An Accidental Messiah

by Dan Sofer

  A tall bald man in black walked around the chairs and stopped before them. He turned his immense nose and large sensitive eyes to them, his arms folded behind his waist like a restaurant host eager to serve his guests.

  “Welcome, Mr. Karlin,” he said, with a distinctly Russian accent. “Mrs. Karlin.” He inclined his head. “We meet at last. Thank you for joining me on such short notice. I must apologize for leaving you alone for so long. You know how things are.”

  Moshe did not know how things were, but from the conciliatory tone he inferred that he might be released sooner than he had thought.

  “I’m so very proud of you, Moshe,” the man continued. “You don’t mind if I call you Moshe, do you? Look how far you’ve come! From practically a slave to a contender in today’s elections. Although,” he wrinkled his nose, “the exit polls have not been very kind, have they?”

  This comrade of Boris knew far too much about Moshe for his liking, and his tone of exaggerated friendliness did not put Moshe at ease. The man seemed to read Moshe’s discomfort on his face, for he slapped a large hand to his forehead. “I have such bad manners. My name is Mandrake.” He bowed, then snapped his fingers. “Vitaly, if you will.”

  Another man stepped into view. Like Mandrake, Vitaly wore black and had shaved his scalp, but he was built like a tank and a long, jagged scar bisected his left cheek. When the henchman leaned over him, Moshe flinched, expecting another blow to the face, but the man peeled the tape from Moshe’s mouth.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?”

  Moshe’s lips stung from the hastily removed tape. “What do you want from us?”

  Mandrake looked insulted. “You misunderstand me. I am here to serve you. I prepared this show especially for you.”

  Moshe was about to ask “What show?” when the door behind Mandrake rattled.

  “Excuse me,” Mandrake said, “but I think our other guests have arrived.”

  The door of the warehouse swung open, and three men walked toward them in a momentary nimbus of bright light. Moshe knew them all by sight: Gray-haired Boris in his usual tweed jacket; King Kong trudging beside him. The third visitor made Moshe’s blood boil.

  CHAPTER 72

  “Sit,” Hasan said and Ahmed obeyed, settling on the simple school chair. Plaster flaked from the walls of the room, which stank of damp rot. No one lived there. This was no place for the living.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  Again, he obeyed.

  Hasan had led him to the empty apartment in Silwan, two streets down from the garage hangout, to prepare for his mission. Before his first mission, his skin had tingled and he had worried about being captured by the Israeli authorities. This time, he felt numb. He would do whatever Hasan commanded. Soon it would all be over.

  Hasan pulled a pair of thick gloves over his hands and draped a stained sheet over Ahmed’s shoulders. With the handle of a worn toothbrush, he stirred the mixture inside a plastic tub and applied the thick yellow paste to his cousin’s hair. The chemical broth smelled of rotting fish, like the crates of offal Ahmed had lugged to the trash enclosure outside the Rami Levi supermarket in Talpiot.

  Ahmed closed his eyes and focused on the gloved hands that pulled at his hair and worked the dye into his scalp, the last human touch he would experience in this life.

  “No one has done this before,” Hasan said. “A double martyr. You will be a hero. No, more than that—a legend.”

  Ahmed opened his eyes. He would be neither. He no longer believed the lies. The mission would line Hasan’s pockets but Ahmed would find neither glory nor Paradise. He sought neither of those now, only the black emptiness of nothingness.

  Hasan placed the tub on the floor and plugged a blow dryer into a cracked wall socket. The machine whined and blew hot air over Ahmed’s sticky head, then fell silent. The stench of singed hair hung thick in the air.

  “What now?”

  “We wait.”

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “The Jews have wised up over the years. No one does buses anymore. Their wall has made moving explosives difficult, and the bus stations are full of soldiers. You can’t walk around looking like a sad Arab kid.”

  Ahmed nodded. He waited in silence while Hasan leaned against the wall, smoked Peter Stuyvesants, and toyed with his fancy mobile phone. After a few minutes, he glanced at his shiny watch and stubbed out his cigarette. He dried Ahmed’s hair with a towel and plugged another machine into the wall. The clippers groaned and vibrated over Ahmed’s head as severed blond locks piled in his lap.

