In His Image

by James Beauseigneur

  “Thanks, Decker, but I’d like to get as far away from the UN as possible. Normally I’d go to Rome, but if I go there, the reporters will be on me about this vote before I’ve even hit the ground. And frankly, I’d rather not face President Sabetini right now.”

  Decker started to make another suggestion, but decided it was probably best to stay quiet and let Christopher think. Christopher stared out the window. Decker had never seen him look so distraught. It seemed there must be more to this than Christopher was saying.

  “Christopher,” Decker asked after a moment, “is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Christopher looked at Decker, his face filled with anxiety and trepidation. It was as though Decker had seen something Christopher himself did not want to admit but could no longer deny. “I have this feeling,” Christopher began uncomfortably as he shook his head again, apparently unsure of what the feeling meant, “that something is about to go terribly wrong, that this is just the beginning, that Faure and Brooks are going to be responsible for some terrible tragedy. And I am helpless to try to stop it.” Christopher paused, but Decker had nothing to say. “Am I wrong to want to get away?” Christopher continued. “To leave it behind me for a while?”

  “No, of course not,” Decker answered reassuringly. “We all have to get away sometimes to think.”

  “Maybe I’m just spoiled. I’ve never really faced a problem I couldn’t handle. For the first time in my life I have no idea what to do.”

  Decker started to say, “Welcome to the human race,” but decided it was better left unsaid.

  “I know this is going to sound strange,” Christopher said finally, “and I really can’t explain why, but for some reason I feel I need to go to Israel.”

  “Israel?” Decker echoed in surprise.

  Christopher shrugged his shoulders. “I just have a feeling that maybe I’ll find some answers there.”

  26

  The Reason for It All

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  THE COLD, ARID, MORNING air of Tel Aviv quickly absorbed their moist breath as Decker and Christopher left the terminal at David Ben Gurion Airport and hailed a cab. With his attention on the taxi, Decker did not even notice the two uniformed police officers who ran out the door of the terminal behind them; nor did he notice the young man who stood off to their right talking to an older couple. Suddenly, though, it became impossible not to notice them. The young man, seeing the police, quickly broke and ran along the edge of the sidewalk between the taxi that had just pulled up and where Decker and Christopher stood. He got no farther. One of the policemen, anticipating his attempted route of escape, grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground right at the feet of Decker and Christopher. That’s when Decker noticed the strange blood-red marks on the young man’s forehead. For a moment Decker thought the man must be bleeding; as he looked more closely he realized it was writing, almost like finger painting, in Hebrew characters.

  There was little time to think about it as the Palestinian taxi driver jumped smartly from his car, took their luggage, and threw it quickly into the trunk. He didn’t even seem to notice the police or their struggling captive.

  “I wonder what that was all about,” Decker said, still watching the action through the window as he and Christopher settled into the cab.

  “Oh, you mean the man the police were arresting?” volunteered the driver as he pulled away from the curb.

  “Uh … yes,” Decker answered, a little surprised. He had really just been thinking out loud and didn’t expect an answer. “Did you see what happened?” Decker asked. “He was just talking to some people there in front of the terminal.”

  “Yes,” the driver replied. “He was KDP.” The reference meant nothing to Decker. “That’s what they do: talk to people. It’s what they talk about that’s the problem. They’re very odd. They know things about people; things that people don’t want others to know.”

  The driver seemed to be a rational person, but Decker found it difficult to believe what he was saying.

  “I think they’re psychic,” the driver continued, as he turned onto the highway. “They’re not supposed to be around the airport or any of the tourist spots: It’s bad for business. But that doesn’t stop them.”

  “You said he was ‘KDP.’ What does that mean?” Decker asked.

  “Well, that’s the English. In Hebrew the letters are Koof Dalet Pay. The English is shorter to say than the Hebrew, so most people just call them KDP. Did you see the writing on his forehead?”

  “Yes, I was wondering about that. What was it?”

  “I didn’t get a good look but it was the Hebrew characters for either Yahweh or Yeshua. Yahweh is the Jewish name for God, and Yeshua is Hebrew for Jesus. All of the members of the KDP have either one or the other.”

  “So, are they Christians or Jews?” Decker asked.

  “They say they’re both,” the driver answered. “Of course the other Jews won’t claim them, but many KDP used to be very respected Jews. Some of them were even rabbis, and I heard that one of them used to be an attendant of Israel’s high priest.”

  “What about the writing? It looked like smeared blood. It appeared to be still wet.”

  “Well, they say it’s lambs’ blood from the sacrificial lambs at the Jewish Temple. But whatever it is, it won’t wash off. It’s like a tattoo. I think it’s some kind of permanent dye.”

  “Are you saying the Israeli government put the mark on the KDP members so that they could keep track of them?” Decker asked.

  “Oh, no! The Jews won’t even say ‘God,’ much less write his name. They hate the KDP because they have his name written on their foreheads. What makes it worse is that the Jews say that since the other half of the KDP have Yeshua written on their heads, it’s like they’re making Jesus out to be equal to God. They tried to get the government to deport all the KDP but no one else wants them either.”

