The Last Day

by Glenn Kleier

  “As the banks of your Nile are changed each spring by the recurring floods, so also does the full meaning of the Word change with each iteration and translation and interpretation. To know the way of the Lord, you must hear more than words.”

  “But Messiah,” another clergyman protested, looking upset and confused. “I have devoted my entire life to studying scripture and the great theologians. Are you saying that all my work has been in vain?”

  “There is much to be learned from the scriptures,” the Messiah answered him, “even if the translations be poor. But there is little that you will gain from the writings of the theologians, even if you understand them perfectly. For there are as many interpretations of the Word of God as there are religions upon the face of the earth. And none can tell you the separate truth that lies only within your soul.”

  The clergyman persisted. “Surely the great and learned religious scholars have better insight and understanding of the complex scriptures than the common man!”

  Jeza did not seem offput by the man's tenacity. She turned to the general audience and, in a slightly elevated voice, imparted to them a metaphor that would later come to be known as:

  THE PARABLE OF THE CHEF AND THE APPRENTICES

  “Behold there was a chef who was master of a kitchen. One day he called to his apprentice cooks and gathered them about him saying: ‘For this evening's meal, I shall prepare a special banquet. Go to the well and collect a measure of water.’

  “Now the youngest of the apprentices hastened to the well and soon returned with a large pail filled with clean, clear water, which he placed before the elder apprentices.

  “Upon seeing the pail of water, one of the elders said to the youngest apprentice, ‘This pail is not large enough. We will need more water to prepare such a banquet. You must return again to the well!’

  “Another said, ‘The water from the stream is fresher, and will improve the flavor of the foods. You should draw the water from the stream!’

  “And yet another said, ‘You have spilled water upon the floor and we cannot prepare the meal until you remove it.’

  “At this time the master chef returned to the kitchen, and hearing this, he took the pail of water and poured it out upon the floor, saying: ‘Before a banquet can be prepared the kitchen must first be cleaned.’ And to the youngest apprentice he said, ‘Come while they do this work and I will share with you the arrangements for the feast.’

  “Amen, Amen I say to you: go forth and fill your pail knowing that the Lord God cares not about the volume nor the content, but will judge you by your intent. And none may judge but the Father Himself. “ (Apotheosis 23:4–11)

  Concluding her discourse, the Messiah blessed her audience and stepped back from the podium, accepting the outstretched hand of the professor as a fusillade of flashbulbs and applause erupted. The audience pressed toward the stage, and Jeza was quickly ushered out a back way, disappearing from view.

  58

  Na-Juli apartments, Cairo, Egypt 1:30 A.M., Tuesday, February 15, 2000

  Feldman was jolted awake by a slamming palm against his apartment door. He grabbed up his alarm clock, noted the very late hour, retrieved his glasses from the night-stand and stumbled down the hallway, slipping his arms into his robe.

  Peering through the peephole, Feldman spied a disheveled Hunter leaning his head against a porch post, his face buried in his wadded-up jacket, his arms akimbo.

  “Breck!” Feldman unlatched the door and swung it open. “Where have you been all day? I've been trying to reach you!”

  “I've been on a binge, ol’ buddy,” he drawled, peeping out from his jacket with a dull grin on his face. “Am I intruding?”

  Feldman squinted beneath the porch light, scratched his cheek and stepped aside for his friend to enter.

  “I guess I'm a shithead, huh?” Hunter presumed.

  “Well hell, Breck, you didn't exactly handle things, now did you?”

  “No sir, I did not!” he admitted as he ambled in and flopped in a chair. “Have you seen Ms. Cissy? Is she okay?’

  “Good of you to ask. Yeah. I called her tonight and she's all right now. She's coming into work tomorrow. Are you?”

  “Uh, yeah, but I may be a tad late.”

  Feldman sighed.

  “I feel real bad about things, Jon,” Hunter confessed, dropping his flippant veneer. “I didn't mean to hurt Ciss. Honest.”

  “I know you didn't, Breck, And quite frankly, I don't really blame you for what's happened.”

  Hunter arched his brows at the unexpected absolution. “You don't?”

