John Staub

Chapter 7 of Our Lady of Brattle Street, novel, copyright (c) 2026 by Richard Smoley

7

John Staub

That May passed uneventfully for Artemus Rostrum, tumultuously for Harvard (the alumni magazine styled the year an annus horribilis). The protestors took down their tents a week before commencement. The college decided to withhold degrees from thirteen seniors for unspecified disciplinary infractions. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to grant their degrees anyway. Artemus voted with them (having Shakespeare’s quality of mercy speech vaguely at the back of his head). But the Harvard Corporation overruled them, and the students were not permitted to graduate. On commencement day, there was no real disruption, but Artemus would not go anywhere near Harvard Square.

In light of the weather, it would have made sense to put off his trip to July or August, when Cambridge was at its most sweltering; June, on the other hand, was often passably pleasant. But Artemus felt some urgency. Staub was the only one to whom he could speak frankly about his experiences.

John Staub was the first person Artemus had met as a Harvard freshman. Staub was lean, hawk-nosed, and customarily dressed in plaid flannel shirts and worn jeans. He was clean-shaven, and his stringy red hair hung down below his ears—a look that he had not changed in thirty-five years. The housing authorities had made them roommates, and they arrived within an hour of each other on the same day. The match proved to be a good one: they remained roommates throughout all four years of college and were the closest of friends.

When they graduated, Artemus went to graduate school in American history, which he figured would be a relatively easy discipline: no distant travels, few if any foreign languages (even though he knew several). Staub had majored in classics. He did not continue his formal studies after graduation, and, insisting that he did not want to be just another Harvard graduate kicking around New York, moved to San Francisco.

That was what he said, but he had a darker secret that he kept to himself. His ambition had been to be a novelist, and he knew that another novel by a Harvard graduate in New York was plowing exhausted soil. Moving to the West Coast would at least give him a shot at a different perspective.

It did. Over the next five years, he wrote two novels that were set in California but had no luck publishing them. Evaluating them, he realized that they were serviceable novels, but no better. Perhaps another writer would have persisted, written five or ten more, and gotten one published. But that would not have been satisfactory. He realized that he was not a genius and never would be. The novels went into that special drawer possessed by every writer, celebrated or unknown.

These bare sentences do not adequately describe Staub’s turmoil. He had a quaint idea, held over from prep school enthusiasms for Joyce, Eliot, and Pound, of the artist—in his case, the novelist—as the supreme antenna of the race. If that meant anything now, it had nothing to do with him. His purpose in life had fallen out from under him.

Staub had never shown any sign of moving past his humble job. He worked at a used bookstore on Valencia Street and lived two blocks away in a small cottage (no doubt originally built for an in-law or grandparent) that was tucked behind an apartment building in Albion Alley. He had an old Toyota Corolla, which he maintained only just well enough to ensure its reliability. (“I would be ashamed of being ashamed of my car,” he said.) He did not seem content, said he disliked San Francisco (which he consistently mocked), but never showed any signs of change. He had a girlfriend, a middle-level manager for Bechtel who lived on Russian Hill, whom he saw once or twice a month and did not love.

Staub’s internal convulsions were mirrored externally in the bizarrest fashion. He and the owner of the bookstore got on passably well, but this owner was a cantankerous man, probably afflicted with some neurological disorder that led to erratic behavior. One morning Staub arrived at the store to find everything wrecked: books pulled from the shelves and flung on the floor, glass cases smashed. It also turned out that the owner, evidently wishing to be thorough, had phoned in a death threat to then–President Clinton. The owner was carted off to a home somewhere, and Staub only had infrequent news about him. Years later, he learned that he had died in Oregon.

It was left to Staub to pick up the wreckage of the business, which he did in short order, having a far better sense of it than the unfortunate owner. No one came to claim the stock of books that were the sole capital, and the owner had been renting the storefront without a lease, so it was relatively easy for Staub to take over. Since then, Staub had built the store into a reliable source of new and used books.

