Servant of the Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

many Babylonians took it all that seriously either, the Babylonian personal god. You know the old saying, ‘If you plan ahead a god goes with you.’ Well, what does that mean?”
    “The Babylonians,” I said, “they were a practical people rather than superstitious, weren’t they?”
    “Jonathan, they were exactly like Americans today. I have never seen a people so like the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians as the Americans of today.
    “Commerce was everything, but everybody went about consulting astrologers, talking about magic, and trying to drive out evil spirits. People had families, ate, drank, tried to achieve success in every way possible, yet carried on all the time about luck. Now Americans don’t talk about demons, no, but they rattle on about ‘negative thinking’ and ‘self-destructive ideas’ and ‘bad self-image.’ It was a lot the same, Babylon and America, a lot the same.
    “I would say that here in America I have found the nearest thing to Babylon in the good sense that I have ever found. We were not slaves to our gods! We were not slaves to each other.
    “What was I saying? Marduk, my personal god. I prayed to him all the time. I made offerings, you know, little bits of incense when nobody was watching; I poured out a little honey and wine for him in the shrine I made for him in the deep brick wall of my bedroom. Nobody paid much attention.
    “But then Marduk began to answer me. I’m not sure when Marduk first started answering me. I think I was still fairly young. I would say something idly to him, ‘Look, my little brothers are running rampant and my father just laughs as though he were one of them and I have to do everything here!’ and Marduk would laugh. As I said spirits laugh. Then he’d say some gentle thing like ‘You know your father. He will do what you tell him, Big Brother.’ His voice was soft, a man’s voice. He didn’t start actually speaking questions in my ear tillI was nearly nine and some of these were simply little riddles and jokes and teasing about Yahweh…
    “He never got tired of teasing me about Yahweh, the god who preferred to live in a tent, and couldn’t manage to lead his people out of a little bitty desert for over forty years. He made me laugh. And though I tried to be most respectful, I became more and more familiar with him, and even a little smart mouthed and ill behaved.
    “ ‘Why don’t you go tell all this nonsense to Yahweh Himself since you are a god?’ I asked him. ‘Invite him to come down to your fabulous temple all full of cedars from Lebanon and gold.’ And Marduk would fire off with ‘What? Talk to your god? Nobody can look at the face of your god and live! What do you want to happen to me? What if he turns into a pillar of fire like he did when he brought you out of Egypt…ho, ho, ho…and smashes my temple and I end up being carried around in a tent!’
    “I didn’t truly think about it till I was perhaps eleven years old. That was when I first came to know that not everybody heard from his or her personal god, and also I had learnt this: I didn’t have to talk to Marduk to start him off talking to me. He could begin the conversation and sometimes at the most awkward moments. He also had bright ideas in his head. ‘Let’s go down into the potters’ district, or let’s go to the marketplace,’ and we would.”
    “Azriel, let me stop you,” I said. “When all this happened, you spoke to the little statue of Marduk or you carried it with you?”
    “No, not at all, your personal god was always with you, you know. The idol at home, well, it received the incense, yes, I guess you could say that the god came down into it then to smell the incense. But no, Marduk was just there.
    “I did, stupidly enough, imitate the habit of other Babylonians of threatening him sometimes…you know, saying, ‘Look, what kind of god are you that you can’t help me find my sister’s necklace! You won’t get any incense out of me!’