Call Me Joe

by Martin Van Es

  Within a few days of the announcement being made, the event had taken on the proportions of a major rock concert. Twenty-foot fences had to be erected around the venue, catering caravans were rolled in, lighting rigs went up and competing production companies staked their claims to be the official film crew.

  Instead of having a quiet conversation with an interviewer in a room, Joe was now to be displayed on a high stage, with a film crew projecting the conversation up onto giant screens around the venue. Because the numbers of people who would be able to get into the venue had increased, a VIP area had to be roped off at the front and another team of organisers was hired to make sure that happened smoothly.

  Security systems had to be set up to ensure that the stage area did not become swamped with people wanting to get close to Joe. Security passes became a valuable currency in their own right.

  The Ukrainian read everything he could find about the plans for the venue and, five days before the event, while it was still a building site, he casually strolled in wearing a hard hat, a donkey jacket and work boots, carrying a tool box. No one challenged him as he walked purposefully around, taking in every detail, occasionally stopping, getting out a tool and pretending to adjust it in order to give himself time to study a particular entrance or exit more closely.

  This, he decided, would be an easier venue for him to move around in unnoticed, but he would need to have a pass hanging around his neck on the day if he didn’t want to risk being stopped and questioned. Late that night he rang a number he had been given and told them what he needed.

  “It will be hard to get,” he was told.

  “You have someone on the inside. Get them to arrange it.”

  “They are becoming reluctant to expose themselves any further.”

  “Then you will need to apply the correct amount of pressure.”

  The Ukrainian hung up and a few days later a messenger arrived at the apartment where he was staying with a parcel containing a lanyard with an “All-Areas” security pass attached, bearing a doctored version of his photograph. All he had to do now was make sure that he looked like the photo on the day.

  It was going to take time to get the crowds in and out and so musicians were approached to entertain from the stage for a couple of hours before and after Joe’s interview. Everyone who was approached wanted to perform, even if it meant interrupting touring obligations in other countries and being flown into New Zealand specially. In the heat of the excitement, any voices that questioned the environmental costs of such extravagance were drowned out. Another team was set up to handle the booking and the care of the acts. Within weeks it had become the most well-publicised concert ever, with Joe’s conversation topping the bill.

  Forty

  Joe was allocated a trailer to get ready in before the show, but he had nothing that he needed to prepare, so he was happy when Sophie knocked on the door and asked if he needed company. They could hear the first musical act playing on stage a hundred yards away and the rumble of the crowd both inside the venue and outside the fences.

  “Are you actually going to be answering these questions then?” she asked once she had settled into one of the sofas and had helped herself from his fruit bowl. “Or are you going to fall back on your usual trick of answering every question with another question?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Oh, ha ha!” She threw a cushion at him. “It’s chaos out there. Everyone is trying to get into the VIP area and getting really angry that they are being turned away, and everyone who is actually inside the velvet rope wants to get in here.”

  “They can come if they want,” Joe shrugged.

  “Security won’t let them through. Quite right too. This place couldn’t hold them and the ones who couldn’t get in would feel left out.”

  “Just you and me then.”

  “Yeah,” she grinned happily and passed him the fruit bowl. “So have you seen the questions in advance?”

  “They showed me the most popular ones.”

  “And do you know what you are going to say?”

  “The truth.” He bit into an apple and winked at her, making her heart give a familiar skip.

  There was a knock on the door and a well-groomed woman in way too much make-up poked her head in, letting the noise of the concert in with her for a moment. Sophie recognised her as a television newscaster and interviewer.

  “Hi,” she said, “I’m Gilly and I’m going to be asking you the questions that the people have sent in.”

  Joe shook her hand and she showed none of the signs of deference that Sophie had grown used to seeing in everyone who met him. This woman, it seemed, had true self-confidence and was determined to keep her journalistic distance.

  “Is there anything you want to run through before we go on?” Gilly asked.

  “I think it will be fine,” Joe smiled disarmingly, and Sophie was alarmed to feel a pinprick of jealousy.

  A young woman wearing headphones appeared in the doorway.

  “Time to go,” she said, ushering Joe and Gilly towards the steps at the back of the stage.

  The Ukrainian, dressed as an anonymous technician, with a clipboard, an earpiece and radio that he could talk into if he wanted to avoid anyone starting a conversation with him, walked a few paces behind, apparently going about his own business. None of them felt the need to turn and look at him.

  Since she was now being completely ignored, Sophie made her way back to the VIP area and found Lalit’s daughter Alice, who had managed to smuggle several friends past security with the sort of rich-girl self confidence that Sophie half envied and half resented.

