The orchard now’s the place for us;
We may find something like an apple there,
And we shall have the shade, at any rate.
—Robinson, “Isaac and Archibald”
At first they laughed.
“Right,” Oliver said, striking a ball over the fence. “By the way, have I neglected to mention I’m headed to Harvard with Davis?”
Amir was floored, his entire worldview collapsing before his eyes. “Impossible,” he insisted, even after it was clear I wasn’t joking. “Sorry, Ari, I’m not saying this to belittle you, really, but you can’t just, like, fucking get into Princeton. That’s not how it works.”
I flashed my acceptance on my phone. Noah howled and began pelting golf balls over the fence.
Amir dropped his club, traumatized. “But it—how? How did this possibly happen?”
“Told you motherfuckers!” Noah broke into dance, jabbing his finger at Amir. “The motherfucking kid from Borough Park!”
“Isn’t there a bracha we’re supposed to recite?” Oliver asked. “The one you make when you witness a miracle? Or at least the one for seeing a rainbow? I think there’s a tropical storm coming soon, maybe we can combine everything?”
“I’m getting my dad’s cigars,” Noah said, sprinting toward his house. “We’re celebrating.”
Their incredulity didn’t offend me. Something rapturous had indeed happened: what I had always viewed as the cruel logic of my existence had, remarkably, changed. The future I’d been dreading—a miserable return to my old life, this single year in Florida some gorgeous, twisted dream—was now averted. There was hope, a world beyond the world I’d never thought I’d have at all. I was self-absorbed, I was unhealthily fixated on shallow demarcations of status and success and worth, but I was not, as it turned out, inferior, nor was I trapped. I had another chance, a permanent escape into a life of aesthetics and cathedrals and poets and dining clubs. A life of prestige, a life of learning, a life of the mind.
My mother bought balloons, a cake, a yarmulke bearing the Princeton insignia. For her, the triumph of my acceptance provided validation: the boy she dragged to the library all those years ago, the boy she saved from an education-less world, regained what she relinquished. My father, with slightly different priorities, recognized my moral revitalization. I joined him at minyan the next morning and experienced my most meaningful Shemoneh Esrei in years. Blessed Are You, Lord, Redeemer of Israel. Dizzy with gratitude, eyes sealed in prayer, I made all sorts of vows: to stop breaking Shabbos, to stop violating kosher, to stop smoking, to again wear tzitzit. Witnessing these changes come to fruition, my parents discovered that, in the time span of bein hashemashos, their son had been made whole again, a new future stretched gloriously before him.
I left Noah’s house light-headed from midday cigars, dropped a smug postcard for Bearman in the mail and called Sophia. She told me to come over, that she was bored and sitting by her pool. Norma let me inside, guided me out through the backdoor. Sophia was on a hammock, suspended between royal palms, wearing that shiny, black one-piece she’d worn nearly a year before at Noah’s barbecue. She had on a large sunhat, sleek sunglasses; her legs were oiled, the visible parts of her stomach toned. She swung, the world swung with her: her face obliterated by light, her face returned to clarity, the tree blotting out the sun.
“A surprise visit from Ari Eden?” She closed her book, The Beautiful and Damned, and straightened slightly. The sun’s lengthening beams seared my eyes. “What luck.”
“‘My lord,’” I said, “‘I have news to tell you.’”
Dozens of chimes, angled from citrus trees around the backyard, sung delicately with the wind. “You and Kayla are engaged? You’ve bought a house and a dog?”
I wondered whether my ability to overlook such occasional bursts of casual cruelty indicated weakness on my part, a lack of self-esteem, perhaps, some depraved willingness to put myself at her mercy. I buried this thought. “Funny.”
Her face dipped in and out of view as she swung, one moment returning to the shadows, the next bursting into blinding light, one moment a girl whose gloom was streaked with splendor, the next a girl whose beauty blurred with despair. A mesmerizing trance: light to dark, dark to light. I saw what I wanted, I saw what I had.
“Too soon?”
“Yes.”
“My apologies. Want a drink? I’ll call Norma.”
“No, thanks.” I moved to drag over a lounge chair beside her but she stopped me.
“There’s room,” she said, sliding over on the hammock. I lowered myself next to her, entangled in mesh, her left leg now draped curiously over mine. “So,” she said, after a beat, “everything okay?”
I surveyed the waterfall Jacuzzi leading into a limestone infinity pool, the chaise longues floating over the shallow end, the white begonias and violet-blue periwinkles and light-pink rain lilies of the garden. Maybe this, amid all more meaningful things, turns out to be the shortest distance to joy, I thought, feeling Sophia against me: wealth, beauty, leisure. I felt myself tingling. “Great, actually.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so enthusiastic about anything.” She adjusted her weight, sinking closer to me within the web, turning to face me. “Do share.”
“I’m going to college.”
She examined a fingernail, newly enameled in pale pink. “Somewhere local?”
“Closer to you.”
“The Northeast? New York proper?”
“New Jersey.”
“Didn’t realize this was a guessing game. Okay, then. So it’s Rutgers.”
“No.”
“Seton Hall?”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Fairleigh Dickinson? Haven’t we exhausted all the options here?”
“You’re missing one.”
“You’ve stumped me.”
“Princeton.”
“It’s in Princeton?”
“C’mon, Soph.”
Her face went slack. “You’re joking.”
“Apparently not.”
“Princeton?”
“Princeton.”
“It’s just—” Her mouth went wide, she blinked unnaturally. “I guess I don’t really—what’d Ballinger say?”
“So she was even more speechless. She called me to come in and take the Ivy picture. Look at it next time you’re in school. Her mouth is fully agape.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, “Ari, I—” She lurched forward, kissed me, long and slow. I drew a sharp breath.
“It was because of you,” I said quietly. “I wanted this because of you.”
She was on top of me now, the hammock swaying precariously. We were both breathing heavily. “No one’s home except Norma.”
The world spinning on around us: the palm trees dancing in the breeze, the sun burning golden upon us. “That so?”
“Hamlet, you idiot. Come with me.” She took my hand and led me inside.
* * *
WE DIDN’T HEAR FROM EVAN until three days before he was released—twenty-eight days since our time in court. He left word with Noah he wanted us to visit.
“He called you?” Oliver asked, looking insulted. “Suddenly that motherfucker has a phone?”
Noah shrugged. “Said it was urgent we visit.”
“Urgent?” Amir said. “Why?”
“He said it’s a big part of his program,” Noah said. “Before he can officially graduate, or whatever they call it, heal, maybe, or evolve, he’s supposed to formally make amends with those he’s wronged.”
“But he didn’t do anything to us,” Oliver said, glancing my way.
“He was really insistent that we all come,” Noah said, reddening at the way Oliver was putting me on the spot. “And I think we should. Sign of solidarity, you know? He’ll get out of there on the right foot and see there’s no hard feelings.”
“All right,” Amir said. “Yeah, I mean, I guess I’m game to help him become a normal human being again.”
Noah turned my way.
“Nope,” I said reflexively. “Count me out.”
“Dude,” Noah said, “c’mon, Ari—”
I imagined Evan gathering us together, only to announce the events of the courtroom. What if Rabbi Bloom was wrong? “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said, visualizing the disgust with which Noah would regard me were he to find out what I did to Evan.
“Well,” Noah said, “he specifically requested I make you come, even after you refuse. A personal favor, he called it.”
“I really don’t care what he requested.”
“In fact, he told me to tell you not to be worried about whatever you heard from Socrates and to remind you that you’ll have to see him eventually.”
“Socrates?”
Noah shrugged. “Yeah, dunno. Figured that was some weird philosophical inside joke you guys had?”
Refusing to see him would only postpone our encounter—and for a grand total of three days, at that. If Evan intended to confront me, it made no difference where this happened. He had a plan in play, whether or not I acquiesced.
