Jewel of the Moon: Short Stories, Page 5

  The lifeguard was Gary Gerrity—a powerful swimmer and good-natured bully who kept the children in fear of him. He was proud of his lifeguard’s jacket and the whistle which he blew throughout the day. His presence at the beach lent the necessary shadow to keep it from being a riot of fun and splashing, for when he was around the air was filled with words of drowning and rescue. To impress mothers with the dignity of his office, in red and white trunks and jacket, whistle screeching, he often dangled in front of them the image of a bloated corpse he’d seen pulled out of an unguarded lake.

  That summer he was involved with Stella Lavelle, a tall beautiful creature, shy, pale, abstracted. She walked with him at night, and went for rides in his car, and parked with him on dark roads, but seemed faraway, as if remembering, or dreaming, of someone else.

  Gerrity made a great show of their romance, pressing her close on the square-dance floor every Saturday night, keeping the other young men at a distance from her with threatening glances. The only one who challenged Gerrity’s exclusive hold on Stella was the square-dance fiddler, a bony, spectral gambler in iridescent cowboy shirt who flirted openly with Stella, and danced with her, wildly stamping his feet and making the old pavilion echo with his whoops and shouts, which all the Music Lakers loved. Gerrity looked on, smiling at the summer fun, and secretly wanting to murder the fiddler in the moonlight. But there was something in those hollow hillbilly eyes that paralyzed Gerrity’s courage, and he was still more weakened by the look which Stella always wore when she returned from the fiddler’s dancing, something sad in her eyes, whose mystery made her all the more beautiful to Gerrity, flaming the tormented ecstasy of his love.

  He increased his attention, growing tyrannical with her. She grew irritable, and several times broke away from him on the dance floor. Even the children were aware of the uneasy state of the affair: when Gerrity came to the beach in his red jacket the little girls whispered and giggled, and the little boys disobeyed his orders.

  Gerrity purchased an engagement ring in town. The ring represented the whole of his summer wages, but as he drove back up to the top of Music Mountain with the precious gem in his pocket, he felt he had crushed the opposition. It was now late August. Soon they would be leaving the lake and returning to school, and Stella would be surrounded by other chances. But she would have his ring, the little glittering chip of his heart, and she would be caught in the diamond’s blue-white spell. At evening, as they sat alone on the dock, Gerrity gave Stella the ring and she flung it in the lake.

  Next day no swimmers were allowed in the water. Gerrity was diving with a snorkel mask. The beach was crowded with children, teenagers, adults, who cheered him on as he went down. Again and again he dove through the cold green water to the puzzling bottom. All was quiet there, except for the bubbling of his mask, as he picked his way through the tangled weeds, and slowly lifted each stone.

  Disturbance Reported on a Pipeline

  “There are local superstitions about this rock,” said the driver, pointing to the towering pillar that rose into the desert sky.

  “Is that so?” said Burgoine, not interested. They had come across the border from Israel and were in the Euphrates valley, near Al Kufah. Their packs were filled with explosives, and Burgoine did not give a damn about the huge rock beneath which they were camped.

  “I regret I cannot relate the superstitions to you,” said the driver, “but I am faulty in the dialect.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Burgoine.

  “It might have passed the time,” said the driver.

  Their camp was hidden and protected by rocks. Should a patrol come upon them, their papers identified them as a French archeological expedition, under the favor of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities. This cover was worthless, for if they were handed over to the Directorate of Security, the papers would bounce and they would enjoy imprisonment in Bagdad. Their interrogation, performed by a specialist from Turkey, would be delightful. Burgoine broke open the submachine gun and cleaned the already glistening barrel.

  The driver, like most Bedouins, enjoyed talk, especially at night by the fire. “The holy men of our tribe once said I had wajh khayr —a lucky face.”

  “Go to sleep in your lucky face,” said Burgoine. “I’ll keep watch.”