  “Okay, you used to flirt with Cissy a lot. But it's not like you don't flirt with most of the women at the office. You never really took it very far with any of them, at least that I know of.”

  Hunter was nodding his head encouragingly.

  “But then you and Cissy started spending more and more time together, and people just naturally began seeing you two as a couple. I guess Cissy started seeing it that way, too. And then the night of the earthquake was just such an emotional experience, I think that's what sealed it for Cissy. You took care of her, watched over her. You know—”

  “Jon, I did not spend the night with her then, or ever! For chrissakes, I mean nothin’ ever happened!”

  “Not physically, maybe. But she's in love with you, Breck.”

  “Hell, I love her, too, Jon, it's just that my libido is like, temporarily occupied, you know? Dammit, I don't owe Cissy my affection.”

  “It's more than that” Feldman debated whether or not to launch into this now, but given Hunter's condition, maybe the timing was right.

  “You know Cissy and Erin don't get along. It's a double slight to Cissy that you're seeing someone she doesn't like. And it's all happening right in her face, every day.”

  “Catty female jealousies.” Hunter passed this off with a wry grin.

  Feldman wasn't letting him off that easy. “Breck, there are certain little, uh, idiosyncrasies about Erin that really gripe Cissy. Erin is, well, you know, different” He touched on this gingerly. “The way she dresses. The way she flaunts herself, so to speak.”

  Hunter wrestled with this observation for a minute, avoiding Feldman's accusatory stare. “You don't understand, man,” he finally answered. The glaze left his eyes and he chewed on his lower lip as if uncertain about proceeding. “I don't know all the particulars, Jon, ‘cause she doesn't like to talk about it much, but Erin had a lot of problems growin’ up. A lot of shit that wasn't her fault, you know?”

  Feldman screwed up his face, not certain he wanted to hear this.

  “She was an only child. Product of a broken home. Her mom remarried when Erin was six. Some rich scumbag. Used to mistreat Erin real bad when her mom wasn't around. To make up to Erin and keep her quiet, he'd buy her all these fancy little outfits and jewelry—princess costumes, ballerina tutus, glamorous gowns, crap like that. That's how she'd forget her problems. She'd dress up in pretty clothes and escape to some fantasy world where things were all better.”

  Feldman knitted his brow in sympathy. “You'd think she'd hate the clothes horse routine now, that she'd associate it with the bad experiences she had.”

  “Just the opposite.” Hunter shrugged. “She's got a clothes fetish. I mean, big time! You wouldn't believe all the shit she has. Roomsful. She picks stuff out of catalogues like a binger at a smorgasbord. Has it shipped to her from all over the world. Bills it all to her stepfather, carte blanche. You oughta go shoppin’ with her sometime, man. She's a kid in a candy store. Like she doesn't know who she wants to be today, so she just keeps trying on somebody else. Hell, she even bought herself one of those damned Jeza costumes all the street vendors are hawking now, complete with luminescent paint. Couldn't resist it.”

  Feldman nodded with a better than average degree of understanding. Everyone had a special mechanism for coping with their dark problems. For Feldman, it was to erect interpersonal walls. For Erin, it would appear that she
was perpetually seeking to escape herself. It was a sad awareness that would make it easier for Feldman to accept her eccentricities.

  “You'll be relieved to hear Cissy's got things under control now.” Feldman brought the discussion back to the main topic. “She tried to call you, you know. To apologize.”

  “She did?”

  “If I were you, I'd talk with her tomorrow, over the phone first, and see if you can mend the fences a bit more.”

  “Yeah. I'll do that Hey, you don't mind if I crash here tonight, do you?”

  Feldman lapsed into an accommodating smile and started removing cushions from the sleeper sofa.

  Back in his own bed, he lay awake as Hunter's snoring drifted into the room.

  59

  WNN regional headquarters, Cairo, Egypt 9:30 A.M., Wednesday, February 16, 2000

  There was good news at the morning staff meeting. WNN's latest report on Jeza's appearance at the university was a sensation, capturing record ratings.

