“Well, yes, then,” he replied, thankful that Imogene and Kristof had decided to remain behind at the hotel so the rest of the group could be quick. “Just in case. Sediment and all that, right?”
Glancing around, Jason waited for Quentin to move in front of him, as planned, and with Edward, Justice, and Masao behind them, he watched Quentin unscrew his cap from its vial and extend his arm down toward the water. Moments later, vial still dripping, he was screwing it back onto the necklace.
Jason could hear an argument breaking out nearby – one man speaking Hebrew, the other, Arabic – as he quickly followed the same procedure he’d seen Quentin perform. “Let’s go,” he said under his breath. “We can come back to check out the beauty of it later.”
As the majority of their group moved forward, heading back to the tunnel, Masao, Tom, and Edward stayed back, waiting for him. “You know,” he told them conversationally, scratching at an itchy spot from where water had trickled toward his belly, “in my head, the pool of Siloam and the one at Bethsaida… they were one and the same. I’d always connected them. And I don’t even know why.”
“This, I can see as happening,” Masao said, nodding as he clapped Jason’s arm before they moved down the stairs into the tunnel once more. “I think many make this mistake. Jesus sends one man to wash his eyes; He goes to another, where an angel stirs the water and people are healed. Both pools remind people of healing; remind people of Jesus’ miracles.”
Jason focused on the stairs, turned his flashlight toward the water ahead of them, and waited for the others to move forward first.
Edward shook his head. “Why not hand me the flashlight; I’ll take the end of the line this time,” he offered, holding his hand out in the narrow tunnel. “I really don’t mind. I’d actually prefer it,” he continued, smiling.
Jason studied the man he’d come to know as a brother for a few moments – his greying blonde hair; the laugh and worry lines on his still well-defined face; the sweat building in multiple areas on the green and tan plaid shirt he wore, sleeves rolled up to just above the elbow; tan chinos, soaked from their trek through the tunnel. “You sure,” he asked him hesitantly. “I don’t mind, either.”
Aware of Tom and Masao’s eyes on him, and the people behind them wanting to head back into the tunnel, he waited for Edward to nod, handed him the flashlight, and moved ahead of him.
The shadows it cast were more eerie on the way back out than they’d been when he could control them. And as they neared the other end, bent over to the five-foot ceilings, Jason was thankful that Edward had made the offer.
The sooner he got out of the cramped space… the sooner that he could shower and change, the better. Then, he’d be ready for the trip to the Western Wall, and to meet the men Zollo insisted they were there to see.
Paloma’s hands were shaking as she finished walking through Hezekiah’s Tunnel toward town again, thankful they’d accomplished a good part of their task so soon. With Izzie on one side of her and Tawny on the other, she stepped away from the entrance, off to the side as far as she could to wait for everyone else to emerge from the tunnel.
As she saw Edward moving toward her, she allowed the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding go, stepping toward him to embrace.
They had done it.
“So, now back to the hotel, correct,” she heard Casimir asking their group. Murmurs of assent followed, and, arm in arm, she allowed her husband to escort her back into the main part of the city to hail some cabs.
“Did you manage,” Imogene asked her as soon as they arrived back at the hotel. “Kristof asked me to wait down here,” she explained, her topaz eyes focused on Paloma, ignoring the rest of the group as they moved past.
Paloma urged the older woman to walk with her toward the bank of elevators. “We did. So now, onto phase two.”
Those who were staying across the street voiced quick goodbyes as the pair waited for an elevator. “And that is?”
“Getting it all into one place, together,” Paloma told her, moving a hand to move her hair from her sweat-dampened face. “We’ll talk more in a little while. For now, I think showers are in order.”
Imogene nodded in agreement. “Alright. At least I can give Kristof some update.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Paloma told her as one of the elevators dinged. They stepped inside, and the doors slid shut. “Zollo said that Kristof needs to be at the meeting at the café, so he’s offered to stay behind while the rest go to the Wall and take him to meet up when they’re finished.”
