Masters Of A Flat Earth

(The Guiding Symphony)

Our island of Friesland is small, but you can always find it on a regular map if you wish. Once it was placed southeast of Iceland, a bit closer to Norway, which at that time owned it, and also to Scotland, from where merchant ships sailed to us more often than others. On other occasions, it could be found, although still farther south, but west of Iceland, making it a natural transit point on the way from Europe to the New World. According to legend, it was our island that became the last refuge of the Pilgrim Fathers who took a desperate journey from the English Plymouth to Cape Cod in the current state of Massachusetts on the famous Mayflower ship in 1620. In our family, they even said that in a few days of their stay we managed to make friends with William Bradford[2] himself. I will not argue that this is the strict truth, because, as we all know, the Mayflower was transporting puritans, not prone to carnal excesses. But in the old chest, which used to be stored in the attic of our old house, and now - in the basement of the new house, built by my father at the time of his quarrel with my grandfather, lies a rag-like letter with a poorly legible signature of a W. Brad. The end of the name was eaten by time, yet I am ready to agree with my ancestors that it could be the hand of the very same Bradford. I just do not know. For years now I have been going to somehow save this letter, addressed to my great-many-times-grandmother, from further destruction, and all I have managed so far is to scan it and try to make out the surviving words on the computer screen. I heard that there is some expensive method of putting the paper inside a glass flask and even pump out the air, but then none of my descendants will be able to touch it, while touching a history is so dear to any living heart, after all. So I'm still in a sort of brown study.

For quite some time, our Friesland has ceased to appear on any maps at all. There are probably reasons for this, although they are unknown to me. I have happened to read that it is the fruit of the fiction of unsuccessful adventure lovers, that in fact it is not at all a separate island, but the same fish-rich region of the southern coast of Iceland, which sailors and especially fishing anglers have come to call Fisland, that is, Fishland . Moreover, on some Spanish map of 1480, Iceland seems to have been marked as Fiskland. Scientists, as usual, know better. Actually, we have been getting lots of names throughout history. It seemed to someone that our climate was too cold, if not frosty, and in certain chronicles I came across the name Freezland, that is, Country of Frosts. I assure you, the authors of these chronicles were simply unlucky to get to our island in late autumn, because the rest of the year it is quite pleasant to be here, and in the winter it is always snowy, and I personally do not feel the cold.

I tell all this not at all because I am interested in an additional influx of tourists from the nearest islands and the continent to our latitudes. Well, to be honest, it certainly won’t harm me, because I am not a fisherman or a hunter, more precisely, both a fisherman and a hunter, only my catch and game are a few guests from the mentioned places. Tourism is developed here alright, there is something to see, and in my childhood I lacked socializing so much that once I got a chance I became a guide. And if I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t get a job with old Crowley, who at that time owned the only tourist bureau on our island, and then, you know, there would not have been all this ill-fated story. Therefore, you can see for yourself, I simply do not have any opportunity to talk about one thing and keep silent about the other.

Crowley, as you might guess, was an Irishman who moved to us at the time of his youth, so I don’t have and cannot have any personal memories from that period. When we met, he was forty odd years older than me, and therefore for the rest of my life I perceived him exclusively as an "old man".

“What the hell have you stolen my fishing rod for, lad?” he began our first conversation.

Considering I was three years old, some of the above words may seem superfluous. I did not understand them either, although I remembered them well.

Crowley was wrong about the fishing rod. Of course, I didn’t stole it, just took it to play, because it was not a simple fishing rod, but a spinning rod, wonderful, with a silver reel on which a thin thread was wound. I already knew what it was called: fishing line. Moreover, the fishing line was not only wound, but could also be wound out, which was even more interesting. And there were so many fishing rods in the Crowley collection that, frankly, when I sniffed one of them, it never crossed my mind that the old man would notice the loss. At the same time, I stayed to play with that fishing rod in the middle of his large yard, in the most visible place, and he saw me only when I had finally entrapped myself in the fishing line and raised a cry.

