Pilgermann Page 2

  I looked at him and listened to his silence for a while. When I was able to speak I said, ‘You’re not the one I was calling.’

  He said, ‘I’m the one who came through. I’m the one you’ll talk to from now on.’

  I saw his lips move but his voice came from inside my head. It made me feel very strange, being on the outside of his voice. I knew that if I were capable of running and were to run away to a distance where I could no longer see his lips move I should still hear his voice inside my head. A woodwind sort of voice with something of the timbre of a modern oboe, it seemed to have in it a capability of vibration that would move the plates of the earth apart; it was a voice that made a great space happen all round it, and all that space was inside my head. Feeling vast and hollow, hearing only a silence all round me and my own voice far, far away inside my head, I said, trying to synchronize my lips with my words, ‘Until now I’ve dealt with your father.’

  He said, ‘Until now you’ve dealt with no one and no one’s dealt with you.’

  I said, ‘Is this the Day of Reckoning then?’

  He said, ‘Every day is the Day of Reckoning.’ The way his voice filled all the great echoing vastness inside my head was frightening; I wanted to get away from him but I was afraid to try even to stand up because of the bleeding. I looked all round me; my member and testicles were nowhere in sight. I thought of them thrown away like offal, I thought of them eaten by the Jew-finding sow, I vomited again.

  I said, ‘I want to talk to your father,’ then I held my head and waited for his answer to echo inside me.

  He said, ‘Humankind is a baby, it always wants a face bending over the cradle.’

  I said, ‘God’s our father, isn’t he?’

  He said, ‘God isn’t a he, it’s an it.’

  I said, ‘Where is it, his strong right arm that was stretched out over us?’

  He said, ‘It’s gone.’

  I said, ‘Have I got to be my own father now?’

  He said, ‘Be what you like but remember that after me it’s the straight action and no more dressing up.’

  Neither of us said anything for a little while. I didn’t want him to go away but I didn’t want to hear his voice inside my head.

  ‘Will there be a Last Judgment?’ I said.

  He said, ‘The straight action is the last judgment; there’s no face on the front of it, it has no front or back.’

  We are walking, I am leaning on Jesus; with his right arm round me he keeps me from falling. I feel the strength in him rising like a column. In the morning sunlight rises the smoke from the synagogue. The fire crackles, the flames are pale in the bright morning. Suddenly there is so much space between the Jewish quarter and the rest of the town! Suddenly the Christian roofs are sharp and distant, they are looking away. In the great space all round the synagogue the bodies of the dead are vivid, the blood fresh and dark on the cobbles that seem to have put themselves into patterns I have not noticed before: there are twisting serpents, shifting pyramids, I see the face of a lion that comes and goes. There are many Jews flattened to the earth, limbs all asprawl, mouths open. The children are just as dead as the grown-ups, it seems precocious. It is a very informal gathering, there have been scenes of intimacy with no attempt at privacy. Here among a scattering of random guests and witnesses is an impromptu bride of the soldiers of Christ. White thighs, black hose, skirt flung over her face. Did they call her thou?

  ‘Thou Jew,’ I say to Jesus, ‘tell me about this conversion of the Jews.’

  ‘What conversion?’ says Jesus.

  ‘From life to death,’ I say. ‘Why does it keep happening? Why is it God’s will?’

  Jesus turns his face to me and opens wide his eyes. There come upon me such a shuddering and a blackness, such an expanding pleroma, such an intolerable fullness that I am filled to bursting with it. I open, open, open but cannot contain it, I explode in all directions to infinity, I contract to a point, I explode again from the point, I come back together and return shuddering and full of terror.

  ‘Forgive me, Lord,’ I say.

  There come into my mind thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud. There comes into my mind the sanctified mountain that might not be touched, neither by beast nor man. There comes into my mind a voice saying in Greek:

  For not ye have approached to a mountain being felt and having been ignited with fire and to darkness and to deep gloom and to whirlwind and of trumpet to a sound and to a voice of words, which the ones hearing entreated not to be added to them a word; not they bore for the thing being charged: If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned; and, so fearful was the thing appearing, Moses said: Terrified I am and trembling …

  Jesus says, ‘Can you contain even the expectation of the full reply of me to you? Can you contain even the silence before my answer to you?’