  The crowd was already high from the music and a roar of approval went up as Joe’s face appeared on the screens, magnified and glowing down onto the crowds below in a golden light. More screens had been erected outside the fences so that the thousands who were unable to get in could still feel involved. With an explosion of music, an introductory video beamed out across the crowd, showing digitally enhanced versions of his miracles and clips of him speaking in a multitude of languages, followed by spectacular aerial shots of the giant crowds and campsites that had grown all round the city. A booming voiceover announced the findings by the scientists of evidence of divinity. Finally the cameras cut to live aerial pictures taken from drones that swooped over the heads of the crowds at the event and an even greater roar of anticipation rose up as people realised the moment had come.

  Gilly stepped out first into the spotlight and for a second the ecstasy seemed to calm.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, “now is the moment you have all been waiting for. Has Jesus Christ returned to walk amongst us once more? Please make plenty of noise for Joe; the man who many believe will be our Saviour!”

  As Joe stepped out onto the stage the cameras followed his progress and beamed it out through the screens so that no one would be left out. He and Gilly took their seats to the crash of drums and applause and waited for the noise to die down.

  After several minutes, the crowd noise had finally subsided and Gilly was able to make her introduction with a précis of Joe’s achievements since his return. The Ukrainian slid into a position at the side of the stage where he was able to see Joe and Gilly and could also watch most of the guests in the VIP area at the same time.

  “So,” Gilly said, turning to him with a broad smile, “are you, Joe, the same person as Jesus, the Son of God and Mary, who was born over two thousand years ago in Bethlehem?”

  “Yes,” Joe smiled modestly, “I am the Son of God and I have returned as Joe, but I was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem.”

  “With God as your father and Mary as your mother, are you a human being or are you divine?”

  “I have the privilege of being both.”

  The crowd received this confirmation with ecstatic rapture
.

  “Is it different this time?” Gilly asked.

  “It is different,” he replied after a few moments of thought. “And I am also different from then. When I think back, I was perhaps a little naïve. My knowledge and experience are now richer, but even now I will still bear the shortcomings of this age on Earth. I still recognise myself, yes.”

  “Now that you are so open, and thank you for that, can I ask, was there a ‘companion’, a woman, in your life back then?”

  “Ah, you are looking for a love story, Gilly!” He laughed and for a moment Sophie thought he was going to evade the question. She held her breath, not sure if she wanted to hear whatever he might say next, wanting to believe that she was the only woman for him in this life or any other, but knowing in her heart that was unlikely. “I knew women during my life here, but it never led to a marriage. I needed all my energy for the work. But if you are asking whether I know how love feels, then yes, I have experienced it.”

  Sophie felt tears prickling up behind her eyes. Could she dare to hope that he was thinking about her when he said that?

  “Can you tell us a little more about your father, about God?” Gilly asked.

  “Gladly. People used to picture God the way they wanted him to be. They liked to create a familiar image of an old wise man with a beard. That is the way they used to look at gods. Many things happened in nature that people did not understand, so they wanted a God who was not only almighty but also performed miracles, read thoughts, punished sins, answered prayers. They even wanted him to be vengeful because that was how they were themselves. Over time their interpretation and insights of God have changed. But God himself has not changed.

  “Now you need to try to see God in the non-figurative sense. You cannot see God as a man of flesh and blood, so let go of that image. God, my father, is also your father; he is the father of everything and everyone. He is an energy that is everywhere. You find God everywhere in the cosmos, in nature on Earth, and sometimes in yourself. This picture is sufficient.”

  A ripple of applause as he paused grew in volume as it spread through the crowd.

  “Why does God need a trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?” Gilly asked once the applause had settled down.

  “The trinity is unknown to me,” Joe replied. “The Christian church invented it because it fitted into their reasoning. God is God, God is the Holy Spirit, who is not a separate entity, and God is also his Son, whom he has now sent to this planet for the second time.”

  “So has God actually created everything, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, the universe, the laws of nature?”

  “They are all the work of God. Also this universe, as you know it, and the laws of nature. God is the embodiment of the laws of nature, not as a human being, but as a force of energy.”

  “You say ‘this universe’. Does that mean there are multiple universes?”

  “They come and go. You may be able to prove that they exist but you will never be able to explore other universes. Just accept that they are there.”

  “A huge number of people have come to understand the theory of evolution. I confess to being one of them. So if that theory is true, how can the whole ‘creation by God’ theory be true?”

  “Is it possible that evolution is a gift to the world from God, do you think?” Joe asked.

  “You mean like giving us free will? Like, he gave us the freedom to evolve?”

  Joe spread his hands wide, as if offering her the idea without insisting she believed it.

  “As with most things,” he continued, “it does not have to be one or the other. Yes, God makes big bangs take place, creating universes. And this beautiful planet is part of this overwhelming universe. You have determined that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and that the first single-celled organism came into existence quite soon afterwards. That statement may be correct. If so, then this first living, single-celled organism is the creation of God.”

