"I also realized it had in it, this brew, the seeds that people chew to see visions, and a great deal of the potions they drink to make them have wild dreams, and I knew those intoxicants would ease my pain and blur my thoughts. 'Who knows? Maybe I'll miss my own death,'
I thought.
"Remath came to me. His face was very simple and there was no meanness in him. He spoke almost sorrowfully.
" 'We won't put on the final garments until dawn,' he said. 'They are ready in the other chamber. The gold boils but it will cool, you needn't fear, it will be cool and thick when we apply it to your skin. Now, what can we bring you, lord God, Marduk, what can we bring you to make you happy tonight?'
" 'I think I want to go to sleep,' I said. 'I fear that boiling gold.'
" 'No, it will be cooled,' said Asenath. 'Remember you must live long days whilst this gold eats into you. It will be cooled. You must be a smiling god as long as you can, and then a god with his hand lifted as long as you can, and then a seeing god as long as you can.'
" 'Yes, all right, leave me.'
" 'You don't want to pray to our own god?' asked Asenath.
" 'I wouldn't dare,' I whispered.
"I turned my back, and closed my eyes. And strangely enough I did sleep.
"They covered me with the softest blanket. That was sweet.
"I slept from sheer exhaustion, as though the ordeal lay behind me rather than ahead. I slept. And what I dreamed I don't know. What does it matter? I do remember being puzzled that I didn't want to see Marduk again; I remember thinking, Why is that, why am I not weeping on his shoulder? But that was just it, I didn't want to weep on anyone's shoulder. I had been dealt the mortal blow. I didn't know what lay ahead. The smoke, the fog, the flame, or power such as his. I couldn't know. And neither could he.
"I think I began to sing the psalm I loved so much of home and then I thought, The hell with it, Jerusalem will be theirs, not mine.
"A vision came to me. I think it was from Ezekiel, whom we were always copying at home, always fighting about, and arguing about. . . it was a vision of a valley of bones, the bones of all the dead, the bones of all mortal men and women and children. And I didn't think of the bones rising, I didn't think of them called to life. I simply saw them, and I thought, 'For that valley, I do this, for that valley, for all of us who are merely human.'
"Was I too proud? I don't know. I was young. I wanted nothing. I slept. And too soon, too soon indeed, came the lamps and the light and the distant shine of the sun on marble floors far from the doors of the chamber."
Part I Chapter 7
7
I was dizzy. I think it was the fumes. All night the kettle had cooked its immense blend of golden glaze, such a huge amount of gold and lead and whatever else went into it. The perfume was rich and delicious and I reeled.
"They stood me on my feet.
"I shook myself all over to waken more, to make the lamps stop hurting my eyes. That was sunlight, wasn't it? Asenath was there, and then the priests began to apply the gold. They began at my feet, telling me to stand straight and firm, and they covered my legs all over with the gold, painstakingly, in motions that were almost soothing. It was warm, but it didn't hurt. It held no sting whatsoever. They painted my face slowly. They brought the paint up into my nostrils, and they covered my eyelashes, one by one, and then they took the ringlets of my hair and my beard and one by one made them golden. "By now I was fully awake. " 'Keep your eyes wide,' said Asenath.
"Then they brought all the fine robes of Marduk. Now these were real clothes which were put on the statue every day, but I saw now what they meant to do, not trim them with gold but to coat them, so that indeed I would seem a living statue.
"They dressed me, and this they began to do, painting each fold of the long robe, the