by Ran Weber
I lowered my gaze. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I just remembered, myself as a little boy, little Yoavi who wanted to save the world. This is something adults ridicule, don’t they? How can a little boy do anything to help anyone? He can’t even save himself, so how could he possibly save the world?”
“You’re not alone,” said Binyamin and looked at me. “This was your mistake as a little boy. You thought you were all alone, you thought you needed to save the world on your own, but you’re not alone. There are a lot of people who want to do good. You are a part of something greater, Yoav. I knew it the moment I had laid eyes on you. You just need to wake up.”
I looked at him. His words were so naive on the one hand, but on the other hand so full of faith and confidence. I felt that what he had said was true, perhaps even too true for comfort. A shiver passed over me. Is it possible? I wondered, is it truly possible to do something meaningful in our dying world that is falling apart? What meaning did this all carry for me? I was doing everything I should, actively saving the world, but did I truly believe that it was possible? Beyond the Iranians, the codes and the mission I was buried in, was it possible to do good in the world? Was it something that anyone could do, like Binyamin had claimed, or could only powerful people holding key positions truly influence the world?
I recalled Advocate Danny Halfon, the medical clown who had come to my store asking for donations for sick children. I remembered his eyes, they had something good about them. Something optimistic, despite the pain he was shrouded by. To a certain degree, he had even agreed to humiliate himself for the benefit of the children. Even though I was cynical, he never argued or tried to prove that he was kinder or wiser. He simply did what he could. This world was created just for me. This must have been how he felt, that the world was created just for him and that he must save that world. He must be doing what he can to save his own little world, the world of sick children.
“So? Should I buy a cape and go about saving the world?”
“The main thing is the will, everything else derives from it. This is all about your will, Yoav.”
“That’s exactly the point, I have no will.” I set my eyes far into the sea. “I have nothing. I had a will once and it was buried and went somewhere else and that’s the end of it.”
“There’s no such thing as a person without a will. It must be buried deep beneath the layers of despair burdening you. But you do have a will, don’t you worry. Believe and open yourself to feeling it, speaking about it and living it. It is a matter of making a decision… then waiting to see how it reveals itself in the world.”
***
Aharon finished building a beautiful sandcastle and called Binyamin to witness this marvel. Binyamin rose lazily and went to him. I looked at them, father and son. I saw how Binyamin was constantly trying to give Aharon everything he needed, to fill up the empty space and I realized how hard must be. I sighed for a moment and rose from the blanket.
“It’s a beautiful sandcastle, Aharon,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said and continued dripping seawater on his sandcastle.
“Keep an eye on him for a moment,” said Binyamin, “I’m going to the restaurant to get him a popsicle or a can of coke, all right?”
“With pleasure,” I said and Aharon continued dripping water on the sandcastle.
Binyamin drifted away. A few people walked on the shore beside us and three runners swiftly passed us by. I bent over and looked at the sandcastle.
“Who would live in the castle?” I asked Aharon.
“No one,” he said and continued dripping water. “The tide will soon come and the castle will be swept into the water.”
I looked at the sandcastle and at Aharon dripping water on it. How hard it must have been for him to grow up without a mother. I remembered my own childhood; at least my mother had passed away when I was older. It was still hard, but Aharon was so very young.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I heard a voice asking.
I raised my eyes. It was Ali. I quickly got up. “What do you want?”
“Want?” Ali smiled. “Is there a problem? I thought this was a public beach, isn’t it?”
Aharon looked at Ali with concern.
“Beautiful boy you’ve got there,” said Ali.
I moved closer to him. “Stay away.”
“Careful, Yoav,” Ali said and looked at Aharon, “we know exactly where you live and where this sweet child lives. You had better do some thinking and give us the codes. The money was only an initial incentive, we aim to do everything in our power to get the codes.”
“Get out of here.”
Ali raised his hands in the air. “I just wanted to be nice, you know,” and began to walk away from us. He stopped for a moment and said to Aharon, “you’d better build some walls around this castle, kid, so the water won’t take it apart.”
64
I spent the afternoon in an attempt to understand what the trigger was, what was supposed to activate the system. The fact that I had been able to obtain the access codes for “The Times” computer, was only half of the job, I needed to find whoever had the key before the Iranians would put their hands on it. I assumed that Schetritt was feverishly looking for it and that Rami put every agent he could spare on the task of finding it. Even Ehud had tried to find a collaborator who would sell him the secret.
I sat in Schetritt’s empty office and conducted internet searches, hoping something would miraculously reveal itself.
Nothing. I didn’t even have a clue. Meanwhile, I broke into Schetritt’s databases again and fished for more information. There must be some value to it, I thought, perhaps I could buy some other information with it, or at least some more time. The amount of scandals Schetritt was involved in was horrendous. I got up and began to organize my things for going out, feeling strangely optimistic. Ben quickly came inside the room. “Leaving?”
