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Later on, he was inside one of the casinos, shaped like an upside-down Egyptian pyramid built atop a Babylonian ziggurat. By then, night had descended. The interior of the pyramid was lit up in a pale-purple light, and all the casino employees were dressed in immaculate white clothes. Waiters passed between the tables in silence, offering beverages to the gamblers. Someone placed a glass of water on a silver tray opposite Jeremiah. His pockets were suddenly filled with hundreds of hundred-dollar chips. A man of enormous dimensions sat next to him on one of the casino’s indoor ramps that broadened as it sloped up to the sides of the room, and in his hand was an ice bucket filled with bills. Jeremiah didn’t look at him at first, but when he stole a glance he was astonished to see Baalzakar, the minister of finance: the minister blown up to giant size, in width and height, whereas in reality he was a gaunt apparatchik with a ledger always under his arm. He was eating a chocolate-vanilla cone with one hand and rummaging in the cash bucket with the other. Minister of Energy Egeliahu sat herself down at the other end of the table, next to Minister of Outer Space Achnoam; two young gigolos wearing sombreros sucked their toes and slowly crept up their shaved shins and their knees, while the ministers stacked red chips on the roulette table. The minister of the interior turned to Jeremiah and said, in high Akkadian: Look at those two frauds. They’ve been made senior ministers; all our energy and our entire space program are in their hands, but why were they appointed? After all, that one doesn’t know a thing or even half a thing about energy, and as for outer space, let’s not mince words, that one there thinks the sun burns on crude oil—I’ve heard her say as much with my own ears. At least I have a B.A. in business management, and I was raised to know the value of money. The roulette wheel spun around noisily; the minister of outer space bet on red, the minister of energy on black. The minister of outer space hit the jackpot. One of the gigolos comforted the loser by buttoning up her shirt and bearing her away to a nearby alcove with soft armchairs, located at the top of the inside of the upside-down pyramid. A whore on stilettos trotted behind them, balancing toast, Persian whiskey, and tasty morsels of meat on a gilt tray. The minister of energy stuck by the roulette table, increasingly enthusiastic as the enormous stack of chips opposite her grew taller and taller. The minister of outer space had already lost everything in the first five minutes of their evening at the casino, which had been slated to go on till late. Jeremiah saw her approaching the minister of defense’s secretary, and after a few minutes with him she stuffed an envelope into her shiny purse. The minister’s secretary extended to her his beguiling finger soaked in Cognac, which she licked with the tip of her tongue. Every now and then, people stopped in their tracks and salaamed a statue of Baal. A racket could be heard coming from the lobby; Jeremiah saw Deputy Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office Hannibal and Minister of Defense Baalgezer standing there and counting a wad of bills with spittle-smeared fingers on their way to the cashiers. I’ll fuck you in the ass on the ministry’s table, I’ll strip you in the Cabinet office, you piece of shit, someone shouted. The ministers smoked super-fat Assyrian cigars that black prostitutes kept, needlessly, relighting with gigantic lighters, lest—heaven forefend—they go out. Someone said that once again a war had erupted at home, on the border, and the honorable minister, his eyes riveted on his winning card, commanded in a voice of steel: Mobilize everybody—I mean everybody. Follow the usual procedures. I’ve said it a thousand times, don’t bother me with routine stuff, for the sword will devour so-and-so, and so-and-so will be destroyed by the card. He really did have a good card. People held banknotes up to the open cigarette lighters and moaned in sham pleasure, as if having orgasms, when the bills caught fire. Smoke filled the casino. The finance minister, next to Jeremiah, also took out a cigar, and Jeremiah saw to his horror that it lit itself, without any flame. The stupefying smoke buffeted him toward the small-change slot machines, similar to the ones he’d seen in the street. King Jehoiakim’s younger brother was standing there with his back to Jeremiah, hesitantly sticking coins into the machine and quickly losing all his change. There was something touching about this kid sticking in coin after coin, bending over, and peering despondently at the empty payout bin. It was clear that he’d been forbidden to engage in any serious form of gambling. Jeremiah approached him from behind, dreaming and yet seeing everything sharply, utterly real, and he leaned over and whispered into his ear, For death has climbed