"Do you know," he asked me, smiling, "that the old Persians, they thought that . . . during the last millennia before the final Resurrection men would gradually turn away from the eating of meat and milk, and even plants, and that they would be sustained only on water? Pure water."
"And then would come the Resurrection."
"Yes, the bony world would rise . . . the valley of bones would come to life." He smiled. "So I think sometimes, when I want to comfort myself that angels of might, demons of might, things such as me . . . that we are simply the last stage of humans . . . when humans can live on only water. So ... we're not unholy. We are simply very far advanced."
I smiled. "There are those who believe our earthly bodies are only one biological stage, that spirits constitute another, that it's all a matter of atoms and particles, as you've said."
"You pay attention to those people?"
"Of course. I have no fear of death. I hope that my light will rejoin the light of God, but perhaps it won't. But I pay attention, lots of attention to what others believe. This isn't an age of indifference, though it may seem so."
"Yes, I agree with you," he said. "It's a practical, pragmatic time, when decency is the prime virtue-you know, decent clothes, decent shelter, decent food-"
"Yes," I said.
"But it's also a time of great luxurious spiritual thinking, maybe the only time when such thinking carries no penalty, for after all, one can preach anything and not be dragged away in chains. There is no Inquisition in the heart of anyone."
"No, there's an Inquisition, alive in the hearts of all fundamentalists of all sects, but they don't in most parts of the world have the nower to drag away the prophet or the blasphemer. That's what you've observed." "Yes," he said. There was a pause. He sat up, obviously refreshed and willing to talk again. He turned slightly towards me, his left elbow back a bit, his arm outstretched on the arm of the chair. The gold on the blue velvet ran in loops and circles, which no doubt had a venerable history as a pattern, perhaps even a name. It was thick gold thread. It was twinkling in the light of the fire.
He glanced at the tapes. I made the gesture that we were all ears, all of us, the tapes and me.
"Cyrus kept his word," he said, with a shrug. "To everyone. He kept his word to my father's family, to the Hebrews of Babylon. Those Hebrews that wanted to, and not all did, by the way, but those that wanted to, went back to Zion and rebuilt the temple and the Persians were never cruel to Palestine. Trouble came only centuries later with the Romans, as we've said. And you know too that many, many Jews stayed in Babylon and they studied there and wrote the Talmud there, and Babylon was a place of great learning until some horrible day in later centuries when it was burnt and then destroyed. But that came much later. I wanted to tell you first of the two masters who taught me everything that would be of use."
I nodded. He let a silence fall and I didn't disturb it.
I looked into the fire, and for a moment I felt a dizziness, as if the pace of life, my heart, my breath, the world itself, had gradually slowed. The fire was made of wood I hadn't brought here. The fire was full of cedar as well as oak and other wood. It was perfumed and crackling, and for a moment I thought again that perhaps I was dead, that this was some kind of mental stage. I could smell incense, and a feeling of ineffable happiness came over me. I knew I was sick. I had a pain in my chest and my throat, but these things were of no importance at all. I merely felt happy. What if I am dead, I thought.
"You're alive," he said in a soft, even voice. "May the Lord God Bless you and Keep you."
He was watching me. He said nothing.
"What is it, Azriel?" I asked.
"Only that I like you," he said. "Forgive me. I knew your books, I loved them, but I didn't know . . . that I would like you. I foresee now what my existence is going to be ... I see