He also dusted off an old interest. He had always been drawn to mysticism and occultism and had been involved with a small group at Harvard that studied the Kabbalah. Although his literary ambitions led him to think of this interest as a perhaps even eccentric sideline, it blossomed in the absence of his former grand ambitions. He reconnected with a related group in San Francisco and began to specialize in occult titles in the store. In the end, he decided to sell occult books only. Staub’s Bookstore (of course he changed the name) soon gained the reputation as one of the best of its kind in the nation, ensuring him a reliable living, especially given his austere tastes.

Artemus and Staub saw each other perhaps once every two or three years, when some business or pleasure took one into the other’s vicinity. But they remained close in the way that only college friends can be. Over the years, they had assembled a common vocabulary alluding to books read, funny incidents, running jokes, mutual friends and enemies, and other details that at times would have made their conversation difficult for an outsider to understand.

Artemus made his plans: booked a flight, reserved a car, and obtained a two-week rental in Eureka Heights. The photos he saw in the ad were accurate: it was a spacious suite consisting of a bedroom and living room, with a southern exposure looking across over Noe Valley to Diamond Heights. The layout was unusual, though, the back suite sharing a kitchen with the front suite, occupied by the owner, a Mrs. Higgins. But then Artemus did not plan to do any cooking. An added benefit (though Artemus did not think of it when he made the booking) was that it was within walking distance of Staub’s.

Mrs. Higgins was elderly, perhaps very elderly, certainly no younger than her seventies and in all likelihood in her eighties. Her family had owned the house since it had been built. She was of medium height and build, and her grey hair was set with a permanent that evoked earlier decades. In short, she was a relic of old San Francisco, when it was a stylish, clean, and even conservative city and ladies wore white gloves to go shopping downtown. Unlike many survivors of that era, Mrs. Higgins displayed no opinion about the aging hippies, gays, yuppies, Asians, Hispanics, and would-be tech geniuses that now constituted the majority of the population. No doubt she felt it was beneath her. She was not exactly friendly, but she was polite and helpful, evidently pleased to have a Harvard professor as a tenant. She and Artemus kept to themselves and often did not see each other from day to day.

A day or so after his arrival, Artemus arranged to get together with Staub for dinner. They met at a Thai restaurant on 16th Street near Guerrero, which was only a block or so from Staub’s place. They had a couple of Singha beers, Staub ordered pad Thai, and Artemus a green curry with tofu and sticky rice.

“Have you gone over to the dark side?” asked Staub.

“As in?”

“Vegetarian.”

“Heaven forfend. No, actually I often find that places like this don’t use the best meat, so I sometimes like to go for a nonmeat option. God knows you would be a fool to order a vegetable dish at the typical steakhouse.”

“You got that right,” said Staub.

They went back to Staub’s after dinner. His living room was crowded yet cozy, with a huge number of books in stacks and shelves. Staub was fond of Oriental rugs, so there were several of those, layered upon one another. There was some little statues and figurines and art with mystical themes (Staub preferred sacred and abstract art: he said he would not have another bowl of pears hanging from his wall). It was about as well dusted and vacuumed as a single man’s place is likely to be (“Fatiguing dirt,” he occasionally told himself. “But eventually one even becomes fond of one’s own filth”). The place could almost have been a Victorian gentleman’s study if not for the downscale attire of the occupant.

Staub brought out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a bucket of ice. “By the way, how are things with wifey?”

“Stagnant. She’s having an affair, and I haven’t even bothered to find out with whom.”

“A skillful insult.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t have the energy for divorce. More and more, we’re living our separate lives, having a meal together every now and then. Of course there is tension, but for me it’s a manageable tension.”

“I’ve heard people say a lot of things about divorce, but I’ve never heard anyone say it was fun.”

“Exactly.”

“Life has been strange for me in another respect,” Artemus went on.

“Only one?”

