Gradually I extend the sphere of my control beyond the perimeter of the island. I have established a shark-free zone just off shore within an encircling reef. There I swim in perfect safety, and when hunger comes, I draw friendly fishes forth with my hands.
I fashion images out of clouds: April, Irene. I simulate the features of Dr. Richard Bjornstrand in the heavens. I draw April and Irene together, and they blur, they become one woman.
Getting close to the coast now. Another day or two and I’ll be there.
This is the mainland. I guide my island into a wide half-moon harbor, shadowed by the great naked mountains that rise like filed black teeth from the nearby interior. The island pushes out a sturdy woody cable that ties it to its berth; using the cable as a gangplank, I go ashore. The air is cooler here. The vegetation is sparse and cactusoidal: thick fleshy thorn-studded purplish barrels, mainly, taller than I. I strike one with a log and pale pink fluid gushes from it: I taste it and find it cool, sugary, vaguely intoxicating.
Cactus fluid sustains me during a five-day journey to the summit of the closest mountain. Bare feet slap against bare rock. Heat by day, lunar chill by night; the boulders twang at twilight as the warmth leaves them. At my back sprawls the sea, infinite, silent. The air is spangled with the frowning faces of women. I ascend by a slow spiral route, pausing frequently to rest, and push myself onward until at last I stand athwart the highest spine of the range. On the inland side the mountains drop away steeply into a tormented irregular valley, boulder-strewn and icy, slashed by glittering white lakes like so many narrow lesions. Beyond that is a zone of low breast-shaped hills, heavily forested, descending into a central lowlands out of which rises a pulsing fountain of light—jagged phosphorescent bursts of blue and gold and green and red that rocket into the air, attenuate, and are lost. I dare not approach that fountain; I will be consumed, I know, in its fierce intensity, for there the essence of April has its lair, the savage soul-core that must never be invaded by another.
I turn seaward and look to my left, down the coast. At first I see nothing extraordinary: a row of scalloped bays, some strips of sandy beach, a white line of surf, a wheeling flock of dark birds. But then I detect, far along the shore, a more remarkable feature. Two long slender promontories jut from the mainland like curved fingers, a thumb and a forefinger reaching toward one another, and in the wide gulf enclosed between them the sea churns in frenzy, as though it boils. At the vortex of the disturbance, though, all is calm. There! There is Charybdis! The maelstrom!
It would take me days to reach it overland. The sea route will be quicker. Hurrying down the slopes, I return to my island and sever the cable that binds it to shore. Perversely, it grows again. Some malign influence is negating my power. I sever; the cable reunites. I sever; it reunites. Again, again, again. Exasperated, I cause a fissure to pierce the island from edge to edge at the place where my cable is rooted; the entire segment surrounding that anchor breaks away and remains in the harbor, held fast, while the remainder of the island drifts toward the open sea.
Wait. The process of fission continues of its own momentum. The island is calving like a glacier, disintegrating, huge fragments breaking away. I leap desperately across yawning crevasses, holding always to the largest sector, struggling to rebuild my floating home, until I realize that nothing significant remains of the island, only an ever-diminishing raft of coral rock, halving and halving again. My island is no more than ten meters square now. Five. Less than five. Gone.
I always dreaded the ocean. That great inverted bowl of chilly water, resonating with booming salty sounds, infested with dark rubbery weeds, inhabited by toothy monsters—it preyed on my spirit, draining me, filling itself from me. Of course it was the northern sea I knew and hated, the dull dirty Atlantic, licking greasily at the Massachusetts coast. A black rocky shoreline, impenetrable mysteries of water, a line of morning debris cluttering the scanty sandy coves, a host of crabs and lesser scuttlers crawling everywhere. While swimming I imagined unfriendly sea-beasts nosing around my dangling legs. I looked with distaste upon that invisible shimmering clutter of hairy-clawed planktonites, that fantasia of fibrous filaments and chittering antennae. And I dreaded most of all the slow lazy stirring of the Kraken, idly sliding its vast tentacles upward toward the boats of the surface. And here I am adrift on the sea’s own breast. April’s face in the sky wears a smile. The face of Irene flexes into a wink.
