The Book of Skulls Read online

  We go from our history lesson to lunch. Eggs, mashed chilis, beer, thick dark bread. After lunch, an hour of private meditations, each to his own room, as we struggle to make sense of all that has been poured into our heads. Then the gong sounds, calling us again to the fields. Now the full heat of afternoon has descended, and even Oliver shows some restraint: we move slowly, cleaning the hen house, staking the seedlings, providing extra hands for the tireless farmer-fraters who have labored most of the day. Two hours of this; the entire Brotherhood is side by side, all but Frater Antony, who stays alone in the House of Skulls. (It was at such a time that we first arrived here.) At last we are released from servitude. Sweaty, sun-annealed, we shamble to our rooms, bathe yet once again, and rest, each by himself, until the time of dinner.

  Another meal, then. The usual fare. After dinner, we serve on cleanup detail. As the time of sunset approaches we go with Frater Antony and, most nights, with four or five of the other fraters, to a low hill just west of the skullhouse; there we perform the rite of drinking the sun’s breath. This is done by assuming a peculiar and uncomfortable cross-legged squat—a combination of the lotus position and a sprinter’s crouch—and gazing directly into the red globe of the descending sun. Just at the moment when we think we’re beginning to burn holes in our retinas, we must close our eyes and meditate on the spectrum of colors flowing from the sun’s disk to us. We are instructed to concentrate on bringing that spectrum into our bodies, entering through the eyelids and spreading by way of the sinuses and nasal passages into the throat and chest. Ultimately the solar radiance is supposed to settle in the heart and generate life-giving warmth and light. When we are true adepts, we’re allegedly going to be able to shunt the indrawn radiance to any part of the body that happens to be in special need of invigoration—the kidneys, say, or the genitals, or the pancreas, or whatever. The fraters who squat beside us on the hilltop presumably are doing such shunting now. How much value this routine has is beyond my capacity to judge; I can’t see how it can be worth a damn, scientifically, but as Eli kept insisting from the beginning there’s more to life than what science says, and if the longevity techniques here rely on metaphorical and symbolic reorientations of the metabolism, leading to empirical changes in body mechanism, then perhaps it’s of major importance for us to drink the sun’s breath. The fraters don’t show us their birth certificates; we must take this entire operation, as we knew, purely on faith.

  When the sun is down we repair to one of the larger public rooms to fulfill the last obligation of our day: the gymnastics session, with Frater Bernard. According to the Book of Skulls, keeping the body supple is essential to the prolongation of life. Well, that’s not news, but of course a special mystical-cosmological aspect informs the Brotherhood’s technique of keeping the body supple. We begin with breathing exercises, the significance of which Frater Bernard has explained to us in his usual laconic way; it has something to do with rearranging one’s relationship to the universe of phenomena so that the macrocosm is inside one and the microcosm is outside, I think, but I hope to get further clarifications of this as we go along. Also there is much esoteric stuff involving development of the “inner breath,” but apparently it’s not considered important for us to comprehend this yet. Anyway, we squat and vigorously hyperventilate, dumping all impurities out of our lungs and sucking in good clean spiritually approved night air; after an extended period of exhaling and inhaling, we move on to breath-retention drills that leave us giddy and exalted, and then to strange breath-transportation maneuvers, in which we must learn to direct our inhalations to various parts of our bodies much as we did previously with the sunlight. All this is hard work, but the hyperventilation produces a satisfactory euphoria: we become light-headed and optimistic and convince ourselves easily that we are well along the road to life eternal. Perhaps we are, if oxygen = life and carbon dioxide = death.

  When Frater Bernard judges that we have breathed ourselves into a state of grace, we begin the reeling and writhing. The exercises have been different each night, as though he draws on a repertoire of infinite variety developed over a thousand centuries. Sit with legs crossed and heels on floor, clasp hands over head, touch elbows five times rapidly to floor. (Ouch!) Touch left hand to left knee, raise right hand over head, breathe deeply ten times. Repeat with right hand to right knee, left hand aloft. Now both hands high overhead, bob head vociferously until stars sparkle behind closed eyelids. Stand, put hands to hips, twist violently to the side until trunk is bent at a ninety-degree angle, first toward left, then toward right. Stand on one leg, clutch other knee to chin. Hop like madman. And so on, including many things we are not yet limber enough to do—foot wrapped around head, or arms flexed in inverted position, or rising and sitting with legs crossed, and so forth. We do our best, which is never quite good enough to satisfy Frater Bernard; wordlessly he reminds us, through the suppleness of his own movements, of the great goal toward which we strive. I’m prepared to learn, any day now, that in order to attain life eternal it will be absolutely necessary to master the art of sticking one’s elbow in one’s mouth; if you can’t do it, it’s tough, baby, but you’re doomed to wither by the wayside.

  Frater Bernard works us close to the point of exhaustion. He himself goes through every routine he demands of us, never missing a single bending or flexing, and showing no particular signs of strain as he cavorts. The best of us at these calisthenics is Oliver, the worst Eli; yet Eli goes about them with a weird clumsy enthusiasm that must be admired.

