Verse (16 page)

Chapter 71

We pull into a gas station and Cohen’s friend gets out and shuts the door behind himself.

“This isn’t working,” I say.

Cohen nods.

I say, “What do we do?”

He shakes his head.

I say, “It’s just like starting over. I can’t believe I’m starting over again. It wasn’t even this difficult trying to build support in high school with non-religious people.”

“I’m a rabbi, I know rabbis. Do you want to talk to seculars?”

“Maybe talking isn’t the solution. All those years in high school didn’t really matter. In the end, me getting shot was a symbol to people. We need a symbol to make them follow us.”

“What symbol?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re looking at it all wrong. We don’t even need them to follow us yet. We just need them to want the war. Then when it starts, we can position ourselves as leaders. Right now they’re comfortable with the status quo.”

“Nobody in Israel is comfortable.”

“Well of course, but they’re like a man who’s bleeding to death and he’s just trying to tape it up, but actually he needs a doctor to cut inside even deeper to fix the real problem.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“I don’t know, we need to turn them against the enemy.”

“Aren’t they against the enemy?”

“I don’t think so. You think they care about how corrupt the government is or how it’s oppressing all those people? The prime minister’s approval ratings are high.”

“The prime minister is a good man. Who are they oppressing? You mean the Arabs? They made their bed.”

I say, “Wait? What? Who did you think I meant by the enemy?”

He shrugs.

“Seriously? Who? Palestinians? All Arabs? All Muslims?”

He shrugs again.

“They aren’t our enemies, Cohen. That’s racism.”

“Don’t call me a racist. They’re the anti-Semites. They’re the ones who want to push us off the map.”

“All of them.”

“Not all of them, just our enemies. I’m not a racist.”

“You want to turn Israel against the Muslims? Could they be any more against them?”

“Yes, they’re like you. Like your bleeding man, bleeding hearts actually. You said you’d bring the war, who did you think it would be with?”

“I thought we were here to start a revolution. To put our own government in power. What do you think we’re here to do?”

He says, “After the war, the people will realize they need Mashiakh. No revolution will be necessary.”

“What war? War with the Arabs.”

He shrugs.

“Stop looking coy and say what you mean.”

“Yes. War with the Muslims.”

Cohen’s friend opens the door and gets back in. He starts the car and pulls onto the highway.

I say, “Why didn’t we have this conversation months ago? Before getting on the airplane.”

Cohen shakes his head.

We drive the rest of the way in silence.

Chapter 72

I get back to the apartment and say hi to Erwin, at his computer playing
Counter-Strike
.

“How are you?” he says.

I shake my head.

“What’s wrong?” He shoots someone.

I shake my head again.

“Come on.”

He explodes from a grenade.

He turns to me, but I go to my room, sit at my desk, and open my computer.

There’s an email from Faye waiting for me. All it says is

Maya Cheng

8 lbs

and there’s a photo of my daughter, swaddled with a little pink beanie, in a hospital nursery.

I lean back in my chair.

I rub my mouth.

I close the computer.

I stand up and go back to Erwin’s room. “You want to get out of here?” I say.

“Where to?”

“I don’t know.”

We leave and walk through the Old City.

I say, “What are we even doing here?”

“You tell me.”

“I just don’t know what to do. We’ve been failing for months and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Up ahead is the Wailing Wall and I stop.

He says, “You want to pray?”

“No.” I look at the ramp next to it, leading up to the top of the Temple Mount, above the Wall, with the two mosques. Next to the ramp is the Palestinian guard station at the bottom. “Let’s go up.”

We walk up the ramp and into the security station.

One of the guards nods at us and says, “Do you have any
Bibles
, any candles, anything?”

I shake my head as I put my keys, wallet and phone in the tray. I walk through the metal detector. I put my things back in my pocket and Erwin comes through and we leave the station and head up the ramp.

I say, “Technically we’re not supposed to go up here.”

“Why not?”

“The Wailing Wall is the oldest part of the Temple Mount, but the top is the holiest. It’s where the original Jewish Temple was and only the priests were aloud to visit the Holiest of Holies.”

“Do you want to not go?”

“Screw it,” I say.

We get up top and there’s a nice breeze. Nearby is the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock is up ahead with its gleaming gold dome.

A man approaches, “You need guide?”