I am drawn toward the maelstrom. Swimming is unnecessary; the water carries me purposefully toward my goal. Yet I swim, all the same, stroke after stroke, yielding nothing to the force of the sea. The first promontory is coming into view. I swim all the more energetically. I will not allow the whirlpool to capture me; I must give myself willingly to it.
Now I swing round and round in the outer gyres of Charybdis. This is the place through which the spirit is drained: I can see April’s pallid face like an empty plastic mask, hovering, drawn downward, disappearing chin-first through the whirlpool’s vortex, reappearing, going down once more, an infinite cycle of drownings and disappearances and returns and resurrections. I must follow her.
No use pretending to swim here. One can only keep one’s arms and legs pressed close together and yield, as one is sluiced down through level after level of the maelstrom until one reaches the heart of the eddy, and then—swoosh!—the ultimate descent. Now I plummet. The tumble takes forever. From morn to noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve. I rocket downward through the hollow heart of the whirlpool, gripped in a monstrous suction, until abruptly I am delivered to a dark region of cold quiet water, far below the surface of the sea. My lungs ache; my rib-cage, distended over a bloated lump of hot depleted air, shoots angry protests into my armpits. I glide along the smooth vertical face of a submerged mountain. My feet find lodging on a ledge; I grope my way along it and come at length to the mouth of a cave, set at a sharp angle against the steep wall of stone. I topple into it.
Within, I find an air-filled pocket of a room, dank, slippery, lit by some inexplicable inner glow. April is there, huddled against the back of the cave. She is naked, shivering, sullen, her hair pasted in damp strands to the pale column of her neck. Seeing me, she rises but does not come forward. Her breasts are small, her hips narrow, her thighs slender: a child’s body.
I reach a hand toward her. “Come. Let’s swim out of here together, April.”
“No. It’s impossible. I’ll drown.”
“I’ll be with you.”
“Even so,” she says. “I’ll drown, I know it.”
“What are you going to do, then? Just stay here?”
“For the time being.”
“Until when?”
“Until it’s safe to come out,” she says.
“When will that be?”
“I’ll know.”
“I’ll wait with you. All right?”
I don’t hurry her. At last she says, “Let’s go now.”
This time I am the one who hesitates, to my own surprise. It is as if there has been an interchange of strength in this cave and I have been weakened. I draw back, but she takes my hand and leads me firmly to the mouth of the cave. I see the water swirling outside, held at bay because it has no way of expelling the bubble of air that fills our pocket in the mountain wall. April begins to glide down the slick passageway that takes us from the cave. She is excited, radiant, eyes bright, breasts heaving. “Come,” she says. “Now! Now!”
We spill out of the cave together.
The water hammers me. I gasp, choke, tumble. The pressure is appalling. My eardrums scream shrill complaints. Columns of water force themselves into my nostrils. I feel the whirlpool dancing madly far above me. In terror I turn and try to scramble back into the cave, but it will not have me, and rebounding impotently against a shield of air, I let myself be engulfed by the water. I am beginning to drown, I think. My eyes deliver no images. Dimly I am aware of April tugging at me, grasping me, pulling me upward. What will she do, swim through the whirlpool fr
om below? All is darkness. I perceive only the touch of her hand. I struggle to focus my eyes, and finally I see her through a purple chaos. How much like Irene she looks! Which is she, April or Irene? It scarcely matters. Drowning is my occupation now. It will all be over soon. Let me go, I tell her, let me go, let me do my drowning and be done with it. Save yourself. Save yourself. Save yourself. But she pays no heed and continues to tug.
We erupt into the sunlight.
Bobbing at the surface, we bask in glorious warmth. “Look,” she cries. “There’s an island! Swim, Richard, swim! We’ll be there in ten minutes. We can rest there.”
Irene’s face fills the sky.
“Swim!” April urges.
I try. I am without strength. A few strokes and I lapse into stupor. April, apparently unaware, is far ahead of me. April, I call. April. April, help me. I think of the beach, the warm moist sand, the row of palms, the intricate texture of the white coral boulders. Yes. Time to go home. Irene is waiting for me. April! April!
She scrambles ashore. Her slim bare form glistens in the hot sunlight.
April?
The sea has me. I drift away, foolish flotsam, borne again toward the maelstrom.
