An Unexpected Afterlife

by Dan Sofer

  Moshe took another bite of pizza. That last morning, the day of his birthday party and the day he had died, there had been no playful banter at the breakfast table. He had dined alone and hurried off to the office. He had not made much of that then but now that solitary last breakfast seemed like a sign. An omen.

  “That’s very special,” Irina said. Her eyes glazed over. “I hope I find a love like that.”

  “Maybe you already have,” he said. “And he’s waiting for you to come home.”

  They chewed their pizza in silence. He had tried to encourage her but his words had only made her sad.

  A month. Thirty days seemed unbearably long. And what exactly had Avi promised him after that month? Galit had moved on. Would she turn back the clock two years, or would he remain a ghostly spectator at the sidelines of her life forever?

  Avi had been right about one thing: Moshe had never thought he’d live to see the end of Karlin & Son. It still seemed unreal. Had he lived, he probably would have been powerless to stop that. The rosy image of his perfect former life lost its shine.

  Even if, by some miracle, Avi stepped aside, how would Moshe provide for his wife and daughter? Like his grandfather, he’d have to start over from nothing. He had never prepared for that possibility. His urge to celebrate now seemed grossly premature if not outright delusional.

  “Are you OK?” Irina asked.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Moshe confessed. “Karlin & Son was the only job I’ve ever known. I didn’t go to university. Why bother? A thriving family business waited for me. Now that’s gone. I don’t know how I’ll survive.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

  Moshe had to laugh. She didn’t even know who she was, but she was ready to solve all his problems. Memory loss had its perks.

  “What?” Her lower eyelids twitched. Was he making fun of her?

  “Nothing.” He raised his bottle of Coke. “To friends.”

  The brave fairy-woman answered his toast and their bottles met in mid-air with an optimistic clink. “To friends.”

  Moshe would need all the friends he could get.

  Then, as he swallowed the last of his drink, he remembered. He had a friend. An old friend. A friend with unrestricted access to Galit. How had he not thought of her before?

  CHAPTER 14

  Irina had never seen the inside of a police station. Not as far as she could remember. In other words, not in the past twenty-four hours.

  She could count the clues to her former life on the fingers of one hand: late twenties; Russian; speaks Hebrew; and no sign of childbirth. The last fact meant nothing—her brand new body provided little evidence. Cancer and Car Accident topped her list of probable causes of death, but she preferred not to think about her demise.

  Instead, she filled the blank pages of her past with fantasies. As a wealthy heiress—a modern-day princess—she flitted across the globe to exotic getaways and dodged the advances of celebrities and moguls. Then she fell into the powerful embrace of her tall husband and doted on her brood of laughing children. The contradictions in her alternate pasts didn’t bother her in the least; she got to live the best of all possible worlds.

  As she followed Moshe, however, into the low building of Jerusalem stone and beneath the legend that read “Israel Police,” other possible worlds loomed in her mind and her stomach tightened. Did she have a criminal record? Would the officers arrest her on sight and lock her away for crimes she didn’t remember? Would she even know whether she was guilty? Her fate lay at the mercy of other people’s memories. She was glad to have Moshe at her side.

  A police officer at the entrance waved a metal detector baton over their clothes. Her jeans had frayed at the hems and the T-shirt showed bleach stains from too many laundry cycles, but they beat the rabbanit’s shapeless gowns. That morning, Rabbi Yosef had escorted them to Tal Chaim, where she and Moshe selected old clothes from cardboard donation boxes and clothes hangers in a basement. The rabbi paid a few shekels for each item and they promised to pay him back as soon as they could. Then Rabbi Yosef hurried off to work and they set out for the station.

  Irina studied the eyes of passersby for a glimmer of recognition: commuters on the bus; old ladies towing wheeled trolleys; loiterers dragging on cigarettes. Did they know her? Would they open a window on her former life? Most women ignored her. Not the men. One middle-aged man locked eyes with her so long that she stopped to ask him whether he knew her. “No, honey,” he said and winked. “But I’d like to.” Moshe had placed a protective hand on her shoulder and they moved on. Men stared. She’d have to get used to that.

  The police officer waved them in. Two women with blue uniforms and dark ponytails sat behind an information counter. They looked like identical twins. Twins with very different temperaments. One sat upright and typed away at a hidden computer terminal. The other glanced at them, her eyelids droopy with boredom. “Yes?”

  “My friend has lost her memory,” Moshe said. “We were hoping you could help us find out who she is.”

  My friend. His voice was clear and confident, his words polite. Even with the bus driver.

  “Lost person inquiries are down the hall, room 113 or on the telephone service.”

  Moshe glanced at Irina. “I’m not sure that will help. We don’t think she’s missing.”

  The other policewoman stopped typing and perked up. “If you don’t know who she is, how do you know she’s not missing, ah?”

  Moshe did not say, “Because until yesterday she was dead.” That would earn them a referral to a psychiatric ward.

  Bored Cop turned to Irina. “Identity card?”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  “Your identity card?” she countered.

  No Nobel Prize for Bored Cop this year but she got points for determination. Moshe produced the card jacket of blue plastic. Bored Cop studied the contents.

