; these are conditions that can only be brought about by something other. You have to let yourself go; let the forms into which you have been forced by society go: then you will find that in their place there is something other. You can call this something God: but it will be yourself; it will be your true self because you will have been entered by, become part of, a whole.

  – Truth is that of which the opposite is also true. I do not want to be a god to you. I want you to be free.

  But while God’s voice came dropping down thus from the ceiling like birdsong, like drops from the roof of a cave forming pillars, there were all those figures on the floor of the enormous hall being fashioned, moulded, into – what? – worshippers, acolytes? slaves? I wondered – Would not God in the end have to do more than say he was ill or resting, to make people free?

  Then one evening it was announced that God was going to appear in person again; and the next morning everyone assembled in the enormous hall. This had always used to be the highlight of each day in the Garden: two or three thousand people gathered: we sat cross-legged, straight-backed, on the ground; facing a platform like a stage. Some had their eyes closed and swayed slightly like reeds: a few were alert, amused, watchful. I thought – So what happens if you let people call you God, and yet tell them you want them to be free?

  Around the perimeter of the hall there were figures in white or yellow robes standing facing inwards: these were the special acolytes or disciples who acted as guardians: they seemed slightly lifted, their feet just off the floor, as if they were figures in a Byzantine mosaic. On the platform one of them spoke into a microphone quietly; he said that everyone would have to sit absolutely still and not cough for possibly two hours. I thought – How can you tell people not to cough for two hours? is not this one of the things that people cannot will themselves to do? You mean, they will be depending on something other?

  As the time approached for God to appear there was a hush; a surmise: how on earth would God act: come down in a balloon? be lowered in a basket? I could not make out, this first time, looking round the enormous hall, what these people were feeling: were they in ecstasy? were they not rather laughing? Some with their eyes closed rocked backwards and forwards like snakes: but they were being drawn up, yes, out of some basket?

  When God did arrive – he had set out from his house in his inner garden some hundred yards away – he appeared above the heads of the seated figures at the edge of the hall bouncing along like a target at a fun-fair shooting-range: he was carried by half a dozen of his acolytes on a litter: one held an umbrella over his head: perhaps he had really been ill and so had to be carried: but, yes, he did appear to be on the point of roaring with laughter. He was a middle-aged, brown-skinned man with a lot of white-and-grey hair and a beard. When the litter was set down by the platform he stepped out delicately and seemed to glide as if he were on wheels; he went to a chair that had been prepared for him. He looked round the assembled multitude with his hands held as if in prayer; the adoring faces looked up at him; he still seemed to be on the point of bursting into laughter.

  Well, what do you think you do when you are trying to say what you yourself say cannot be said? You roll your words like balls down a slope? they fall off the edges, they go into slots, one or two, at the bottom?

  Up till recently, I had been told, God’s discourses had been to do with what most people had come to expect – his interpretations of Zen, of Tao, of Tantra, of Christ, of Buddha. It was recordings of these talks that had for the most part played from the roof of the enormous hall. But just before he had become ill, or had rested, an urgency had come into his discourses – this had been evident in the recording that I had heard when I had first arrived – the urgency was partly to do with what he felt about the state of the world; but there was also the recognition of the predicament that the more he told people they should be free the more they worshipped him: so if words are counter-productive, would it not be better to be silent? But this must be the predicament of all gods, must it not: and so here he was now, sitting himself down in his chair, about to try to say the unsayable: so might he not, indeed, seem to be on the point of roaring with laughter?

  God’s discourse this time did not last two hours: but while it did last no one did in fact seem to cough, or to stir – let alone (as it were) leave the theatre. I do not know how he managed this: he spoke in his sibilant half-chant, half-whisper; he lingered on the ends of words as if he were dangling them on a hook; he had hands which seemed to shape his parables as if he were forming rainbows in bubbles. I suppose people had always been tickled, caressed, goaded by him; he put out probes to where we had been wounded; his task was to catch us, heal us, make us free – might not these processes be the same?

  In this first discourse after his absence he spoke in a style, people said, that he had not used before. I will try to get his words; I will be putting some formation of my own into them. He spoke as an actor; a story-teller: but also as someone who was saying – Look: you must know what you are doing when you are story-tell
ers, actors: you are standing back from, seeing, what you have found; then you will be free!

