Call Me Joe

by Martin Van Es

  “When the Russians offered me as much money and as much help as I wanted I was in no position to turn them down. In all honesty, I didn’t want to turn them down. Why would I look such a gift horse in the mouth? I assumed they were doing it for public relations reasons, so that the whole world would be able to see that they were a benevolent state and that was fine by me, but they never publicised their involvement. They made me sign non-disclosure agreements with strict penalty clauses. So it seemed like they genuinely wanted to help without any payback.”

  The room was entirely silent apart from her low, husky voice.

  “It was naïve of me to think that. I see that clearly now. But the work went so well. They never quibbled about the costs of anything I asked for. The clinics we built were incredibly successful. God alone knows how many lives we have managed to save through them with the help of the many doctors who came to work with us.

  “It was only once the clinics were established and they knew the idea of closing them would be unthinkable for me that the Russian government started to ask for a return on their investment. They wanted access to the senior politicians and to the business communities in all the African countries where we were operating. They were aware that the Chinese were gaining influence and buying up land all over the continent and they were anxious to compete at every level. If I hadn’t co-operated they would have withdrawn their funding overnight and all that work would have come to nothing, all the clinics would have disappeared within weeks, all those communities would have been thrown back on relying on good luck as their only form of healthcare. So I helped them wherever I could, introducing them to a prime minister here and a president there, assisting with the dissemination of propaganda at elections. It seemed a small price to pay for all the good that we were able to do with the money that they continued to give us.

  “Then you did me the honour of asking me to join your group. I don’t think they realised just what that invitation would lead to. I certainly didn’t. Maybe none of us did. It didn’t seem necessary for me to break my non-disclosure contract with them and tell you of the backing they had given me, so I said nothing.”

  “We were all friends,” Yung said, “excited by our ideas, so we didn’t feel the need to screen one another. There was a natural trust between us.”

  “I thought I was a good person and trustworthy,” Amelia said quietly. “I didn’t realise how completely they owned my soul until it was too late for me to be able to buy it back.”

  She stopped talking and everyone remained silent as they took in the enormity of the confession coming from a woman that they all trusted and respected. Joe walked over to where she was sitting with her head bowed.

  “Stand up Amelia,” he said and she slowly unwound from the chair, allowing him to wrap his arms around her but not feeling worthy to respond, allowing the tears to flow freely and her arms to hang lifelessly by her side. “All that was part of the old system,” he said to the room. “If you organise the future better then there will be no opportunities for this sort of manipulation and corruption. The whole population will be behind great projects like Amelia’s clinics and no one will have the power to use patronage for blackmail.”

  Amelia didn’t raise her eyes from the floor as all the others came over, one by one, to embrace her. Some, like the professor, were obviously uncomfortable with the physical contact, but all could see that they needed to show solidarity. Who among them hadn’t done something in the past that they now regretted? They had all accepted grants from corporations they did not wholly approve of and contracts and prizes from regimes that were known to have bad records for human rights. It was easy for them all to stay on the ethical high road now that they were wealthy, respected and successful; it had not been so easy when they were on their way up. None of them wanted to see Amelia exposed and excluded from the team just as they finally started to gain the ability to put into action the many ideas and dreams they had been talking about for so long.

  “I have a favour to ask, Yung,” Joe said once they were all sitting again and the atmosphere had settled.

  “Of course,” Yung said, “anything.”

  “I am going to be moving on now. Would it be possible to have a last supper here for all of us and our families?”

  Fifty-Four

  The supper was arranged for two days later, which gave each of the Twelve time to make contact with their families and arrange for those who had moved on with their lives to return to the house.

  “It feels a bit like being invited to a presidential inauguration,” Alice told Sophie as the two of them met to catch up and talk about everything that had happened since Sophie returned to Joe’s side. “It’s like an official celebration of the handing over of power from the old regime to the new.”

  “I don’t think it is going to be quite that smooth,” Sophie said. “I think it’s more like a retirement dinner for Joe.”

  “The Son of God is retiring?” Alice laughed. “That doesn’t sound quite right.”

  “I think he plans to say goodbye and move on,” Sophie said, and Alice saw the tears rising up in her friend’s eyes.

  “Oh,” she said and put her arm around her shoulders, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be flippant. This must all be so hard for you.”

  “It’s pretty confusing, yes,” Sophie smiled through the tears. “I’m not sure how I am going to live without him.”

  “I guess you are going to be kept pretty busy,” Alice said. “I mean he has made you just about the second most famous person in the world, bringing you back from the dead in front of absolutely everyone and everything. In a way you are the luckiest of all of us. I mean, how many people have experienced love as completely and deeply as you have in the last few months?”

  “Sometimes I wish he had let me die that day,” Sophie spoke quietly.