We drove westbound on 595, top down, everyone staring coolly into the purple sunset. The center was about forty minutes away and looked like a boutique hotel. There was a fountain in the circular driveway. The lobby was tastefully decorated: wingback armchairs, crystal chandeliers, neutral paintings of sailboats. A large TV, on mute, played local news: a reporter diagramming the path of a tropical storm barreling our way over the coast.
“Actually, this isn’t so bad,” Amir said, taking a look around. “I expected something a bit more . . . spartan?”
“Yeah, I could probably get used to this when my time comes,” Oliver said, putting his feet up on the side of an armchair. “Think the pool has a bar?”
Evan had a small corner room on the fourth floor. He looked more or less the same, but clean-shaven with trimmed hair. His face was slightly leaner, though not gaunt. His limp was unimproved. “Boys,” he said, moving aside from the doorframe after we knocked. “Come in.”
“Some place you’ve got, Ev,” Oliver said, taking a look around. It was cramped, but not terribly. A twin bed, neatly made up, sat in the center of the room, next to two mahogany cabinets. The corner of the room had a wooden desk. His nightstand bore a small stack of books: Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Heidegger. There was a lone window through which faint sunlight dripped. The room had no right angles. Evan took a seat on his bed. We stood around him.
Evan met my gaze. “Eden. Thanks for actually coming.”
“Yeah,” I said, quickly glancing away, “good to see you.”
“He put up much of a fight?” Evan asked Noah.
Noah gave a good-hearted laugh. “Hardly.”
“So,” Amir said, “what the hell’s the emergency?”
Noah socked his arm.
“What?” Amir protested.
“What kind of opening is that?” Noah said.
“That’s all right,” Evan said, holding up his hand. “Apologies if I frightened you. I didn’t intend to.”
“Nah, buddy, we’re happy to see you,” Noah said cautiously. “Hear about the game last night?”
“No, sadly.”
“Yeah, we smacked North Miami Country Prep,” Noah said, receiving a fist bump from Oliver. “Clinched a district playoff game, baby. You’ll be back for that.”
“Yes,” Evan said, hardly stirring, “that’s right.”
Oliver looked Evan up and down. “Why do I feel like you’re not having normal human reactions? They have you on something?”
Evan smirked. “Don’t I look clean and pure to you?”
“Nah, honestly you look like fucking, what’s his name, Darth Vader with that scar. But they got to you, didn’t they?” Oliver covered his face with his hands. “This place is worse than a monastery.”
Evan bent over, groped under his bed, pulled out a small, black box.
“Not sure how to feel about this,” Oliver said, rummaging through the contents: a half dozen pale-blue pills, a large stack of round, light yellow pills.
Amir eyed the cache. “What’re these?”
“Dilaudid for the leg pain,” Evan said, gesturing at the yellows. “Then amitriptyline for sleeping. I don’t sleep well. My leg still kills.” For effect, he attempted to lift it.
“And depression,” Amir added hesitantly. “I remember that from AP Chem.”
“Yeah, I guess that, too,” Evan said. “What about you, Eden?”
“Eden flipped out while you’ve been gone.” Oliver slung his arm around my shoulder. “The kid’s back to his old religious ways. No more weed for him!”
“But how are you feeling?” Evan asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“I see you’ve had your cast removed.”
“I have.”
“Good as new?”
I flexed. “More or less.”
Oliver clapped my back. “Your star witness is a brave fighter,” he said, failing to notice the way I immediately cringed.
Amir picked at his beard, ignoring my eyes. “You know, I would’ve liked to see Ari on the stand.”
“Quite the sight,” Evan said, “you have no idea. A regular Ronald Dworkin up there. He did everything he could, I’m very grateful. And it sounds as if your goodness has been rewarded?”
“Our Princeton man,” Noah said. “Doesn’t he look like your typical All-American frat star, now that we’re done with him?”
I blew anxiously into the palm of my hand. “You heard?”
“Of course,” Evan said. “It’s the talk of the town.”
“I’m just curious,” Amir said, “the Academy is fine with this hiatus? Stanford, too?”
“Well,” Evan said, leaning on his elbows, “here’s how Bloom put it—”
“I thought you couldn’t see anyone,” Oliver said.
“My father certainly abides by that rule.”
“He hasn’t been here much?” Noah asked.
“Not a single time,” Evan said. “But that’s irrelevant. He’s irrelevant. What I was saying was that my old friend Judge Holmes sent quite a letter to Stanford, advising they sever ties. So they called Bloom to learn more.”
Nervously, Amir massaged his fingers. “Like what?”
“Everything. My personality. Teachers’ opinions. Informal disciplinary record. What Bloom himself thought. And you know what? The old man came through.”
Amir looked astounded. “Like, you’re in the clear?”
“For the moment. There are caveats, though. Bloom gave me rules.”
“Such as?” Amir asked.
“Let’s just say he isn’t terribly fond of my—extracurricular interests.” I squirmed, went to sit on his desk. “I live to see another day on the condition that I cease and desist from things he finds unsavory. Basically, I’m on extreme probation. Stanford will see reports from rehab, the judge, the school. Make sure I get myself in order.”
“And the Academy?” Amir pressed. “You’re just off the hook with missing finals?”
“I’m taking my exams when I get out,” Evan said. “But you’ll be happy to know it’ll be with reduced points.”
Amir frowned. “Reduced points? That’s it?”
“That disappoints you?”
“Not really. It’s just—you bust your ass and you do everything right for eighteen years, or you just fuck up colossally and, lo and behold, it all works out nonetheless.” Amir joined me at the desk. Noah patted his back mockingly.
“Speaking of fucking up colossally.” Awkwardly, Evan cleared his throat. We blushed collectively at such contrived pacification. “I wanted to see you guys so that I can, you know, formally apologize. And, well, repent.”
Oliver laughed. “Repent?” Noah kicked him.
“I’ve put each of you”—his eyes lingered on me—“in dangerous situations, and I’d like to make things right. I’d like to earn your forgiveness.”
“Things are fine, aren’t they, guys?” Noah said, trying to muster enthusiasm. “You really don’t need to sweat it, dude.”
“That may be. But I know I’ve been behaving—erratically all year. I’ve forced each of you into situations you probably found uncomfortable or bizarre or, I guess, distasteful, to put it mildly—”
“—no, no,” Amir said, unable to help himself, “we just love raising the dead.”
“And Ari,” Evan continued, turning my way, “more than anyone else, you’re the one who’s suffered most from my misconduct. You’re hurt because of me, and, truly, from the bottom of my heart, whether you forgive me now or not, I’m sorry. I’ve been through a lot this year, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my father and, to be brutally honest, it took me a while to figure out that the pain of losing my mother isn’t something I can expect to evaporate. It’s no excuse, it’s just—I haven’t been entirely myself, as I’m sure you’re all too aware, but I’m working on it.” Evan cleared his throat. “So you’ll let me make it up to you?”
Noah was the first to offer a high five. “Hell yeah, bud.”
Oliver shrugged. “Want us to sing a song or something?”
“Not quite. As a token of my remorse, I’d like to propose a trip.”
“I’m not going back to Key West,” Amir said.
“A camping trip,” Evan said.
“Camping?” Oliver laughed. “Mind if we spring for a hotel?”
“Think of it as an end-of-high-school send-off. Nature, hiking, beers, fireside chats. A way for us to be together before we have to finally splinter off.”
“Since when are you sentimental?” Amir asked.
“Actually,” Noah said, glancing around the room for support, “I was going to suggest we take a trip this summer anyhow, before college starts. My pops keeps encouraging it. He did one with his boys back in the day and he still goes on and on about it.”
