Jews vs Zombies (3 page)

Solvi realised he’d happened upon another of the formerly dead who, just like him, wanted out. ‘Death escapes us,’ Solvi told him.

‘Well, duh,’ the other man said and landed on his feet. He explained that every Monday he came to the forest, picked the same tree and tried to off himself. ‘You see, failure will eventually prove to be temporary as well, right?’

Solvi smiled and introduced himself.

‘Yehoshua,’ said the man, and shook his hand. It turned out that Yehoshua had just come out of prison, where he spent six years for armed robbery. ‘You robbed a bank?!’ Solvi asked with a slight note of admiration in his voice.

Yehoshua grinned. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. I never robbed a bank. It’s just that I was so bored and saw no meaning to my renewed life and, as you can imagine, couldn’t put an end to the whole travesty until I heard about the factory.’

‘The factory?’

‘The Scapegoat Factory. They are always looking for new employees, for lack of a better word. Preferably Jews.’

Solvi pondered what he’d just heard. He knew about Jews but, as far as he could tell, he’d never met one. Bible. Jesus. Circumcision. Holocaust. Israel. Pork. This was the extent of his knowledge as far as Jews were concerned. The first time he heard someone mention them was when a high school friend was singing ‘Hey, Jews’ and another friend told him to shut the fuck up. Ever since, he had associated Jews with songs by the Beatles, although he knew the connection had been totally misconceived. Yellow Submarine started playing in his mind when he asked, somewhat cautiously, ‘But… isn’t it a bit discriminatory, you know, to hire employees based on…?’

Yehoshua shook his head. ‘I said they prefer Jews. It doesn’t mean they’re the only ones they hire for the job.’

‘And when you say “they”...’

‘The people who run the factory. Or should I say the man behind it all: a certain Felix Cohen. You see, this guy came up with an interesting premise. Looking around, he realised the easiest way to make money these days is to present a new application to the world. The future’s in application or, as my nephew likes to say, “The only way is app.” So he came up with the guilt application, where people take the blame for other people’s crimes. Well, not really crimes, but rather slight misdemeanors, petty insults, you know, the daily manure of human relationships.’

‘But why would anyone take the blame for another’s…?’

‘Money, peacock-brain. Money!’

‘I have to say, I’m not very impressed.’

‘Well, perhaps this is going to impress you. What started as a strange idea became something totally different when Felix realised the amazing potential at hand. You see, Felix got his brother, a retired police superintendent, involved and he suggested an upgrade.’

‘An upgrade?’

‘There are so many unsolved crimes, cases that will forever remain open for lack of material evidence or will be shut because the police have reached an impasse. Well, Felix and his brother weren’t really thinking about the perpetrators but rather about the families of the victims. Nothing is worse than a feeling of injustice. As far as those families are concerned, someone has to take the blame, right? When you point an accusing finger there must be someone to point that finger at. So why not provide a scapegoat, someone who’ll take the blame and rid the families, the police and the masses of that terrible sense of injustice?’

‘But then the perpetrators walk away scot-free.’

‘Well, under the circumstances they do anyway, don’t they? And trust me, the families are so grateful once the factory supplies a criminal that soon enough they forget that he or she isn’t the genuine scum who’s put them through hell.’

Solvi was speechless. They were already out of the woods.

Yehoshua scratched his neck absentmindedly. ‘And you know what’s the best thing about it? It gives us, the formerly dead, a true sense of purpose.’ Solvi smiled weakly.

‘Are you by any chance a Jew?’ Yehoshua asked him Solvi was thinking of a celestial lapidary named Lucy and shook his head.

‘A shame, but you can still take the blame.’

‘Why do they prefer to employ Jews?’

Yehoshua patted his shoulder and wore a condescending expression. ’Read a little history, my friend.’

Which he did. Right after reading about the factory. Right after coming to terms with his decision to find some meaning for his vacuous existence.

A week after he met Yehoshua at the forest, Solvi arrived at The Factory. He found himself in a corridor teeming with dozens of bearded men. To his surprise, each time one of them was ushered into the office for an interview, he was instantly asked to leave.

