The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban(1973) Read online

  Words came to his mind unbidden, unresisted. They were there like a smell that carries memory or like a change in the temperature of the air: the father must live so that the father can die. Boaz-Jachin groaned inwardly. Tiresome reversals somersaulting in his brain. Found and lost, always and never, everything and nothing. Where had these new words come from? What was wanted of him? What had he to do with such things?

  No longer subtle as air, but now like sudden men in armor, Implacable, cold with the night wind of a road hard ridden, barbarous with savage unknown meaning useless to resist: the father must live so that the father can die. Quickly! What quickly? Hot waves of irritation leaped in Boaz-Jachin like flames. He sweated, ignorant and anxious.

  “Petrol stations own the world,â€� said Mina. “Tanks and towers signal one to the other in strong raw colors. Goats have eyes like oracle stones.â€�

  “That’s very well observed,â€� said her father. “They do. Urim and Thummim.â€�

  Stop telling me everything, thought Boaz-Jachin. Stop presenting the world. I’ll see the goats and the petrol stations or I won’t. Let them be whatever they’ll be to me.

  “Isn’t anybody but me hungry?â€� said Mina’s mother.

  “There’s a book you have to read,â€� said Mina to Boaz-Jachin. “It’s a poet’s notebook.â€�

  No, I don’t have to read it, he thought. Quickly. What quickly? A breathless sense of hurry rose in him like a whirlwind.

  “That part about the uncle’s death or the grandfather’s death, how it was so strong in him and took so long,â€� said the father. “Unforgettable.â€�

  “I know,â€� said Mina. “And the man who walked funny that he followed in the street.â€�

  “I’m starving,â€� said the mother.

  “Take a look at the guide,â€� said the father. “Where are we on the map?â€�

  “You know how I am with maps,â€� said the mother. “It takes me a long time.â€� She unfolded the map clumsily.

  “Look,â€� said the father, pointing with his finger on the map. “We’re over here somewhere, heading north.â€�

  “Keep your eyes on the road,â€� said the mother. “And I wish you’d stop driving so fast. We passed a place about five miles back that looked good, and it was gone before I could tell you to slow down.â€�

  “There,â€� said Mina.

  “What?â€� said the father.

  “It had an orange tree in a red clay courtyard,â€� said Mina. “There were white doves.â€�

  “I can turn around,â€� said the father.

  “Never mind,â€� said Mina. “I’m not even sure it was a restaurant.â€�

  “Where are we?â€� said the father. “Have you found us on the map yet?â€�

  “You make me so nervous when I have to look at a map that my hands shake,â€� said the mother.

  The rented car hummed to itself. Whatever happens is not my fault, said the car. From ahead the miles surged towards them in numberless sharp-focused grains of road that rolled beneath the wheels and spun out behind. Boaz-Jachin felt stifled in the car with Mina and her parents. He drew deep breaths, expelled them slowly. He wished that he had not accepted their offer of a lift. He wished that he had a guitar again and were traveling alone and more slowly. But he felt compelled to hurry. Emptiness leaped forward in him, rushing towards something.

  “That road!â€� said the mother. “There! About five miles down there’s an old inn, five forks and spoons in the guide. We’ve passed it now. You simply refuse to slow down.â€�

  The father swung the car around in a U-turn, sideswiped a van just then overtaking him, slewed off the road, up a bank, and crashed into a tree. Broken headlights tinkled. Steam drifted from the smashed radiator. All was silent for a moment. Not my fault, said the car.

  It’s her fault, thought the father. It’s his fault, thought the mother. It’s both their faults, thought Mina. It’s the kind of thing that can be expected from this family, thought Boaz-Jachin. I’ll be lucky if I get away from them with my life.

  The petrol stations, the valves and towers, the giant steel legs that strode across the landscape said nothing.

  Everyone looked at everyone else. No one seemed injured.

  “My God,â€� said the mother.

