That’s what you’re selling, but that I won’t buy…no way I can, it’s part of the deal — you know, I’m not that foolish…and I’m not that old, still attractive (she’s arranging her poor, demidyed wig in the reflection of the face of her watch, her husband’s dead, the watch, too), at least gentle, and very seasoned, savvy: I have testimonials, I’ve only ever gotten good reviews…maybe even leaving Him alone with me, for the night, no extra fee, just one night, that’s all I ask. Charity. Tell you what, you can deduct it from what I’m owed. Name His price. Soak me on the rates — I’m wet already. Then to Him, in a gassy guttered whisper, with unwashed maxillary denture, you’re interested, aren’t you, Ben…how can you not, tzedakah?
Enough, says Der with a sneer that gives much wingspan to his errant stache, breaking down, initially, this crumble, though its sharding only the sign of a sour impulse to escape…I want you to listen: we’ve got a pending deal to clone one of Them, to make ourselves a female, 100 % straight bloodline, how we want her, what we want her, when, and this you can tell the President since you two, you’re such close friends. Now that’s an expensive proposition, you’d say, and risky, and you’d be right, not to mention unsound — (an echo, Shade would agree: forbidden according to law both secular, and the newest sacred) — though it’s an option, keep that in mind in its long and tall, don’t sell us short, genug. He should remember that we’re the only ones with the resources to do it, the money and the skill. Don’t underestimate how determined we are to protect our investment, His and ours, I mean — Him, He’s in agreement. Aren’t you, Ben. Say yes. There, you have it from the mouth. We’re invested too heavily is what, He is, what with the hanging sacs, the shed — don’t think we haven’t thought. Explored. Experimented. We’ve parsed and planned and dreamed. Der thrusts out a gloved numbed hand like put it there, so long…so drop this, won’t you, no hysterics, don’t even try; as if to say, I know all the ruse and female. Do we have a deal or am I milking samples?
You’d never. No one would. They’d be unkosher, inbred.
As if they always weren’t.
Don’t give me that mishegas…giving a sigh perfumed with the odious must of routine, coughed by a wink that rouses her, pumps blood back to feet; her stepping out of the aisle as if to make room, to usher in the close — even though I’ll take it, that’s what you pay me for…and you will pay me today, now, and their money in a week, cash, I get ten percent commission. But just so you know, her family won’t take it; and neither will she, who would: if He’s to be a husband, He has to be a husband, not a Company, a Corporate what have you malfeasance snooze or fake…not the Messiah and no, not a God. No cloning, and no veils, Ben — that thing has to come off sooner or later; I’ll tell you what, we’ll put that in the contract.
Agreed, and Der heads after her up the steps as if to make to shake her down, and maybe her price along with her, how in shaking everything’s negotiable — grubs up her hands into a hug unintended, she presumes, she has to, now keeping near, coming on with shimmy…she suddenly holds him tightly, to nuzzle, as he with elbows and shoulders makes to pry her off with hands engloved shoves her away, back down into the topmost pew. Wonderful, he says straightening himself, patting himself down to find if he’s lost anything, a pocket’s medal or ribbon picked. If you kiss for business you should later count your teeth. Your bridge and crowns. That and his moustache should deter, and hers, peroxide fuzz. Now, if you please, I’ll direct you to deal with my associate, Doctor Abuya — you two have much to discuss, lives to plan…a wedding, too, she says, as she rises and turns to walk through that first pew’s row to the last remnant of the slippery aisle and up it, shuffling — lucky for you my brother’s a caterer, he’ll deal…sidestepping pallets, planks, and moundings of plastic trashed out to the archway and its escort waiting of Abuya, Gelt, Hamm, and Mada, who too gingerly geriatrically arm her out through the courtyards back to the entrance and its lionized stairs, as she harangues them with inquiries, shtepping about their own questionable statuses with regard to love, kinder, how much they make and yadda.
It’s been decided, then: His decisions are theirs, are ours, His life all our lives to do with what we will — whatever we want Him to be, He is, we’re saying: we prick Him, He’s a prick; we bleed Him and He’s bled; we want Him hitched, and abra my aleph a star appears — out of nowhere. To become betrothed, Ben’s affianced, quite possibly refinanced into the bargain, reassured, reinsured, underwritten. A beautiful bride, the matchmaker’s saying while picking through her linner later that evening, off the clocking into a dunch with Doctor Abuya whose price plus tip will be deducted from her commission, in a manner professionally famished at the hottest Midtown couscouserie whose best silver’s been hidden in anticipation of her arrivaclass="underline" a Queen, she’d said, you should be so lucky, and a pianist, too, concert quality or was it the clarinet, and modest, how she’s so modest she no longer thinks her modesty’s a virtue, that and have I mentioned, how she knows from epic poetry and how to select the best cuts of meat and freshest produce, that that will be ripe tomorrow, whenever you want her breads baked presliced, crusts cut and drooly, O the head on her, looks she got and grace, musing graces, a real manner, with not a flaw on her or in her, until Him, maybe, that putz…the best I’ve had to deal with, ever — and I don’t have to tell you about her family.
You have to understand, the Nachmachen’s saying dark later from under the shadow of a modeled hood, the latest sent sample of the Temple’s onorder ecclesiastical robes, these for nominal Levites: talking to the Doctors Tweiss, asking them to get the idea, to delve with him and explore the depths, knowing they won’t but God in Heaven do they ever follow orders (it’s like those scissor-dashes on the flesh they cut by, the particular focus of the eyes, up or down, by which their pads and pens prescribe: happy, or sad, here or there, ready or not, now/then), I want you to make sure He never reproduces, that He’s unaware. And so, another a deceit, like ever, there’s nothing new under that slight of sun, the moon: changing, undressing to underwear, bare pale and sickly skinny in sockless feet and flagpole legs, the Nachmachen standing discourse in the doorway of one of their offices presently slipping into the priests’ holiday vestments to be custom chalked for the tailoring (the tailor, he’s already an hour late; his apologies, though, they’ll leave everyone in stitches), it’s just not a legacy we want to leave, he says…the priestly breatsplate thumped and clanking, urim and thumming, the oracle’s settings left unjeweled as if to keep down the overhead in humble; this interest’s not about posterity, about what we want to leave behind: all returns are in the present, the here and now, today…who knows how long this’ll last, how long we want it to last, you know. The Last One, the right real God’s honest Last One is what makes money, so we’ve heard, we’ve seen — people want what people want. If they know another One’s in the works, then is He still that special, I don’t think so (no one else will either). Doctor Abuya’s collapsed on the analysand’s couch, exhausted from his meeting, its negotiations, subsequent argumentation over an appropriate tip. Nurse de Presser enters with an accentuated bust that’s only a tray of mugs, but then never brings the tea or coffee. Plus, the Nachmachen asks himself or them or who, questions, questions, questions — what’re the ramifications of descendants? How long are we really going to be around? We’re not in this racket forever, especially not with all these recent Affiliations going on. Conversion, it’ll be the death of us. No, we make what we make, then we get out. No need to speculate on kin, they’re just more problems…and of problems they already have enough.