WISE AS SERPENTS

The candidate wailed, waiting for Zenu outside an office door where the huge "Believe" sign hung conspicuously. Zenu cast an expectant eye to see if the candidate saw it, but there was no such luck. The prostrate figure had bulging red eyes producing a pool of wet splatters on the oak floor and Zenu motioned for his secretary while he cradled the grieving man and drug him onto a red couch in a corner of the office. His clothes were rumpled and ill fitted to a body that could have done with less shirt and more trouser. He had the appearance of someone from the stage and Zenu recalled how many of them came to him after they pretended to be something they were not.
"How did he get here?" he asked the mop handler.
"He was at the front door when I got here this morning," she said.
"No papers, no identification?"
"Nothing but a crucifix around his neck."
"We better get if off. He may hang himself with it," Zenu said, shaking his head, and telling Greta that good intentions guaranteed nothing and often lead to disaster
"He seems anxious. You should try to talk to him," she said.
Greta was the most intelligent of Zenu's staff, but she could not do his work for him, though she caused him the least irritation of any of his staff. Zenu pulled up a chair beside the man to hold a shaking hand, while Greta stepped back to her office.
"Tell me how Arthur is doing," Zenu instructed when another staff member entered the office.
"He was uneasy, but the rest has been good, and he has his faculties again," John answered.
John expected more questions, but he knew better than to speak out of turn. Zenu seldom made eye contact with his employees, except when he gave orders and John now fiddled with his clipboard while he waited for anything more. Zenu looked irritated at the noise. The staff viewed small obstacles as mountains, though he showed them time and again every reason to take the opposite view.
"This sort of thing disturbs me. When was he here last?" Zenu asked in staccato fashion, and John pulled the clipboard up from his side while his eyes shaded toward Zenu.
"That was twelve days ago, Father. Arthur was here for three days."
"Can you tell me about it?" Zenu began with the candidate, extraordinarily competent at doing two things at once. He always began with that question with the new ones, but the candidate shrieked and rose up and struck Zenu's face. The sweaty hand slapped Zenu's face again and Greta burst into the room, knocking over Zenu's tall floor lamp before she sandwiched herself between the two bodies. She grabbed at the man's shoulders to force him back down on the couch, while Zenu fell backwards.
Zenu relaxed because he was tired. He had never dreamed that his star pupil Arthur might not be a pupil of his, but when the pupil returned, Zenu had started to question his effectiveness and silently thought he might be losing a touch he had once had that could heal virtually any and all aspirants that came to him. Arthur was different, Zen knew that it the beginning, but it had worked in favor of their relationship at the start, and through it, as Zenu thought the Arthur might in time be more than just a student of his. When the student returned, now a second time, he had just cause to worry not just about Arthur, but himself.
Zenu did not know if harm was intended because novices sometimes mistook him for someone in their past, and he reminded himself of that now. After Greta forced the body flat on the couch, Zenu thought he heard the man laugh, but grieving candidates often exuded tears or laughter that meant the same thing. While the man was still pinned, Zenu reached down and jerked the crucifix off. Zenu frowned as he dangled the ornament in front of the wet face. The eyes of the man welled up and his body grew limp from Greta's hold.
"Shall we try again?" Zenu asked, as Greta stepped away, and he sat down and held the hand again. The prone body spewed something garbled that Zenu could not understand, and Zenu reached over to rub the man's moist forehead.
Zenu had been the founder and director of the Center for five years with a string of unbroken successes. He delighted in his work, and he expected it to work all the time. He put everyone who came to the Center under a strict regimen of studying his books and papers and if they needed more instruction, he presented them with other literature of the tradition. His intellectual resources were without limit, and he never worried because of it.
"Is Arthur up to visitors?" he asked John.
"I think so. There are reports that he called for your books and was reading again," John said.
"That's a good sign. Arrange for me to visit him in thirty minutes. I don't need much more than ten or so minutes should do. No, pencil in five minutes. I shall be surprised if it takes any more than that," Zenu concluded, and John spouted something about the brilliance of his boss and left.
The candidate exhaled a breath that Greta heard from her desk.
"All the things you have heard-it is much worse. I mean . . . look at me!" and the man began sobbing before his words to Zenu were finished.
Zenu rubbed the forehead as he held the clammy hand. The story was too familiar to him. He had seen countless young men come to him broken and begging for help, but with little hope left. He often wondered how these crushed spirits managed enough strength to cry for aid.
"I fear I may never be normal again, even with your help. I may need extra time," the candidate added, and he removed his arm from across his face and gazed at the ceiling. The visitor began to recount some of the horrors he had lived through, but Zenu placed a gentle but firm hand over his visitor's mouth when the words became unintelligible. The face on the prone body trembled until Zenu started to explain.
"No horror you can tell could surpass the horror of those living within these walls. The demonic has been everywhere and done everything. There is no new thing it can do," he said, as he turned to his window to focus attention outside at the library where students sat at study in the window cubicles. Every head was bowed over a book and only rarely did anyone look up from their study. Zenu directed the man's eyes to the composure of these learners and the visitor's eyes started to show some dryness for the first time.
"But Father, can I call you Father?"
"Yes, of course, I want you to."
"Can you help me? I know there have been others, but-"
"We shall begin to process you in this morning and-"
Zenu jumped when the phone rung.
"I shall visit you again in your quarters once you have settled in," he said to his newest novice. The novice managed a faint smile, while Zenu's secretary walked into his office. Zenu frowned at her.
"I asked you to defer all calls," Zenu said to Greta.
"It's the librarian. He insists it cannot wait. Someone has requested to see the banned books," she said, as she walked back to her desk.