  “By far the most asked question, Joe,” Gilly announced, “is ‘Why are we here?’ Everyone wants to know that. I know I certainly do.”

  The crowd bellowed their agreement and their approval of the question, hungry for enlightenment.

  “Perhaps it is simpler than we think,” Joe replied. Instantly the venue was silent and everyone was listening intently. “Do you think it is a question that bothers any other species? Does the lion worry about why he is here when he is dozing in the shade with a full stomach? Does the butterfly wonder as he settles on a flower? We are here to look after one another and love one another, to grow strong and to procreate and then to fade away. We are here to create beautiful art and music, to start companies and invent helpful things. We are here to form networks and learn new skills. Or perhaps we are here simply to wonder what our purpose is. Confucius said that compassion is the only universal answer to everything. So perhaps compassion is the reason we are here.”

  “Different religions have different names for their gods,” Gilly went to the next question. “What is his correct name?”

  Joe laughed. “There can be as many names as there are languages. He is happy with all of them, but he is more than just a name, more than just a hundred names. He is also nature and the spiritual source of everything. It doesn’t matter what you choose to call him, as long as you remember that he is there.”

  “So God is the same as Allah, Jahwe and Brahma?”

  “Absolutely, yes.”

  “Can you prove that God exists?” Gilly asked and the crowd gave a low murmur as if they now disapproved of such an impolite public challenge to someone they had already chosen to believe in.

  “Why do I need to prove it?” Joe asked, genuinely puzzled. “Just look around you at the world and all its wonders. He proves his existence every day by making the sun rise and set, by making the water flow and the natural world reproduce. I am also proof, sitting here in front of you. Do you really need more? And what is proof anyway? Can you show me proof that lying is morally reprehensible? Of course not, but it is still true.”

  “How can someone have a personal relationship with God?” Gilly asked once the bellow of approval from the crowd had died away.

  “It’s easy,” Joe said, “just do good and show love to everyone around you.”

  “The next most asked question,” Gilly returned to her script, “is why God allows so much suffering in the world when it must be within his power to stop it?”

  The crowd fell silent once more, thousands of people craning forward as one to hear the answer to a question that had occurred to all of them at some time or another.

  The Ukrainian busied himself consulting his clipboard as he noticed an armed security man watching him from the other side of the stage with a puzzled expression. Pretending to receive a message through his earpiece, he said, “On my way,” into his radio and moved quickly out of the security man’s eye line, circling round to the VIP area.

  “Suffering is part of life,” Joe said after a few moments’ pause. To Sophie it almost seemed like he was leaving dramatic pauses on purpose to increase the impact and theatricality of his own words. “It is part of nature. We don’t question it when we see a cat jump upon a mouse or a lion upon a zebra or when a tree’s roots rot in the jungle and it is toppled by the wind. What we question is why suffering happens to us, and why it appears to be so unevenly distributed. Why do some people seem to have to suffer so much more than others? Why are some born painfully disabled and others lose their children in terrible circumstances? But that is Nature’s way, God’s way. We are no different to those animals.”

  “But surely mankind is a higher species than mice or zebras, or trees…” Gilly had gone off script.

  “Well I would like to think so,” Joe smiled, “but then I have a human mother, so I may be biased.”

  There was laughter from the crowd and
Sophie could see that Joe was enjoying himself, like a rock star soaking up the love of his fans. She felt simultaneously proud to think that she was his closest friend on Earth and jealous of the thousands of other people around her who were at that moment sharing his love. She didn’t want to share him with anyone, but she knew it was going to be impossible to keep him to herself and that thought brought on a physical pain.

  “Imagine you are a devoted grandmother,” Joe continued, “but your relationships with your husband and your children have grown unhappy, and that unhappiness is affecting everyone in the whole family. Then your beloved grandson dies in a terrible accident. You think your heart will break but you find comfort in sharing your grief with your husband and children, growing closer to them in the process. Will the loss of your grandson become a little more bearable as a result? Will your improved relationships with the rest of the family trigger other positive changes, making the bereavement a little more relative?”

  “What will the Afterlife be like?” Gilly asked, aware that the minutes were ticking past.

  “Well, you aren’t going to be seated on a throne next to God, Gilly,” Joe said, “and no one is going to be rewarded for their activities on Earth with seventy-two obliging virgins…” there was a moment of shocked silence before the crowd laughed. “But by the same token there are no lakes of fire awaiting those who have disobeyed the rules laid down by the priests and their holy books. Remember that all these pictures of the Afterlife were painted for us by men who had not been there, and many of them were thought up many thousands of years ago as ways of keeping less educated people in line, offering potential punishments and rewards on the other side of the grave in order to control their behaviour on Earth.”