I wave him off and lead Erwin toward the Dome of the Rock. I say, “That’s where the Temple was, where the Dome of the Rock, that mosque, is.”

“They built the mosque on top of the Temple?”

“The Temple had already been destroyed by the Romans, hundreds of years before. It’s the oldest mosque in the world.”

We get to the doorway, with the guard. “Are you Muslim?” he says.

“Naam,” I say. “Salaam alaykum,” and I put my hand out to shake.

He shakes it and we go in.

It’s octagonal, with a giant ornate dome, and it’s really stunning.

There’s an inner section and an outer section, both covered with Arabic script.

I walk into the center and look around.

Now what?

God, please tell me what to do.

I’ll just be waiting here.

I sigh.

What did I expect?

I look at Erwin.

He comes over and says, “Why did you want to come here?”

I say, “This is where they kept the Ark of the Covenant, the box holding the Ten Commandments.”

“Okay?”

“The first Jews believed that God lived here. They believed you could speak to him and hear him in this spot. I just thought that maybe…”

“Maybe you could come here and God would tell you what to do.”

“It sounds stupid.”

“No it doesn’t.”

I look around. It is beautiful.

We go outside and it’s getting darker.

We walk to the western edge of the Mount and look out at the sinking sun.

He says, “You told that guy we were Muslims.”

I shrug. “So he’d let us in. I’m the messiah for all religions, aren’t I? So I am a Muslim.”

“Okay, but I’m not.”

“All you have to do to become one is surrender to God and say, ‘La ilaha ila Allah, Muhammad rasulu Allah.’ There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.”

“Your Arabic is coming along.”

“Not really. My Hebrew is going super slow too.”

He shrugs.

I say, “Should we have come here? I mean to Jerusalem. Maybe our moms were right. We should have gone to college.”

He laughs, “What?”

“If I can’t figure out what to do and, this is why I was angry earlier, it turns out Cohen and I don’t even want the same things, so why are we here?”

“What did you argue about?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay well, are you here because Cohen believes in you or because you believe in you?”

“Me. No, because God believes in me.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what Cohen says.”

“But he’s the whole reason I came.”

“So what? We’re here.”

“You’re right. But I’m done trying to convince a bunch of rabbis.”

That is—

I laugh.

He says, “What?”

I say, “College. Why not? I’m trying to learn about Judaism and Islam and learning Hebrew and Arabic and politics and business and everything I need to know. Why not college? They have an English language program at the university in Tel Aviv. Why not go to college and find out how to win a revolution? Or if they can’t teach me that, at least I’ll be doing something useful while I wait for some inspiration or something to happen. I thought this was all gonna go quick, but we’re here for the long haul.”

“Okay.”

I say, “What about you? I can pay your tuition.”

He looks out at the sun.

It’s so close to the horizon now.

He says, “I’ve actually been thinking about something else actually. The army. The IDF.”

“Really.”

“You’re the king, right? And Cohen’s your priest. But who am I? What will my role be? A king doesn’t need a best friend.”

“Sure he does.”

“Yeah, but why not your general? You’ll need someone to be a soldier. To know the military. Why not me?”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Okay then.”

He takes out his Camels and lighter and lights one and takes a drag.

I say, “Can I have one of those?”

He offers one. I take it and he lights it.

I inhale and cough and he laughs.

Chapter 73

I grab

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

off the library shelf and my phone rings.

Iris Alman

I walk back through the stacks as I answer it, “Hello?”

“Hi, Manuel.” It’s good to hear her voice. “Are you busy?”

I set the book on the table in between the guys and say, “I gotta take this,” to them and walk into the empty Reference section.

“No, just study group for Psych.”

“Oh, well if you want to call me back later…”

“No, I want to talk to you.” I take a seat on a step stool, facing the

Encyclopedia Hebraica

and say, “What’s up?” My voice is a little high.

“Do you remember a couple years ago, you asked me to make that bot?”

“Sure.”

“Well, there’s bad news and worse news. Which do you want first?”

“The worse news.”

“Oh. Well, even if it did work, we wouldn’t have the processing power.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have given you a choice, the worse news doesn’t really make sense without hearing the bad news first.”

I laugh, “Okay?”

“Well, the bad news is I don’t know how to make the program work. A learning, evolving bot? It’s just too much.”

“Okay, that’s what you said before, right?”

