The End-Time Foretellers

by Ran Weber

  “The computer is switched off on Shabbat.”

  “Ah, clever!” said the fat man, with a half-smile.

  “This guy is so sophisticated that everything is accurate down to the micro-millisecond. But everything works in a certain order, and if you manage to insert something that doesn’t submit to that order, he has no idea,” said Rami, smiling.

  The fat man was silent for a moment and Rami continued: “In short, I heard a few conversations that I didn’t like.”

  “Like what?” asked the fat man, getting up.

  “There’s a guy there by the name of Donnie,” Rami said in a low, even, voice. “I heard some of his conversations when Yoav wasn’t home, sounds like a paranoid psychopath. Psychopaths can seem like the nicest and most cordial people until an internal switch flips and everything blows up.”

  “Are you suspicious of him?” Asked the fat man.

  “Suspicious of who? Donnie?” Rami smiled. “Right now I’m suspicious everybody, including your grandmother. Say, is your grandmother a hacker?”

  The fat man trembled with laughter while holding his burger with both hands. “Right, she and her nursing home buddies will break into the Health Ministry and steal non-subsidized medications.”

  The fat man took a final bite of his burger, washed it down with 12 fluid ounces of Coke, and threw the bottle towards the trash can. The bottle hit the trash can and fell down on the ground. “Are you going to talk to him?”

  “About what?”

  “About this Donnie.”

  “With Yoav? I don’t know,” Rami said, getting up and turning his back to the fat man. He looked towards the motorway. “The first rule of bugging: once you bug someone, you’re most likely to hear crazy stuff. I think if you listened to half the houses in Los Angeles it wouldn’t be much better. My main problem with Donnie is that he sounds paranoid and I’m concerned that he’ll get suspicious of Yoav all of a sudden. That could disrupt everything.”

  “So what’s the plan?” The fat man asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  “I’m thinking of flying over to Los Angeles to calm him down a bit. He’s starting to be unpredictable, thinks he’s in a computer game. He’s also too close to Schetritt.”

  “Schetritt, another psychopath. His hatred I can understand, at least,” said the fat man, and belched.

  “Schetritt?” Asked Rami.

  “Don’t you know his story?”

  “No.”

  The fat man grinned. “He emigrated with his family from Morocco, one of the first waves of Jewish immigrants. They were promised a paradise in Israel.”

  “Well?”

  “Well… paradise?!” Fats said. “He claims that they were humiliated and reduced to dirt. They were housed in a transit camp. His father, who had been a dignified business owner who provides for his family, was turned into a simple laborer who had trouble making ends meet. He passed away within a few years of their arrival in Israel. This broke Schetritt to pieces. He said that anyone who trod on his father’s honor would pay for it. He was so embittered that he fled Israel. He despises the State of Israel.” The fat man spoke quickly, Rami interrupted him.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. What’s the point?” Rami took out a cigarette, he lit it and took a deep puff.

  “Nothing. I mean, I understand why Schetritt would want to help the Iranians fire a missile at Israel. It’s primarily about money, and by-the-way perhaps he’d get a kick out of his bitter revenge. But if it isn’t him, who else can it be?”

  Rami took the cigarette from his mouth and looked at it. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said, tossing the cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out with his shoe.

  40

  “Yoavi?”

  “Yes, Adi.” I rubbed my eyes. What time is it anyway? “Are you up?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m up now.”

  “Have you heard about that Israeli who cracked the hacker challenge?”

  “Oh?” I yawned.

  “A guy named Yossi from Tel Aviv cracked the challenge, Yoav, the challenge you’ve been following for years.”

  “Great.”

  “Why didn’t you take part, Yoav? You could have made it to the top five.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Hey, what’s the matter with you? Would it cost you to say something?”

  “Adi,” I said, looking at my watch, “it’s 2 AM over here.”

  “Oh. Oops,” she giggled. “I thought it was midnight or something, and you’re still up.”

  “You thought.”

  “Dad called.”

  “What?”

  “He asked about you.”

  I was silent. “What did you tell him?”

  “What did you want me to tell him? I told him you were in America.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything, he was just sorry you hadn’t told him. You could have sent him an email at least.”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, Adi, what is it you wanted?”

  “Nothing. Just to know what’s going on with you. Waiting for a phone call from you doesn’t get me very far.”

  She was right. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m very preoccupied here.”

  “Preoccupied on vacation in America? What are you so preoccupied with?”

  “I’ll explain it to you one day.”

  “Take care of yourself, kid.”

  “Thank you, Adi.”

  41

  Balboa Park, Los Angeles

  The park was a neutral and relatively isolated meeting place. Ehud preferred to meet there. There was a low likelihood of anyone listening in, and the possibility of playing frisbee if one so chooses. He had said there was something urgent that he needed to talk about.

