Call Me Joe

by Martin Van Es

  “I like interesting experiences,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and kissing the top of her head like she was his little sister. “I am happy to be guided by you.”

  They made an unusual couple as they strode into the shopping mall. Sophie could see that people were going out of their way to avoid them and then staring at them from a safe distance, unsure what to expect, whispering to one another and some of them giggling. Some people were looking around for hidden cameras, assuming it was some sort of stunt for television and that this eccentric-looking man was going to start singing or talking to strangers and making them do stupid things. Being so exposed made Sophie feel a little nervous, but at the same time she liked the idea that they were both so unabashedly being themselves and she was determined to be unbothered by whatever other people might be thinking.

  Joe’s wide-eyed look of amazement took in everything going on around him in the busy shops and restaurants. He smiled broadly and anointed everyone who was brave enough to stare or respond to him with a friendly greeting. Sophie noticed that whenever he did that the other parties would not shy away. They would look him squarely in the eye and smile back or mirror his cheerful greetings. Some would even come forward to shake his hand or take a selfie with him as if he were a celebrity. First it was younger people and children who responded, but gradually others lost their reserve and allowed him to strike up conversations with them as he passed. She guessed that many of them had mistaken him for someone off the television.

  His passage from one shop window to the next seemed to set up connections between other people, who either responded with smiles and returned greetings or exchanged amused or puzzled looks with other shoppers. People who would normally have been going about their business with their eyes on the ground or focused blankly on the shop windows, laughed and paused in order to comment to total strangers about the strangely dressed man who was sweeping through their midst, exclaiming in wonder like an excited child at everything he saw. Something changed in the atmosphere of the whole mall. It was as if a magnetic field had been reversed and instead of repelling people they started to attract them closer. One or two people seemed to be deliberately hanging around them, trying to catch Joe’s eye and start a conversation. He didn’t disappoint any of them.

  “Let’s go in here,” Sophie said, feeling self-conscious at the number of people now staring at them and leading him into the relative privacy of one of the clothes shops. Several young sales assistants converged from different corners, apparently all eager to talk to Joe.

  “Hi,” Joe said. “I need some clothes.”

  “What sort of look are you after?” one young man asked.

  “Smart casual?” another suggested.

  “Linen would be a good look,” added another.

  “You guys know much more about this than us,” Joe laughed. “We are happy to be guided by you.”

  “We have a budget,” Sophie warned them, aware that she would be the one paying the bill, but they weren’t listening to her. It was like she had ceased to exist as anything other than Joe’s shadow.

  Joe took her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry about the money,” he whispered, “they won’t charge us.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she hissed. “Have you never been in a shop before?”

  Joe said no more, just grinned and kept hold of her hand, which made her more than happy, until the assistants all brought things for him to try on and she had to release him. Other shoppers stopped what they were doing to watch, at first from afar and then drawing closer when they realised that Joe was happy to talk to all of them, asking their opinions of the different shirts and jackets as he tried them on. Some of them were pulling out their phones and taking pictures as Joe twirled in front of the mirror, laughing happily with the assistants who were struggling to hold his attention as more and more people came up to talk.

  An hour later the shop was filled with people and Joe and Sophie were submerged at the centre of the crowd. More people were peering in through the windows, trying to make out what was going on. Joe was now dressed in a white linen suit, deck shoes and open-necked cotton shirt and his old robes had been spirited away. Assistants were packing other clothes into carrier bags and passing them to Sophie, who realised they thought she was some sort of servant or personal shopper. She asked about paying but no one seemed to be listening to her, it was like her voice had become inaudible because everyone was tuned in to Joe, laughing at everything he said, repeating his bon mots to one another so that they could enjoy them again, pulling out their phones to take pictures and videos.

  When they were finally ushered towards the door Sophie realised he was right. Everyone wanted to watch him and talk to him and that although the assistants had removed all the security tags no one was going to ask him for any money.

  “Haircut,” she mimed to him, unable to make herself heard over the babble of voices surrounding them. She pointed towards a barbershop on the far side of the mall. He nodded his understanding, reached out to grip her hand again and made his way slowly through the crowd, touching people’s shoulders and heads as they came close, shaking outstretched hands, bending down to better hear what they were trying to say, always smiling, somehow giving the impression of looking everyone directly in the eye but still not letting go of Sophie’s free hand.

  The barbers stopped what they were doing in order to watch their slow approach and were ready and waiting by the door when they finally got there. Other customers grinned from the chairs where they sat, swathed in pale blue sheets, apparently not bothered that their haircuts had been interrupted by the arrival of some sort of celebrity circus.

  “What can you do for him?” Sophie asked the assembled barbers.

  “A little bit late twentieth century perhaps?” one of them said, holding up Joe’s long, dark curls for inspection.