  A barrel-chested policeman with coffee-colored skin strutted behind the counter. His eyes lingered on Irina for a split second and her stomach clenched again. He continued down the corridor. The tension dissipated. Was that disappointment or relief?

  Bored Cop elbowed Perky Cop. “Says here that he’s dead.” She handed the blue card jacket to her colleague. Perky studied the document and then Moshe.

  “That’s a mistake,” Moshe said, with a good-natured chuckle. “Obviously.”

  Perky tapped at a hidden keyboard and stared at the hidden screen.

  “Moshe Karlin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Moshe Karlin died two years ago. So how can this be your ID, ah?”

  Their search for Irina’s identity had turned them into identity theft suspects.

  “I told you, there was a mistake. Can I have that back?”

  “Everything in order?” Barrel-Chested Cop leaned a large, hairy hand on the counter. A handgun poked out of the holster on his belt. His mouth drew a tight, short line. His skin reddened about his cheeks. Irina’s stomach tightened again.

  “My friend has lost her memory,” Moshe repeated.

  Perky handed Barrel-Chest the ID and pointed. “And he’s dead.”

  The silver plate above the badge on his chest read “Golan.” “I’ll take it from here,” he said. “This way.”

  Irina and Moshe exchanged a nervous look. Were they in trouble or was this a lucky break? They followed Golan down the corridor of closed doors. He opened one and stepped into an office. The sign at the door read Detective Alon Golan. Homicide.

  Irina felt her throat dry.

  A desk dominated the room. He pointed to two empty chairs, then closed the door and perched on the edge of the desk.

  “Memory loss?” he said.

  Irina nodded.

  He clasped his fingers and turned to Moshe. “How do you know each other?”

  “We met yesterday. I’m just trying to help.”

  Golan studied them, his eyes large, dark, and expressionless. “Are you sure you don’t rememb
er anything? People? Places?”

  Irina shook her head.

  Golan nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you,” she said. He stepped behind the desk and poked thick fingers at a keyboard.

  She breathed, finally at ease. Moshe gave her a reassuring smile. Lucky break, it is.

  Thick fingers drummed the desk as Golan waited.

  Irina held her breath. This is it. Princess or pauper. Mother or maid. Which will it be? Her hand reached for Moshe’s and he gave hers a squeeze.

  Golan leaned toward the screen. “There are no missing person reports for your description.”

  Irina felt her shoulders slump.

  He clasped his hands over the desk. “We can test your fingerprints. Not all citizens are in the database but it’s worth a shot. Is that OK?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led them to another room, where a policewoman with half-moon spectacles and a mane of thinning red hair asked Irina to press the thumb and four fingers of each hand onto an electronic pad. The woman clicked a mouse and glanced at a screen. Officer Golan leaned against the wall and folded his arms.

  Irina tried to keep her breath even. Convicts had fingerprints on file for sure. If they found a match, would that make her a criminal?

  The policewoman tutted, peering at Golan over her glasses. “She’s not in the system.”

  Irina released pent-up air from her lungs. Back to square one.

  Golan thanked the policewoman and led them out. In the corridor, he took a photo of Moshe’s identity card on his mobile phone and returned the blue book. “I’ll be in touch if anything comes up,” Golan said. “Contact me if you need anything.” He handed them each a business card.

  They thanked him and left the station, down the steps to street level in the Talpiot industrial zone.

  “Disappointed?” Moshe asked.

  “I suppose. For a moment there, I almost wished I were a felon. Any identity is better than none.”

  He laughed. “We can put your photo on fliers and pin them up around the city.”

  She remembered the leers of the men on the street. “Maybe later,” she said. “If nothing else comes up.”

  Moshe nodded. He understood. Her new friend glanced down the street and a sadness fell over his features.

  “She’ll come around,” Irina said. He looked up, surprised that she had read his thoughts. “If she has a brain in her skull, she’ll beg you to come home.” That made him grin.

  Home. A short word. Simple. Warm. And yet so elusive. Home was all she wanted.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “Do you mind if we make a detour on the way back?”

  “Not at all. My busy schedule just freed up.” Moshe had given her a few hours of his time; she’d be happy to return the favor.

  He asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “Very.” She had started the day with a single bowl of Telma cornflakes in the rabbi’s kitchen.

  “Good,” he said. “You’ll need a healthy appetite.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “Today,” Rabbi Yosef said, “we will learn something new.”

  Excited noises rippled down the neat rows of desks, and smiles bubbled on the expectant faces of twenty boys. The second graders loved the spice he sprinkled into his classes: stories of villagers in India who carried pails of water from the communal hand pump; the laws of physics that keep airplanes afloat in thin air.

  The enrollment requirements at Daas Torah Primary excluded children who had a television at home, and although their parents instructed their children in matters of Jewish custom, they offered little insight into the mundane world beyond the four cubits of Halakha. And what normal young boy wouldn’t welcome a break from the intricate laws of the blessings recited before consuming food and drink.

  Rabbi Yosef stood before the class, his back to the whiteboard. Once he opened the can, the worms of curiosity would not return without a struggle. But how could he remain silent? First Moshe, then Irina. An isolated incident had developed into a pattern. At night, awake in his bed, he could think of little else.