  And then, just as the meeting was about to break up, an excited cameraman from one of the field teams suddenly raced into the room. Breathlessly, he announced another Jeza encounter. Waving the prized video in the air, he explained that less than an hour ago he'd happened to catch the Messiah in a major engagement.

  This latest development, by the sound of it, could prove to be one of the most amazing reports yet. If the advance billing was correct, at last WNN had caught on tape an apparent Jeza miracle. Possibly three miracles, the cameraman claimed, as they all hustled off to the viewing room.

  By way of prefacing his video, the cameraman explained that he'd been stopped at a traffic light in one of the poorer sections of downtown Cairo. Sitting there, he'd noticed a little urchin with a rag in his hand bounding out into the street from across the intersection. The boy was heading for the cameraman's car, evidently to wash his windshield for a handout. Sadly, in his haste to nab his customer before another competitor, the boy had dashed in front of an oncoming bakery van and was struck.

  Compounding the tragedy, the bakery's name appearing on the side of the truck happened to be that of a Sunni Muslim company. An unfortunate circumstance in that this accident occurred in a predominantly Shiite Muslim district igniting instant outrage. In moments, the vehicle had been completely surrounded and the luckless driver dragged from behind the wheel.

  This was the point at which the alert videographer had swung his camera into action. The alarming scene materialized on the viewing room screen, waves of people appearing magically from nowhere, rallying to the cries of the onlookers and rushing to the scene of the accident. Watching the drama unfold, Feldman was certain the poor delivery man was about to be pummeled to death. But as the mob descended upon him, there was an abrupt division at the crowd's far end and the angry mob began separating and falling back.

  The focus was off-center for a few moments as the cameraman scrambled on top of the roof of his car for a better view. A hole had formed in the middle of the action now, and the camera zoomed in to show a small woman standing boldly before the downed and bloody driver. It was Jeza, of course, but over the noise, it was difficult to hear what she was saying.

  Recognizing who this was, the crowd began quieting. It sounded as if Jeza were talking in Arabic, and she was pointing to the forlorn man at her feet. She then gestured toward the front of the vehicle and barked a command. The crowd parted again to allow an anguished man with a small boy in his arms to pass through. It was apparently the father of the child who had been struck by the vehicle. The boy's extremities dangled loosely, his face was buried in the crook of his father's elbow, and it was impossible to tell how badly he was hurt, or if he were even alive.

  Jeza called out to the father, and he squatted on his haunches in front of her, rocking to and fro, howling, still holding the limp child. Jeza raised her arms skyward and the sleeves of her robe cascaded to her shoulders, exposing the vivid whiteness of her limbs. She called out loudly, presumably in prayer, ending with the only word Feldman recognized, “Allah.”

  Despite its unrestrained fury only moments ago, the crowd was now dead-still, with only the ambient sounds of the city audible. Jeza, also silent, lowered her arms to her sides and watched the child intently. So did everyone else. They didn't have long to wait. The legs stirred. The head moved. The man holding the boy relaxed his grip and revealed the child to the astounded audience. The boy's eyes were open, flitting around puzzled and scared.

  A tumult overtook the crowd. “Allah! Allah! Allah!” they shouted and hands began moving out to touch the prophetess. But she halted them with both palms upraised, gestured down to the truck driver again, and motioned them back. Stooping, she took hold of the terrified man's wrist and helped him to his feet. She placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, speaking with him momentarily, and then turned with him back toward his vehicle.

  Guiding him by his shaking arm, she was given a wide berth as they made their way to the side of the truck. It was a panel van, and Jeza grasped the sliding door by its handle, throwing it open wide. She pulled the driver carefully out of the way, then made another brief announcement to the crowd.

  The mob paused for a moment, looked at one another, and then started to burrow full bore into the truck in a feeding frenzy. Hundreds of men, women and children pillaged its goods hand over fist, grabbing as much as they could carry. One man waddled by the camera with hard rolls stuffed down the sleeves and front of his tunic and pants to the point his clothing was about to burst.

