Barry N. Malzberg - Le Croix

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Le Croix

by Barry Malzberg

Depersonalization takes over. As usual, he does not quite feel himself, which

for the best; the man that he knows could hardly manage these embarrassing

circumstances. Adaptability, that is the key; swim in the fast waters. There

no other way that he, let alone I could get through. “Pardonnez tout ils,” he

says, feeling himself twirling upon the crucifix in the absent Roman breezes,

sensation not unlike flight, “mais ils ne comprendre pas que ils fait.”

Oh my, is that awful. He wishes that he could do better than that. Still,

there

is no one around, strictly speaking, to criticize and besides, he is merely

following impulse which is the purpose of the program. Do what you will. “Ah

pere, this is a bitch,” he mutters.

The thief on his left, an utterly untrustworthy type, murmurs foreign curses,

not in French, to the other thief; and the man, losing patience with his

companions who certainly look as culpable as all hell, stares below. Casting

his

glance far down he can see the onlookers, not so many as one would think, far

less than the texts would indicate but certainly enough (fair is fair and

simple

Mark had made an effort to get it right) to cast lots over his vestments.

They

should be starting that stuff just about now.

Ah, well. This too shall pass. He considers the sky, noting with interest

that

the formation of clouds against the dazzling sunlight must yield the aspect

stigmata. For everything a natural, logical explanation. It is a rational

world

back here after all. If a little on the monolithic side.

“I wonder how long this is going to go on,” he says to make conversation. “it

does seem to be taking a bloody long time.”

“Long time?” the thief on the left says. “Until we die, that's how long, and

not

an instant sooner. It's easier,” the thief says confidentially, “if you

breathe

in tight little gasps. Less pain. You're kind of grabbing for the air.”

“Am I? Really?”

“Leave him alone,” the other thief says. “Don't talk to him. Why give him

advice?”

“Just trying to help a mate on the stations, that's all.”

“Help Yourself,” the second thief grumbles. “That's the only possibility. If

had looked out for myself I wouldn't be in this mess.”

“I quite agree,” I say. “That's exactly my condition, exactly.”

“Ah, stuff it, mate,” the thief says.

It is really impossible to deal with these people. The texts imbue them with

sentimental focus but truly they are swine. I can grasp Pilate's dilemma.

Thinking of Pilate leads into another channel, but before I can truly

consider

the man's problems a pain of particular dimension slashes through me and there

am, there I am, suspended from the great cross groaning, all the syllables of

thought trapped within.

“Ah,” I murmur, “ah,” he murmurs, “ah monsieurs, c'est le plus,” but it is

not,

to be sure, it is not le plus at all. Do not be too quick to judge.

It goes on, in fact, for an unsatisfactorily extended and quite spiritually

laden period of time. The lot-casting goes quickly and there is little to

divert

on the hillside; one can only take so much of that silly woman weeping before

loses all emotional impact. It becomes a long and screaming difficulty, a

passage broken only by the careless deaths of the thieves who surrender in

babble and finally, not an instant too soon, the man's brain bursts . . . but

there is time, crucifixion being what it is, for slow diminution beyond that.

Lessening color; black and grey, if there is one thing to be said about this

process, it is exceedingly generous. One will be spared nothing.

Of course I had pointed out that I did not want to be spared anything. “Give

Jesus,” I had asked and cooperating in their patient way they had given me

Jesus. There is neither irony nor restraint to the process, which is exactly

the

way that it should be.

Even to the insult of the thieves abusing me.

* * * *

Alive to the tenor of the strange and difficult times, I found myself moved

consider the question of religious knowledge versus fanaticism. Hard choices

have to be made even in pursuit of self-indulgence. Both were dangerous to

the

technocratic state of 2219, of course, but of the two religion was considered

the more risky because fanaticism could well be turned to the advantage of

the

institutions. (Then there were the countervailing arguments of course that

they

were partners, but these I chose to dismiss.) Sexuality was another pursuit

possibly inimical to the state but it held no interest for me; the general

Privacy and Social Taboo acts of the previous century had been taken very

seriously by my subdivision and

I inherited neither genetic nor socially-derived interest in sex for its own

non-procreative sake.

Religion interested me more than fanaticism for a permanent program, but

fanaticism was not without its temptations. “Religion after all imposes a

certain rigor,” I was instructed. “There is some kind of a rationalizing

force

and also the need to assimilate text. Then too there is the reliance upon

another, higher power. One cannot fulfill ultimately narcissistic tendencies.

the other hand—fanaticism dwells wholly within the poles of self. You can

destroy the systems, find immortality, lead a crushing revolt, discover

immortality within the crevices. It is not to be neglected; it is also

purgative

and satisfying and removes much of that indecision and social alienation of

which you have complained. No fanatic is truly lonely or at least he has

learned

to cherish his loneliness.”

“I think I'd rather have the religious program,” I said after due

consideration.

“The lives of the prophets, the question of the validity of the text, the

matters of the passion attract me.”

“You will find,” they pointed out, “that much of the religious experience is

misrepresented. It leads only to an increasing doubt for many, and most of

the

major religious figures were severely maladjusted. You would be surprised at

how

many were psychotics whose madness was retrospectively falsified by others

for

their own purpose.”