“Exactly. Plus, to be honest,” Evan said, “I could use a trip. I’ve been locked up for too long in fucking hospitals and rehabs. And I think the mountains would do us all good. Wholesome fun, right?”
“Wait, mountains?” I asked. “You do know this is Florida.”
Evan smiled patiently. “Did I forget to mention that the trip is in Georgia?”
“Georgia?” Amir asked. “No. I’m not doing a fourteen-hour drive.”
“Okay, so we’ll find somewhere closer. That part is no biggie,” Noah said delicately. “We’ll go somewhere a bit more local. Who needs mountains?”
“We do,” Evan said sternly. “Transportation won’t be a problem, I assure you. I’ve taken care of tickets. All you need to do is show up at the airport.”
We were quiet, too awkward to answer, until Noah approached Evan and, gingerly, wrapped him in a bear hug. Evan’s face at first maintained its natural aloofness, but then, to my surprise, it adopted a thin smile, softening its features. Oliver offered some mildly offensive joke to relieve the tension, and Amir found himself laughing against his will. I remained at the desk. Evan, still being squeezed by Noah, met my eyes and nodded. I nodded back.
* * *
I SPENT THE NIGHT BEFORE our trip with Sophia. I packed a small meal—several rolls of her favorite sushi, assorted milk chocolates, a bottle of red wine—and snuck her through Noah’s backyard into the golf course. It was a gorgeous evening: the wind hardly blowing, the sky a perfect black, sprinkled with faded stars.
“So this is it,” Sophia said, a plastic cup of wine in hand, sitting with her knees at her chin, observing the sky, “the calm before the storm, they call it.”
“That storm they keep talking about?” I was full now, drowsy, slightly drunk. “Noah said it wasn’t real.”
“He’s probably right. They say it’ll be Category One if it hits, but usually these things die out into tropical disturbances. But maybe you’ll get your first hurricane! How exhilarating. We can’t consider you a proper Floridian until you’re baptized by one, you know.”
“Yeah, wow, I can hardly contain my excitement.” I bit open a packet of M&M’s, separated several greens, offered them in the palm of my hand. She snorted, slapping away my hand. I flicked the greens toward a nearby bunker. “When would this hit?”
“Probably never, because we’re still a few days away from the first of June. Worried it’ll affect your little boys’ trip?”
“No.” I inched closer, feeling the heat of her body. “I don’t want to go that badly anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“I just don’t.”
“Who’s forcing you?”
I took the wine, poured myself another cup. “It’ll be one of our last times all together for who knows how long. Maybe ever.”
She placed her head in the nape of my neck, breathing softly against my chest. I didn’t dare move.
“Soph?” I finally asked, after holding my breath for too long.
“Yes?”
“What happens after all . . . this?” Animals chirping from the distance, some far-off hole up the course. “To you and me, I mean?”
Her head angled to the heavens. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“So then let’s not think about that tonight.”
The moon was full. “It’s just that Princeton and Juilliard,” I said, “really, we’re only a bus ride away.”
She lowered herself until her back was on the ground. She grabbed my hand, gently pulled me on top of her.
“Come to prom with me,” I said.
She leaned on her elbows, weak moonlight illuminating half of her face. “I’m supposed to go with Evan, you know. He asked me at the end of freshman year, when he was still a child. He gave me a rose. We had our first kiss.”
“Right,” I said, my cheeks burning with heat. “Yeah, understood, then.”
She leaned up toward my face. “But I want to go with you, Hamlet.”
I fell forward, kissed her. We sank to the ground, arms and legs intertwined, pale lights above. Thomas Hardy, they say, spent an hour each day staring at the same painting in a local museum to commit everything—color, texture, pigmentation—to memory. This moment, I told myself, would be the painting to which I’d return, that singular burst of beauty and happiness I’d recount day in, day out, for the rest of my life, down to the slightest detail: the texture of her lips, the taste of her mouth, her vanilla scent, night rolling on around us.
* * *
IT WAS STILL FOGGY WHEN we left. We met outside the Delta terminal, where Evan distributed our first-class tickets. It was a short flight, just over an hour. Evan had a driver waiting when we landed, equipped with camping paraphernalia—a large tent, hydration backpacks, cooking utensils, a flare gun—and a cooler of food and beer. It wasn’t a far drive to Horeb, a picturesque stretch of trails within the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our driver confirmed Horeb was an excellent choice: an elevation of nearly four thousand feet, water springs, all sorts of wildlife. “Songbirds, bobcats, coyotes, boars, deer, foxes, black bears,” he lectured, “anything you want. You boys like fishing? Because there’s quite an aquatic population, some delicious catches.”
“Not particularly,” Oliver said. “I’m more gatherer than hunter.”
“Never mind that. Just get to the top. Lord, that’s a view. Some tribes used to hunt there. Iroquois. The Shawnee, too, I think. There’s a memorial plaque or something up there. Sacred ground.”
There was a shelter, a small wooden shack, at the entrance where we mapped our trail. The kid manning the desk looked our age, perhaps younger. “If you need something,” he said with a heavy Southern twang, “you’ll give a holler.”
Amir frowned. “You expect we’ll need something?”
“I was joking,” the kid said. “Nobody will hear you anyway.”
“Lovely,” Amir said, “and what’s the deal with the storm?” I glanced out the window at a rich, cloudless sky.
The kid spat dip into an empty water bottle. “Look like a storm to you?”
“No,” Amir said, “but I—”
“First time?”
“Camping?” Amir asked. “Yes, actually.”
The kid waved us off. “You softies will be fine.”
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the trail, the woods still, forbidding, the air heavy and fresh and filled with the sound of running water and warbling birds. We decided to set camp at the peak. Evan wanted to see stars.
We took several breaks—to eat, to swim in a spring, to give Evan’s leg a chance to rest. Evan limped the whole way through and, despite his walking stick, despite his protests, had to be assisted when the incline proved too steep.
“Maybe going to the top isn’t the wisest, Ev?” Noah said, after Evan had been forced to retreat to a rock to catch his breath and wait for the pain to subside. “Let’s find somewhere a bit more manageable.”
Evan popped a blue pill and, wincing, picked himself up again. “Fuck that.”
We were worn and sore and ravenous by the time we arrived at the summit. We picked out an isolated spot in a field and set to work pitching our tent. They smoked—I, alone, refrained, just like in the old days, and instead davened ma’ariv off to the side—and then we sat lazily, watching the sky move from blue to harsh steel to violent purple. The wind began picking up.
“Maybe it’s coming after all,” Oliver said, studying the sky. “That storm.”
Evan disappeared into the tent and came out with our food. We roasted hot dogs and tore through snacks—protein bars, marshmallows, extravagant desserts—that Cynthia had sent up with Noah.
“So how we feeling, Ev?” Noah said, passing around frosted cupcakes while Amir set about making s’mores. “Mountain air doing the trick?”
“My stump of a leg feels like absolute shit,” Evan said. “But otherwise, yes, actually. Exactly what I needed.”
Amir speared a marshmallow. “Who knew you’re such an outdoorsman?”
I felt peace in the sudden absence of color above, a sense of order and stillness emanating from the empty fields and ancient trees and astral skies that bled out into the world around us.
“Something about the mountains, I guess,” Evan said.
Unmoved by astronomy, unperturbed by the mess on his face, Oliver crammed an entire cupcake into his mouth. “Anybody else feel weird pounding these on a camping trip? Because I feel like woodsmen aren’t supposed to eat adorable frosted desserts.”
I helped myself to a second. “Nope, they’re delicious.”
Amir raised his cupcake toward Noah. “Compliments to the chef.”
“Don’t look at me,” Noah said.
“You’ve never had to cook a thing in your life,” Amir said. “I was referring to your rock star mother.”
