Birth of an Age

by James Beauseigneur

  Seeing Decker coming and having made eye contact, Johnson at Security pointed toward a man who stood looking out the glass front of the building toward the North Garden. As Decker got closer, the man turned around.

  It was Tom Donafin.

  Despite the call Decker had received in his office, despite thinking that he had heard Tom’s voice over the phone, despite the torrent of emotions and thoughts he had on his way to the lobby, seeing his old friend alive was so completely unexpected that he may just as well have bumped into him on a deserted street somewhere.

  For a moment Decker just stared. Tom looked back and allowed himself to smile just a little as his eyes scanned the changes of twenty years: the wrinkles and gray hair, the added pounds, and the unmistakable look of success. He had missed Decker perhaps even more than Decker had missed him. For Decker, Tom had been dead; there had never been any possibility of seeing him again. But Tom had always known the truth; for him, the exile had been self-imposed, a matter of the will rather than of fate. Now — for a brief moment anyway — they were together again.

  Neither Decker nor Tom were aware they had moved, but somehow the two came together, falling with great tears of joy into each other’s arms.

  For a long time there were no words. No words could have satisfied.

  Neither man wiped his eyes; neither would release the other from his embrace.

  “I thought you were dead,” Decker said at last.

  “I’m sorry, Decker. I’m sorry,” Tom wept in reply.

  A moment passed before Decker could speak again. “What happened? Where have you been? Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry, Decker. I’m really sorry,” Tom said again, but he offered no explanation. Around them people watched, some stared, as the two men hugged and cried. It didn’t matter. Finally Tom managed to ask if there was somewhere they could go to talk.

  “Yes, of course, of course,” Decker answered, as he wiped away some of the tears and Tom did the same.

  Decker spotted Johnson, the security guard. “It’s all right,” Decker told him unnecessarily. “He’s with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Johnson responded.

  “Please, Tom,” Decker pleaded, as they walked, “tell me what happened. Where have you been? Why didn’t you ever contact me?”

  “I tried,” Tom answered. “But then . . . Look, let me just start at the beginning.” Decker nodded his agreement. “When the fighting started in Israel, I was in the hospital in Tel Aviv. In the midst of the battle, the British Embassy sent a driver to get me. I think that must been Ambassador Hansen’s doing.” Decker didn’t interrupt to mention his own involvement in that episode, but nodded in confirmation. “I packed up my stuff and went with the driver, a young fellow named Połucki.” Tom had never forgotten the driver’s name. “On the way to the British Embassy we came upon a jet that had crashed into a building, so I asked Połucki to stop, and I got out to take some pictures.”

  Tom’s words conjured up a mental image in Decker’s mind of their days together: Tom was never without his camera. Decker smiled nostalgically as they stepped onto the elevator.

  Tom continued, “There was a dogfight overhead. The MiG fired a missile, but the Israeli managed to dodge it. When I turned back toward the car the missile hit it. Poor Połucki was killed instantly. I remember the flash, but before I could even blink I was hit by debris from the explosion.

  “The next thing I knew, I woke up a month later in a doctor’s apartment in occupied Tel Aviv. The doctor, a woman named Rhoda Felsberg, told me that her rabbi had found me and carried me there on his back. If he hadn’t, I’m sure I would have died there on the street.”

  Decker and Tom stepped from the elevator and Decker showed Tom to his office, pausing just long enough to introduce him to Jody MacArthur, his secretary. They were about to go in when Christopher arrived.

  “Decker,” Christopher began immediately, “did you have any more changes to the speech?”

  “No. Not since the last copy I sent to your office.”

  “Great. So does that mean you’re happy with it?”

  “Yeah,” Decker said with a contemplative nod. “I feel pretty good about it, though you know me; I’m never entirely satisfied.”

  “I think it’s one of your best ever,” Christopher said.

  “It was a joint effort,” Decker replied, though he agreed with Christopher’s overall assessment. “Christopher,” Decker said, changing subjects, “I have someone I’d like you to meet. He’s an old friend of mine.”