through our windows, it is entered into our palaces, to cut off children from the streets, and young men from the squares. But the king’s chubby brother, completely absorbed in his petty gambling, didn’t hear a thing, as though a transparent, sealed screen had risen between Jeremiah’s mouth and the gambler’s ear. One of the ministers stretched out on one of the couches, and Minister of Transportation Yichueli sat next to him, puking up something on the upholstery; a waiter, or another servant, spoke to her softly, explaining to her that she must go on having fun, that she mustn’t ruin the party by throwing up, because the king was about to pass through, and he had specified that he wanted her as his first pick. The king wants you, Yichueli, the waiter said, he’s hot for you, you have no choice. After the surgery you underwent, how could he not be hot for you! he added. You enlarged, and now he desires maximum size; you colored, and he likes the color! You bet he wants you. No, no, he doesn’t want a whore. He told me: Yichueli is better than a whore. Yichueli was the youngest minister in the history of Judah, a minor minister, all of fifteen years old. Why say whore? someone said. On the one hand, Yichueli freely bestows her love; on the other, she isn’t averse to receiving gifts. Jeremiah noticed bruises on her exposed body; clearly she’d been beaten. He wanted to shut his eyes and wake up and find himself elsewhere, but he knew he had to stay and keep looking, this was his mission, and there was no point in screaming, since no one would hear him anyway—he felt his head throbbing under the helmet—and even if someone did hear, who would pay attention to more screaming in a place like this? Jeremiah saw King Jehoiakim, a ruddy-colored mountain of a man, yawping next to the main poker table downstairs when he won a huge sum (they’d fixed the roulette wheel and the cards in such a way that he would keep on raking in the cash). And he saw Minister Baalzemer shouting at a waiter for more and more drinks, and the waiter brought him a can of beer with a tube dangling from its side, and the minister tilted his head back, and someone stuck the tube into his gaping mouth to the sound of gleeful whoops all around, and Jeremiah heard Minister Baalzemer’s wife yelping as she was being strapped to some sort of apparatus—she was tricked out in leather with buckles and zippers and a leather mask over her eyes, and she’d been shot up with something and started to twitch—and the minister himself, her husband, approached with a whip in his hand, and he unzipped one of her zippers, and she squealed as he flogged her, and he, too, had a zipper, and Hannibal soon joined in, holding a lit cigar between his fingers, which he brought close to the minister’s wife’s body, and then, biting this cigar, he unzipped his fly and waggled a sausage out of the opening, to the apparent astonishment of all present. The music beat like a pacemaker—tam, tam, tam, tam—shaking everyone to the core. There were also crooning waiters there, trilling in Egyptian. Jeremiah felt death was surging up from within and filling him up; he realized that the orgy, which was taking place in a private casino, had just begun, that scarcely an hour had passed, and who knew what might happen in the wee hours of the night; he didn’t know whether he’d be forced to witness it all. Someone sat down next to him and opened a suitcase, which was stuffed with cash, and the faces on the bills were of well-known poets and writers, and the man—he was governor of the central bank—counted the bills with clammy fingers and slipped them into envelopes and came up and distributed these to the ministers and their spouses, and Jeremiah thought that the money was certainly being printed somewhere on the premises, which is to say that there was no limit to the amount of gambling the ministers could indulge in, and they won and they lost, and they roared or they shouted in disma
y, and now and then they retreated to small upholstered bedchambers, and now and then freshly recruited prostitutes of both genders arrived in the casino, the females in sailor uniforms and the males in sombreros, and the temporary deputy prime minister suddenly broke into song, something about a sailor, and his assistant answered, He’s my sailor!, and then the temporary deputy drew an automatic rifle and started firing into the air. And two of the female sailors went up to Jeremiah and leaned over him, smiling, and their good looks astonished and overwhelmed him, and all his defenses and his objections and his raging admonishments melted, and they asked him only one question: You want some, too? And his mouth longed to say that, yes, he wanted some, and he had nearly said so when one of them turned him over and massaged his sore back with her fists, and the other drew out a riding crop and lashed the air above him, and he clenched his teeth and bit his tongue, and he awoke, and got to his feet.
