THE JEWEL OF PARADOX
A Visionary Spy Story by Gill Schwartz

Chapter Three

SOLUTIO has done its work to soften and liquefy.
Now I need to stir and shake the Prima Materia
to blend its various components, to enliven and
catalyze further interactions and evolutions.

Repeated motions of winnowing, shaking and kneading
will mix the Solution, promote a sorting
and a release of toxins, dross and impurities.
Such agitating can break up blocks and create
readiness for change and the energy to bring it about.

Whether I knead the Prima Materia like clay, swirl
it like a potion or melt and mix in a furnace,
it thus becomes more vital and workable.
Traits, qualities, memories that had always
clustered, can now break apart.

My Wizardly term for this sacred quaking is:

AGITATIO or SHAKING

 

Jason woke aware of how quiet it was. Must be their siesta time, he realized. Roasted-gold slats of late afternoon sunlight poured down through the teak shutters. They lay across the floor and over their bodies, surrealistic slots into another space-time realm. Copper bands strapping their dark forms in place. The realm of brilliance... And the shadow-world...

He wasn't very rested. He felt like he'd been flung back and forth, twisting towards her, then turning away. His whole being was jostled, shaken. A gut-ache inside told him how unhappy he was. And in his post- coital low, he was completely turned off to her. The frenzy of their plastic intimacy left him empty and angry, desperatly pretending that enraptured lust might flare back into love, pretending he might find some way to resolve his clashing feelings for her, for imagining that their reborn love could release him from the meaningless, dull rumble of his life.

Now he doubted everything about her and this set up. Things had shifted too fast between them for him not to suspect she had an ulterior agenda, that she was trying to maneuver him. Here they were again. Melissa lying naked next to him, asleep, face open and sweet as a child's, here to help him kill a man neither of them knew. He had serious misgivings about
every part of it. He felt used and abused. As ever, he'd been drawn by her Siren's song, then dashed on her jagged shores.

Deeper down, he clearly knew his love-hate with her was a sign and symptom of his being sucked down into the Cosmic Whirlpool. He cynically saw his own self-deceiving collusion in all this, his sentimental play-acting with her created his own worst torment. With bitter humor, he saw it all between them like a senseless burlesque at union. He saw them striving, like apes in a cage, desperate for diversion, indulging the itch in order to momentarily escape the hopelessness, the isolation, the grieving of captivity. Soon we'd be picking fleas off each other, he thought.

A well-used ploy of theirs, flinging themselves into sex to avoid facing the perilous cliffs between them. Maybe in the act, they might get some of the pent-up anger vented with the passion.

The same guarded, pointless place they were with each other the last time they'd met after that assignment in Costa Rica. Their desperate coming together in bed showed how separate they were. Almost a year and a half ago, and it made no difference at all. Jason muttered to himself, Just another weary recap. Watching time is pointless if today is just like yesterday.

He watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing, the golden slats of light flowing back and forth over her. He eased away from her, though he knew she wouldn't wake, and propped myself up against the backboard.

"In my heart," he said, almost aloud to her sleeping form, so touchable, so undefended, "in my heart I've opened my innermost to you. And, beloved, in my heart, I've burnt you to charred meat a hundred times over. I can only offer you those flames of my love-hate for you."

Oddly, he wondered if this was the kind of passionate ambivalence Judas had for Jesus. A divided torment that could not resolve, no matter what. He sensed a similar desperate longing in Iscariot's worship of his Master. Years of following him as a devoted disciple, giving over to His truth and connection with Source, till Judas could not help knowing that ultimately Jesus was a block to him finding his own connection with Source. Was it a vindictive betrayal or a recognition of the needed sacrifice, for both Judas and Prophecy. Then later, in the throws of realizing his loss and the self- recrimination, Judas ending his own life.

Held in such universal grief, there in the fading sunset in Balangpur, some core part of Jason cried out, "I am a human being too, just as Jesus and Judas were. I don't always like being one, but I am. Maybe they had torments like mine, needs that were never answered, longings never fulfilled. I hurt in my life, hurt without remedy and without recourse. I understand what could drive both of them to do as they had to."

