An Unexpected Afterlife_A Novel Read online

  As such, he never died, and he continued to pop up throughout Jewish history: he rebuked the sages of the Talmud, imparted esoteric wisdom to saintly rabbis in the Middle Ages, and—to this day—paid surreptitious visits to Passover meals and circumcision ceremonies around the globe. Elijah was a busy man.

  Two details stood out. Legend identified Elijah with the biblical Phineas—grandson of Aaron, the brother of Moses and the first High Priest. This factoid crowned Elijah as both prophet and priest, and dovetailed nicely with her own research project.

  Secondly, Jewish tradition tapped Elijah the Prophet as harbinger of the Messiah, and predicted his return to the stage of history ahead of the “great and terrible Day of the Lord.” At that time, Elijah would create peace within families and restore the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

  She remembered Eli Katz’s deranged speech about the End of Days. He had spoken with such urgency and conviction. Her anger at his rudeness evaporated, leaving a silt of pity. Poor creature. Confined to a hospital room. Broken. Depressed. Alone. Once again, she found her own face reflected in his dark eyes.

  She closed her laptop and took another long sip.

  Too bad, she thought. Time to move on.

  CHAPTER 32

  Eight o’clock Sunday morning, Irina and Moshe walked through Safra Square, an expansive plaza of checkered gray stone in downtown Jerusalem. The large government buildings on every side made Irina feel very small.

  Samira had remained at the rabbi’s house, fearful of bumping into family members who worked at the government institutions. What had the Arab girl done to enrage her family so? Irina had not dared to ask. She could not hide at the rabbi’s home much longer. None of them could. Tonight, Moshe and the rabbi were to appear before the Great Council, which would probably split them up. This might be her last day with Moshe.

  Moshe greeted the guard at the door of the Ministry of Employment. The elderly man raised his fluffy eyebrows and returned the greeting. Moshe always had a kind word for waiters, janitors, and security guards—the invisible people that others ignored. Irina noticed that. Moshe was a gentleman.

  He plucked a ticker tape number from a dispenser at the entrance to a large waiting hall and found two empty bucket seats of hard plastic. They watched a digital display. Each time the number changed, a computerized voice instructed the bearer to approach a numbered counter. Twenty turns to go. Irina didn’t mind. She savored her last hours with Moshe, one of her few friends in her new life and the one she trusted most.

  A dark cloud hovered over him this morning. His wife had refused his advances and flowers. Her loss. If she didn’t recognize a good man when she saw one, then she didn’t deserve him. In addition, his treasured family business had failed—the main reason for their excursion to the Ministry of Employment. She wished she could ease his pain.

  “You never told me the rest of the story,” she said. This might be her last chance to find out.

  Moshe looked up. “Which story?”

  “How Avi saved your life.”

  “Oh.” He folded his arms over his chest. “We were on reserve duty together in the South Hebron Mountains. Eight-hour shifts securing the roads between Jewish villages. There were four of us in the pillbox—that’s a cement watchtower surrounded by concrete blocks and barbed wire—in the cold.”

  Irina pictured him in an olive uniform, a rifle slung over his shoulder like the soldiers she saw on the streets and buses.

  “Avi had something to say about everyone,” he continued. “Especially Nimrod, a rich kid from North Tel Aviv. Nimrod said his wife complained all the time, so Avi said...” Moshe trailed off.

  “Said what?”

  His cheeks reddened. “Well, he said: ‘Women always moan; you get to choose the reason,’ implying that Nimrod didn’t, well, you know…”

  “I get it,” she said. This Avi was not a gentleman.

  “Avi loved to get under his skin. One afternoon, Nimrod came down to the yard and handed out cigarettes. His wife was pregnant. ‘Boy or girl?’ Avi asked. When Nimrod said ‘girl,’ Avi laughed. ‘The Arabs have a saying,’ he said: ‘What you put in is what you get out.’”

  Irina took a few seconds to figure out that one. “Oh, my.”