Subsequently, Crowley admitted that he immediately took a shine to me. He probably expected that such a bawler would burst into tears of fear when he appeared and would run away, while I just stood there with a fishing rod in my hand, mechanically twisting the reel, and stared at the bearded giant who squatted next to me. In fact, I would have, of course, run away if by that time my legs were not tangled in the fishing line. Noticing this, the bearded man took out a folding knife. But even then I was not afraid. Just because my parents hadn’t shown me any films yet, and knives, like the one Crowley held in his fist, associated in my childish brain with cutting fish, that is, with something tasty and not at all scary.

He cut the fishing line, and I got the long-awaited freedom. However, I still didn’t take flight, ‘cause by that time I already liked Crowley. Rather, I liked the smell coming from him. My father always smelled of fish and cattle, my mother smelled of cattle and food, and Crowley didn't smell anything. I mean nothing that would be familiar to me at that time. Later I realized that a brier, whiskey and old books smell like that.

“What's your name, boy?” he asked, seizing the spinning rod and frowning at me.

“Leslie,” I said the first thing that came to my mind.

In fact, Leslie was the name of my much unloved piglet, which we were eating those days. I disliked him, mainly because this Leslie, with whom I played when he was a small, almost portable guinea pig, had shot up so much that he beat me to it, turning into a hefty boar. Even worse: he ceased to recognize me, was arrogant and did not even grunt, as before, when I visited him.

“Listen, Leslie,” said old Crowley, rising to his full height, - why don’t you get busy, go home and tell your mother... though, you know, let’s come over to my place.

He took my hand, and I obediently tagged behind him.

Those of you who have already been to our Friesland are well aware that we do not admit gates, fences and other barriers. We are people, not cattle, to be kept in corrals. Therefore, Crowley himself was to blame for putting his wonderful fishing rods in the sun right at the entrance to his house, and I, walking where I wanted, came across them and became interested. Our yards are simply land that separates the porch from the common road. Behind the houses there are, of course, "backsides" that are used for household needs. There we have gardens, every possible living creatures, and utility sheds. I would never dare to go there, because I realized the difference between the “yard” and the “backsides” before I learned to speak. All the more, the interior of someone else's house. Our neighbors can enter other people's backsides only when the owners are present. Homes - only when they are invited. We are very strict with this, but it’s great to save on locks and all kinds of expensive constipation. Now you can easily imagine my flutter when I realized that Crowley was leading me over the porch straight into his house. From that moment on, I sincerely fell in love with him as an older friend, and I carried this feeling to his death.

“Stand here, Leslie,” he said, when we had left a spacious veranda with a rocking chair covered with a thick knitted blanket behind and entered the cozy mud room.

Until then I had not suspect that a mud room can be cozy, because in our house it was just a hallway, where my father’s boots were constantly lying as well as buckets, shovels and other tools not conveyed to the sheds. Here I was greeted by book racks, piles of tattered magazines on the floor, a tall wooden table with slender legs and a huge leather ball, which turned out to be soft and elastic at the same time. Actually, I examined the books and the table on my next visits, while at that moment it was this ball, sewn from a variety of patches of skin that captured all my attention. And although Crowley said, “Stand here, Leslie,” I, as soon as he disappeared into the house, climbed right onto the ball, which cordially welcomed me into its soft arms. I must have been a really funny sight, because the owner, who returned soon, at the sight of my spread out arms and legs and a blissful smile on my face, could not help it and burst out laughing. His laughter turned out to be loud, open and kind, and since then I sincerely believe that all bearded people should laugh like that.

“Pass this note from me to your mum,” said Crowley, helping me crawl to the floor. He gave me a piece of paper, which I immediately clenched in a fist, realizing that this was something important. - Will you get home yourself or shall  I accompany you? - he added, when we were outside again.

“Myself,” I muttered, and then we both saw my mother, who had already gone in search of her youngest son, that is, me.

“Timosha!” she called, walking along the road and looking around in the hope that this time I would not play hide and seek with her - a game that, I confess, I was very fond of, especially at the most inopportune time.

Noticing us, she threw up her hands and hurried on. To my own surprise, I did not pull my hand out of Crowley’s big palm, but obediently stood and waited for her to come close enough and say hello.

“You have a smart son,” was the first thing he said, pushing me toward my mother. When I grew up and he grew old, Crowley still called me that way - son. “I was just sending him to you with a note.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “So, you are Timothy, then?”

“Tim,” I corrected.

