Buildings and vehicles, but the people did not hurry. They sat here and there enjoying the sun. One young woman had unbuttoned her blouse, and her breasts shone with perspiration; the sun radiated down hot and bright.
"No," he said, "this is not the Commonwealth."
"I took you the wrong way," Zina said. "But it doesn't matter. There is nothing wrong with this place, is there? Does it lack? You know it doesn't lack; it is Paradise."
"I made it so," he said.
"All right," Zina said. "This is the Paradise that you created and I will show you something better. Come." She reached out and took him by the hand. "That savings and loan building has the Golden Rectangle doorway. We can enter there; it is as good as any." Holding him by the hand she led him to the corner, waited for the light to change, and then, together, they made their way down the sidewalk, past the resting people, to the savings and loan office.
Pausing on the steps Emmanuel said, "I—"
"This is the doorway," she said, and led him up the steps. "Your realm ends here and mine begins. From now on the laws are mine." Her grip on his hand tightened.
"So be it," he said, and continued on.
The robot teller said, "Do you have your passbook, Ms. Pallas?"
"In my purse." Beside Emmanuel the young woman opened her mail-pouch leather purse, fumbled among keys, cosmetics, letters, assorted valuables, until her quick fingers found the passbook. "I want to draw out—well, how much do I have?"
"Your balance appears in your passbook," the robot teller said in its dispassionate voice.
"Yes," she agreed. Opening the passbook she scrutinized the figures, then took a withdrawal slip and filled it out.
"You are closing your account?" the robot teller said, as she presented it with the passbook and slip.
"That's right."
"Has our service not been—"
"It's none of your damn business why I'm closing my account," she said. Resting her sharp elbows on the counter she rocked back and forth. Emmanuel saw that she wore high heels. Now she had become older. She wore a cotton print top and jeans, and her hair pulled back with a comb. Also, he saw, she wore sunglasses. She smiled at him.
He said to himself, She has already changed.
Presently they stood on the roof parking lot of the savings and loan building; Zina fumbled in her purse for her flycar keys.
"It's a nice day," she said. "Get in; I'll unlock the door for you." She slipped in behind the wheel of the flycar and reached for the far door's handle.
"This is a nice car," he said, and he thought, She reveals her domain by degrees. As she took me to my own garden-world first she now takes me stage by stage through the levels, the ascending levels, of her own realm. She will strip the accretions away one by one as we penetrate deeper. This, now, is the surface only.
This, he thought, is enchantment. Beware!
"You like my car? It gets me to work—"
He said, breaking in harshly, "You lie, Zina!"
"What do you mean?" The flycar rose up into the warm midday sky, joining the normal traffic. But her smile gave her away. "It's a beginning," she said. "I don't want to startle you."
"Here," he said, "in this world you are not a child. That was a form you took, a pose."
"This is my real shape. Honest."
"Zina; you have no real shape. I know you. For you any shape is possible. Whichever shape appeals to you at the moment. You go from moment to moment, like a soap bubble."
Turning toward him, but still watching where she drove, Zina said, "You are in my world now, Yah. Take care."
"I can burst your world."
"It will simply return. It is everywhere always. We have not gone away from where we were—back there a few miles is the school that you and I attend; back there in the house Elias and Herb Asher are discussing what to do. Spacially this is not another place and you know that."
"But," he said, "you make the laws here."
"Belial is not here," she said.
That surprised him. He had not foreseen that, and, realizing that he had not foreseen it he knew that he had not truly foreseen the total situation. To miss a single part was to miss it all.
"He never penetrated my realm," Zina said as she negotiated her way through the sky traffic over Washington, D.C. "He does not even know about it. Let's go over to the Tidal Basin and look at the Japanese cherry trees; they're in bloom."
"Are they?" he said; it seemed to him too early in the year.
"They are blooming now," Zina said, and steered her flycar toward the downtown center of the city.
"In your world," he said. He understood. "This is the spring," he said. He could see the leaves and blossoms on the trees below them. The expanses of bright green.
"Roll your window down," she said. "It's not cold."
He said, "The warmth in the Palm Tree Garden—"
"Blasting, withering dry heat," she said. "Scorching the world and turning it into a desert. You were always partial to arid land. Listen to me, Yahweh. I will show you things you know nothing about. You have gone from the wastelands to a frozen landscape—methane crystals, with little domes here and there, and stupid natives. You know nothing!" Her eyes blazed. "You skulk in the badlands and promise your people a refuge they never found. All your promises have failed—which is good, because what you have promised them most is that you will curse them and afflict them and destroy them. Now shut up. My time and my realm have come; this is my world and it is springtime and the air does not wither the plants, nor do you. You will hurt no one here in my realm. Do you understand?"
He said, "Who are you?"
Laughing, she said, "My name is Zina. Fairy."
"I think—" Confused, he said, "You—"
"Yahweh," the woman said, "you do not know who I am and you do not know where you are. Is this the Secret Commonwealth? Or have you been tricked?"
"You have tricked me," he said.
"I am your guide," she said. "As the Sepher Yezirah says:
Comprehend this great wisdom, understand this knowledge, inquire into it and ponder it, render it evident and lead the Creator back to His throne again.