  “Well no one else does,” Alice said, squeezing her friend’s shoulders. “So stick around, babe.”

  They both laughed and deliberately talked about other things as Sophie struggled to ignore the lead weight which seemed to be pressing down on her heart.

  Joe had arrived at the house early and was swimming before the last supper when Hugo burst through the doors to the pool, having just been delivered home from school by a driver. He was already in his trunks and hurled himself into the water with a yell of pure joy at being reunited with Joe.

  “Is Miss Sophie going to be here?” he asked as soon as he bobbed out of the water into Joe’s arms.

  “I hope so,” Joe said, “she has certainly been invited.”

  “Are you two going to get married?”

  “I thought I was supposed to be the one who always asked questions.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “No, Hugo. I’m not the marrying kind. I’m going to be moving on.”

  “Oh.” Hugo took the news in, squinting in order to bring Joe’s face more into focus above him. “Well I think that’s a shame but I understand. I don’t think I am going to be the marrying kind either. I would have liked it if you two ended up together, though.”

  “We can’t have everything we want.” Joe gave him a hug before releasing his squirming body into the water like returning a fish to its natural state.

  “Even you? Everyone knows you really are the Son of God now. Doesn’t that mean you can have whatever you want?”

  “I’ll race you to the end and back,” Joe said, setting off before Hugo had time to ask any more questions.

  The dinner was more sumptuous than Joe would strictly have wanted, but he did not want to mar the atmosphere by delivering another reprimand to the Twelve on their extravagant ways. He knew that they still had a great deal to learn about how most of the world lived. He couldn’t expect them to instantly give up all the comforts they had grown used to. Throughout the meal, he moved from one seat to another, engaging
with different people as he went.

  “You will need to oversee the restructuring of the global financial system,” he told Lalit, “so that inequality is erased once and for all with a revolutionary and far-reaching levelling of incomes. A few individuals cannot be allowed to horde vast piles of capital any more, money must be kept moving through the system so that everyone can purchase the things they need for a decent life, no matter what sort of work they do. A mother bringing up a child at home and a man cleaning out the sewers must be able to live as comfortably and securely as someone who buys and sells shares or manages to monopolise a part of the marketplace, but there can still be reasonable income differences in order to provide the necessary stimuli to people to work and to achieve beneficial results.”

  “We have been thinking for some time about how to finance all our plans,” Lalit assured him. “We propose to ask for contributions from every UN member state, and there will also be a taxation system which ensures the very rich pay their share.” He smiled ruefully, aware that this category included himself. “We can also make better use of the existing funds being spent on defence, space research, genetic engineering and other undesirable projects. Unreasonable profits and overly abundant assets will be appropriated from companies and we expect that once people are aware of how much better their lives could be there will be voluntary donations. There will also need to be some new debts from the IMF, based on public trust, which we don’t think will be a problem once a majority of the world’s population have voted in favour of the plans.”

  Joe patted Lalit on the back approvingly and turned to Simon, who was sitting on his other side. “It will mean that the whole world will need to have a fair constitution based on the Twelve Agreements and a global set of public and private laws that everyone can agree to.”

  “I understand,” Simon said. “I already have people working on draft laws. It will take time.”

  “Enough time to get it right,” Joe agreed, “but not so much time that it never gets completed.”

  “I understand,” Simon said.

  “You must take charge of all the armed forces too,” Joe went on. “They could help play valuable policing roles but their war-like services must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the wrong people.”

  “Do you mean dictators and criminals?” Simon asked. “Or the big corporations?”

  “I mean anyone who does not have the best interests of all their fellow citizens as their primary motivation.”

  When Amelia started once more to apologise for betraying him to the Ukrainian, Joe put a finger on her lips to quieten her, and her husband, the Bishop, held her hand tightly from the other side.

  “The service you are going to do for mankind will outweigh any mistakes you have ever made,” Joe assured her. “Concentrate on getting clean drinking water to every individual on Earth, and effective sewage systems, working with the professor on his cities of the future. You will save more lives than any doctor has ever done in the world before, and you will earn your place in Heaven.”

  “Amen,” the Bishop murmured, dabbing a tear from the corner of his eye.

  “What should my task be, Lord?” Haki asked when it came to his turn.

  “You must continue to work to heal the wounds left by so many centuries of wars and ethnic struggles,” Joe said.

  “All of you,” he told the engineers, botanists and conservationists, “must find new ways to clean and restock the land and the oceans, while also building sustainable new housing for everyone.”

  Feeling that they no longer had anything to fear from the authorities, Yung had allowed everyone to keep their phones with them in the house. All the time Joe was moving around the table, relatives of the Twelve were filming the proceedings. Joe had no objection, knowing that it meant his wishes would continue to be shared many billions of times online once he was gone. Everyone in the world would be able to refer back to them on apps like YouTube if they felt that those in authority were straying too far from the original vision, ensuring total transparency.