  He said –

  ‘God was lying in bed one Sunday morning reading his Sunday newspapers and he said to his wife, who was called Lilith, and who, of course, was the same as he – I don’t know what we are going to do with those two children! all they do is loll about in the garden all day.

  ‘But Lilith, who was, as they say, one flesh with God, said – Well that’s what you told them to do, isn’t it?

  ‘God said – I know I told them to! But they needn’t have obeyed me, need they?

  ‘God was touchy on this point. He felt himself vulnerable here to Lilith.

  ‘Lilith said – You told them to obey you.

  ‘God said – I know I told them to obey me!

  ‘Lilith said – Well, you can’t blame them.

  ‘God said – I don’t blame them!

  ‘Lilith said – But you tell them you do.

  ‘God said – Of course I tell them I do!

  ‘And so on.

  ‘God, who could never get his wife, or other half, to understand what was to do not with logic, but with meta-logic, rolled over with his back to her in bed and ruminated on how it was no good arguing with the half of him that was a woman.

  ‘Now Adam and Eve, God’s two children, who had been listening outside the window – which they usually did when their parents were supposed to be reading the newspapers on a Sunday morning and were under the impression that the children were lolling about in the garden – turned to each other during this silence.

  ‘Adam whispered to Eve – What do you think they are up to now?

  ‘– The usual, I dare say.

  ‘– That creaking!

  ‘– That groaning!

  ‘– I think it’s called the primal scene.

  ‘Adam and Eve giggled.

  ‘Eve said – What is the primal scene?

  ‘– I think it’s fucking.

  ‘– It sounds more like an argument.

  ‘– Perhaps it is an argument.

  ‘– I thought it was more like – you know –

  ‘– What?

  ‘– What that snake does in the garden.

  ‘Now in the bedroom, where God had been lying with his back to himself, or Lilith, for some time, he thought he would roll over and try to explain things to her once more.

  ‘He said – Look, I’ll spell it out. If I had not told those children to obey me, how could they disobey me? And if they don’t disobey me, how can they ever grow up?

  ‘Lilith said – But they haven’t disobeyed you. They haven’t grown up.

  ‘God said – Look: how often do I have to go through this? I told the children to obey me so they would have the chance to disobey me: but I can’t tell them that this is the case, because they have to work it out for themselves, or they won’t grow up.

  ‘Lilith said – Don’t shout at me, I am not stupid.

  ‘God said – I give up.

  ‘Now Adam and Eve, outside the window, could not quite hear what was said, because God and Lilith were talking in whispers; but they heard the creaking and groaning.

  ‘Eve said – I think they’re putting it on.

  ‘Adam said – Putting what on?

  ‘– This performance.

  ‘Adam said – Perhaps they just want to get us out of the garden.

  ‘Eve said – Well they’re jolly well not going to get us out of the garden!

  ‘– I suppose they think they will, if we witness the primal scene.

  ‘– Well, if we do, let’s make out we think they’ve just been talking!

  ‘– Yes, jolly good – said Adam.

  ‘Now God and Lilith, who had been silent back to back in their bed for some time, heard Adam and Eve whispering outside their window.

  ‘God said – What’s that?

  ‘Lilith said – I think it’s the children, who have been listening outside the window.

  ‘God said – Do you think it might be a good thing if we had them in? I mean, it might assist in their development if they witnessed the primal scene.

  ‘Lilith said – But can you manage it? At your age! We seem to spend all our time talking.

  ‘God was furious. He thought that Adam and Eve might have overheard. He shouted – Are you listening?

  ‘Adam said – Yes!

  ‘God thought – All right! I know what will fix Lilith: and what will get those two layabouts out of the garden.

  ‘He said in a mournful voice to Lilith – Ah, I know! You’d like a younger man! As a matter of fact, I realise you’ve always fancied Adam!

  ‘Lilith said – What? Then – And what about you and Eve!

  ‘God shouted – All right you two can come in!

  ‘Adam and Eve came in. They said – Morning Dad! Morning Mum! They climbed into bed with their parents.

