The Watchers (3 page)

Every now and then one of them would look over at me and smile or nod at me, all solemn the way people do when they pass by my pastor on Sunday but they don't really want to stop and tell him what they thought of the sermon.

Then things got even freakier. I realized that I was sitting up, only I didn't remember moving anything more than my eyelids. Worse, my body felt way different than just that. Like I said before, it felt like it belonged to somebody else.

Yeah. Stay with me, cause it gets even weirder.

See, I was feeling all these emotions, but not through my own mind. Another one. I can't really explain how I knew that, but I did.

I was an old woman, I realized. It was an instinct, like all these sensations just added themselves together and totaled up: “old woman.” And these old woman's thoughts and memories weren't right in front of my mind, but kind of hanging back in the corners, just out of sight. Even though I wasn't experiencing them straight on, in a sideways kind of knowing I knew that these were memories of a really hard life.

I saw—I know you're not supposed to “see” feelings, but I could—her worrying over whether she'd eat that day, her stress over where she would live. I saw this young man yell at her and call her crazy, that she couldn't just waste her life waiting around all day, every day. I saw her memory of a man lying in a dark room gasping for breath and clutching his hands at the air above him, and I was totally sad because I knew he was dying. And I knew that she loved him. I saw day after day of loneliness and depression. All of these really sad days, like picture screens strung together in a row until I couldn't see them all. Just stretching on and on, clear over the horizon.

And I saw the city square where I was, at a bunch of different times of the year. People walking under a low sun with breath fogging out of their mouths. Then everything all green and flowery with spring. Then walkers almost bowing their heads to keep out of the summer heat. I saw the place lit by every hour of the day— purple shadows that looked like dawn, noon glare, hazy afternoons, sunset throwing this golden shadow over everything. I saw it both empty and crammed with people. Time. Lots and lots of time passing by.

And I knew that the man who had died was my husband, and that I was a widow. An old widow who sat in this same spot day after day and waited, waited, waited. And people didn't know what to think of me—whether to treat me like a lunatic, or a saint, or a prophet.

And at the same time, another part of me was Abby Sherman going, “Whoa girl, did you eat too much late-night salsa?” And wanting to shake my head and clear this hallucination out of my senses and get back to reality. Real dreams, like showing up for finals in my underwear.

Only the head wasn't mine, and I just knew the moment wasn't mine either. It belonged to her. Whoever this woman was.

Then her heart started beating so hard, I thought it might just run out of strength at any moment, and her thoughts got all jacked-up and alert. And I realized something else. Somehow, I knew this without knowing how it came to me.

What this old woman had waited for all these years was happening. It was coming her way that very second.

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

The old fingers clawed at the television's glowing glass, as though some grip or sharp fingernail could wrest the young American's offending words out of their curved enclosure. The voice which now rang through the cavernous room behind it hardly sounded human anymore. In fact, it did not even bear any resemblance to a terrestrial utterance of any kind—man
or
beast. The only sound competing with it was the incessant pounding of an index finger upon a single, abused key, the
down arrow
, to continue the reading at all cost. . . .

CHAPTER
_
4

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

A deep retching sound echoed across the broad, barrel-ceilinged sitting room, propelling thirty dollars' worth of half-digested sashimi from the
Matsuhisa
—the most exclusive sushi house in Beverly Hills—out across a terrazzo of exquisitely checkered Carrara marble.

The butler appeared at the French door windows, peering in worriedly despite his express orders to stay away.

Elegant fingers waved him off, then plucked up a linen napkin and hurriedly dabbed clean their owner's mouth. The nauseated man did not move again, but reached instead for the next page of text from the printer as if no stench or disarray was worth an interruption. . . .

ABBY SHERMAN'S MYCORNER DREAM BLOG, PAGE 7

I—or this old woman, it's hard to make a difference now, because I was her, she was me—felt blown away by an emotion that was strange and new even for her. It was a mixture of like, amazement and gratitude and off-the-chart happiness and fear and awe and humility and wanting to cry a little, all at once. It reminded me of when I saw Caryn being born, when I felt these tears cross my face, and like a freak I didn't even realize I was crying until my emotions caught up with my mind.

But now, last night standing there, I had no idea what was causing all this. I only knew that the feeling was growing stronger. It was coming closer, the cause of all this. Toward me.

I remember seeing a couple of soldiers pass by. I didn't need this old woman's mind to tell me they were Roman because I recognized the fringe on their helmets and the style of their armor from Bible stories and movies and even that trip to Caesar's Palace last year.

And just then, I saw them coming through the crowd.

They were a little family. A short bearded man with really buff forearms and a bone-tired look in his eyes. And a very young woman—a girl, I'd call her, actually. She couldn't have been more than a high school junior back in my reality. Only she was holding a baby, all awkward and tender-like the way Teresa held Caryn coming home from the hospital. This new mom was beautiful. Her skin was all pale and perfect and she had these deep, intense eyes like her husband. I remember she turned and stared right through all the passersby and locked onto me. Her mouth widened into this almost-smile that seemed to light up her whole face.

And I too felt all lit up inside. It sounds stupid to just say “there was something about these two,” because it was way more than just
something
. But it seemed like this aura, some intense force field, was following them, and it definitely wasn't coming from the sun. I felt my sight go all fuzzy and then bear down into this soft doughnut haze like the ring around the moon. Like all of a sudden they were the only people in the world. Made me think of that scene in Jaws, Dad's favorite movie, when the sheriff sees the shark fin for the very first time, and his face goes all slack with shock while the whole world zooms away behind him.

Then, without even deciding to, I started to stand, and man, was
that
a scary trip. I felt all wobbly, my muscles thin and stringy and weak. My legs didn't really take orders very well. But I was going to stand if it was the last thing I did. I reached up to grab something when these big hands took hold of my forearms, and I realized that a couple of men had stopped to help me.