“First of all, I make great pizza bagels, everybody knows that,” Noah said. “But no, my momma didn’t make these. She makes different cupcakes.”
“True,” Oliver said, “she makes those chocolate chip ones. They’re amazing, better than weed, I swear.”
We continued losing light. Night wasn’t far off. Evan added another branch to our fire.
“So,” Oliver said, “someone should tell a story.”
Amir looked my way. “Give us ghost tales from the Old Country.”
“All the ones I know are about demons and dybbuks in the time of the Gemara,” I said.
“Like that one about pouring seeds on the ground near your bed,” Amir said, “so that you can wake up to those chicken footprints that demons have? Spooky stuff. Bet Ev believes in that, huh?”
Evan was busy staring into the fire with enough intensity to infect me with secondhand anxiety. Slowly, he dragged a branch through the flames.
Amir cleared his throat. “Mr. Stark?”
“What?”
“I asked if you believed in demons.”
Evan gave a slight smile without turning toward Amir. “Why would I?”
“Ari, give us a dybbuk story,” Oliver said. “Frighten me out of my goddamn wits, will you?”
For emphasis I stood. I gathered the strings of my tzitzit in my hands, the way I used to when I was a child. “My first-grade rebbe told this story on an Erev Shabbat, as a treat. I didn’t sleep for a week.”
“Wonderful,” Noah said. “Lay it on us.”
“Okay. Once upon a time there was a newly married couple in Chelm.”
Oliver sighed. “It’s always Chelm, isn’t it? The Yidden of Chelm can’t stay out of trouble.”
“One Motzei Shabbat,” I continued, “just after midnight, the wife goes outside into a crazy storm to empty a bucket. When she comes back inside, she’s choking, seizing. Her husband asks what’s wrong, but when she opens her mouth nothing comes out. They call the doctor, but he’s stumped. He can’t figure it out, neither can any specialists in the area. So, they head to the rav.”
“Love going to the rav,” Oliver said, picking at his cupcake. “I do the same thing when I’m constipated.”
Amir hurled a marshmallow at Oliver’s face. “Shut up for once and let the man finish.”
I cleared my throat. “The rav looks her over, consults a Gemara and then whispers into her ear. All of a sudden, a deep, alien voice answers, except the woman’s lips aren’t moving, though her stomach is swelling, getting bigger and bigger. The rav demands the dybbuk reveal its identity, and the dybbuk obliges, explaining that he was a former yeshiva student who had strayed from the derech. One evening, after hours of drinking, he’d been thrown from a horse, and because he had died suddenly, the dybbuk tells the rav, he never had a chance to repent. So, the rav promises he’ll learn Torah in the dybbuk’s honor, gathers a minyan, says kaddish and then the woman crumples to the floor, writhing, while the voice booms out the Shema. Her left pinky nail comes exploding off, the glass window in the room shatters and then—silence. The dybbuk is gone.”
“Well,” Oliver said, soothing his left pinky, “that was . . . kind of a letdown.”
Amir laughed. “How did you possibly believe in that stuff?”
“I mean, I was, like, six,” I said. “Plus our rebbe never lied.”
Noah sandwiched graham crackers, chocolate oozing onto his wrist. “I don’t even get the point of that kind of story. What’s the lesson?”
Evan twirled a marshmallow through the fire. “That there’s mysterious power in the universe.”
I shrugged. “Or it’s a little more mundane: learn Torah, don’t wander and you won’t wind up becoming a dybbuk.”
“What about you, Ev,” Noah said. “Give us something from rehab. Something . . . grittier.”
“I don’t have anything,” Evan said. “I spent my time reading.”
“Whatever you were reading was probably a horror story in and of itself,” Amir said.
“Yeah,” Oliver said, “your books are too damn long.”
“Not what I meant,” Amir said, rolling his eyes. “But really, you’ve got nothing? You’ve exhausted all your weird, little biblical folklores?”
“Sorry,” Evan said. “Don’t think I can help.”
“Wow,” Amir said, “guess rehab really kills those Kabbalistic impulses, huh?”
Evan reached for another cupcake. “Well, all but one, really.”
Far-off trees respired with the wind. I looked up, readied myself to see stars. I’d Googled the basics two nights before. Find Sirius by sloping left through Orion. Free-fall slightly rightward, about the equivalent of three fists, and find Canopus. “Which would that be?” I asked.
“Levitating?” Amir said. “Or maybe stopping the sun?”
Evan leaned closer to the fire. “You’ve all heard of vision quests?”
I stared blankly. “As in, Native American rituals?”
“Yes.”
A look of disquiet dripped through Amir’s face. “What about them?”
“I shouldn’t say,” Evan said. “You’ll call me crazy.”
Noah did his best to provide a reassuring half-smile. “We already do.”
“Well,” Evan said, “let’s just say I’m fairly confident that I’ve gathered enough empirical and theoretical data suggesting they might just work.”
Amir snorted. “You’re joking.”
“It’s nothing radical, really,” Evan said. “Most cultures believe we benefit by losing ourselves, just for a short while. And we do it all the time, don’t we? On Yom Kippur, we fast, we don’t shower, we wear white. Why? To leave behind our human body, to pretend we’re something else. On Purim, we drink and dress up to do the same. Plato calls it telestic frenzy, Euripides calls it a Dionysian Mystery, Islam calls it Sufism, Hindus call it avadhuta, Shamanism calls it a trance state. But at its root? All this stuff’s the same.”
“And the point,” Amir asked, probing his charcoaled marshmallow, its white interior webbing his fingers, “of losing ourselves?”
“To see God, of course,” Evan said.
“Come on,” Amir said, “let’s not start with that weird stuff again, okay? We’ve had a nice respite from it, haven’t we?”
Blind fear woke suddenly in my chest. “Why’d you bring us here?”
“Eden,” Evan said, unblinking, unapologetic, “you know I can’t do it alone.”
“Can’t do what alone?” Ignored, Amir gave me a stern look. “What’s he talking about, Ari?”
I stared directly into the fire. “This isn’t some apology retreat,” I said. “It’s a trap. Another experiment.”
“Okay, hold up,” Noah said, seeing the way Amir was winding up. “Let’s just—let’s calm down, yeah? Because honestly—who cares?” He smiled, pulled at his long hair. “I mean, he flew us in first class to a mountain. If the weirdo wants to pretend this is some cultic ritual, I say why not? Indulge him. What difference does it make to us?”
I watched as Evan finished another cupcake, chewing with almost surgical intensity. “The cupcakes,” I said. “Where are they from?”
Noah paused. “Wait, what?”
“Enough with the cupcakes!” Amir said. “They’re not even that good.”
“No, for real, I’m serious,” I said. “Who brought them?”
No answer.
“He—he drugged us,” I said softly, mostly to myself, feeling suddenly as if I might vomit. “He’s going to try and—”
“Eden,” Evan said calmly, warningly. “No need to talk ourselves into hysteria.”
Amir dropped his cupcake to the ground. “Someone tell me what he’s talking about.”
Oliver scooped the fallen cupcake and, tearing off the dirtied side, took a greedy bite. “These puppies are laced, aren’t they?”
“Ah, okay,” Noah said, breaking into a relieved grin, glancing at Evan, “so you sprinkled, what, weed into the cupcakes? Dick move, I’ll admit, but a stupid prank. No real harm, right?”
“It isn’t weed,” I said, “is it?”
Amir extracted marshmallow bits from his palms. “What’d you just say?”
Evan cleared his throat. “If we’re to do this properly, the best method to shed the self is through an artificial catalyst.”
Now Noah stood, drawing himself to full height, digging his sneakers into the earth. “Evan?”
Evan stared off at what little remained of daylight. “I really do advise we stay calm and do our best to think positively.”
