The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror(14)

I would also like to take the opportunity to clear up a matter that I think has often seemed unclear: We all take turns at being the Satan. If you are assigned to oppose, to withstand, to stand up against the people of God, or to level accusations, or to offer temptation or to take possession, you have been assigned to contend against your colleagues, and you take your turn as the Great Adversary with a cheerful spirit and a right good will. Everyone understands this as part of the great work, and does not take it personally if we are periodically at odds. Each of us has spent time in outer darkness, and we have always come back in.

I don’t want to talk very much about the other one, the brother to Hagar’s boy, Isaac, who was not killed. People are very tiresome about that, and very pleased with themselves for having no stomach for the story, as if they have accomplished something significant by preferring life to death, or for begrudging the things God asks of them. It is not a new thing, to not wish to die. So they complain, but they do not listen, when if they would listen, their suffering would be allayed. And so their suffering continues.

I should add, it was very difficult, in those days, to keep anyone from stretching their sons out on altars and offering them up as burnt sacrifices. I was kept quite busy then. There had been talk of an official demonstration, to remind people that burning sons was not strictly necessary unless explicitly called for and that God did not need to be anticipated. But I’ve talked about this already more than I meant to. I will confine myself to this: God did not ask of Abraham anything that God was not willing to provide for him.

I had wondered if Abraham might become happy at some point when I spoke to him, as Hagar had become happy, but the incident did not seem likely to repeat itself. I was not disappointed by this, as I was not disappointed when people used to die at the sight of me. I simply logged the event and did my job to the best of my ability. I have never held myself responsible for outcomes.

But what I want to talk to you about now is a misunderstanding—I think the only misunderstanding I have ever suffered. I mean what occurred was misunderstood in an administrative sense. I do not claim never to have been misunderstood by the recipients of the messages I have delivered. Such a claim would be impossible to verify, and I would not make it. It concerns the man Jacob, and what happened in the place of Mahanaim, when he went there to see his brother, Esau. I had no instructions about what was to take place between the two of them. My concern was strictly with Jacob, and I had no interest in either aiding or hindering reconciliation. It is my understanding that he divided his party into two camps. I have no idea what happened to either of them, as I was never charged with their keeping.

I was sent to wrestle with him until the breaking of the day. I’d never been sent to wrestle anyone before. I’d never been told to touch anyone before, and I’ll admit to you that I shuddered a little at the prospect. In my opinion, you can see the blight in them when you get too close. Maybe that’s a little superstitious. I don’t mind it so much when they’re fully dead, you understand. Something that’s supposed to be dead, and is dead, that’s no surprise, but there’s something about a creature that’s going to be dead but isn’t yet, something that knows it’s going to be dead and doesn’t want to be. I’ve never liked that. When they’re still walking around and looking out of their skulls and you can just see the rot and the grave that’s coming, I’ll admit that unsettles me, and the thought of getting close enough to wrestle one still living, flush from shoulder to hip—I just didn’t like it. Well, they’ve never liked the look of me either. So I call that fair.

But I had done worse things, and anyhow it was only until the break of day, and then I could discharge my duties and go back. I was sent here to wrestle and to release him; whatever else God had in store for him was none of my business. I didn’t say anything—I mean, there’s not much point in telling a man to “Fear not” only to lunge at him, is there? Half of me expected him to go trembling all over and die before I could even lay a hand on him. I won’t say I hoped for that. I would have been relieved, but I won’t say I hoped for that. Even if I don’t like what’s being asked of me, I’ve never not wanted to do my job. You can check my incident report history. I resolve everything. If things don’t work out on an assignment, it’s never been because I left my post or failed to do what was asked of me. So I kept my mouth shut and drove my foot down into his kneecap, and we started wrestling.

God was with him as well as with me, I think, because otherwise I just don’t see how a person would be able to stand up against me for so many hours. But he did. If I had had kidneys to bruise, they would have been bruised by the end of that fight. He struck his way in immediately and jabbed the heel of his hand into my throat. That was something that had never happened to me. But that’s not to say the man was winning, mind you. I hadn’t been sent there to lose, so I touched him on the left socket of his hip and shoved the whole thing out of joint. He made quite a sound at that, but it didn’t stop him from coming at me for more than a minute. It did look funny, though, the way his leg drooped.

The sun was coming up, and I was supposed to check back in with the helpdesk once I was finished, so I said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But he didn’t let me go. I suppose I sort of wished then for the days when people used to die at the sight of me. No, I don’t really mean that; those were disorganized times. But it seemed to me that there ought to have been a balance between everybody keeling over dead at my approach and one of my assignments countermanding a direct request. Either way, no one listens to me, and I don’t care for that. It’s my job to be listened to, after all. I didn’t like that he could keep hold of me either. He didn’t seem big enough to be able to do it, but I had to admit he had me caught fast.