Only my mother called me Timosha. For some reason, even my father was embarrassed to echo this tender word, which entered our house with my mother’s mother from distant Russia. Apart from her, my grandmother, no one spoke Russian in our family. She was there when I was born, and my mother adopted this Timosha from her using it on occasions when she wanted to say: I know that you were mischievous, but I am not going to punish you for this.

Then a conversation followed the details of which I no longer remember, because all the time I was trying to make out the signs on the piece of paper in my hand. I did realize that now no one needed them, since this bearded old man and my mother had met, and upon returning home I silently threw the note into the fireplace. The essence of their conversation became obvious to me that evening when my mother told my father at dinner that Dylan Crowley, our neighbor, was opening an office on the island to entertain tourists, and she was invited to a new, almost completed tavern as a cook.

“The chief cook,” she said.

“The only one,” my father grunted, squinting.

Mother and father never swore. I do not remember hearing at least one swear word from his lips in her presence. When he began to take me with him for fishing, oh, there I heard enough of what I still try and can’t forget! In such cases, he turned not so much to me or to his companions, who often contracted to help him, but to the ocean, fish and nets. Father did not accept fishing rods, considering them pampering and a waste of time. The catch was for sale and for winter storage, which means that there should be a lot of fish, countless. Most of it was a wonderful “autumn”, which visitors usually know as omul, but we, locals, have long been familiar with the Latin language in which it is called Coregonus autumnalis, that is, “autumnal corgonus”, and so christened it by the second word. Father and I also stored up cod coming to us from the Atlantic, air-dried chaplain, in other words, capelin, and froze ray-finned haddock that went well in the market in neighboring Okibar, the central city of the south. When I got old enough, we sometimes went fishing with him together, more like hunting, because instead of nets, medium-sized harpoons were placed on both sides of our longboat. Our prey on such days was blue catfish, a dangerous fish, but I loved it not only for its taste, but also because for me at that time it was like a shark. As you know, catfish owes its name, of course, to the teeth that grow even in several rows - on the jaws, on the palate and on the opener. You can’t catch it with a net, unless your net is made of steel wire. We often came across specimens almost of my size and three stones[3] each. A couple of these fish and you can return home. We usually brought five or six pieces after two nights on the water, for which we received a playful scolding from Mother, who had to handle all these carcasses.

In sober fact, by the time I learned how to deal with a harpoon, my sister Tandri was already fourteen, and she was helping Mother not only at home, but also with the growing business of Crowley’s, whose efforts year after year brought their fruit. I mean, not one of the fish we caught or shot by us was ever in vain, and Mother’s worries were more like a wife’s feelings. Letting us go alone and realizing that I needed to get used to adulthood, she was afraid in her soul of what might happen. If something happens to you, she admonished me every time, your father wouldn’t outlive it. I knew that I had had an older brother. I even knew that his name was Galin, but he died tragically, and for the rest of his life Father considered it his fault. Details are still unknown to me.

My father came to our grounds from the north, from the big city of Kampa, glorified by its high fortified walls, which from time immemorial have been keeping it from the raids of sea robbers, from floods, or from the invasion of forest bears. At one time the latter bred in that area in such multitude that they ceased to find food for themselves and dared to attack people. Nowadays, nothing like this has happened for a long time, the northerners are guarding the bears, and this is one of the reasons why they are not too willing to accept the generous offers of our bureau regarding the arrangement of their territories for hunting. I understand them, but everything is changing even on our island, and I suppose that, in the end, one of the elders there would bow his gray head, wave his hand, and we would open the first commercial bear park in Friesland. Everything has its own time, if you do not rush it.