“Still,” I said, “there are levels of feeling worth investigating.”

“That, of course, is your decision,” they said, relenting. They were nothing

not cooperative; under the promulgated and revised acts of 2202, severely

liberalizing board procedures, there have been many improvements of this

illusory sort. “If you wish to pursue religion we will do nothing to stop

you.

It is your inheritance and our decree. We can only warn you that there is apt

be disappointment.”

“Disappointment!” I said, allowing some affect for the first time to bloom

perilously forth. “I am not interested in disappointment. This is of no

concern

to me whatsoever; what I am interested in is the truth. After all, and was it

not said that it is the truth which will make ye—”

“Never in this lifetime,” they cut me off, sadly, sadly, and sent me on my

way

with a proper program, a schedule of appointments with the technicians, the

necessary literature to explain the effects that all of this would have upon

personal landscape, inevitable changes, the rules of dysfunction, little

instances of psychotic break but all of it to be contained within the larger

pattern. By the time I exit from the transverse I have used up the

literature,

and so I dispose of it, tearing it into wide strips, throwing the strips into

the empty, sparkling air above the passage lanes, watching them catch the

little

filters of light for the moment before they flutter soundlessly to the

metallic,

glittering earth of this most unspeakable time.

* * * *

I find myself at one point of the way the Grand Lubavitcher Rabbi of Bruck

Linn

administering counsel to all who would seek it.

The Lubavitcher Sect of the Judaic religion was, I understand, a twenty or

twenty-first reconstitution of the older, stricter European forms which was

composed of refugees who fled to Bruck Linn in the wake of one of the

numerous

purges of that time. Now defunct, the judaicists are, as I understand it, a

sect

characterized by a long history of ritual persecution from which they

flourished, or at least the surviving remnants flourished, but then again the

persecution might have been the most important part of the ritual. At this

remove in time it is hard to tell. The hypnotics, as the literature and

procedures have made utterly clear, work upon personal projections and do not

claim historical accuracy, as historical accuracy exists for the

historicists,

if anyone, and often enough not for them. Times being what they are.

It is, in any case, interesting to be the Lubavitcher Rabbi in Bruck Linn,

regardless of the origins of the sect or even of its historical reality; in

frock coat and heavy beard I sit behind a desk in cramped quarters surrounded

murmuring advisors and render judgments one by one upon members of the

congregation as they appear before me. Penalty for compelled intercourse

during

a period of uncleanliness is three months of abstention swiftly dealt out and

despite explanations that the young bride had pleaded for comfort. The Book

Daniel, reinterpreted, does not signal the resumption of Holocaust within the

coming month; the congregant is sent away relieved. Two rabbis appear with

Talmudic dispute; one says that Zephaniah meant that all pagans and not all

things were to be consumed utterly off the face of the Earth, but the other

says

that the edict of Zephaniah was literal and that one cannot subdivide

“pagans”

from “all things". I return to the text for clarification, remind them that

Zephaniah no less than Second Isaiah or the sullen Ecclesiastes spoke in

doubled

perversities and advise that the literal interpretation would have made this

conference unnecessary, therefore metaphor must apply. My advisors nod in

approval at this and there are small claps of admiration. Bemused, the two

rabbis leave. A woman asks for a ruling on mikvah for a pre-menstrual

daughter

who is nonetheless now fifteen years old, and I reserve decision. A

conservative

rabbi from Yawk comes to give humble request that I give a statement to the

congregation for one of the minor festivals, and I decline pointing out that

for

the Lubavitcher fallen members of the judaicists are more reprehensible than

those who have never arrived. Once again my advisors applaud. There is a

momentary break in the consultations and I am left to pace the study alone

while

advisors and questioners withdraw to give me time for contemplation.

It is interesting to be the Lubavitcher, although somewhat puzzling. One of

the

elements of which I was not aware was that in addition to the grander

passions,

the greater personages, I would also find myself enacting a number of smaller

roles, the interstices of the religious life, as it were, and exactly as it

was

pointed out to me there is a great deal of rigor. Emotion does not seem to be

part of this rabbi's persona; the question of Talmudic interpretation seems

be quite far from the thrashings of Calvary. Still, the indoctrinative

techniques have done their job; I am able to make my way through these roles

even as the others, on the basis of encoded knowledge; and although the

superficialities I babble seem meaningless to me, they seem to please those

who

surround. I adjust my cuffs with a feeling of grandeur; Bruck Linn may not be

all of the glistening spaces of Rome but it is a not inconsiderable part of

the

history, and within it I seem to wield a great deal of power. “Rabbi,” an

advisor says opening the door, “I am temerarious to interrupt your musings,

but

we have reached a crisis and your intervention is requested at this time.”

“What crisis?” I say. “You know I must be allowed to meditate.”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, we respect your meditations. It is wrong to impose. I

should not,” and some edge of agony within his voice, some bleating aspect of

his face touches me even as he is about to withdraw. I come from behind the

desk

saying, “What then, what?” and he says, “Rabbi, it was wrong to bother you,

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Barry N. Malzberg - Le Croix

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