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"The courtyard was Eden It was like a sardens theardens all over the city It was big We had a fig tree, atree, and two date pal the arbor where we could take our eveningtheir rivers of sparkling water down into the basins where the fish darted about like living jewels
"The brickas glazed and beautiful, and hadbeen built by some Akkadian before us, before the Chaldeans came, and it was full of blue and red and yellow and flowers, but there was also plenty of grass in the courtyard, and then the room off it where the ancestors were buried
"I grew up playing a the date palms and flowers, and I loved it till the daythe day I died I loved lying out there in the late afternoon listening to the water of the fountains, and ignoring everybody who kept tellingpsalms or some such I wasn't lazy by nature I just sort of did what I wanted to do I got aith things But I wasn't bad by any stretch; in fact, I was far and away the best scholar of the fah they didn't want to ad David and ask ht was the ment
"We had no official gathering place for prayers, of course, because we had such grandiose plans for going hoain; Ito throw up any little street-side te to sacred dimensions, and after I was dead and cursed and had becoo home and build that temple In fact, I know they did, because I saw it onceonce, as if in a fog, but I saw it
"In our Babylonian life we gathered at private ho us to read the letters we received fro on Mount Zion, and also the letters coypt Jere ti one of his letters But I re by Ezekiel He didn't write it down hi and then other people wrote it down
"But so we prayed, in our homes, to our invisible and all-powerful Yahweh-reminded always that before David promised him a temple, Yahweh and the Ark of the Covenant had been housed only in a tent, and that had its ht the whole temple idea was Babylonian, you know Go back to the tent
"On the other hand, our faenerations been richin Nineveh before Jerusalem, I think, and we had little concept of the no about shrines in tents The story of Moses didn't reat deal of sense to us For instance, how could the people be so lost in the desert for forty years? But, I repeat
"A tent to ht in which I lay withto Marduk about the prayerto his jokes
"At sos we had our own prophets, whose books are lost noho did a great deal of ranting and screa I was frequently pointed to, and told that I had found favor in the eyes of Yahweh, though what this meant nobody was certain
"I guess they all knew in a way that I could see farther than others, look into souls, you know, see like a zaddik, a saint, but I was no saint, only an obstreperous young man"
He stopped The sharpness of memory seemed to cut him off and hold him
"You were happy," I said "By nature, you were happy, truly happy"
"Oh, yes, I knew it, and so didtoo happy Things never sees never seemed dark! Darkness caht before it, and maybemaybe even now But darkness Oh, to take on the world of darkness, that is like trying to chart the stars of heaven
"What was I saying? Things were easy for me I enjoyed them For example, to be educated I had to work in the tablet house I had to get a real Babylonian education This ise, this was for the future, this was for trade, this was to be a hts out of us if ere late, or didn't learn our lessons, but usually it was easy for me
"I loved the old Sua all kinds of records so that fresh tablets could be sent to other cities in Babylonia I could practically speak Sumerian I could now sit down and write for you my life in Sumerian-" He stopped "No, I couldn't do that I couldn't because if I could have written my life, I wouldn't have climbed up this snowy mountain to commit it to youI can'tI can'twrite it in any tongue Talking lets the pain flow "
"That I understand perfectly, and am here to listen The point is, you know Sumerian, and you can read it, and you can translate it"
"Yes, yes, yes, and Akkadian, the language that had been used after, and the Persian which was creeping up on us all then, and Greek-I could read that well-and Ara the place of our own Hebrew in daily life, but then I wrote Hebrew too
"I learntthe stylus into the clay that ood And I also loved to stand up and read out loud, so whenever the teacher took sick, or was called out, or suddenly needed some medicine, otherwise known as beer, I'd stand up and start reading Gilgah
"You know the old myth of course And it's important to our story, stupid and crazy as it is Here is this king Gilga wild around his city-on soiant, on others he is the size of a man He behaves like a bull He has the drums beaten all the time, which makes everybody unhappy You're not supposed to beat the druhten spirits, to call to nuptials, you know
"Okay, so we have Gilgaods do, being the Su about as samesh in a wild man called Enkido, who is covered with hair, lives in the woods, and likes to drink with beasts-oh, it is so important in this world hom one eats and drinks and what!-anyway, here we have wild Enkido co down to the stream to drink with the beasts, and he is rendered ta seven days with a temple harlot!