So, it was that bear that became the involuntary reason for the existence of me, my sister, Galin and, if we look further, the whole story. The same bear who tried to hector my grandfather, my mother’s father, when one fine day Lame Bor (for that was his nickname and name) went on a journey around the island. Grandfather was looking for gold. He is said to have always been somewhat strange, but then someone whispered to him as if in the spring a boat either from Norway or from Canada shipwrecked on the west coast in the area of the North Bay (to be honest, I could never understand why the bay in the west is called North Bay). The crew escaped, lived on the island for more than a week, and when the steamer that came from the mainland after them had sailed away, it was found that the ship-owner or rather the person who hired the ship for transportation of a certain valuable cargo known only to him and the captain disappeared without a trace. The cargo was stored in a heavy crate with cunningly tied up buoys on all four sides that prevented it from being sunk during the crash. Needless to say, the ship-owner disappeared along with the crate. The one who told this story to my grandfather was sure that someone from the team had killed the poor man and safely hid the treasure, that is, buried it. Why there should be treasure in the crate, no one knew, but since then Grandfather lost his peace and eventually went to the place where the ship’s crew had been stationed all this time — to the north-west. My mother was a young girl then and, together with her mother, agreed to let my grandfather go away only after he had colorfully painted what gifts in the form of jewelry he would bring for both of them if he was lucky enough to find the pennyweight buried by the killers. As a result, he did not find any treasure, got into a mess with a bear hungry after hibernation, and as a gift brought my future father. Rather, it was my father who brought him, fairly bitten and half-dead, back home, and remained on the pretext that he was capable to nurse victims of bear anger. In fact, he was going to trade fur in Okibar, picked up my gory grandfather along the way, made a detour, saw my mother, and realized that it was his final destination. The cartload of furs became a pretty good dowry. Grandfather put on an ostentatious act, but he couldn’t do anything with the young blood and eventually agreed. As far as I remember, he always limped on his left foot. In addition, by age, his right eyelid had weakened so much that he ended his days looking at the world with one eye. Some of his friends called him, in addition to Lame Bor, either Hephaestus[4] or Odin[5].

Odin's wife, as everyone knows, was called Frigg, or Freya, in whose honor grateful descendants christened the fifth day of the week[6]. Yet my grandmother bore the old Russian name Ladomila and, according to my mother, always asked not to confuse it with the much more common name Lyudmila. As I said, I almost never knew her. In my memory there were only a few pictures of our walks ashore, when she took me in her arms, called Timosha and pointed somewhere far, far beyond the horizon. She smiled, but I felt sad and cried. Today I am thinking she wanted to show me her distant homeland.

In general, people come to Friesland from various places, however, not all take root here. Although our climate is not as severe as you might imagine, looking at a map and comparing it with northern Scotland, the Shetland or Faeroes Islands or even Iceland. In the summer, when the air warms up to twenty degrees Celsius, we southerners often enjoy swimming. Water at this time seems even warmer than air, possibly due to the Atlantic currents. In the north, which is not reached by the currents, the water is too invigorating, and the northerners from Kampa neighborly come to soak up the sun to us - to Okibar and to a large village or rather a small town located a little further to the east, Sorand. When Crowley opened his office and built a small ferry station, he began to transport people across the narrow strait of Anefes to the nearest uninhabited island with the sonorous name of Monaco. Only if the French hit their pompous town on the last "o", we tend to beat it on the first one. There are as many as two geysers on Monaco, so you can relax there almost all year round. Due to its position, Friesland escaped the fate of the aforementioned northern countries and did not turn into cliffs licked by dank winds, on which only moss and juniper grows. The entire central part of our island is occupied by real dense forests, which you can find in Canada, in Sweden, or in taiga Siberia. Otherwise, where, one may wonder, we would be hunting? And at the expense of forests the soils are not as unsuitable for growing various cereals as they could be. In short, you can live here, and you can live well, but not everyone is given the opportunity to understand the charm of our wildish land. And the winds have been bringing to us any people imaginable! I am not talking about those who would come just for a temporary stay. Already in my time, they landed here with the intention of living in a settlement: a large family of Old Believers from Belarus, three dashing brothers from either Libya or Lebanon, a lone Norwegian woman, a fishing-crazy old English lord, a couple of famous German actors and a polite rabbi from New York. To date, of all of them, there is only the Norwegian woman who found her a man, and the German actress who lost her husband. The Old Believers, who were not understood by anyone and did not receive any financial support as “refugees of conscience”, which for some reason they sincerely expected, sailed further to the west. The Libyan brothers, who probably decided that they could scare everyone here, as they managed to do back in Europe, and who were going to organize something in the manner of the mafia, were hacked by our good-natured men alright and turned into good nutriment for catfish. They somehow managed to intimidate only an English lord, who did not understand where he was, abandoned his dear fishing rods and fled home in disgrace.