"Who made this request?" Zenu demanded.
"You can see for yourself. He is sitting right over there." The librarian waved a hand toward the corner table.
"And what is he doing there?" Zenu demanded again.
"You can ask him. He is sitting right over there." The librarian smiled with an expression Zenu had come to despise over the past months, but the librarian's belligerence was trumped by the false report on Arthur that Zenu had received from John minutes earlier. "Idiots," he muttered to himself as he walked toward Arthur.
"I had not expected to see you so soon," Zenu said, as he worked to disguise his surprise with an insincere smile.
Arthur looked up but returned to his book. Zenu stood and looked around before he pulled out a chair from the table. He sat down and Arthur grunted as he moved his finger across the text.
"How are you?" Zenu asked.
Arthur looked up but went back to his book again.
"Arthur, can I help you?" Zenu asked.
Arthur kept his finger on his text as he looked around the library and then at the librarian.
"Arthur, what is it?" Zenu asked, and he etched his chair closer to his former student.
Zenu feared that Arthur was worse than he had imagined. Arthur's face had a tepid smile and he made a soft grunting sound as his finger moved under the lines on his page.
"Arthur, what is it?" Zenu asked again.
"It's God," Arthur said.
"God?" Zenu asked, in shock, and then he remained silent for some seconds. He tried to control his anger, but his face had reddened before the solitary syllable left his tongue. He looked hard at Arthur.
"God," Arthur said again, but this time with more feeling.
"There is no God!" Zenu said and he stood up from his chair. Arthur made his grunting sound again and Zenu went to confer with the librarian.
"How long has he been here?" Zenu demanded.
The librarian checked the log.
"One hour," he answered.
"What book does he have?" Zenu continued.
"You didn't see it?"
"No."
"It is one of your books," the librarian said.
"Did he request a title from the banned books?"
"No, he only requested to see them."
Zenu walked back to Arthur's table and sat down, though he would prefer to grab Arthur's shoulders and shake him. Arthur turned his book over and folded his hands on the table.
"What is it Arthur?"
"It's God. You lost God."
"No Arthur. We never found him, remember. We never found him because he's not there to find." Zenu stood up.
Arthur sat still.

When the librarian called the next day Zenu called the librarian to his office, before going out to see Arthur again. The librarian arrived ten minutes for Zenu, who was now walking in circles with the lamp still on the floor from the previous day. Zenu never noticed such things, and Greta did not seem to mind, but she did walk in when the librarian arrived to set the lamp back upright.
"I don't know if you have any suggestions on how to handle this matter, but I'm willing to entertain any," Zenu said as he motioned for the librarian to take a seat on the couch. The librarian looked straight at Zenu, but he said nothing, and Zenu stared back at him, resolved not to speak until the librarian had something to offer.
"I don't think there is anything you can do," the librarian said when Zenu practically threatened him for a suggestion after five minutes of silence.
"What does that mean?" Zenu asked.
"The man is happy," the librarian responded.
Zenu's face flushed and he stood up.
"The man has lost his reason you fool!"
The librarian was about to comment further, but Zenu stormed out and the librarian would follow him to the library, but not before he stopped to chat with Greta.
"Arthur you have requested to see the banned books-twice now. Why do you want to see them?" Zenu asked.
Arthur held up an index finger for Zenu to wait while he finished his sentence. Arthur scribbled on his paper and folded his hands on the table.
"You have come here again because you need help. Now you've got to let me help you," Zenu said.
"You lost God," Arthur said.
"Arthur there is no God!! Have you lost everything I taught you?"
"You forgot where you put Him," Arthur said.
"Arthur I didn't put him anywhere, because he's nowhere to put!" Zenu said.
"You forgot where you put Him," Arthur repeated.
"Arthur, listen to me!" Zenu lunged up from his chair as the librarian peered in their direction.
"You lost God," Arthur repeated.
"Arthur what is this?" Zenu's face was turning from red to white. "Arthur you have got to let me help you!" Zenu shouted this time, but Arthur began writing again.
Zenu walked away from the table and swore under his breath, out of earshot of Arthur as he tugged at his shirt. He found a window and rested his forehead on the cool glass. The blood vessels in his head throbbed and he reached out to the wall to steady himself. A chair next to the window was empty and he sat down before John stepped into the library. Arthur was different this time and Zenu knew it. He seemed ready to taunt rather than just question, something he had never done before. Zenu liked the old Arthur better.
John's eyes fastened on Zenu when he came in, but Zenu did not move, nor did he converse with John as his eyes fixed on the floor.
"That will do," John said to Arthur, loud enough for Zenu to hear. "You have gravely disappointed your mentor." The two smiled at one another, as Zenu returned, but he called John to his office and let Arthur be for now.

