An Unexpected Afterlife Read online

  Irina emerged from the women’s entrance, green sleeves reaching beyond her elbows. She and Moshe exchanged Sabbath greetings in the yellow streetlight. The sweet scent of the rabbanit’s deodorant clung to her.

  They waited for the rabbi, who shook hands with the line of exiting congregants, some of whom gave Moshe strange looks and whispered to each other. The rabbi’s children dived between the men and women, darted out of the courtyard, and down the street like a flock of young sparrows.

  Irina looked at home in the modest garb, and again he wondered whether religion had played a role in her forgotten former life. She looked equally comfortable in jeans and T-shirts. Without memory, we could be anyone. Without memory, we are all the same.

  There was a movement in the corner of his eye. He turned, but not fast enough. A freight train slammed into his jaw and threw him off his feet. He sprawled on the dusty cobblestones. Women cried out. Shoes shuffled behind him. He rolled over. A man lunged at him, held back only by the rabbi, who stood between them with outstretched hands.

  Avi straightened his shirt. A fire glowed in his eyes. “Come near her again,” he said, “and you’ll regret it.”

  Irina crouched over Moshe and touched his shoulder. The few remaining congregants watched from a safe distance.

  Moshe tasted blood in his mouth and touched his bruised lip. “She’s still my wife,” he said.

  “No she isn’t. You died, remember? Now it’s my turn.”

  “Your turn. What is she—the village bicycle? You’re a thief.”

  Avi jabbed a finger at him in the air. “Just stay away from her, unless you think you’ll come back from the dead twice.” He nodded at the rabbi and skulked away.

  Moshe knew a threat when he heard one. “So now you’re a thief and a murderer?”

  “Murderer?” Avi said and laughed as he disappeared into the night. “Can’t murder a dead man.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Moshe washed dust from his hands and blood from his face in the rabbi’s bathroom. His hands trembled. Avi had a point. In the eyes of the State, Moshe Karlin no longer existed. What charges would a prosecutor file against his murderer—desecration of a corpse? Would the police even make an arrest? The law provided no protection for the deceased Moshe Karlin.

  He added Death Threat to his growing list of challenges and returned to the living room. Uriel, the rabbi’s oldest son, read a book on the sofa. Simcha and Ari played with soccer cards on the carpet. Little Yehuda pushed a toy car along the edge of a shelf and made it fly in the air.

  “Boys,” Rabbi Yosef said. “Let’s start.”

  His children dropped what they were doing and took their seats at the dinner table. Moshe had never encountered such obedient kids. They had helped with the Sabbath preparations without complaint. They had dusted the furniture, washed the floors, set the dinner table with a white tablecloth and white faux china.

  The rabbi and his wife sat at either end of the dinner table. Moshe made for the empty chair between the rabbi and Irina. Uriel, Yehuda, and Simcha eyed him from across the table and over the two polished candlesticks that held burning tea lights.

  Rabbi Yosef led the singing of two songs. The first welcomed the Sabbath angels, and the second praised the industrious mother of the household. The rabbi stood and called on each of his sons to approach him for a whispered blessing sealed with a kiss on the forehead.

  Friday nights in the Karlin residence had involved TV dinners and weekend newspapers. In the rabbi’s home, however, time seemed to have stopped, and an otherworldly calm replaced the flurry of pre-Shabbat activity.

  A warm glow spread over Irina’s face. She must have been thinking the same thing.

  Blessings completed, Rabbi Yosef raised a silver goblet that brimmed with red wine and he recited the Sabbath Kiddush prayer. He poured the wine into plastic shot glasses and passed them down the table. Moshe downed his in one gulp. Grape juice. He could do with something stronger.

  They filed into the kitchen to wash their hands using a double-handled jug. A tall tin urn hissed on the counter. On a hot tray perched over the gas stove, a large pot of soup and a pile of tinfoil trays bubbled. The rabbi had set timers in wall sockets around the house to turn lights and fans on and off as desired, for the Shabbat rules prohibited the use of electric switches on the holy day.