“Know what?” Amir said, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ve just decided I’m going to punch you in the face again.”
Noah put a hand on Amir’s shoulder. “No one’s punching anyone. All right? But Ev, you’re going to have to come clean. Let’s just, you know, let’s talk it out civilly.”
Evan gave a regretful smile. “We were having such a lovely time.”
“Ev,” Noah warned. “For real. We’re all your boys, but you have to cut the shit.”
Evan didn’t bother standing from his spot near the fire. “There are acid hits in the cupcakes.”
Amir put his head in his hands. “You’re such a piece of . . . please tell me you’re lying? Please tell me this is a bad dream or—”
“Had I told you the truth,” Evan said, matter-of-factly, as if he were merely explaining the most reasonable thing in the world, “none of you would be here.”
Oliver shrugged. “I would’ve.”
“I understand you’re angry,” Evan said calmly, “but I’m afraid it was necessary.”
“Necessary?” Amir started at Evan, but Noah, in an effortless motion, seized him by the arm and restrained him.
“When does it hit?” My voice felt funny now. Did I always sound like this?
Evan massaged his leg. “Can’t be sure. Fifteen minutes. An hour. Three hours. Who knows?”
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” Amir said, running a hand through his beard, “we should vomit. Like, right now, before it’s too late. We’ll do it together. On three.”
“It’s already too late,” Evan said, checking his wristwatch. “But feel free to try.”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t see the big deal,” Oliver said. “I’ve been meaning to get around to LSD for some time now.” For effect, he ate the last cupcake.
“This isn’t a fucking joke, Oliver,” Amir said. “This is—well, this is illegal!”
Oliver scoffed. “Suddenly you’re concerned with what’s legal?”
Amir wretched, spat, kicked at the ground. “You don’t go around slipping people acid! What if something goes wrong? We’re in the middle of nowhere, for God’s sake.”
Noah sat again, flexing his fingers in thought. “Oh, God,” he said quietly. “Oh fuck.”
A long pause ensued, during which I became conscious of a sort of viscous horror leaking its way through our circle. I looked at the faces of the four people around me. A year ago I didn’t know they existed.
“Amir, aren’t you at least curious?” Evan said. “Don’t you want to see if I’ve been right?”
Instinctively, I touched my healed arm.
“If you were right?” Amir said. “Right about what? That we should’ve listened to Ari and realized you’re off your rocker? That you never should’ve been allowed out of rehab?”
“Everything.” He faced Amir. “Listen. I’m offering you the chance to put aside the entire world, just for a bit, and gain infinitely more. What do you have to lose? You’re going to MIT. Your whole life, you’ve done everything to make your mother happy, your grandfather proud, your father regret leaving. You have everything coming your way, and soon you’ll be working your ass off for a decade straight, with no end in sight. Just once, right now, don’t you want to do something that—that has the power to frighten you?” He turned to Noah. “Noah Harris, athletic phenom of Zion Hills. Discipline, restraint, devotion for, what, fifteen long years to earn the scholarship your father decided you’d have to win before you were even born? Aren’t you just exhausted of it all? And you, Eden, constantly battling yourself, still too scared to let out what you really are, even when you want it just as badly as I do? We’re in these . . . these cages our whole damn lives. Don’t we want to be free, even once, for a few hours at the very end of childhood? Don’t you want to be absorbed in something so much fucking greater?”
Oliver licked the last of the frosting from his thumb. “Guess I’m chopped liver? Where’s my pump-up speech?”
“So that’s what you’re running from?” Amir said, waving his marshmallow stick. “Responsibility? Facing all the shit, good and bad, we need to go through? You’re just—you’re weak, Ev. Weak and angry and lost. You can’t handle life anymore, but know what? The rest of us are doing just fine. You think you live in this, I don’t know, this exceptional moral world of secluded pain and wisdom, when the truth is you’re just a sad, broken flameout.”
It appeared my hand was shaking, even though the panic I felt was almost nonrepresentational, as if my body had at first failed to recognize that what was happening around me was real.
“Ev,” Noah said, kindly, firmly, “everyone here is already absorbed in something greater, even if you don’t realize it. And that kind of happiness or value or whatever you want to call it isn’t something you get by being drugged into a stupor.”
“It’s not about that,” Evan said. “It’s about theia mania.”
Amir threw his stick in Evan’s direction. He missed. The stick landed at Evan’s feet. “What’d you just say?”
“Divine madness,” Evan said. “That’s what I want.”
“Fuck you,” Amir said. “Because we don’t.”
Evan smiled sadly. “I’m afraid it’s coming anyway.”
* * *
LIGHT RAIN CAME, WENT. NOBODY spoke much. To pass time we wandered along a trail—through dogwood blossoms, through stunted oak trees, through the range’s famous blue haze—until we arrived at a plunging ravine.
“Well,” Amir said, eyeing the rocks below, “this seems like a dangerous place to hang out before an acid trip.”
Noah shuddered at the sight of the cliff’s edge. “Can we please get back to camp?”
I heard rustling in nearby shrubbery. “Is it happening now?”
“No,” Evan said.
“How will we know?” I asked.
“You’ll know,” Evan said.
The noise grew louder, guttural, almost like braying.
“Okay, anyone hear that?” Amir asked. “Or am I hallucinating?”
“Nah,” Noah said. “I heard it, too.”
Evan limped toward the brushwood.
“Careful,” Amir said. “What’d the driver say about bobcats?”
“Bears,” Noah corrected.
“Whatever,” Amir said. “Could be feral.”
“Nope,” Evan called from the bushes, “it’s just a goat.”
“A goat?”
“Someone give me a hand.” Nobody stepped forward, so Evan scooped it up himself and stumbled back through the undergrowth, limping it toward the edge. It was only a baby. White, miniature horns had begun to surface on the crown of its head.
My palms tingled, my tongue felt thick against the roof of my mouth. I rolled my head, attempting to snap out of it. “What’re you doing?”
“It’s a sign,” Evan said.
Noah began blinking manic patterns. “Of what?”
“Before Yom Kippur,” Evan said, “the Kohen Gadol had a tradition.”
“Jesus,” Amir said. “Don’t say it.”
“One for God, one for Azazel,” Evan said.
“So where’s the second goat?” Noah asked.
Evan pointed to himself. The goat whined, struggling to break free. “Anyone have a quarter?”
Half-formed waves of pain thickened unevenly across my forehead. “What’re you talking about?”
“Heads, I take the dive,” Evan said. “Tails, it’s our friend.”
“Right,” Amir said, “you’ll throw yourself off?”
“One of us has to do it.” Evan pointed to the sky. “He’ll decide.”
“Even joking about that is revolting,” Amir said, unable to stop himself from wringing his hands. “Something is seriously wrong with you.”
“Talk to the Kohen Gadol, not me,” Evan said. “Eden, have a quarter or not?”
Obediently, realizing I was in the gradual process of wafting infinitely far away from myself, I fumbled in my pocket for a coin. “A dime,” I said.
“Perfect,” Evan said. “Flip it. I’ve got my hands full.”
I was sweating feverishly. Sunset began, the fading light hurting my eyes. I took the coin, tossed it over my head. It landed a few yards behind us.
“Nice arm,” Noah said.
Amir retrieved it. “Tails. Lucky you. You’re saved.”
Evan’s lips were moving but he wasn’t saying anything.
Noah touched Evan’s chest. “You talking to yourself?”
Evan tightened his hold on the goat. “I—I’m not quite sure, actually.”
Amir gestured behind us. “And what the hell’s with him?” At the foot of the shrubbery, walking long, perfect circles, was Oliver, face white as a sheet. “Has he said a word in the last hour?”
Noah approached cautiously. “You okay, man?”
No answer. Oliver continued tracing the circles.