  “Can we make it a little bit later? Maybe after the speech.”

  “Uh . . . yeah, sure,” Decker answered. He was a little taken aback by Christopher’s response. It seemed rude to just ignore Tom, who was standing right there beside them. Jody MacArthur was surprised as well, but Tom didn’t seem to mind.

  “Okay, well, wish me luck,” Christopher said as he left Jody’s office.

  “Good luck,” Decker and Jody obliged in unison.

  As soon as Christopher was gone, Decker turned his attention back to Tom. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I’m sure he was just in a hurry. It’s a big day, you know.”

  “Sure, Decker. No problem,” Tom answered.

  When they were settled into Decker’s office, Tom continued his story. “Apparently after I was brought to Rhoda’s apartment, I was in and out of consciousness for the next few of weeks. It was nearly a month before I really had my wits about me. Shortly after that I tried to call to let you know what happened, but because of the Russian occupation, it was difficult to get a call out, and they had shut down the Internet. The times I did get through no one was home.”

  “I had already moved to New York by then,” Decker explained. “But you could have written.”

  Tom leaned forward and almost in a whisper to emphasize the sincerity of his word, he said, “Decker, I was blinded in the explosion that killed Połucki.”

  Decker sat up straight. His raised eyebrows, cocked head, and the intense scrutiny of his expression asked the question long before he could form the words to speak it.

  “The flash from the explosion burned my corneas,” Tom continued. “The ophthalmologist who treated me was surprised that I could even sense bright light.”

  “But you can see now.”

  “Decker, God healed me . . . miraculously. For six months I was blind and then, just as quickly as I had been blinded by the flash and the flying glass, I could see again — better even than before the accident.”

  Decker looked at Tom, and it was clear that he believed what he was saying. Decker had no reason to doubt his friend’s earnestness, but almost reflexively he examined Tom’s expression for several seconds, looking for any sign of deception. He saw none. Decker sighed and shook his head and sat back again. “If you had told me that a few years ago,” he sighed, “I would have thought you were as crazy as a loon. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “Believe it, Decker. It’s true. I was completely blind for six months. You can still see some of the scarring if you look close.” Tom pointed to his eyes and Decker suddenly noticed the wedding band that had thus far escaped his attention.

  “Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second!” he said excitedly with steadily increasing tempo and volume. “What is this?” he asked, jumping from his seat and reaching out to grab Tom’s hand.

  “Oh, yeah,” Tom answered, almost blushing. “Well, I was getting to that.”

  “Who? When? Is she here in New York? Is she with you?” Decker asked with obvious excitement and sheer pleasure.

  “No, no,” Tom answered, responding to the last question first. “She’s still in Israel.”

  “Oh, too bad. But I’ll meet her later?”

  “Yeah, she wants to meet you, too.”

  “Tom, this is really great!” Decker said, tears in his eyes as he looked back and forth between Tom’s smiling face and the wedding band on his hand. “Well, who is she? What’s her name? Where did you meet her?”<
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  “Her name is Rhoda.”

  Decker made the connection immediately. “You mean Rhoda what’s-her-name? The doctor who took care of you?”

  “Rhoda Felsberg,” Tom said. “Yeah. Only now, of course, it’s Rhoda Donafin.”

  “Man, this is great! You just don’t know how happy I am for you. That’s really wonderful! How long have you been married?”

  “Nineteen years.”

  Decker’s arms went limp and dropped to his sides as he shook his head, his face revealing both joy at his friend’s good fortune and anguish at all the years the two friends had missed. “So, is that where you’ve been living — Israel?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah,” Tom answered. “We’ve got a place outside of Tel Aviv. That is, we had a place outside of Tel Aviv. We just sold it.”

  “Kids?”

  “Three,” Tom answered. “Two boys and a girl.”

