Gregory bent his head to the side, and thrust the folded bank draft at the Rebbe.
This gave the old man one second to gesture to me, one second, merely to make the little gesture with his right index finger of Hide or Stay Quiet. It came with a swift negation with the eyes and the smallest move of his head. Yet it was no command, and no threat. It was something closer to a prayer.
Then I heard him. Don't reveal yourself, spirit. Very well, old man, for the time being, as you request. Gregory-his back to me still-opened the check. "Explain the thing to me, Rebbe. Tell me what it is and if you still have it. What you told Rivka, you said it wasn't an easy thing to destroy."
The old man looked up at Gregory again, trusting me apparently to keep my place.
"Maybe I'll tell you all you want to know," said the old man. "Maybe I will deliver it into your hands, what you speak of. But not for that sum. We have more than plenty. You have to give us what matters to us."
Gregory was much excited. "How much, Rebbe!" he said. "You speak as if you still have this thing."
"I do," said the old man. "I have it."
I was astonished, but not surprised.
"I want it!" said Gregory fiercely, so fiercely that I feared he had overplayed his hand. "Name your price!"
The old man considered. His eyes fixed me again and then drifted past me, and I could see the color brighten in his withered face, and I could see his hands move restlessly. Slowly he let his eyes fasten on me and me alone.
For one precious second, as we gazed at one another, all the past threatened to become visible. I saw centuries beyond Samuel. I think I saw a glimmer of Zurvan. I think I saw the procession itself. I glimpsed the figure of a golden god smiling at me, and I felt terror, terror to know and to be as men are, with memory and in pain.
If this did not stop in me, I would know such agony that I would howl, like a dog, howl as the driver had howled when he saw the fallen body of Esther, I would howl forever. The wind would come. The wind would take me with all its other lost and howling souls. When I'd struck down the evil Mameluk master in Cairo, the wind had come for me, and I had fought through it to oblivion.
Stay alive, Azriel. The past will wait. The pain can wait. The wind will wait. The wind can wait forever. Stay alive in this place. Know this.
I am here, old man.
Calmly, he regarded me, unmarked by his grandson. He spoke now without taking his eyes off me, though Gregory bent to listen to his words:
"Go there, behind me and in the back of these books," he said in English, "and open the cabinet you see there. Inside you'll see a cloth. Lift it. And bring the thing that is beneath it. It is heavy, but you can carry it. You are strong enough."
I gasped. I heard it myself, and I felt my heart crying. The bones were here! Right here.
Gregory hesitated for one moment, perhaps not accustomed to taking orders, or even doing the smallest things for himself. I don't know. But then he sped into action. He hurried behind the bookcase at the old man's back.
I heard the creak of wood, and I smelled the cedar and the incense again. I heard the snap of metal latches. I felt myself rise on the balls of my feet, and then sink down again to a firm stance.
The old man and I stared at one another without pause. I stepped free of the bookcase completely so that he might see me in my long coat that was like his, and he showed only the tiniest fear for an instant, then urged me, with a polite nod of his head, to please return to my hiding place.
I did.
Behind him, out of sight, Gregory fumbled and cursed.
"Move the books," said the Rebbe. "Move them out of the way, all of them," said the old man as he looked at me, as if he held me in check with his eyes. "Do you see it now?"
The smell of dust rose in my nostrils. I could see the dust rising beneath the light. I heard the books tumble. Oh, it was sweet to hear with ears and to see with eyes. Don't weep, Azriel, not in the presence of this man who despises you.
I lifted my fingers to my lips without willing it. I just did it, natural, as if I were ready to pray in the face of disaster. I felt the hair above my mouth, and the thick mass of my beard. I liked it. Like yours, Rebbe, when you were young?
The old man was rigid, indestructible, superior, and wary.
Gregory stepped out from behind the bookcase, and back into the light.
In his arms he held the casket!
I saw the gold still thick on the cedar. I saw it, and I saw it bound carelessly in chains of iron.
Iron! So they thought that could hold me? Azriel! Iron could hold such a thing as me? I wanted to laugh. But I looked at it, the casket in Gregory's arms, which he held like an infant, the casket still covered with gold.
A faint memory of its making came back to me, but I did not see anyone clearly in this memory. I only remembered the sunlight on marble and kind words. Love, a world of love, and love made me think again of Esther.
How proud and fascinated Gregory was. He cared nothing that his wool coat was full of dust. That dust was in his hair. He stared down at this thing, this treasure, and he turned to lay it before the old man like an infant.
"No!" The old man raised both hands. "Set it there on the floor and back away from it."
Bitterly, I smiled. Don't defile yourself with it. He paid no heed to me, but looked down at the casket as Gregory put it on the floor.
"Good God, do you think it will burst into flame?" asked Gregory. Carefully he positioned the casket directly under the light, directly before the old man's desk. "This is ancient, this writing, this writing isn't Hebrew, this is Sumerian!" He drew back his hands and rubbed them together.
He was passionate and overcome.
"Rebbe, this is priceless."
"I know what it is," said the old man, his eyes moving freely from me to the casket. I did not change. I did not even smile.
Gregory stared rapt at this thing as though it were the Christ child in the Manger and he were one of those shepherds come to see the
Son of God made flesh.
"What is it, Grandfather? What's written on it?" He touched the iron chains, slowly, as if ready to be commanded by the old man to stop. He touched the links, which were thick and ugly, and he touched a scroll that was tucked beneath the iron chains, where links crossed links.
This I hadn't seen till now, this scroll, until Gregory's fingers gently tested the edges of it. The gold of the casket itself blinded me and made the water come up in my eyes. I smelled the cedar and the spices and the smoke that saturated the wood beneath its plating. ] smelled the flesh of other humans, and I smelled the perfume o offerings.