Mission

by Patrick Tilley

  ‘Okay then,’ I said. ‘Whether, in the long run, we have a choice or not, I really feel we ought to try and stay together on this.’

  ‘So do I,’ she said. ‘The problem is, we don’t look at the world in the same way.’

  ‘That’s what makes it exciting, Doctor.’

  I could see she didn’t agree. ‘Leo, you spend your day poring over papers, dancing a courtly gavotte with writs, subpoenas and pleas of nolo contendere. Where the most violent thing that can happen to one of your fat cat clients is that he gets slapped with an injunction.’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ I said tiredly. ‘I get the message.’

  ‘Good,’ she replied. ‘Then you know what I’m trying to say. You go to court against Ford or General Motors over a batch of faulty back-axles. I get to fix the faces of drivers who’ve gone through the windshield. My day is spent patching people. Performing on-the-spot diagnosis of pain and sickness. Trying to hold down the statistics of fatal accidents, while your fee depends on the money you can claw back for the next-of-kin.’

  ‘Terrific. I hope you get a citation – ’

  She grabbed my hand before I could pull it away. ‘Leo, I’m not getting at you. I know you’re a caring person. It’s just that our jobs are very much part of our lives, and because of them, we have different interests, different priorities. I practise medicine because, as long as I can remember, my one consuming passion was to learn how to save people’s lives. I like the immediacy and the variety of the problems we get in Emergency. But that doesn’t make me a better person. I just happen to find it more rewarding than doing nose-jobs or prescribing Valium to frustrated suburban housewives.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Decisions like that are always easier when you don’t need the money.’ It was a cheap crack which left me wishing I’d bitten my tongue off.

  ‘That’s true,’ she said, without rancour. ‘But I also know that I don’t have the kind of stamina required to work in geriatrics, or terminal cancer wards.’

  It was breast-beating time. ‘Okay, so now you’ve made me feel terrible. But what has this got to do with you and The Man?’

  ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘I’m not interested in all that stuff about starships, Time Gates, and ‘Brax’s Black Legions. It’s irrelevant – like The Man says. I just want some of that healing power to flow into my hands. So I can put it to work.’

  I groaned at the prospect of going steady with a miracle-worker. ‘Miriam, for God’s sake, I hope you’re not really serious about this. I mean, I’m not against a little surreptitious laying on of hands but if you’re planning to turn Manhattan into Lourdes USA… woww… that’s big stuff! The City Fathers might be pleased but you could find yourself in big trouble with your colleagues at the A.M.A. I think you ought to hold off on that idea until we’ve had time to think it through.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But if he offers it to me. I’m not going to say “No”.’

  I became a mite irritated. ‘Yeah, okay. Let me know when it happens and I’ll cue in the heavenly choir.’

  ‘Leo,’ she said. ‘I’m not kidding.’

  I nodded. ‘I know. That’s what worries me. Do you have a cigarette?’

  She opened a cupboard above the drainer and produced a carton of Camels from behind the All-Bran and the Special K. I caught the tossed pack and opened it while she put the carton back in its hiding place. ‘I thought you’d switched to low tar.’

  ‘Only in public,’ she said. Our cigarettes met over a lighted match. ‘Okay, shoot…’

  ‘You asked me what my angle was,’ I said. ‘What does your female intuition tell you about his?’

  She poured us out some more coffee. ‘I’m not sure. But I’ll tell you one thing. His coming here was no accident. Are you trying to tell me God makes mistakes?’

  If you remember, it was a point I raised withTheMan at Sleepy Hollow. ‘It’s an interesting theological proposition. All I can say is – we’re in trouble if he does.’ I took another pull and waved the smoke from my eyes. ‘However, at least we agree about one thing. I know nothing about the mechanics of time-travel but I’d say that for him to land here once is a miracle, twice is an unhappy coincidence, and three times means we should cancel our holiday arrangements. The question is – what do we do if he turns up again?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why don’t you worry about that when it happens?’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ I said. ‘I just like to think ahead – get things worked out. Doctors practise preventive medicine, don’t they?’