“Yes, I was just on my way out,” I said and tried to walk past him.
“That’s not a smart thing to do,” he said and stared at me. I stopped. My heart began to race. “Close the door,” said Ben, “and sit down.”
Reluctantly, I sat in one of the chairs.
“Well?” I finally asked.
“Listen,” he sat on the table, “you’re a nice guy, but you’re in grave danger.”
“Why?”
“Because Schetritt doesn’t like being lied to, he really doesn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the codes, the access codes for ‘The Times.’ Unless you start talking, your head is going to end up in the paper shredder real soon.”
“But,” I said with a smile, “I gave you the codes. You yourself checked them.”
He slammed the table. “Kiddo, I’m telling you, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. The code you gave me worked fine at first, but then it stopped working.” He opened the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie a little.
“Hey!” I protested, “It’s not my fault they’ve switched passwords, it’s something large companies regularly do. If you have an extra 40-50 thousand dollars, keep advertising in ‘The Times’ and then get the passwords again. You have the application and everything, what do you want from me?”
“Schetritt doesn’t know that the password is no longer working,” he rose up. “Now it’s not only your head on the line, but mine too.” He walked toward the. “Get another password, without paying ‘The Times’ and without any games. Get the money from your own bank account for all I care!” he got out and slammed the door behind him.
65
Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado
“Sir.”
“Yes?” answered Major McDowell and went closer to the screen, looking at it with interest.
“Sir, there are movements in the Pillar of Fire.”
“Movements?”
“Yes, it appears that someone is trying to toy with the system. It appears to be a little more serious this time.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sir, I’m just reporting what I’m seeing. This is an alert I received from the system. Someone has been able to pass a hurdle and plant a code in one of the system’s verification sites.”
The commander looked at the screen with concern. “Update the Pentagon, we need to raise the alert level.” He paused for a moment. “Update Senator Wilson, as soon as possible, and NORAD at the Peterson Base.”
“Aren’t they updated?”
“They’re only ten miles away from us, but sometimes it feels as if they’re light years away. No, I don’t think they’re updated,” the Major sighed.
“Sir?”
“Yes?” the Major asked impatiently.
“What about Norman?”
“Watts?” the commander asked.
“Yes,” said the soldier, “should I update him too?”
“He is no longer leading this project. As a matter of fact, he is not even a part of the project anymore, there are rumors that he had lost his mind at some stage. I have no idea what became of him. He simply vanished one day and the Senator instructed me not to look for him too hard, if you catch my drift.”
“Yes, sir.”
66
Marina del Ray, Los Angeles District
“I need a gun,” I told Ben while we were walking along the boardwalk.
I scheduled to meet him at the Marina del Rey boardwalk. Ben had proudly mentioned over the phone that it was the largest marina in the world for small vessels, and that it could accommodate over 5,000 vessels. He started explaining that the marina was divided into ten sections… But I had no yacht and wasn’t planning on including one on my shopping list any time soon. So I interrupted him and told him we’d continue the conversation when we meet.
“What for?” he looked at me questioningly.
“Self-defense. It’s dangerous here in Los Angeles,” I said and hastened my pace a little. He caught up with me. I looked about and saw world prosperity docking in the Marina. Bright yachts were tied to the wooden platforms. They looked like a large flock of seagulls playing together at sea. There were hundreds of boats there. It is impossible to compare the marinas in Israel to Marina del Rey. Based on the numbers he gave me, Marina del Rey was almost fifteen times larger.
“All right, this isn’t such a big problem,” he smiled. “What else?”
“I need a fake ID and…” I paused for a moment.
“And…?”
“A federal agent ID.”
“FBI?” he asked and looked anxiously to the sides.
I nodded.
“This is starting to sound interesting, Yoav. You want to impersonate a federal agent? It’s way past Purim.”
“I need it in order to get you the codes,” I said briefly.
“It’s not that simple, Yoav. Getting a gun is a piece of cake around here, and a fake ID isn’t hard to get either. I think our company in East LA could get them for us easily. But a federal agent ID…” he raised his hands in the air, “now that’s a serious complication. It’s very difficult to forge one.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have anyone inside the bureau that could issue such an ID.”
“A real one?” he asked with amazement.
“Of course.”
Ben smiled. “You want me to get you a genuine federal agent ID from the bureau?”
“Yes,” I smiled back, “I know you can.”
“Did you speak with Schetritt about it?” he leaned closer to me.
“I don’t understand, do you want the codes of don’t you? If you can’t do it, just tell me and I’ll go back to Schetritt and explain to him why I can’t move forward.”