Down. Down. No way to fight it. April is gone. I see only Irene, shimmering in the waves. Down.
This cool dark cave.
Where am I? I don’t know.
Who am I? Dr. Richard Bjornstrand? April Lowry? Both of those? Neither of those? I think I’m Bjornstrand. Was. Here, Dickie Dickie Dickie.
How do I get out of here? I don’t know.
I’ll wait. Sooner or later I’ll be strong enough to swim out. Sooner. Later. We’ll see.
Irene?
April?
Here, Dickie Dickie Dickie. Here.
Where?
Here.
THE DYBBUK OF MAZEL TOV IV
A certain ethnic quality had been creeping into my science fiction in the early 1970’s—representing, I think, nothing more than boredom with the conventional Anglo-Saxonicity of most science fiction, to which I had generally adhered in my own writing. This rebellion against stereotype had surfaced fairly explicitly in the novels I wrote in 1971, Dying Inside and The Book of Skulls, leading one perplexed admirer to tell me something like, “I sure do like your stuff, but why all the Jewishness?” (To which I replied, a little testily, “Why not?”) But all my ethnic phase amounted to, really, was using characters with names like David Selig and Eli Steinfeld instead of Kimball Kinnison and Michael Valentine Smith. There was no real sense of Jewish cultural tradition about my characters: more of a New Yorkiness than a Jewishness, in fact, for they were, like their creator, assimilated, non-observing Jews, linked to the tribe only by inheritance and osmosis.
Then my good friend Jack Dann asked me to do a story for a book called Wandering Stars, an anthology of what he called “Jewish science fiction.” I thought that was an odd idea for a book, even a wrong-headed one. The balkanization of s-f—Jewish s-f, black s-f, feminist s-f, WASP s-f—didn’t seem right to me. Setting up such arbitrary divisions imposed limits on a field that ought to have infinite horizons. Then I came around to the other side of the issue: the very limitation Jack was imposing might just provide an interesting intellectual challenge. And so I signed on.
“The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV” was written in July of 1972, at a time when most of my fiction was tending to be fragmentary and elliptical in manner, the work of a writer who had grown really weary of telling stories in the conventional mode; and yet somehow this one came out pure storytelling, old-fashioned in construction and style, a refreshing relapse into a mode of fiction that I had nearly abandoned. It was a joy to write and I think it’s fun to read. It’s also the only story of mine that owes anything much to the cultural background in which I was ostensibly raised.
——————
My grandson David will have his bar mitzvah next spring. No one in our family has undergone that rite in at least three hundred years—certainly not since we Levins settled in Old Israel, the Israel on Earth, soon after the European Holocaust. My friend Eliahu asked me not long ago how I feel about David’s bar mitzvah, whether the idea of it angers me, whether I see it as a disturbing element. No, I replied: the boy is a Jew, after all, let him have a bar mitzvah if he wants one. These are times of transition and upheaval, as all times are. David is not bound by the attitudes of his ancestors.
“Since when is a Jew not bound by the attitudes of his ancestors?” Eliahu asked.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
Indeed he did. We are bound but yet free. If anything governs us out of the past it is the tribal bond itself, not the philosophies of our departed kinsmen. We accept what we choose to accept; nevertheless we remain Jews. I come from a family that has liked to say—especially to Gentiles—that we are Jews but not Jewish; that is, we acknowledge and cherish our ancient heritage, but we do not care to entangle ourselves in outmoded rituals and folkways. This is what my forefathers declared, as far back as those secular-minded Levins who fought, three centuries ago, to win and guard the freedom of the land of Israel. (Old Israel, I mean.) I would say the same here, if there were any Gentiles on this world to whom such things had to be explained. But of course in this New Israel in the stars we have only ourselves, no Gentiles within a dozen light-years, unless you count our neighbors the Kunivaru as Gentiles. (Can creatures that are not human rightly be called Gentiles? I’m not sure the term applies. Besides, the Kunivaru now insist that they are Jews. My mind spins. It’s an issue of Talmudic complexity, and, God knows, I’m no Talmudist. Hillel, Akiva, Rashi, help me!) Anyway, come the fifth day of Sivan my son’s son will have his bar mitzvah, and I’ll play the proud grandpa as pious old Jews have done for six thousand years.