  ‘They do,’ she replied. ‘However the real question is not “What do we do if”, but one I’ve raised before – do you want him to come back?’

  I raised my cup to my lips and sniffed the aroma before drinking. Miriam makes good coffee from her own private blend. ‘Let me put it this way,’ I began.

  ‘Cut out the bullshit,’ she said. ‘Yes, or No?’

  I took another sip. ‘It’s not quite as simple as that. There are two sides to this.’

  ‘Jeezusss,’ she groaned. ‘No wonder law suits drag on for ever.’

  ‘Keep quiet,’ I said. ‘You gave me the floor. Let’s take the positive side. Yes, I would like to hear from him again. If only to satisfy my curiosity. I’d like to hear the rest of the story because nothing he’s told us so far matches what’s written in the Book. At least not in any obvious way. I know there’s a theory that the four Gospels have both a literal and an occult meaning but it will take more than two quick readings to crack the code, even with the head start he’s given me.’

  The clues were there right enough – if you read between the lines. The trick was to reconstruct the missing pieces of the jig-saw puzzle. If you approached the Gospels, Acts and Revelations as if they were the statements of witnesses to a crime, then you held in your hands the greatest detective story of all time. But only The Man knew all the answers to the tantalising questions raised by the texts.

  ‘Now, maybe you could call that an intellectual interest,’ I continued. ‘But that’s not the way I see it. The solution to the Christ-Mystery, if that’s what’s being offered, could turn all our lives around and alter the world-view of history. Now, okay, I admit I’m not too sure whether I really want that to happen but the chance to get the inside story is irresistible.’

  She handed me an ashtray. ‘So what does that mean in simple language? Are you saying that The Man is the Messiah promised to us by the God of Israel?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m prepared to accept that he could be the historical figure known as Jesus but beyond that, I’d prefer to keep my options open.’

  Miriam threw up her hands. ‘That’s all I need. A Jewish lawyer!’

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘What do you want me to say? I know what he’s done and what he’s said – and the effect all that has had on me. But what real proof has he furnished as to his identity? He hasn’t produced any evidence that would stand up in a court of law, or any investigative body you care to mention. Okay, he did that trick with his wrists, which are where some of the so-called experts say the nails would actually have been. But he also said “Don’t be misled by what you’ve seen, or what you think you’ve seen”.’

  ‘I know,’ she interjected. ‘But he wasn’t talking about the stigmata.’

  ‘Miriam,’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea how many cases there are on record of people bleeding from the hands and feet? Literally hundreds. Wounds in their side, lacerations on their backs, scalp wounds from invisible thorns. There are even certified statements by doctors who found the scar of a cross-bladed spear wound in the heart of a dead medieval saint! Medical opinion – when it can be persuaded to face up to the evidence – classifies the phenomena as a type of hysteria. Churchmen put it down to the power of God. They’re impressed, but they’re not going to go overboard if that’s all he can come up with. As for your gut reaction, what one could call the ‘Linda-effect’, I’d say that was highly circumstantial. Charisma, in itself, is not proof of divini
ty. If it was, Charles Manson would be wearing a halo. I’m not arguing about The Man’s superhuman powers. Both of us have seen enough to convince the most hardened sceptic. But would it stand up to rigorous scientific analysis? Do you remember how they tore into Uri Geller after the Stanford Lab experiments?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miriam. ‘But I’d say that The Man was in a different league, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘No question about it,’ I said. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not knocking The Man. Everything I’ve done from the start has been on the basis of believing that he was something special. It’s been to protect him – though why the hell I should think he needs us to do that, I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Maybe he thinks we need him,’ said Miriam.

  ‘We need something,’ I said. ‘Even so, I still find it difficult to relate to the idea that we are the aliens. The strangers in a strange land who lost their memory and went to pieces. But on the other hand, it squares with the basic principles of Judaism: observance of the Torah; the idea of the divine presence in history; the emphasis on the solidarity of the community and moral virtues.’