“Yeah. It is. I mean, no one’s ever done anything like that before. And I just wanted to tell you I don’t think I can either.”

“All right.”

“And, well, you remember the worse news.”

“You don’t have enough processing power? What does that mean?”

“I did make some progress on it. But it’s become pretty apparent that even if it did work, which it doesn’t, it wouldn’t matter. A program like that, the amount of information to be processed before being uploaded, it’s just, my computer can’t run it. It’s… the amount of cycles required, my computer would crash, or if I turned off the cap, it would overheat and melt my CPU.”

“Okay, so you need a new computer?”

“Yeah.”

“How much would that cost?”

“Hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“Oh. Computers cost that much?”

“Supercomputers do.”

“I don’t have that.”

“No shit. Only governments and major corporations have them.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, right?”

“I guess not. Barring any major breakthroughs, no. So, what do you want me to do?”

“Don’t worry about it. When I asked for it, I was just throwing out an idea. I don’t know anything about this stuff. Just keep maintaining the website. I’ll keep paying you for that.”

“Manuel…”

“And please don’t try to argue.”

She sighs, “Okay, I won’t. How’s it going over there?”

“Good, good. Terrible.”

She laughs. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. It’s been years and nothing’s happening. Less than even high school. Why am I even here, Iris?”

“You tell me.”

“I just thought I was destined for something more. I am supposed to be doing something more. But I can’t figure out what that is. I’m just over here living life.”

“Just like the rest of us.”

“Yeah. And just like anybody else, nobody’s really paying any attention to me.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t know if I will.”

“Well, you’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

We say goodbye and she hangs up and I put my phone back in my pocket. I stand up and walk back to my study group.

Chapter 74

Israel is sick, the whole world knows that. The only ones who don’t seem to know it are the Israelis themselves, who’ve just become numb to the pain.

I finish speaking and the woman asks me another question, then it cuts to a pundit criticizing me. Then she criticizes me. The program ends and I turn it off. I should never have agreed to do that interview.

My phone rings.

Unknown Number

I answer, “Hello?”

Someone yelling at me in Hebrew, talking too quickly for me to understand.

I hang up.

The phone rings.

Unknown Number

I silence the phone, make dinner, eat, read, and go to bed.

I wake up and check my phone. 26 missed calls. 25 unknown numbers and one from Cohen. I call him back. “Maybe you should come over,” he says.

I step out into the street and I can feel their eyes on me. I take the bus across town and people whisper and glance at me.

At least they’re paying attention.

I get off and walk to Cohen’s building.

A woman and her children stare at me as I walk into the courtyard. I go up the stairs and knock on the door. Rachel answers it, “Hi, Manuel,” and lets me in. “I’ll get Judah.”

She disappears down a hallway and Cohen comes out. “Shalom, Moshiah.”

“Hello, Rabbi.”

“It’s been too long.”

I say, “Yeah,” and we hug.

We separate and he says, “Would you like something to drink?”

I shake my head.

He pours us some wine and we go out to the balcony. He slides the door shut behind us and I lean with my forearms against the rail. I look out at the Old City, at the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock.

He says, “A lot of people watched that story on you.”

“Seems like every person in the country.”

“You know what they say, no publicity is bad publicity.”

I hold my glass up and he clinks it. I say, “To no such thing as bad publicity.”

We drink.

I say, “Actually, the story’s not even bad. So they said they didn’t think I was the messiah, what else is new? People just didn’t like the parts where I criticized Israel. They think they need a united front and only say these things in private, like it’s the mafia or something. I’m just glad more people are paying attention. That’s not what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is, we should take advantage of this. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

“It takes time. Patience.”

“I’ve been very patient.”

“Have you?”

“Well no, I’ve been very impatient. But I have waited. And done everything I’m supposed to. Practicing being a good politician. Studying Hebrew. Being charming. Not dating non-Jews.”

He says, “Or anyone at all. Maybe that’s the problem? I could start setting you up on a few dates? If you found a wife, wouldn’t you feel less frustrated?”

“What are you, a yenta?”

He laughs. “How have you been, Manuel?”

“Fine. Class is going good. How about you?”

“Also good. I’m enjoying teaching.”

I say, “Did you ever think we’d be here, two years later, just doing nothing?”

“We’re not doing nothing. I knew this would take a long time. I’m not as young as you, I’m used to things going slowly, to waiting.”

