checked their batteries and that the stones were not too warm for them, and I put the 
tape cassettes inside and then I said, "Tell me." I pressed the buttons so that both 
little ears would be on full alert. "And let me say first," I said, speaking for 
microphones now, "that you seem a young man to me, no more than twenty. You've a hairy 
chest and hair on your arms, and it's dark and healthy, and your skin is an olive tone, 
and the hair of your head is lustrous and I would think the envy of women."
  
  "They like to touch it," he said with a sweet and kindly smile.
  
  "And I trust you," I said for my record. "I trust you. You saved my life, and I trust 
you. And I don't know why I should. I myself have seen you change into another man. Later 
I will think I dreamt it. I've seen you vanish and come back. Later I won't believe it. I 
want this recorded too, by the scribe. Jonathan. Now we can begin your story, Azriel.
  
  "Forget this room, forget this time. Go to the beginning for me, will you? Tell me what 
a ghost knows, how a ghost begins, what a ghost remembers of the living but no ..." I 
stopped, letting the cassettes turn. "I've made my worst mistake already."
  
  "And what is that, Jonathan?" he asked.
  
  "You have a tale you want to tell and you should tell it."
  
  He nodded. "Kindly teacher," he said, "let's draw a little closer. Let's bring our 
chairs near. Let's bring our little machines closer so that we can talk softly. But I 
don't mind beginning as you wish. I want to begin that way. I want for it all to be 
known, at least, to both of us."
  
  We made the adjustments as he asked, the arms of our chairs touching. I made a movement 
to clasp his hand and he didn't draw back; his handshake was firm and warm. And when he 
smiled again, the little dip of his brows made him look almost playful. But it was only 
the way his face was made-brows that curve down in the middle to make a frown, and then 
curve gently up and out from the nose. They give a face a look of peering from a secret 
vantage point, and they make its smile all the more radiant.
  
  He took a drink of the water, a long deep drink.
  
  "Does the fire feel good to you, too?" I asked.
  
  He nodded. "But it looks ever so much better."
  
  Then he looked at me. "There will be times when I'll forget myself. I'll speak to you 
in Aramaic, or in Hebrew. Sometimes in Persian. I may speak Greek or Latin. You bring me 
back to English, bring me back to your tongue quickly."
  
  "I will," I said, "but never have I so deeply regretted my own lack of education in 
languages. The Hebrew I would understand, the Latin too, the Persian never."
  
  "Don't regret," he said. "Perhaps you spent that time looking at the stars or the fall 
of the snow, or making love. My language should be that of a ghost-the language of you 
and your people. A genii speaks the language of the Master he must serve and of those 
among whom he must move to do his Master's bidding. I am Master here. I know that now. I 
have chosen your language for us. That is sufficient."
  
  We were ready. If this house had ever been warmer and sweeter, if I had ever enjoyed 
the company of someone else more than I did then, I didn't recall it. I wanted only to be 
with him and talk to him, and I had a small, painful feeling in my heart, that when he 
finished his tale, when somehow or other this closeness between us had come to an end, 
nothing would ever be the same for me.
  
  Nothing was ever the same afterwards.
  
  He began.
  
  2
  
  I didn't remember Jerusalem," he said. "I wasn't born there. My mother was carried off 
as a child by Nebuchadnezzar along with our whole family, and our tribe, and I was born a 
Hebrew in Babylon, in a rich house-full of aunts and uncles and cousins-rich merchants, 
scribes, sometime prophets, and occasional dancers and singers and pages at court.
  
  "Of course," he smiled. "Every day of my life, I wept for Jerusalem." He smiled. "I 
sang the song: 'If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right hand wither.' And at night 
prayers we begged the Lord to return us to our land, and at morning prayers as well.
  
  "But what I'm trying to say is that Babylon was my whole life. At twenty, when my life 
came to its first-shall we say-great tragedy, I knew the songs and gods of Babylon as 
well as I knew my Hebrew and the Psalms of David that I copied daily, or the book of 
Samuel, or whatever other texts we were constantly studying as a family.
  
  "It was a grand life. But before I describe myself further, my circumstances, so to 
speak, let me just talk of Babylon.
  
  "Let me sing the song of Babylon in a strange land. I am not pleasing in the eyes of 
the Lord or I wouldn't be here, so I think now I can sing the songs I want, what do you 
think?"
  
  "I want to hear it," I said gravely. "Shape it the way you would. Let the words spill. 
You don't want to be careful with your language, do you? Are you talking to the Lord God 
now, or are you simply telling your tale?"
  
  "Good question. I'm talking to you so that you will tell the story for me in my words. 
Yes. I'll rave and cry and blaspheme when I want.
  
  I'll let my words come in a torrent. They always did, you know. Keeping Azriel quiet 
was a family obsession."
  
  This was the first time I'd seen him really laugh, and it was a light heartfelt laugh 
that came up as easily as breath, nothing strangled or self-conscious in it.
  
  He studied me.