  ‘Then they said – Finished with the Sunday newspapers?

  I was walking on the beach by the sea early one morning (it was my day off: I was thinking – God has gone mad? God will pretend to go mad to get us out of the Garden?) and there were huge white waves coming in like tiers of seats in a theatre; like a crowd roaring. I came across the Indian boy, who was called Shastri, by a boat pulled up on the sand.

  ‘Hullo.’

  ‘Hullo.’

  ‘Have you thought about what I said?’

  I wondered if he had seen me setting out for the beach. He sometimes seemed to lie in wait for me outside the gates of the Garden.

  I said ‘Look, I’m no good at teaching. I can’t be any good for others if I’m no good for myself.’

  He wore his black trousers and white shirt. I thought – It is some sort of uniform: like a skeleton in my cupboard.

  He said ‘I just asked you to come for walks with me.’

  I said ‘I know you think it’s wrong to care about oneself when other people are hungry. But people are always saying they worry about other people being hungry, and this doesn’t seem to do much good, I mean there are always more people hungry.’

  I thought – Oh but it’s the words that are so awful; so awful!

  We had begun to walk together along the beach. There was the line of white waves coming in like a crowd storming a palace. I thought – Or does he see me riding on a shell like Aphrodite?

  He said ‘And what good do you do in the Garden?’ I said ‘Look, the Garden isn’t what you think it is.’ He said ‘What is it?’

  I said ‘I think it’s coming to an end. I think God’s trying to get us out.’

  The beach stretched for miles in front of us. There was a blue-gold haze in the distance. We had got beyond the area where fishermen’s boats were drawn up on the sand.

  He said ‘You are told to live for yourselves: not to care about other people. But how can you live without depending on other people?’

  I said ‘Look, why don’t you come into the Garden?’

  He said ‘They wouldn’t allow me.’ I said ‘Of course they would!’ ‘Why?’

  The beach was quite empty. It was still early in the morning. I thought – We could go into the sand-dunes, hand in hand –

  – Or would you come into the Garden if I asked you to come in with me?

  – Eve and the snake, walking in, hand in hand!

  He said ‘Is it true that they ask you for your money as soon as you arrive in the Garden?’

  I said ‘No.’

  He said ‘I have heard of one mother who came here having abandoned her children and when her husband came to fetch her she persuaded him to stay and to abandon the children too.’

  I said ‘There are always stories about the Garden. It is true they are odd about children. They think that parents often do more harm than good.’

  He said ‘Will you come to a political meeting with me?’

  I said ‘What political meeting?’

  He said ‘In the village.’

  There were some extraordinary and huge track-marks i
n front of us in the sand. They went up from the sea to the edge of the dunes. They were as if some juggernaut had come up out of the water.

  I stopped and poked my toes about in the tracks. I thought – He will come to the Garden if I go to his political meeting? I imagine it will do some good if I can get him to the Garden?

  He said ‘That is a turtle track. The females come at night and lay their eggs up by the dunes.’

  I thought – But I know about this!

  He said ‘The eggs are a great delicacy. It will be a great day for the people in my village.’

  I said ‘But you won’t tell them!’

  I thought perhaps I could try to wipe out the tracks with my foot.

  He said ‘They lay hundreds of eggs.’ He began to walk up towards the sand-dunes.

  I shouted ‘Don’t!’

  He turned and looked at me. I thought – I will stand with my arms like Aphrodite: in my cockle-shell out of the sea.

  I said ‘I’ve seen a film about this. I have a nightmare about it. The baby turtles hatch out and they run towards the sea. Then the seagulls get them. And if any get past the seagulls, then there are lines of huge crabs.’

  He said ‘The crabs and seagulls know when they are coming. Very few get through.’

  I said ‘I know.’

  He said ‘Why should not my people in the village have the eggs, rather than the crabs and seagulls?’ I said ‘Some get through.’

  I thought – Why should I not say, humans should be different from crabs and seagulls?

  I said ‘It is so terrible for the mother turtles. They have to struggle with such effort!’

  He said ‘People will see where the eggs are from the tracks anyway.’

  I said ‘I just don’t want it to be you and I who tell them, or dig the eggs up.’