  Finally we are dismissed, usually after about ninety minutes of work. The rest of the evening is free time, but we take no advantage of our freedom; at that point we’re ready to topple into bed, and do, for all too soon will come the dawn and Frater Franz’s cheery rat-tat-tat on my door. And so to sleep. I’ve been sleeping soundly, more soundly than ever before.

  Thus our daily routine. What does it all mean? Are we growing younger here? Are we growing older? Will the shining promise of the Book of Skulls be fulfilled for any of us? Does any of what we do each day make sense? The skulls on the walls give me no answers. The smiles of the fraters are impenetrable. We discuss nothing with one another. Pacing my ascetic room, I hear the paleolithic gong tolling in my own skull, clang, clang, clang, wait and see, wait and see, wait and see. And the Ninth Mystery hangs over us all like a dangling sword.

  twenty-nine

  timothy

  This afternoon, while we were scraping up barrels of hen shit in ninety-degree heat, I decided that I’d had it. The joke had gone on long enough. Vacation was just about over, anyway; I wanted out. I had felt that way the first day we were here, of course, but for Eli’s sake I suppressed my feelings. Now I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I decided that I’d speak to him before dinner, during the rest period.

  When we came in from the fields I took a quick bath and went down the hall to Eli’s room. He was still in the tub; I heard the water running, heard him singing in his deep monotone voice. Eventually he came out, toweling himself. Life here was agreeing with him: he looked stronger, more muscular. He gave me a frosty look.

  “Why are you here, Timothy?”

  “Just a visit.”

  “It’s the rest period. We’re supposed to be alone.”

  “We’re always supposed to be alone,” I said, “except when we’re with them. We never get a chance to talk privately to each other any more.”

  “That’s evidently part of the ritual.”

  “Part of the game,” I said, “part of the crappy game they’re playing with us. Look, Eli, you’re practically like a brother to me. There isn’t anyone can tell me when I can talk to you and when I can’t.”

  “My brother the goy,” he said. Quick smile, on-off. “We’ve had plenty of time for talking. We’re under instructions now to keep apart from one another. You ought to go, Timothy. Really, you ought to go, before the fraters catch you in here.”

  “What is this, a goddamn jail?”

  “It’s
a monastery. A monastery has rules, and by coming here we’ve made ourselves subject to those rules.” He sighed. “Will you please go, Timothy?”

  “It’s those rules that I want to talk about, Eli.”

  “I don’t make them. I can’t excuse you from any of them.”

  “Let me talk,” I said. “You know, the clock keeps ticking while we stay here being a Receptacle. We’ll be missed, soon. Our families will notice they haven’t heard from us. Somebody’ll discover we didn’t go back to school after Easter.”

  “So?”

  “How long are we going to stay here, Eli?”

  “Until we have what we want.”

  “You believe all the crap they’ve been telling us?”

  “You still think it’s crap, Timothy?”

  “I haven’t seen or heard anything to make me change my original opinion.”

  “What about the fraters? How old do you think they are?”

  I shrugged. “Sixty. Seventy. Some of them may be in their eighties. They lead a good life, plenty of fresh air and exercise, careful diets. So they keep themselves in shape.”

  “I believe Frater Antony is at least a thousand years old,” Eli said. His tone was cold, aggressive, defiant: he was daring me to laugh at him, and I couldn’t. “Possibly he’s much older than that,” Eli went on. “The same for Frater Miklos and Frater Franz. I don’t think there’s one of them who’s less than a hundred fifty or so.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “What do you want, Timothy? Do you want to leave?”

  “I’ve been considering it.”

  “By yourself or with us?”

  “Preferably with you. By myself if necessary.”

  “Oliver and I aren’t leaving, Timothy. And I don’t think Ned is either.”

  “I guess that puts me on my own, then.”

  “Is that a threat?” he asked.

  “It’s an implication.”

  “You know what’ll happen to the rest of us if you pull out.”

  “Are you seriously afraid that the fraters will enforce that oath?” I asked.

  “We swore not to leave,” Eli said. “They named the penalty and we agreed to abide by it. I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to impose it if one of us gave them cause.”

  “Crap. They’re just a bunch of little old men. If any of them came after me, I’d break them in half. With one hand.”

  “Perhaps you would. Perhaps we wouldn’t. Do you want to be responsible for our deaths, Timothy?”

  “Don’t hand me that melodramatic garbage. I’m a free agent. Look at it existentially, the way you’re always asking us to do: we shape our own fates, Eli, we go our own paths. Why should I be bound to you three?”

  “You took a voluntary oath.”

  “I can renounce it.”

  “All right,” he said. “Renounce it. Pack up and clear out.” He was lying sprawled out naked on his cot, staring me down; I had never seen Eli look this determined, this formidable, before. Suddenly he was tremendously together. Or else he had a demon inside him. He said, “Well, Timothy? You’re a free agent. Nobody’s stopping you. You can be in Phoenix by sundown.”