  Decker smiled so broadly it almost hurt. This day was too wonderful to be believed. Tom didn’t say anything, but just sat and shared the smile with Decker. Finally he continued his story. “After the Russian occupation, but before I was healed, when I thought I’d never see again, I contacted NewsWorld to turn in my resignation and to try to collect on the insurance for an injury sustained while on duty. Of course I never got the insurance money because like most insurance companies they had gone bankrupt from paying claims after the Disaster. I asked about you at NewsWorld, but no one seemed too eager to talk about you.”

  “Yeah. They weren’t very happy with me when I left,” Decker admitted, “which I can’t blame them for. But I can’t believe they wouldn’t tell you that I was working at the UN.”

  Tom shrugged.

  “But still, in all these years, after you were able to see again, surely you could have contacted me.”

  Tom didn’t answer. Decker knew that with the blindness and then the healing and then the marriage, all of which fell right on the heels of the captivity in Lebanon, it was possible that Tom had simply put his past behind him . . . and Decker with it. It was possible . . . but not likely. They had been too close for that; they had been through too much. And then too, it seemed to Decker that Tom was holding something back.

  * * * * *

  Gerard Poupardin stepped from the shower and dried himself. As he did, he became aware of a feeling that he had had for some time but had never really noticed before now. The feeling had come on in much the same manner as a headache that goes unnoticed against the background of other thoughts until it is of sufficient strength to cause substantial discomfort. The feeling had now crossed the threshold of what could be ignored, and upon breaking that barrier, seemed to grow rapidly.

  In the beginning, when the idea had first come to him to kill Christopher, it was just a wild angry thought, but for the sake of argument, he imagined how it might be done. It didn’t take a lot to clear that initial hurdle; it all seemed so hypothetical. But then imagining had become thinking, and thinking, considering. Considering had become contemplating, and contemplating, planning. And now, finally, planning was on the verge of becoming the act itself. Through each of these steps, Poupardin had continued to believe he could stop at any moment the course that he had begun. What he found, however, was that at each step the force that had carried him past the previous hurdles had subtly but significantly intensified, pushing him toward the next step and making it easier to take because of how far he had already come. The last hurdle that lay before him was certainly the biggest, but he felt uncontrollably compelled to continue.

  Part of him wanted to just forget about the whole thing, and he still believed he might. But for the present, momentum won out. Caught up in the current against which he could no longer swim, Poupardin could only tell himself that it carried him in the direction he wanted to go.

  Besides, he reasoned, he didn’t really need to make a decision right now; not yet. The logical thing to do, he thought, was to simply leave his options open. Perhaps as the time drew nearer he might still change his mind. If so, he could simply abort his mission and no one would ever know. It was probably even best to wait before deciding, he thought, to give himself as much time as possible to think it through. He didn’t want to do anything he wasn’t sure of, but then again, he didn’t want to miss the opportunity because of fear.

  In reality, his decision to put off a decision would not allow time for further thought, but rather would only serve to stifle his thoughts for a little while longer.

  Poupardin folded his towel, hung it neatly on the rack, and went to the walk-in closet. Hanging by itself, away from the shirts and pants and suits, was a single item, still covered by the bag in which it had come from the store. For more than two years it had hung there, awaiting the day when Albert Faure would become secretary-general. But that day would never come.

  Poupardin took it down and uncovered it, running his fingers across the white lace. His mind went back to the day he had purchased it in the men’s department of Harrods. He had gone there during lunch for a fashion show of men’s lingerie with some friends, and though he really went just to watch, when he saw it on the model he was determined to have it. It had cost him dearly, but he felt it was well worth it.

  How different, he thought, that occasion had been from the experience of purchasing the gun at the seedy little pawnshop.

  The silky fabric sliding down over his body had an erotic effect that brought back and aggrandized his many fond memories of Faure. Checking his appearance in his dressing mirror, it would have been easy to get lost in the distraction, but he refused to be drawn from his intent. Turning away, Poupardin selected a charcoal gray suit and quickly finished dressing.