  “Please just make him look presentable,” Sophie said, stacking the carrier bags in a corner. “I’ll be back in an hour for him. I have to do some shopping for myself.”

  “No problem,” the youngest of the barbers said, already steering Joe towards a basin. Joe let go of her hand and gave a little wave as the other barbers closed in between them, all of them wanting to feel the hair and make suggestions about shaping the beard.

  Sophie backed out of the shop but no one noticed. She was relieved to get clear of the crowd and to be able to breathe on her own for a moment. She had no idea what sort of clothes she should buy for herself. She was well aware that Yung often made it onto lists in magazines of the best-dressed women in the world. There was no way she was going to be able to compete with that, but she was pretty sure that her beloved sandals, shapeless T-shirts and frayed jeans would not be appropriate. She also wanted to make herself attractive to Joe, which surprised her. He was the first man who had ever provoked that reaction in her.

  Taking a deep breath she walked to a shop which did not yet seem to be full of people staring in Joe’s direction and asked one of the assistants for help. “I need a reasonably smart outfit to be someone’s weekend house guest,” she explained.

  The woman smiled kindly and set to work. Nearly an hour later the job was done. The assistant had never had a customer who was so willing to take her advice and Sophie felt drained by the experience, but also buoyed by how attractive she looked in the changing-room mirrors. She had forgotten how good her figure could look when it wasn’t disguised by baggy T-shirts and ended up buying more than she had intended. She was so pleased by the look of herself with a waist and exposed legs that she even decided to wear one of the new outfits out of the shop.

  The bill was higher than anything she had ever spent on buying for herself in her life, and there was no doubt that this shop was not going to let her just walk out without paying as Joe had done, but money no longer seemed of any importance, even an amount which would have seemed obscene to her only a few days
earlier.

  Opposite was a small beauty shop and Sophie noticed that the girl behind the counter didn’t have a customer. With her heart in her mouth she walked across and asked the girl if she could have a “make-over” – hardly able to believe that she was even using such words.

  “Sure,” the girl said, giving no indication as to whether she was remotely interested in doing it or not. She set to work with nimble fingers and an expressionless face, talking all the time in a robotic voice about a variety of products that Sophie had never heard of. Fifteen minutes later the girl offered her a mirror and Sophie was unable to stop herself from letting out a small gasp of amazement.

  “My God,” she said, “you’ve made me look beautiful!”

  The girl seemed surprised by such spontaneous praise for her handiwork. “You’ve got good bone structure and beautiful eyes,” she said matter-of-factly, “and good skin. You should make more of yourself. Do you want to buy any of the products?”

  “God, yes!” Sophie said. “All of them.”

  By the time she got back, the crowd outside the barbershop had grown and it was a few seconds before she realised that the man she could see standing at the centre of it was Joe. Shorn of most of the beard, and with his hair cut almost short but with a fashionably floppy fringe still falling over his forehead, he now looked more like an international film star than a hermit. For a few seconds Sophie forgot to breathe as she watched him apparently talking to everyone in the crowd both simultaneously and individually, seeing the absorption in the faces of all those close to him as they listened.

  As she elbowed her way through, ignoring the protests of others who were attempting to do the same, she called out his name. He turned to look and she could see that it took him a few seconds to recognise her, too.

  “Wow,” he beamed at her approvingly. “You look beautiful.”

  “You too.”

  She knew she was blushing and was grateful to him when he put his arm around her shoulders and held on to her protectively as the crowd pressed closer. The barbers came out of the shop to give them their other bags. As they made their way slowly towards the exit, Sophie was excited to catch him several times staring at her with what she chose to believe was a twinkle of desire in his eyes.

  “This is a strange place,” he whispered to her. “Why is everyone buying so much stuff?”

  “The same reason as us, I guess,” she grinned. “It is kind of fun, I have to admit.”

  “But they already seem to have so many clothes and the shops are so full of things. Why does there need to be so much choice?”

  “I have no idea,” she laughed. “More to the point, why are they all crowding round you like this? Why are they all asking so many questions and wanting to touch you?”

  “They can sense the presence of God,” he said.

  She laughed at what she thought was a joke but then realised that he was serious and couldn’t think of anything witty to say in response. Joe wasn’t listening anyway. He seemed determined to work out exactly what everyone was doing in the mall that evening.

  “Why do you want to buy so much?” he asked a couple of well-dressed women who were loaded down with carrier bags.

  “We just love shopping,” one of them giggled. “And I married good.”

  “And she divorced even better,” her friend chimed in.

  “But do you need any of it?” Joe asked.

  “You can’t have too many clothes or too many shoes,” they replied in unison.

  “But the planet can’t sustain all this overconsumption,” Sophie interjected, remembering her own personal hobby horse and forgetting that she was also weighed down with parcels. She was aware that Joe was squeezing her tighter as a sign to keep quiet. No one was listening to her anyway.

