by Moses Roth
“Oh. So you’re not gonna stay?”
She laughs. “You should see your face.”
I kind of laugh. “Okay.”
She gets up and I walk her to the door. We say our goodbyes and I kiss her goodnight and she leaves.
I close the door and lean against it and sigh.
Chapter 77
Iris and I meet up for breakfast and agree to fly home together. She goes back to her hotel to check out and I go to Tel Aviv to withdraw my registration from school.
I go to Professor Holstein’s office to say goodbye. I’m explaining my decision to him when the door bursts open and a panicked man says, “Bohu he’na!”
We follow him down the hall to a lab where there are people gathered around a television set on a cart.
They’re showing a shot of the Dome of the Rock smoldering.
No.
“He did it,” I say. A few glance at me.
They show footage of the Dome of the Rock exploding while the reporters babble in Hebrew.
“No,” I say.
They cut to back the live coverage of the rubble with rescue crews picking through.
Iris.
I pull out my cell. I had silenced it, there’s thirteen missed calls.
Iris, Cohen, Erwin, and a few unrecognized numbers.
I dial Iris. No available phone lines.
Cohen. You motherfucker.
“Who has a car?”
They all look at me.
“My girlfriend is there.”
No one says anything.
“None of you have family there? None of you need to go?”
One of my classmates, Schlomo, says, “I can take you.”
We run out, down the hall. I’m dialing Iris again. No available phone lines.
We run out of the building and get into his car.
He says, “Where is your girlfriend?”
“The Crowne Plaza.”
He nods and starts the car and we drive out of the lot.
I dial again as we’re waiting for traffic to clear to take a left turn.
It’s ringing.
Her voicemail.
I say, “Iris, you need to get out of Jerusalem. Out of Israel. I’m on my way back, but if you get this message before I do, just get in a taxi and go to the airport and get the first flight anywhere in Europe or wherever. Iris, I love you, please just call me.” I hang up and redial.
No available phone lines.
Chapter 78
“Hello?” Iris.
“Iris,” I say. “Finally, I’ve been trying to call you so many—”
“I’ve been calling you too, did you see the—” it breaks up and—
“Iris? Are you there?”
“I’m here, can you hear me?”
“Yeah I can hear you, I saw the news. You need to get out of Israel. Did you get my message?”
“No I didn’t get it,” it sounds like she’s moving. “Get out of Israel? Where are you?”
“I’m on the freeway, coming back to Jerusalem. You need to get a cab. Get to the airport and—”
“There are no cabs, it’s crazy here. The manager is taking us to a bomb shelter.”
“No, don’t go to a bomb shelter. Just stay there so I can meet you, pick you up. Are you still at the hotel?”
No response. The line sounds dead.
“Iris? Are you there?”
Nothing.
“Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
“If you can hear this, stay at the Crowne Plaza and I will pick you up in half an hour.” No way we make it in half an hour. God damn it.
I hang up. She didn’t hear me, I know it.
Did she hear me say not to go to the bomb shelter? Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything, at least I would have known where to look for her. Now I have no idea where she is.
I redial.
No available phone lines.
I move my legs back and forth, take a deep breath and let it out.
I turn on the radio. Flip through Hebrew talking, more Hebrew, pop music, Arabic, more Hebrew, English.
a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, on the Dome of the Rock, a mosque. A very famous mosque. We don’t yet know who is responsible though experts indicate that Ultra-orthodox Jewish, um, sectarian terrorists may be responsible. We don’t have any word on the casualties, we’ll have more details as the story, um
Cohen you dumb fuck. God damn it.
The signal dissolves into static. I scan for a new station. Just more Hebrew. Okay, try to translate. They’re talking so fast, I can’t quite make it—
Manuel Kadur
“What did they say? What did they say?” I say to Schlomo, sitting forward.
He says, “They say, you are, that you has, you say you do this thing, with bomb in Kipat Hasela.”
Heart beating. Pounding.
Christ.
Cohen.
What did you do?
What were you thinking?
I redial Iris.
No available phone lines.
Chapter 79
Half a block away, we grind to a halt in gridlock. I jump out of the car and run. My stomach is doing back flips, clenched tight.
I run into the lobby, it’s bedlam, people running around, luggage everywhere. No staff anywhere. I run to the front desk, a forty-person line coming from it, no one behind the counter.
I say to the woman at the front of the line, “Where’s the receptionist?”
She shakes her head.
I jump over the counter, someone yelling, “Hey!” at me, and run into the back.
There’s an employee going through papers on the desk, harried. He looks up at me and says, “You can’t come here!”
I say, “Iris Alman? Do you know where she is?”
“What? Who? You can’t here.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“What?” A light goes off. “Yes.”
“A twenty-year-old girl staying here. American. Light-skinned. Brown hair. Iris Alman. Do you know where she is? Did you see her?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“She said she was being taken to a bomb shelter? Is there one around here?”
“There’s one in basement.”
