An Unexpected Afterlife_A Novel Read online

  “Morning, Rabbi.” Moshe chuckled and pointed at the door. “Locked out. Silly me. Nothing to worry about. All under control.”

  “Moshe?” the rabbi muttered. He seemed to be thinking aloud, not speaking to an actual person. He grabbed his thigh with his free hand and gave it a hard squeeze. Then he slapped his face and rubbed his eyes. “Moshe Karlin? God save us.”

  “Rabbi, are you OK?”

  The rabbi cackled, a man teetering at the edge of sanity. “Sure,” he said. “Besides for seeing ghosts. Otherwise, thank God, I’m fine.” He gave another nervous laugh.

  Moshe rolled his eyes. Not the rabbi as well. “OK,” he said, loud enough for Galit and Avi to hear through the upper window. “The joke is over. It wasn’t funny anyway. As you can see, Rabbi, I am not dead.”

  “You certainly are. I officiated at your funeral. I visited the house of mourning.”

  Moshe got up, walked over to the wide-eyed rabbi, grasped his bony shoulder, and shook his cold, limp hand. “See? When was the last time you shook hands with a ghost?”

  The rabbi swallowed hard, and for a moment, Moshe thought he was going to collapse. Then an expression of wonder animated his face and understanding blossomed in his eyes. “Ribono Shel Olam!” Master of the World! “You’re alive!”

  Moshe’s weird sensors fired again. A shiver slithered down his back like a snake over a fresh grave.

  The rabbi’s face fell from joy into sudden doubt. “Or am I hallucinating? Come with me. Please. I must show you to Rocheleh.”

  So that’s the plan, is it? The party had moved to the rabbi’s house. He had to hand it to Avi—Moshe would never have expected that. Galit and Avi must have ducked out the back door and beat him to the rabbi’s house. Moshe looked up and down the street and sighed. “OK.”

  He followed the frantic rabbi, who turned back every few steps to make sure his guest had not evaporated into thin air. Moshe winced as his tender feet stepped on stray stones and cracks on the sidewalk.

  A small single-level house of old stone sat at the end of the street near the grassy tracks of a defunct railway line. The rabbi knocked on the door, jiggled a key in the lock, and stepped inside.

  Moshe had never visited the rabbi’s home. Pictures of bearded rabbis hung on the walls of a small, tidy living room. There were no balloons. No birthday cake. No signs of people hiding behind the worn couches, or the bookcase—its shelves droopy with holy books—or beneath the dinner table of scratched, dark wood.

  At a counter bordering the kitchen, a woman looked up from her newspaper and coffee. She wore a stern expression.

  “What have you forgotten now?”

  Moshe had never met the rabbi’s wife. The kerchief on her head covered every strand of hair.

  “Rocheleh, do you remember Moshe Karlin?”

  The rabbanit sniffed at her husband’s guest and his bare feet, unimpressed.

  “Hi,” Moshe said. He pointed in the general direction of his house. “I got locked out.”

  “Isn’t he dead?”

  Here we go again.

  The rabbi smiled. “So he’s not in my imagination! It’s a miracle!”

  Moshe felt his patience run out. “Rabbi, I think I would know if I had died.”

  The rabbanit put down her mug and ignored him. “If you’re home, you can get the boys ready for school.”

  The demand seemed to jog the rabbi’s memory. “I have to open the shul.” He turned to Moshe. “I’ll be right back. Please wait here. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to some coffee. Breakfast. Is there anything you need?”

  Moshe clenched his fists. He wanted to shout “I am not dead!” but he held back for the sake of the rabbi and his wife. He didn’t have time for this. He needed his car keys and his own clothes to get to work, but he could not get into his house. He resigned himself to a late start. He might as well accept the rabbi’s offer. He said, “I could do with a shower.”

  Rabbi Yosef led him down a corridor, through a main bedroom with two single beds and peeling wallpaper, and into a pokey bathroom. He handed him an old but clean towel and a new bar of soap, and hurried off.

  The bathroom sink and counter were a mess of creams and makeup, hairbrushes and dental equipment. The wall tiles had chipped and the scent of damp rot hung in the air. But a shower was a shower.

  Moshe locked the door, stripped, and stepped into the shower closet. Pipes groaned in the walls and then a jet of hot water burst from the showerhead. He massaged his scalp, shoulders, and back. That’s better. He worked up a lather with the soap and wiped the patina of dirt from his feet and legs.

  How long would the prank go on? Rest assured, Moshe would return the favor in double measure. Avi’s birthday fell in December. Plenty of time to prepare. An alien landing, a terrorist kidnapping. Leave him outside and naked overnight. In winter. That would cure him of practical jokes.

  Moshe soaped his arms and chest, and his hands worked their way down his body.

  When his fingers slid over his belly, he screamed.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Prophet sat at a small, round table outside Café Aroma. He typed away on his laptop and ignored the stares of the waitress.

  He enjoyed his daily coffee on Emek Refaim. The outing allowed him to get some work done and mingle among the common people without attracting too much attention. He savored the colors and whispers of their clothing, the scent of food and perfume, the snatches of conversation in a hodgepodge of languages and accents, as tourists and locals drank their coffee and bustled along the strip of trendy stores and restaurants. He had to keep up with the changing times, and in the last few centuries, the times had changed at a breakneck pace.

  Women were one of few constants, their unwanted attentions an occupational hazard. The present hazard—a waitress with a blond ponytail and intelligent green eyes—leaned against the wall at the edge of his peripheral vision and watched him like a hawk as he emptied the small silver pot of hot milk into his cup. Waitresses left their telephone numbers on his receipts and napkins. The bolder ones sat down at his table and struck up conversation. When that happened, he moved on.

  What drew them to him? The shock of untamed black hair? The persecuted expression? Or his refusal to make eye contact? Humanity desired what it could not have. Experience had taught him that only too well.

  This waitress rocked on the balls of her feet. Was she a scribbler or a sitter? She launched from her perch and tended to an elderly couple that had settled at another table.

  He lifted the empty silver pot. Waving the waitress over for a refill would only invite conversation, so he took the easy way out. He tilted the pot and flexed the muscle in the center of his brain. Hot milk poured into the cup. He tilted the pot a second time and espresso flowed. He sipped his coffee. Perfect.

  The scent of fruity perfume reached him before she did.

  “How on earth did you do that?” asked the waitress, sitting down across from him. A broad, incredulous smile split her face and revealed perfect white teeth. Her large green eyes threatened to swallow him whole.

  Pity. He had liked the coffee and the view. Jerusalem had only so many coffee shops at a convenient distance from his apartment.

  “Do what?”

  “That trick with the milk pot.”

  Busted. He kept a straight face. “What trick?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been watching you. Sometimes milk comes out, sometimes coffee. Always steaming hot.”

  Time for a change of subject. He said, “Like those bottles of black and white liqueur?”

  Her eyes narrowed and confusion wrinkled her pretty brow. “Sheridan’s?” She glanced over her shoulder. “Am I on candid camera?” She seemed delighted at the prospect.

  “Yes.” He closed the laptop. “You’re on candid camera.”

  He shoved the laptop into his shoulder bag and applied his charming smile. “Do you like magic tricks? Why don’t you leave me your number, and we can talk at leisure?” He win
ked and dropped a fifty-shekel note on the table.

  A flush washed over her face. “I’ll get your bill.” She got up and rushed indoors to the cash register.

  He slung his bag on his shoulder and walked off. Let her believe in magic tricks. In her memory, he’d be the cute big tipper who got away. Humanity believed what it wanted to believe. Never the truth.

  As he crossed the road, he felt a familiar tingle in his core. A breeze ruffled his hair and the world froze. Café patrons paused mid-bite. Shoppers and dog-walkers struck stiff poses like wax models. An Egged bus halted in mute mid-motion. The wind swirled and rose, became a turbulent storm cloud that wrapped around him, and then fell silent. And in the silence, the Thin Voice spoke. Without words. Without language. With absolute clarity.

  In an instant, the Prophet knew what he must do. The where, the how, the why. He would obey. He always obeyed. Against his better judgment.

  Then the world thawed. Mouths chewed, legs walked, and vehicles zoomed, none the wiser.

  He reached the curb and sped off on foot. The Day had arrived. He had better move fast.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Heart attack?” The question burst from Moshe’s mouth like an accusation. He sat on the low couch in the rabbi’s living room, his arms folded over his chest, his feet in velvet slippers one size too small.

  Rabbi Yosef nodded and lowered his eyes. He sat on an old wooden chair from the dining table set. He reminded Moshe of the visitors at the house of mourning after his father had passed and, years later, his mother. At this shiva house, however, Moshe filled the roles of both bereaved and deceased.

  The rabbi nodded. “You collapsed at the Botanical Gardens. The paramedics were unable to revive you.”

  Moshe had suspected that much. Heart attack. Without warning. Like his father and grandfather. He should have seen that coming, but he’d been too busy to bother with doctors.

  After his shower, he had drifted through the house, alone with his thoughts. The rabbanit had taken the boys to school and continued to her own teaching job. He paced the living room like an angry tiger, from the overloaded bookcase to the sagging couches to the kitchen counter and back. The framed rabbis on the walls watched him without expression as the ball of hot magma grew in his chest.

  He could try to explain away the morning’s events, but he could not account for the signs on his body or the date of the newspaper on the kitchen counter. Just over two years had passed with Moshe dead to the world.

  When God’s representative returned home from morning prayers, the volcano erupted.

  “It’s not fair!” Tears flooded his eyes and seeped into his nasal cavity.

  Rabbi Yosef handed him a tissue and studied the floor.

  Moshe blew his nose. “Dead at forty. No sons to say Kaddish or carry on the family name.” He shuddered. What would his father have thought of that? “We moved into our house only a year ago. I was about to expand my business. I left so much undone.”

  The rabbi nodded, then brightened. “But you’re alive now. You can pick up where you left off.”

  Moshe emitted a short, bitter laugh. “Tell that to my wife. You should have seen her face this morning.” A sudden doubt drained his sense of humor. “We’re still married, aren’t we?”

  The rabbi shifted on his seat. “Marriage ends with divorce or death, so the moment you died…” He let Moshe draw the conclusion. “But,” he added, “you can remarry.”

  Moshe spared the rabbi the gory details of finding Avi and Galit in his bed. That ship had sailed. Of all the men in the world, why Avi? Had she not married Moshe first, he would have seriously doubted her taste in men.

  “Galit inherited everything?”

  Another nod. Moshe constructed a mental syllogism. His worldly possessions now belonged to Galit; Galit belonged to Avi. That bastard had taken over his life. The joke was on Moshe, all right, and it ran far deeper and darker than he had thought.

  “Moshe?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you don’t mind me asking…”

  “Go ahead, Rabbi.”

  “What was it like?”

  Moshe gave him a confused look.

  The rabbi said, “The World of Souls.”

  “World of Souls?”

  The rabbi’s cheeks reddened above his beard. “You know—after the tunnel and bright light.”

  Moshe racked his memory. He had been talking to Savta Sarah at the Botanical Gardens, wineglass in hand. He had looked about for Galit. And then… he had woken up on the Mount of Olives to the sound of the muezzin. He shook his head. “I don’t remember anything. No tunnels or lights either.”

  “Did you meet God?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Deceased relatives?”

  “Nope.”

  “Angels? Cherubs?”

  “None.”

  The rabbi seemed disappointed. Moshe had died and lost everything, including any memory of the Hereafter. And yet, here he sat, alive again, in the rabbi’s living room. “Rabbi,” he said. “How can this be?”

  The rabbi rediscovered his enthusiasm. “It’s a miracle!”

  “Yes, you said that. But… how? Has this happened before?”

  “Not in three thousand years.”

  Now the rabbi had his attention. “So people have come back from the dead?” That did not sound like a very Jewish idea.

  The rabbi walked over to the shelf and returned with a small, thick, and well-thumbed volume. He opened the Hebrew Bible halfway and flipped the pages. “Elijah the Prophet revived the son of a widow in Zarephath. His successor, Elisha, resurrected the son of a rich benefactor in Shunem.” He read from the book: “‘Elisha lay on top of the boy, placed his mouth on his, his eyes on his eyes, his hands on his hands, and the boy’s body became warm.’”

  “I don’t know,” said Moshe. The passage sounded suspiciously like CPR, but he kept his doubts about the Biblical story to himself. “I was dead for two years. There wasn’t much left to resuscitate.”

  “Unless,” the rabbi said, “you didn’t decompose! There are stories about saintly rabbis—”

  Moshe raised his hand, cutting the rabbi’s argument short. “Then how do you explain this?” He lifted his shirt.

  The rabbi’s eyes narrowed with alarm and then widened with surprise. He squinted at Moshe’s exposed belly. “Ribono Shel Olam! You have no navel.” The rabbi jabbed a finger at the spot. “But that means…”

  “Exactly. I wasn’t revived. My body was… regenerated.”

  The rabbi’s face lit up with that now familiar ecstatic expression. “I’ve got it!”

  “Don’t tell me,” Moshe said. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Better than that!”

  “What could be better than a miracle?”

  “A prophecy!” He fanned the pages of the Bible again, bouncing on the couch in excitement. “Isaiah, chapter twenty-six: ‘Your dead will live, their corpses rise. Awake and sing praise, you that dwell in the dust, for your dew is the dew of light…’”

  A shudder ran down Moshe’s spine. The verse described a zombie apocalypse. Was he in the lead role? He had no desire to eat brains. He couldn’t even stomach a Jerusalem mixed grill.

  The rabbi turned more pages. “Ezekiel thirty-seven. The prophet had a vision—a valley full of dry bones. Human bones. The Spirit of God assembled the bones into skeletons, wrapped them in sinew, flesh, and skin, and breathed life into them.”

  That was more like it. “What happened to them?”

  “There are two opinions in the Talmud. They either lived forever or died of natural causes.”

  Moshe preferred the first option. “You mean the rabbis don’t know?”

  Rabbi Yosef shrugged. The unresolved debate over that critical detail didn’t seem to bother him.

  “But if they lived regular lives, what was the point?”

  “You could ask the same question,” the rabbi said, stroking his beard, “about life in general.”
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br />   Moshe waited for Rabbi Yosef to answer the question of questions, but he didn’t. “The vision of dry bones,” he continued, “was a symbolic message for Ezekiel’s generation, the Jewish exiles in Babylon: don’t lose hope; soon you will return to the land of Israel and revive your independent state, just as God revived the dry bones. But on another level the prophecy predicts an actual resurrection of the dead.”

  The rabbi found a passage toward the end of the tome. “Daniel, chapter twelve. ‘And many of those that sleep in the dirt will wake, some for eternal life, others for eternal shame.’” More turning of pages. “‘And you, find your end and rest; but you will rise for your destiny at the End of Days.’” He closed the book.

  “The End of Days?” Moshe asked. It sounded like a Hollywood blockbuster, not an event in the here-and-now.

  The rabbi’s smile widened. “The Messianic Era. We believe that the End of Days will see the Resurrection of the Dead, the return of Elijah the Prophet, and the revelation of the Messiah-King, son of David. The Messiah will gather the exiles from the Diaspora and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. He’ll restore the Kingdom of Israel to its former glory and bring peace and justice to the land.”

  “Peace?” Moshe asked. “In the Middle East? Good luck to him.”

  The rabbi was undeterred. “The order of the events is unclear. The Ingathering has begun already. Jews have poured into the State of Israel from across the globe: holocaust survivors from Europe; entire communities fleeing persecution in Arab countries; airlifts of Jews from Morocco and Ethiopia. Every day planeloads of Jews from around the world land at Ben Gurion Airport.” The rabbi sighed at the thrill of it all. “When these signs come to pass, the Messiah will usher in the World to Come.”

  “Wait a moment,” Moshe said. “I thought that the World to Come is the Afterlife, the—what did you call it—the World of Souls?”

  The rabbi produced a sheepish grin. “The rabbis argue that one too.” Moshe should have guessed. “Maimonides says you’re right—the World to Come is the Spirit World after death. But according to Nachmanides, the World to Come refers to life after the dead have risen in the Messianic Era, when the world will reach perfection.”