  They returned to their seats at the table. Rabbi Yosef removed the velvet cover from the twin plaited loaves of bread, recited the blessing—Who brings forth bread from the earth—and broke off clumps of bread, dipped them in salt, and tossed them across the table to his guests and family.

  “Welcome,” he said as he sliced the rest of the loaf with a silver bread knife. “It’s not every week we have such honored guests.”

  A chair leg creaked as the rabbanit stood and made for the kitchen.

  “Thank you for taking us in,” Irina said. “This”—she indicated the Sabbath table—“is lovely.”

  Moshe agreed. The bread was warm and sweet. A spirit of contentment filled the home. Even the rabbi’s wife seemed to have softened.

  The rabbi leaned back, a king on his throne. “Shabbat,” he said. “Me’en Olam Habah.” A taste of the World to Come. The rabbi must have been referring to the World of Souls, for Moshe’s bodily afterlife had been anything but relaxing.

  The rabbanit placed steaming bowls of watery chicken soup before them.

  Yehuda, the boy who had asked him whether he was dead that first day, ogled him as he ate. “What happened to your mouth?”

  “Yehuda!” the rabbanit chided.

  “It’s OK,” Moshe said. The soup tasted heavenly but the salt stung his torn lip. “A man hit me outside synagogue.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Did you hit him back?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He seemed disappointed.

  Not now, Moshe thought. And not with fists in the street.

  Rabbi Yosef cleared his throat. “Moshe, Irina. I almost forgot. I have good news. Rabbi Emden, a close friend and a great man, has arranged for us to meet with the Great Council on Sunday night.”

  Irina looked to Moshe for an explanation but he had none. “The Great Council?”

  “The Council of Great Torah Sages. The leading Torah authorities of our generation. Rabbi Alter. Rabbi Teitelbaum. Rabbi Auerbach.”

  “I have Rabbi Auerbach!” cried Simcha. He pulled a wad of crumpled soccer cards from his trouser pocket and fanned through them. He held up a card. Instead of a soccer superstar, the laminated surface framed the stern face of a bearded rabbi.

  “Hey, give that back,” Ari said from between Irina and the rabbanit.

  “No, I won it fair and square!”

  “Enough!” said the rabbanit. She had seated Ari and Simcha across the table from each other for a reason.

  Irina glanced at Moshe, her eyes conveying a mix of delight and concern. “Should I go as well?” she asked the rabbi.

  The beard twitched. Heavy-duty rabbis avoided interacting with women, but Rabbi Yosef had enough tact not to say so. “Just Moshe for now.”

  “And these rabbis,” Irina asked, “they’ll be able to explain what happened to us?”

  “Yes, and more. The sages of the Great Council head famous yeshivas. They have connections to charitable institutions…”

  The rabbi faltered and lowered his eyes to his bowl of soup.

  “In other words,” the rabbanit said, “they will find you a new home.”

  They slurped their soup in silence. Her last sentence had killed the conversation.

  Moshe didn’t blame her. Moshe and Irina could not sponge off them forever. But he had hoped to stay close to Galit a little longer, long enough that he would not need another home.

  The bookish Uriel interpreted the lull in conversation as an invitation to ask questions.

  “Moshe, what do you do?”

  Moshe’s soup spoon hovered in the air. He had no answer for that most trivial of questions for an able-bodied adul
t man. Karlin & Son was not just a job—he was Karlin & Son. At forty-two, Moshe found himself penniless, jobless, and in the throes of an identity crisis.

  He felt his brow moisten with sweat. “I’m still figuring that out,” he said.

  Confusion dumbfounded the boys as they struggled with a new mental box: a grown man with no profession.

  Rabbi Yosef came to his rescue. “Life is a journey,” he said. “We might start out in one direction, and later try another until we find our true path.”

  Moshe would settle for a regular paycheck.

  The rabbi turned to his guests. “Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said that the entire world is a very narrow bridge. And what is the main thing?” His voice rose in a schoolteacher tone of expectation.

  “Have no fear at all!” the boys responded, like good students. The rabbi winked at Moshe and then he and his sons broke into song.

  Kol ha’olam kooloh / The whole world is

  Gesher tzar me’od / A very narrow bridge.

