Damascus Gate (5 page)

After the two of them had waited for some time, a summoning voice sounded from Dr. Obermann's inner office.

"Melker!"

The voice was peremptory, without any suggestion of healing or solicitude, and projected through the closed door. Dr. Obermann did without a receptionist and a great deal else. The young man gave the elder a last glance and sauntered inside, taking his instrument with him.

Dr. Obermann was red-bearded, crew-cut and thick-bodied. He wore a turtleneck and slacks and army-issue glasses.

"Mr. Melker," he said. He stood to shake the young man's hand. "Or should I call you Raziel? Or should I call you Zachariah? What should I call you?"

"You make me sound like a multiple personality," young Melker said. "Call me Razz."

"Razz," the doctor repeated tonelessly. "I see you have your clarinet."

"Like me to play it?"

"That great pleasure I force myself to postpone," Dr. Obermann said, "until a more appropriate moment. How's the monkey? On or off your back?"

"I'm as clean as the eyelids of morning," said Razz. "I'm happy."

Obermann looked at him noncommittally.

"Take off your sunglasses," he said, "and tell me about your spiritual life."

"You have a nerve, Obie," Razz Melker said, taking a seat and removing his glasses. "Checking my eyes?" He said it good-naturedly. "If I was popping, you think I'd own these shades? Or these clothes? Want to see my veins?" He shook his head in a tolerant gesture. "By the way, with all those little
buchers
out there whapping the balls around, it's a little difficult to talk the spiritual life."

"Think those kids don't have any?"

"Hey," Raziel hastened to say, "they put us all to shame. No question about it."

"I'm pleased that you're clean," Dr. Obermann said. "It's important. Happy is good too."

"Maybe do the odd spliff. That's it." He smiled his pink-edged bad-boy smile and spread his long, jeans-clad legs out in front of him. He wore lizard boots from Africa.

Obermann watched him in silence.

"Want to hear about
my
spiritual life? I still have one. Is that all right?"

"Depends," said Dr. Obermann.

Razz looked contentedly about the office as they listened to the rat-a-tat of Ping-Pong balls. Eyes exposed, he had a blinky, myopic look. The place was decorated with posters from the Palazzo Grassi, the British Museum and the Metropolitan. The show themes were either primitive or ancient art.

"Your patient out there," Razz said. "The elderly dude. Want me to tell you something about him?"

"Mind your business," said Obermann.

"He turned goy on us, right? He's a Christian convert. Or was."

Obermann held Razz's gaze for a moment, then took his own glasses off and rubbed his eyes.

"You know him," the doctor insisted. "You've heard about him somewhere."

"I assure you, man, I never set eyes on him before."

"Be so kind," Dr. Obermann said, "as to not address me as 'man.'"

"Sorry," Razz said. "I thought you wanted to know about my spiritual life. I think I'm playing well too."

"A lot of drugs change hands in those clubs in Tel Aviv," Obermann said.

"You're not shitting, sir. However, as I told you, I don't indulge."

"Very well," Obermann said.

"I'm not about to do that naltrexone treatment again," Razz Melker declared. "Christ, everything Burroughs said about sleep cures is true. They genuinely suck."

"Your father would like you to go home to Michigan."

"I know."

"He's worried about you," Dr. Obermann said. With his glasses resting on his forehead he wrote Melker a prescription for a mild tranquilizer that was part of the follow-up to the naltrexone. Then he dashed off the quick note for the IDF that would assure Melker's continued exemption from military service. "Also, he doesn't think you're making much of a contribution to the Jewish state."

"Maybe he's mistaken. Anyway, his contributions cover both of us."

Dr. Obermann looked at him coldly.

"Tell him I love him," Melker said.

"How's Sonia?" the doctor asked. "Off drugs also?"

"Come on, Doc, she's no junkie. She's a Sufi, a real one. Now and then she dabbles."

"She shouldn't dabble," the doctor said.

"You like her, don't you?"

"I like her very much," said Obermann.

"I know you do. I told her so." He paused to observe the doctor. "You should hear her sing."

"Yes," Dr. Obermann said, "no doubt I should. Are you lovers?"

Razz laughed and shook his head. "No. Want me to fix you up?"

"Impossible."

"How's the book going?" Melker persisted. "The religious mania book."

Obermann wriggled into a disclamatory shrug.