  And then it suddenly occurred to Feldman that Jeza was missing. Even reviewing the tape again in slow motion, it was impossible to tell exactly when and what had happened to the Messiah. She was there, and then, quite implausibly, she vanished, leaving the deserted driver to gawk nervously as his bakery truck was greedily relieved of its freight.

  But if rescuing the driver and restoring the boy were two miracles, then there was yet another to behold. As-toundingly, the procession of scavengers went on for the duration of the video, at least twenty more minutes until the camera ran out of tape. And still, the small van hadn't exhausted its cargo. Roll after roll, loaf after loaf, baskets of pastries, buns and all manner of baked goods flowed endlessly from its doors until it would appear that every last pocket, shirtfront, box, bucket and apron was sated.

  “The only thing lacking,” Hunter pointed out, “are the fishes.”

  While none of these three events could be conclusively demonstrated to be miracles, the new video nevertheless presented some very powerful and fascinating images. The temptation to promote this extraordinary material as the Miracles Tape proved commercially irresistible. No sooner did the first teaser promo air on WNN's midday news than the public went wild with anticipation. Major sponsors descended on the network in a feeding frenzy of another kind.

  Working late into the night to ready the Miracles video for a news special the next day, one by one the WNN team members gave in to their fatigue and retired for the evening. But an enthralled, motivated, wide-awake Feldman continued to work well past midnight. In particular, there was one aspect of the new tape that had intrigued him all day, but he had been unable to devote any attention to it until now.

  Alone in the darkened viewing bay, he played with the editing controls, trying to identify the precise moment when the Messiah seemed to suddenly vanish in plain sight Perhaps there was a fourth miracle here. Concentrating on the segment of tape taken just before Jeza disappeared, Feldman examined a wide shot in which the figure of the Messiah was continually in the frame, visible the entire time. She was conspicuously there, immersed in onlookers near the side of the truck, then suddenly she turned and seemed to simply evaporate.

  He rewound the tape for the umpteenth time, magnified the image a bit more, zoomed in on the grainy image and worked patiently with the controls to enhance the resolution of the Messiah's immaculate face. Frame by frame he advanced the tape until the final moments when she looked directly into the camera, just before she turned
and melted away. After some effort, he succeeded in making the image clearer than in any of his previous attempts. Now he could view her ennobled, divine features with a relative degree of clarity. Those bottomless, enervating eyes. Drawn into them, once again he was suddenly overcome with that disquieting, swooning, paralyzing sensation that he'd come to recognize so well.

  As before, he regained his equilibrium quickly, amazed that a mere video image could affect him so profoundly. But suddenly the hairs rose on the back of his neck. His hands were trembling. The breath left him and he rotated slowly in his chair. There, silhouetted strikingly in the doorway, silent and motionless, stood the slender form and commanding presence of Jeza herself.

  Feldman was transfixed. His heart and mind raced wildly. Back-lit before him, she had the aura of an apparition. Feldman could almost feel the waves of energy radiating from her.

  “Come with me,” is all she said. And Feldman was up out of his chair, pursuing the quick-paced, earnest young lady as she quietly departed down the hall.

  How she eluded the security system and night watchman on her way in, he was unable to fathom. She led him through the exit, down the steps and off into the deserted streets.

  He questioned nothing, content to let her dictate the situation, following her closely for over an hour, out of the city, heading due west. Into the bordering desert they trekked, up a steep, winding path, which left Feldman panting, until finally at the top of a tall precipice, she stopped to face the first light of morning, dawning just now behind Cairo below them.

  Jeza wasn't even breathing hard, and not a hint of perspiration. She turned to Feldman and, with a faint, appreciative smile, motioned him toward a large smooth stone. Once he'd settled, she sat cross-legged on a similar stone next to him and gazed out over the city in peaceful contemplation.

  Feldman couldn't take his eyes from this extraordinary woman. He'd never before been so close to her. At this proximity, the first morning sunbeams catching her face, she was more resplendent than ever. He marveled again at her physical perfection. Not a single blemish, discoloration or wrinkle. Not one. Her features were all as finely chiseled as if by a master sculptor. Her complexion milk-white and lucent Her eyes as clear and deeply sapphire as the retreating night sky.