Verse (20 page)

Chapter 88

I pull up in front of the hospital, people are clustered in front, many wearing scrubs, some of them screaming and crying, and more people are coming out, aides helping patients through the door. Gunfire sounds come from within. An empty Humvee is parked by the door.

I grab Awadi’s Uzi from the passenger seat and it shakes, my hand is shaking. I try to settle it with the other, but both of my hands are shaking.

All right.

I can do this.

Okay.

I open the door, my stomach lurching, and I step out.

I swallow and walk across the parking lot toward the hospital.

Sweat gets in my eye and I wipe my forehead, it stings with acidity.

My mouth is so dry, I’m so thirsty.

I weave through the crowd.

Ignore them, ignore their looks.

I get to the door, go around a man in a wheelchair, wheeled by a nurse. She says, “Adon? Adon?” to me and grabs the arm of my jacket and I pull it away and keep walking inside.

Machine-gunfire comes from the hallway going left.

I swallow and walk that way.

Into the corridor, it’s quiet. No more gunfire and no one here. My footsteps echo on the tile.

I put my gun up, click off the safety, and aim it in front of me with both hands.

Try to keep it steady.

Steady.

Slowly move forward.

What am I doing?

This is stupid, they’ll shoot me if they see the gun.

I lower it and click the safety back on and tuck it in the back of my pants. It sags. I untuck my jacket over it.

Slowly walk forward. Reach a corner and peer around it.

Another empty corridor.

There’s bodies on the ground, Israeli soldiers.

I go to the bodies and check. Four of them, riddled with bullet holes, blood everywhere. Three of them lying on top of each other, the other splayed out.

I go to the one splayed out and kneel down for his rifle.

Younger than me, I don’t think he was even twenty.

Bullet holes in his chest and his right cheekbone.

I grab his rifle and stand up.

No, that’s stupid, if they see me with the rifle, they’ll kill me.

I set it back down on the body. He has a grenade on his flak jacket.

I grab it.

Machine-gunfire, deafeningly close.

I creep to the end of the hallway and peer around.

Malak and three men are at the next corner. One of them kneels at the corner, peering around at whatever’s behind, aiming his rifle.

“Lower your guns!” he says.

He fires and there’s return fire and he pulls back around the corner.

What now?

Why am I here?

I look down at the grenade.

I pull the pin out.

It’s shaking.

Steady.

Come on.

Just like a baseball.

I look at them and wind my arm up.

Okay.

Do it.

Just do it.

I throw it.

It lands a couple of feet from Malak.

One of his men turns and looks at it, and shrieks.

I step back around the corner, turn, close my eye, and duck into a ball.

The hallway EXPLODES.

I wait.

All I hear is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Someone is moaning in agony.

I open my eyes and lift my head.

I stand up, turn, and peer around the corner. The ceiling and walls have collapsed.

I take out my Uzi and click the safety off.

Hold it in front of me and slowly creep forward.

All four of them lie on the ground.

The brains of the one who saw the grenade are splattered on the wall.

The neck of the one who was firing around the corner is split open and gushing blood.

The third one is moaning, his chest caved in.

Malak isn’t moving, his face blackened.

I walk up to the third one and put my gun to his forehead. He moans and thrashes. I recognize his face, he helped hold me down when they stabbed my eye out. I fire.

I check the other two. The one firing around the corner was the one who stabbed my eye out. I don’t recognize the one who saw the grenade.

I go to Malak and kneel down and check his pulse. His eyes open.

They go wide as he recognizes me.

He says hoarsely, “Rouh entak.”

I put my Uzi to his forehead. “Where’s Urdunn? Khaled.”

He says faintly, “Fuck you.” His eyes close.

I lower my gun.

I shake him.

I check his pulse.

It’s so faint.

I put my Uzi back at his forehead and pull the trigger, splattering his brains on the wall and on me.

I stand up and go to the corner and say, “Shalom? Are you alive?”

No reply.

I peer around.

Two Israeli soldiers, a boy and a girl, lay across the hall by a door, dead.