All things are connected. That my grandson would have a bar mitzvah is merely the latest link in a chain of events that goes back to—when? To the day the Kunivaru decided to embrace Judaism? To the day the dybbuk entered Seul the Kunivar? To the day we refugees from Earth discovered the fertile planet that we sometimes call New Israel and sometimes call Mazel Tov IV? To the day of the Final Pogrom on Earth? Reb Yossele the Hassid might say that David’s bar mitzvah was determined on the day the Lord God fashioned Adam out of dust. But I think that would be overdoing things.
The day the dybbuk took possession of the body of Seul the Kunivar was probably where it really started. Until then things were relatively uncomplicated here. The Hassidim had their settlement, we Israelis had ours, and the natives, the Kunivaru, had the rest of the planet; and generally we all kept out of one another’s way. After the dybbuk everything changed. It happened more than forty years ago, in the first generation after the Landing, on the ninth day of Tishri in the year 6302. I was working in the fields, for Tishri is a harvest month. The day was hot, and I worked swiftly, singing and humming. As I moved down the long rows of crackle-pods, tagging those that were ready to be gathered, a Kunivar appeared at the crest of the hill that overlooks our kibbutz. It seemed to be in some distress, for it came staggering and lurching down the hillside with extraordinary clumsiness, tripping over its own four legs as if it barely knew how to manage them. When it was about a hundred meters from me it cried out, “Shimon! Help me, Shimon! In God’s name help me!”
There were several strange things about this outcry, and I perceived them gradually, the most trivial first. It seemed odd that a Kunivar would address me by my given name, for they are a formal people. It seemed more odd that a Kunivar would speak to me in quite decent Hebrew, for at that time none of them had learned our language. It seemed most odd of all—but I was slow to discern it—that a Kunivar would have the very voice, dark and resonant, of my dear dead friend Joseph Avneri.
The Kunivar stumbled into the cultivated part of the field and halted, trembling terribly. Its fine green fur was pasted into hummocks by perspiration and its great golden eyes rolled and crossed in a ghastly way. It stood flat-footed, splaying its legs out under the four corners o
f its chunky body like the legs of a table, and clasped its long powerful arms around its chest. I recognized the Kunivar as Seul, a sub-chief of the local village, with whom we of the kibbutz had had occasional dealings.
“What help can I give you?” I asked. “What has happened to you, Seul?”
“Shimon—Shimon—” A frightful moan came from the Kunivar. “Oh, God, Shimon, it goes beyond all belief! How can I bear this? How can I even comprehend it?”
No doubt of it. The Kunivar was speaking in the voice of Joseph Avneri.
“Seul?” I said hesitantly.
“My name is Joseph Avneri.”
“Joseph Avneri died a year ago last Elul. I didn’t realize you were such a clever mimic, Seul.”
“Mimic? You speak to me of mimicry, Shimon? It’s no mimicry. I am your Joseph, dead but still aware, thrown for my sins into this monstrous alien body. Are you Jew enough to know what a dybbuk is, Shimon?”
“A wandering ghost, yes, who takes possession of the body of a living being.”
“I have become a dybbuk.”
“There are no dybbuks. Dybbuks are phantoms out of medieval folklore,” I said.
“You hear the voice of one.”
“This is impossible,” I said.
“I agree, Shimon, I agree.” He sounded calmer now. “It’s entirely impossible. I don’t believe in dybbuks either, any more than I believe in Zeus, the Minotaur, werewolves, gorgons, or golems. But how else do you explain me?”
“You are Seul the Kunivar, playing a clever trick.”
“Do you really think so? Listen to me, Shimon: I knew you when we were boys in Tiberias. I rescued you when we were fishing in the lake and our boat overturned. I was with you the day you met Leah whom you married. I was godfather to your son Yigal. I studied with you at the university in Jerusalem. I fled with you in the fiery days of the Final Pogrom. I stood watch with you aboard the Ark in the years of our flight from Earth. Do you remember, Shimon? Do you remember Jerusalem? The Old City, the Mount of Olives, the Tomb of Absalom, the Western Wall? Am I a Kunivar, Shimon, to know of the Western Wall?”