Free God's Grace by Bernard Malamud Page A

request.”
    “Whot’s intercourse?”
    “I read you the relevant passage in Dr. Bünder’s book.”
    “When will I get some of it?”
    Cohn said he was sorry but couldn’t say.
    “If not the snake, how about Cain and Abel?” he asked. “There’s action in that one, a stupendous blow on the head.”
    Buz said he disliked violence and bloodshed. He said he preferred the New Testament.
    “There’s plenty of violence and blood in the New Testament. Painters worked in red from that for centuries.”
    “Thot’s because they crucified Jesus of Nozoroth,” Buz said.
    “Who did?” asked Cohn, on the qui vive.
    “The Roman soldias.”
    Cohn patted his head.
    “Tell me the one about the Dod who cut his little boy’s throat,” Buz then asked.
    Cohn responded in annoyance. “Buz, I’ve told you four times that Abraham never cut his boy’s throat. Those who
said he did were making up stories that suited their own natures, not Isaac’s or Abraham’s.”
    “Tell me again,” sighed Buz, climbing up on Calvin Cohn’s lap.
     
    Cohn told him again: “This is the story of Abraham and Isaac, his beloved son,” he began. “The Talmud says that Satan pestered God to test Abraham’s love for Him; and God, to test and prove that love, commanded Abraham to take his boy up to the mountain in Moriah and give him for a burnt offering to the Lord Himself.
    “As the story goes, Abraham, not flicking an eyelash, out of love for God, consented. Isaac carried the wood for the fire up the mountain. Then Abraham laid it on the altar, binding his son with leather thongs before lifting the knife to his throat.”
    Buz said the story was giving him cramps.
    “Then why do you ask me to tell it?”
    Buz thought maybe it was the figs he had eaten for breakfast that gave him cramps. “But tell the story anyway.”
    Cohn went on: “Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, an angel called to him out of the blue, ‘Don’t lay your hands on that boy, or do anything to hurt him. I know you fear God.’ And that proves that the Lord, at any given time, may not know all, or He would surely have known that Abraham feared Him.
    “On the other hand, if God was testing Abraham to get Satan off His back, He knew what the outcome would be, and I bet Satan did—he has his talents—but not Abraham
or Isaac. Still and all, their suffering was limited more or less to intense worry, and had no discernible traumatic effect after the incident when they had confirmed the hard way that they all loved each other.”
    Buz liked happy endings. “God is love,” he said.
    Cohn wasn’t sure but didn’t say so.
    “So Isaac’s life was saved,” he quickly went on, “and a ram caught by his horns in a thicket was substituted as the burnt offering, in that way affirming the idea of an animal in place of human sacrifice. I’m talking now about the time the story of Abraham and Isaac began to be told. It was probably a protest against the pagan sacrifice of human beings. That’s what I meant by man humanizing himself—if you follow me.”
    “Ond do you call murdering onimols a civilized oct?” Buz wanted to know.
    Before Cohn, embarrassed, could reply, a rumble of thunder shook the sandstone escarpment. Dirt and small stones sifted down from the ceiling. Fearing an earthquake, or worse, Cohn, cowering over Buz, listened for God’s judgment but heard none. He had broken into a chilling sweat and warned himself to be very careful what he was saying. Apparently God wasn’t liking every word of it.
    “Whot hopponed?” Buz asked, hauling himself out from under Cohn.
    “Thunder and lightning.”
    “Is thot bod?”
    “It depends on His mood.”
    Cohn hesitantly returned to the story of Isaac, saying:
“That ended his ordeal, except that if you reflect on the details at the very end, you figure he must have got lost on the mountain after his life was saved by the Angel, because he disappears from the tale. Exit Isaac. The scriptures have