  “So the KDP marked their own foreheads?”

  “Yes. Well, they claim it was put on them by angels.”

  Decker let out a hmm.

  “It seems stupid to me to put something like that on your forehead. It just makes it easy for the police to spot them.”

  “What will the police do to the one at the airport?” Decker asked.

  “Oh, they’ll probably hold him for a few days and then let him go. They can’t do very much. There’s just too many of them. If they arrested all of them, there’d be no room left in their jails for us Palestinians,” he added sarcastically.

  “How many KDP are there?”

  “They say there’s exactly one hundred and forty-four thousand, but I don’t think anyone has actually counted them.”

  “A hundred and forty-four thousand?” Decker gasped.

  “It was very mysterious. It all happened about a year ago. One day nobody had even heard of the KDP and the next day they were all over the place.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  “That’s how they got their name.”

  “I wanted to ask you more about that.” By now Decker was leaning forward, his head partway over the back of the front seat to facilitate the conversation.

  “Well, in Hebrew the same characters are used for letters and numbers,” explained the driver. “For example, the letter tav is

  also the number nine. So you can add the numbers of the letters in a word. Say you added the letters in the Hebrew word for bread; that would equal seventy-eight. You can add up the letters in any word. The Jews call it gematria. Some of the Orthodox Jews use it as a way to make decisions, almost like most people in the rest of the world use astrological signs and horoscopes. For instance, some rabbis say that to memorize something you should repeat it one hundred and one times, because when you subtract the value of the Hebrew word for remember from the value of the Hebrew word forget the remainder is one hundred and one. But I think they make up the rules as they go along because a lot of times it doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, sometimes a number will
also be a word. Like, uh …” The driver tried to think of an example. “Okay,” he said after a moment, “the characters used to write the number fourteen spell out the Hebrew word for hand. Of course Hebrew doesn’t have any vowels like in English, so you have to use your imagination a little. Anyway, as it turns out, the characters used to write the number one hundred and forty-four thousand also spell the words Koum Damah Patar—KDP for short.”

  “What does that mean in English?” Decker asked.

  “Oh just nonsense. Literally it means ‘Arise, shed tears, and be free,’” the driver answered. “It’s just an easy name for them, I guess. Actually, they can be pretty nice people when they’re not preaching at you or telling you about the things you’ve done that you wish they didn’t know about and maybe would rather not think about yourself.”

  “Have you ever talked with one of them?” Decker asked.

  “Oh, yes. It’s probably happened to everyone in Israel at least once. One day I was fixing a flat tire. I had burned my hand the day before and had it bandaged so I was having some trouble. This guy came up, and without asking just started helping me. When I looked up I saw he was KDP. I was surprised but he just kept working.”

  “He helped you change the tire?”

  “Yes. Like I said, they’re very strange. Sometimes they start out by doing you a favor, and they never take any pay. After we finished with the tire, out of the blue he told me how I had burned

  my hand and he said that the reason I had burned it was so that he’d be able to help me and then I’d listen to what he had to say. I don’t know how he knew about my hand, but then he started telling me other things.”

  “Like what?” asked Decker.

  “Well, personal things. Like I was saying, things that people would rather not talk about.”

  “Oh,” Decker said. He hadn’t meant to pry. “You said that sometimes they start out by doing you a favor. What about the rest of the time?”

  “Well, my neighbor’s wife decided to follow one of the KDP around, hoping to hear what he was saying to other people. But he turned around and called her by name and said she was a gossip and a liar and she had stolen from her employer. He went on and on. She ran away, but he followed her. The farther she ran, the louder he yelled and the more people that heard. It was like he was reading a list of everything she had ever done wrong. Finally, she begged him to stop and he told her she should repent of her sins and follow Yeshua and that if she did, God would forgive her for everything.”

  Decker shook his head in wonderment.

  “There’s one other strange thing about them,” the driver added after a moment. “They claim one of their leaders is the Christian apostle John.”

  Decker was about to ask the driver to explain when Christopher, who until this point had remained silent and distracted, suddenly jumped as if he had received an electric shock. “What?” Christopher asked the driver, his voice full of both surprise and dread.

  “Yes, pretty crazy, huh?”

  Christopher’s brow seemed to furrow in pain. His eyes moved slowly but erratically, as though there was a very unpleasant scene running through his memory over and over again.

  “Christopher, are you all right?” Decker whispered. Christopher didn’t answer. For the next several minutes they rode in silence, but Decker could see that inside Christopher’s mind there was a battle raging. After a few more minutes Christopher seemed to slowly resign himself to whatever was bothering him. Finally he spoke.

  “I’m sorry for not answering you earlier,” he told Decker. “I’ve just remembered something.” Decker remained silent, though it was obvious he wanted to know more. But this was not the place; it would have to wait until they reached the hotel.

  A half hour later the driver pulled up to the front door of the Ramada Renaissance Hotel. It was Decker’s choice. It was the same hotel that he and Tom Donafin had stayed in twenty years earlier. He had even tried to get the same rooms but they were unavailable. As they got out of the car, Decker’s thoughts were torn between his own memories of this place and wanting to know what Christopher had remembered in the cab. The pain had passed from Christopher’s eyes. Now he was just deep in thought.