“Think it’s hitting,” I announced again.
“Stop saying that,” Evan said.
Amir studied his hands with a look of incomprehension, as if discovering new appendages. “You really think so? I don’t know.”
Beams of light danced in my vision. “Yes.”
“I’m not sure I like this,” Noah said thinly.
“Evan,” Amir said suddenly. We’d forgotten he was still holding the goat, which was now thrashing its head side to side, trying its best to gore its captor. “Let it go. Seriously.”
Evan blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry.”
A treacherous crack above. On cue: the rain.
“Shit!” Amir yelled, suddenly in a panic. “Motherfucking shit!”
“Let’s get out of here.” Noah’s eyes moved unnaturally from left to right and back, his golden hair slicked with rain. “We need, um, to go back down the—the path to the tent. Before it hits.” He put an arm around Oliver’s shoulders, trying to stop him from continuing his orbit.
“Evan!” Amir pulled at Evan’s shirt, rain falling harder. “We need to get out of here!”
Evan was shaking. The goat, crying out, squirmed violently, nearly broke free, causing Evan to bend and regain his hold. “It’s—I have to do this. We have to pay tribute to enter.”
“What the fuck are you—”
Evan hurled the goat from the ravine. An infinite fall: the goat screaming, a small cloud of gravel pitching up. Quivering, I approached the edge, trying to peer down at the remains, and then rain turned to ice, the full weight of nightfall crashing upon my back, Amir’s screams morphing into something else, something far-off and inhuman. I staggered; Noah grabbed me before I stumbled off the edge, my vision dimming. And then, the mountains reappearing, throbbing in Technicolor: electric violets, sparks of vermillion, great bursts of azure. The world rearranged itself, dissolving in sliding lights, a bright rumble rupturing my eardrums, days lengthening, collapsing, life screeching on without us.
* * *
RABBI GLICK HAD A FAVORITE teaching: Torah unfolds thematically, not chronologically. This is useful in relaying what follows. What I saw that night didn’t happen linearly, logically, within neat divisions of time. When I dream about it—frequently, always accompanied by night sweats—I do so as I experienced it, in fragments of memories: the smell of fire, endless rain, blood in my mouth, the crunch of wood. Then I wake, leaving one nightmare for the next.
When the whirling stopped I found myself in a place of pure marble. “Where am I?” I called out. Echoes rang around me. Marble floor stretched on for as far as I could make out, a diagonal pattern of gleaming black and white stones, with a row of wooden reading desks, evenly spaced, extending into the distance. No walls, no ceiling.
Evan stepped from the shadows, older, more ragged, clothing torn. He wore a crown of leaves in his hair. Faint spots of red decorated each of his hands. “We’re here.”
Intense light. Spangles in my field of vision. I blinked rapidly. They didn’t subside. “Where’s here?”
“The center of the earth,” Evan said, hurrying ahead and disappearing from sight.
I turned, finding the others. Noah, in purple robes, stood tall, glowing, his hair dramatically longer and tied into a knot. Amir, bathed in white light, sat on the floor, cheeks in his palm, beard slightly thicker.
“And Oliver?” I asked.
Noah pointed behind me. Oliver, drenched in color, glasses cracked in two, his normally heavily gelled hair entirely disheveled, was staring into a silver mirror—ten feet high, dust-laden, ornately framed. At the top of the frame was a phrase carved in black lettering: PREPARE YOURSELF IN THE ANTECHAMBER, SO THAT YOU MAY ENTER THE BANQUET HALL. At the bottom of the frame, in sapphire, was an odd symbol—a backward, inverted comma hovering above the squiggle of a regular comma. Hebrew letters, I realized: two yuds, one right side up, the other upside down, or perhaps an aleph whose base had been erased, disembodying its top and bottom?
I put my hand to his shoulder. He didn’t stir. “Oliver?” I peered into the mirror. There was no reflection, yet on he gazed.
“He won’t answer,” Amir explained. “Hasn’t spoken in hours.”
“Hours?” The kaleidoscopic colors were making it difficult to concentrate. I felt a deep searing in my chest. “We’ve been here for hours?”
“Days, more like it,” Noah said. “I think I’ve been here for days.”
The burning traveled to my throat, drying the words in my mouth. “Water,” I said, fighting through a coughing fit. “Is there any water?”
Evan rematerialized before me. “Don’t ask for water here,” he said hurriedly. “Now follow me. We should move quickly while we can.”
We were trudging through a great rain, lightning fracturing the deep-black sky, a tower in the distance, animals in my peripheral vision, moving two by two. I was Scipio, lost and small amid the spheres, looking down at Carthage from on high, the universe star-filled and splendid. We walked for ages, beating against the wind, time expanding around us. Evan, walking with a staff, and even so routinely stumbling, led us through a forest, until we arrived at a clearing in the woods. A small circle of trees flanked the mouth of a cave. Evan turned to face us. “In here.”
Noah craned his neck for a glimpse inside. “We can’t go in there. There’s no light.”
“Where we’re going,” Evan said, “we don’t need light.”
“And where’s that?” Amir asked. “What’s in there?”
No answer. Instead, Evan forged straight into the dark.
For a moment we hesitated, lingering in the storm. We had little choice. We nodded to each other and followed.
We’d entered into an orchard. Trees were lined in careful rows. Luscious fields, everything radiant and green, stretched as far as my eyes could see. Large fruits hung from branches, white flower bulbs bloomed before our eyes. Off to the side was a pond, an enormous boulder at its edge; the boulder had a clean hole at its center through which water dropped from a small spring. In the middle of the grove was a slightly withered tree, before which Evan stood. Noah wandered slowly through flowers, admiring the streak of colors. Amir, off by the brook, was on his knees, gazing into the water, a thin mist in the distance. I realized that the rain was gone, that I was dry again, that a thick layer of warmth flooded my senses and relieved my thirst. Old memories ran through me: learning to ride a bike, wrapping tefillin for the first time, my fifth birthday party, my father inscribing my first Gemara, reading my Princeton acceptance letter, sounding out Corduroy’s Busy Street with my mother, kissing Sophia that night at the beach. I staggered about, as if tipsy, as if arriving home from a long, cruel voyage.
“Amir has the right idea.” Evan broke away from the center tree, over whose bark he’d been tracing his fingers. “We’ll need to get in the water.”
“Evan,” I said, “Oliver’s gone.”
Evan didn’t move from the tree.
Noah hurried back through the flowers. “Oliver didn’t come in here, did he?”
“We need to find him,” I said. “We can’t leave him out—there.”
Noah frowned, examining his purple robes. “Out where?”
“I don’t know.” I paused to think. “Near the mirror? In the storm?”
“The storm’s gone,” Amir chimed in, unflustered, still glued to his reflection, his nose hovering over the surface of the water.
“In here it’s gone,” I said desperately, pivoting in place. “Not out there.”
“You see this, then?” Evan asked, walking up to us. “All of you can?”
“I’ll look for him,” Noah said. He spoke weakly, as if struggling to wake from a trance. “I’m going back out.”
“No,” Evan said, “he’s perfectly fine. But he needs to be alone.”
“What’re you talking about?” I said. “He could be—”
Evan shook his head. “It affects us all differently. Leave him. It’s important we four remain together. Really, you have to trust me.”
Laughter erupted from my lips, laughter I’ve never heard before. “Trust you?”
“He’s fine, I promise,” Evan said. “But swear you won’t leave the orchard. It’s dangerous.”
Noah squinted. “How’s it dangerous?”
“Leaving now means never coming back.”
“Okay, then,” Noah said, “fine, I swear.”