"And that," she finished, "is what I will do. But it is by a route that you will not believe. It is a route that you do not know. You will have to trust me; you will trust your guide as Dante trusted his guide, through the realms, up and up."
He said, "You are the Adversary."
"Yes," Zina said. "I am."
But, he thought, that is not all. It is not that simple. You are complex, he realized, you who drive this car. Paradox and contradictions, and, most of all, your love of games. Your desire to play. I must think of it that way, he realized, as play.
"I'll play," he agreed. "I am willing."
"Good." She nodded. "Could you get my cigarettes for me out of my purse? The traffic's getting heavy; I'm going to have trouble finding a parking spot."
He rummaged in her purse. Futilely.
"Can't you find them? Keep looking; they're there."
"You keep so many things in your purse." He found the pack of Salems and held it toward her.
"God doesn't light a woman's cigarette?" She took the cigarette and pressed in the dashboard lighter.
"What does a ten-year-old boy know about that?" he said.
"Strange," she said. "I'm old enough to be your mother. And yet you are older than I am. There is a paradox; you knew you would find paradoxes here. My realm abounds with them, as you were just thinking. Do you want to go back, Yahweh? To the Palm Tree Garden? It is irreal and you know it. Until you inflict decisive defeat on your Adversary it will remain irreal. That world is gone, and is now a memory."
"You are the Adversary," he said, puzzled, "but you are not Belial."
"Belial is in a cage at the Washington, D.C. zoo," Zina said. "In my realm. As an example of extraterrestrial life—a deplorable example. A thing from Sirius, from the fourth planet in the Sirius System. People stand around gaping at him i
n wonder."
He laughed.
"You think I'm joking. I'll take you to the zoo. I'll show you."
"I think you're serious." Again he laughed; it delighted him. "The Evil One in a cage at the zoo—what, with his own temperature and gravity and atmosphere, and imported food? An exotic life form?"
"He's angry as hell about it," Zina said.
"I'm sure he is. What do you have planned for me, Zina?"
She said, soberly, "The truth, Yahweh. I will show you the truth before you leave here. I would not cage the Lord our God. You are free to roam my land; you are free here, Yahweh, entirely. I give you my word."
"Vapors," he said. "The bond of a zina."
After some difficulty she found a slot in which to park her flycar. "Okay," she said. "Let's stroll around looking at the cherry blossoms. Yahweh; their color is mine, their pink. That is my hallmark. When that pink light is seen, I am near."
"I know that pink," he said. "It is the human phosphene response to full-spectrum white, to pure sunlight."
As she locked up the flycar she said, "See the people."
He looked about him. And saw no one. The trees, heavy with blossoms, lined the Tidal Basin in a great semicircle. But, despite the parked cars, no persons walked anywhere.
"Then this is a fraud," he said.
Zina said, "You are here, Yahweh, so that I can postpone your great and terrible day. I do not want to see the world scourged. I want you to see what you do not see. Only the two of us are here; we are alone. Gradually I will unfold my realm to you, and, when I am done, you will withdraw your curse on the world. I have watched you for years, now. I have seen your dislike of the human race and your sense of its worthlessness. I say to you, It is not worthless; it is not worthy to die—as you phrase it in your pompous fashion. The world is beautiful and I am beautiful and the cherry blossoms are beautiful. The robot teller at the savings and loan—even it is beautiful. The power of Belial is mere occlusion, hiding the real world, and if you attack the real world, as you have come to Earth to do, then you will destroy beauty and kindness and charm. Remember the crushed dog dying in the ditch at the side of the road? Remember what you felt about him; remember what you knew him to be. Remember the inscription that Elias composed for that dog and that dog's death. Remember the dignity of that dog, and at the same time remember that the dog was innocent. His death was mandated by cruel necessity. A wrong and cruel necessity. The dog—"
"I know," he said.
"You know what? That the dog was wrongly treated? That he was born to suffer unjust pain? It is not Belial that slew the dog, it is you, Yahweh, the Lord of Hosts. Belial did not bring death into the world because there has always been death; death goes back a billion years on this planet, and what became of that dog—that is the fate of every creature you have made. You cried over that dog, did you not? I think at that point you understood, but now you have forgotten. If I were to remind you of anything I would remind you of that dog and of how you felt; I would want you to remember how that dog showed you the Way. It is the way of compassion, the most noble way of all, and I do not think you genuinely have that compassion, I really don't. You are here to destroy Belial, your adversary, not to emancipate mankind; you are here to wage war. Is that a fit thing for you to do? I wonder. Where is the peace that you promised man? You have come with a sword and millions will die; it will be the dying dog multiplied millions of times. You cried for the dog, you cried for your mother and even Belial, but I say, If you want to wipe away all the tears, as it says in Scripture, go away and leave this world because the evil of this world, what you call 'Belial' and your 'Adversary' is a form of illusion. These are not bad people. This is not a bad world. Do not make war on it but bring it flowers." Reaching, she broke off a sprig of cherry blossoms; she extended it to him, and, reflexively, he accepted it.
"You are very persuasive," he said.