  “I’m not in that much of a rush. I wanted to discuss this with the three of you, come to some kind of rational understanding, nobody bludgeoning anybody else but all of us agreeing that—”

  “We agreed to come here,” Eli said, “and we agreed to give it a chance. Further discussion’s not necessary. You can pull out whenever you please, bearing in mind, of course, that by doing so you’ll expose us to certain risks.”

  “That’s blackmail.”

  “I know.” His eyes flashed. “What are you afraid of, Timothy? The Ninth Mystery? Does that scare you? Or is it the possibility of really getting to live forever that you’re worried about? Are you bowed down under existential terror, man? Seeing yourself going on and on through the centuries, tied to the wheel of karma, unable to get free? Which frightens you more, Timothy—living or dying?”

  “You little cocksucker.”

  “Wrong room,” he said. “Go out to the left, two doors up the hall, ask for Ned.”

  “I came in here with something serious on my mind. I didn’t ask for jokes and I didn’t ask for threats and I didn’t ask for personal smears. I just want to know how long you and Oliver and Ned plan to stay here.”

  “We’ve only just arrived. It’s too soon to talk about leaving. Will you excuse me now?”

  I went out. I was getting nowhere, and we both knew it. And Eli had stung me, a few times, in places where I hadn’t realized I was so vulnerable.

  At dinner, he acted as though I hadn’t said a thing to him.

  And now? Do I just sit and wait and wonder? Jesus, I can’t put up with much more of this, honestly. I simply wasn’t designed for the monastic life—completely leaving out of the question the matter of the Book of Skulls and all it may offer. You have to be bred for this sort of thing; you have to have renunciation in your genes, a touch of masochism. I’ve got to make them realize that, Eli and Oliver. The two madmen, the two immortality-crazed lunatics. They’d stay here ten or twenty years, pulling weeds, breaking their backs with these exercises, staring at the sun till they’re half blind, breathing deep, eating peppered mush, and convincing themselves that this was the right way to get to live forever. Eli, who always struck me as freaky and neurotic but fundamentally pretty rational, seems definitely to have flipped. His eyes are strange now, glassy and fierce, like Oliver’s: psychotic eyes, terrible eyes. Things are stirring inside Eli. He’s gaining strength day by day, adding not just muscles but a sort of moral strength, a fervor, a dynamism: he’s bound on his course and he lets you know that he isn’t going to allow anything to come between him and what he wants. For Eli that’s something brand new. Sometimes I think he’s turning into Oliver—a short, dark, hairy Yiddish edition of Oliver. Oliver, of course, keeps his mouth shut and does enough chores for six and at exercise time bends himself into a pretzel trying to out-frater the frater. And even Ned is catching the faith. No wisecracks from him now, no little snotty quips. In the morning we sit there listening to Frater Miklos spin long driveling skeins of senile gibberish, with maybe one intelligible sentence out of every six, and there’s Ned, like a six-year-old being told about Santa Claus, screwing up his face in excitement, sweating, chewing his nails, nodding, gulping it all down. Right on, Frater Miklos! Atlantis, yes, and Cro-Magnon Man, sure, and the Aztecs, and all the rest, I believe, I believe! And then we eat our lunch, and then we meditate on the cold stone floor of our rooms, each by himself, and then we go out and sweat for the fraters in the fucking fields. Enough. I can’t take very much more. I muffed my chance today, but I’ll go back to Eli again in a day or two and see if I can’t get him to be reasonable. Though I don’t have much hope of that.

  Eli frightens me a little, now.

  And I wish he hadn’t said that bit about what I’m afraid of, whether the Ninth Mystery or living forever. I very much wish he hadn’t said that to me.

  thirty

  oliver

  A small accident while we were working in the fields before breakfast. I was passing between two rows of chili-plants and I put my bare left foot down on a sharp slab of stone that somehow had worked its way up to the surface and was sticking out, edge-on. I felt the stone starting to cut into my sole, and I shifted weight quickly, too quickly. My other foot wasn’t ready to take the burden. My right ankle began to buckle. There was nothing I could do but let myself fall, the way they teach you to fall on the basketball court when you’ve been faked badly out of position and are faced with a quick choice between toppling and tearing a bunch of ligaments. Down I went, catabloop, smack on my ass. I didn’t hurt myself in any way, but this section of the fields had been heavily irrigated the night before and still was muddy; I landed in a sticky, soggy patch, and there was a squooshy sucking sound as I pulled myself up. My shorts were a mess—the whole seat mudstained and wet. Well, nothing serious about tha
t, though I didn’t like the feel of the damp dirt as it soaked through the fabric to my skin. Frater Franz came trotting over to see if I had hurt myself, and I showed him that I was all right, all except my shorts. I asked if I should go back to the house and change, but he grinned and shook his head and told me there wasn’t any need of that. I could just take the shorts off and hang them on a tree and the sun would dry them in half an hour. Okay, why not? I’m not uptight about going around without clothes on, and anyway how much more privacy did I need than out here in the middle of the desert? So I wriggled out of the shorts and draped them on a branch and brushed the mud off my rump and began pulling weeds again.