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The Ass and The Ox
vrijdag, 19 december 2008 door Gino van Roeyen
Goodmorning dear Friends of Literature!
Now that the times of mistletoe and holy are nearing and Banning celebrates its ‘annual office Christmas party’ tonight (with fine foods, drinks, cabaret, speeches and the notorious DJ Dottore G behind the wheels of steel), I could not resist the temptation to include a Christmas installment to the ‘Literatuur op vrijdag’ series. And because I have some Friends outside the Netherlands who don't speak Dutch I wrote it in English. Consider it as my Christmas present to you all and as a token of my best wishes for 2009.
The correlations between Christmas and the Law have been explored by several writers, amongst others - as is well known - by Charles Dickens, but I had never read a story that clarifies those correlations from the perspective of the Ass. Not that ass of course, but the Ass stabled next to the Ox in the stable where Mary gave birth to her boy child Jesus Christ. Although not being a practicing catholic I stick firmly to the good tradition with which I was raised of placing a small stable with a crib in the living room near or under the Christmas tree. The stable of oak wood fabricated by my late father – which replaced an older one in which reed roof I had set fire as a toddler; the renovation by my grandfather of the roof with an asbestos sheet prolonged the life of the crib some ten years, but finally its wooden frame collapsed – provides a perfect accommodation since past Sunday for the original – rather big – statues, that I know since my childhood, of all persons and animals that came together in that stable of Bethlehem, apparently some 2008 years ago. Of course Jesus Christ is placed in the middle of the stable although he shouldn’t be there yet (an unlawful act therefore). To his left and right Joseph and Maria (looking at the statues of similar age, but according to tradition an old fellow and a very young wife). Next to Joseph and/or Maria and Jesus the Ass and/or the Ox (depicted on the left top side of this installment) that I will introduce to you in more detail hereafter. Outside the stable, but facing the direction of the crib are the shepherds with some ten sheeps, one of them carrying on his back a little ram. Approaching from the East are the Three Kings, accompanied with a – compared with the average height of the statues - huge camel. And last but not least the broken, but glued together Archangel Gabriel, is anchored - with his backside – to a little nail on the front ridge of the roof (a little part of the angel can be seen in the picture).
To be honest I never had a very close look at the statues, although I love them, but – I must admit - that some years ago the stable and its residents and visitors functioned as the perfect stage and armamentarium for explaining some characteristics of the law of contracts and family law to my beloved who was studying law in evening classes at that time (‘Are the gifts of the Kings for Jesus Christ a sort of contract?’; ‘What is a marriage contract?’; ‘What about the matrimonial property of Maria and Joseph?’, ‘Is Jesus a legitimate child of Maria and Joseph?’). Now I understand – after reading the story of today which secrets I will share with you hereafter – that there is a more closer link to the Law in the stable, which is embodied in the Ass.
After reading Michel Tournier's 'The Ass and The Ox' (included in Telling Tales, an anthology of stories edited by Nadine Gordimer, which I bought at the Johannesburg Airport in 2005; all profits from the sale proceeds to treatment action campaign in aid of HIV/Aids) the mystery is clarified. Let the Ass first explain why the Law can not be in the Ox (a personality that should not be underestimated however): 'The ass is a poet, a literary sort, a chatterbox. The ox, for his part, says nothing, but he thinks plenty. He reflects and he remembers. His head is as heavy and massive as a boulder, and it has age-old images knocking about in it. The most venerable of these images comes from ancient Egypt. It is the image of the Bull Apis: born of a virgin heifer impregnated by a thunderbolt; bearing a crescent on his forehead and a vulture on his back. A scarab is hidden under his tongue. He is fed in a temple. You can hardly expect an ox with all that behind him to be impressed by a god born in a stable to a maiden and the Holy Ghost! He remembers. He sees himself as a young bull. At the center of the harvest procession in honor of the goddess Cybele, he strides forward wreathed in cluster of grapes, escorted by grape-harvesting girls and paunchy, flushed silenuses. He remembers. Black autumn fields. The slow labor of the earth, laid open by the plowshare. The work mate that shared his yoke. The steaming warm stable. He dreams of the cow. The mother animal par excellence. The softness of her womb. The gentle thrust of the baby calf's head inside this living, generous horn of plenty. the clustered pink teats, the spurting milk. The ox knows he is all that, and he knows it is incumbent on his reassuring, immovable bulk to watch over the labor of the Virgin and the birth of the Child.