“Really?”
Paloma watched Imogene pick at invisible lint on the sleeve of her purple peachskin blouse a moment before answering.
“Really,” she told her. “And I think it’d be a good idea.”
Forty Four
“You know,” Chesed told the rest of the men, “I wasn’t sure what to think of the food here in Yerushalayim, but from my first sandwich, I haven’t looked back once. It was that one right there,” he said, pointing to one of the pictures on the back of the plasticized menu.
Glancing around the café to see if Ferdi had arrived yet, he shrugged and turned back toward the men who’d come from the United States in search of answers. They were sitting at four pushed-together tables, and he and Chayyim had joined them only a few minutes ago, after introductions from Omega. He looked from face to face, his mouth watering just thinking of the sandwich he’d just suggested.
Perhaps he’d order it again.
“The Hadar: roasted eggplant, hummus, pepper jack, and poached egg sandwich on rye; their signature sandwich. Chayyim and I both tried it right off. Probably my favorite.”
“I like it,” Chayyim agreed, adjusting his kippah and then running his hand down into his beard. “But I believe I much prefer the Fishke – I much prefer baked fish to poached egg,” he continued, chuckling. “And where is Ferdi, Chesed,” he interrupted. “I thought he’d be here by now.”
“Ferdi,” Edward asked, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Who’s Ferdi?”
Chesed looked from Edward back to Chayyim, across and to the left of him. Everyone in their group was looking at him, from Kristof in his wheelchair at the far end to Casimir directly across, to Justice and Edward on his nearest right. In a moment of panic, he glanced at his watch: it read 3:57 P.M., Israeli time.
Saying a silent prayer, he finally answered. “I will allow him to introduce himself, but I believe it will be to your benefit, and to his,” he replied even as the bell chimed on the door behind him. He closed his eyes as questions began to pulse through the air even as Chayyim cleared his throat.
“There he is,” Chayyim said, his voice louder than Chesed had ever heard it on the earth. “Ferdi,” he called. “We saved you a seat. These are the friends Chesed mentioned to you the other day; friends from the States.”
Bosmat Nussenbaum approached the table just then to see if they were ready to order.
“Give us five more minutes,” Chesed told her. “The last of our party has only arrived now.” He smiled up at the young woman, noting the glint of light that highlighted her nose ring and the joy in her eyes.
She nodded and moved on to the table on the other side of their group as Ferdi joined them, taking the final seat at the makeshift table between Edward and Kristof.
Chayyim made a quick introduction of the man and then, they concentrated on deciding their orders before Bosmat came back.
Ferdi’s story could wait another ten or fifteen minutes.
It had waited this long…
“Well,” the man next to Edward said after they’d prayed over their meal, “I don’t know where to begin, so I guess… I guess I should start with my earliest known ancestors.”
Eyeing the colossal size of the Hadar before him, Edward kept his ears open and tuned in to Ferdi’s voice. Across from him, he noticed a quizzical look cross Tom’s face, and boredom on Quentin’s.
Must have taken a lot of forgiveness for Tom to let Quentin si
t right next to him, he mused as Ferdi continued: “My seventh great grandfather, like his father before him, was a man of great wealth. And he lived a life that could only rival fairy tales.”
Edward’s eye twitched, and he picked up the half-wrapped sandwich before him for the initial bite. The flavors jumbled in his mouth as he chewed, and Ferdi continued, the table silent aside from the tinkling of their silverware and glasses.
“So I guess I shall say,” the man said, “in a faraway land, and long ago, there lived a man named Gaspar. And Gaspar was a man who, for most of his life, loved three things: God, music, and the land his family left for him to tend. But one day, he heard about a beautiful antique mirror – I have no idea what it looked like; there have been rumors it was covered with an angel – and decided to go and learn more about it. The mirror was for sale in another part of the country, many days away, but he was curious, and so, he went.”