  I say, ‘No, Lord, I cannot contain it.’

  Jesus says, ‘Can you contain even the thought of knowing the will of God? I speak not of the knowing; I speak only of the very thought of knowing.’

  I say, ‘No, Lord, I cannot even contain that thought.’

  Jesus says, ‘If it be God’s incomprehensible will that the universe shall flower to the end of all things and from that end of all things seed itself anew, will you question the slaughter of Jews? You see on the cobbles the dead who were alive, who sprang from the leap of the lightning that cleaves the dark that waits for the leap after the stillness, the stillness after the leap. You see the dead: backward into their life and forward into their death extends the black-body spectrum of their being; their diffraction is as yours. Will you offer an opinion?’

  I say, ‘I have no opinion, Lord.’

  Jesus incorporates me in his glance and I begin to see him in more than one way. Jesus is the great dead Lion of the World and in his mouth is the live black body of Christ Radiant. The great dead lion is walking the rocks and desert, walking the mountains and the high ground, looking down on deep gorges where rivers serpentine, and in his mouth the live black body of him the one radiant, him the Christ flickering his black-body spectrum, flames all dancing on the live black body of him in the mouth of the great dead lion of himself. The black body opens, it is a sky of lightning, a sea of fire, mountains of ice. The sky grows tiny, contracts to one black dot, absorbs the sea of fire, the mountains of ice. The black dot opens out into the great live Lion of the World. In his mouth the tiny dead golden body of Christ. In the mouth of the tiny dead golden body of Christ is the world, the sun, the moon, the stars, the wheeling heavens of night. Far and far the thunder of his silence rolls, the lion roars, the stars shake, flicker, burn to paleness and morning.

  Silence. The lion is a great paper kite, blue and yellow, the paper fluttering in the morning wind. Far, far down goes the string to Jesus winding in the kite. The lion-kite bursts into flame, the flame runs down the string, Jesus is on fire.

  All round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon dance the avatars of Burning Jesus, Christ as fire in perfect silence dancing. One for every degree of the circle, three hundred and sixty avatars of Burning Jesus dancing the colour of Jew, dancing the full black-body spectrum of Jew. One by one the emissions cease, one by one the colours disband, the burning avatars rejoin each one the next and all go back to one, the live black body of Christ Radiant in the centre of the great circle of fire, the burning world-circle. The motion of the dance continues, it is bursting the skin of the sky. The colour of Jew is rent with a great ripping down the centre of the sky.

  Leaning on Jesus and held up by him, suddenly I rage at him. Feeble, unmanned, weak from loss of blood I rage at him the Christ, him the anointed one. ‘Who are you to put these pictures in my eyes!’ I say to him. ‘Thou Jew! Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God, the Lord is One! The Lord is not three and you are not the One. What kind of a Jew are you to turn the world against your people? Images are worshipped in your name! In your name Jews are sla
ughtered!’

  ‘Whatever I am,’ says Jesus, ‘I’m the one you talk to from now on.’

  I think: O God, what if he’s right? What if God’s gone and I never really had a chance to talk to him. Forgotten prayers crowd my head, I look away from Jesus, I look up to the sky. ‘Answer us, O Lord!’ I cry, ‘answer us on the Fast day of our Affliction, for we are in great trouble; turn not to our wickedness, and hide not thy presence from us, nor conceal thyself from our supplication; be near, we pray, to our cry, let thy kindness we beg, comfort us; answer us, even before we call unto thee, according to that which is said: “And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer; while they are speaking, I will hear!” For thou, O Lord, art the one that answerest in time of trouble, redeemest and deliverest in all times of trouble and distress! Blessed art thou, O Lord (Blessed be he and blessed be his name!) who answerest in time of trouble. (Amen!)’

  There was a long silence after my prayer, then Jesus said, ‘Did you feel that prayer going anywhere or did it just go out of you?’

  ‘It just went out of me,’ I said.

  ‘You’re shaking an empty tree,’ said Jesus. ‘You’re letting down your bucket in a dry well. There was no answer when the knife was on your flesh and there’ll be no answer now. And for what do you pray now? The thing has already been done and you are cut off from your generations.’