“How do I get to it?”
He gives me directions and I run back out, hop the desk and go for the stairs, I go downstairs into the basement, and the bomb shelter is totally empty.
She could be anywhere.
I run back up the stairs.
Back into the backroom.
He looks at me like, I can’t deal with this shit.
“Can you look up her room for me? Please. Bevakasha.”
He thinks and sighs. “Okay. What’s name? How you spell?”
He types it in.
“Fifteenth floor, room seven.”
“Can you give me a key?”
“No. I am sorry.”
“She’s my wife. Please.”
He shakes his head.
I say, “I’ll just kick down the door if I have to. She’s my wife.”
He sighs and sticks a card into his encoder, punches some keys, it flashes, he pulls it out, and hands it to me. I shove it in my pocket.
I run out. The elevators have a huge crowd at them. I run past the them toward the stairs. Pull out my cell as I run, and dial. Her voicemail.
Hang up, through the door, run up the stairs. Second floor.
Sixth. My lungs are burning, my legs are burning.
Eighth.
Ninth.
Tenth.
Eleventh. Burning.
Twelfth. Dying.
Fifteenth floor.
Down the hall, stars exploding in my vision, I reach into my pocket, my wallet, some paper, what did I have written on it? The card. Gasp for air.
I slide it into the lock. Red light. Gasp.
Again, slower. Red light. Come on. Choke.
Again. Green light.
I shove through the door, it s
lams against the doorstop.
The room is empty. Clothes are on the bed, she packed some stuff. She’s gone.
I’m back out the door and charging down the stairs.
Back in the lobby, Schlomo is there, looking around for me. I run up to him and he says, “You find she?”
“No,” I gasp and as I stop, it hits me how tired I am. My lungs choke for air and I wheeze and bend over and suck air in and out. Stars flash. My right side is burning, a stitch. My knees ache.
He’s saying, “She probably fine. You should not panic, just because—”
I stand up, yelling, “Don’t you get it? We’re at war now.” I gasp. “This means war. They’re not gonna let this go. This is war. Someone is going to kidnap her or kill her or—”
“They will try to kidnap you, we need get out—”
“I don’t care. I need to find her. She said she’s going to a bomb shelter, where is there a bomb shelter around here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call someone! Find out!”
I pull out my phone and he does the same. Who can I call? I gasp. I can barely speak. My heart is pounding, it won’t slow.
Who do I know in town? Bomb shelters are maintained by the army. I say to Schlomo, “You were in the army right?”
He says, “Yes. All Israelis are—”
“You were in the army, call a friend, call anyone who can pick her up before someone else does.”
“I don’t know—”
“Anyone.”
I call Erwin as Schlomo’s calling God knows who.
It goes straight to voicemail, the phone’s off.
Fuck.
I call Cohen.
No available phone lines.
I call again.
“Hello?”
“Rabbi Cohen?”
“Manuel. Did you—”
“You stupid motherfucker. You stupid motherfucker. What were you thinking? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Calm—”
“Iris is missing. Do you know any bomb shelters near the Crowne Plaza?”
“Who?”
“Do you know any bomb shelters?”
“No, I—”
I hang up.
Schlomo hangs up his phone and looks at me, “There are two army bomb shelters nearby.”
“Let’s go. Do you want to come? Do you have family you need to go to? Just tell me where they are.”
He grits and looks away and then back at me. “I come.”
I head for the door and he follows.
The traffic is still gridlocked in front, it’s faster to walk, so I jog down the street.
He says, “This paranoid.”
“No, it’s not.” My phone rings. My heart stops. Iris?
Judah Cohen
Motherfucker.
That motherfucker. I cancel his call.
Schlomo says, “You weren’t in army, so listen my advices. You are target, not her. You are on news. Arabs want kill you. She in danger, more danger if she with us. We need leave city.”
“Shut up, shut up. I need to know she’s safe. I can’t just hide when she’s out there. They will find out who she is. I need to protect her. She needs to come into hiding with me.”
“She fine. You paranoid.”
“Good. Fine. When we find her, I’ll feel like an idiot, but we’ll have found her and she’ll be all right.”
Chapter 80
She’s not in the first bomb shelter.
We head for the second.
We jog for it and I can see it up ahead.
Some men across the street are looking at me and speaking Arabic.
You’re paranoid. Schlomo’s right.
They’re shouting now. Can’t make out what they’re saying.
Keep jogging, it’s nothing.
Just want to rest.
Is that—?
Iris up ahead, walking toward the shelter, I can see her.
Now running as hard as I can.
“Iris!”
Their shouts are louder.
Iris sees me and stops and turns. Smiles, walks toward me.
I shout, “Iris! We need to—”
Gunshot.
I turn, duck.
Iris screams.
Those men are running toward me.
Schlomo catches my shoulder and I look at him and he’s pointing and there’s a gunshot and he sags against me, falls to the ground. They’re coming across the street for me, running.