The (hi)story of the Ass is more – well – poetic: 'Don't let my white hair fool you (…). I was once jet black, with just a light-colored star on my forehead, obviously a sign of my predestination. The star is still there, but you can't see it anymore, because my whole coat has gone white. It's like the starts of the night sky, that fade in the pale of dawn. Old age has give the whole of me the color of the star on my forehead, and there again I like to see a sign, the mark of a kind of blessing. Because I'm old, very old. I must be almost forty, which is amazing for an ass. It wouldn't surprise me if I were the dean of asses. That, too, would be a sign. They call me Kadi Shuya. That calls for an explanation. Even in my childhood my masters noticed an air of wisdom that distinguished me from other asses. They were impressed by the serious, subtle look in my eyes. That's why they called me Kadi, because everyone knows that in our country a kadi is both a judge and a priest, in other words, somebody remarkable for two kinds of wisdom. True, I was still an ass, the humblest and most ill-treated of animals, and they couldn't very well give me a venerable name like Kadi without downgrading it by tacking on something ridiculous. This was Shuya, which means small, insignificant, contemptible. So, that made me Kadi Shuya, the no-account Kadi, whose masters sometimes called him Kadi but more often Shuya, according to their humor at the time….'
Kadi Shuya is a poor man's ass and he is affected to be pleased about it: 'because I had a rich man's ass as a neighor and confidant.' This rich man's ass – Yawul – is of course a magnificent animal. Kadi Shuya saw his sufferings in his childhood to make him into a luxury mount: 'That's what humans are like: they manage to inflict more pain on the creatures they love and take pride in than on ones they hate or despite.' But Kadi Shuya considers Yawul's compensations for that with pleasantry: 'he ate barley and oats every day in a spanking clean stall. And best of all, those mares! You won't quite get the point of this unless you know how insufferably arrogant horses are about asses. The fact is, they don’t look at us at all; as far as they're concerned, we don't exist any more than mice or cockroaches. And the mares are the worst of all, haughty, unapproachable…great ladies! Yes, to mount a mare is an ass's dream – that's his idea of revenge on that big ninny of a stallion.' Kadi Shuya doubts justice of life as he is not as Yawul is a father-of-mules – 'the most prestigious of titles in our community' – who are given mares for wives. 'Couldn't they give us clover or grain just once, to let us relish the difference!', wonders Kadi Shuya, because he is beaten constantly, insulted, loaded with burdens heavier than his own weight. But Kadi Shuya's once in a lifetime rescue is near.
Arrived in Bethlehem with his master for the census of population ordered by the Emperor August he gets a good place in the barn with feeding troughs near the big inn – 'that was humming like a beehive' - where his master and mistress found a place for themselves and their two children: 'That was where they tethered me, next to an ox who had just been unharnessed from a cart. I don't mind telling you that I've always had a horror of oxen. I admit they haven't an ounce of malice in them, but unfortunately my master's brother-in-law owns one. At plowing time the two brothers-in-law help each other out, and that means harnessing us to the plow together, though it's expressly forbidden by law. That is a very wise law, because, take it from me, nothing could be ghastlier than working in that sort of team. The ox has his pace – which is slow – and his rhythm – which is steady. He pulls with his neck. The ass – like the horse – pulls with his crupper. He works spasmodicaly, in fits and starts. To team him up with an ox is to put a ball and chain on his legs, to curtail his energy – which he hasn't got so much to begin with. But that night there was no question of plowing.'
Instead of having a quit night with the Ox travelers turned away from the inn invade the barn, amongst them Maria and Joseph, who puts together 'a kind of pallet between' the Ox and the Ass. 'Little by little, everybody found his place (…)' and Kadi Shuya falls asleep. When he wakes up he feels a big change: 'Time had given way to a sacred eternity. Then suddenly, in less than an instant, something enormous happened. An irrepressible thrill of joy traversed heaven and earth. (…) The thatch over our heads was lit up by the dazzling train of a comet. (…) All nature exulted. What had happened? Hardly anything. A faint cry had been heard, coming from the dark, warm pallet, a cry that could not have come from a man or a woman. It was the soft wailing of a newborn babe. Just then, a column of light came to rest in the middle of the stable: the Archangel Gabriel, Jesus's guardian angel, had arrived. The moment he got there, he took charge, so to speak.'