I walked up to the foot of the water. I could see my reflection. I thought I looked handsome, but also as if I’d aged several years. My complexion was rough with stubble, my eyes dark, tired. I had short, neat hair, a gaunt face. The longer I looked, the more I resembled an only slightly younger version of my father. “Amir, you all right?”
“Yeah,” Amir said, tearing his eyes from the water. He gave me his hand. I helped him to his feet.
“Amir. Eden,” Evan said. “You need to swear you won’t go back out there.”
“Enough already,” Amir said. “I swear it.”
“Eden?”
Looking at Evan, studying his scar, I knew whatever connection I still held to my old life was ending. The mostly silent boy, perched in the back row of Rav Glick’s shuir in Brooklyn, New York, the one busy contemplating how best to escape beautiful things he didn’t yet understand, was now gone. “I swear,” I said.
“Good,” Evan said. “Now we need to bathe.” Carefully, he peeled off his clothing and, strolling past us, submerged himself. Behold Nachson, I thought. First into the Red Sea. We did the same, wading naked into the water.
Amir, nude, startled-eyed, stood at the edge. “I’m not going in. It’s—I can’t.”
Evan drifted back toward the edge. “You’ll have to, if you want to see it.”
It was the first time I’d witnessed Amir regard Evan not with defiance, not with impatience, not with contempt, but with fear. “See what?”
Evan pushed off from the edge. “You know the answer.” Amir, in turn, walked straight into the water.
“Hold your breath half a minute,” Evan said. “Then meet at the tree.”
The water was frigid, immediately sapping all feeling from my extremities. Underwater, I opened my eyes. Evan was staring directly at me.
When we emerged we were dry again, even before we had our clothing back on. Blood returned to my face. Feeling returned to my fingertips.
“I don’t suppose anyone is hungry.” Evan plucked a pomegranate from the tree—small, slightly crowned, a deep, rich crimson—and handed it to me. “One bite,” he said. “Just one.”
I took a mouthful, passed it to Noah. Sharp, sour, an explosion of juice. I spat the seeds, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The fruit made its way from Noah to Amir and back to Evan, who took the final bite, a stream of red bleeding down his chin.
Then: a stirring around us. Overhead, a whisper. The flowers swayed; the twigs beneath my feet snapped in unison. Over the water hovered a dark shape.
Amir retreated several feet. “What the hell is that?”
The dark shape fluttered gently. I had the distinct impression that the darkness was breathing, that it had been all along, waiting patiently while shards splintered and grass withered and flowers faded, while lifetimes expired and empires ended and families imploded, while man-made dreams dissolved. If Isaiah were right, I thought, if God created not a wasteland but a habitation, then how to sanctify the sorrow of human life? The darkness began moving, steadily, in our direction. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Evan, pushing me aside, stepped forward, presenting himself to the void without form.
“Evan,” Noah said urgently, somewhere behind me, “get away from that thing.”
I heard the sound of roaring waters, death laced with life. The darkness continued to approach, gaining speed.
“Evan!”
In the final moment before the darkness reached him, Evan snapped, turning back toward us, trying to run. Noah, Amir and I broke into a full sprint. We were only several yards ahead of Evan—Noah leading, Amir and I trailing—but Evan, with his shattered leg, was hopeless. I heard his scream; I craned my neck to watch the darkness overtake him, lost my footing, face-planted. I tried getting to my knees, the darkness approaching, nearly over me, only to discover the flare gun, which had rolled some yards ahead from where Evan’s backpack landed. I grabbed the flare and, as darkness descended, launched it above my head.
The shot sailed upward for some time, a bright-orange comet impaling infinite space, a lesson in broken relativity, before losing steam and arcing downward. It fell from dewy morn to spectral eve, crumpling in an explosion of color, raining electric-neon yellows and reds.
Amir was running toward me. “What happened?” Noah raced ahead to grab Evan, who was crawling on all fours, gasping for air. “What—”
From the heavens approached a cloud of fire, within which stood a figure I couldn’t make out. It looked, at first, like the Vitruvian Man given wings, until I realized it had four faces: a human face at the front, the face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left, the face of an eagle on the back. The figure expanded, growing larger, larger, filling our atmosphere, spinning in circles. My heart stopped; its faces were now completely human: one was mine, one was Evan’s, one was Noah’s, one was Amir’s. These faces blinked, wept, in unison. From the center of the cloud came forth lightning, and then a whirlwind.
“Blow!” Evan was on his knees now, his scar glowing. “Rage, you fucking cataracts and hurricanes . . .”
Heaps of broken images. A corpse, a lion, a donkey. Dogs eating dogs. Holding my mother’s hands, walking through the ruins of Jerusalem. Sunsets, groves, oceans, summer solstices, olive trees. Bulls slaughtered on altars. Foxes running, tails aflame. Fire encircling our town, every tree, every house, every hill. Water to blood, hail to fire. Red doorposts, the great transgressor, the cries of mothers. A mountain above us: we will do, we will do. Many ladders. Going up, going down. A land of draught. Death’s beautiful shadow. Cain killing Abel; Joseph pleading from the pit. Years melting: my parents buried their parents, I buried my parents, strangers buried me. Seasons, decades, centuries, eons. We four clasped hands, blurred into one, the knowledge of everything coming together, the loft of vision, the divine image.
I was seated in a grand, deserted hall. Everything white, clean, gleaming. The ceiling extended as far as I could see, like some futuristic amphitheater. I was alone, wearing a black tuxedo, in the middle of a row, thousands of unoccupied seats around me. At the front of the room was a stage with white curtains. On the right wall I noticed a framed painting: a castle, leaning drunkenly into the sea, engulfed by a storm. Dark colors, a swirl of lighting, clouds smudged with gray, ragged cliffs, a ship in the distance.
“Ticket, please.” A small voice in my left ear. At my side a toddler stood impatiently, hand extended. He wore a conductor’s hat. His name tag read DANIEL.
“What?”
“Your ticket, if you would.” He took out a pocket watch, swore under his breath and then returned it to his coat. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
I reached into my breast pocket to find a white ticket. ROW 7 SEAT 25. A sentence in Greek was engraved on the bottom. I handed him my ticket, which he punched and returned. “Keep this on you,” he advised. “You don’t want to lose it.”
“What’s it say?”
“Pardon?”
“The Greek,” I said. “I can’t read it.”
“Most people don’t ask.”
“You can’t tell me?”
He hesitated. “A deep distress hath humanized my Soul.”
A more familiar voice from behind us: “Thought I’d find you here.” The boy and I turned toward the entrance. Walking down the aisle was Evan, his wreath replaced with a white dinner jacket. His limp was gone, his scar was gone. I couldn’t tell whether he was addressing the boy or me.
The boy looked to the ground. “You shouldn’t be here.” Still, Evan took the seat to my right. “You don’t have a ticket.”
“Of course I do,” Evan said, taking one from his breast pocket. “Just not for here, it seems.”
“You’re not staying, then?” I asked Evan.
He shook his head. “No, sadly. I have another viewing to attend.”
“Really,” the boy insisted, “you mustn’t linger. It’s imperative we begin promptly.”
“I’ll be only a moment,” Evan said.
“How do you know him?” I asked. “Daniel?”
“I don’t. Not really.” The painting on the wall caught Evan’s eye. He pointed, chuckling softly. “You could’ve had anything and you chose that?”
“I didn’t choose anything,” I said. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“Peele Castle in a Storm,” the boy chimed in. “Beaumont.”
“I suppose it suits you,” Evan said.
The lights dimmed.
“Think that’s my cue.” Evan stood again. “Best of luck, Eden.” He took the boy by the hand and led him toward the entrance. The curtains rose. A long, flimsy screen descended onstage.
“Not what we did shall be the test when act and will are done,” boomed a voice from within the orchestra pit. The screen began to glow. A pale orb. Two eyes, blinking in unison. A nose. Lips. My face. “But what our Lord infers we would had we diviner been.” Darkness. My film began. Nothing but a thin, still sound.
