Verse

by Moses Roth

  Chapter 74

  Israel is sick, the whole world knows that. The only ones who don’t seem to know it are the Israelis themselves, who’ve just become numb to the pain.

  I finish speaking and the woman asks me another question, then it cuts to a pundit criticizing me. Then she criticizes me. The program ends and I turn it off. I should never have agreed to do that interview.

  My phone rings.

  Unknown Number

  I answer, “Hello?”

  Someone yelling at me in Hebrew, talking too quickly for me to understand.

  I hang up.

  The phone rings.

  Unknown Number

  I silence the phone, make dinner, eat, read, and go to bed.

  I wake up and check my phone. 26 missed calls. 25 unknown numbers and one from Cohen. I call him back. “Maybe you should come over,” he says.

  I step out into the street and I can feel their eyes on me. I take the bus across town and people whisper and glance at me.

  At least they’re paying attention.

  I get off and walk to Cohen’s building.

  A woman and her children stare at me as I walk into the courtyard. I go up the stairs and knock on the door. Rachel answers it, “Hi, Manuel,” and lets me in. “I’ll get Judah.”

  She disappears down a hallway and Cohen comes out. “Shalom, Moshiah.”

  “Hello, Rabbi.”

  “It’s been too long.”

  I say, “Yeah,” and we hug.

  We separate and he says, “Would you like something to drink?”

  I shake my head.

  He pours us some wine and we go out to the balcony. He slides the door shut behind us and I lean with my forearms against the rail. I look out at the Old City, at the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock.

  He says, “A lot of people watched that story on you.”

  “Seems like every person in the country.”

  “You know what they say, no publicity is bad publicity.”

  I hold my glass up and he clinks it. I say, “To no such thing as bad publicity.”

  We drink.

  I say, “Actually, the story’s not even bad. So they said they didn’t think I was the messiah, what else is new? People just didn’t like the parts where I criticized Israel. They think they need a united front and only say these things in private, like it’s the mafia or something. I’m just glad more people are paying attention. That’s not what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is, we should take advantage of this. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “It takes time. Patience.”

  “I’ve been very patient.”

  “Have you?”

  “Well no, I’ve been very impatient. But I have waited. And done everything I’m supposed to. Practicing being a good politician. Studying Hebrew. Being charming. Not dating non-Jews.”

  He says, “Or anyone at all. Maybe that’s the problem? I could start setting you up on a few dates? If you found a wife, wouldn’t you feel less frustrated?”

  “What are you, a yenta?”

  He laughs. “How have you been, Manuel?”

  “Fine. Class is going good. How about you?”

  “Also good. I’m enjoying teaching.”

  I say, “Did you ever think we’d be here, two years later, just doing nothing?”

  “We’re not doing nothing. I knew this would take a long time. I’m not as young as you, I’m used to things going slowly, to waiting.”

  “But now we have some heat, let’s take advantage of it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  He says, “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He laughs.

  I say, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. We want different things.”

  “Do we? Don’t we both want for you to be king?”

  “Yes. But I want a revolution. You want a war with the Arabs, which I don’t even understand why, because it makes no sense how that would help us.”

  “Because the war with the Muslims is the final prophesized war. Even the Muslims believe that. And once the war begins, people will want Mashiakh, they will turn to you naturally.”

  “But there’s no cause and effect there, you’re just hoping that’s how people will react.”

  “Okay, fine, so what’s your big plan?”

  “I don’t have a plan, but I did get an idea during one of my political classes. You know there’s no line of succession in the Israeli government. There’s no vice prime minister. When the prime minister dies, the cabinet chooses an interim prime minister. So we don’t need to convince the rabbis or the whole population of Israel, we just need to convince twenty politicians.”

  “What are you saying, you want to assassinate the prime minister?”

  I shrug.

  He says, “Are you prepared to do that? Kill Mazal Ravid?”

  “He’s a murderer.”

  “So would you be.”

  “We’re talking about starting a war, how many would die then? Politicians train us to see killing politicians as a tragedy, but they kill soldiers and even civilians all the time and that’s, eh, part of life.”

  He says, “Leaving all that aside, how would you convince the cabinet to choose you as the interim prime minister?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “Especially after killing the last prime minister.”

  “Well theoretically they wouldn’t know about that.”

  “I see.”

  “That said, if I can become interim prime minister, especially with a cabinet that considers me the messiah, it could be a simple matter dismantling the government and setting up a monarchy.”

  “Simple.”

  “Well, not simple.”

  “You might as well just run for prime minister. Wouldn’t you need the support of the people? And why would they ever follow you in this?”

  “You’re right.”

  He smiles smugly. “I am?”

  “I don’t like it, but you are right. All right, stop smirking. We do still need something to make people love me. I’ve gotten famous here, but I still haven’t won them over.”

