The Midnight Circus, стр. 23
Itwas pilpul, of course, argument for argument’s sake, even ifthey quoted Scripture. After a while, though, their old habits ofnonbelief reclaimed them and they returned to their own work, but withrenewed vigor. The crops, the shops, even the heder were the better forall the talk, so perhaps the angels were good for something after all.
RebJehudah knew nothing of this, of course. He continued his studying,day and night, night and day, wrestling with the great and smallmeanings of the law.
Now,one day an eighth angel came to visit him, an angel dressed in a longblack robe that had pictures of eyes sewn into it, eyes that opened andclosed at will. There was a ring of fire above the angel instead of ahalo, and he carried an unsheathed sword. He held the sword above RebJehudah’s head.
Itwas Samael, the Angel of Death.
RebJehudah did not notice this angel any more than hehad noticed the others, for he was much too busy poring over thebooks of the law.
TheAngel of Death shuddered. He knew that as long as the rabbi was engagedin his studies, his life could not be taken.
Allthis Moishe saw, peeping through the window, for he had come every dayto watch over Rabbi Jehudah instead of attending heder or working onhis father’s farm. As if he were another angel, though a bit grubby,with a smudge on one cheek and his fingernails not quite clean.
WhenMoishe saw the eighth angel, he shook all over with fear. He recognizedSamael. He had heard about that sword with its bitter drop of poison atthe tip. “The supreme poison,” his teacher had called it.
“RebJehudah,” Moishe called, “beware!”
Therabbi, intent on his studies, never heard the boy. But the Angel ofDeath did. He turned his awful head toward the window and smiled.
Itwas not a pleasant smile.
Andbefore Moishe could duck or run, the Angel of Death was by his side.
“Iwill have one from this village today,” said the angel. “If it cannotbe the rabbi, then it shall be you.” And he held his sword aboveMoishe’s head.
Seizedby terror, the child gasped, and his mouth opened wide to receive thepoison drop.
Atthat very moment, the seven angels in Reb Jehudah’s house set up aterrible wail; and this, at last, broke the good rabbi’s concentration.He stood, stretched, and looked out of the window to the garden that heloved, it beingas beautiful to him as the Garden of Eden. He saw a boy at his windowgasping for breath. Without a thought more, the rabbi ran outside andput his arms around the boy to try and stop the convulsions.
Headup, the rabbi prayed, “O Lord of All Creation, may this child not die.”
Theminute the rabbi’s mouth opened, the poison drop from the sword fellinto it, and he died.
TheAngel of Death flew away, his errand accomplished. He would not be backin Ykaterinislav until early spring, for a pogrom. But the seven angelsflew out of the open Window, gathered up Reb Jehudah’s soul, andcarried it off to Heaven, where Metatron himself embraced the rabbiand called him blessed.
Allthis young Moishe saw, but he knew he could not tell anyone inYkaterinislav. No one would believe him.
Insteadhe became a great storyteller, one of the greatest the world has everknown. His tales went around the earth, inspiring artists andmusicians, settling children in their cots, and making the eveningswhen the tales were read aloud as sweet as nights in Paradise. “It wasas if,” one critic said of him, “his stories were carried on the wingsof angels.”
Andperhaps they were.
GreatGray
THE COLD SPIKE OF WINTER WIND struck Donnal full in the face as he pedaleddown River Road toward the marsh. He reveled in the cold just as hereveled in the ache of his hands in the wool gloves and the pull ofmuscle alongthe inside of his right thigh.
Atthe edge of the marsh, he got off the bike, tucking it against thesumac, and crossed the road to the big field. He was lucky this time.One of the Great Grays, the larger of the two, was perched on a tree.Donnal lifted the field glasses to his eyes and watched as the bird,undisturbed by his movement, regarded the field with its big yelloweyes.
Donnaldidn’t know a great deal about birds, but the newspapers had been fullof the invasion, as it was called. Evidently Great Gray owlswere Arctic birds that only every hundred years found their way inlarge numbers totowns as far south as Hatfield. He shivered, as if a Massachusetts townon the edge of the Berkshires was south. The red-back vole populationin the north had crashed and the young Great Grays had fled their ownhunger and the talons of the older birds. And here they were, daytimeowls, fattening themselves on the mice and voles common even in winterin Hatfield.
Donnalsmiled, and watched the bird as it took off, spreading its six-footwings and sailing silently over the field. He knew there were otherGreat Grays in the Valley—two in Amherst, one in the NorthamptonMeadows, three reported in Holyoke, and some twenty others betweenHatfield and Boston. But he felt that the two in Hatfield were hisalone. So far no one else had discovered them. He had been biking outtwice a day for over a week to watch them, a short three miles alongthe meandering road.
Avegetarian himself, even before he’d joined the Metallica commune inTurner’s Falls, Donnal had developed an unnatural desire to watchanimals feeding, as if that satisfied any of his dormant carnivorousinstincts. He’d even owned a boa at one time, purchasing white mice forit at regular intervals. It was one of the reasons he’d been asked toleave the commune. The other, hardly worth mentioning, had more to dowith a certain sexual ambivalence having to do with children. Donnalnever thought about those things anymore. But watching theowls feeding made him aware of how much superior he was to the hungerof mere beasts.
“Itmakes me understand what is meant by a little lower thanthe angels,” he’d remarked to his massage teacher that morning,thinking about angels with great gray wings.
Thistime the owl suddenly plummeted down, pouncing on something which