“It’s been a bizarre year at Harvard. The president should have stood up to those assholes in Congress. Even so, it was low of them to ditch her. It was supposedly on the grounds of plagiarism in some of her published works, but that leaves certain questions unanswered. Did they just now discover this plagiarism, or had they found out about it long ago and overlooked it because Harvard was set on having a black woman president?”

“One of those forever mysteries.”

“The larger and more powerful the institution, the more cowardly it’s likely to be under certain circumstances. Anyway, I try to stay out of it. Professors who start making pronouncements about current events usually end up sounding like fools.”

“Or assholes.”

“But I might not find this so easy if I become chair of the department.”

“Is that likely?”

“It’s possible. Rosenzweig is chair now, but he wants a sabbatical, and he’s starting to crack. A couple of weeks ago, he forgot about a meeting he himself had called.”

“I think I met him at your place once. Curly black hair, a moustache, glasses, and kind of an anxious expression on his face?”

“Very good.”

Artemus did not think it a violation of a confidence to tell Staub about his dinner with Rosenzweig.

Staub, musing on the situation, said, “He may think that that’s the cause, but I very much doubt it.”

Artemus did not press him further. He proceeded to tell Staub about his own recent experiences with the Lady and the devils. He did not take a long time to do it—he focused only on the salient details—and when he did, they both went silent. But Artemus was right: Staub did not laugh. He gazed at a certain point on a carpet, thinking intensely, and only spoke after a long time.

Finally Staub said, “Demonic attack certainly happens. Universal testimony proves it. The only ones who don’t believe are those morons who dominate the mental sciences in the West.

“Don’t get me started—but then I guess you have. There is a monumental amount of scientific evidence—hard, replicable, and replicated research—that proves the existence of paranormal abilities in the human being: telekinesis, precognition, clairvoyance. Admittedly, these abilities are weak, but their existence has been proven through the most rigorous statistical methods. The evidence for them is stronger than it is for practically any prescription drug administered to the American public.

“But that’s not really what we’re talking about. In your case, I agree with your imaginary friend: something tried to get into you, but your psychic immune system was able to repel it.

“This happens; it happens to me sometimes. The first time it happened, I was six years old. I dreamed I was lying on the sofa in our living room, and a green, slimy devil jumped up and grabbed me from behind.

“I woke up right away, terrified. Later I mentioned the dream to my mother, who said, ‘There’s no such thing as devils,’ which didn’t comfort me much. I didn’t have any more dreams like that, but for three years I lived in fear of the Devil, like a medieval peasant.

“Fortunately I know better now. These demons are easy to deal with: just chant a Hebrew name of God or two, and they’ll scram. Actually, isn’t that what you did, courtesy of Mattie Whedbee? But it works just as well to tell them to get the hell out of here. It’s easier than dealing with mosquitos, because with a mosquito in the room, you have to turn on the light, get out of bed, find the mosquito, and kill it.”

“I can always count on you for an unusual perspective.”

“You came here for one reason: I was the only person you know who would take you seriously.”

“Completely true.”

“And of course I do take you seriously. I’m certainly not one of those idiotic Mister Science types who thinks the universe operates on the laws of physics as taught in the eighth grade. As for the Lady, what did she look like?”

“In a gown. She looked rather young. Not at all like a mother, however virginal.”

“Well, the Virgin Mary was probably fourteen or fifteen when the Big Thing happened to her. Which, by present-day standards, would make the Holy Spirit a pedophile. Also, if you want to pursue this line of thinking, a rapist.”

“I’ve always wanted to see you start a religion just to see what kind of religion you would start.”

“You can take one look at me and tell right away that I’m not a man who would have much patience with followers.” Staub chuckled. “But my guess is that it wasn’t the Catholic Virgin Mary. Maybe it was Isis. Maybe it was the Korē.”

“The Korē?”

“The Girl. In the Greek mysteries. Although sometimes the word is translated, incorrectly, as ‘virgin.’ Actually, it may be the opposite. There may be a play on korennumi, ‘to fill,’ as in pregnant. But that’s probably taking it a bit too far.