  And also with Israel’s God-given role – to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation; To be a light unto the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prisons, and them that sit in darkness… The long forgotten words came back to me.

  ‘You know, when you think about it,’ I said. ‘None of the major religions have a monopoly of the truth, but they all contain part of it. ‘Brax has done a good job keeping everybody at arm’s length.’

  ‘Or at each other’s throats,’ observed Miriam. ‘If The Man comes back, I’d like the chance to ask some of the questions.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘But don’t waste time with the biggies. God is unknowable, and we won’t understand the Secret of the Universe until we graduate as sunbeams. But that still leaves you with quite a few questions.’

  She smiled at me. ‘What do you plan to do – write down the answers?’

  I smiled back at her. ‘I would, if that was what he wanted. Taking dictation is easy. The hard part would be nailing him down long enough to get through from start to finish. You saw what happened on Sunday morning. His movements are totally unpredictable.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a problem …’ She tapped another cigarette out of the pack, switched off the plate under the coffee pot and led the way back to the bedroom.

  I pocketed the cigarettes and matches and followed, cup in hand. We got back into bed but kept our robes on. She put an ashtray between us. ‘Okay. Now tell me why you don’t want him back.’

  ‘Awww, come on,’ I said. ‘We’ve been through most of this. Any reasons I have for wishing to avoid another encounter are inspired by my base animal instincts for self-preservation.’

  ‘That sounds like the male chauvinist piglet I’ve come to know and love,’ she said. She softened the blow with a kiss on the ear, then turned out the light and left me to finish my coffee in the dark.

  I lay there and asked myself yet again why it was only our lives he’d chosen to turn upside down. In an effort to second-guess his next moves, I had combed the New Testament looking for clues but, after the Resurrection, there was not a lot to go on. The accounts in each of the four gospels differed but it was possible to arrive at a limited consensus. The Man had disappeared when two women called Mary visited the tomb early on Sunday morning, Jerusalem time. Okay. We know where he was – in Manhattan. Two young men in white, probably Michael and Gabriel, appear to the women and tell them not to get too upset. Later, near the empty tomb, the same two women see The Man. At first, they don’t recognise him. I have a hunch that what they saw was an image of The Man as he was at a younger age; conjured up from their own memories. Whatever the explanation, he told them not to touch him – ‘… for I am not yet ascended to my Father’: John 20:17. Which must have been right after he disappeared from the morgue. John mentions that it was still dark. Mark and Luke don’t record this appearance. Luke has the two men in white, Mark only one. Matthew also only one ‘angel’ who rolls back the stone from the door to the tomb. But in Chapter 28: verse 9, he has Jesus meeting the two Marys – one of whom was Mary Magdalene – and they fall to the ground and grab his feet. In Matthew this encounter takes place before dawn; in Mark, at sunrise; in Luke, early in the morning. So at least they’re not too far apart in their timing.

  Later that same day around sunset, Luke 24:17, recounts how The Man met up with two men heading along the road to Emmaus, a village west of Jerusalem on the road to the port of Joppa. These two were from the group of seventy-two ‘sub-disciples’ known as the Followers of The Way. As The Man walks with them, they talk about the Crucifixion and he points out how the whole thing relates to the Old Testament prophecies. But despite this extended conversation, the two men don’t recognise him. They invite him into their house; he breaks bread with them and disappears. And in the same instant, they realised who they had been talking to, and knew that the promised Resurrection was a reality.

  According to Luke, the two men – one of whom was named Cleopas – drop everything and high-tail it back to Jerusalem. Not so. The Man told me later they went to Bethany – which was also on the Joppa road. Ten of the disciples were hiding out there in a house belonging to friends. The Book mentions eleven disciples but Luke’s arithmetic, as well as his timing, seems to be wrong at this point if you take John’s gospel into account. Unless they were counting Mary Magdalene as ranking with the disciples (as indeed she did and of which more later), or because the number eleven was one of the code signals that are concealed in the Gospel texts. Anyway, Cleopas and his friend arrive but before they could catch their breath and break the good news, The Man appeared in their midst and almost caused a mass cardiac arrest. He calms them down, talks for a while, eats some gefilte fish and a little bread, shakes them all by the hand – and vanishes.