"No wonder I lash out with such pleasure in my calling," he consoled himself. "They shelter me with political cover-ups, but for me it is the balm for a lifetime of torment. I retaliate for all the stupid, maiming things done to me. The ideals and longings that nourished my soul when I was young were torn apart by others' mindless mechanisms and maiming realities."

A fanciful question sprang up in his mind. Was this the tormenting scheme of some hateful demons from another world to viciously maim or destroy us. No, not demons, Jason retaliated to himself. Just ordinary humans, frenzied in their blind, self-serving wants and shoulds. And Jason's frustrated longing for the promised wholeness made him even more judging and vindictive. Just humans! He felt hurt for Jesus at being betrayed by His 'just human' followers. And for Judas for being betrayed by his own 'just humanness

Melissa slept on, drunk and lusted out, while he watched his cigarette's smoke swirl up through the ceiling fan's wash, up through the layers of golden sunlight and shadow. Sparkling, then dull, then sparkling again. The huge lazy sweeps of the mahogany fan overhead made no real difference to their comfort. The pillow was damp under his neck and the sweltering sheets stuck to his skin. It was only up there for show, its breeze to spiral the smoke and motes of dust, to ruffle the bed's mosquito net, to send ripples down the lace curtains across the wide French windows.

He looked at her sleeping form, the bars of sunlight slowly fading into evening's shadow. How completely she abandoned herself to sleep. The corners of her eyes and mouth, released from their usual tightness, were soft as a child's. That was the way she'd always looked when they'd first met. She had a rare sweet openness then, an inner innocence and nakedness. Someone you felt you could easily touch and be with. Unspoiled and with the grace of a princess. That was the woman he'd fallen in love with.

He saw her then as a wondrous portal that would lead him beyond, to help him break free of the 'cellophane-wrapped, vacuum-packed, disposable life' his had become. She was to be the antidote for his weariness, the nurturing for his starved soul. He knew himself as one of the 'the hungry ghosts' through whose pipe-stem neck only liquids could pass, his belly distended with ravenous appetite. He was a ghoul haunting himself, aimlessly blown from one grasping to the next, with emptiness in between, void of form and meaning.

He lit candles as it darkened outside, and the room fluttered in their flames. The street noise had risen again and reached evening's crescendo, like a citywide festival.

With a few gentle snorts and stretches, Melissa began to awaken. He sighed with resignation. Even if she's not directly to blame for all the pain in my life, he warned himself, she can be a witch. Be wary!

She started to stir, to draw back into her accustomed shell. She lost that sweet look of abandon as her face tightened, grew more defended. She sat up, stretched and shook her head, her hair rolling against the sides of her face, her eyes still closed. "Even worse than before out there," she muttered, grimacing with distaste. " If we'd had the sense to go where there's really air-conditioning, we'd have been spared all this."

"This was the place Phineus recommended to me. And their sign does promise, though falsely, air-conditioned rooms," he testily reminded her.

Her expression changed even more, gathered, tightened and set into the sharp mask she'd come to wear. Was that how she protected the innocence he'd first seen in her? "We probably would have done better at our intercrossing too," she looked over with lowered eyes, "if it weren't so godawful hot." Sweet kid, really. Just those jarring edges to stay clear of. "I thought we did fairly well," he said, knowing full well she'd been pleased, and rolled towards her.

She pressed a breast against his arm. "Oh, I wasn't really complaining." She thought exaggerated lip movements were beguiling. Such a child. "You know, I always thought you were the next best thing to Superman. Really," she crooned. "And nobody has got blue eyes like yours. Even when you're grumpy, they just do something to me."

He looked down into her face. All the old patterns and gambits so easily resurfaced. Their relating was like a wind-up toy. Bickering and intercross were the two poles of their modus operandi.

"You know, eyes aren't objects," he muttered, trying to keep the rancor out of his voice. "Ever hear the expression `windows of the soul?'"