  “Wasn’t that why we were trying to win over the Haredi, speaking to all the rabbis? Shouldn’t we get back to that? It’s a slow process, but we take it one step at a time.”

  “No, that wasn’t working. It’s not that it was going slowly, it wasn’t working at all. We were trying to take it one step at a time, starting with the easiest step. And even that was too difficult. We need something that can jump over all those steps. One giant leap.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. All right, I told how I would start my revolution, how would you start your war?”

  “How difficult would it be to start a war with the Arabs? We accept their suicide bombings all the time, but I bet you if we blew up one little place half as populated, they’d invade in a heartbeat.”

  “First of all, we’re not doing that. Second of all, the Israeli government does blow up civilian targets and what has that ever accomplished? But first of all, killing civilians is what we’re here to stop, not do ourselves.”

  “A means to an end.”

  “You sound like them.”

  “Like who?”

  “A terrorist. Or a politician.”

  “Well, what are we here to be?”

  “It’s a no, Cohen.”

  “Okay, fine. But what do you think, you can avoid war altogether and still be mashiakh?”

  “I know the war’s inevitable. I’m not naive enough to think we can conquer the world without any war at all. But it’ll be with other enemy nations after we conquer Israel. Not against civilians.”

  “It was just an idea, I wasn’t really saying to. That said, if we blew up one little mosque…”

  “What do you want to do, blow up the Dome of the Rock?”

  He laughs. He turns and looks at it.

&nb
sp; I look at it too, it’s golden dome gleaming in the sun.

  I say, “That was rhetorical, Cohen.”

  “It’s perfect. Think about it.”

  “No.”

  “Just think about it. It’s an announcement to both the Jews and the Muslims. To the Jews, it says we’re ready to rebuild the Temple, which must be rebuilt on that spot. It’s a prophecy and it says we’re fulfilling it. To the Muslims it says, we’re going to take back what’s ours, what you stole from us.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s filled with people.”

  “We’ll do it at night.”

  “It’s one of the most important, greatest historical sites on the planet.”

  “Exactly. So it will be important to them. You’re right, they don’t care if we kill a few civilians. Most Muslims don’t care at all about the Palestinians. They just use them as accusations against Jews. But this they will care about. This will provoke them.”

  “That’s a no, Cohen. That’s a one hundred percent no.”

  “Immanuel…”

  “Am I your messiah or not?”

  “Yes?”

  “Then I’m telling you, as your messiah, as your king, it’s a no. We’ll come up with something else.”

  Chapter 75

  It’s dark in the stairs up to my apartment, the light is out again, so I use my cellphone to illuminate the way. I fumble for my keys, unlock the door, and go inside. I take off my jacket and take a seat at my desk and open my computer. No interesting emails. I check the news and do a search for my name.

  Screw this.

  I get up and put on my jacket and go out. I go down the stairs and head up the hill through the Old City.

  It’s cold. It might rain.

  I buy a schwarma with everything and a bottle of water.

  I walk up the hill while eating. Not bad. There’s a better, cheaper one in the Muslim Quarter. I go out the Jaffa Gate and head for the New City. What am I looking for?

  A car honks at me. Everything’s closed. I pass the bus station.

  A discotheque.

  I nod at the doorman and give him a few sheqels and walk through the metal detector.

  Pink, red, and green strobe lights. It’s packed, hot, and I can smell, almost feel, the sweat on the dance floor.

  Slanging ye

  Lotta muss, lotta fuss

  My wallet and my Glock

  Never time to rust

  I go to the bar and buy a Goldstar and turn, leaning against it, taking a sip, a retching feeling on the back sides of my tongue.

  Here nor there

  Don’t know what I mean

  Twenty steps ahead

  Don’t know where I been

  The beer makes me want a cigarette, so I look around at the others at the bar.

  A couple of gay guys talking.

  Some hipsters, just back from the dance floor, panting.

  A couple of guys, self-conscious and watching the girls.

  A chubby girl, alone, smoking.

  Cops try ta hold me

  Bitches think they own me

  Niggas wanna show me

  Ain’t never gonna know me

  I approach her and ask her for one. She gives it to me and lights it for me. I alternate sips and drags and then put it out and look at her and cock my head toward the dance floor. She nods and I follow her.

  Keep my connect

  Don’t even ask

  Keep it correct

  First to the last

  I grind my crotch against her ass and she turns toward me and we rub against each other. I feel self-conscious like always, but I know they do too. The song ends.

  I go home.

  Chapter 76

  Iris is waiting for me on the doorstep.

  I’ve dreamt about this so many times, am I dreaming? Iris smiles so big and I’m smiling just as much.

  She stands up and we hug.

  I pull back and I can’t keep my eyes off of her, it’s embarrassing. “Hey,” I say.