As for the rabbi it turned out generally sad and quite touching. Uri Shmukler, as he liked to introduce himself, starting conversations right in the middle of the road, had nothing outstanding except a nose that could compete in size with our garden hoe. He came to the island in order to convert us to his faith. Since he spoke insinuatingly, smiled more or less constantly and didn’t harm anyone, the people did not find a reason to throw him away by the scruff of the neck and just put up with him, answering his circumlocutional exhortations with knowing looks and indifferent nods. Uri understood all this in his own way and was bold. For some reason, he thought we really needed him, wandered proudly around, holding a tattered leather briefcase under his arm, and all his looks showed that he really liked it here. Probably, that is how it really was at first. He ended up quartering not just somewhere, but in our old house, which Father put in order after the death of my grandfather, and Mother, following Crowley’s instructions, made it suitable for guests. I was still too young to live without my parents, while Tandri married Gordian, a programmer from Okibar, and moved to his place. Uri had clearly some money on him, because he paid us six months in advance, hoping during that time to fulfill the mission assigned to him and convert, if not all of Friesland, then at least our village. At first he tried to walk about the south and reached Sorand, but there he was apparently beaten. In any case, he returned quickly and for two days did not come out, healing his bruises. This failure did not break him, and he went to Okibar to bow to our elders. We laughed among ourselves, knowing what awaited him there, and were rather surprised when he did not return either the next day, or two days later, or by the end of the week. I guess I know what you are thinking: the poor fellow either went of a binge out of despair, or stayed in his joy with some beauty there. I hasten to surprise you: Uri Shmukler could not have done anything like that, even if he desired to. For one simple reason: our island is not so boring to set up drinking establishments and even more so – to allow women to dishonor their good name. Thanks to our universal love of seclusion and tranquility, which is why in some serious scientific books we are sometimes compared with medieval Japanese, we have not been aware of such harmful phenomena as religion, public fornication and democracy, adhering to the commandments of our ancestors and common sense. In our land this living arrangement is called in an ancient way – Folkerul, when six fathers of six families choose the seventh, the eldest, who receives the title of Septus, in which those familiar with Latin will notice both “seven” and “fence”. Six Septuses then choose their eldest, Fortus, which sounds like Latin for “strength” and German for “fourteen”. Then, twelve Fortuses choose a Paternus, and finally, the Paternus Council appoints elders to the four largest cities of the island: Okibar in the south, Kampa in the north, Doffais in the east and Sanestol in the west. Folkerul allows us not to have such expensive items of expenditure as courts, prisons and the police. Courts are held at general gatherings under the leadership of Septuses, where decisions are made by unanimous vote and are immediately enforced, without delay or appeal. The guilty are punished, the innocent are released, and no one rehabilitates or guards anyone. As for the general order in cities and villages, as they say, "why do you need janitors if everyone is responsible for their own garbage." Since childhood we are being brought up with only one simple edification: do not wish your neighbor what you do not wish for yourself. In addition to Folkerul, this is enough for us to enter the age of growing up with a full understanding of what one can do and what is undesirable. Is it necessary to add that with such a system, no religion nurtured and nourished on human vices survives, no matter how hard it has been implanted. My grandfather told me that in ancient times ships came to our island with uninvited guests who, like Uri, wanted to offer their vision of a righteous life, with shiny crosses, fragrant censers, whining hymns and appeals to resign oneself not explaining why and to whom. Only, unlike Uri, they came not light-handed, but accompanied by a small but well-trained army, whose task was to convince our ancestors to obey the voice of their god, to build up chapels, to be baptized and thus be saved from impending doom. The ancestors did not like all this, but out of curiosity they allowed the visitant priests to conduct a demonstration service. When those, having chanted enough and exhausted of chattering, began to offer everyone present to eat a piece of the flesh of their beloved god and to drink this muck with his blood, the mothers took their children away, and the fathers, armed with who know what, organized some magnificent farewell ceremony for the guests. It was decided to burn the ships, which were no longer needed, so as not to remind of that black day, although, according to Grandfather, some of our craftsmen got subsequently quite emotional as the rigging was very good and the sails were strong. Being unsophisticated kids, I remember, we would run to the place where a barrow, sagged with age, stood on the edge of the field, and tried to dig out something interesting. Once I brought home a beautiful iron cross with multi-colored pebbles and first of all wanted to impress my father, for which I was immediately spanked and forever separated from the find.