‘Vot more do you vont? Not only am I a Jew, but I’m a dead one! Even now you refuse to let me be a part of your vorld?!’ complained a gaunt creature of unimpressive height, overlooking the strange dance of his lopsided beard with his twisting yarmulke.

‘I came back to claim the blame, I came back to name my shame,’ shouted another.

The loudest of them all climbed a bench, a minute after he was kicked out of the office, and cried aloud, ‘You have no idea! We are to blame for everything! Cancer! Earthquakes! Nine Eleven! Aids! Global Warming! Triglycerides! Famine! Hell, if not for us, who will the world come after?’

When Solvi entered the office, a middle-aged man greeted him with a smile and said, ‘How refreshing.’

Solvi sat and cleared his throat before speaking. ‘I’m with the formerly dead.’

The man said, ‘Yes, I guessed so. So, what are you after? Robbery? Tax evasion? Drug dealing? Rape? Murder? Or perhaps some exquisite monstrosity of the highest degree?’

‘Before I say anything, I’d like to point out I’m not a Jew.’

The man exclaimed, ‘No!’ and giggled. ‘Didn’t take you for one. Let’s make one thing clear: you don’t have to be a Jew to work for us, but you have to understand what’s expected of you. Once you assume the blame for a certain criminal act, there’s no turning back. You will be held accountable for it ad infinitum. You have to believe it. Just like those morons who believe the Jews killed Jesus, even after the Pope himself has absolved them of that imaginary crime.’

‘But it’s not the same, is it?’

‘It is, for you have to believe you are to blame to the same extent that those who shout “J’accuse!” believe it. That’s the only way to be a convincing scapegoat.’

‘But isn’t my taking the blame proof enough of my…?’

‘Not at all. Once again, it is only convincing if both condemner and condemnee believe in it. Credibility’s the name of the game.’

‘And the fact that you’re seeking dead Jews for this job?’

‘It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? If you’re to be blamed just because of who you are, at least try and get something out of it, right?’

‘And what about me?’

‘You seem like a very conscientious piece of work. Why don’t you go and mull things over?’

‘No need for that.’ Solvi leaned over the desk and extended his hand. ‘I need meaning.’

Three years later, prisoner Solvi Lumsvenson, serving time for manslaughter (a hit-and-run accident) was once again running out of patience. Having undergone a self-inflicted brainwash, Solvi came to believe he had been the man behind the wheel responsible for the tragic death of Marketa Gloon, an 86-year-old woman who was crossing the street, pushing a trolley full of groceries back from her weekly visit to the supermarket. But the principle of eternal temporariness suddenly applied to his sense of guilt. Three years were price enough, as far as he was concerned, to pay for a mistake, as serious as it might be.

Unfortunately, he had another year before the authorities would let him go. Now, more than ever, he wanted out. Out of this prison cell, out of this city, out of this world. He tried escaping for the umpteenth time and was shot in the back. How he hated that moment when the guard gave him a hand and helped him up, muttering, ‘Still no luck.’

But on his fourth return to his cell from solitary confinement (rules are rules, weird circumstances notwithstanding), a surprise awaited him in the form of a visitor: a 50-year-old woman who looked like a whore turned librarian.

‘My name is Rosa. Rosa Gloon,’ she said.

His heart skipped a beat. ‘Are you related to…?’

‘I’m her daughter.’

‘Why has it taken you so long to come and see me?’

‘I have been living in Paris for 20 years now. I had no idea. I got here two days ago and went to pay my mother’s grave a visit, when… I saw that her tombstone was sprayed in some phosphorescent green. I didn’t know what it meant until a certain lady explained to me that my mother’s stone is marked since she was of the formerly dead.’

Solvi bit his tongue. ‘Your mother has just returned? Was there another second coming?’

‘No. I don’t know how I’ve never heard of what happened a little bit over a decade ago, you know, when the dead were resurrected by those crazy scientists. As far as I know, it only happened once. Anyway, my mother was one of them, which means that the woman you killed had already been dead when you hit her.’

Solvi didn’t correct her. Evidently she hadn’t heard of the factory. He didn’t even mention the bizarre realisation that both he and his ‘victim’ had returned to this world at the same time. But, despite his sudden surge of happiness, there was something wrong with her story. ‘But if your mother had already been dead…?’