  Hasan turned off the clippers, pulled off the sheet, and threw him a new black T-shirt. “Stand.”

  Hasan placed a harness over Ahmed’s shoulders and tightened the straps about his chest. Bulging packs of explosives pressed into his ribs, covered in plastic bags stuffed with metal screws and ball bearings. Last time, Ahmed had hefted the payload in a shoulder bag; today his body was the bomb. Maybe this time he would stay dead.

  Hasan helped him into a thin black jacket and threaded the detonator cable through the sleeve.

  “Remember how it’s done?”

  Ahmed nodded. “Where do you want it to happen?”

  His cousin shrugged. “Find a crowd during rush hour.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “You have enough time to get into position.” He held up a mirror for Ahmed. “What do you think?”

  Ahmed stared into the frameless, chipped square in his cousin’s hands. A boy with a blond Mohawk stared back. The boy wasn’t him; Ahmed was already dead.

  CHAPTER 73

  Tuesday afternoon, Eli stood outside a large blue door on Shilo Street and prepared to bare his heart. He pressed the buzzer. Pulling off a riding glove with his teeth, he combed his hair with his free hand. The other hand held a fresh bouquet of roses and the delicate aroma of new beginnings.

  He had changed and Noga would forgive him—of course she would!

  A gutter ran down the center of the narrow cobbled lane. Short metal poles of red and white guarded the grubby stone façades from passing vehicles. Nachlaot, a labyrinth of courtyards and stony alleys, had sprouted in the late nineteenth century, when Jews settled the hills outside the Old City walls in order to escape the cramped conditions within. Mishkenot Yisrael, Mazkeret Moshe, and Knesset Yisrael had followed. A century later, as the city expanded further, the hive of arched windows and haphazard balconies had fallen into decay until recent gentrification projects had revived the quaint neighborhood and sent property prices soaring.

  Eli had not researched the neighborhood’s history on the Internet; he had witnessed the evolution firsthand. His memories were real, not the creaking of an unhinging mind. Noga’s research proved that.

  A giddy sense of release flowed through him. No longer did he have to repress his memories or deny his identity. He was Elijah of Tishbe, priest, prophet, and messianic harbinger. Granted, his prophetic intuition had fled along with his miraculous powers. He lacked the tools to fulfill that destiny and the sheer magnitude of the task scared him to his core. But despite all that, his all-night catharsis had unearthed an empowering insight along with a hidden vial of optimism for the fate of mankind. And so, he had never been both so ill prepared and yet at the same time highly motivated to complete his historic mission. The irony was not lost on him.

  Behind the gate, feet thumped down steps, but the footfalls were too heavy to belong to Noga.

  When the gate swung inward, a large woman blocked the path to the apartment building. Her small eyes moved from the flowers to his face, and the mouth on the pudgy face smiled, revealing a large set of buckteeth. The image of a chipmunk rose in his mind, a chipmunk ogling a mound of tasty acorns.

  “You must be Sarit,” he said. “I’m Eli.”

  “I know all about you,” she said, and smirked.

  Eli swallowed, hoping that at least some of what she had heard about him had been flattering. “Is she here?”

  She leaned a flabby arm on the edge of the gate.
“How did you find me?” The playful lilt in her voice implied that she had waited all day for his arrival. Her smile widened and Eli feared she might start gnawing at his head.

  “With this,” he said, and he retrieved Noga’s phone from his pocket. “And the Internet.”

  She held out her hand, palm up, and he handed over the phone.

  “Come on up,” she said, and she sauntered toward the apartment block, rolling her hips.

  He followed her up a flight of stairs, his heart thumping in his chest, and he rehearsed the speech he had prepared on the way. The words had a lot in common with his previous revelatory speech, the one he had delivered to Noga in the secret garden courtyard at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. That speech had ended in disaster, but a lot had changed since then. He only hoped that this time she’d be more forgiving.