  Before class that morning, he had driven to the Mount of Olives and stalked between the rows of the dead. The heavy slabs over the graves, once the final seals of fate, were actually revolving doors. He peered behind headstones and the trunks of the olive trees. His failure to discover new arrivals did not dampen his spirits. Both Moshe and Irina had awoken from death in the early morning. The miracle obeyed rules, as did Nature, and the mounting discoveries bounced inside him like bubbles in a well-shaken bottle of champagne. If he didn’t share the good tidings soon, he’d explode.

  The expectant smiles widened with anticipation. A new healing sun rose on the horizon. Warm rays of change sped toward them. Today, a pair of protective glasses would serve his students better than a debate entitled, “Bananas, fruit or vegetable?”

  “Who knows the song ‘Ani Maamin’?”

  The first two words of the familiar song got the boys singing.

  “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. And even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming.”

  “Very good. That is number twelve of Maimonides’ thirteen principles of faith. The last principle is this.” He read from a prayer book. “‘I believe with perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead at the time willed by the Creator, blessed be His name and exalted be His mention for eternity.’”

  The boys stared in silence. Talk of the Resurrection required wrapping their minds around death, a concept far removed from their youthful world.

  “In other words,” he continued, “at some time in the future, God will give life to people who have died.”

  He swapped the prayer book for a Bible, but before he could turn to Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones, a little hand shot into the air.

  “Yes, Menachem?”

  “Will Grandpa Isaac come back to life too?”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  A smile washed over Menachem’s face. He’d see his grandpa again. Then he looked concerned. “Will he be back today?”

  “Probably not today. God alone knows when. But,” he added, “it might be sooner than we think.”

  “But,” the boy said, his concern deepening, “my sisters have already moved into his room.”

  He had a good point. The resurrected would need a place to stay. Rabbi Yosef would not be able to host them all. Clothing too. The basement outlet for secondhand clothing at Tal Chaim would not meet future demand.

  Rabbi Yosef improvised, “We’ll all help him as best we can.”

  Menachem raised his hand again. “Will Grandpa still have his wheelchair?”

  Rabbi Yosef had scoured the volumes of Talmud and Midrash in his library for details on the awaited resurrection, following cross-references, and hunting down more obscure sources on the Internet. “No,” he said. “He will rise in full health. Although, according to one opinion, the blind and lame will rise with their disability so that the Messiah can heal them.”

  The little boy’s smile threatened to split his face.

  Another hand waved in the air. “Will Tuli come back too?”

  A murmur of muffled laughter.

  “Who is Tuli?” The rabbi had met Yankel’s father at the parent-teacher evening, but he was sure that neither his mother nor his siblings went by that name.

  “I found him on the street and gave him milk but Ima said he’s dirty and that cats belong outside. The next day, Ima said he died.”

  “Oh.” The seven-year-olds revealed far more about home life than any parent imagined. “Sorry,” he said, with a sympathetic frown. “The resurrection is only for people.”

  Another hand. Then three more. Class had become a news conference. He pointed to a questioner.

  “And the goyim? Will they come back as well?”

  Yosef had hoped to avoid that one. “Only Jews,” he said. “And only in Israel,”
he added, preempting the follow-on. “According to some Midrashic sources,” he added to appease his conscience. Few details of the End were unanimous.

  “My zeidi is buried in America,” said a distraught little Yankel. “Won’t he come back to life?”

  “Don’t worry,” Yosef said. He was really hoping to avoid that one. “God will provide tunnels.” He swallowed hard. “The dead will roll through the tunnels to the Land of Israel and then come back to life. Next question!”

  Another hand. “Uncle Dudi married Auntie Avigayil after Auntie Ora died. If Auntie Ora comes back, will Uncle Dudi have two wives?”

  The kids giggled. For every answer, three more hands rose. No hope of squeezing the worms back in the can now. He did his best to answer or parry the rest before the bell chimed.

  “We will have a lot of questions in those days,” he said. “But Elijah the Prophet will return in time to answer them all.”

  Thankfully, the second graders had not raised the topic of reincarnation—whether a soul would be resurrected in a separate body for each previous incarnation—or class would never have ended.

  In the staff room, he ate his packed lunch: a tuna sandwich and an apple. He could do with Elijah’s wisdom now. The Resurrection weighed large and heavy on the shoulders of a simple schoolteacher with modest beginnings. The World to Come called for the Messiah, for rabbis of the greatest stature and purest lineage.

  He paused mid-bite. You silly man. What did you think you were trying to do? He abandoned his sandwich and reached for his phone. He searched for the number—the number he dialed in his darkest moments, the number he had not used in over four years. He reached the end of his contacts list and tuna churned in his stomach. Had he erased the number by accident? Had he failed to transfer the details from his old phone?

  Then the precious ten digits displayed on the screen and Yosef breathed again. God had sent Moshe and Irina his way for a reason. Even a humble teacher could serve as a stepping-stone on the path to the Final Redemption. For he, unworthy Yosef, knew just the man to usher in the Messianic Era.