Verse (17 page)

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.”

“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 slams 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.”