The End-Time Foretellers Read online

  I kick the door hard and feel my heart beat fast. The door is breached loudly and I walk in quickly, the M16 is aimed forward, with a powerful flashlight mounted onto it. I push the weapon as though it in fact is what is leading me on, and I am merely following it against my will. Danny and Yossi burst in right behind me. I run towards the inner left room, where our intelligence indicates Muhammad is located.

  The house is neglected, filled with the strong odors of garbage and decay. The floor is strewn with abandoned objects and clothing, making our progress difficult. Behind the left inner door, I find an empty bed. I hear shots from behind. Danny shouts something and leaps out through the right window to the road behind the house. Yossi scans the house fervently. “He ran away, the bastard,” he shouts, and walks out the front door. I keep checking that we haven’t missed anything.

  I stand in the left room, trying to aim the bulky flashlight that’s mounted onto the weapon in all different directions. Yossi comes back inside and stands next to me, something moves behind the bed. Yossi yells in Arabic and a girl of about sixteen comes out with her hands raised. He asks her where Muhammad is, but she doesn’t answer, just stand there, shaking. Yossi points his gun at her, steps forward and shouts again. Meanwhile, Rami, the unit commander, enters the house and approaches us. Yossi is startled, turns around and fires while Rami manages to duck. The bullet hits the wall behind him, the smell of gunpowder. A scream sounds, the girl grabs a knife and tries to stab Yossi. There are voices from the street.

  Two masked men run into the house, Rami shoots one of them with his handgun. Yossi turns back to the girl and fires a cluster at her, and one of the masked men shoots him. Yossi falls, wounded. I half-turn towards him and shoot the masked man. Rami fires another shot at him and he collapses. Danny returns and tells us, “Guys, we’re in the wrong house, second house from the left.”

  ***

  I woke up sweating. That dream again. Seven years have gone by since then and I’m still reconstructing the horror. When will I leave Hebron? It’s been seven years since I was last there and still I continue to dream about the incident.

  What happened in that damn house in Hebron? Everything is foggy. In the dream, I’m there. In reality? I ran away, didn’t I? The times are all mixed up, all the operations in Hebron confounded. Maybe I checked my notebook to see if Danny sent us to the right house and that’s why I don’t remember what exactly took place. What house was it? Who was with us in the room? So many briefings and cross examinations, I don’t remember what it was that really happened, and what I’ve imagined.

  When I was a child, I excitedly told my parents about something that happened to me at school: I fell asleep in class and when the teacher woke me up and asked what we were learning, all the kids laughed. I was able to repeat exactly what she had been talking about, without missing a single detail. The teacher was impressed and said it was amazing and the kids all clapped to applaud me. When I finished telling them what had happened, my parents looked at me, surprised, and Adi laughed. I asked her why she was laughing and she said that this happened in a movie that we had seen on TV. Everyone laughed.

  I lay in bed, unable to sleep. I turned from side to side and thought that maybe if I didn’t move I’d fall asleep. It didn’t work. I got up and went to the kitchen. I was so tired that I couldn’t muster the energy to turn the lights on.

  The dark hallway was familiar. I reached the kitchen and took a can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator. Middle of the night in southern Tel Aviv and I’m stuck in Hebron.

  I went out onto the small balcony. Spread before me was Yehuda Halevy Street, nightlife people coming back from parties or looking for parties in which to consume time and money. I stopped endeavoring to figure out what they’re doing a long time ago. When I tried, I’d feel numb, which the alcohol then exacerbated. Last time I drank, I suddenly really needed to throw up. On the street below, on the left side, I saw a black car that had seemed to be following me for several days. I couldn’t be bothered with conspiracy theories, so I supposed it was all in my head. I drank the can of Diet Coke and went back inside.

  Strange that I’m still in this country, I thought. I should have busted out of here as soon as possible once finishing the army and cleared my head, but something wouldn’t let me leave. What’ve we got here? Confusion, conflicts in all directions. Everything is pressurized, oppressive. The political situation, the banks, it’s impossible to breathe. Suffocating. And in Tel Aviv, we get extreme humidity even at night.

  In the room, the fan was whirring at full speed and it wasn’t enough. The night was unusually hot and stuffy. I felt suffocated mostly from the inside. I tried to grab another few hours of sleep before the sun stole into my room. Another half hour or an hour passed - and I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up and went into the dark living room, I picked up the PlayStation’s handset, looked at it for a moment, and put it back down on the couch. I’m sick of games.

  5

  Los Angeles, California

  The manicured streets of Beverly Hills aren’t accustomed to noisy old pickup trucks like Binyamin Wolf’s ancient Ford. The Ford roared through streets empty of pedestrians. Wide evergreen lawns stood in front of the houses, large trees shielded clean, lonely sidewalks, behind them vast estates. Aharon, his son, sat next to him, wearing a large, slightly tattered seatbelt, and looked curiously at the large houses, every once in a while re-adjusting his glasses on his nose.

  Binyamin slowed the car, Aharon averted his gaze from the colorful houses to the road that extended before them and then to his father, “Are you really going to stop for them?”