Blood on my jacket, on my hands.
Iris screaming, “Manuel!”
Schlomo is screaming at me in Hebrew, can’t translate, just babble and my name, “Manuel!” and babble and my name.
I’m running, running as fast as I can, away from Iris, down the street and the men are yelling at me, more babble and, “Manuel!” and more babble and my name.
And I’m running harder than I ever have but I can’t feel it, just air pumping in and out of my throat, and my legs pumping, my knees moving and—
I hit the end of the crosswalk and a car zooms by, nearly hits me, and I skid and they’re on me, tackling me, wrestling me and I’m on the ground, wind knocked out of me.
And they’re babbling at each other and they flip me over, I gasp for air, one of them holding my arms, one on my legs, and I’m looking up at another one holding a knife.
He kneels down toward me with the knife pointed down, straight at me and I’m thrashing and thrashing and gasping but it’s no good.
And he gets closer and puts the knife right up to my face and I stop thrashing, slow my breathing, I’m perfectly still, just craning my neck, pulling away from the knife.
And Iris is there, one of them has her, holding her arm, gun at her back.
They talk to each other.
He pulls the trigger and Iris’s blood and brains are all over me.
“No,” I say.
And the one with the knife turns back to me, puts the knife back up to my face. I pull away.
I say, “Please. No.”
And he slides it into my right eye.
Chapter 81
I’ve never been in this much pain before in my life. I can almost step back from it and appreciate it intellectually. Not like when I got shot. No painkillers. No merciful unconsciousness.
There’s nothing dulling the searing, screaming, violating pain cutting through the right side of my face.
It’s just there, consuming everything else. Can’t think about anything else.
Like the hood over my head. And my hands cuffed behind my back. And Iris.
And the way I’m constantly being shoved to walk and then shoved to stop. And then shoved forward again. And then shoved to sit. And then pulled up again and shoved to walk again. And Iris.
I don’t know where I am. Just the pain.
And then I’m shoved against some barrier at my waste and then down into it. My knees crammed up into my chest, my arms contorted behind me. And my face screaming.
The trunk is closed on me and the car starts up and I don’t know how long the drive lasts. Two days? A week? Five minutes? A year?
The car stops.
But then starts up again and then stops and starts again.
And then stops and the trunk is opened and I’m pulled out, falling over the side onto the pavement, and my arms are relieving and my legs are tingling, waking up, and my the right side of my head is—
I’m pulled to my feet and I stumble and am shoved and I’m pulled back up and marched somewhere, I don’t know, inside.
Up an elevator and down a hall and my face and onto my knees. And they’re talking in Arabic.
And the hood is pulled off and the light is blinding. On the left side.
Just the left side. The right is dark.
My eye doesn’t adjust. I can see figures. But it’s too bright.
Film lights, hot and bright like the sun. There’s a camera. In two dimensions. I can only see it in two dimensions.
And a man
is next to me is talking in Arabic.
I crane my neck. Three or four men with guns behind me, one of them hits me in the face. My face. And I bow down low, trying to let it subside. Please subside. Please.
He’s still speaking, and he switches to English, “He is the mahdi ad-dajjal. The false messiah. The one-eyed devil, blind in the right eye, he destroyed God’s mosque, he is not a servant of God as he claims, he is Satan. He is another example of American pride and folly. The Jews revere him for his sexual deviance and his hatred of Muslims.”
He raises a book and reads from it.
Allah's Apostle said, "Shall I not tell you about the Dajjal, a story of which no prophet told his nation? The Dajjal is one-eyed and will bring with him what will resemble Hell and Paradise, and what he will call Paradise will be actually Hell; so I warn you as Noah warned his nation against him."
And then they put the shroud back over my head and pull me to my feet and I’m shoved out of the room and down the hall and down the elevator and my face and outside and into another car trunk.
We stop and start and stop and start and I’m pulled out and inside and my head and my wrists and whole body and my face and into a dark room and the door shuts and I collapse and—
Chapter 82
Please God. Please. I’ll do anything. I know I’ve failed you. I know I’ve doubted. Disbelieved. But I believe. You’re real. I believe in you. I need you. Save me. Please, save me.
I’ll do anything for you. I’ll be your servant forever. Believe forever. Do anything you ask.
Just let the pain stop. Help me get out of this. Help me live. Just let it stop.
Just let me die. Let it end. Help. Help me. Please. God. Please. Anything. I’ll do anything.
The door clangs and footsteps. How long have I been here? How long was I awake? Maybe I was asleep.
I’m picked up. Walked. Doors open and shut. Shoved. Pushed. Stopped. Pushed forward.
Another car, this time in a seat.
They take off the shroud and I blink in the harsh, bright (two dimensional) daylight. My eye socket burns. My head throbs.
I’m in the backseat of a car, on the left side. We’re driving down a desert road. The man next to me, the one who removed my shroud, has a Kalashnikov pointed at me.