  I parked near the entrance to the park and made my way among huge oak trees towards a large lawn. Ehud was standing there in a baseball cap turned backwards, a white undershirt under an unbuttoned checkered shirt, beige Bermuda shorts and sneakers. It was apparent that the extra hours he’d been putting in at the gym had done their job. He held a Frisbee in his hand and threw it up in the air, tossing it and catching it. He looked like an American, born and bred. His curly blond hair contributed to the overall effect.

  “Catch!” He shouted, hurling the Frisbee my way at magnificent speed.

  Relative to the general population I am really tall, but not relative to Ehud. I raised my right hand and caught it with ease. I spun around and sent it back to him. He jumped up and caught it. “Not bad, Yoavi, not bad.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and caught the Frisbee he had sent back to me, this time faster and at a sharp angle.

  “The kid is a fast learner,” he laughed. After a few times back and forth he gestured towards the shaded bench.

  “Let’s sit down, we have a few things to talk about.”

  We sat down. Ehud toyed with the Frisbee, looked at the distant trees and said, “The situation with the Iranians is getting more complicated.”

  “Will you stop speaking in code?”

  “Yes. It looks like you got in touch with Schetritt too fast. The Feds are onto it.”

  “The Feds?”

  “Yes, the FBI, have you heard of them?”

  “What’s the connection? So what if I work for Schetritt?” My heart began to pound.

  “The administration doesn’t want to expose the fact that there are codes to the system’s back door. It will damage the delicate fabric of the power balance and may lead to a war they are currently not interested in, much the same as us.”

  “Great, so they’re on our side. Why are they making trouble?”

  “They’re not on anyone’s side, they’re on their side. Don’t tell them anything even if they try to pressurize yo
u, you’re just a tourist who doesn’t know anything.” He surveyed me for a minute and then added mischievously, “You won’t have to try too hard, just be yourself. They’ll never believe you’re an agent.” He played with the Frisbee again.

  “Was that what you wanted to talk about?”

  His gaze turned to the other side of the park. “Here they come,” he said, his head pointing in their direction. “I don’t have time to elaborate, but remember, no matter what, don’t tell them anything. Lie, beg, whatever you’ve got to do. You understand?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer. Two agents, one tall and white and the other fat, black and shorter, dressed in blue suits and wearing sunglasses, were watching us from the other side of the park. They began to make their way in our direction. The black one was holding a tennis racket.

  “We’d better split up. Go back to your car. I know them well. It’s clear I’ve got a long heart-to-heart coming right up. Go on, Yoav, go, we’ll talk later.” He took the frisbee and began to run and play with it, tossing it into the air and grabbing it back, moving quickly to the other side of the park with the Feds hot on his tail.

  ***

  “Where’s the car, Ehud?” Jim asked.

  “What car?” answered Ehud, spinning the Frisbee. He threw it away gently at an angle to the wind, so that it came right back to him.

  “What car? My bicycle? Has Nash shown you a photo of it?”

  “You know exactly what car. The new car.” Jim said, and the next time that Ehud threw the Frisbee, he pushed him a little and caught it himself.

  “I don’t have a new car,” Ehud said, grabbing the Frisbee from Jim. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Jim said.

  Ehud threw the Frisbee and caught it. “No problem, look for yourselves. Follow me around like you’re so fond of doing and look for this car that you imagine I have.”

  Jim lowered his gaze. “We’ve been following you for a few days and there’s no trace of the car. Where did you park it?”

  “Oh, cut it out, guys. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “What’s this racket for?” Nash asked, throwing the tennis racket at Ehud.

  “A tennis racket?” asked Ehud.

  “Bingo!” answered Nash and walked over to pick up the racket. “And how does it pertain to you?”

  “I have no idea,” Ehud said. “Truth is I’m not all that good at tennis. My back-hand is atrocious.”

  “That’s not what the sales girl at Sports Basement in San Francisco says,” Nash said.

  Ehud blinked a little.

  “We also have your fingerprints on the racket, we and the San Francisco Police Department, that is. We said to them that we had to check a few things with you before they commenced their investigation.”

  “Look…” he began, “the truth is, I bought that bat and the ball.”

  “Why?”

  “For a friend,” he answered quickly. “I left the store and I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I tossed the ball in the air and it fell onto the road. Suddenly a strange car pulled up right in front of it and almost drove over it. I was startled and dropped the racket and it fell behind the car.”

  “Where’s this strange car now, Ehud?” Jim asked slowly. “You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Ehud, sitting down on the bench. “I have no clue where it is now.”

  “Did you hand it over to the Foretellers?” Jim asked impatiently, “to the Iranians?”

  42

  Binyamin’s house, the Valley, Los Angeles

  The Shabbat meal went by quickly. I brought the coffee outside Binyamin had offered me and inhaled the cool night air. No Foretellers, no codes, no Rami. The cell phone is turned off, the computer is encrypted far away, my entire digital world at a standstill.

  Even though I had switched off the devices and tried to spend the weekend quiet and tuned out, I still felt a swelling within me. Thoughts competed with one other, reflections came and went, like ripples in a pool where small pebbles had fallen. Every thought produces ripples of consideration.