  The week goes by. Nothing happens. Saturday; he turns up at Sleepy Hollow. Sunday morning we’re on the verandah then POW! Back to Jerusalem. Because eight days after his first visit, he reappears in Bethany to show his stigmata to Thomas; the disciple who had missed him the first time around.

  I thought about Miriam and The Man in the bedroom and wondered if Thomas had witnessed a similar demonstration. The Book didn’t mention The Man’s exit but I imagine that he must have walked through the wall, or a locked door because that was when he materialised in my office on the Monday morning.

  It was at this point that the trail ran out. The Gospel of St John records him as turning up at Lake Tiberias where the disciples were out fishing. The Man stands on the shore and guides them on to a huge shoal of fish. Later, while reading a commentary on the New Testament I discovered that in the opinion of many Biblical scholars, this episode is out of context. I’m pretty certain that this was one of the many allegorical code messages but I’ll tell you what The Man said about that later on. One thing at a time. Even though it probably didn’t happen, I like to imagine that he stood in the shallows, and had some kind of sonar built into his ankles. But John’s gospel did end on an intriguing note. With something like, ‘… and there were many things which Jesus did which, if they were all recorded, the world could not contain all the books which would be written’.

  I can now tell you what that means. The Man fed the disciples the same information he gave me – with one important difference. I got a brief outline, a word at a time; they got chapter and verse in one blinding mega-volt transmission. The history of the Empire; the Wars of Secession; the creation of the Netherworld; the works. No wonder it blew their minds. Let’s face it. God’s equivalent of Henry Kissinger’s The White House Years must run to quite a few pages.

  There was, however, an additional clue to The Man’s post-Resurrection movements. Chapter 1 of Acts related that The Man showed himself to his disciples – who had now been promoted to Apostles – over a period of forty days, at the end of which they were promised the gift of the Holy Spirit. The
Ascension followed, and once more two men in white step out of nowhere and – in the text, at least – dismiss the Twelve in a rather peremptory manner.

  Finally, at the Feast of the Pentecost, fifty days after the Crucifixion, the eleven Apostles and a new number twelve, recruited to take the place of the missing Judas, are in this building in Jerusalem. Suddenly the interior is swept by hurricane-force winds; the heads of the Twelve are surrounded by ‘cloven tongues of fire’; they fall down drunk and begin to babble in every language from Ashanti to Zoque.

  And that, as they say, is where it all starts happening. Except that The Man drops out of the story. No one saw him after the Ascension although he was alleged to have made voice contact with Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus. Of which, again, more later.

  As I lay there, listening to Miriam’s sleep-filled breathing, I tried to figure out what might lie ahead. If what one might call the ‘yo-yo’ effect continued, there was a strong possibility that The Man could pop up in Manhattan, and into our lives, anytime during the next five weeks.

  And then what? After the Feast of Pentecost in first-century Jerusalem, he could head back to the Time Gate or he could come back here and set up shop on a more permanent basis. Depending on what he had in mind. He’d told me, that as far as he knew, this wasn’t the end of the world but you only had to look at the global scene to realise that all the ingredients were there.

  So far, we had escaped any lasting embarrassment and public exposure. If we stayed lucky, I told myself, the five-week headache we could handle. Whatever happened, we would at least get a good story out of it. Little did I realise, as I sat there in the dark shortening my life with yet another cigarette, that The Man planned to give it such an unexpected twist.

  Chapter 11

  Thursday, 30th April dawned with a bright, clear innocence. I grabbed a quick shower, shared a cup of coffee with Miriam – who went back to bed to drink hers – then rode over to my apartment to change before catching my regular cab downtown. I met Joe Gutzman in the lobby and told him how the case was going as we rode up in the elevator. Linda made it to the office with another saga of missed connections just as I was leaving the building. I found myself involved in an over-the-shoulder conversation in which both of us kept walking and ended up shouting at forty paces. Ridiculous.