  Seeing that his employer was not a man who appreciated the beauty of campfire conversation, the driver crawled into his bag and was instantly asleep. Burgoine watched the driver’s chest rise and fall, regularly. The driver knew the desert, and knew how to keep a jeep running. They would reach the oil line tomorrow evening, at Ar Rutbah. They would explode the line northeast of the pumping station, then drive to the main highway, and be swallowed there in the traffic to Bagdad.

  Burgoine watched the red light of a plane winking across the stars and wished himself on it, seated in amongst the sleeping passengers. Then the droning of the plane was gone and he gave the driver’s bag a kick. “Tell me about the petroleum police.”

  “The petroleum police,” said the driver, instantly awake to the conversation, “are of the least noble blood.”

  “What about communications and transport?”

  “A thing to be despised.”

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “We will die of old age before they catch us.”

  Burgoine withdrew the archeologist’s map from his jacket. The driver’s snoring resumed, and Burgoine studied the map, trying to make sense out of it. The cities upon it were the buried cities of ancient history, and its roads traced the routes of Xenophon, Alexander, and Julian in their war marches. Burgoine drew some lines lightly on the map, then erased them. The flames of the campfire rose up in a final brilliant burst and receded into embers, and he could no longer see clearly.

  He watched out over the stone wastes. Nothing could approach them from behind, for it was rock wall. And then to disprove this, he heard a footstep behind him, and his mind was suddenly racing, making curious connections—a certain café appearing and a woman’s face passing on the Rue des Malmaisons on a night of no particular significance, and this went on alone and apart from the physical reality of the cloaked figure he saw slip out from behind the rock.

  Burgoine’s submachine gun came up; the cloaked figure spun toward him, raising a hand, drawing it back, sending a knife through the starlight.

  Burgoine ducked it, but something stayed his finger on the trigger of his own weapon, because of the incredible nature of the movements now being made by the cloaked man, who had thrown no knife, who was only thrusting both hands forward, again and again, making hypnotic gestures at Burgoine.

  Burgoine walked toward the little man, who continued his gesturing, splaying his fingers out in tense design, then coiling them back and shooting them out again.

  “Here now,” said Burgoine, grabbing hold of the man’s wrist.

  The man started babbling, and made various signs in the air, as if talking the language of the deaf.

  “What have we caught?” asked the driver, taking hold of the little man’s other arm and questioning him in the language of the desert. The little man answered, with Burgoine scrutinizing him carefully. His cloak hung in many threadbare patches. The eyes were not afraid, but seemed slightly mad or deeply outraged.

  “He says he came to pray,” said the driver.

  “Tell him he’s a thief.”

  The driver translated; the little man replied with a hissing invective, and made several more finger gestures at Burgoine, then pointed at the rock.

  “He says he is a priest of Marduk. This is Marduk’s rock.”

  “Bring him over to the fire.”

  “I thought perhaps we might torture him,” said the driver, stirring up the embers.

  “No, tell him to sit down. We’ve got to hang onto him until dawn. Then we’ll go our way and he can go his.”

  “If you are not going to torture him, permit me to return to my sleep. I was dreaming of the Sabaean women, than which there are none more beautiful.”r />
  “Find out who Marduk is,” said Burgoine. “Headquarters should know if a new chief has taken control of this area.”

  “I may have to use force.”

  “You’re big on torture, aren’t you.”

  “I was once a candidate for the police force,” said the nomad proudly, and menaced the little man with a piece of burning wood, but the captive was not reluctant to talk, and the driver translated.

  “I am the son of the son of the golden chain of sons of the priests of Marduk. All the ancient spells are mine, but they no longer work.” He made a hypnotic gesture toward Burgoine again.

  “He says that a magic knife should have pierced your heart.”

  “Tell him he should be better armed.”

  “Alas, the faith has been destroyed,” said the priest, through the hesitant translation of the driver. “That is why my magic no longer works. It does not even work on lizards any longer, though last year it worked on a toad.” The priest gestured toward the great open waste that surrounded the rock pillar, his ragged sleeves billowing against the stars.