“Who are your gods?” he asked me, looking down at my dirty cheeks, and pleased as he did not see streams of tears.

“You and mum,” I replied, as taught, and sniffed.

“And do you need anybody else?”

“No…”

“Well, stick to your last, then. And as soon as I find out that you have approached the barrows again, I’ll spare my palm.”

I understood my father correctly and immediately. “Spare my palm” should mean that after the next misconduct I will face, most likely, his belt. I got lucky that day. My bosom friend Lyuva was punished for his findings so strictly by his dad that long time afterwards he would wince whenever he tried to sat down.

Uri Schmukler returned nine days later, very thoughtful, sad and without his briefcase. For days he sat in front of the house or on the beach, looked at the waves, at dawn and sunsets, talked to himself and his whole appearance made it clear that he was on the verge of making a hole in the water or hanging himself. Since nobody except my mother had any concern for him, he did not dare to commit suicide, just breathed in, talked out, rubbed his nose properly and cheered up. One day I found him talking neighborly to Crowley. Both were sitting on the barrels that adorned the dock in front of our office, and Crowley treated the rabbi with a pipe of Cuban tobacco. The weather was calm and there was a thick cigar smell on the pier. All because Crowley was in the habit of smoking the tobacco that he pulled out of his Cuban cigars. He accepted no other. Uri was coughing, and smiling, but was not in a hurry to give up. So they sat for a while, talking about nothing, until the New York rabbi conceived the idea of hearing Crowley's opinion of his religion.

“I don’t understand,” he said, covering his nose with the scarf, “why, if we all descended from Adam, are you so persistent in your desire to be different from the rest?”

“Who descended from Adam?” Crowley said as if misheard.

“Well, don’t you know?” Uri perked up. “People descended from Adam. Not from a monkey.”

Crowley blew smoke from under his mustache, glanced at his interlocutor, and said:

“Who created Adam?”

“Jehovah, bevadai[7]!

“Well, what about Jehovah?”

“In what sense?”

“In a direct one.” Crowley looked at me. I was pretending to be cleaning the handrails of the ferry, which looked bored waiting for any passengers. “Have you read the Torah?”

“Have I read the Torah?! Mr. Crowley, I read the Torah so much that it already seems to me that I wrote it.

“Well then, Rav Uri, remind me who created adam in the first chapter of Byreishit? I mean adam, of course, with a small letter, and not the guy who appears in the second one.”

Uri's nose quickened, his nostrils swelled, sucked in the sea air and trembled. It became clear that Crowley was not just a simpleton on the barrel for which Uri had been mistaking him. I stopped rubbing the handrail and remembered all those cabinets and shelves in the house of my old friend, littered with books that he not only collected, but also read. A hurricane was coming.

“Elohim,” Uri said, and looked expectantly at Crowley.

“Just Elohim?”

“Just Elohim.”

“And who are they?”

“God.”

“Or rather gods in the plural?”

“Well, yeah, gods, but the verb...’

“So, in the first chapter, the gods create some adam in the image of their likeness, notably a man and a woman at once. And in the second chapter, Elohim Jehovah, as you have been constantly calling him since then and which Christians translate as “Lord God,” again creates an Adam, alone, from clay, and then from this same Adam he makes him a wife, Eve. So, maybe, if you think about it, then in the first chapter the gods did not create a man, but immediately the whole humanity, men and women together, after which one of the gods, the most nimble and active, as soon as the gods, Elohim, on the seventh day, seeing that they were doing well, went to rest, made two dolls for himself, and with them he then plays throughout the book, scaring and frightening? Ever wonder?”

The rabbi decided at first to be offended, but instead he took up the pipe and did not cough for the first time. Meanwhile, Crowley continued:

“I am a simple person and I understand everything that is written literally. I didn’t read your Talmud, which tittle-tattle the Torah, and I’m not going to do it in the near future, as I won’t find all of its volumes, unless you contribute to this. I am limited to what I have. And what I have clearly states that both you and we were created by different gods. So why should we go under your god when we have enough of our own? Moreover, we need neither fear nor pray our gods for help. They themselves know who, why and when to help. They are our creators, our ancestors.”