She rolled away from him and stared off into space. "Oh well, if you're going to get upset even when I try to say something nice to you, then just forget it, Mr. Bardow."

A long, heavy silence, the most hateful place they'd get into. Her biting impatience and snide tones had nothing to do with the warm woman he'd once sensed and still sought in her. It broke his willingness to try to work things through with her. Once he got into this state, it clung like a curse. No matter how petty the cause, his mind and feelings would clamp onto the hurt and magnify it till it filled him. It was like a spell she would cast over him. Truly a witch, he felt of her.

But it seemed no trouble for her to let such moods drop without a second thought. It was a whole different thing happening for each of them, and he was damned if he could ever figure out how to connect them. After he'd stewed in his bile for while, with that uncanny quirk of hers to just let things go, or to hide them so well they didn't show, she turned back to him and took his hand, smiling.

"Did you have any luck contacting that Plang person earlier?" she asked him.

Something sly about her tone, and the mood he was in, made him think, I'm the bait, and she's here to see that I stay on the hook. The Cosmic Whirlpool came back to clutch him. He felt its grasping torrent reaching him through her voice. All he had to keep it from sucking him down into nothingness was the buried mystic in him. It envisioned the W.E.B. of grace lifting him up out of that Whirlpool of circumstance and towards that moment of Realization. And here he was arranging to see a man who dealt in such awakenings.

"No, Plang Mengli wasn't around. But I spoke with his secretary at the King's Palace. She announced him as `His Majesty's Grand Wizard, Keeper of the Kingdom's Spells. Wants you to know your place right off, it seems." It did help Jason to regain some composure, being able to poke fun.

"She said he'll be giving a Wisdom Talk this evening, open to the public, at exactly 6:30. She stressed the exactly. I mentioned our mutual friend, Phineus, and she said she would make arrangements for them to meet with Plang Mengli after his talk."

He saw the time on the ornate, guilded clock on the room's dresser. "It's 5:49. Leaves us about forty minutes. From what his secretary said, Victoria Hall, where he's speaking, is close. Maximum travel time, even walking, not over half-an-hour. Better let dinner go till after. But there's time for a quick shower. Join me? Should freshen us up a bit."

"That's you, Jason," she snipped. "Nothing if not precise and clean. You shower like other people wash their hands."

It was an old point of banter between them. It could sometimes be an issue when they were living together. "Taking a shower is really not much more time consuming or trouble. Besides, I grew up in a house where the shower worked well and the sink didn't. And its probably our culture's only genuine contribution to man's betterment... and women's too," he explained
convincingly.

She did join him.

As they left the elevator and walked though the rattan-furniture filled lobby, the manger smiled at them and pointed to several huge ceiling fans."Nice for cool in your room," he asked, his face knotted with anxiousness to please.

Melissa stopped dead in her tacks. "Are you for real?" she spat, "It's like a steam room up there. If I could..."

"It is really all right," Jason cut in and took her arm to lead her to the front door. "The fans keep us comfortable. Yes, nice for cool."

He hurried them out into the early evening's cool. Overhead the Hotel's green and red neon sign blinked, casting its glare on the packed bustling streets. Humanity flowed by in an endlessly varied flood, keeping them pressed to the walls and doorways as they walked. There were faces and costumes from seemingly every race and culture imaginable. Flesh tones from ivory to copper and ebony, features broad and narrow. Women in jewel-colored sheath skirts slit up to the thighs, regal saris, sarongs, or simple white pajamas. Men wore bright shirts over dhotis or tight white pants, some in flowing robes wearing a fez or turban, some in natty, tailored suits. And, or course, the many poor, whose rags were beyond identification.

Bedrock assumptions are shattered.
Elements that had been distinct, separate,
even antagonistic to each other,
I mix into a homogenous blend.

At last he squeezed through the passing hordes to the curb where a coolie stood waiting next to his cycleshaw -the front end of a bicycle welded onto the seat-end of a rickshaw. He seated myself, told him the address, and looked round for Melissa. There she was surrounded by a horde of begging street urchins. She crouched down to their height, giving them coins all around. He'd seen her do that all over the world on their assignments. Seems she drew them to her. Still some part of her sweetness that survived. After he called her a couple of times, she hugged a few of them, waved them good-bye and came.

