Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

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 Gilgamesh to everybody in an exaggerated voice, making them laugh.
    “You know the old myth of course. And it’s important to our story, stupid and crazy as it is. Here is this king Gilgamesh and he is running wild around his city—on some tablets he is a giant, 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 drums except for certain reasons—to frighten spirits, to call to nuptials, you know.
    “Okay, so we have Gilgamesh tearing up the city of Uruk. And what do the gods do, being the Sumerian gods, being about as smart as a bunch of water buffalo—they make an equal for Gilgamesh 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 with whom one eats and drinks and what!—anyway, here we have wild Enkido coming down to the stream to drink with the beasts, and he is rendered tame by spending seven days with a temple harlot!
    “Stupid, no? The beasts wouldn’t have anything to do with him once he knew the harlot. Why? Were the beasts jealousbecause they didn’t get to lie with the harlot? Don’t beasts copulate with beasts? Are there no beast harlots? Why does copulating with a woman make a man less of a beast? Well, the whole story of Gilgamesh never made any sense anyway except as a bizarre code. Everything is code, is it not?”
    “I think you’re right, it’s code,” I said, “but code for what? Keep telling me the story of Gilgamesh. Tell me how your version ended,” I asked. I simply couldn’t resist the question. “You know we have only fragments now, and we don’t have the old script that you had.”
    “It ended the same way as your modern versions. Gilgamesh couldn’t resign himself that Enkido could die. Enkido did die, too, though I don’t remember quite why. Gilgamesh acted as if he’d never seen anybody die before, and he went to the immortal who had survived the great flood. The great flood. Your flood. Our flood. Everyone’s flood. With us it was Noah and his sons. With them it was an immortal who lived in the land of Dilmun in the sea. He was the great survivor of the flood. And off to see him, to get immortality, goes this genius Gilgamesh. And that ancient one—who would be the Hebrew Noah for our people—says what? ‘Gilgamesh, if you can stay awake for seven days and nights, you can be immortal.’
    “And what happens? Gilgamesh instantly fell asleep. Instantly! He didn’t even wait a day! A night. He keeled over! Smash. Asleep. So that was the end of that plan, except that the immortal widow of the immortal man who had survived the flood took pity on him, and they told Gilgamesh that if he tied stones to his feet and sank down in the sea he could find a plant that, once eaten, gives you eternal youth. Well, I think they were trying to drown the man!
    “But our version, as yours, followed Gilgamesh in this expedition. Down he went and he found the plant. Then he comes up again. He goes to sleep. His worst habit apparently, this sleeping…and a snake comes and takes the plant. Ah, what utter sadness for Gilgamesh and then comes the old advice to all:
    “ ‘Enjoy your life, fill your belly with wine and food, and
accept
death. The Gods kept
immortality for themselves
,death is the lot of man.’ You know, profound philosophical revelations!”
    I laughed. “I like your telling of it. When you would stand up in the tablet house, did you read it with that same fervor?”
    “Oh, always!” he said. “But even then, what did we have? Bits and pieces of something ancient. Uruk had been built thousands of years before. Maybe there was such a real king. Maybe.
    “If I have a point in all this right now, let me make it. Madness in kings