“As you probably know, they had these elaborate rites, about which we know virtually nothing. They drank the kukeon, which according to Hesiod consisted of water, barley, and mint—which would make it kind of like a mint beer. But they put other things in it as well, possibly psychedelic. Some evidence suggests that the initiates, after all this, were granted a vision of the Korē, the Girl, the daughter of Persephone.

“The Mysteries have been understood completely backward. The Girl descends to the underworld to become the bride of Hades for part of the year. Geniuses like Frazer saw in this some kind of commemoration of the vegetal cycle. Of course it had nothing to do with that. Persephone was the symbol of the soul descending not into an underworld, but into this world. This life is, from the esoteric point of view, death. Initiates learned this truth. That’s why Cicero said they had better hopes for afterlife. The afterlife is the true life: this is, figuratively and maybe not so figuratively, death. Yeats called it ‘death-in-life and life-in death.’”

“I’ve discussed some of this with Rosenzweig. It’s his specialty, you know.”

“That’s why I wouldn’t believe a word of his whining about not being a genius. The problem goes much deeper, I suspect.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“You are a professor of American history. It is not a mystery, even though there are the usual unanswered questions. But the thing itself is not a mystery. Rosenzweig, on the other hand, is dealing with a mystery—actually, the mystery. But he can’t have access to it.”

“Why?”

“Those guys are like accountants. They know where the treasure is, but they can’t get to it themselves. I could see that it might turn into a torment.”

“I don’t know that Rosenzweig is mystically inclined.”

“He’s an ancient historian. He could have chosen any number of other things to specialize in. Why did he choose the Mysteries?”

“He may not know himself.”

“He may well not.”

“What are you saying?”

“The academic scholar—at least in this kind of subject—is a scribe and Pharisee: sitting at the gate but not entering or letting those that enter enter. I’ve read some of the works by these new scholars of the Western esoteric traditions. They are so oblivious to their material that they often make mistakes even from their own point of view. Every morning, I go down on my knees and say, ‘Blessed art Thou, Lord God, king of the universe, that I am not a professor.’” He cast a sly glance at Artemus.

“So what should Rosenzweig do?”

“He should go to Samothrace on his sabbatical. He won’t find anything—the Mysteries have long departed from there. He isn’t even looking in the right place: the Korē was connected with the Mysteries of Eleusis, not Samothrace, but he must know this. Anyway, he may chill out a little.

“It’s funny,” Staub went on. “Think of it. He’s desperate for a vision of the Korē, whether he knows it or not. You’ve had a vision of her, but you’re ashamed to tell him or anyone else.”

“You’ve always been interested in this sort of thing, haven’t you?”

“For a long time. I suppose you remember that I used to go a Kabbalah group that met in Dunster House. It was a tiny group—around a dozen people—and had only two or three Jews. Other Jews came, but their idea of the Kabbalah was some kind of ethnic identity thing—‘Let’s be Jewish! Let’s dance the hora!’—and when they found out it wasn’t, they didn’t come back. Of course, the really Orthodox ones would never stoop to coming, because they would not put up with a Kabbalah that was defiled by filthy goyim. The Jews in the group who understood what was really going on stayed.

“There are many lines of Kabbalah, some of them rigorously Jewish, some nonsectarian, and many other kinds. This particular line comes from esoteric Christianity.”

“Esoteric Christianity.”

“Of course. No sensible person can take all of those Christian myths literally. As every scholar knows, the New Testament contains some things about Christ that are true and some things that Christ never said or did (although they can’t agree about which). Did Jesus die on the cross and rise from the dead three days later? Maybe, maybe not. No one is left to tell us. But these things all conceal certain mysteries.”

The whiskey bottle was empty. Staub went into the kitchen and emerged with two bottles of Weihenstephaner lager. After giving one to Artemus, he sat down and started to brood.

Artemus too sat in silence for a while. Finally he said, “I’ve had an experience with a girl of quite a different kind.” He told Staub about his erotic encounter with the phantasmal Shelley.