  * * * * *

  Decker decided not to press Tom any further. If there was more to tell about why Tom had not tried harder to contact him, Decker would let him tell it in his own time. What was important was that Tom was alive and they were together now. He decided to ask Tom more about his family. “You said you just sold your house near Tel Aviv.”

  “Yes,” Tom answered. “Rabbi Cohen said it was time to sell our assets and get cash.”

  Cohen — it’s a common Jewish name, but Decker had to ask. “That’s not the same Rabbi Cohen who’s been making all the prophecies and causing people to explode in flames and everything, is it?” Decker asked the question almost as a joke, sure that his old friend couldn’t possibly be associated with such a lunatic.

  To Decker’s horror, Tom nodded. “Rabbi Saul Cohen is the one who found me and brought me to Rhoda. If he hadn’t, I would have died out there on the street. And it was by Cohen’s hand that God returned my sight. He performed the ceremony when Rhoda and I were married.”

  Suddenly the tenor of the reunion changed dramatically. Tom’s attachment to Cohen was obviously strong, and Decker could see that it might take intensive and extended deprogramming to break the hold that Cohen had on his friend. “Tom,” he said, “I am aware that Cohen has many unusual powers. But the issue is the source of these powers and what he uses them for.”

  “The source of his power is God,” Tom answered. “And what he and John use their power for is to perform God’s will.”

  If it had been anyone other than Tom Donafin making that assertion, Decker would certainly have raised his voice in vociferous argument. Instead, his thoughts were only of helping Tom to see reason. “Tom, was it God’s will that Cohen and John used their powers to send three asteroids hurtling toward Earth?” he asked rhetorically, but with compassion. “Was it God’s will that hundreds of millions of people died and scores of millions more were left injured and homeless? Tom, the first asteroid cut a 1200-mile-wide swath across the heart of North and South America. I’ve seen it up close, and the devastation is unimaginable; there are no cities, no forests, no farms, nothing but scorched earth. Five Central American countries and Ecuador were entirely wiped from the face of the planet! Earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes! The Pacific Ocean is a red cesspool of death. The atmosphere is still
filled with smoke from the fires and volcanic ash. Twenty million more died of thirst and arsenic poisoning. Was it God’s will to poison one third of the planet’s fresh water supply? Tom, I work with this information everyday. The last two years have seen the worst famine in human history. Between the ash cover and the inability of growers to work their fields for five months because of the locusts, agricultural output has been reduced by 65 percent worldwide. Is it God’s will that people all over the world are starving? Is it God’s will that when anyone tries to stop John and Cohen they burst into flames?”

  Tom took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. “Yes, Decker, it is,” he answered confidently.

  Decker nearly fell out of his chair. The correct answer was so obviously no that he hadn’t expected Tom to answer at all. “But how can you say that?” he demanded, his temper slipping from his grasp.

  “Decker, I know it doesn’t make much sense from your perspective, but it’s just like in the movie The Ten Commandments.”[50] Decker had forgotten how Tom always used movie plots to make his point, and he was almost tempted to laugh at the reference, but the matter at hand was far too serious.

  “You remember,” Tom continued, “how Moses and his brother Aaron called down the plagues on Egypt?”

  “Yeah,” Decker responded, biting his tongue to keep from saying more. Tom’s expression seemed to say that he thought Decker should have caught his point, which Tom apparently believed was obvious. But all that was obvious to Decker was that Tom had been brainwashed.

  “Don’t you see?” Tom continued. “Rabbi Cohen and John are just like Moses and Aaron.”

  Decker was shocked at how complete the brainwashing had been, but this was neither the time nor place to try to begin deprogramming — best to leave that to the professionals. As soon as Christopher’s speech and the vote were over, he would make some calls and arrange for a psychiatrist to talk to Tom. He’d have to find some way to set it up without Tom’s knowledge. If Tom knew, he would try to leave and Decker might never see him again. Decker would not allow that to happen. Tom was his friend and he needed help. He’d have him locked up in an institution if necessary until he came to his senses. Decker had enough influence to do whatever was necessary, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it to help Tom — whether Tom wanted his help or not.