  Moshe continued. “Yep. Nimrod didn’t let that one go. He lunged at Avi and I had to keep them apart. Then Avi tackled me to the ground, and the world exploded. Machine gun fire. The ricochet of bullets. A terrorist had walked right in. Avi rolled over and returned fire. The terrorist got away. Nimrod wasn’t so lucky. He never saw his daughter. If Avi hadn’t pulled me down, I would have joined him.”

  “Wow.” She had assumed that Moshe had served in the Israel Defense Forces, but never imagined what he had gone through in uniform.

  A loud noise startled her, and she grabbed Moshe’s arm.

  He looked over his shoulder. “It’s OK,” he said. “Someone dropped a book. Half the room had a heart attack.”

  Irina released his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “Anyway,” he continued his story, “Avi was out of work, so I offered him a job. And so our lives became entwined.”

  The automated voice announced their number and directed them to counter number four, where they found a desk and another two bucket chairs.

  “ID?” their attendant asked without looking up from the screen. The well-preserved woman had dyed her long hair black. She squinted at a computer monitor over reading glasses that clung to the tip of her nose. Her nametag read Dafna Siman-Tov.

  Moshe recited his nine-digit identification number, and the lady pecked at the keyboard with two fingers.

  She clucked and shook her head.

  “Stupid computer. They put in a new system yesterday. Rinat?” she called. A younger woman in a white blouse arrived and peered over her shoulder.

  “Says here he’s dead.”

  Rinat pointed at the screen with long, pink manicured nails. “Click Override. I’ll approve it. Must be another glitch.”

  Irina and Moshe exchanged glances and hid their smiles. They might actually make progress here.

  Dafna moved the mouse, gave it a click, and her face brightened.

  “Right, Moshe Karlin.” She glanced at him now that he officially existed in the system. “How long have you been unemployed?”

  “A week.”

  “First time here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Last job?”

  “I ran my own business.”

  “We’re fresh out of CEO positions, sweetie. You’ll have to fill in the survey.” She squinted at the screen and jabbed at the keyboard. “Do you have any degrees?”

  “I didn’t go to university.”

  Click. Click. “Skills?”

  “Uh, management?”

  She shook her head. “No Management here. Typing?”

  “No.”

  “Brick laying?”

  “Nope.”

  “Agricultural work?”

  “Never got around to it.”

  “Sanitation?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Poor Moshe. His humor plastered over his embarrassment. Work meant so much to a man’s ego.

  Click. Click. Dafna frowned. “Nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing?”

  “There’s telemarketing and call center work, but you need to be a student. Oh, wait, what’s this?” She squinted at the screen again.

  Irina held her breath. Give him something. Anything.

  “Public office.”

  “Pardon?”

  Dafna turned the screen around. “See for yourself. Mayor. Member of Parliament. Prime Minister.”

  Irina laughed. Was this a joke?

  Moshe laughed too. “Prime Minister?”

  “That’s what it says. They’re the only jobs that don’t require skills or education.”

  Irina read the screen. Dafna wasn’t joking.

  “So do I just sign up?”

  “No, it’s
a self-employment recommendation. You have to join a party, or create one. Politicians do it all the time. Hard to keep track. Next elections are in three months, so you better get started. Your unemployment payments start in a few days. Check in every week at the self-service computers on the first floor.”

  “Every week?”

  “If you’re still unemployed. I’ll need your bank details and pay slips for the last six months.”

  “I… I don’t have them with me.”

  The clerk’s shoulders sagged. Silly man, they seemed to say. Didn’t do your homework, did you? She folded her hands on the desk. “Then you’ll have to come back and reregister. What about your wife?”

  “Oh no,” Irina said. “We’re not married.”

  “She’s a friend,” Moshe said.

  “Just friends,” Irina added. Her cheeks felt hot.

  “Are you unemployed too?”

  “Yes.”

  “ID?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t have my identity book.”

  “Name?”

  Moshe said, “We’ll come back another time.”

  They crossed Safra Square toward Jaffa Street and a line of tall palm trees. The late morning sun reflected white off the public buildings of Jerusalem stone. People flowed around them. People with skills and jobs. Hawkers offered them hot bagels and bottled water. Moshe’s shoulders slumped as he walked.