“Sorry,” I say. “Slikha.”

I go to the door they’re in front of and go inside.

Chapter 89

MRR

MRR

MRR

The prime minister, Mazal Ravid, lies on the bed, asleep, a white sheet covering all but his face, with a breathing tube coming out of his mouth.

MRR

MRR

MRR

I walk over to the bed and look down at him.

MRR

MRR

I’ve seen him on the television a hundred times. There was that press conference when a reporter asked him about me and he laughed.

MRR

Just an old man in a coma.

MRR

Defenseless.

MRR

I grab the breathing tube.

The door clicks and I turn, aiming my gun.

Erwin is at the door, aiming his gun.

I say, “Erwin, oh my god.”

He says, “Manuel, are you okay?”

We both lower our guns.

He comes toward me and we hug.

We separate and he looks at the prime minister, “He looks okay,” and then at me, “but Jesus, let’s go find you a doctor.”

I laugh. “What are you doing here?”

He smiles. “I came as soon as you hung up on me. Not fast enough, I guess, but I guess you didn’t need my help.”

“I could’ve used it.”

He heads for the door. “I’ll probably get court-martialed, but…”

“No, you won’t have to worry about that.” I grab the breathing tube.

“What?”

I say, “Our revolution is about to succeed,” and tug.

“What are you doing?” I look at him and he has his gun raised at me.

I stop tugging. “What are you doing?”

“Let go of that.”

I do and say, “You’re aiming your gun at me?”

“No.” He lowers his gun. “I mean, yes, but if that’s what you wanted, why didn’t you just let those terrorists do it?”

I shrug.

He says, “Why are you doing that? Why would you even consider that?”

I say, “You know they think I blew up the Dome of the Rock.”

“They said on the news.”

“And you know what else they said? I’m a hero.”

“Yeah. All the guys in my unit love you. Everyone does.”

“They want a leader. And they’ve turned to me. But if the prime minister wakes up, that won’t happen.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I shrug.

He says, “It’s my duty to protect him.”

“But you joined the army for me.”

“Yes…”

“Erwin, this is what we have to do.”

“No. No, not this.”

“Yes, this. There’s no other way.”

“No, I’m not gonna let you do that.”

“Erwin, as your messiah, I’m telling you, this is what we have to do.”

“Manuel, if you do that, then you’re not my messiah.”

“What?”

He nods.

I say, “When did you stop believing in me, Erwin?”

“I didn’t stop. I still believe in you.”

“So what are you doing?”

“What are you doing? You’re not a murderer. Are you?”

I shrug. “I am today. This war happened because of me. I don’t know how many people are dead. Including six, no, seven people I killed myself. And I got Iris killed.”

“But you didn’t mean for those people to die. Except for the terrorists.”

“So what? And you know the other things I’ve done.”

He says, “Like what? Took advantage of Faye? Drove Sydney to suicide? Abandoned your child?”

“Yeah.”

“And yeah, you’ve gotten a lot of people killed. Friends I made in the army are dead because of you. And they all believed in you.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t have. Why do you still believe?”

He laughs. “I don’t know.”

I say, “I don’t know either.”

“You don’t know what?”

“If I believe.”

He says, “You don’t know. You don’t know if you believe? Well what have you ever done to make things better? And now you want me to believe that if you kill this man, you’ll bring peace to Israel?”

“To the entire world, if I can.”

“This is how you bring peace?”

“First war, then peace.”

“You believe that, but you don’t believe in, what, God any more?”

“I… Do you remember we talked about the story of Moses meeting God in the burning bush?”

“Sure.”

“Moses meets God for the first time. And Moses asks who he is. And God says, I am the god of your fathers. Moses knows the stories and he accepts that. But people believed in lots of gods back then. So Moses says, people will ask me who you are and what should I say? He asks God, what’s your name, who are you really? Do you remember what God says?”

“No.”

“God says, ‘I am what I am.’”

“Okay, so what?”

“It’s a tautology. It means there’s no real answer, you just have to accept him for what he is, without explanation.”