  “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  She says, “I’m good, how are you?”

  “I’m uh… Come inside.”

  I squeeze around her and it’s kind of awkward and I fumble for my keys and then with the lock and I finally get the door open. She follows me into the kitchen/dining room, closing the door behind herself, and I offer her a seat at the table.

  She takes it and I get some water for us and take a seat across from her.

  “Iris? What are you doing here?”

  She reaches into her bag and pulls out a hard disc and sets it on the table. “The program. It works.”

  “The program?”

  “The bot.”

  “But you said I needed a supercomputer?”

  “Yeah, I know. Can’t get you get some billionaire or maybe you have friends in the Israeli government to let you use theirs?”

  I shrug. “I doubt it.”

  “You should figure out a way. I think it could be worth it.”

  “What will it do?”

  “I don’t know. I programmed it to promote you as the messiah, like we talked about, but it’ll change. It can adapt to new scenarios. And it’s a program so it can update instantly, faster than any human could update it. But I don’t know what it will do after the first generation. You could be the most famous man on the planet overnight. Or maybe not. Maybe something ten times better than that, maybe it won’t work at all.”

  I pick it up. “Why didn’t you email it?”

  “It’s a big file.”

  “FedEx.”

  “It’s valuable.”

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “You sound like my boyfriend.”

  “Oh. You have a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah.” She looks at me sadly. “I did want to see you.”

  I smile. “It’s good to see you too.”

  I look at my glass, the light refracting through the water like a prism.

  She says, “What is it?”

  “You remember that day in the hospital? When you came to visit me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if I changed my answer?”

  “What answer?”

  “When you told me you wanted to be with me. What if I said yes?”

  “I just told you… Why are you saying this?”

  “I don’t know. Because I mean it.”

  “You have a baby?”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’m not with Faye. I never was in love with her.”

  “But you should be with your daughter. I don’t know why you’re not.”

  “You’re right. I want to come back to Seattle and be a part of her life. And yours.”

  “But you live here. You have a whole life here.”

  “You just said— I don’t have a life. I don’t have anything. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  She shakes her head. “What’s going on, Manuel? Where’s this all coming from?”

  “I made a mistake. I made lots of mistakes, but I should have said yes that day.”

  “Why are you saying this? I thought you wanted to be over here, to be the messiah.”

  “It’s stupid. I’m stupid, but it… it isn’t real. I mean, I know you’ve been saying that forever and I guess I kind of agreed with you, but I never really got it till now. What am I even doing here?”

  “I don’t know, what are you doing?”

  “It’s like… The messiah, it’s just an abstract concept. The more I study it in school… Thousands of years ago, there were these tribes living in Israel, or part of what they called Canaan at the time. And they joined together and they wanted a king, and when they got one they believed he was divinely chosen, because that’s what people believed about kings back then. And for some reason, well for lots of complicated reasons, that idea is still with us today, it’s kind of mutated into the idea of the messiah, this heaven-sent savior. But that’s all it is,
it’s just an idea. It isn’t real. Iris? Is this making any sense?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kings don’t exist, governments don’t really exist, people just act like they do. A government is just an idea and a king is just a person. The only thing that makes him a king is people treating him like a king. And them acting that way is the only real thing about it. God doesn’t choose kings, because kings are a human idea. Why should I believe I’m the messiah? I’m tired of believing in things just because I want them to be true.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m tired of being alone. Out here I’m not fulfilling some destiny or some prophecy. I’m just a guy, alone. Maybe I got so used to it when I was a kid that I wouldn’t let myself not be alone. That I ran away from you. That I ran away from everybody.

  “It’s like I just get into these habits, that I keep acting a certain way, even when it doesn’t make any sense any more. Like when I was a kid, I would fight with my mother, with my teachers, with my friends. Now I’m older and I don’t see my mother that much, and I don’t hate her any more, and I don’t hate my teachers, and I don’t hate my friends either, though I don’t really have any of those any more either. But I still keep trying to fight. So I’m just fighting with myself. I guess that’s all I was ever doing. But I don’t want to fight any more.

  “I don’t want to do it just because it’s a habit. Like being alone. And I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “You don’t have to be alone.”

  “Are you saying—?”

  “Do you mean what you’re saying? Cause I can’t take the rollercoaster any more.”

  “I mean it. I’m serious.”

  “Then okay. I’ll tell Pete— my boyfriend, it’s over.”

  “Really?”

  She leans toward me and I kiss her. I put my hands behind her head, in her hair, and we switch our noses’ positions and keep kissing.

  Finally we separate and I laugh and she laughs too.

  I lean in, but she pulls back, and says, “Let’s just wait a minute.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have to talk to Pete and I have my hotel room for tonight, where all my stuff is, so let’s just take a breather for a night.”