  Thou Christ!’ I say, remembering suddenly whom I’m talking to, Thou Christ who fed the hungry, cast out demons, healed the sick and raised the dead! Surely thou wilt restore me to my manhood!’

  Jesus shook his head. The fig tree stayed barren,’ he said, ‘and you will stay a eunuch; it is what you wished.’

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, I couldn’t believe what he was saying. When he said this we were not walking, I was in my bed, dispersed in two-dimensional sunlit patterns like an infinitely extending oriental carpet. I seemed to have been there for some time. ‘What did you say?’ I said.

  Jesus said, ‘I said it is what you wished.’

  I said, ‘Can you have seen Sophia and say that? I am young, the blood in me runs hot, I lust but I am unmanned. I lust, I long, I yearn, I hunger, I hum like a tuning fork, I flutter like a torn banner in the wind. That which I was I can never be again, that which I am is intolerable, that which I shall be I cannot imagine. I glimmer like a distant candle, I mottle like the sunlight on the carpet, like the shadows of leaves. I am something, I am nothing, I am here, I am gone.’

  ‘It is what you wished,’ said Jesus. ‘Only now do you hum, flutter, glimmer, mottle, be something, be nothing, be here, be gone with me. Only now are you tuned to me.’

  ‘Never did I wish to be a eunuch,’ I said, ‘and never did I wish to be tuned to you.’

  Jesus said, ‘And there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs on account of the kingdom of the heavens. The one being able to grasp it let him grasp.’

  I said, ‘I never made myself a eunuch.’

  Jesus said, ‘Life moves by exchanges; loss is the price of gain. Some pay with one thing, some with another; whatever is most dear, that is my price.’

  I said, ‘Why is that your price?’

  Jesus said, ‘What is dear is what is held dear, and there can be no holding by those who go my road; there can be no holding by those who will be here with me and gone with me.’

  I said, ‘Never did I ask to go that road, never did I wish to be here with you, gone with you.’

  Jesus said, ‘Always you wished it, and most of all when you put hand and foot to that ladder of love and pleasure. In your soul you called to me, you longed for me when you climbed that ladder. With eager hands you reached for pleasure and held it fast but whoever holds on wishes to let go because attachment is not wholeness: the only wholeness is in being with everything and attached to nothing; the only wholeness is in letting go, and I am the letting go.’

  I said, ‘I know nothing of all this.’

  ‘You will know,’ said Jesus, ‘and your knowing in time to come will make you know it now.’

  ‘What is between us, you and me?’ I said.

  ‘Everything,’ said Jesus.

  ‘Why me?’ I said.

  ‘Why not you?’ said Jesus.

  I, Pilgermann, poor bare tuned fork, humming with the for-everness of the Word that is always Now. Unbearing the Unbearable, intolerating the Intolerable, being not enough for the Too-Muchness. I, poor harp of a Jew twanging incessantly in the mouth of Jesus, in the lion-mouth of Christ Pandamator, Christ All-Subduer. There is a point where pattern becomes motion; the pattern has found me and I must move, must be aware of moving, must be a motion, an action of the Word. Poor bare tuned fork.

  ‘Blessed are they that are tuned to me,’ said Jesus.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Because they shall move,’ said Jesus. ‘They shall go, they shall have action.’

  While he was saying that I was thinking: I, poor eunuch of my Lord, neither sheep nor goat, neither of the left hand nor of the right, subject always to Christ the redeemer, the ransom, the sacrifice, victim, torturer, murderer, bringer of death. Iesous Christous Thanatophoros. Kyrios.

  Jesus said, ‘I am the light of day. Do you believe?’

  ‘I believe,’ I said.

  Jesus said, ‘I am the energy that will not be still. I am a movement and a rest but at the same time I am all movement and no rest and you will have no rest but in the constant motion of me. Do you believe?’

  ‘I believe,’ I said.

  ‘Why do you believe?’ said Jesus.

  ‘No belief is necessary,’ I said. ‘It manifests itself.’

  Jesus said, ‘Why in your mind do you call me bringer of death? Why in your mind am I Iesous Christous Thanatophoros?’