  They accompanied the slow, calming melody with well-rehearsed hand gestures. The pace picked up for the chorus.

  Ve’ha’ikar / And the main thing

  Lo le’fached klal / Is to have no fear at all.

  By the end of the song, youthful smiles had returned to the table. The rabbanit placed tinfoil trays of browned chicken, potatoes, and steaming white rice on the table.

  “Rabbi Nachman lived two centuries ago,” Rabbi Yosef said. “He taught that we are forbidden to lose hope. No matter what we did in the past, today—every day—we start our lives anew.”

  Moshe piled food onto his plate. The chicken drumstick fell apart under his knife. Start our lives anew. Again, the rabbi made it sound easy, as easy as putting one foot ahead of the other and not looking down.

  There came a loud knocking at the door.

  Moshe’s heart skipped a beat. He pictured Avi outside the door with a large club. Irina gripped his arm.

  Rabbi Yosef stood and approached the door. He peered through the peephole. Moshe held his breath. Don’t open it, Rabbi. Don’t do it.

  The rabbi, however, did not obey Moshe’s thoughts. He turned a baffled expression to the table, and pulled the handle.

  A woman stood on the doorstep. Short. Olive skin. Young. Her dress dusted the ground. The shawl on her head covered most of her mousy brown hair. She scanned the room behind the rabbi with the large dark eyes of a frightened deer.

  “Rabbi Yosef?” she said. A rough, guttural edge marred her Hebrew, the unmistakable accent of a tongue more at home in Arabic. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” She looked over her shoulder at the dark street. “Please. May I come in?” she said. “I need your help.”

  CHAPTER 27

  From his bed, Eli heard the chant of a man’s voice down the hall. The Friday night Kiddush blessing. The nurse had dimmed the lights in his room. The weekday hospital sounds in the hallways had subsided as staff and visitors returned home for the holy day.

  That morning, the Russian nurse had detached the sensors of the heart monitor from his chest but he remained immobile and helpless. The Thin Voice, silent. His powers, fled. He was starting to miss the crows.

  A terrifying thought whispered in his ear. You will never heal. Your fate is that of the mortals now.

  The chant ended and a motley chorus answered Amen. Eli added a prayer of his own. Don’t abandon me! Don’t deny me your Holy Spirit! Somewhere in the hospital, vials of his blood awaited the scrutiny of modern medicine. The results would raise questions. Questions would lead to further tests and yet more questions. He had to get out now, while he still could.

  He inhaled three deep breaths and closed his eyes. He focused on the muscle in his head. Flex! A tingling sensation crept down his spine and along his limbs.

  Yes!

  He commanded his shattered leg to heal.

  He wriggled his toes. He lifted his leg from the sling.

  Yes! Yes!

  Now, to the side—

  Pain erupted in his bones. The leg fell limp and swung in the sling.

  This can’t be. Tears welled in his eyes. He had a job to do. The destiny of the entire world weighed on his shoulders. After waiting long centuries, to be trapped just when—

  Something moved. At the edge of the divider curtain, a hand floated in thin air. A white-gloved hand, palm out.

  Eli blinked. Have I gone mad? The glove hovered like the Divine hand at Belshazzar’s feast. This hand, however, did not write riddles on the wall. Instead, it extended into the room and grew a forearm—a naked, hairy forearm. A second hand joined the first. The two gloved hands shifted sideways, one by one, feeling their way along an invisible wall. A head appeared above the hands. Wild orange hair. Large white frown painted over the mouth. Large red ball of a nose.

  The clown jumped into Eli’s private space with a flourish and a bow.

  “Get lost,” Eli said.

  The clown waggled a finger at him and placed his hands on his hips.

  “Scat!”

  The clown seemed to consider his advice, then thumbed his nose, stuck out his tongue, and pranced back to the safety of the curtain.

  “And don’t come back.”

  He waited for the fool to return. He didn’t. Good! He hated clowns. He hated humanity. He hated hospitals.

  He sighed. Hate would not free him. The girl in the white cloak was right. He needed friends. How did one make friends? He was out of practice.

  The large Russian nurse charged into the room and glanced at the clipboard that dangled at the foot of his bed.