Zenu shook his head, and looked at John and then at the floor. He squinted his eyes and settled back in his chair, rubbing his small hands through thinning hair, as he starred at the shelves in his office. The abundance of plaques on his walls left little wall space and he counted all of them as he contemplated his first failure. His tired eyes skipped to the library he could see out of his window. Arthur was visible in one of the window cubicles and Zenu recalled brighter days when Arthur had first come. He had been so impressive and such a sponge that Zenu had dreamed in those days that Arthur might some day take his own place as director at the Center.
That dream had never left him, despite Arthur's situation now. Arthur of course had forgotten the awfulness of his condition when he first came to the Center, and Zenu's reminders of it to him would probably be without effect he thought.
Zenu was tired. Too tired for something that took too much thinking.
And then it came. Arthur needed the novice! Oh providence in a world without it! Oh a world where believers were the best obstacle to belief!! Arthur would see himself in the novice, and still too the novice would see the fixed Arthur. The two were blind, and he with make them both see, by seeing each other. How could he have missed that? Experience is the best teacher, and he would use it now.
"I can fix Arthur with the novice; no, no, I can fix both of them," he shouted, and then he screamed. Zenu's eyes opened wide and his face shone like that of an angel. He jumped up from his chair and romped through his office, and he knocked the lamp down again before John moved to a corner of the room. Zenu began to rake his slight hand through the thinning hair as his pace quickened.
Greta came to the door.
"Is something wrong," she asked, looking at a lamp on the floor twice in one week.
"No, and no," he said. "Something is right," and he lunged to hug his secretary, something no one recalled him doing before.
"Come with me," Zenu ordered John, as he raced out the door. John lingered with Greta after Zenu was gone but when he reached the library, he kept his distance while Zenu approached Arthur's table like a hunter who already has one slug in an injured animal. Zenu strutted to the table with all the pomp of a regal function.

"Arthur I think it is time you were permitted to look at the banned books," Zenu said.
Arthur looked up, but he had no expression that Zenu could see.
"Yes, it is time," Zenu said again and a smile spread over a face that had been contorted only minutes earlier.
"Father, I am not so sure that this is for the best," John interjected.
Zenu turned around.
"I'll handle this!" he said curtly to John, as Zenu contemplated more details of the plan that his mind had been fabricating, and a plan was sorely needed, for the new novice had made no progress after his first three days. Zenu, distracted by Arthur more each day, had done nothing about him. The screams of the novice made sleep and study for other members erratic at best and Zenu had started to fear disruption to the community. He had tried to talk to the novice, but the novice's calm lasted only as long as Zenu talked to him. When the novice was alone again his screams intensified, and usually started the minute Zenu walked out of his cell. Zenu knew that a cellmate might stop the screaming, but this sacrifice-if it meant him-was out of the question.
"Before I permit you use of the books Arthur, you must earn them. I want you to help me with a young novice who has recently come to our community, and I want you to stay with him for a time," Zenu said, as he continued to smile at Arthur. Zenu had a little speech planned, but Arthur asked for the room number of the young novice and grabbed his belongings to leave.
"Wait a minute Arthur!" Zenu said, and he held his hand up like a policeman stopping traffic.
"Arthur I do not expect thanks now, but I will later, when you will find yourself in my flock again.
"Am I dismissed?" Arthur asked, like a schoolboy mocking the pretension he begrudges from an inferior.