  “Right,â€� said the father. “Very good. We can walk to the goddam famous old five-fork-and-spoon inn.â€�

  “My God,â€� said the mother. “My neck.â€�

  “What’s the matter with your neck?â€� said the father.

  “I don’t know,â€� said the mother. “It feels all right now, but sometimes you don’t get the full effects of backlash until months later.â€�

  “But it feels all right now,â€� said the father.

  “I don’t know,â€� said the mother.

  “You could have killed us all, the two of you,â€� said Mina.

  The father got out of the car to talk to the driver of the van. The van had a dent in the side and several long scrapes. “I’m sorry,â€� he said. “That was my fault. I didn’t see you coming.â€�

  The van driver shook his head. He was a large man with a gentle face and a drooping moustache. “These things happen,â€� he said in his own language. “You’re from another country, not used to these roads.â€�

  “The fault is mine,â€� said the father in the same language. “I do not look, I do not see. I regret.â€�

  “Now we have to fill in forms with details of the accident,â€� said the van driver. He and the father exchanged licenses, insurance cards, made notes.

  “I knew something was going to happen,â€� said Mina to Boaz-Jachin. “I could feel it. If my mother and father were sitting in a perfectly stationary box with no wheels and no motor they could make it crash by psychokinesis.â€�

  The car could no longer be driven. The van driver took them and their luggage to a petrol station. Arrangements were made for towing away the car and renting a new one.

  “We might as well go to the five-fork-and-spoon place now,â€� said the father. The van driver offered to take them there, and everybody got into the van but Boaz-Jachin.

  “You’re invited, you know,â€� said the father. “And we’ll be going on to the channel port as soon as we get another car.â€� Please, said the father’s eyes, don’t leave us yet. Love my daughter for a while. Let her be beautiful for you.

  “Thank you very much,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “You’ve been very generous, but now I want to travel alone again for a while.â€�

  Stay, said the mother’s eyes. She can’t have her father but she can have you.

  Boaz-Jachin kissed Mina goodbye, shook hands with her father and mother while looking away from their eyes. Mina wrote her home address on a piece of paper, tucked it into Boaz-Jachin’s pocket. He walked down the road away from the petrol station.

  “How do you manage to do it?â€� he heard Mina ask her parents just before the van started up. “How do the two of you make everything not be there all of a sudden?â€�

  The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban(1973)

  -26-

  Jachin-Boaz was taken to the same hospital where his wounds had been dressed before. The same doctor saw him and led him away from the nurse at the admissions desk, beckoning to the police constable to follow. Gretel stayed in the waiting room with another constable.

  “This is no surprise to me at all,â€� said the doctor. “I knew it would be a matter for the police sooner or later. I suppose that spiked fence has been after you again, has it?â€�

  “Yes,â€� said Jachin-Boaz.

  “Very well, then,â€� said the doctor. “
I’m going to be blunt with you, my good man. If you expect to stay in this country you’ll jolly well have to learn our ways. This mucking about with large carnivores won’t do. Those animals at the zoo are laid on for the enjoyment of the general public, and not for the deviant religious practices of the foreign element.â€� He turned to the police constable. “This is the second time he’s come in this way, you know.â€�

  The police constable did not want to be drawn into a discussion of large carnivores. “There’s a young lady with him,â€� he said.

  “Of course,â€� said the doctor. “‘Look for the woman,’ eh? Not to put too fine a point on it, there’ll be sex at the bottom of this sort of thing nine times out of ten.â€� He snipped off the remnants of Jachin-Boaz’s shirt sleeve and swabbed the wounds with antiseptic.

  “Burns a bit, eh?â€� he said as Jachin-Boaz went pale. “You’ve got some jolly deep bites in you this time, mate. I don’t mind telling you I consider this a shameful abuse of the National Health Service. I hope there’s going to be an inquiry,â€� he said to the police constable as he medicated and bandaged the wounds.