“But now we have some heat, let’s take advantage of it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

He says, “Okay. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughs.

I say, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. We want different things.”

“Do we? Don’t we both want for you to be king?”

“Yes. But I want a revolution. You want a war with the Arabs, which I don’t even understand why, because it makes no sense how that would help us.”

“Because the war with the Muslims is the final prophesized war. Even the Muslims believe that. And once the war begins, people will want Mashiakh, they will turn to you naturally.”

“But there’s no cause and effect there, you’re just hoping that’s how people will react.”

“Okay, fine, so what’s your big plan?”

“I don’t have a plan, but I did get an idea during one of my political classes. You know there’s no line of succession in the Israeli government. There’s no vice prime minister. When the prime minister dies, the cabinet chooses an interim prime minister. So we don’t need to convince the rabbis or the whole population of Israel, we just need to convince twenty politicians.”

“What are you saying, you want to assassinate the prime minister?”

I shrug.

He says, “Are you prepared to do that? Kill Mazal Ravid?”

“He’s a murderer.”

“So would you be.”

“We’re talking about starting a war, how many would die then? Politicians train us to see killing politicians as a tragedy, but they kill soldiers and even civilians all the time and that’s, eh, part of life.”

He says, “Leaving all that aside, how would you convince the cabinet to choose you as the interim prime minister?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Especially after killing the last prime minister.”

“Well theoretically they wouldn’t know about that.”

“I see.”

“That said, if I can become interim prime minister, especially with a cabinet that considers me the messiah, it could be a simple matter dismantling the government and setting up a monarchy.”

“Simple.”

“Well, not simple.”

“You might as well just run for prime minister. Wouldn’t you need the support of the people? And why would they ever follow you in this?”

“You’re right.”

He smiles smugly. “I am?”

“I don’t like it, but you are right. All right, stop smirking. We do still need something to make people love me. I’ve gotten famous here, but I still haven’t won them over.”

“Wasn’t that why we were trying to win over the Haredi, speaking to all the rabbis? Shouldn’t we get back to that? It’s a slow process, but we take it one step at a time.”

“No, that wasn’t working. It’s not that it was going slowly, it wasn’t working at all. We were trying to take it one step at a time, starting with the easiest step. And even that was too difficult. We need something that can jump over all those steps. One giant leap.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. All right, I told how I would start my revolution, how would you start your war?”

“How difficult would it be to start a war with the Arabs? We accept their suicide bombings all the time, but I bet you if we blew up one little place half as populated, they’d invade in a heartbeat.”

“First of all, we’re not doing that. Second of all, the Israeli government does blow up civilian targets and what has that ever accomplished? But first of all, killing civilians is what we’re here to stop, not do ourselves.”

“A means to an end.”

“You sound like them.”

“Like who?”
“A terrorist. Or a politician.”

“Well, what are we here to be?”
“It’s a no, Cohen.”

“Okay, fine. But what do you think, you can avoid war altogether and still be mashiakh?”

“I know the war’s inevitable. I’m not naive enough to think we can conquer the world without any war at all. But it’ll be with other enemy nations after we conquer Israel. Not against civilians.”

“It was just an idea, I wasn’t really saying to. That said, if we blew up one little mosque…”

“What do you want to do, blow up the Dome of the Rock?”

He laughs. He turns and looks at it.

I look at it too, it’s golden dome gleaming in the sun.

I say, “That was rhetorical, Cohen.”

“It’s perfect. Think about it.”

“No.”

“Just think about it. It’s an announcement to both the Jews and the Muslims. To the Jews, it says we’re ready to rebuild the Temple, which must be rebuilt on that spot. It’s a prophecy and it says we’re fulfilling it. To the Muslims it says, we’re going to take back what’s ours, what you stole from us.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s filled with people.”

“We’ll do it at night.”

“It’s one of the most important, greatest historical sites on the planet.”

“Exactly. So it will be important to them. You’re right, they don’t care if we kill a few civilians. Most Muslims don’t care at all about the Palestinians. They just use them as accusations against Jews. But this they will care about. This will provoke them.”

“That’s a no, Cohen. That’s a one hundred percent no.”

“Immanuel…”

“Am I your messiah or not?”

“Yes?”

“Then I’m telling you, as your messiah, as your king, it’s a no. We’ll come up with something else.”