* * *
I WAS FACE-FIRST IN THE GROUND. For some time I blinked at darkness. My lips were cracked; I crawled, I breathed dirt, my palms bled. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, I managed to stand. The storm had passed. I stumbled, dizzied, phantom pain pulsing in my right arm. I cringed in the too-bright sunlight, waiting for my eyes to adjust. I was in the fields near our tent, the ground uprooted. Large, splintered oak trees littered the floor, along with scattered debris: wood, garbage, a dead red fox. I tried screaming, nothing came out. I waited for the first wave of panic to subside, wondering how long I’d been out, whether the others had left without me. I sure should see / Other men here: but I am here alone.
I began walking, searching for clues. “Noah!” I called madly. “Evan! Amir! Oliver!” Echoes.
I walked for half an hour until I found Oliver. He was sitting on a boulder, head in hands. His glasses were beside him, snapped evenly in two. For the first time, I realized how rail-thin and diminutive he was. He looked, in this moment, nearly emaciated.
“Oliver.” I hobbled toward him. He didn’t look up. “Oliver,” I said, sitting beside him, “you all right?”
He raised his head. “Ari.”
“Yes?”
“I can’t see.”
“Figured,” I said, looking again at his glasses. “Your glasses are—”
He shook his head. “My eyes.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not working.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Ari, there’s no light, there’s, I . . . I’m blind!”
“What?”
“I’m fucking blind, I can’t see shit, I—”
“No, okay, hold on a second,” I said, breathing strangely, leaning toward his eyes as if I knew to examine for something, “I can help. There’s got to be an explanation, right? Maybe you have dirt or, like, I don’t know, a splinter? Let me—”
“A splinter? You think I have a fucking splinter? Eden, I’m telling you I literally cannot see anything.”
Think rationally, I told myself. Ward off the onset of panic. Recognize that foreign chemicals still coursed violently through your bloodstream. Determine whether this was imaginary, still part of the hallucination. Pray this was part of the hallucination. “Oliver,” I said, despairing at the sound of my own choking voice, “where were you? Why didn’t you go in with us?”
He faltered over a rock. I steadied him. “Go in where?”
“The cave,” I said impatiently, “leading into the—”
“All I remember is seeing bronze gates,” he said unhappily, “and then not being able to see anymore.” He put his hands to his knees. His face was streaked with earth. “Someone was there with me.”
“Which one of us?”
“A stranger. Wearing tefillin.”
“Tefillin?” I paused. “Then of course it was one of us. Who the hell else would have tefillin out here?”
“I didn’t bring. Neither did Noah or Evan or Amir.”
“I did.”
“Were you wearing them last night?”
“No, but—”
He tried walking again. I stopped him. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I said. “How could—what do you even think any of this means?”
“I don’t know what anything means. All I’m saying is what I saw.”
“Okay,” I said frantically, allowing our limping to continue onward, “okay, so let’s just think for a second, let’s piece this together. We can fix this, right? We can—right, so you saw a guy wearing tefillin and then . . . so what happened then?”
“I told you, the lights went out.”
“You mean the acid kicked in.”
“I’m hallucinating blindness right now, too, then?”
I was silent.
“It was real,” he said. “Something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
* * *
WE WANDERED. WE FOUND TREES snatched cleanly from the earth, roots intact, teeth marks in bark, carvings in the ground. We considered giving up on finding the others and devised an alternative plan: I’d leave Oliver somewhere relatively secure and go directly for help, making my way back to the entrance, a trek I knew would take most of the day. Then we heard wailing.
Oliver, ears perched, desperate for direction, shot his arm northward. “Over there.”
We climbed through a thicket into a field, expecting to find another goat. Instead we found Amir, hunched over, drenched in mud, inconsolable. Beside him sat Evan, chin at his knees, clothing torn, hair clotted with blood.
“What in the—” I sat Oliver on a boulder. Amir and Evan weren’t speaking. I wasn’t certain they even realized I was there. “What . . . what happened?”
Evan didn’t answer. Eyes unfocused, he gazed several yards past me, toward the lone tree in sight. Amir, still sobbing, attempted to speak, but managed only paroxysms of unintelligible half-words.
“Amir,” I said. Vertigo deepened in my skull. I felt, all at once, unsteady on my feet, confused as to where the ground ended and mental phenomena began, the physical reality of my body glaringly incompatible with the physics of the world around me. “You have to talk to me.”
Amir grabbed my collar, pulled my face toward his own. He was convulsing. Unformed grief took hold in his eyes. “We need help, Ari, I don’t think we can save him—”
“What? Save who? I—” I tried shaking Amir off. “Amir, save who?”
Without looking my way, Evan raised his arm and pointed toward the tree. “He’s there.”
“What’s happening?” Oliver thrashed about, almost as if his body were seizing. “Ari, what the fuck’s happ—?”
Slowly, I approached the tree, a sugar maple. Greenish-yellow flowers bled softly from the branches, falling gently on a body resting at its roots. Noah was lying on his back. His eyes were open, staring up at the sun. His mouth was closed, his enormous arms crossed over his chest, his legs straightened. His long, blond hair was ragged, but with no evidence of blood. He looked, really, as if he were only sleeping, if not for his eyes, frozen in beatific terror.
I took a single step back. My vision swam, my breathing came with labor. Despair, a violent, all-encompassing despair, the sort I imagine precedes the end of normalcy, the end of clarity, the end of happiness, introduced itself to every cell in my body. I couldn’t tell whether I was cold or hot, sitting or standing, speaking or silent, sentient or dreaming, dead or alive.
A comforting deafness pressed itself temporarily against the world. I wanted this numbness to persist, I would’ve given anything to remain in that anesthetized half-life. Then I heard the sound of Amir moaning, of Oliver crying out as he lost his footing and fell to the ground, and with that I knew the world had returned to me. We had no cellphone reception, I thought with strange lucidity, we had no other flare guns, we were hours from the entrance to the trail, we had no fellow campers in sight. I kneeled, finally, over Noah’s body and felt for the pulse I knew wasn’t there.
“No use.” Evan appeared behind me. “He’s gone.”
I tried, desperately, pumping Noah’s chest without knowing what I was doing.
“Ari,” Evan said hoarsely, “leave him.”
I keeled over, sick. After some heaving, sweat pouring from my face, I looked back at Evan. “You did this.”
His gaze was off in the distance, somewhere in the miles and miles of green forest, in the blue mountaintops that floated, tenderly, into a mist of pale clouds.
“You killed him,” I said.
He turned to me. His eyes were dark and eerie, sliding in and out of focus. “Don’t.” His voice hardly constituted a whisper. “Please.”
I launched myself. We fell, rolled. I threw punches, most of which he deflected, though several landed effectively enough, allowing me the satisfaction of feeling the pressure of his skull against my bleeding knuckles. Evan wouldn’t strike me. Instead, when I wouldn’t stop, he grabbed my fists and, in one fluid motion, threw me on my back. I craved the pain, I let it build—in my arm, in my back, in my head—before I forced myself upright. Evan was already standing, though his leg appeared to be threatening to buckle. Oliver, lying helplessly on the ground where I’d left him, had been reduced to incoherent screaming as he pounded his fists into dirt. Amir, regaining himself, had rushed over at the sight of our wrestling. He stood between us, arms extended weakly, breaking us up, and so I nodded and pretended to limp back toward the tree. When Amir’s hands fell to his knees, when I noticed Evan doubled over, I charged again to take him by surprise. This time, Evan swung, in self-defense, and connected with my face. There was a loud, beautiful crack. I went horizontal. All of the ugliness in the world went with me.