  “Well, we’re having him committed for observation of course,â€� said the constable.

  “Use up a little more of the state’s money, eh?â€� said the doctor. “Everything laid on. Here’s this fellow with his cult and his women and his practices …â€� He paused, unbuttoned Jachin-Boaz’s shirt, looked for an amulet, found none, and went on, “And you fetch him in, with a motorcycle escort I shouldn’t doubt, and I patch him up, and now he’ll have a free holiday in the loony bin. Probably make a few converts there, too. Where’d you find him, and what was going on at the time?â€�

  “On the embankment,â€� said the constable. “The lady had a knife.â€� He met the doctor’s eye for a fraction of a second, looked away, encountered Jachin-Boaz’s face, looked away again.

  “You’re not putting me on now, are you, old boy?â€� said the doctor. “You’re not trying to tell me that the lady’s knife produces large-carnivore teeth-marks, upper and lower jaws?â€�

  “As you say, this whole thing’s got to be looked into,â€� said the constable. “If you’ve finished with him now we’d better be going.â€�

  “Quite,â€� said the doctor. “You don’t mind giving me your name and number, do you? I’d like to ring up sometime just to find out what develops.â€�

  “Not at all,â€� said the constable. He wrote down his name and number, gave them to the doctor, and took Jachin-Boaz and Gretel to the police station.

  At the police station another doctor appeared with a folder in his hand. Gretel waited with the constable while he took Jachin-Boaz into a little office. “Well, old man,â€� said the doctor, looking at Jachin-Boaz’s bandages, “been having a little domestic trouble?â€�

  “No,â€� said Jachin-Boaz.

  “What about foreign trouble then?â€� said the doctor. “Who’s Comrade Lyon?â€�

  “Comrade Lion?â€� said Jachin-Boaz.

  “That’s right,â€� said the doctor. “A lady who lives on your street reported that she was awakened quite early one morning by your shouting. You were having an argument with Comrade Lyon. He was gone by the time she got to the window, but she’s described you accurately. What about that?â€�

  “I don’t know,â€� said Jachin-Boaz.

  “Perhaps it was someone else having the argument?â€�

  “I don’t know.â€�

  “Hadn’t you made a suicide attempt not long before that?â€�

  “Suicide attempt,â€� Jachin-Boaz repeated. His wounds were very painful, he was very tired, and he wanted more than anything else to lie down and go to sleep.

  “The young couple who saw it described to the police a man very like you,â€� said the doctor. “They were quite concerned. Actually we ought to have had a talk with you then. Did Comrade Lyon have anything to do with that?â€�

  “There’s no Comrade Lion,â€� said Jachin-Boaz.

  “Then whom were you shouting at?â€�

  “I don’t know.â€�

  “And what did this unknown person or persons say to you?â€�

  “I don’t know,â€� said Jachin-Boaz. By now the situation felt familiar. The doctor, like the father long ago, was holding up an empty suit of clothes for him to jump into. Jachin-Boaz was too tired not to jump. “This is what he said,â€� he told the doctor, and tried to roar. It was not the sound of real anger because he felt no real anger, only a sad and defeated fretfulness, defeated in the foreknowledge that his anger was of no consequence. His feeble roar ended in a fit of coughing. He wiped his eyes, found that he was crying.

  “Right,â€� said the doctor. “Very good.â€� He signed the commitment order. Then Jachin-Boaz was taken outside to wait with the constable while Gretel went into the office with the doctor.

  “What is your relationship to this man?â€� said the doctor.