  Sarit unlocked an apartment door and stepped into a small but homey living room. Well-thumbed novels crammed an IKEA bookshelf. In a small fishbowl, a guppy circled a water plant. A patterned rug led to a sagging couch, but no sign of Noga.

  His hostess slipped into the kitchen, returned with a vase, and relieved him of the flowers. “Have a seat.”

  Eli settled on the edge of the couch, expecting Noga to emerge from the corridor any moment.

  Sarit sat down beside him. “So,” she said, brushing a lock of mousy hair behind her ear, “you’re the one with the private jet?”

  How much had Noga shared with her? “A charter,” he said, and avoided her hungry chipmunk eyes. “I don’t travel often.”

  Her head bobbed up and down. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Something stronger?” Her voice had dropped to a knowing purr. Was she stalling?

  “Is she here?”

  “No,” Sarit said, still grinning at him.

  “Where is she?”

  Sarit laughed as though he had asked her to dance on the ceiling. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then you’ll try to stop her.”

  “Stop her?” he repeated. “Stop her from what?”

  CHAPTER 74

  In Avi Segal’s fantasies, he drove Moshe Karlin’s car, owned his home, and lived with his wife. Moshe himself had not featured in these fantasies. In fact, the defining characteristic of Avi’s romanticized victory was the complete and utter absence of his ex–best friend and, lately, political adversary.

  But now, as he stood over the cowed figure tied to a chair in a dank warehouse, surrounded by Boris’s henchmen, he couldn’t resist rubbing Moshe’s nose in his defeat.

  “Moshe, Moshe, Moshe,” he said. “I told you to stay away from her.”

  In the offices of Upward earlier that day, Avi had been busy sipping wine and high-fiving Gurion’s campaign and media teams while the exit polls rolled in, when Boris had appeared in the doorway.

  “We’re busy here,” Avi had hissed at him. “What do you want?” He could not be seen with the thug, who seemed intent on spoiling his moment of glory.

  “I have a surprise for you,” was all the Russian would say, and Avi had grudgingly followed him out of the building.

  A surprise was an understatement! Tying Moshe to the chair seemed a bit too dramatic, but the message was clear: I win, you lose. For once, Moshe had run out of witty comebacks. That’ll teach him.

  He turned to tell Boris to let the runt go—Avi had places to go—when a whimper drew his attention to a second seated figure, bound and gagged, who peered at him with a mixture of fear and pleading in her eyes.

  “Boris,” he said. “What the hell is the matter with you? Let her go right now!”

  Boris said nothing and made no move to release Galit.

  “Aren’t you happy with our little gift?” said a bald man in black. He had an enormous nose.

  “Who the hell are you?” Avi was having none of this. He had powerful friends. As number nine on the Upward list, he would soon be a member of Knesset himself.

  “My apologies,” Big Nose said. “We have not been formally introduced. Mandrake.” He gave a slight bow. “I make dreams come true.”

  What was this Mandrake smoking? Avi turned to Boris, who stared at the floor in meek silence. It was apparent that Mandrake called the shots in here, so Avi opened his mouth to tell him to free Galit, when Mandrake said, “Vitaly, will you do the honors?”

  Another bald thug in black stepped toward Moshe and placed a long-barreled handgun to his temple.

  “Wait!” Avi cried, his voice echoing off the corrugated walls. All eyes turned to him. “Don’t… don’t shoot him.”

  Mandrake peered at him with surprise. “I don’t understand. Moshe Karlin is your enemy. Surely you want to be rid of him?”

  Moshe blinked at Avi, his chest heaving. Galit stared, her eyes wide.

  “I don’t want to kill him!” This Mandrake was a real wacko. How had he gotten mixed up with these people?

  “Oh, I see. Very well.” Mandrake waved his hand and Vitaly stood down, the gun disappearing into his clothes.

  Then Mandrake gave his head a slight nod, and thick arms grabbed Avi under the armpits, lifting him into the air, pushing his neck forward and his shoulder blades back, and he cried out in pain. Avi had experienced these sensations before, and so he knew that Boris’s giant held him in a steely vise.

  “Put me down, you idiot!” He had powerful friends. A seat in the government. They couldn’t hurt him, could they?