  A warning triangle was positioned two hundred yards ahead of them. A few yards behind the warning triangle, stood a BMW with two African American men milling around nervously. The logical thing would have been to overtake them.

  “If I don’t stop who’s going to stop? And in the middle of Beverly Hills,” replied Binyamin.

  “Dad, could it be dangerous?” Aharon asked anxiously.

  The pickup came to a stop and Binyamin smiled at Aharon, “If you’re scared you can lock the doors until I get back.”

  Aharon turned away and shrugged, “I’m not scared…”

  “Good, let’s take a look and see what’s going on here,” said Binyamin and got out of the car.

  He approached the two men who stood there, staring at the black BMW. Cars drove by quickly, no one stopped.

  “My brothers, do you need help?” Binyamin called out and approached them. One of them, armed with purple-rimmed eyeglasses and curly hair, looked at him while the other studied the engine carefully. “What happened?” Binyamin asked.

  “It must be ‘Grandma,’ she burned it. I’m telling you, Tyrell, it’s Grandma, I know it,” said the guy from inside the hood in a deep bass voice as he rose. He was broad-shouldered and towered far above the other guy.

  “It isn’t Grandma, you fool. Boons’ guys blew up my car,” hissed Tyrell.

  The tall guy turned to Binyamin and asked, “Do you know electrics, man?”

  “Grandma?” Binyamin asked.

  “Right,” the tall man said, pointing to the back seat of the BMW. There was a huge black object in there. Binyamin drew nearer. “What is it?”

  “It’s the mother of the mother of all speakers. This subwoofer can flip your brain all the way to Chicago. It’s called Grandma, and Richie, the Valley’s stereo king, said he can connect any speaker... I’m sure Grandma short-circuited the system. Positive.”

  “Dennis, that ain’t possible,” Tyrell protested. “Richie wouldn’t mess me up, there’s no way.”

  Binyamin approached the BMW and opened the back door. He inspected Grandma and the electrical connections and then asked Tyrel to pop the hood. Tyrell clicked his fingers and Dennis quickly popped it. Binyamin looked at the connections. “I think Dennis is right, nobody tried to rig your car. Grandma ought to
be disconnected and everything will work fine. Grandma short-circuited the system, so long as it’s connected it’ll short-circuit it. “

  Tyrell looked at him suspiciously and Dennis shifted uncomfortably.

  “What?” Binyamin asked.

  Tyrell approached him... “Um… Can you do that?” He asked in a low voice and smiled embarrassedly, “I mean, can you disconnect it?”

  Aharon locked the car doors and folded his arms, irritated.

  Binyamin looked towards his vehicle. He saw Aharon’s impatient visage. “Yes, I’ll try. The truth is I don’t have much time,” he muttered distractedly.

  “Believe me, man, anybody who does a favor for Tyrell benefits in the long run. Let’s put it this way, if you get into trouble with anybody, trust Tyrell...” Tyrell grinned, revealing a tooth set with a small diamond.

  Binyamin went to the pickup quickly and pulled out a small toolbox. He pulled out a screwdriver and disconnected Grandma. “Start it,” he said, slamming the hood.

  “Is that it?” Tyrell asked.

  “Start it up,” Binyamin replied confidently.

  Dennis got into the driver’s seat, the car started with a quiet growl. Tyrell produced a business card displaying the word “Tyrell” printed over a telephone number. He handed it to Binyamin and said, “Any problem, but really -- any problem. Seriously, feel free.”

  “Listen brother, it was nothing, all I did was disconnect a couple of…” said Binyamin, shrugging.

  “All you did, was be the right man at the right time,” Tyrell said, and stepped into the car.

  6

  South Tel Aviv

  I woke up. I looked at the gray horizon, a kind of perpetual cloud of smog that hung over the city. You live in air pollution, I reminded myself. The girl from the health food store gave me a box of vitamins. I told her I wasn’t sick and she smiled baring pearly white teeth and said that if I didn’t live in the woods, drinking natural spring water and eating only organic food, I was most likely full of toxins and the vitamins would help me flush them. I consulted the clock that hung on the wall. It’s time to meet life.

  I hate life. I feel like I didn’t choose it, but have gotten embroiled with it, here in the world, against my will. I tried to console myself with the fact that I wasn’t working for a domineering and bad-tempered boss but was my own boss. A few stairs and I’m there, not before the coffee but long before the traffic jams. I continue gazing out onto the street, for a few moments before sinking into another workday, into small, meaningless conversations, just to be spit out on the other side.

  Living above your store is convenient, it lends laziness a romantic dimension. Kids take advantage of it sometimes to harass me at eleven o’clock at night because it’s an emergency, them having broken their joystick or something like that. In the mornings, I let myself get absorbed in the work, it eases the pain and gives me strength to carry on.

  I didn’t feel like getting up, when did I fall asleep, anyway? It’s like a ritual. Get up in the morning, coffee, amble downstairs, say hello to Yossi the upholsterer. Open the outer grille, the inner door, the alarm, turn on the power... Every now and then someone comes in. I considered closing down the store when financial problems started to set in. I’m not all that good at maintaining order, and the income tax bureau almost shut me down, but Moti, Uri’s accountant, helped me get out of it.