Edward didn’t move, his breath becoming shallow. There’s no way, he thought. It can’t possibly be, can it?
Ferdi paused long enough to drink some of his iced tea before continuing, seemingly oblivious to all the eyes on him; the lack of movement at the table. “And so it’s been told that there were three bidders for this mirror, and Gaspar offered the highest price to the man who sold it. But while he was waiting at the château where the seller was, he met a woman he believed he would like to marry. She was the first of three women he believed he could be happy with, and the final of them, years later, was my seventh great grandmother, Galya. And she was a Hebrew follower of Jesus.”
As Ferdi continued speaking, a calm flowed around Edward and he just took in the details, occasionally glancing at one or more of the other men at the table. He listened as Ferdi explained how he’d been named, like all but one of the first-born male children in his family, after his sixth great grandfather, Fernand. “And Fernand,” the man said, “was a miracle child.”
“A miracle child,” Jason asked when Ferdi paused to eat a bit of his lentil soup, which Edward guessed had grown cold during the story. “What do you mean, a miracle child?”
And Ferdi, not having any reason to know Jason’s story, or about Clayton’s miraculous birth, answered him with a story about how a jealous maid poisoned Galya, and therefore also Fernand, when she was not yet ready to give birth. How Fernand, were it not for prayer, wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Tom cleared his throat at the explanation, but remained silent. Edward could see his friend discreetly pulling some prayer beads out and rubbing them in one of his large paw-sized hands.
Fernand, Ferdi continued, went on to marry a Spanish woman whose father was a duke, and they eventually made their way to Italy, having nine children, three of whom became artists. The oldest, Fernand Jesse –each Fernand had a different middle name, Ferdi had paused to explain – was his fifth great grandfather.
And so the story wended its way through five countries in the next four generations, and then, he told them, his mother had married a Saudi man.
“After having five girls, finally, they had me,” Ferdi said, smiling. “And I was my father’s joy until the age of eight, when he died. We lived in Haifa most of those early years,” he continued, his voice trailing off. “I can still smell the ocean breezes from our trips to walk the shore.”
Edward could see tears welling in the man’s eyes, and offered his extra napkin, which was declined. For a moment, he rubbed at his ribcage, not for the first time since they’d arrived at the café.
“It is alright,” Ferdi told him quietly. “I am not afraid of a few tears.”
The table lapsed into silence, and more iced tea, water, and coffee were brought around. A few desserts were ordered, and husbands and fathers ordered for the women, asking Bosmat to make sure they were boxed up to go.
“So, you be Arabic or Israeli,” Lovan asked after the table had come back to life a little. “I be confused.”
Ferdi laughed a moment, and then sobered. Edward could feel the man’s leg shaking under the table.
He’s nervous, Edward thought.
“I’m both, but I believe in Jesus Christ, so like Galya before me, and my mother and grandfather, I am what is known as a Messianic Jew,” Ferdi replied, his words much slower and quieter now than before. “But most Jews that I have met do not understand this term. They say, sure, Messianic, okay; Jewish, okay. But Messianic Jew? They do not generally like this terminology. I do not wish to offend. Therefore, I haven’t really labeled myself unless driven to it.”
“And so then…,” Kristof asked, his voice wobbly and weak, “you are both, but really three?”
Edward looked over at Kristof, meeting the man’s eye.
What was he up to?
“As a man of many lands and waters… as a man of mixed heritage, I believe that I must be what Jesus calls me, and that is merely Follower.”
Forty Five
Portland, Oregon…
Malik moved to answer the phone, thankful that, so far, there had been no deep religious conversations between he and the men filling in for Jason and Edward. They seemed nice enough, but just the thought of trying to debate Yared Cohen and Earnest Moffett – one, a former IDF and the other, an overt Christian – made him shudder to think about.
“Accept the call,” he told the Andromeda in Jason Rutherford’s office, where the main phone line rang.