Ben nodded. “All right. We’ve done it before, it’s possible, it will take a few days. I’ll contact our guy at the bureau.”
I smiled and thanked him, then put my hand in my pocket and stopped the recording device.
67
Binyamin’s Garden, the Valley, LA.
I looked at the reddening sky. Another day had passed and I was still unable to solve the End-Time Foretellers’ riddle.
I heard voices from Binyamin’s porch. I went there and saw Binyamin and Aharon playing scrabble. Two sets, one with Hebrew and the other with English letters. Donnie was sitting beside them, watching with amusement.
“Losing to the child again?” I asked Binyamin, who ignored the question.
I joined them and sat next to Binyamin.
“Yes, Aharon has won the game,” Binyamin admitted and stroked Aharon’s head again. “A smart boy, just like his mother.”
Binyamin removed all the letters from the board, looked at them, then chose five letters and placed them on the board. He picked up the Hebrew letters – resh, yod, khet, and arranged them on the board. “The Hebrew words for ‘Escape’ and ‘Choice’ contain the same letters in a different order,” said Binyamin and rearranged the letters, “have you ever noticed that?”
“Actually, I haven’t,” I admitted.
“That’s just the way things are,” said Binyamin, “make your choice or make your escape. Either you are running away from confrontation, or you make a choice and bring yourself into the confrontation.”
“The same Hebrew letters can also spell a word whose meaning is ‘coming together,’” said Donnie.
“What does this have to do with anything?” asked Binyamin.
“Nothing. It just fits like that too,” said Donnie and played with an imaginary Rubik’s Cube in his hands. “The letters… they just fit together like that…”
“Anyway,” said Binyamin, ignoring Donnie, who shrugged and took a can of coke from the table, “this sort of thing exists in the spelling of other Hebrew words with contradictory meanings, such as ‘gate’ and ‘villain’, or ‘sickness’ and ‘compassion’. Many times, the correction is inherent in switching the letters.”
“Amazing,” I said finally. “Really… I’ve never thought of it.”
“I haven’t seen you at synagogue in the morning Minyan,” Donnie said to Binyamin.
“I woke up early, before the crack of…”
“When?” he asked.
“At about five. I lay down to sleep early last night.”
Donnie thought for a moment and smiled. “Let’s lie for me tender!” he said mysteriously and laughed aloud.
“Shut up already, Donnie. Enough with your lame jokes.”
Donnie raised his hands in the air. “A man without a little sense of humor, his life is…”
“Got it, Donnie,” said Binyamin, “you take care of your own life and leave mine alone.”
“Tell me,” I asked Binyamin, “what does ‘end-time foretellers’ actually mean?”
“Why are you asking?”
“No particular reason, I ran across the expression on the internet. I thought you could be a good source for broadening my Jewish education,” I smiled.
“Aren’t these the guys they talk about on the news?” asked Donnie, “the ones performing digital terrorism?”
“Blown out shall be the souls of end-time foretellers,” said Binyamin and looked at Donnie. “You’re back to your addiction? Watching the news day and night? Didn’t we talk about this? What good will it do you? There’s nothing but violence and lies there. Look what it does to you.”
“You’re talking about me? Take a long look at yourself, Binyamin… what is going on with you? The man is trying to understand something and you erupt like a volcano. Blown out shall be the souls of end-time foretellers? Really, man.”
“It says so in the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin: Chapter 11.”
“So now you’re a learned sage, Binyamin?”
“Something like that.”
“Still,” I rejoined the conversation, “what is up with them? Who are they anyway and why should their souls be blown out?”
“The Talmud speaks of people who are trying to predict the end-time,” said Binyamin, “and there are several problems with them. One such problem is the fear that should they predict a certain end-time and it does not come, people would despair of waiting for the Messiah and redemption. This was why the sages of the Talmud said that their souls should be blown out.”
“What, like all those prophecies about the apocalypse with dates that prove false every time?”
“Something like that.”
“So that is the entire problem with them?” I asked, “that they predict the end-time?”
“No,” said Binyamin and looked at me. “Another problem is that by calculating the end-time and mentioning it, you turn it into something fixed instead of something spontaneous. It is written that the Messiah, a scorpion and a finding are three things that come when you least expect them to. Which means that redemption should come unexpectedly and unplanned. The mere act of planning it hinders it.”
I listened.
“Oh!” cried out Binyamin, “so maybe that is the problem with them. Now, when I think about it, perhaps they are all slackers, the sort of people who prefer to indulge in calculations and thinking instead of actually doing something. Perhaps their souls should be blown out because they are not doing anything practical!” Binyamin beamed. “You need to actively do things in the world. We are living in the world of doing, don’t forget it.”
“I’ll drink to that!” said Donnie and raised a can of beer. Binyamin snatched the can from his hands and looked at him with disapproval.