  “This plain was once filled with the hundred thousand faithful who worshipped the One God, the Mighty, the Omnipotent, the All-wise Marduk.” He raised his arms again and spread them wide, as if raining down a blessing on the hundred thousand worshippers of old.

  “Ask him if Marduk is still around,” said Burgoine, trying to keep it all in perspective for headquarters.

  “Flower-maids came in carloads,” said the distraught priest, ignoring the question. “They circled the great tower of the illustrious God, strewing flowers, and then laid themselves down before the priests at the base of the tower. Marduk loves women and in the great days cast Himself into a thousand priests at once, that His enjoyment might be enormous and befitting His divine taste. Alas, there are no more flower-maids.” The priest sighed and beat his breast with a slow tattoo of his fists.

  “I understand how he feels,” said Burgoine. “No more flower-maids. Ask him again where Marduk is camped.”

  The priest lowered his knees to the sand and bowed his head to the great stone behind them, his voice going low. “Marduk abides in His Heaven, where He has always been. Alas, His Heaven too is empty. Once it held the hundred thousand faithful, and once this pillar of rock was covered with the magic constitution of his reign.”

  The priest lifted his head and pointed to various parts of the rock, but Burgoine saw only beaten stone, cracked by time and smoothed by rain. “Must have been a long time ago.”

  “It was in the time of Hammurabi,” said the priest. “Then Marduk was mighty in battle, leading the people to triumph and establishing the borders of His kingdom.”

  “Hammurabi?” Burgoine looked at the driver.

  “Yes, he says that all this happened in Bab-elim, in Babylon, two thousand years ago. I am glad now we did not torture him. It is not good to torture the insane.”

  “Ask him if he’s seen any patrols lately.”

  The driver asked, but the priest seemed not to be listening. His eyes had welled with tears, and his cheeks became bright with them, as he spoke softly into the fire. “The cloak I wear—” He pointed to different parts of the faded patchwork. “—contains pieces of the ancient vestments. I am the only priest of Marduk left, and I carry the ear-whispered secrets of the God in my heart, secrets whispered from one priest to another, down through the Ten Times.” The priest’s voice went low, as he rocked in the firelight. “I am the only worshipper left. The God’s reign has ended. I know that He must die. His once-beautiful clothes are in disarray, just as is the face of His tower.”

  “Does he see this God?”

  “I see Him in my mist.”

  “That is the word he used,” explained the driver. “He sees Him in his mist. As I said, I am faulty in the dialect.”

  “Marduk’s memory is failing,” continued the priest, as if eager to unburden himself of his secret. “He cannot remember His origin. The vast spectacle of his reign, so filled with event, has become blurred in His once-perfect mind. I see Him in my mist but not as my ancestors saw Him. He is now old and enfeebled. But I continue to keep in memory all the glorious attributes of the God, which He Himself has lost.”

  Burgoine looked down again at the ancient map. We might escape back to the southwest, into Israel. But the border there will be popping. No, it must be the midnight flight out of Bagdad.

  The priest of Marduk bowed again before his rock. Then, as if embarrassed for his ragged appearance, he drew himself up straight, taking a pose of dignity as he spoke to the two saboteurs. “To serve the dying God in His death agony is a greater privilege than to have known Him in His days of splendor. The God will die alone, with a single priest to pray for Him.” He bowed to the rock and whispered inaudibly.

  The driver crept back into his sleeping bag. Almost instantly he was snoring again. Burgoine looked out over the great plain, where the wind was sighing and the hundred thousand faithful had once knelt to the One God. Beyond, to the northwest, was the pipeline.

  Mr. Jones’s Convention

  Searching for something a little different this trip to New York City, Mrs. Woodrow Jones learned that SoHo, with its new shops and art galleries, was not too awfully far from their hotel at the World Trade Center, where her husband was attending a convention. As for Mr. Jones, he liked conventions, but this talk of art galleries made him nervous. It was just the kind of deal Joyce could blow a bundle on.

  “Woodrow,” she said, “we need something special for the conversation nook in the guest room.”