On the holoscreen, an image of Anouk Chanel Ogawa blipped to life.
“Have you heard from them,” she asked before he could even greet her. “I tried their hotel, and I tried Masao’s cell phone, and nothing. I tried Paloma, and I tried Tawny, and I….”
She looked pale, and her face was drawn, though her eyes were puffy, as though she’d been crying. In her arms, she held an overstuffed beige pillow to her chest.
“Wait one moment,” he pleaded, holding his arms out against the tumult of words. “What happened? What is wrong? I know we are not close, but… I have never seen you upset, and I’m not certain how I can help.” His heart thudding in his chest, his mind began whirring through a thousand thoughts a second.
Was there something she had said before, and he’d forgotten?
“An hour ago, I received a phone call from Japan,” she said, tears filling her darkening eyes. “And I just… I must speak with Masao, and it must be soon. He is closer to there now, being in Israel, and maybe he will be able to make it in time, if only I can get ahold of him.”
The phone made a triple beep, indicating another call trying to come through. He glanced at it and saw Jason’s number. “One moment. I might be able to help. May I multiply this call? Jason is trying to get through.”
“Of course,” Anouk Chanel said. “Please.”
Sighing even as he accepted the second call, he heard a crash coming from the direction of the kitchen. Jerking his head around, he heard Earnest apologizing as Jason greeted him, and then Anouk Chanel.
“Sounds like the inkling Paloma had was a good one. Most of the phones have been left off to conserve energy. She told me to call you earlier, but I only just remembered. So, what’s up,” the man said over the din of what looked like a restaurant.
Malik could see men seated around Jason, some familiar, some not so much. A young woman with her dark hair pulled back and a nose ring glittering in the light was pouring water in glasses around the table where Jason was.
“Please, I must speak with Masao. Is that him there, behind you talking with someone,” Anouk Chanel asked. “I must speak with him immediately.” She paused again, and Malik took the opportunity to go check on what had broken in the kitchen.
After a quick surveillance of the area and seeing only one broken plate, he headed back toward Jason’s office.
“…is dying,” he heard Anouk Chanel say. “He had a heart attack yesterday, and the doctor who helped him through it found our number in his things. A Dr. Mitsushima, he said his name was. Visiting for a conference… isn’t even from the hospital your father was taken to. I was too
distracted with the details to remember, but I think he said Kuroishi General. Thankfully, the doctor knew enough English for me to understand him.”
Malik waited at the doorway, not wishing to interrupt. “I want to go,” he heard Masao tell her in reply. “The Lord knows that I do, and if there were a way….” He paused for several moments. “I will see what is possible and let you know. This trip is important, but my father, too, is important. I will speak with the family and pray, and I will let you know.”
Malik could see the edge of the holoscreen where Anouk Chanel’s face was; could see that she nodded. At that point, he silently walked back into the room.
“Merci,” the woman said, tears glittering at the corners of her eyes. “And we will be praying here. If it is possible, then God will make a way. Just do as you believe He calls you by His Spirit,” she said, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper.
Malik gulped; his heart hammered within him once more.
Why was it that whenever someone mentioned the Holy Spirit, his mouth went dry and his heart sped up? What was it about this… this thing, this Holy Spirit that his Christian friends insisted was real, that made him wish to test the theory?
But if he did, he would be betraying his family. His heritage. He would be betraying Mohammed himself. But what of Allah? If Allah and the Christian God were the same, then it should be alright, but if they were not the same… if Jesus was more than a prophet and the Holy Spirit was something real….
Malik shook his head, trying to scrub the thought from his mind. Nonsense, he told himself. If Jesus is real, then there must be proof; more proof than kindness among a small number of people who follow, he thought. I have met too many judgmental, hypocritical, rude, and obnoxious people claiming to be followers of this Jesus and claiming that God sent the man into the world as part of Himself than I wish to even recall.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 109