"Am I in it?" Melker asked. "How about the
alter kocker
outside? Is he in it? He ought to be."

"Call me if you have any thought disorders," Obermann said.

Melker laughed and leaned forward confidentially.

"But Doc," he said. "Thought itself is disorder. It disturbs the primal rhythm of the universe. With static. Psychic entropy. The sages—"

"Out!" Dr. Obermann commanded. Melker stood up and took his papers. When he reached the door, the doctor asked him, "How did you know? About that man?"

Melker turned, unsmiling. "He's a musician too. Isn't he? I bet he's a good one. Looks like a bass player. No. Cello?"

"You saw something," Obermann said. "He must have calluses on his fingers. Or something."

"But he doesn't," Melker said. "It's true, isn't it? A musical Christian convert?"

"Why," Obermann asked him, "should he be in my book?"

"I see the roots of his soul," Melker said.

"Nonsense."

"If you say so."

Obermann stared at him. "And what, precisely, do you see?"

"I've explained," Melker said, "what I see and how. I think you understand."

The doctor drew himself up in a Herr-Professorly stance. "What I may understand," he declared, "and what I am able to believe are—"

Melker interrupted him. "Tell me his name."

"I can't," Dr. Obermann said. "I can't do that."

"Too bad," Raziel said. "What's the diagnosis? Schizo? Manic depression, probably. Keep an eye on him."

"I will. But why?"

"Why? He comes from the King, that's why. He rides the Chariot. You know, if you didn't avoid me," Razz Melker said, "if you weren't afraid of me, I might tell you a little about these things."

"I'm not afraid of you," the doctor said. "Your father doesn't pay me to be your pal."

Raziel stopped in the lobby outside to watch the table tennis players, standing by the door that led to the plaza outside the high-rise.
Homo ludens,
he was thinking. God's image in every eye. Their youthful energy and passion for play was nourishing, animating the dead of night. Animating the dead also.

His presence made quite a few of the players uneasy; he seemed so mocking and godless. They would have been surprised to learn that once he had been one of them, black-suited, sidelocked, wearing
tzitzit
under his shirt, the fringes a constant reminder of the six hundred and thirteen
mitzvot.

When he got tired of watching, Melker went out into the desert wind and walked across the empty tiled plaza to the Egged bus stop. All the shops in the little suburban mall were closed except for a
shwarma
stand beside the recreation room. He took out his clarinet and began to play the first notes of
Rhapsody in Blue,
languorously, then explosively—flawlessly, it seemed to him. For a long time there was no one to hear. The lights of the
shwarma
stand went out. He stood and played: Raziel, a phantom busker in some stone city of the labyrinth. But before the bus arrived, Dr. Obermann's older patient joined him at the kiosk.

"Bravo," said the older man shyly. "Wonderful."

"Really?" Razz asked, putting away his instrument and reed. "Thanks." He could sense the man's unfocused strength of soul.

"Yes, you're very good." The man seemed to be making an effort to smile. "You must play professionally."

"How about you?" Melker asked.

"I?" The man coughed with embarrassment. "Oh, no."

"In the States," Melker said, "a shrink would have a back door, right? So we lunatics wouldn't encounter each other at the bus stop."

The man in tweed, the musical Christian convert, appeared to give this observation considerable reflection. He seemed to be still pondering it when the bus drew up.

"I thought you must be a performer," Melker said to the older man as they rode together. "Doctor Obie keeps his weird hours for entertainment people. I thought you might be a musician like me."

"No, no," grumbled the man. "No, hardly."

"What are you?"

The older man stared at him, pretending surprise at his effrontery.

"I'm Adam De Kuff," he said. "And you?"

"I'm Raziel Melker. They call me Razz." He looked into De Kuff's eyes from behind his shades. "You're from New Orleans."

De Kuff looked a bit troubled. But he smiled. "How did you know?"

Melker smiled back. "There's a hospital down in N.O. called De Kuff. A Jewish hospital. And a concert hall, right? De Kuff is a grand old name in the Crescent City. A tip-top name."

"In any case," the man said stiffly, "it will have to do. It's the only name I own."

"What is it, Dutch?"

"It was once Dutch, I'm told. With a K-U-I-F. Before that Spanish, de Cuervo or de Corvo. Then it became Dutch in the West Indies. Or off-Dutch. Then plain De Kuff in Louisiana."