‘She forgot.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘My mother was an extremely senile woman. It turns out that when she came back from the dead, she didn’t give it much thought. She just wandered the streets looking for her home until she found it. Luckily for her I hadn’t managed to sell it because it’s a tiny place in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, she did remember she used to keep the key under the rug and got in as if she hadn’t just returned from the dead.’

‘You’re telling me your mother forgot she was dead?’

‘Yes. And so, when she was run over several years later by you, she actually died I came here to let you know that –’

‘Hang on a minute. Didn’t anyone contact you after she was run over?’

‘They weren’t able to track me down. I got married and changed my name. Now I’m divorced and – anyway, that’s beside the point. I came here to tell you that since, according to the law of the living, one can’t be held guilty for a crime committed against a dead person, you are to be released effective immediately.’

Solvi stared at her in disbelief. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand. If your mother had already been dead when she was run over, then how was anyone held responsible for the accident? I mean, there was no body to begin with. She probably got up and went back home, slightly shaken up but still alive. So to speak.’

Now it was Rosa’s turn to stare at him in disbelief. ‘Oh, but she didn’t. She died. And she was buried again, although at a different spot, which means she has two tombstones. Funnily enough, no one bothered to check...’

‘She died?’

‘Yes.’

’For good?’

‘For good.’

Solvi didn’t look back. Upon leaving prison he realized that Marketa had probably been the first among the formerly dead to regain death once again, yet her second demise had been a secret of sorts since no one but her daughter had known about her first death.

He went to the cemetery and looked for Marketa’s stone. He wanted to address it but felt like a fool, contemplating his life ever since he arose. He spent ten minutes in front of the silent grave and wondered about Marketa’s first death. Then he went back home. The following Monday he wandered to the forest and saw Yehoshua pouring gasoline all over himself.

Yehoshua called, ‘Well, if it isn’t…’

Solvi wanted to let him know about the new promise when Yehoshua opened his eyes in shock and pointed behind Solvi, shouting, ‘Watch out!’

Solvi looked around hopefully and heard Yehoshua’s laughter.

‘Just kidding,’ he said.

‘You stupid arsehole!’ Solvi roared at the laughing man. He grabbed the matchbox from his hand, struck a match and threw it at him.

The burning man screamed like there was no tomorrow, and Solvi retorted, ‘Just kidding,’ before leaving the forest.

It was only a week later, during one of his gloomy constitutionals, that he happened upon the human lump of coal that used to be Yehoshua. He bent over the burnt corpse and called, ‘Yehoshua! Yehoshua! Stop playing this silly game!’ but it was evident no life remained in the formerly dead man, who’d resumed his old status courtesy of Solvi’s momentary fit of rage.

Solvi was thinking about the second dead person who managed to prove the theory of eternal temporariness and tried to banish from his mind the other thought, about himself being the culprit, since he’d killed another man, albeit a once dead one. And then it hit him, like nothing before – not even the tree that had changed the course of his lives. Perhaps the only way to help a formerly dead person fulfill their death wish was to have another formerly dead person do the deed.

The excited pounding of his heart reminded him of his not-so-long-ago metal days, and by the time he got back home, he knew he was right. That was the secret. Marketa died because she was run over by a formerly dead driver. Different rules applied to the dead, and one just had to follow them.

Another month went by. Solvi was waiting beside the familiar prison gates for another member of the scapegoat factory to emerge. After talking to Felix and finding out about the next formerly dead person to be released, he contacted the woman in question and told her about his secret plan, assuming she was seeking death as well.

When she stepped out of the gates, he smiled at her. Her name was Diana Bloomberg, and she’d served four years for fraud on a national scale.

At first she said she wouldn’t want to waste another minute, but then she changed her mind and said she wouldn’t mind having one last cup of coffee before they annihilated each other. They had that coffee and forgot themselves a little, talking about this and that, when they noticed the sky was darkening. Then they had a quick bite and headed for the forest.

Solvi, who’d got hold of two pistols, gave her one and asked her to pull the trigger at the exact moment he would.