Uri read with great trouble, and although the riddling women did not ask him for any correction, he had to retranslate the opening passage to make more sense of it.
He was not in a position to notice, struggling as he was, that it was not the sense of what he was saying so much as his deep, pleasantly ringing bass-baritone voice. Its meaningless music helped the women in their work and swathed their minds in a soothing warmth. It was the voice of a man, who might still be little more than a child, but nevertheless that of a man, not the eternal chirrup of riddling women.
Uri read and translated extemporaneously what was written in the chapter concerning angels:
And it came to pass, when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of Heaven, saw and lusted after them… And Semjaza was their leader… And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Samlazaz, their leader, Araklba, Rameel, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqijal, Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaqlel, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel. These are their decarchs…
Uri came to a stop. The women went on swirling their sieves.
He asked if they understood the meaning of the word Decarch, which he did not know how to translate into Aramaic. They didn’t, so he paraphrased the sentence, saying that these were the names of the leaders of each group of ten men. The women nodded with an air of exasperation and waited for him to continue; they had no great wish to understand the exact details of the tale.
That unsettled Uri, who would have liked to give an accurate translation, if any at all. This is where he had the feeling that something more was at work between the women and himself than the translation of a story. But then he was reluctant to go into that, so he went on.
And all the others, together with them, took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bore great giants, whose height was three thousand ells, who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood…
Uri stopped and looked up. The women went on riddling; they were waiting for him to continue. They did not appear to have been shocked by all the monstrosities — the monstrosities in the story, not those in real life. After all, human beings do not normally devour one another’s flesh and drink their blood, though they were perfectly capable of imagining these things.
Uri went on.
And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all coloring tinctures…
At this the women perked up, and they asked questions about what those might have been, but Uri plowed on implacably.
And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal taught astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to Heaven…
Uri glanced up and saw that the women were expecting him to continue, shuttling their sieves impatiently.
The writer who had pieced the book together was not over-endowed with talent and inspiration, Uri reflected. After all, he could not even remember whom he had listed just before as leaders of the groups of ten. He went on translating, seeing that this was what had been asked for, and it was better than riddling or sifting.
And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from Heaven, and they saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth, and they spake unto the Lord… Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: “Go to Noah and tell him in my name, ‘Hide thyself!’ and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.”
Uri stopped again. Uriel was his own nickname: it was a jolt to see it written down, and suddenly the text acquired a new relevance. He hoped the name would appear again. He went on.
And again the Lord said to Raphaeclass="underline" “Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there forever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazeclass="underline" to him ascribe all sin.”
Uri raised his eyes. He did not grasp what the text was driving at, but the women must have done so rather better because they assiduously carried on with their riddling while waiting for him to resume. The women wore scarves for good reason; by now the sun was high in the sky, Uri’s own head was being burned, and he was parched. There was a hush. One of the women looked up, removed her own scarf and handed it to Uri.
“You’ll get a touch of the sun,” Uri said.
“I can pull my robe up over my head,” the woman said, and did just that. Uri gratefully knotted the scarf onto his head before carrying on reading the senseless text. It was still better than riddling.
And to Gabriel said the Lord: “Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication, and destroy the children of fornication and the children of the Watchers from amongst men, and cause them to go forth: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle…” And the Lord said unto Michaeclass="underline" “Go, bind Semjaza and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is forever and ever is consummated.”
Uri read and translated the whole day long, and for the whole of the week he recounted the scroll, which the owner had asked be returned to her every evening but then gave back each day. By the time Uri, his head reeling, had reached the end, the women asked him to read it again, but now to try a bit harder.
Starting again from the beginning, Uri strove to couch the antiquated language into more everyday Aramaic. The women were amazed that a scroll might be construed in more than one way and recalled details from his halting first effort, which they asked him to recite. Uri tried to explain that the text had been written many generations ago, and meanwhile the Greek language had changed, as Aramaic had, but they could not understand; it was the language they had been handed down by their parents, and they in turn by their parents, and it was the same language. Uri did not push the matter further; he chose to let it spread in the village that Theo was a strange marveclass="underline" he could read something once, but not a second time.