  While he was sitting with Hugo, discussing the possibilities of Hugo’s ideas for a video game in which the sun goes out and players have to fight one another to survive, Yung came over and whispered something close to her son’s ear.

  “Okay,” Hugo said, turning back to Joe. “I’m just going outside with Mummy for a moment. She says she has a surprise for me.”

  “That’s cool,” Joe said.

  “Do you want Joe to come too?” Yung asked Hugo.

  “Sure,” Hugo shrugged. “What’s the surprise?”

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you,” Yung said, taking hold of her son’s hand and extending her other hand to Joe.

  Security staff muttered into their radios as the three of them walked outside and Joe sighed to himself. It was going to take a while for people like Yung to trust the rest of the world and allow people to come and go through their gates unchallenged. He could hear the approaching thrum of helicopter blades and then lights swept round the side of the mountain and the noise and wind enveloped them. Hugo put his hands over his ears and watched as the helicopter descended onto the helipad and Joe exchanged a look with Yung, who was smiling, her face alight with a joy he had never seen her display before.

  Even before the rotors had stopped turning, the door of the helicopter opened. A figure slid out and limped towards them, dragging a leg behind him. Hugo stared for a moment, then looked up at his mother for confirmation, not daring to believe that his prayers had actually been answered.

  Before Liang had managed to reach them Hugo had run to his father and leaped into his arms. It was obvious that holding his son was physically painful for him, but he did not put him down, continuing on the long walk across to where his wife was waiting for him. The three of them embraced and Joe waited quietly until they remembered he was there.

  “I believe that I have you to thank for my life and for my safe return to my family,” Liang said, bowing his head low and kissing Joe’s hand.

  “Your wife and your son always had faith that you would return,” Joe replied. “This is their reward from God.”

  Fifty-Five

  “I need your help,” Joe told the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

  “Of course,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to get to Jerusalem with Sophie but I have no passport or identification papers and I would not want anyone else to know that I am going there.”

  “Jerusalem?” She was obviously surprised. “Can I ask why?”

  “Perhaps I am just being sentimental, wanting to revisit my earthly roots, but I have many memories from before. I was only twelve when I first went to the temple and it made an impact which has stayed with me. And of course it was the last place on Earth that I saw.”

  “Of course,” the Prime Minister blushed a little, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stir painful memories.”

  “No, you haven’t. The memories of the smells and sounds of the streets are much more vivid to me than the memories of those last few difficult days and I would like to experience them again. If they are still the same, which I guess they can’t be entirely.”

  “I think you will find much there that is timeless. There is still no other city in the world that speaks to the religious and spiritual imagination in quite the same way.”

  “And I would like another chance to say goodbye to Lazarus. He was my best friend and I let him down. I would be grateful if you could help.”

  “Does Sophie know about this trip?” the Prime Minister asked.

  “In her heart I think she does,” Joe replied, and the Prime Minister decided not to pry any further.

  “I’m sure we can sort that out,” she said. “Will you be coming back to us afterwards?”

  “No,” he smiled, knowing that she had already guess
ed that would be his answer. His work was done and mankind must now take responsibility for its own destiny. “Sophie will want to return but it’s a one-way trip for me.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  “But perhaps a little relieved at the same time?” he grinned.

  “Perhaps a little,” she laughed. “Life will be very dull without you.”

  “Whatever happens next,” he said, “I don’t think it will be dull. Everything is going to change and I’m sure that the Twelve will find a global role for you. You have more than proved your worth as a leader.”

  “Thank you,” she said and held out her hand to him. “Whatever happens, I will do my best not to let you down.”

  While the Prime Minister made the arrangements for Joe’s disappearance to Jerusalem, he went to find Sophie at Alice’s flat. He had become as skilful at disguising his appearance when he didn’t want to draw crowds as the Ukrainian had been and was able to pass along busy streets without anyone noticing when he wished to.

  “May I come in?” he asked as she opened the door.

  “Of course,” she replied, feeling her heart leap at the sight of him but forcing herself not to allow her hopes to rise too far or to show in her expression.

  “It was lovely to see you at the dinner,” he said as they sat awkwardly together. “But we didn’t really have a chance to talk.”

  “No,” she agreed. “We didn’t.”

  “Do you remember my promise?” he asked after a few moments.

  “Which one?”

  “To take you to Jerusalem.”

  “Yes, of course. I was really looking forward to it.”

  “Me too,” he said. “I still am. Would you be willing to do me the honour of accompanying me there, even after I have treated you so badly?”

  She paused for a second, trying to straighten out her thoughts before answering, then just blurted out the words, “Oh, yes please.”