“Okay?”

“Before people knew about God, they looked around at the world and wondered where it all came from. Gods were the explanation. But God himself says he can’t be explained. He calls himself ‘I am,’ and he says to call him, ‘He is.’ His name is ‘He is’ or Yahweh as we pronounce it today. So the world came from God, but where did God come from? He just is. So why do we need God? Can’t we just look at the world and say, ‘It is?’”

“That’s not enough for me.”

“So why is God enough?”

“Because I believe. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know if I ever believed.”

“Everything they said about you is true. So what’s that make you?”

“The devil?”

“Just like we’re supposed to be fighting.”

“The devil is the messiah, Erwin. The christ is the antichrist. In the scriptures, who is it who destroys the world? Is it God or the devil? God is the devil. Good is evil. Everything is nothing. Nothing means anything.”

“Then what was it all for?”

“It was for nothing!”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“So I can see this thing to the end.”

I raise my gun and he raises his. I fire and he fires. He collapses and the window behind me shatters.

I grab the breathing tube and pull it out.

MRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Chapter 90

I walk out of the hospital and it’s surrounded with soldiers and vehicles.

One of them spots me and aims his rifle and screams, “Tawaqaf! Qif!”

I put my hands in the air.

He keeps screaming and now dozens of rifles are aimed at me and I get down on my knees and a bunch of them are around me, putting me on the ground, knocking the wind out of me, my face against the pavement, taking my Uzi.

They talk back and forth and a pair of boots approaches and says something, and one of them lifts me back to my knees and the boots belong to Urdunn.

“Hello, Manuel,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“The men who came to kill the prime minister called Awadi. I came to help.”

“Where’s Awadi and Farid?”

I shake my head.

“Where’s Wasif and Malak and the others?”

“The Israelis killed them.”

“And you helped.”

“No, I—”

He punches me in my right eye socket and the pain devours me. I scream, “I killed Mazal Ravid!”

“Liar!”

He punches me again in the eye socket and I vomit and weep and wail.

He says something to two of the men and they run inside.

God, please just let this pain kill me.

Just let me die.

Please.

The soldiers talk amongst themselves. The pain starts to subside a little. My face is completely soaked with tears.

The two men come back and say something to Urdunn.

He looks at me and says, “He’s dead.”

“I know. I did it. It was me.”

He considers it and says, “No. I won’t fall for your lies again. I took a chance on you once and you lied before. You didn’t make your broadcast and now you’ve killed my boys.”

“I didn’t lie! I’m a Muslim! I’m a Muslim!”

“You’re an apostate and your blood is halal.”

“I’m not! I’m not!”

He says something to one of the men and they hand him a pistol. He says, “Then you’ll be in paradise in a moment.” He aims the gun at me, pressing the barrel to my forehead.

I say, “Doesn’t the Quran say that he who takes a life, it’s as if he destroyed an entire world?”

“And how many worlds have you destroyed?”

The ground explodes in fire, raining from the sky.

My skin scorches.

Men burn alive and scream and run.

I drop to my hands and push myself up onto my feet and I stumble forward.

Urdunn looks around in fright. Another explosion and he bursts apart into a thousand bloody pieces.

I’m covered in him. Blood, bone, bile, sinew, semen, shit—

In my eyes, my hair, my nose, my mouth—

I gasp, choke, and cough on blood and smoke.

More explosions.

More people burst.

A roar.

I look up.

Jets.

Explosions, machine-gunfire, people shot down.

Helicopters.

They zoom, three of them, sleek and black, landing in the crowd, and people scatter.

Soldiers pour out, firing machine guns, and throwing grenades.

Israelis.

A soldier runs up to me and shouts “Mashiakh!”

And then they’re all around me, at least a dozen soldiers, saying—

“Moshiah.”

“Manuel.”

“Immanuel.”

“Mashiakh.”

They’re all around me, crying out to me, lifting me up.

My soldiers.

Carrying me.

They lift me into the helicopter and it carries me into the sky.