  About forty yards away on the other side of the street, two men watched. On the forehead of one was the mark of the KDP.

  “There they are,” the smaller of the two men said.

  “I see them,” answered the one with the mark.

  “So, let’s do what we came for.”

  The one with the mark hesitated. “Maybe we should wait until they’re separated.”

  “You’re not changing your mind, are you, Scott?” the smaller one asked.

  “No … I mean … I don’t know; maybe I am, Joel. It all made so much sense before, but now that we’re here”—Scott Rosen shook his head—“all of a sudden I’m not so sure we should do it.”

  Decker tipped the bellman who brought the luggage to their adjoining rooms and then closed the door. Finally, he and Christopher could talk openly. “What did you remember in the car?” he asked, not wanting to waste any time.

  Christopher seemed to be searching for words. “It’s about the crucifixion. It’s …” Christopher paused, and then started again, “Somehow, what the driver said about the Apostle John brought back a memory that … I don’t know, maybe I’ve suppressed it. Maybe I don’t want to remember.”

  “What?” Decker prodded.

  “The Bible says that it was Judas who betrayed Jesus.” Christopher shook his head. “He has always been blamed, but Judas is not the one who betrayed me. 64 He had a part in it, but he was deceived. The one who put him up to it was John. I remember it clearly,” Christopher continued, “but I still don’t understand why he did it. John was one of my closest friends. And yet he betrayed me. He got Judas to do the dirty work and then blamed it all on him. But John planned it. Somehow he convinced Judas it was necessary to turn me over to the Sanhedrin—the Jewish officials— in order to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy. He told Judas that when the prophecy was fulfilled, I would call down the armies of God to defeat the Roman legions who occupied Israel and I would bring about a Jewish kingdom that would be like heaven on earth.

  “I can see it like it was yesterday. As I hung there on the cross, of all of the disciples, John was the only one who came. 65 I knew what he had done. When I saw him there, I thought he had come to ask forgiveness. I called to him to come closer so I could speak with him. I told him I knew what he had done. To my surprise, he admitted it freely, but without remorse; he almost seemed to boast about it. Yet to everyone else, he let the blame fall on Judas. And poor Judas, overcome by his undeserved guilt, hanged himself. 66

  “I tried to reason with John. I told him that if he would just ask, he would be forgiven. I would forgive him and I was sure the others would as well. But he refused. He bragged that forevermore Judas would be known as the betrayer of the Messiah, and then he laughed and said that he would be remembered as ‘John the beloved.’

  “I told him that despite his lack of repentance, I forgave him for what he had done to me, but I could not forgive him for what he had done to Judas.”

  “But that was two thousand years ago,” Decker argued. “How could John still be alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Christopher answered. “But I know it’s him. I can feel it.”

  Decker realized he was just going to have to trust that Christopher knew what he was talking about, no matter how fantastic it sounded.

  “Do you think he knows about you?” Decker asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe coming to Israel was a mistake. If John really has a hundred and forty-four thousand followers it may not be safe for you to be here.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry, Decker. There’s no way he could know about me. I just wish I could understand why he betrayed me.”

  Decker and Christopher decided to nap for a few hours before going out for the afternoon. Decker had no
t seen the Temple since it was completed and Christopher, who was well known in Israel as the man who had returned the Ark, had an open invitation from the high priest for a personal tour. Much of the Temple was forbidden to non-Jews, so they would not be able to see all of it, but they would see more than most.

  When Decker awoke he looked at the clock and realized he had overslept by several hours. It was almost three-thirty. This would make it much harder for him to adjust to Israeli time, but he thought the extra sleep would be good for Christopher. He got dressed quickly and knocked at the door between their two rooms to wake Christopher, but there was no answer. He knocked again and then opened the door. Christopher was not there. Taped to the mirror in his room was a note in Christopher’s handwriting.

  I knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer. I decided to let you sleep. I’m just going to wander around the old city for a while. I need some time to think. Don’t wait up if I’m late.

  Decker decided he’d do the same. The old city wasn’t that big—maybe he’d run into Christopher along the way.

  As Decker walked down the narrow streets and still narrower alleyways of the city, he thought back to the time he had been here with Tom Donafin. Tom had done all the sightseeing then; Decker just looked at the brochures and picture postcards Tom brought back. He had been saving most of his sightseeing for when Elizabeth and the girls arrived for Christmas vacation. But that had never happened. Decker sighed. Even after all these years, he thought of them every day and still missed them terribly.

  By five o’clock the sun had begun to set and Decker found a small restaurant down a side alley where he had dinner. Afterward he headed back to the hotel. Christopher still had not returned, so Decker left the door between their rooms open and watched a movie until he fell asleep. When he awoke it was still dark outside and he assumed he had slept for a couple of hours. He went to Christopher’s room and found it just as it was before; the note still hung on the mirror. Decker went back in his room to turn off the television and saw that the clock on his night table said it was nearly six; Christopher had been gone all night. Decker ran back into Christopher’s room as if that might make some difference. It made none.