  “I’m sorry,” Irina said.

  “It’s OK. We had little chance of getting anywhere.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Odd jobs, I suppose. Wait tables.” Moshe stared at something behind her.

  She turned around. A man stood in the middle of the square, an island in the stream of pedestrians. A sign with large black letters hung from straps on his shoulders: “Honest Work. Honest Pay.”

  “Jobs!” the man cried, first in Hebrew, then Russian. “Money! No documents required.”

  A passerby took a slip of paper from his hands. Moshe and Irina walked over and took one too. No company name or logo. No marketing copy. Just an address in Talpiot.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “Shto?” the man said. What?

  Irina took over in Russian. “What jobs?”

  He shrugged. “I just hand out the fliers, miss.”

  She translated for Moshe, who was still staring at the address.

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  “Yes. Too good.”

  Moshe shrugged. “What do we have to lose?”

  CHAPTER 33

  Yosef stared at his sandwich on the staff room table. He had not touched his lunch. In a few hours, he would stand before the Great Council of Torah Sages bearing the best possible tidings, but a drop of doubt muddied his excitement.

  In his mind’s eye, Samira stood on his doorstep in a makeshift hijab, desperation in her eyes. None of the ancient sources had mentioned resurrected gentiles; some had explicitly limited the miracle to Jews. How was this possible?

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Half an hour until his next class. He had debated whether to call Rabbi Emden Saturday night, and decided not to bother the busy rabbi. Yosef must have misread the sources. As the meeting drew closer, however, he changed his mind. Best to update the good rabbi before they stood before the leading sages of the generation. No surprises.

  He dialed the number on his phone. The call cut to an answering service. He didn’t leave a message. Stop worrying, Yosef. The Great Council would know what to do, no matter what.

  “May I have a word with you, Rabbi Yosef?” said a calm, crisp voice.

  Yosef looked up. Rabbanit Leah Schiff, the principal of Daas Torah Primary, stood over him. He pocketed the phone with a sudden sense of guilt, as though she had caught him cheating. Rabbanit Schiff had that effect on him.

  “Of course.” He followed his employer to her office. He did not close the door. Jewish law forbade seclusion with a married woman.

  Rabbanit Schiff sat down behind her desk, her back ramrod-straight. Her fingertips formed a steeple as she considered Rabbi Yosef with unblinking eyes. With her symmetrical sheitel of short, dark hair, she reminded him of the humanoid robots from the science fiction movies of his youth. The rabbanit ran a tight ship and always smiled. On occasion, the smile had moved unfortunate teachers to tears. Today she aimed her smile at Yosef.

  “Rabbi Yosef,” she said, choosing each word with care. “Do you know why parents choose our school?”

  Yosef knew better than to reply.

  “Purity,” she said. “Parents entrust their children’s pure minds to our pure environment where we teach them pure Torah.” She let the weight of her words sink in. Her gaze dropped to the edge of the table. “I have ignored your little adventures beyond the approved syllabus in the past. Harmless tidbits for a child’s wandering mind. But now we have received complaints.”

  “Complaints?” Yosef squeezed the seat of his chair.

  The unblinking eyes trained on his. “Last week, children in your class returned home with questions about their dead grandparents. Disturbing questions. Our job is to fill their minds with knowledge, not questions.”

  “But the Talmud is filled with questions.”

  “Yes, Rabbi Yosef. Questions that arrive with ready answers. The questions you have raised only lead to more questions. They are… dangerous.” She straightened the row of pens on her desk. “There are enough distractions in the outside world. We don’t want to unsettle their pure minds. Do you understand?”

  Yosef blinked. He needed the job. If one school blacklisted him, word would spread, and he would need a new career. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. No more talk of the Resurrection. My apologies.”

  Her smile widened. “Thank you, Rabbi Lev. That will be all.”

  He got to his feet and left the office. Never mind. Tonight the sages of the Great Council would hear all and, within minutes, the religious world would know the joyous truth: the long-awaited Redemption had begun! Then the Resurrection would be on everyone’s lips.