"Victoria Hall", Jason said as the coolie grunted and pushed off, shifting all his weight from one pedal to the other. Taut strands of muscle worked in fine definition under his glistening dusky skin.

The street traffic was as diverse as the sidewalks. Gaily painted bullock carts, horse-drawn tongas, cycleshaws with bells jangling. There were numerous ancient bicycles, some ridden by tots working the peddles sideways through the frame. Many scooters and mini-taxis. Miscellaneous beasts of burden and howling street-dogs jostled for every inch of space.

Between this din and dust-raising street traffic and the crowded walkways to either side, were rows of vendors in tiny stalls. Mounds of rice, baskets of produce, strings of fresh and dried meat, flowers, spices and plastic bric-a-brac caught his eye. Some were sources of quick-eats for the passersby -steaming soups and little bits of fried stuff, snakes, cockroaches and other delicacies.

Each vendor had his own call, melodic and chant-like or whiny and piercing, punctuating the din of the street. On a distant amplifier was the Moslem call to prayer. Soon, from another direction, he heard the sound of church bells amidst the clamor of horns, brays and calls. These had counterparts in the realm of smell too; animals and gasoline, frying oil and worn humanity, strange spices and incenses, excrement and elusive scents of the far off sea.

"I don't think I've ever felt so completely somewhere else," he told Melissa.

"Yes," she answered with a frown, "that's just where I'd like to be. Somewhere else!"

Balangpur seemed to have been built by fits and stops, with a lot of mind wandering in between, by waves of invaders with varied ideas of architecture. Along one road they saw rows of barrack-like houses with pealing whitewash on the walls and shabby thatched roofs, their occupants perched everywhere — on the window ledges that flanked each narrow doorway, on the steps leading down to the street, on the street itself. On the next road was a huge, grotesque building, temple, public building, or mansion, he couldn't tell which. Then there was a bit of untouched scrub land with a few scrawny goats grazing on the sparse grass. A few scattered, thatched huts. Beyond, a new, long office building with lots of windows. Then more rows of barrack houses.

They weaved and circled thus for some twenty minutes, being shaken to pieces. Things looked more and more familiar. "Seems like we keep going down the same streets," Melissa commented.

"Old trick of the East," he quipped.

At last they came to a desolate, dusty cemented square with a few scrubby trees and a number of beggars. At its center was a red-brick, two-story building.

"Victoria Hall," the cycleshaw driver panted.

Beginning to fume, Jason questioned the driver. "You've just been taking them round and round. We hire you for what ought to be a half-hour trip and you spin it out to nearly an hour. Is that the way you whirl all the tourists around? Make them dizzy so they'll pay what you want?"

He patiently replied in broken but adequate English, explaining that because of the new system of one-way streets -part of the King's new Five-Year Modernization Plan- there was no shorter way of making the trip from the other side of the square to the other. He thought they would enjoy the tour anyway, since they still had time before the Wisdom Talk.

"Another old trick of the East," Jason muttered with shame when he told him the pittance of the fare, "so these fellows and their families can eat at the end of the day."

The squat building before them, tastelessly garnished with bits of colonnade and lintel, looked like something from a suburb of London — a meeting hall or a grand cinema. The front doors were open wide. Notices in several languages and scripts were posted near the entrance.

"We have the auspicious pleasure to announce to our gracious public the appearance of His
Eminence, Plang Mengli His Majesty's Grand Wizard, Heir and Keeper of the Kingdom's Spells, Mysteries and Incantations. He will offer Wisdom Talks every evening during the Festival Week of the Call. 6:30 promptly.

All are cordially invited to attend on the words of this noted Master to find guidance 'as the Stars from Hollywood do.' The Management requests no smoking of bhang or chewing pan on these premises. Love-offerings are accepted."

Melissa and Jason nodded at each other with humorous knowing. As if on cue, "We're off to see the Wizard," they chimed in.

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Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2010