  “Examine the goods,” grumbled Mr. Jones, knowing that when Joyce got this caliber of tone in her voice nothing could stop her.

  “I’ll make a careful purchase,” she said, “just like you always do.”

  “Talk him down.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Mrs. Jones was already preparing to leave, for Mr. Jones had earlier announced his intention of napping for a few hours. But he stopped her now, and drew her to the window. “It’s a jungle out there. Be careful.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Jones, absently.

  Mr. Jones drew the curtains of their hotel room. “Look at that.” He pointed to a group of long-robed, bald-headed young men who were coming up the street, beating a drum and singing some crazy nonsense.

  “They’re religious mendicants, dear.” Mrs. Jones was sympathetic toward all heathen faiths as part of her work for the Ladies’ Overseas Junior Auxiliary League back home.

  “Crackpots,” said her husband. From Kennedy Airport to the World Trade Center he’d seen enough to make a decent American sick. “Why don’t those guys get a job? I’m telling you, Joyce, it’s the crackpots are ruining this country.”

  “They won’t bother me at all, Woodrow. I’ll be taking a cab to the art galleries.”

  Mr. Jones flopped down on the bed, hands behind his head. The thought of his hard-earned money going to some phony art dealer troubled him deeply, but he didn’t want to spoil his wife’s shopping expedition. “Remember, Joyce, if you don’t buy it, nobody else will.”

  “That’s right, Woodrow.” Mrs. Jones was no longer listening, as she picked up her purse and walked to the door. “You have a nice nap, dear, and I’ll be back with a surprise.”

  “It’ll hang there all year ... if you don’t . . . buy it,” muttered Mr. Jones, rolling over on his side.

  * * *

  He woke to a different quality of light coming through the curtains, and the sounds of the city had changed their pitch to that of later afternoon. “Joyce?”

  Out. Means nobody’s taken her yet. Better if she walks her feet off, so she doesn’t drag us off to some night club this evening, with all your sharpers holding out their hands—doormen, waiters, you name it. Last year it was your Latin Quarters.

  He went to the window, studied the skyline for a while, and then thought he might take a stroll himself. He splashed on a little cologne, donned a sport jacket, and descended to the street. It was
a spring day and, refreshed from his nap, he walked at a good pace from block to block, up the canyons of Manhattan. In less than an hour he found himself peering into the crowded streets of SoHo. The gallery banners swung gently in the spring breeze. Joyce around here somewhere, getting taken to the cleaners.

  He strolled through SoHo, and on up into Greenwich Village, a place he’d always wanted to check out. A quick survey showed him it was populated with weirdos, and everything was too expensive. Weirdos, hippies, and crackpots. Wrecking the fabric of society. Going around on roller skates. Send them all to the barber, that’s the first step.

  Mr. Jones circled slowly, not liking what he saw. Kids, dressed like something from a loony bin, pink hair, wild makeup. Not one of them had a job, he was sure of that. It came from parents letting their guard down. The next thing you know, your children are living in Greenwich Village. Playing bongos.

  In the midst of his tour, he realized he’d not eaten for some time; the smell of charcoal burgers drew him to a sidewalk bistro where he sat beneath a striped awning and ordered a burger and a beer.

  “Dark or light?”

  “Dark or light what?”

  “Beer.”

  “Oh, I gotcha—ah, make it a dark.” Had a long walk, I’m dry as a bone. Well, so this is your Village.

  He sat, watching the streams of people go by, and noted the frequent absence of brassieres. Quite a town, your New York.

  A small group of young people was crossing the street, clad in white and wearing white turbans. Mr. Jones chewed his burger, and shook his head. What they need is a job in the supermarket.

  He drank his beer and called for another, and as it was brought to him he noticed the woman sitting a few tables away from him. He sipped his beer slowly and studied her fine, strong features. Now there’s a classy doll.

  Her eyes were heavily made up, but he liked the effect, and she smoked her cigarette with style. Is she a pro? he wondered, and at that moment she gave him a come-hither smile.