  CHAPTER 34

  The sudden screech of tires on asphalt made Irina grab Moshe’s arm again. All eyes turned to the white car that had halted before the bus shelter on Jaffa Street where they sat. The man in the passenger seat lurched forward and whipped back in his seat. The smell of burning rubber wafted in the air. On the roof of the car, the word “taxi” was displayed in a yellow half-moon.

  Hearing no crunch of fenders, the startled pedestrians continued on their way, but Irina’s relief was short-lived. The driver’s door opened, and a short, dark-skinned man of middle age walked around the car and marched toward her.

  Moshe stood and the man stopped inches from him. “Moshe Karlin,” he said, “is that you?” His voice had a rough, raspy edge.

  The old man didn’t wait for an answer. He threw his arms around Moshe and hugged his chest. Moshe gave Irina a helpless, bemused look.

  The driver held Moshe at arms’ length and inspected him like a long-lost lover. “Great God! Moshe Karlin. I thought you were dead.”

  “Hey! Driver!” the passenger yelled out the window. “The meter is running.”

  The cabbie didn’t seem to hear. “I heard rumors but I didn’t dare believe them. How can this be?”

  “God alone knows,” Moshe said.

  “Fantastic! Wonderful news!”

  He seemed to notice Irina for the first time.

  “This is Irina. Irina, meet Rafi. A very dear friend.”

  “A friend?” Rafi seemed insulted. “More like family. I’ve known Moshe since he was in his mother’s womb.”

  The passenger got out of the cab, slammed the door, and flagged down another taxi.

  Rafi wiped a tear from his crinkly eye. “I didn’t hear you on the radio. Are you back at work?”

  Moshe’s smile faded at the mention of his company. “It’s complicated.”

  “Of course,” Rafi said, as though not keen to pry. “And Galit? She must be overjoyed to see you.”
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  “I’m afraid that’s complicated as well.”

  “I see.” Rafi seemed genuinely distressed at his friend’s plight. “I can imagine. After, what, two years? Where are you heading? Let me give you a ride. Let’s talk in the air conditioning.”

  They got inside and the taxi pulled off.

  Irina had the back seat to herself. The soft upholstery was a welcome change after the hard plastic chairs of the Ministry of Employment.

  Rafi caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “Let me tell you about the Karlins,” he said with pride. “Moshe’s father, David, got me into this business. I was a young soldier when the Yom Kippur War hit. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal and marched across Sinai. Syrian tanks rolled through the Golan. Iraq and Jordan joined the assault. Their leaders talked of driving us into the sea. In Tel Aviv, the government dug mass graves. This was the end of us.” His face sobered in the mirror.

  “My battalion charged the Golan Heights. Brothers-in-arms died around me. Of my whole platoon, only I lived to tell the tale.” He drew a labored breath at the memory. “We survived the war but the country was a mess. Hard to believe that now. My head was a mess. I wanted to get as far away as possible. I bought a ticket for Argentina. My mom told his dad”—he nodded at Moshe—“and the night before my flight, he came over to our house. ‘Work with me,’ he said. He helped me finance a taxi. Made sure I had enough clients to cover the payments and then some. A year later, I bought two more cars and hired drivers. I owe it all to David Karlin.”

  “Wow,” Irina said. “That’s quite a story.”

  The motor purred as they meandered through the city center. A woman in sunglasses bustled along with oversized shopping bags on her arm. A man wearing a large black skullcap bit into a slice of pizza as he stared at his phone.

  Moshe asked, “Is your Mercedes in the shop?”

  “Sold it.”

  “For a Seat?”

  “Nothing beats a Mercedes, I know. But the services! And the gas! This car is not as comfortable, but that’s cash in the bank. Times are not what they used to be, Moshe.” Rafi sighed. Gloom settled over the eyes in the mirror. “These youngsters and their fancy mobile apps.” He shook his head at the corruption of the youth. “Soon after you died, the dispatch calls dried up. I had to rely on street pickups and long-haul routes, but even those became rare. I had to let go of my drivers and sell the cars.”