The men pulled me up and my legs straightened under me. But when I let go and tried to settle my weight down, my knees weren't sure they wanted to hold me. Gradually things got steadier, and the men nodded and mumbled something like “shalom” and hurried back on their way.

And then my legs stepped forward, all on their own, and my mouth moved and my throat made this sound that was half sob and half cry. My arms pulled outward, hands open, as if I'd been asking that young mom to hold her child. Only she wasn't near me anymore. She was walking away.

I cried out. The second the old woman's voice left my mouth, I knew it was a foreign language. But in the very next moment I realized that I could understand it—don't ask me how.

“The Messiah! The Redeemer of Jerusalem!”

AMSTERDAM
—THAT MOMENT

A guttural bark, almost a growl, ripped apart the darkness. In the light of the glowing monitor, with the words
Redeemer of Jerusalem!
still blinking in a glowing blue upon it, a hand quickly formed a fist. It struck the screen's glass surface and knocked the machine from its tabletop perch, crashing onto the floor.

More curses now rose, laced with the slightest howl of pain, as the words continued. . . .

ABBY SHERMAN'S MYCORNER DREAM BLOG, PAGE 11

I felt tears run down my cheeks. And felt my chest pump up and down, just fighting to keep up. And this thrill ran like a shower of warm honey down from my head and across my limbs. And this feeling of love and adoration blew up in my chest so big that I wasn't sure I could stand it a second longer.

And my mind flooded with these thoughts: “Thank you. Thank you, dear God. You have vindicated my wait. My whole life. You have brought salvation to Jerusalem.”

These weren't Abby Sherman thoughts, I'm sure you can tell. I don't think like that. At that moment the old woman's thoughts just kind of stepped up and were running all over mine, which was cool with me.

A second later, after my cry stopped echoing, the crowd around me slowed down like someone had just turned down the speed button on the whole scene. But that young couple, they stopped dead in their tracks. The young mom turned back to me again, and this time the look on her face had to be as intense as mine. Her brown eyes opened wide and her lower lip went all shaky and trembly. She looked like she was about to cry and shout out for joy and maybe run for her life, all at the same time.

Except the girl stepped toward me, still holding that child in front of her, and she took a step. The distance between us felt all of a sudden like that last three feet of pool water after you dive into the deep end with your breath running out.

And then a whole new set of feelings just exploded. I felt space open up and whisk me along as if some kind of resistance had been sucked away, like someone had opened one of those space-movie air locks and its vacuum was pulling me ahead. I wasn't this barely walking old woman anymore. I was on a moving sidewalk that wouldn't stop for anything in the world.

And I thought I heard music just fill my ears. These millions of soft voices in my ear reminding me of Enya singing, not really words but just a note, a syllable, with all these minor-chord strings swelling behind her. I'm still not sure I imagined it, or if I truly heard it somehow. Either way it made me feel that although I was already super old I could have lived a thousand more lifetimes and this would have still been my ultimate moment.

My legs kept pulling me toward the mother and child. I stopped three feet from her and she stopped too, and then it got really obvious that as beautiful as she was, it wasn't the girl who was setting off all these emotions.

It was the baby.

I looked down at the tiny face framed in blankets. He was chubby and perfect and a beautiful baby, for sure, only there wasn't anything so special about his features themselves. It was how looking at him made me feel. It was the emotional fireworks show going off as I got closer to him—so strong now that I wasn't sure I could keep standing.

I stood and held out my arms. My fingers shook a little because part of me couldn't believe my own audacity at thinking I could actually hold this child in my very own hands.

There was a pause until the mom moved again, and it seemed to stretch out into a whole year. I heard the tiniest sounds all around me. I heard my heart thump out of control. I heard the child make this tiny little whimper. I heard feet hit the dirt somewhere behind us.

Then I saw the little body come closer to me, being held out. My hands reached him. My fingertips touched his blanket, felt his weight, and I pulled him to my breast. I remember for a split second how tiny and light he seemed. I can't really describe what happened next. But since this is my blog, I'll try.

I felt like I was holding the center of the universe—like someone had sucked the core of one of those supernovas and laid it in my arms. My whole body tingled and throbbed, starting from my chest outward. And it seemed that light was pouring from his little face, like he was the brightest shopping-mall spotlight you've ever seen, aimed right at me, yet I was the only one who could see it.

And that was just the outside of me. Somewhere deep down in my heart, or maybe my soul, was just . . . the only way to describe it is like when an opera singer belts out some high note that just lasts forever and ever. Only this note was all about pure joy. The sound itself wasn't actually sound but this incredible happiness just pouring out from the deepest part of me.

And the next thing I knew, it got to be almost too much. The worst thing in the world was happening—with this precious one still in my arms I was starting to sway, the whole world just moving sideways. It was more than I could stand—literally. But thank God, people had jumped to my side and were holding me up.

My voice was making those words again, only I was so weak that I could only whisper them.

“Messiah. He has come at last.”

And the part of me that was Abby Sherman started to cry, because I knew somehow that the baby
was
Jesus, and I was totally there in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, and I was actually holding Him in my arms. Don't ask me how I know—but if you put a gun to my head and swore to shoot me if I was wrong, I'd still tell you I've been there.

And how can I say it?—every nerve in my body screamed out that He was divine, that He really was the Son of God. Both the old woman part of me and the Abby Sherman part of me knew the same thing, in a way beyond doubt or question.

Five minutes later I was awake in my usual bed at midnight, back in California, my body still shaking and my mind just spinning like a top. And my fingers still tingled from knowing I had held Him. I don't know why, or how, or what it all meant, but I had held the most important person in the history of the world. That moment had really happened, exactly the way I had lived it.