  “Close.â€�

  “And your status is what exactly?â€�

  “Working-class. I’m an assistant in a bookshop.â€�

  “Marital status, I mean.â€�

  “I haven’t any. I’m a spinster.â€�

  “Do you and this man live together?â€�

  “Yes.â€�

  “Cohabitant,â€� said the doctor, writing the word as he spoke. “And what precisely were you doing with the knife?â€�

  “I was co-walking with it.â€�

  “Did you in fact attack this man with the knife?â€�

  “No.â€�

  “Please describe what took place.â€�

  “I can’t.â€�

  “Had he been running around with some other woman?â€�

  Gretel stared at him levelly. Her manner of looking at the doctor was like the way she had held the knife that morning. She belonged to a man who had fought with a lion and she carried herself accordingly. The doctor reminded himself that he was the doctor, but felt himself to be less impressive than he would like to be.

  “You see two foreigners and immediately the picture is simple for you,â€� said Gretel. “Women instead of ladies. Sex, passion, fighting in the street. Hot-blooded foreigners. Bloody cheek!â€�

  The doctor coughed, fleetingly imagined himself involved with Gretel in sex, passion, and fighting in the street. “Then perhaps you’ll tell me what the situation is,â€� he said with a red face.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything at all,â€� said Gretel, “and I’ve no idea what you want with me.â€�

  The doctor reminded himself again that he was the doctor. “You will allow, madame,â€� he said stiffly, “that going about with a knife is rather a dodgy business: one never knows who’s going to be injured. I think it might be just as well for you to have some peace and quiet for a few days and think this whole thing over calmly.â€� He signed the commitment order.

  While they waited for the van that would take them to the hospital Jachin-Boaz and Gretel sat down on a bench, and the police constable tactfully walked a few steps away.

  Jachin-Boaz sat with tears running down his face. He looked at Gretel, looked away again. His head began to ache. This was somehow her fault. If she hadn’t attacked the lion … No. Before that even. Would the lion have appeared to him if he had not … No. And of course the lion was in any case his … what?

  The map. Not here. At home, on the desk. In another desk, in the shop where he had once been Jachin-Boaz the map-seller, was a notebook. Were there recent notes in it that were not incorporated in the master map? The map was on the desk. Were the windows closed? The desk was near the window, and if it rained … And who would feed the lion
?

  His mind raced on but he was too tired to pay attention to it any longer. He sat on the bench with both arms bandaged and tears running down his face. Gretel leaned against him, saying nothing.

  The police constable indicated that the van was at the door, and they got into it. Another constable joined them, and the two constables sat across from Jachin-Boaz and Gretel as the van moved away through the daytime streets. Around them flowed the traffic of the ordinary day. Cars and lorries, vans and buses herded together. People on motorcycles and bicycles threaded the narrow spaces between. People walked the pavements, passed in and out of shops, ascended and descended the stairs of underground stations. Airplanes flew calmly overhead. Jachin-Boaz sat up straight, craned his neck once to look through the small rear window. A greengrocer in overalls stood under an awning filling a brown paper bag with oranges.

  The van stopped, the door opened. Green shrubbery and lawns appeared around a handsome old red brick building with a white cupola and a gilt weathercock.

  Jachin-Boaz and Gretel came out of the van, blinked in the sunlight, walked into the hospital, and were in turn admitted, undressed, examined, drugged, and taken to a men’s ward and a women’s ward that had the names of trees. In the corridors a smell of cooking wandered like a minstrel of defeat.

  Jachin-Boaz, wearing pajamas and a robe, lay down on his bed. The walls were cream-colored, the curtains were dark red with yellow-and-blue flowers. There was a long line of beds down each side of the room and french windows that opened on the lawn. The sunlight slanted gently down the walls, not with the harshness of the streets outside. Sunday sunlight. Give up and I’ll go easy with you, said the sunlight. Jachin-Boaz fell asleep.

  The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban(1973)

  -27-

  Boats sink under me, thought Boaz-Jachin. Cars get smashed. At a farm he leaned against a fence and looked into the eyes of a goat. “What?â€� he asked the goat. “Give Urim or give Thummim.â€� The goat turned away. Goats turn away, thought Boaz-Jachin. The father must live so that the father can die. It became a tune that his mind sang, hurrying him on.