  Mandrake scratched his head. “You’ve put me in a tricky situation, Avi. You see, I have two horses in this race—you and our friend Mr. Karlin here. No point competing against myself. Your numbers are looking more favorable at the moment, so I had thought to keep you, but I suppose now you’ve given me no choice. Vitaly, if you will?”

  Vitaly stepped forward, drew his gun, and aimed at Avi’s head.

  “No!” Avi cried, losing all sense of entitlement. “Please, no!”

  CHAPTER 75

  By the afternoon, the crowd at the Dry Bones Society had thinned as reporters left to cover parties that might actually win a seat in Knesset. Society members also slunk off one by one, each remembering that they had urgent things to do somewhere else.

  Irina collected empty paper cups off the refreshment tables and the floor of the call center and tried to stay out of Sivan’s way. The campaign manager stood in the middle of the room, her arms folded, and stared at the screen where a pair of political commentators analyzed the results. At first they had joked about Restart’s lack of support; now they didn’t bother mentioning the once-hopeful party at all.

  “I don’t believe it,” Sivan muttered. “We’ll demand a recount.”

  “Let them finish counting first,” Shmuel said. “Not that it’ll help any.” He leaned against the window of Moshe’s office beside Rafi, who stared at his feet. The rabbi hadn’t left Moshe’s office since he had arrived. Irina didn’t blame him.

  “Where is he?” Sivan had asked the same question all morning. It wasn’t like Moshe to hide from defeat, but Irina didn’t blame him either. He had bet everything on winning seats in the election, and without friends in the new government, their hard-earned gains would disappear overnight.

  “Meatballs?” Savta Sarah said. She peered up at Irina, her eyes filling her glasses, disposable bowls of steaming food on the tray in her hands. “Stuffed cabbage?”

  “No thanks, Savta.”

  “Cheer up, girl. While there is life, there is hope.”

  A caustic laugh escaped Sivan’s mouth but she stayed glued to the big screen.

  “Where is your boyfriend?” Savta continued.

  Irina sucked in a deep breath. Another good question. Aloud she said, “He went to pick up Moshe this morning, but they haven’t arrived yet. They’re not answering their phones either.”

  Savta seemed taken aback. “That’s not like Moshe—not to show up for work. Have you called the police?”

  “They’re probably sharing
a beer in a bar somewhere,” Shmuel said. “Which is not such a bad idea.” The poor results had sharpened his cynicism.

  “Savta’s right,” Irina said. “Maybe something happened to them.”

  Knuckles rapped on the door of the call center. A man stood on the threshold. He wore a black leather jacket and held a large bouquet of roses. Irina walked over to greet the stranger, who had obviously lost his way.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m looking for Noga Shemer.”

  Irina shrugged and shook her head. The name didn’t ring a bell.

  The man frowned. Stubble peppered his manly jaw and thick locks of jet-black hair fell over his forehead. This Noga Shemer was a lucky gal.

  “She was on her way here this morning,” he said, “to meet a Moshe Karlin. She’s about twenty-eight. Average height. Intelligent. Beautiful. Stubborn, at times.” He smiled.

  Irina remembered. “Oh, her! She waited all morning for Moshe, but he wasn’t in so she spoke with the rabbi. She really is quite pretty.” You’re rambling, Irina. Stop that. “She left about an hour ago.”

  “Oh.” His expression darkened. Broken stems stuck out where some of the flowers had fallen off. He had obviously been searching for her a long time. Hope flickered in his dark eyes. “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, thanked her, and left.

  She turned around to find that the others—Shmuel, Rafi, and Savta Sarah—had joined Sivan, and together they watched the screen with open mouths.

  Enough was enough. “Guys,” she said, “maybe it’s time we turned that off.”

  “Shh!” they said as one.

  Irina drew near. A bar chart was displayed on the television while the commentators jabbered in the background. Of the dozen colored bars, three rose above the others and one of them towered even higher. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re in the lead,” Sivan said without turning from the screen.

  Rabbi Yosef emerged from the office and joined them.

  “I don’t understand,” Irina continued. “I thought we had no votes.”