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HEAR AND GIVE EAR, be not proud, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness and before your feet stumble on the mountains in twilight. And you hoped for light. But if you will hear not, Jeremiah muttered, my soul will weep in secret. Let us lie down in our shame and let our disgrace cover us. His back was still sore, but a sort of stupefying numbness sheathed his pain. He thought he saw a lion stepping out of a thicket next to one of the buildings. The king spoke on the radio from where he was vacationing and said, You will not see the sword, nor will you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place. Shalom-shalom. The king spoke of his willingness to arrive at a historic compromise, but what wasn’t clear was a compromise with whom exactly. Jeremiah asked the cabdriver to turn off the radio, but instead of killing the radio the guy turned the volume up, and the king repeated emphatically, Sword—and famine—won’t come—to this land. And the driver said: Now there’s a real stud. They say he’s got thirty centimeters at least. Jeremiah imitated King Jehoiakim’s voice and said, If—I go forth—into the field—then behold—the slain—with the sword—and if—I entered—into the city—and behold—them that are sick—with famine. The driver said, What’s that? Jeremiah got out by the Potsherd Gate. The jug stall stood out conspicuously among dozens of vegetable and fruit stalls, and every now and then blinding flashes of light shot out from the stall and pricked his eyes.
A Phoenician merchant ship was docked in the Jerusalem port in Hinnom Valley. Galley slaves rubbed down the deck with the blood of slaves who were several rungs lower on the scale of subjugation. The port had been connected to the sea canal thanks to the brilliant engineering feat initiated by Deputy Minister of Construction and Housing Aaronson (a seventh-generation Moabite on both sides who’d converted, as was widely known, to the Jewish faith, though in fact he only really Judaized his name, on the advice of his public-relations consultants). An envelope full of cash, dispatched, allegedly by mistake—the mail is so unreliable, these days!—to the assistant to the deputy director general of the prime minister’s office, Victor Hannibal, had been the push necessary to secure the required authorizations and alter all the relevant zoning laws. Sometimes certain envelopes just fall into certain mailbags, you know? Hannibal guffawed. There was this black car he’d dreamed of since childhood, and the stash in the envelope was plenty for the car and a couple of refuels, too. And even though no one stood to gain personally, and there was absolutely no bribery involved, the contractor who got the bid wound up, quite by accident, being Aaronson’s brother, Kosmelech! In time, Aaronson would ask, in court: Look, just because he’s my brother, does that mean he has to scrounge around looking for work? Besides, the moment my name was legally changed and I turned into a bona fide Jew, he wasn’t my brother anymore anyway—certainly not when it comes to business matters. And the court accepted these claims, accepted them with open arms. The canal was inundated with seawater, and ships sailed daily from the Dead Sea to Tyre and Sidon and beyond, bearing merchandise and slaves. The lowliest slaves were obliged to draw a bit of blood from their veins and smear it on the deck, a sacrifice to the spirit of the ship. That was the custom. The Phoenicians believed that a blood sacrifice before embarking would prevent blood from being shed out at sea, and who could convince them that they were mistaken and should take responsibility for whatever disasters might befall them en route? In any case, it wasn’t their blood: the slaves were Amorites and Moabites and Philistines and who knew what else. The higher-ranked slaves smeared the blood around and dressed the wounds of the venesected, and then served them tea and cake and took them to their places among the other rowers. Jeremiah recognized two renowned prophets—the sort who frequently appeared in the news—about to set sail on a southbound vessel to Egypt. What would make them head south to Pharaoh? he wondered. And then he looked north, into the heavens, but the bulging pot wasn’t there: only the new star sparkling behind a cloud.