The screams coming from the novice lasted all night, but when the sun rose they diminished, and stopped altogether a half hour later. Zenu had anticipated that possibility in the beginning, but the intolerable night did not sit well with the rest of the community who had had virtually no sleep at all and with the screams they complained to John minutes after Zenu was gone. Zenu had announced that he would take off for two days to reward himself for his solution.
Arthur and the novice came out of the cell at noon to confer with John in Zenu's office.
When Zenu returned for work two days later, he was eager to know the current condition of his project.
"It's too early to tell yet Father," John cautioned in answer to the barrage of questions from Zenu. Zenu peppered John with more questions, and John cautioned him again from expecting too much too soon.
"Yes, of course, and I should just leave them alone," he said.
Zenu could not leave them alone, so before he started for the dormitory the next morning to see the current state of his project, Greta stopped him.
"For you," and she handed the phone to him.
Zenu did not stop by the librarian's desk but marched straight to the table where Arthur was sitting.
"You and I had an agreement!" Zenu protested.
"And I want my books," Arthur replied.
"Where's the novice?" Zenu demanded.
"There," and Arthur pointed to a desk in another corner of the library, as he went back to his reading.
"What have you done to him?" Zenu demanded.
"He's studying your book." Arthur said.
"What have you done to him?" Zenu demanded again. This time Zenu heard the novice making a grunting sound as he read and Zenu's face flushed with blood before it turned white.
"Get him back to his cell now!" Zenu ordered.
"I want my books Zenu," Arthur said, and Zenu grimaced at being addressed without his title.
His face stiffened and he expelled a voluminous breath through his nostrils. He grabbed the end of the table and pinched the oak desk top until his knuckles whitened and then he ordered Arthur off Center property.

Zenu had to sleep sometime, so he designated John to be in charge of the community during the day, while Zenu tried everything he could to calm the novice by night. Each morning John went to the novice's quarters for a decision from Zenu on whether a day off would be granted to the community for their sleep loss and Zenu grudgingly granted permission almost every other day, while he went home to sleep only to return by early evening for another night of screams with the novice. After Zenu left each morning Brother John put out a memo that everyone could rest until four in the afternoon, though at four thirty all community members would go to the library where the novice would lecture on sacred literature a half hour before dinner.
After two weeks of night duty and no noticeable improvement in the novice, Zenu's weariness started to show.
"I cannot devote all my time to him and neglect the rest of the community. Heaven knows in what kind of state they are. You know that every one of them is vulnerable," he said.
"This is true Father," John responded.
"The novice did tell me when he came that he did not know if I could help him. And perhaps he was right. But John I cannot stomach a second lost soul, not after I have lost Arthur. That would be difficult, and it might do me in."
The novice made his loudest and longest screams that night, and before sunrise Zenu came out of the cell without stopping or conferring with John and walked to his vehicle and went home.
When Zenu left, the novice walked into Zenu's office where John offered the red-eyed man a fresh cup of coffee. Greta and the librarian joined them and poured coffee for themselves.
"I expect to finish moving the books today," the librarian said as he leaned against the wall of books. The four of them finished their coffee and began to sing.

That evening Zenu came without his night bag.
"I think this is it John," he said.
"What do you mean Father?" John asked.
"I think I must let the novice go. He was right, I cannot help him," he said and Zenu starred at the floor.
"I have not helped him," he said, and a small tear appeared from one eye.
The sound of music interrupted the moment of sorrow.
"What is that?" Zenu asked, with genuine surprise.
John looked at Zenu, but he would wait for Zenu to answer his own question. Zenu looked at his watch and then at John.
"It's almost meal time. Everyone should be in dining hall. Perhaps they are singing 'Death to God' before the meal," and a twinkle appeared in the eye that had seconds earlier produced a tear.
He halted at the library door after his ears made out the words, and he stood and gawked at community members stumbling through the hymn. He spotted two of his community close to the librarian's desk with their mouths pulled tight as if refusing to sing, and he held out hope as he stomped through the library, shoving bodies out of his way as he lurched toward the librarian's desk.
He held his hands over his ears, for the music cresendoed as he approached the desk, and he swore at the off-key librarian, but the librarian held up a finger for Zenu to wait while he finished a solo part in the hymn. Zenu did not wait because he never waited and he lunged across the desk at the librarian, but two arms grasped his upper body from behind and held him in mid-air as his legs kicked.
"These two have requested to see some books," the librarian offered as he turned to address the suspended body of Zenu. Zenu's face turned white and a litany of profanities spewed from his mouth before he raised his legs and kicked the two petitioners in front of him. One of them bowled over from the blow to his chest, but the other stood shaken in disbelief.
"But Father, they are your books," he shouted as he pointed to the shelf behind the smiling librarian. Zenu saw his books sitting on the shelf, but the singing smothered his curses.

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Larry D. Harwood is a university philosophy professor in Wisconsin and currently a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, where he teaches a seminar on the conflict between philosophy and literature. In the last decade he has published short stories in Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature, The Dead Mule: A Journal of Southern Literature, VerbSap, Branchwood Journal, Southern Gothic On-Line, The Houston Literary Review, and The Bleeding Quill.

Tag: Larry D. Harwood