  “What about you?” Joe turned to an overweight man who was in the process of pushing a burger into his mouth. “Are you actually hungry? And you?” He added a woman sharing a box of doughnuts with her children to the conversation. “Are you and your children actually hungry?”

  “Always,” the man laughed, spraying half-chewed food in all directions, making those around him simultaneously laugh and exclaim in disgust.

  “Keeps the little buggers quiet,” the woman with the doughnuts replied.

  “Is this place making you all happy?” Joe asked the crowd and a chorus of affirmative answers came back.

  “Supposing,” he continued, apparently unfazed by their reactions, “that instead of worrying about how many things we need to own or consume, we directed our energies into thinking about the things we might be able to do to help others and for the good of the world. Rather than buying another pair of shoes, for instance, we could maybe make a meal for an old person who is living alone, or spend time playing with our children or reading a book which teaches us something useful?”

  The crowd pressed closer to hear his words, many of them continuing to eat and drink as they listened, despite the lack of elbow room.

  “I believe there was an American president called Kennedy,” Joe continued, “and he made a speech in which he said something like, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.’ If you followed that idea but substituted the words ‘neighbour’ or ‘world’ for ‘country’, might that make you all feel better about yourselves? Might that seem like the right thing to do?”

  “Always so many questions,” Sophie murmured as she listened.

  The crowd now stretched right across the mall and the people at the back were only there because other people were passing the word around that something interesting was happening. None of them could actually see Joe, even though he was taller than most of the people around him. Sophie remembered how she had gone to sleep wondering if she actually had the Son of God in her apartment because just by being there he had made her question the things she had believed unquestioningly all her life. As she looked around her, she could see that he had the same effect on everyone who came near to him.

  In the control room of the mall the Head of Security was becoming increasingly alarmed at how the crowds were building and the unpredictable ways in which they were moving around. It seemed highly likely that someone was going to get injured if they didn’t disperse soon. Usually at this time of day the mall was beginning to empty in preparation for closing, but no one seemed to want to leave and more people were turning up all the time, apparently hearing on social media that something unusual was going on and wanting to witness it for themselves. He was talking simultaneously into the earpieces of the operatives he had around the building, all of whom seemed as close to panicking as he was.

  Joe, on the other hand, seemed entirely untroubled by the crush of bodies and was happy to spend as much time talking to everyone as they asked for. A young girl was pushed close to him in a wheelchair by her mother and Joe laid his hand gently on her head.

  “What is your name?”

  “Jane.”

  “Have you always relied on these wheels to get around?”

  “All my life.”

  “She has never walked,” her mother said.

  “Just have faith,” he smiled. “You will walk.”

  The authorities were ready to close the mall for the night and under the direction of their manager the guards started trying to herd the people towards the doors. It was impossible to hurry them and tempers were becoming frayed at the edges of the crowd. After they had managed to move a few metres forward Sophie glanced back and saw that the girl, Jane, had struggled out of the wheelchair and was standing up, taking some wobbly steps on her own. The astonished cries of her mother were attracting the attention of the onlookers, all of whom were getting their phones out and filming the apparent miracle. Many were talking to one another and pointing in Joe’s direction as he and Sophie were finally swept out of the doors and into the
late evening air.

  “That was a miracle,” Sophie said. “You actually performed a miracle.”

  “The child just needed to have faith,” Joe replied.

  “So you actually are Jesus,” she said, more to herself than to him, “the Son of God. It wasn’t a dream; it was a vision.”

  He smiled down at her, stooping to kiss her upturned forehead and she realised what the dreams meant. Out of seven and a half billion or more people in the world, she had been chosen to help him spread his messages.

  A shiver ran through her as she remembered what happened to Jesus the last time he came to Earth.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s buy some food and I’ll have a go at cooking a meal for you.”

  Fourteen

  No one in the loosely knit network of international security services used real names. They didn’t even bother to make up code names or aliases or any of the other staples of twentieth-century spy fiction. There was no longer time for anything like that and it was also no longer possible to discern when you were dealing with a real person and when it was no more than a bot created by somebody else’s computer. Information travelled around at such speeds and in such quantities, constantly being exaggerated and contradicted as it went, that it was normally impossible to work out who was real and who was fake, who was talking, who was listening to whom at any given moment and who had any number of alternative agendas behind the things they were saying. It was pointless to believe anything they heard, but they still had to listen because to discover that you were ignorant of some vital piece of information would be even worse.

  Fresh lines of both communication and miscommunication had opened between a number of state security services following the blackout of the sun, integrating into whatever arrangements and alliances already existed, growing them and transforming them at the same time. Some of the operatives had started cautiously sharing information over secured channels of communication they had never used before, putting out feelers in the hope that others knew more than they did and might accidentally drop hints that could be pieced together to make a pattern that they could understand, or perhaps even produce some predictions or answers as to what was going to happen next.