Floozman: First Episode
|
Table of Contents |
| Part 2: On the Road to Bethany |
“With a scandalous abundance, he brings deliverance.”
Fred Looseman used to be the head risk assessor at World Wide Credit Corporation and the chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Commission. Now he works as an automated teller machine repairman.
Sometimes he hears voices, and sometimes what he hears moves him to tears. His bank account overflows with the money of deliverance, and he becomes a financial super-hero: Floozman.
Far out in the wilderness, the Paschal light returns to annihilate matter and time. One can feel its wild gleam when looking eastward, but the two men making their way along the road are going in the opposite direction, towards Jerusalem.
The youngest walks with his face turned down to conceal a smile he cannot repress. His heart is like a dove taking wing. He wants to dream freely of the festival, of the shadows of the white walls, of the young maidens walking up and down the temple steps with tinkling bangles; but he cannot, for he must show respect for his master’s anger.
“How can I explain that, to you? The Indians have this tale... a dynamic young man could make a fortune with... with... heck if I know! Why, this withered fig tree, right there! But you, you blockhead, I could give you a thousand silver talents and you’d still let yourself be reduced to poverty!”
“I will listen to you, now. I won’t do anything but listen to you, Papet. I promise! Let me help you at the exchange table...”
“But I won’t be around forever. Do you understand? I wonder if you do understand... Your poor father must have already asked ‘You understand?’ hasn’t he? I can hear him asking, like that: ‘You understand, Saul’?”
“Yes, uncle.”
As they move away, a beggar opens his eyes wide. Deprived of the shade of his familiar fig tree, he has selected a eucalyptus for a siesta.
“Yes! He’s right! I know I am not on earth to live forever with empty hands,” he tells himself. “The words of this man have aroused my soul. Everything I ask heaven for, I will believe I have received it!”
Then with a single stroke of his sandal, he brings down the dead fig tree. Alleluia! He digs the ground with bare hands until he finds a flint. With the flint, he cuts and cuts till he has removed the branches. On a flat stone, he cuts them up into small elongated pieces. He sharpens and polishes them and groups them into bundles of equal size. He sweats. The shadows lengthen. He sharpens and polishes for hours. What else can he do anyway: beg?
He thinks. A scent of something radically new is floating in the air. Alleluia! To us a child is born! Half naked, armed with his flint, the beggar turns over with his mind the soft soil of the world. What shall I invent?
He feels like a Sudanese hunter. Just as naked. Their spears pierce the gazelle. They will eat it tonight, around the fire. His mouth waters. Alleluia! The smell of cooking fat goes up to heaven. Satiated men laugh as their hearts expand.
He passes his tongue over his lips. He remembers Passover and the blood of the lamb: his father hands him the haunch. He bites with gusto. The moon is full and Jerusalem rejoices. Alleluia! The crowd throngs the marketplace.
And the small pieces of meat in the morning: disgusting. Little pieces of gazelle. The spear pierces the gazelle. The little pieces of gazelle stuck between his teeth. The spear. The little pieces. The little spear. Alleluia! The little spear in between the teeth. Yes!
He reaches the golden gate just before nightfall. In the camps he sells his toothpicks for a half-talent. Men offer them to their wives, who laugh when they realize what the invention does. Kids run around and pick each other in the rear.
With the toothpick money, he opens a small refreshment shop at the foot of the wall. When business is slow, he teaches his craft to children. He gives them drinks and honey cakes in exchange for properly bound-up bundles of wood. He accumulates an inventory of several sackfuls.
One day, in talking with Roman soldiers, he hears about a caravan coming from Yemen. He goes and meets it on a borrowed donkey. He trades his sacks with the merchants for their promise that each will ask for toothpicks in the market of Caesarea. A few days later, he goes there and sells the rest of his stock to the shopkeepers at five times the regular price. With the money from the sale, he purchases date trees in Jericho.
He becomes very rich.
He remembers that it all started with the words of the passer-by. He decides to give him half his fortune in gold coins. He goes to the temple, where he has no difficulty in recognizing the merchant banker seated at his exchange table. He makes his gift with humble thanks.
Amazed, the old man asks him how he can afford such a generous present. The beggar tells him how his own words triggered it all off. He tells how they led him to the dead fig tree, toothpicks, date trees...
Hearing his story, the merchant thinks, It would not be good to lose the talent of this young man. I too have much wealth and I only have my beloved daughter, now (well, there is this Saul, too...). As this man is single, he deserves to marry her. She will inherit the two fortunes and be well cared for.
Thus the energetic young beggar becomes the happiest and most powerful trader in the Roman world. For the rest of his life he profusely distributes his wealth for the welfare of all people.
In the hour of his death, he decides to tell his elder son what he must not ignore, at the risk of breaking the spell.
“The money... you will see... sometimes it builds the fortune all by itself... Let it guide you. It’s like in the psalm... Yeah... here we are, I am fond of my last words, son. No, don’t forget, don’t forget the psalm: ‘Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it’...”
It is at that moment that the son gives up the idea of telling him about the curse of the fig tree. He tells the old man nothing of the new prophets who proclaim that the Messiah has come to fulfill scripture. The father dies unaware of the miracle that had caused his tree to wither.
* * *
To be continued...
Copyright © 2005 by
Bertrand Cayzac
Dépôt S.A.C.D. 174 627
