SHORTLY AFTER, Abou felt fatigue overtake him. When he finally slept and the angel materialized and sat casually on an overturned basket, Abou smiled at him warmly.
“I am glad you came,” Abou whispered. One of the reasons he wanted to sleep in the storeroom was that he was afraid he might talk in his sleep.
“You had another bad day, didn’t you?” Cohen asked.
“Very depressing. I never knew that when I spoke of Yousef’s visit years ago, I offended so many people.”
Cohen grinned. “The human condition. Hating is by far easier than loving. Envy is more natural than benevolence.”
Abou raised himself on his elbow. “What luck to have a cynical angel.”
“I am a realist,” Cohen corrected.
“Can I make you some tea? I’m sure everyone has gone to bed by now. We could sit in the kitchen.”
At the kitchen table, Abou offered the angel some of Sophia’s sesame cookies, a delicacy to which Abou was addicted.
Cohen sipped his tea and nibbled at a cookie. “These are exceptional, Abou! Ambrosia.”
Abou sat across from him and sipped his tea. “Today wasn’t good.”
“We saw.”
“I know in your mind there is no relationship between the clergy and Allah, but I was shocked by the mullah’s response.”
Cohen ate his third cookie. “A sordid bunch. In Teheran the clergy has taken to outright thievery, filling Swiss accounts.”
“There must be some good men practicing their religions,” Abou replied.
Cohen sniffed, pushing the cookies away. “There are good men and women doing everything in this world, just as there are evil people involved in most endeavors. But humans expect more from their clergy, as they should.”
Abou poured more tea and pushed the cookies closer to Cohen, who took another. “Are you answering my question of the other night? Is there Allah?”
Cohen considered his answer carefully. “Look Abou, we sympathize deeply with your need for an answer. It is a profound yearning in most humans, and we gave careful thought about how we should answer this question, and you must remember our answer isn’t definitive, although we have a somewhat larger perspective than you. There is no Yahweh or Allah or any particular god that we know of. There seems to be a force, an enormous energy which pushes the universe along. We don’t really know if it’s intelligent or not or, for that matter, what its intelligence is. We don’t know if there is a purpose to the force. We know our purpose intuitively, and we can’t explain how we know what we are supposed to do, but we do. That is the best I can do.”
“Nothing is gained by destroying your faith, Abou. One of the main causes of turmoil in the human race is this belief in a particular god. It has driven men to extremes in the belief their god is the only god. We don’t see that.” Cohen hesitated for a moment. “Take this desecration by the Taliban, the destruction of those beautiful statues of Buddha. They were beautiful statues and should have been left alone. All this is so pointless.”
“And there was no Muhammad or Jesus Christ or Buddha or Joseph Smith?” Abou interrupted.
“Oh, sure. Nice guys. Hearts in the right place and all that, and they really believed what they taught.”
“But not messengers of God?” Abou asked.
Cohen sighed. “Abou, listen to me. All this strife has come from the idea of a human as a messenger from God. Differences between religions have led to slaughter. Even differences within a particular religious group have caused all sorts of dissent. Your mullah is a petty man. His mosque is an organization which can dispense money unfairly, but all I am saying is keep your perspective. You know more about God right now than he does.”
“And Muhammad wasn’t a prophet?”
“Can energy have a son? Can energy designate a prophet? I mean, get real.”
Abou rose and set the pot back on the stove, which had been banked for the night but still contained considerable heat. Without turning, Abou said, “And that means we really have no reason for being, no purpose.”
“Being alive is purpose enough, Abou,” Cohen replied cheerfully. “Having kids. Living happily. That seems to be quite something to us.”
Abou returned to the table and poured hot tea into their cups. “But we simply live, procreate, and then die. Nobody remembers us after a generation or two.”
“If somebody remembers you for fifty, sixty years, that’s pretty good, and look at Shakespeare and Plato. Those guys’ reputations really stuck. People don’t want to dwell on death anyway, except maybe the Egyptians, who seemed at one time to get a real bang out of it. The whole idea of mummies is really kind of weird.”
“A cynical, irreverent angel.”
“Well, I feel like I can let my hair down with you,” Cohen admitted. “Decay is good, Abou. Can you imagine the clutter if you didn’t have it?”
“But for no purpose,” Abou mused.
“Look, living ain’t half bad. You have a great time eating, playing sports and . . . well, having fun with females, and for the most part they have a great time with you. Raising kids has its moments, although when people realize that’s all there is, they can get very depressed, but the art and music humans have created is really amazing, and the world’s literature isn’t anything to sneeze at, unless you’re dealing with musty books and then you can’t help but sneeze.” He slapped his knees in delight at his joke.
Abou gave him a disapproving look and Cohen held up a hand. “Look, buddy, you’re looking at this thing all wrong. There are things of unimaginable beauty in the universe, and you are just beginning to find out about them. I’ve got to tell you, Abou, watching the death of stars, the birth of constellations, the density of black holes, is beyond the imagination. And now you humans are getting a chance to peek.”
“Makes us very inconsequential,” Abou lamented.
Abou shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that at all. You humans are extraordinary. In many ways you’re more fun than watching a supernova.”
“Then tell me why we invented a god, if He doesn’t exist?”
Cohen shrugged. “No big deal. Humans seem to need a reason for living. Just being alive doesn’t seem to do it for them. I mean waking up and knowing you’re alive is a miracle, in a manner of speaking, but that just doesn’t seem to be enough for most of you. Look at it this way—stars die, galaxies crumble, and they don’t complain. Just accept the situation and move on.”
Abou looked at Cohen, waiting for further explanation. Finally he asked, “That’s it? We needed gods so we created them?”
Cohen shrugged. “Well, of course there’s that need for authority and all that other stuff we talked about.”
Abou sat holding his cold cup of tea. Finally, he said, “I would have thought there was more to such a universally held belief. It seems so . . . well, pedestrian. According to what you say, our concept of leadership and religion is mixed together, and it all comes from a few barely competent sentries standing over a band of sleeping animals millions of years ago.”
Cohen grinned. “Pedestrian? Not a word the average goat herder uses.”
“I must think about this carefully,” Abou replied. “I must say, I’m not convinced by your explanation. I’m not prepared to give up Allah so easily.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Cohen agreed cheerily, grabbed a few cookies, and disappeared.