  Binyamin approached quietly and sat beside me, holding a cup of hot tea in his hand. He was wrapped up in himself.

  “The night whispers its silence,” he finally said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Shhh... listen.”

  I couldn’t hear anything. I looked at him. “Can’t hear anything,” I said, whispering.

  “Precisely!” he smiled. “That’s our problem, we’re constantly looking for something. Looking for the background noise of our lives, only to ignore what is happening within. Listen, listen to the silence of the night. Let this silence penetrate you and then you will see how much noise there is within”.

  I went quiet. He was right.

  “You’re not exactly as you appear, Yoav, are you?”

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked tensely.

  He looked out into the night sky. “I don’t know exactly, Yoav. That’s my feeling, that’s all. There is one Yoav that I know and a more internal Yoav.”

  “I’m not sure I know him myself,” I admitted, relieved.

  He nodded and said, “You’re right. There is so much within us that we don’t know, that we are oftentimes afraid to know. But there’s a lot of good, Yoav, it took me a long time to understand that.”

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “After Lily was murdered I didn’t know what to do with myself. I fell apart; my whole world had crumbled. I felt that it was all a lie; being in Hebron, this calling to bring the light, to do good. All an abominable lie. In one fleeting moment, three Arabs murdered her and all her sweetness, all her beauty, were trampled beneath their filthy feet.”

  I listened, interested.

  “I asked Him, where were you? Why didn’t you watch over my wife? I suddenly felt thirty years older, an old man who had seen it all. I lost my innocence in one moment, one fleeting moment and it was all over. I felt the ground fall out from beneath my feet. I had previously seen things in black or white, believed in my mission, believed that HaShem had put me in the right place, that everything happened for a reason, and then everything shattered.” He paused for a moment. “And I stopped believing, completely.” He put his mug down on the little table.

  We sat in silence. I looked at the stars and then turned to him.

  “And ...?”

  “I wanted to leave everything, to run away. I left Israel, leaving a scorched land behind me. I got into confrontations with everyone I met, I caused trouble. I don’t even want to recount, certainly not on Shabbat, the things I did.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I got into confrontations with everyone. The Shin Bet, the soldiers, my Arab neighbors. I confronted everyone, except for my pain.”

  I nodded and listened.

  “Listen,” he asked, “do you even want to hear this? Am I not overburdening you with this stuff?”

  “It’s no burden. Go on.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “The truth is that I don’t really have anyone to talk to here, with their hypocritical American smiles. Anyway, I came here with a little boy, not knowing what was going on with me. I didn’t go to prayers, I didn’t study anything. I wasn’t even opposed to any of it, I had just drifted afar.”

  He picked up the mug and held it with both hands. He gazed into it, as though it held secrets. “It was all or nothing, Yoav; zero or one. Until I came across it.”

  “It?”

  “The phrase that changed my life.”

  “Well...?” I said after a few moments.

  He smiled. “A little is also good.”

  “That’s what changed your life?!”

  “Wait, wait,” he said. “That’s not all. The original phr
ase is ‘Know! You need to judge every person favorably, even someone who is completely wicked, you need to search and find any little bit of good. By finding in him a little good and judging him favorably you actually bring him over to the side of merit and you can return him in teshuva.’”

  “Yes, the short version is easier.”

  “Even someone who is completely wicked, Yoav, so certainly us, do you see? It’s seeing the good beyond evil. To understand that even if something seems bad to me, there is profound good concealed behind it. In the greatest darkness lies the brightest light. Before that, I was unable to live with the terrible lie that surrounded me.”

  “But if you look around, the state of things...”

  “You mustn’t rely on what your eyes see, you have to close them and remember the purpose.”

  I listened to him. Purpose. Whoever thinks of purpose? He suddenly seemed like a character out of a book; he seemed out of this world. Certainly not in line with the world as I knew it. It was strange and out of step but intriguing. “And now?” I asked. “Now can you live with the lie?”

  “Now I understand that everything has a purpose, everything has meaning and there is a lot of good in everyone.”

  “In everyone?” He’s yet to have encountered Rami and the fat man, I thought.

  “Yes. In everyone. And not just in the other, in you yourself. To believe that you are truly good is profound. Perhaps too profound for this evening.”

  I looked at Binyamin. He suddenly seemed fragile and insecure, so real and simple.

  “And then?”

  “I started from the beginning, even though it was little. I started with the little which is good too.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I decided to rebuild my life. Stop breaking everything apart, stop offloading on life.”

  He got up, took the mug from my hand, and said, “Good night, Yoav, I’m glad we talked. Thank you for listening.”

  43

  Sunday. The traffic on the street moved lazily. Binyamin would say ‘Everything in its own time,’ and for Binyamin, Sundays were the time for house and garden maintenance. On Sundays he would trim, clean and organize. Today was lawn-mowing day.