"It is my job," she said. "I say these things because I know these things. There is no deceit in you and there is no deceit in me, but just as you curse, I play. Which of us has found the Way? For two thousand years you have bided your time until you could slip back into Belial's fortress to overthrow him. I suggest that you find something else to do. Walk with me and we will see flowers. It is better. And the world will prosper as it always has. This is the springtime. It is now that flowers grow, and with me there is dancing also, and the sound of bells. You heard the bells and you know that their beauty is greater than the power of evil. In some ways their beauty is greater than your own power, Yahweh, Lord of Hosts. Do you not agree?"
"Magic," he said. "A spell."
"Beauty is a spell," she said, "and war is reality. Do you want the sobriety of war or the intoxication of what you see now, here in my world? We are alone now, but later on people will appear; I will repopulate my realm. But I want this moment to speak to you plainly. Do you know who I am? You do not know who I am, but finally I will lead you step by step back to your throne, you the Creator, and then you will know who I am. You have guessed but you have not guessed right. There are many guesses left for you—you who know everything. I am not Holy Wisdom and I am not Diana; I am not a lina; I am not Pallas Athena. I am something else. I am the spring queen and yet I am not that either; these are, as you put it, vapors. What I am, what I truly am, you will have to ferret out on your own. Now let's walk."
They walked along the path, by the water and the trees.
"We are friends, you and I," Emmanuel said. "I tend to listen to you."
"Then postpone your great and terrible day. There is nothing good in death by fire; it is the worst death of all. You are the solar heat that destroys the crops. For four years we have been together, you and I. I have watched as your memory returned and I have regretted its return. You afflicted that miserable woman who was your mother; you sickened your own mother whom you say you love, whom you cried over. Instead of making war against evil, cure the dying dog in the ditch and wipe away thereby your own tears. I hated to see you cry. You cried because you regained your own nature and comprehended that nature. You cried because you realized what you are."
He said nothing.
"The air smells good," Zina said.
"Yes," he said.
"I will bring the people back," she said. "One by one, until they are all around us. Look at them and when you see one whom you would slay, tell me and I will banish that person once more. But you must look at the person whom you would slay—you must see in that person the crushed and dying dog. Only then do you have the right to slay that person; only when you cry are you entitled to destroy. You understand?"
"Enough," he said.
"Why didn't you cry over the dog before the car crushed him? Why did you wait until it was too late? The dog accepted his situation but I do not. I advise you; I am your guide. I say, It is wrong what you do. Listen to me. Stop it!"
He said, "I have come to lift their oppression."
"You are impaired. I know that; I know what happened in the Godhead, the original crisis. It is no secret to me. In this condition you seek to lift their oppression through a great and terrible day. Is that reasonable? Is that how you free the prisoners?"
"I must break the power of—"
"Where is that power? The government? Bulkowsky and Harms? They are idiots; they are a joke. Would you kill them? The talion law that you laid down; I say:
You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance.
"You must live by your own words; you must offer your Adversary Belial no resistance. In my realm his power is not here; he is not here. What is here is a sport in a cage at a public zoo. We feed it and give it water and atmosphere and the right temperature; we try to make the thing as comfortable as possible. In my realm we do not kill. There is, here, no great and terrible day, nor will there ever be. Stay in my realm or make my realm your realm, but spare Belial; spare everyone. And then you will not have to cry, and the tears wi
ll, as you promised, be wiped away."
Emmanuel said, "You are Christ."
Laughing, Zina said, "No, I am not."
"You quote him."
"'Even the devil can cite Scripture.'"
Around them groups of people appeared, in light, summery clothing. Men in their shirtsleeves, women in frocks. And, he saw, all the children.
"The fairy queen," he said. "You beguile me. You lead me from the path with sparks of light, dancing, singing, and the sound of bells; always the sound of bells."
"The bells are blown by the wind," Zina said. "And the wind speaks the truth. Always. The desert wind. You know that; I have watched you listen to the wind. The bells are the music of the wind; listen to them."
He heard, then, the fairy bells. They echoed distantly; many bells, small ones, not church bells but the bells of magic.
It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
"I cannot, myself, produce that sound," he said to Zina. "How is it done?"
"By wakefulness," Zina said. "The bell-sounds wake you up. They rouse you from sleep. You roused Herb Asher from his sleep by a crude introjection; I awaken by means of beauty."
Gentle spring wind blew about them, the vapors of her realm.
13
TO HIMSELF EMMANUEL said, I am being poisoned. The vapors of her realm poison me and vitiate my will.
"You are wrong," Zina said.
"I feel less strong."
"You feel less indignation. Let's go and get Herb Asher. I want him with us. I will narrow down the area of our game; I will arrange it especially for him."
"In what way?"
"We will contest for him," Zina said. "Come." She beckoned to the boy to follow her.
In the cocktail lounge Herb Asher sat with a glass of Scotch and water in front of him. He had been waiting an hour but the evening entertainment had not begun. The cocktail lounge was filled with people. Constant noise assailed his ears. But, for him, this was worth it, despite the rather large cover charge.
The VALIS Trilogy Page 39