  I said, ‘How can I not think of you as Thanatophoros? Whoever wants to kill a Jew does it in your name. In your name they kill the seed that gave you life.’

  Jesus said, ‘From me came the seed that gave me life.’

  4

  There arises the question of the tax-collector. Drifting in my oriental-carpet patterns I see him high above me, sitting on his horse and looking down at me the bloody and castrated Jew, the mutilated and unmanned thing that has cuckolded him and entered the golden Jerusalem of his wife. Although he has never taken any notice of me he has seen me often enough in the town, he has me on his records, he knows me for a Jew. Famous as he is for his hatred and loathing of Jews, why has he saved my life? It is true that it is my castrated life that he has saved. Can there be some meaning, some message in this? Can he possibly know what has happened between his wife and me? Impossible. It happened only a few hours before he saw me, at a time when he was somewhere else altogether, there was no time for him to be told of it. But is it possible that he never left the town, that he became suspicious of the lurking Jew, pretended to go away but circled back unseen to see what happened? Possible. Or might he simply have instructed a servant to observe carefully and report to him in whatever place he has gone to? Even more possible. Well, which is it then—does he know or doesn’t he know? I have no idea. No, I don’t believe that he knows, I don’t think that he has been suspicious, I don’t think that it would ever occur to him as a possibility that a Jew should enter where he has entered.

  But wait, maybe he dreams of such a thing constantly; maybe he is utterly consumed by the thought of a Jew by night creeping in through the window to enjoy his wife, maybe it burns in him like a constant lamp, maybe it is the one thing wanting for his happiness and peace. He sees me hanging about, sees the possibility, absents himself in hope. The wife opens the Jerusalem of her body to the lusting Jew, then as an unexpected treat the Jew is caught by the peasant soldiers of Christ, he is flung to the cobbles, stripped, castrated, he lies there shuddering in his blood and vomit while his penis and testicles are eaten by a sow. His fading lust renewed, the husband returns as a giant refreshed to the guilty and submissive wife whose only thought is to anticipate and satisfy his every dem
and. Is that how it is? God knows.

  Can there be, there must be, some reasonable explanation, but what can it be? Here is a Jew, one of the people this man hates, lying bloody on the cobblestones, his death only a moment away. Why should the tax-collector have any interest whatever in saving the life of this man? And why should he say either ‘Pray for me’ or ‘Kick me’?

  When I become exhausted with thinking about the tax-collector my mind, like an automaton that cannot be stopped, returns again and again to the castration itself: if only I had taken another way home, if only I had turned and run, if only I had fought harder. Those faces above me in that dawn, I have seen such faces centuries later in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Ah, the tax-collector again! I have seen his face, his particular face, in a particular painting by Bosch, a painting of Christ being crowned with thorns. The tax-collector is that man wearing the spiked red leather collar and a black astrakhan hat on which there is a sprig of oak leaves with an acorn. In his left hand he holds a staff, his right hand is on Christ’s right shoulder; almost comforting and consoling that hand seems: ‘Bear up, old fellow; be brave; it’ll all be over soon’ might be the message of that hand. Maybe that man with the tax-collector’s face is Pontius Pilate and he’s saying, ‘I find no fault in you but this is how it must be; I wish it could be otherwise.’ A troubled man, Pontius Pilate; he died by his own hand some years later—that same hand, probably, that rests on Christ’s shoulder in the painting. There it was on the end of his arm year after year: feeding him, writing letters, caressing his wife, holding whatever there was in life for him to hold. Suddenly it lets go of everything and jumps up and kills him. For how many years did that thought lurk in the hand? Always, perhaps. In this way are human hands made by God; they carry in them always a last mortal judgment. Perhaps it was to protect himself from that hand that Pilate wore such a spiked collar. Is this then a clue to the tax-collector’s strange behaviour towards me? Did some time, perhaps in the dead of night, his hand leap up and take him by the throat and say, ‘Jews also must live!’ Perhaps his hand said this on the very same night that my hand took hold of his naked wife! Only now, as these thoughts move among the waves and particles of me, do I perceive that every hand is the hand of God: hands doing good and hands doing evil, are not they all His (Its) work? Think of the constant action of all the hands of all the world, gathering and scattering, building and destroying and praying, holding on and letting go.