“My friend, what are you saying? That this is the elder brother of King Solomon, the one who erected the First Temple of Jerusalem? That it’s two thousand seven hundred years old?”
“But it knows no time, only being,” noted Katya, about whom they had forgotten.
“Okay, assume that’s true. But what about the others? Who are the others?” Skinhead placed the scintillating sphere in Katya’s hands. She walked to the middle of the footbridge, got down on her knees, arched catlike, and lowered the mysterious creature into the infant hatchery. Then she waved with her hand, beckoning them all onto the bridge.
The lake was full of—veritably swarming with—transparent, bluish spheres. The Newling remembered the long cardboard box where they had kept the Christmas ornaments in her childhood, and of them all, each wrapped in its own paper, her favorites had been the spheres . . .
“Of course, that’s how it’s supposed to be.” The Newling grew excited. She could not have explained just what was as it was supposed to be.
“The unborn children, the aborted ones, are here too . . . Sometimes they ripen and reemerge,” Katya explained matter-of-factly. “Speaking of which, that one over there, it’s completely ripened.” She stuck her arm in the water, attempting to fish out something that obviously did not want to be fished out.
“You and I used to be good at philosophy,” the Judean began, but Skinhead interrupted him.
“No, no. I was more interested in history.”
“Never mind. Remember Leibnitz’s monads? It’s very similar, you have to admit. And Saint Augustine was on the right track . . . Well, I won’t even mention the Cabalists. For all the intolerableness of their method, they figured out a lot . . .” He suddenly smirked. “What was that your Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky used to say about a child’s tears? That comment he made to the Almighty about not having enough humanity . . .”
The Newling could not take her eyes off Katya, who had extracted a completely transparent sphere the size of a large orange, breathed on it, placed it on her palm, and stopped still. The sphere rocked slightly, then pulled lightly, and was about to begin its unsteady movement upward when suddenly, as if frightened by something, it once again sank into Katya’s palm.
“He’s afraid, the little one,” said Katya with a happy smile. “It’s very frightening for them at this point . . . They’re going to do work. Some to commit great deeds, some—vileness . . . But this one here is very good . . .”
“Are there bad ones?” the Newling wondered.
Katya sighed.
“Yes, they’re all different. There are frightened ones, and traumatized ones . . . And the more terror they’ve endured, the more evil they do . . .”
That sounded convincing, especially since the Newling once again got the sense that she herself knew something about all this.
“Take it,” said the Judean to Skinhead.
Skinhead felt that he too wanted to hold the creature in his hands. With his palm he covered the sphere pressed against Katya’s hand. Katya turned her palm so that the sphere lay firmly in Skinhead’s hand. Judging by its weight and the sensation of warmth, disquiet, and trustfulness, this was a child. Undoubtedly a boy.
“Give it your blessing,” said the Judean.
“That’s up your Jewish line, not mine. I don’t know anything about that.” Skinhead smiled, not at the Judean, but at the being sealed in its sphere that promised to become an infant.
“It’s no stranger to you. Give it to me . . . If you don’t want to give it your blessing, don’t. Just wish that it becomes a good doctor.”
“Now you’re talking,” agreed Skinhead. “So be it.”
The sphere lightly disconnected itself from his palm and, like a bubble of air in water, floated upward . . . until it reached a certain invisible barrier, where it slowed, then pushed against it with enough force to break through, and disappeared, leaving behind only the sound of the burst film and carrying away in the core of its essence the recollection of having overcome the boundary between two environments . . .
5
SKINHEAD WAS HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME NOW. MANIKIN barely moved, stopping dead in its tracks at times, falling asleep on its feet, and then Skinhead would have to fling it over his shoulder like a sack and haul it on his back, which cost him no small effort. The Judean offered to help several times, but Skinhead shook his spherical head with its few short bristles and harrumphed him off.
“It seems to me that you did your share of hauling back then.” And he lugged on. Their rests became more frequent, apparently because of Manikin. After bathing in the sun for a while, it revived a bit and even walked on its own for a time. Once, when they were alongside each other during a rest, the Newling, taking a closer look at it, realized that its mouth was not cut properly and had only the folds of lips, its ears also were not drawn properly, its rudimentary eyebrows were barely traced on, and the eyes beneath them were weak-sighted. The Judean caught her gaze and said, as if offering advice: “Well, it looks like we’re not going to be able to make it presentable on our own. We’ll have to get help from above.”
Skinhead, who stood nearby—at this juncture the Newling understood that the Judean had been talking to him, not to her—kneeled in front of Manikin, touched the back of its wrist, put two thick fingers to its neck, and attempted to raise one of its eyelids, which were stuck shut, but could not.
“Yes, probably,” Skinhead agreed thoroughly morosely.
“We’ll have to take a detour.” The Judean drew a sweeping sign in the air.
They set off, as always, in their boring line through the boring sand, and they walked, as always, for a long time, always in the same—it seemed—uncertain direction; only the air seemed fresher, and it grew cooler, and the hills became higher, and the sand at first was harder and then replaced entirely by brown earth where here and there green plants poked through—like wormwood, nothing special, but the travelers were happy to see even this sickly greenery. The hills grew into foothills.
When it had become quite cold, a structure resembling a large shed suddenly appeared over one of the rises. In their amazement they all stopped in their tracks. It had been so long since they had last seen a human dwelling that a marble palace could not have impressed them more.
The Judean walked confidently ahead, while Skinhead had long ago fallen behind, lugging the heavy Manikin for the larger part of their journey. Even Limper had overtaken him.
Closer up, the shed more resembled some antiquated structure. The doors were high and hinged at both sides, like a gate, with timber-framing along the top. Entering, they were surprised once again: the enormous space resembled a dormitory, a sleeping area for schoolchildren, or a well-appointed barracks, with dozens of beds instead of barracks’ bunks, standing headboard to the wall and covered with something white—either coarse sheets or thin blankets. The left wall was occupied by a huge stove with bluish-white ceramic tiles, obviously of Dutch origin, while the middle of the room was entirely taken up by a wooden table. In the left wall were two doors: one with a sign that read 00, while the other displayed a showerhead dripping dotted-line streams of water . . .
With amazement Newling studied the universally understood door signs. Only now it dawned on her that it had been a long time since she had washed or visited a toilet, even to urinate. How could it be that she had completely forgotten about these basic human needs? She immediately felt that her bladder was full and pushed the door of the WC. There was a white toilet, a sink, and a terry-cloth towel hanging on a metal hook. It also smelled strongly of soap.