The interlocutors went silent, and I returned to work. I knew who the rabbis were by hearsay, and it seemed to me that they were cunning guys and could explain everything in the world in a way that was beneficial to them. Why Uri Schmukler did not embark on a spiritual dispute there and then, I have no clue about. Crowley told me afterwards that they could not have a real spiritual dispute because the orthodox Adamites had no spirit. They did have a soul, but no spirit.

Another time it turned out visa versa: Rabbi Uri talked to me. I was on duty at the office as Crowley had left to grab a bite. When he returned, I was almost convinced that a giyur[8] was not such a terrible ceremony and that any self-respecting man should experience it. As I later realized, Uri managed to get around the bottlenecks of the giyur in our conversation without saying the main thing. The appearance of Crowley made my interlocutor slow down, but it was clear that he was all in a holy impulse, since I was the first listener who did not send him off immediately and far away. Crowley shook his shaggy head.

“Israel suffers as hard from proselytes[9] as from a ulcer. Where does it come from, rav?”

“Yevamot[10], verse forty-seven.”

“It turns out that you undertook a business objectionable to your god, rav.”

“But why, Mr. Crowley? In Midrash[11], the opposite is said: the true proselyte will prosper more in Jehovah's eyes than a man born of a Jew.”

“You would make a good lawyer, rav. Never tried it?”

“I am a lawyer,” answered Uri Schmukler without a smile.

Crowley had returned, so I could go about business, yet I lingered to listen to where their learned conversation would lead them to. They started talking about proselytes in a broad manner. Is it good? To whom and when is it appropriate to change one faith for another? What can push this decision? Unlike me, the rabbi was genuinely surprised at the old man’s knowledge of the history and geography of countries where he had never been. From proselytes they switched to purity of blood in general and Semitic blood in particular. Crowley specified exactly which Semites our guest descended from. Uri said that his grandmothers and grandfathers came to the New World through Germany from Poland. Crowley sighed and asked about Uri's attitude toward the Arabs. Uri shrugged. From all this, Crowley made and voiced his conclusion that he is Ashkenaz and anti-Semite. He caused an outburst of indignation, listened to everything that followed, and when Uri calmed down, specified again:

“You mean the Arabs are not Semites, rav?”

“Yes, they are.

“Then what are the names of those who call for their oppression? And not only call, but constantly fight with them?”

“Jews.”

“But you are not a Jew, rav, are you?”

“Ah, Mr. Crowley, why do you say that! How is it not a Jew?”

“You are a Hebrew, but not a Jew. Your ancestors, being Ashkenazi, converted to Judaism, as did Bedouins, Persians, Ethiopians, Tatars, Caucasians and many others who had never left their habitats before, who had never been expelled from anywhere, and who had never been imprisoned in any Babylon or Egypt. Tim, give me that book over there, the second shelf to the left. No, lower, with a blue spine. Yes, that is it. Here, rav, read, if you like, your own historian Shlomo Zanda, who popularly tells you when, where and how many people converted to Judaism without being Jewish by blood. If he tells the truth, it turns out that the Palestinian Arabs are the original inhabitants of Israel. Like the "African-Americans", named so only to hide the truth: they are not blacks, but all the same Indians, the original inhabitants of America and not at all descendants of any African slaves.

Actually, I really liked this feature of old Crowley. He never argued with anyone and almost never went into lengthy explanations of his views. If he didn’t know something, then he simply kept quiet, but if he knew, his words sounded like a chopping axe, and at the same time he was not at all interested in the reaction and counter arguments of the interlocutor. They simply did not interest him.

After that memorable conversation, something happened in the head of poor Uri Shmukler that forced him to leave our island with the first passing ship. He was in such a hurry that he completely forgot to return Crowley the borrowed book with a blue spine. By doing so, he did not go home to the west, but to the south-east instead, to Europe. Well informed people later said that from Europe he rushed at one stretch to Israel and almost immediately joined the ranks of Palestinian rights activists. Someone even seemed to see him on TV, tanned, and refreshed, the same long-nosed guy, but that time he shouted in English into the microphone of a journalist of an Arab news channel, urging his fellow tribesmen to less often listen to rabbis and to more often remember the God. I don’t know who he eventually became, whether he is still alive or not, but since then no priest, and no lawyer, has ever showed up in our island.