'You have to hand it to Gabriel, his efficiency was remarkable': he drums up the shepherds and also the Three Kings to come and see the Messiah. The shepherds bring in products of their toil as presents (clotted milk, goat's cheese). 'Neither meat nor fish', says Kadi Shuya relieved, but there is the shepherd with the ram, wrapped around his neck: Silas the Samaritan, who asks the Messiah if the revolution had happened (cheese instead of meat, reflecting on the offering of Isaac by Abraham)? Yes, assures Gabriel, it's the Revolution, Abraham's sacrifice was just a failed revolution, which does not convince Silas, who takes recourse to the story of Kaïn and Abel to come to the conclusion that Yahweh hates vegetables and loves meat: 'Yes, the God we worship is hopelessly carnivorous!' Time for Gabriel's reply: 'The complaints of your animal-loving heart will be heard. I've said that Abraham's sacrifice was a failed revolution. Soon the Father will sacrifice the Son again. And I swear to you that this time no angel will stay His hand. All over the world from now on, even on the smallest of islands, and at every hour of the day till the end of time, the blood of the Son will flow on altars for the salvation of mankind. This little child you see sleeping in the straw – the ox and the ass do well to warm Him with their breath, for He is in truth a lamb. From now on there will be no other sacrificial lamb, because He is the Lamb of God, who alone will be sacrificed in saecula saeculorum.'
Which means 'forever and ever', which closing words are used by everyone in the stable for a short contemplation on 'what the new times would be like', but then 'a terrible jangling of chains and rusty pulleys was heard, accompanied by a burst of grotesque, ungainly, sobbing laughter. That was me, that was the thunderous bray of the ass in the manger. Yes, what would you expect, my patience was at an end. This couldn’t go on. We'd been forgotten again. I'd listened attentively to everything that has been said, and I hadn't heard one word about asses. Everybody laughed – Joseph, Mary, Gabriel, the shepherds, Silas the hermit, the ox, who hadn't understood one thing – and even the Child, who flailed merrily about with His four little limbs in His straw crib.' Don't you worry about a thing, replies Gabriel, 'the asses will not be forgotten. Obviously you don't have to worry about sacrifices. Within memory of priest no one has ever seen an ass offered up on an altar. That would be too much honor for you poor humble donkeys. And yet great is your merit, beaten, starved, crushed under the weight of your burdens. But don't imagine that your miseries escape the eye of an archangel.' To underscore his words Gabriel heals a deep festering wound behind the right ear of Kadi Shuya, who lets out a triumphant bray. The reward and triumph of the Asses will follow, proclaims Gabriel: 'One day, a Sunday – which will be known as Palm Sunday – the Apostles will find a she-ass and her colt in the village of Bethany near the Mount of Olives. They will loose them and throw a cloak on the back of the foal – which no one will yet have mounted – and Jesus will ride it. And Jesus will make His solemn entry into Jerusalem, through the Golden Gate, the finest of the city's gates. The people will rejoice and acclaim the Nazarene prophet with cries of Hosannah to the Son of David! And the foal will tread a carpet of palm branches and flowers that the people will have laid over the paving stones. And the mother ass will trot in the rear of the procession, braying to all and sundry: 'That's my foal! That's my foal!' for never will a mother ass have been so proud."
Kadi Shuya suddenly doesn't feel alone anymore 'adopted by the great Christmas family', but 'Too bad! The rich always have to butt in. The rich are insatiable, they want to own everything, even poverty. Who could ever have imagined that this wretched family, camping between an ox and an ass, would attract a king? Did I say king? No, three kings, authentic souvereigns from the Orient, what's more! And really, what an outrageous display of servants, animals, canopies… There had never been such a show in a Palestinian village. You have to hand it to them – when it came to stealing our Christmas, the rich spared no expense. But in the end too much is enough. We went back inside (…) Because you see, unimportant people like us can expect no good of the great. Better steer clear of them. For a farthing dropped here and there, how many whippings fall to the lot of the beggar or ass who crosses a prince's path.'
And so Kady Shuya left the noisy village before the kings marched in together with his master who knows his own mind, but is a man of few words.
A bow for Kady Shuya!,
BANNING N.V.
Gino van Roeyen
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