"When I meet a fellow madman," Razz said by way of explanation, "it makes me a little crazier."

Adam De Kuff shifted away slightly. But eventually, on the long ride, they fell into conversation again. The bus was almost empty. Its route lay between the Jerusalem airport and the heart of the city, following Ramallah Road, zigzagging to drop and pick up single passengers at new developments like the one where Obermann had his office, stopping at Neveh Yaacov and Pisgat Ze'ev, then skirting French Hill and Ammunition Hill through the Bukharan Quarter and Mea Shearim to Independence Park. The streets it served were nearly deserted at that late hour, bathed in chemical light. Its driver was a surly, sandy-haired Russian.

"Obermann is really a lot younger than he looks," Razz was explaining to De Kuff. "He has an old man's manner because he has an old soul." He had unconsciously adopted a little of De Kuff's cultivated southern accent.

De Kuff smiled sadly. "Don't we all?"

"Has he helped you?" Razz asked. "Pardon my asking, but I think we may have a few things in common."

"He's very gruff. A typical Israeli, I suppose. But I like him."

They rode all the way to the end of the line together, and as it turned out, their conversation lasted through the night. In De Kuff's overstuffed hotel suite they talked about tantric Buddhism and the Book of the Dead, kundalini yoga and the writings of Meister Eckhart. When the Muslim call to prayer broke over the city they were watching the sky over Mount Zion, for first light. They sat in upholstered chairs beside the east-facing window. De Kuff's cello, in its case, leaned against a closet door.

Once, during the small hours, Razz had reached out and taken Adam's hand. Adam had drawn away hastily.

"What do you think, Adam?" Razz had asked. "Think I'm making a pass at you? Relax. I'll read your palm."

De Kuff sat tensely and let the divination proceed.

"Did you go to church yesterday?" Raziel asked when he had seen the man's hand. De Kuff raised his free hand to his forehead. It was as though he had forgotten, at first, to be surprised at Melker's question.

"I went to
a
church. Not
to church.
No longer."

"They do put on a show," Melker said. Still studying De Kuff's hand, he added, "You must be so lonely."

The older man had turned bright red and begun to perspire. "Is that there too? Well, I've learned solitude," he said. "Though neither solitude nor fellowship suits me." The muezzin's second call came from across the valley. De Kuff closed his sad elephant's eyes. "I envy them their prayers. Yes, the Arabs. Are you shocked? I envy anyone who can pray."

"I know why you can't pray," Melker said. "I can imagine what happens when you do."

"But how?"

"Have you told Obermann?"

"Yes. I've tried."

"Obie's good, you know? But I don't think he's ready for you."

"But surely," De Kuff said, smiling, "I'm just another unhappy individual." He seemed suddenly in the grip of an elegant gaiety. Then, seeing Raziel's face, his smile faded.

"How'd you like being a Christian?" Raziel asked.

"I don't know," De Kuff said. He looked stricken with shame. "I felt I had to do it."

"I also," Razz said. "I was a Jew for Jesus." He turned in his chair and took hold of his knee and stretched it. "Hey, I'm still for Jesus. You gotta love the guy."

De Kuff stared at him in confusion.

"I believe I know the roots of your soul," Raziel told him. "Do you believe me?" The older man looked into his eyes. Now I have you, Raziel thought. "Think because I met you at the shrink's I might be crazy?" Raziel asked.

"It does occur to me."

"You went and had yourself baptized," Raziel informed him. "You were a Catholic. Your mother is part Gentile."

"I'm afraid I'm very tired," Adam De Kuff said. "I'll say good night."

"Would you like to sleep?" Raziel asked him.

De Kuff looked at him in trepidation. Raziel got up and stood behind his chair. He put his hands on the heavy man's neck and twisted. For a moment Adam seemed to lose consciousness. Then he stiffened in the chair and tried to stand.

Raziel held him down gently but firmly at the shoulders.

"Learned it from a kundalini
yogin.
Never fails. Kundalini
yogins
don't sleep much, but when they do, they're very good at it. Have a bath and you'll sleep until dinner."

"I do have trouble with sleep," De Kuff said, getting awkwardly to his feet.

"Of course." Raziel patted his new friend's round shoulders. "Someone woke you. Who knows when?"