“Now I’ve heard it all,” Staub said. “A coprophiliac succubus. Succubi: they suck you by day and they suck you by night.”

“Ha ha.”

“Was it a pixie from another dimension or a fragment of your Jungian anima? Or maybe you were haunted by a subconscious creation of your own mind, like a demoniac. The sleep of reason creates monsters.

“Here.” Staub reached to a shelf and pulled out an old book bound in blue cloth. “This book has a whole different take on the matter.”

He handed the book to Artemus. It was Comte de Gabalis: Discourses on the Secret Sciences and Mysteries, in accordance with the principles of the Ancient Magi and the Wisdom of the Kabbalistic Philosophers, by “the Abbé de Monfaucon de Villars,” and published by Rider & Son, London, 1922.

“This is an old Rosicrucian novel from the seventeenth century—originally written in French,” said Staub. “It has a completely different take on your experience.

“The medieval legends and even the inadequately enlightened Church Fathers spoke of this kind of intercourse—which takes place in the literal sense, as you found—but misunderstood it. They thought everything that didn’t look like the angel on a fresco must be a demon—which was their own form of delusion. But the Comte de Gabalis says that it’s just the opposite.”

Staub turned to a page that he had marked with a PostIt and read: “‘The immense space which lies between Earth and Heaven has inhabitants far nobler than the birds and insects. These vast seas have far other hosts than that those of the dolphins and whales; the depths of the earth are not for the moles alone; and the Element of Fire, nobler than the other three, was not created to remain useless and empty.”

“Meaning?”

Staub read further: “‘Their bodies are built up of those finer materials which interpenetrate gross matter and its interspaces, even as man’s finer bodies are thus built up. . . . They will tell you that they are composed of the purest portions of the Element in which they dwell, and that they have in them no impurities whatever, since they are made of but one Element. Therefore they die only after several centuries.’

“But it goes on: ‘Just as man, by the alliance which he has contracted with God, has been made a participant in Divinity, so the Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs and Salamanders’—the spirits of the four elements—‘by the alliance which they have it in their power to contract with man, can become participants in immortality. Thus a Nymph or a Sylphid becomes immortal and capable of the Beatitude to which we aspire when she is so happy as to marry a Sage.”

“So my little Shelley was a Nymph or Sylphid who was trying to unite with me?”

“Who did unite with you! It is said that the offspring of this union—half elemental, half human—is immortal in the true sense. She wanted to have a baby with you, and she probably did. Congratulations, old chap. You’re a father yet again.”

“And she did me a favor by taking the shape of a preppy girl from circa 1980.”

“Exactly! Didn’t you fantasize about those girls all the time—even if they weren’t all that pretty? I did. They were all we had around.”

“Do you really believe all this?”

“You came to me with a weird experience, and I answered you in good faith. What you said reminded me of the Comte de Gabalis. I’m not even offering you an opinion; I’m just saying there are traditions that may explain what happened to you. After all, you did say the experience was satisfying, didn’t you? That’s not like having the life energy sucked out of you by some demon.”

Artemus threw up his hands, unable to give any response.

“Anyway,” said Staub, “some have said that the Comte de Gabalis is a satire. I’m not so sure. In this line it’s easy to mistake serious words for satire and vice versa.”

Staub sat brooding for a time. Finally, having come to some decision, he said, “Look. I’m going to make you a promise. A drunken promise, maybe, but a promise nonetheless. I will certainly remember it tomorrow.

“That Kabbalah group was started, strangely enough, by a Dutch psychiatrist named Dr. Adrien Bouwsma. He lived, and lives, in New York, but he came up to Cambridge two or three times a year to make sure we didn’t get too far offtrack.

“I hadn’t planned to do this, but it now seems the obvious thing to do. I will put you in touch with Dr. Bouwsma. I promise that much. I can’t promise that he’ll see you, because he was not young when he started that group, and he is old now. But sometimes he still permits people to call on him. I will call him, and if he agrees, I will give you his number.”