The ship anointed in blood unfurled its sails and set off due west in the broad canal. A flock of gulls flew overhead as Jeremiah walked up to the small market adjacent to the Potsherd Gate. Moabite, Edomite, Ammonite, and Midianite merchants ran the market. If business were conducted here as in any other market, a medley of arcane tongues would dazzle the ear and make it impossible to understand anything. This was why most of the merchants and customers made do with hand gestures alone—why the market, overflowing though it was with foreign tongues and voices, was for the most part silent. Conversations were out of the question. People pointed at what they wanted, the merchants stuck out their fingers to quote a price, the buyers offered their own price in turn, and they haggled until they reached—shouting inaudibly—an agreement … or not. And there were wizards and witches here who offered to tell Jeremiah’s fortune: Come here, mister, I’ll treat you with my shofar, one blast of the horn and you’ll be cleansed of all your filth. Mister, don’t be tempted by those charlatans—shofar treatment, come on! But I can offer you some absolutely scientific and verified training in the Kabbalah, which will do you a world of good. No thanks, no thanks. Young man, over here, over here, behind the curtain: tantric massage inspired by Isaac Luria, have you tried it? No? You should try it, it’s much better than shofar treatment, whose effects are short-term and work only during the High Holidays. Hello, mister—what, you want shiatsu kabbalah? Pahhh, it’s just a foot rub, not even a very good one. Come to us and you’ll even get a rebate from National Health. We’re the only ones to offer a full menu of services: Light of Life healing as an entrée, hot stones according to Hanoch ben Yered for a main course, spiritualism with Huldah the prophetess followed by tarot reading for the second course, and as for dessert—consciousness-raising in the spirit of feng shui. It’s two hundred twenty shekels for forty-five minutes, cheaper than a dental hygienist; we’ve been written up in the weekend supplement. And there was a potter there from the Pottery Workshop who was spinning his potter’s wheel, and there was an oven blazing next to him, but the clay kept crumbling and bending out of shape, and his work kept being ruined, and he told himself, Hold on just a little longer, just a little longer, wait a bit longer, and you’ll have yourselves a kettle.
In the glassware stall stood a skinny young woman whom Jeremiah didn’t recognize at first, on account of the change in her hairstyle—her head was shaved. Her skin had darkened considerably from the fierce sunlight, and she was talking in a fluent, lilting Moabite; meandering tattoos now covered her left arm and right leg; she was speaking quietly to someone beside her, probably the assistant who helped her produce her glass and ceramic wares. But he recognized her when he got closer. Her name was Noa, he remembered now; he had known her in high school. She had disappeared, setting out on one of those in-vogue journeys to the East—that is, to Edom and Moab. And there she went native and stayed to live with some community or other between the border and Rabat Moab, and there she worshipped, like everybody else, the goddess Anat as well as Baal Peor. This in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary; many of his pals and acquaintances hung out in Moab and took part in all sorts
of strange rituals. The goddess Anat in particular was popular among young girls, because she wasn’t lorded over by any male gods, and her worship fit in neatly with the spirit of the times (from a feminist point of view). But others chose different gods, Ammonite and Aramean and Egyptian and Assyrian gods; there was a sort of free market of gods and holy sites, and scores of people were always heading out to find themselves in the open expanses neighboring Judah, astounded to discover how different—and how comfortable!—the world was beyond the Jordan River. Out there, people weren’t imposing so many demands on them anymore: not forcing them to study, or to read, or to fight. All they were asked to do was simply to wake up in the morning and eat some fruit and till the soil and worship some idols—as they were called back home—and maybe lend a hand with some chores, such as mending a roof or putting up a shack or preparing lunch. By then they were likely to start feeling the heat, so they’d take a nap, alone or in pairs, and they’d rise in the afternoon and drink coffee, and set off for a stroll, and smoke, and stare at the stars at nightfall—it was possible to gaze up at them for hours since the air was so clean out there, compared with back home—and they’d fall asleep with the stars in their eyes and on their lashes. After three days, a week tops, they’d completely forget the awful weight of Judah—a pressure cooker on top of a barrel of gunpowder inside a train that’s gone off the rails on a dynamited bridge—and they’d calm down and start to breathe again, and learn to take everything in stride, and acclimatize; and so is it any wonder that they should sing the praises of the local gods, be they the gods of Moab or the gods of Edom, thanking them for their hospitality and protection, and for having enabled them to live—what’s the word?—so simply, so differently from their former selves. But the majority came home after two or three years, when they realized that a ramshackle commune on the outskirts of Rabat Bnei Ammon and the worship of Moloch or Asherah wouldn’t put butter on their bread or bread under their butter. They came home and removed, or at least concealed, as well as possible the tattoos that had been pricked on their bodies there, and reintegrated themselves into the local workforce, which was, after all, somewhat more developed than in most of the neighboring countries, and they studied law or business management, setting their sights on managing an office in one of the Mesopotamian cities, or in Egypt, or in the land of the Hittites, and they would dismiss their Canaanite or Moabite or Sidonite episode with some embarrassment as a youthful folly, with only the graven image of some god or goddess on their desk in one of their office towers—sometimes as a paperweight holding down money and documents, or more likely secreted in a locked drawer—to reveal and stand as a testament to those wayward years.