Luas returns to the train shed after leaving Elon with his mother and sits down on the bench next to Samar.
“Welcome to Shemaya,” he says. “My name is Luas.”
Like Elon, Samar tries to conceal and deny his wounds, but there is not much left of him to conceal actually, just a head and some torn pieces of flesh and bone plopped in a grotesque pile on the bench. But in Samar’s imagination, he is whole. Luas smiles at him, as if to say: Yes, my son, I see. I see what you are afraid to see, but I will pretend not to have noticed.
Across Shemaya Station, Gautama rolls his stone sphere forward, toward a muscular young man sitting all alone on a bench. I recognize this young man as Tim Shelly. He is covered with sweat and has no pants, exactly as I had last seen him in the mushroom house. The surface of the sphere changes, but I cannot look.
“The choice is yours, my daughter,” Gautama calls out to me. “You are standing before the doors, as all people who have come before you and all who will come after. Which door will you open?”
44
I do not remember anymore.
Were my eyes blue like the sky or brown like fresh-tilled earth? Did my hair curl into giggles around my chin or drape over my shoulders in a frown? Was my skin light or dark? Was my body heavy or lean? Did I wear tailored silks or rough cotton and flax?
I do not remember. I remember that I was a woman, which is more than mere recollection of womb and bosom. And for a moment, I remembered all my moments in linear time, which began with womb and bosom and ended there too. But these are fading away now, discarded ballast from a ship emerged from the storm.
I remember unlocking the doors and entering the Urartu Chamber to present the soul of Otto Rabun Bowles. I was met there by Legna and denied passage to the presenter’s chair.
“This way,” she said, pointing to the great monolith itself.
I followed her, through a fissure in the sapphire wall and up the stairs, climbing several stories to the triangular aperture at the top through which light enters but does not exit. We came to a small balcony from which I could see the glistening, amber floor of the Chamber below and other similar Chambers to my right and left, thousands of them, with thousands of sapphire monoliths rising up like chimney stacks across a city skyline, extending to the horizon and beyond.
In one of the Chambers closest to mine, Mi Lau, the Vietnamese girl, stood at the presenter’s chair and, extending her arms, announced:
“I PRESENT ANTHONY BELLINI… HE HAS CHOSEN!”
The energy from the walls of her Chamber surged through her, washing into the Chamber a dirt tunnel beneath a village, Mi Lau’s family, my Uncle Anthony, a grenade, and a horrific explosion. Legna ended the presentation when Uncle Anthony put a gun to his own head and squeezed the trigger, but God did not pass judgment upon Anthony Bellini’s soul from the balcony of the monolith. God had not even been there to watch. The balcony was empty.
In another Chamber nearby stood Hanz Stossel declaring:
“I PRESENT AMINA RABUN… SHE HAS CHOSEN!”
I had seen this presentation before and knew the ending. Again the balcony was empty. No one heard Hanz Stossel’s cries for justice from his Israeli prison cell.
In yet another Chamber, young Bette Rabun raised her arms and screamed:
“I PRESENT ALEXY PETROVITCH… HE HAS CHOSEN!”
The Chamber turned into little Bette’s bedroom in Kamenz where Alexy held her arms down while another Russian soldier beat and raped her in the darkness. No one stood on the balcony of the monolith to witness the crime or to convict the prisoner.
In another Chamber, Elon Kaluzhsky raised his arms and cried:
“I PRESENT SAMAR MANSOUR… HE HAS CHOSEN!”
Into his Chamber roared the Number 35 express bus, the sounds of gunfire and the concussion of a bomb. Again, the balcony in the monolith was vacant. No one saw the last terrible moments of Elon Kaluzhsky’s life.
From a Chamber behind me came Luas’ voice:
“I PRESENT NERO CLAUDIUS CEASAR…HE HAS CHOSEN!”
I turned to see Luas being brought in chains before Nero. At the emperor’s instruction, a Roman soldier raised his sword and decapitated him. Luas’ bald and bloodied head rolled within an inch of the emperor’s foot. He kicked it away, then motioned for the mess to be cleaned. Legna ended the presentation and Luas walked back out of the Chamber. No one watched from the balcony, and no one condemned Nero to the hell he deserved.
Moments later, Luas appeared inside my Urartu Chamber, accompanied by Samar Mansour. They took their places on the observer chairs. Samar Mansour looked around the Chamber in fascination and awe, as I did on my first visit.
“Brek Cuttler will be presenting the case of Otto Bowles,” Luas whispered.
“I’m up here!” I called down to Luas, but he couldn’t hear me.
Then Haissem entered the Chamber, the young boy who had presented the soul of Toby Bowles. Luas was visibly disappointed, as he had been when Toby failed to appear to present the case of his father.
“Oh, it’s only you, Haissem,” he said, frowning. “We were expecting Ms. Cuttler… Well, here we are anyway. Haissem, this is Samar Mansour, the newest lawyer on my staff. Samar, this is Haissem, the most senior presenter in Shemaya. I must say, Haissem, that Samar has arrived not a moment too soon. We just lost Amina Rabun and now, it seems, Ms. Cuttler.”
“Welcome to the Urartu Chamber,” Haissem said, bowing politely. “I once sat here to witness my first presentation. Abel presented the difficult case of his brother Cain. That was long before your time though, Luas.”
“Quite,” Luas said.
“Little has changed since then,” Haissem said. “Luas keeps the docket moving, even though the number of cases increases. We’re fortunate to have you, Samar, and you’re fortunate to have Luas as your mentor. There’s no better presenter in all of Shemaya.”
“Present company excepted,” Luas said.
“Not at all,” said Haissem. “I handle the easy cases.”
“Few would consider Socrates and Judas easy cases,” Luas said. “I’m just a clerk.”
Haissem winked at Samar. “Don’t let him fool you,” he said. “Without Luas there would be no Shemaya.” He took Samar’s hand. “I must enter my appearance now and prepare myself. We will meet again, Samar, after your first case. You’ll do well here. I’m certain of it.”
Haissem moved to the center of the Chamber. Legna emerged from the monolith and whispered something to him, then returned. Haissem stood, raised his arms in a graceful arc, and in a voice much louder than the other presenters, almost an explosion, he said:
“I PRESENT BREK ABIGAIL CUTTLER…SHE HAS CHOSEN!”
I remember hearing the sounds of water rushing and wind blowing, of dolphins laughing and birds singing, of children talking and parents sighing, of stars and galaxies living and dying…the sounds of the earth breathing, if you could have heard it from the other side of the universe. I remember hearing God in those sounds, crying out for forgiveness from Cudi Dagh, and I remember hearing humanity in those sounds, crying out for forgiveness from Golgotha. And there, too, in the music was the ineffable joy of Noah, reaching up from the littoral to forgive his Father, and above that the ineffable joy of God, reaching down from the cross to forgive His children. And somewhere still, more faint, but it was there, I heard the cry of Otto Rabun Bowles, and with it the song of another soul, so joyous it could be heard above all these sounds, singing three words over and over: