Mission (4 page)

But why me? Even now, it's a question I still ask myself. Why pick on me? But on the other hand, when you think about it, why not? After all, the first time around, The Man just hauled a bunch of fishermen off the end of the pier at Capernaum. I'm anybody – just like the next man. And, as I said, we're all in this together, whether we like it or not.

The Man took in the view from the porch then turned back to me.

‘This may sound a little strange but where am I?'

That threw me too. I mean, you don't expect Jesus to be interested in Porsche Carreras but when he steps out of nowhere onto your lawn, it's not unreasonable to assume that he knows where he is.

‘You're in a place called Sleepy Hollow in up-state New York,' I said. ‘The east bank of the Hudson river is just over there.'

‘Ahh, thanks …' He glanced briefly towards the trees.

‘New York is part of the continental United States,' I added helpfully. ‘North America?'

He looked at me blankly. ‘How far is that from Jerusalem?'

I thought it over and, as I worked out the answer, I was also thinking –
Get a grip on yourself, Resnick. Don't crack up. This conversation is not actually taking place. You've just been overworking
– ‘Jerusalem?' I heard myself say. ‘I would guess that the place you're looking for is about five thousand miles and two thousand years away. Today is Saturday, April twenty-fifth, nineteen eighty one.'

He frowned.

‘That's using the Gregorian calendar,' I explained. ‘Year One was about seven years after your presumed date of birth. I don't know what year this is according to the Jewish calendar but I could find out
if you're interested. Anyway, for what it's worth, welcome to the twentieth century.'

The Man took the news with an impassive nod. ‘I think I'm in trouble.'

That was where I made my second big mistake. What I should have said was – ‘That's tough, look, I'm busy' or ‘I only see people by appointment. Call my secretary'. Or told him to take it down the street. I didn't. But even now, I still can't quite accept the idea that that option was not open to me. I was filled with a sense of foreboding but suddenly I wasn't frightened any more. I felt this great longing to
know
well up inside me. To find out what had really happened way back when this thing had started and what he was doing here. There had to be an angle, and there was only one thing to say. ‘You want to come in and talk about it?'

The first thing I did after I got him settled was to excuse myself and call Miriam from the phone in the kitchen. ‘He's back …'

‘Who's back?' she said.

‘Who do you think for crissakes? Uhh, I mean –' I lowered my voice and made a mental note to reprogramme my vocabulary. After all, The Man was in the next room. ‘The DOA we lost on Saturday night.'

There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line. ‘Leo, are you putting me on?'

‘I wish I was, Miriam,' I said. ‘I really and truly wish I was.' I meant it too, despite the curiosity that now consumed me. For either of us to have anything to do with this guy could only lead to trouble. In our circle of friends and business associates there were two surefire ways of committing social suicide. Going broke and getting religion. And the last was the worst.

‘But, Leo,' said Miriam. ‘This is absolutely fantastic.'

‘Yes,' I said cautiously. ‘I guess it is.'

‘How did it happen?'

‘Well, he didn't come by Checker Cab,' I said. ‘How do I know? He just appeared. What can I tell you?'

‘Okay, okay. What kind of shape is he in?'

‘He's fine,' I replied. ‘He looks great. He's sitting on the sofa in the living-room.'

‘What doing?'

‘Drinking. He was thirsty. I gave him a drink.'

Her voice turned sharp. ‘What of? Water, coffee, Coke?'

Doctors … He was her patient already. ‘No,' I replied. ‘A glass of red wine.'

‘Wine …?'

‘That's what he asked for,' I said. Irritated by her tone of voice. ‘Look, how soon can you get here?'

‘Oh, wow … that's a problem. I just can't walk out of here. Look, umm – ' She sounded confused. ‘I'll come as soon as I can.'

‘Okay. How soon is that?' I said, pleased to have regained the upper hand.

‘Maybe not till tomorrow morning. It's tough to find someone to cover for you on a Saturday. I'll come out there as soon as I come off duty. My parents were expecting me over but – '

‘Never mind about them,' I said. ‘They'll still be there next week. Are you sure you can't make it any sooner? Tell 'em your grandmother's been taken sick. Or that she's dying or something.'

‘Leo,' she said. ‘This is not like cutting classes in Junior High School. Saturday night's the busiest we have in Emergency. They come in by the bus-load. I don't have an excuse to pull out and if I told them the truth, they'd call up the men in the white suits.'

‘You don't have to tell me,' I replied. ‘Why do you think I want you up here? I need someone to tell me I'm not having a nervous breakdown.'

There was a slight pause at the other end of the line. ‘Do you wish you were?'

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘At the moment, I'm too confused to tell you
what
I feel. I need more time to think about it.'

‘Okay, listen,' she said briskly. ‘I'll get there as soon as I can. Meanwhile don't let him out of your sight.'

‘Oh, gee, thanks, Doc,' I said. ‘Just how am I supposed to do that? You saw what happened at the hospital. If he decides to take off again, there's no way I can stop him.'

‘I know that,' she replied. ‘Just keep him talking. Ask him where he's been all week.'

I thanked her for the suggestion and rang off. I went back into the living-room half expecting to find it empty. Half hoping would be nearer the truth. But he was still there, standing by the window taking in the view, glass in hand. He turned towards me and eyed me silently.

‘Hi, how are you doing?' I said. You know – just to get things going.

‘Fine.' He raised his empty glass. ‘Is it okay if I, er …?'

‘Sure. Help yourself.'

‘How about you?' he asked.

‘Yeah, great.' I couldn't help smiling. ‘This may sound stupid but I can't get over the way you talk. Just like an American. The accent is not home-grown but you speak better than most of the
kibbutzim
we get in town.'

That made him smile too. ‘How did you expect me to speak? Like someone out of the Saint James's version of the Bible?'

‘I don't know,' I replied. ‘In Aramaic, I guess.'

‘If I did, you wouldn't understand a word I said.' He filled both glasses to the rim and handed one over. ‘Talking to people is easy. It's getting through to them that's the problem. The introduction of language was a retrograde step. Designed by some friends of mine to keep people apart. To prevent them from understanding one another.'

I made a mental note to ask him who his friends were. We sat down with the coffee table between us. He put his feet up on it. Miriam's bandages were still in place. Over them, he was wearing a pair of leather sandals with studded soles. They looked as if they had pounded down a few stony roads in their time.

He saw me looking at them. ‘Roman Army sandals,' he said. ‘The best there is. A centurion gave them to me after I cured his servant. The pair I had before this took me to Britain and back before they finally gave out.'

‘Amazing,' I said. ‘I didn't know you went to Britain.'

He nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I went all over. I was on the road for twelve years.'

‘It's not in the Book.'

‘No,' he said. ‘It got edited out.'

‘In fact, if I remember correctly,' I continued, ‘after the account of your birth there's nothing until that bit in Jerusalem when you are twelve, then we don't pick up on you until you're around thirty.'

‘Thirty-four,' he said.

I realised I was going to have to get hold of a copy of the New Testament and bone up on the text so as I could ask the right kind of questions. We sipped wine in silence for a while then eventually, with studied casualness, I put my feet up on the table too. And I remember thinking that I would have given anything for Rabbi Lucksteen, who bar-mitzvahed me, to have been able to walk in so as
I could introduce him. Then I saw The Man looking at me and wondered if he could read minds.

‘That phone call was to Miriam.' I explained. ‘She was the doctor who bandaged your hands and feet and …'

He nodded. ‘Ahhh …'

‘You look a lot better than when I last saw you,' I said. ‘How are the, er … How's the wound in your side?'

He smiled. ‘Oh, you mean where they stuck the spear? Much better.'

‘You must let Miriam take a look at you. She'll be up here tomorrow.' I grinned. ‘In the meantime, I'm supposed to keep you talking.'

He looked at me over the top of his glass. ‘That's okay with me but I don't want to interrupt anything. I noticed you have a heap of papers on the table over there.'

‘It's not important,' I said, not meaning it. After all, I thought, I didn't have to be in the office until Monday morning and with any luck, he might be gone by then. ‘Just make yourself at home,' I continued. ‘I've got a big garden. There's a bike in the garage, a stack of books and colour TV. You might find that interesting if you want a quick up-date on what's going on.'

And if he got bored, there was always the chance that he might mend the rail around the verandah, or put up a few shelves.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘The problem is, I'm not sure just how long I've got.'

I received the news with mixed feelings. ‘How do you mean?'

‘I mean I'm not sure what's happening,' he said. ‘As I understood it, I was supposed to be in Jerusalem.' He rubbed his forehead. ‘What year did you say this was?'

‘Nineteen hundred and eighty-one. If I remember correctly, certain religious historians put the date of the, er, of your death around the middle of March, twenty-nine AD.'

He nodded. ‘The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius.' He dropped his head on to the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. ‘What a mess.' After a while, he raised his head and looked at me. ‘You must be wondering what I'm talking about.'

I spread my palms. ‘Look, I'm just an ordinary guy. I can't even begin to understand what this is about, or what it has to do with me, and I realise that you may not have time to tell me but we have to start somewhere. Let's go back a week. What's the last thing you
remember happening in Jerusalem?'

He sat up a little. ‘I was lying inside this rock tomb wrapped in a long strip of linen.' He gestured with his hands. ‘One half was underneath me, the other half was folded down over my head.'

Which was good news for fans of the Turin Shroud.

‘I don't quite understand,' I said. ‘How could you know about that? You were supposed to be dead.'

He shook his head. ‘No. It was only Joshua's body that had ceased to function.'

‘Joshua's
body?'

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘Joshua was the given name of my host-psyche. We both shared the same vehicle. The thing you call a body. To us, it's a mobile life-support system. It was really his. I just lived there. It wasn't an ideal arrangement but there was no alternative.'

Oh, boy, I thought. Wait till Miriam hears about this. ‘Maybe we could come back to that later,' I said. ‘Okay, you were in the tomb. Then what?'

He shrugged. ‘The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and finding myself lying on the table in the hospital morgue and you standing over me.'

‘Wait a minute,' I said. ‘What about the alleyway?'

He frowned. ‘Alleyway?'

‘The crew of a police patrol car found you lying naked in an alleyway on the east side of Manhattan. They called an ambulance, which brought you to the Manhattan General where several people, including Miriam, examined you before your body was sent down to the morgue. Are you telling me you don't remember any of that?'

‘No,' he said. ‘Just waking up and seeing you.'

‘Oh, come on,' I cajoled. ‘You can do better than that. Try and think back. The ambulance that picked you up was stolen from outside another hospital about fifteen minutes before the police found you. The two men who picked up your body must have known you were coming. Who were they? Why did they bring you to the Manhattan General?'

He looked at me with the baffled frown of a man who did not know what I was talking about. ‘I'd like to help you, Leo, but I can't. As I've tried to tell you, I'm not in control of this situation.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘But if you do find out who was involved, I'd like you to tell me. If I'm going to be part of this, I have a right to know what's going on.'

‘Absolutely,' he replied.

I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't levelling with me but what could I do? Some words came into my mind –
What is hidden is hidden.
Hadn't he said that? Whether he had or not, he held all the cards. The whole situation was so bizarre, the only course open to me was to play it by ear whilst keeping an eye on the nearest exit. I resumed the interrogation. ‘Where did you go when you left the hospital?'

He smiled. ‘Back inside the rock tomb. This time, my two crewmen were waiting for me. My sudden disappearance had caused a certain amount of confusion. I explained where I'd been – or rather, where I'd found myself – then we made contact with the longship. We sent Joshua's body through first, then the three of us were beamed aboard.'

I tried to keep a straight face. ‘You mean like in …?'