  “Shabbat shalom, Mr. Katz. Would you like to hear Kiddush?”

  “Did you see… a clown?”

  She gave him a quizzical look. “A clown? Afraid not.” She placed his nightly painkillers and a plastic cup of water on the bedside stand, and she replaced the drainage container at the end of the catheter.

  Had he dreamed the mime act? This was no time to lose his mind. He needed all his wits about him.

  A plan condensed in his mind. The plan involved risk and deception, and a small sacrifice, but what was the alternative?

  “Drink up,” said the nurse. She towered over him, hands akimbo.

  He read the name on her tag. “Eliana,” he said. “Can you do me a favor?”

  CHAPTER 28

  Yosef held the door open for the Arab girl. He had a bad feeling about this. The sleeves of the dress fell past her hands. He studied her body for signs of a machete or an explosive belt. Arabs worked at the shops on Bethlehem Road and Emek Refaim but they did not wander around his neighborhood at night, certainly not a young, lone woman.

  She stepped inside, barefoot.

  “The woman at Tal Chaim said that you help people like me,” she said.

  People like me. His intestines tied in a knot. She couldn’t possibly mean… No, that was impossible.

  Her eyes moved to the hot food on the table. The aromas filled his nostrils as they surely did hers. His heart went out to her.

  “Please,” he said. He indicated the chair of his youngest son. “Sit there. Yehuda, move over and sit with me.” Yehuda jumped off the chair and made for the head of the table.

  “Rocheleh,” he added, “please fetch a bowl of soup for our guest.” She glared at him for a second, then did as he asked.

  Abraham, the first Jew, had welcomed desert wanderers and idol worshippers into his tent. His wife, Sarah, prepared the delicacies and Abraham served the guests himself. Should Yosef Lev do any less? Was this not an opportunity to teach his children the mitzvah of hospitality?

  The girl took her place at the table and thanked Rocheleh for the bowl of soup.

  Yosef returned to his seat and placed Yehuda on his lap. The uneasy sense of déjà vu returned and unsettled his Sabbath peace. He had seen this film before. Twice. But this third showing made no sense!

  The girl mopped up the remnant of her soup with a slice of challah bread and wolfed it down.

  “What is your name?”

/>   She looked at her host, and the hunted look returned to her eyes. “Samira,” she said in a low voice, as though the mention of her name might bring misfortune.

  “Are you in trouble?”

  She lowered her eyes to the table and nodded. She closed her eyes as though the memory was too difficult to bear. “They might be looking for me.”

  “Who?”

  She shook her head.

  “Who, Samira? Who is looking for you?”

  She opened her eyes and stared, unseeing.

  “My father. Or my brother.”

  “No one knows you are here, Samira. It’s OK.” His words seemed to comfort the girl.

  He relaxed on his chair too. The girl had run away from home. An ordinary domestic dispute. He would hand her over to social services as soon as Shabbat ended. She was not a resurrectee. Of course not. A resurrected Arab? That was impossible.

  “They must not find me,” she said.

  “Your family?”

  “My father.”

  What could make her shudder so at the mention of her father? “Why not, Samira?”

  “Because,” she said, choking on the words, “the last time we met, he killed me.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Saturday night, Moshe plunged his hands into the soapy water of the kitchen sink. He pulled a plate from the pile of meat dishes and scoured the surface with a sponge. Irina worked beside him at the dairy sink.

  It felt good to be busy after the long summer day of rest. Moshe had never kept the Sabbath in all its restrictions—he had not even known how extensive they were. No computer. No phones. No cars. No cooking. No preparations for after the Sabbath day.

  He had slept on the couch Friday night as Irina and Samira had taken over the boys’ room. When he awoke Saturday morning, the rabbi had already left for synagogue. After Avi’s attack the previous night, Moshe had preferred not to stroll past his old house alone.

  He spent the morning lounging in the living room. He studied the rabbis on the wall. Maimonides struck a regal pose in his turban and clerical gown, his tidy beard and mustache. The Chofetz Chayim gazed through shuttered eyelids beneath a simple Polish cap, his prolific white beard tucked into a heavy black coat.