  The black car I saw at night hasn’t move. They’ve been there all night, in order to drive me to despair until I felt there was no choice. Psychological warfare of sorts.

  I went into the store. Amos hadn’t arrived yet. I looked at the clock, what’s the deal with him? Can’t you trust anyone? It’s like this everywhere, I tried to calm myself down. I began to arrange something when I heard a booming voice behind me: “Tzadik!” I spun around, alarmed.

  Standing in front of me was a man dressed in white, with a long black beard and side-curls, a white yarmulke with a pompom on his head, his face adorned by a smile from ear to ear. “Tzadik!” he cried again. I looked at him suspiciously, saw a charity collection box in his hand. He must want money, I thought. “Tzadik!” He said a third time. Could this be a robot? I thought, did I order something like this from Nintendo? Not that I recall. “Listen, Tzadik, you have rights. Great rights. Today you’re going to do something amazing.”

  I slowly sat down on the chair by the desk, motioning for him to sit on the other side. “Well”, I said wearily, “what do you want?”

  “What do I want?” He asked. “The question is: what do you want! And the question is what they want!!” he said, almost shouting and banging his big collection box on the table. The box was made of white plastic and resembled a can. There were pictures of bald children on it. Another drama. When Uri returned from India, he told me there were children there who deformed their own legs to raise money. Could this be a similar trick? I wasn’t in the mood for emotional manipulation.

  “Skinheads? “ I asked.

  “Cancer patients,” he replied, and for the first time the smile disappeared off his face. “Children”, he said, lowering his gaze, “sick. I’m collecting money for them.”

  What am I, the welfare office? “Get a job” I said, unable to stop myself. I’m sick of these people, they knock on your door and drive you nuts. He should go get a job and bankroll the children himself.

  “I work...”

  “Where do you work? For whom?” He seemed to me like one of those professional beggars who blackmailed you with a moving story about their hardships, showed you papers with fake health testimonies and then took your money, and got into a brand-new car to drive over to the next sucker.

  “Trying to work for the good guys,” he tried to smile. “Really. I know what you think of me, that I’m some bum. The contrary is true, but for these kids I’m willing...” He grabbed some business cards out of his shirt pocket, separated them, and handed me one of them. “Advocate Danny Halfon - Medical Clown.” I held the card and turned to him, “Lawyer or clown?”

  He held one of the business cards and rubbed it with his fingers slightly. “Both. In actuality I’m a lawyer, but now I’m mainly busy with the medical clowning. I look these children in the eyes, so much sadness, so much pain, such loneliness.” He looked at me. “What can I do? I have no choice, I just try to give them what I can and raise money for them. My brother, how about a little something? Something to open your heart?”

  I didn’t feel like his brother, I didn’t feel like giving him money. Why would I donate to him? There are hundreds of charities. I sighed momentarily and realized that the quickest way to get rid of him would be to give him money. I took a fifty-shekel bill out of my pocket and stuffed it into his collections box.

  “Let God make you happy in all the worlds!” he said, “Let Him grant blessings and success to you and to all the people of Israel. What a wondrous nation we are, merciful, doing acts of kindness. Only unity, my friend, only unity among the Jewish people, that’s all we need. A man reaches into his pocket and gives to his trodden friend, gives to the sick, gives to the old man, to the poor. There is no other such nation!” he announced, his eyes sparkling.

  Then when he looked at me he understood that the conversation was over as far as I was concerned and he left the shop.

  This one goes out and the other one enters. Amos stood at the entrance. “I’m going to the bank briefly,” I told him. “Start organizing the store.”

  “Wait a minute,” Amos said, holding some letters in his hand. “You want to go through the mail?”

  “Anything urgent?”

  He looked through the letters and produced an official notice from the Ministry of Transport. “It looks like they’re not letting it go. You’ve got another summons for a preventative driving course.”

  “Ah,” I said dismissively. “I’m over this nonsense, I never drive anyway.” I glanced at my bike, stored in th
e back of the store. “I don’t even use a bike anymore. I don’t remember what my last car was.”

  The bike was a black and red Specialized Stumpjumper, 29-inch, a special model. I used to love riding it, especially out in the fields. Lately I just let them gather dust in the store, along with the rest of my life. I can’t be bothered to go out into the fields and I have no one to go with. Uri used to go bike riding, but nowadays he’s too busy.

  Amos gave me an inquisitive look. “You really are a puzzle, boss”, he smiled. “Do you mean to tell me that you never leave Tel Aviv?”

  “Where to?” I asked. “I go as far as Stern’s grocery store and back, max. What’s there to see? If I need to go, someone picks me up, or I rent a car, which has happened maybe twice over the last few years.”

  “Soon you won’t need a license at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You heard about the autonomous cars?”

  “It’s something that was on the American market in the forties, wasn’t it?”

  “No, no,” Amos said enthusiastically. “I’m talking about all the developments related to the Google autonomous cars and the networks for autonomous driving in the United States.”

  “No, I haven’t heard of that,” I said wearily.

  “Basically,” Amos began to explain, “there are a lot of developments in the automotive industry, such as vehicles that tell other vehicles about their location and allow for joint driving, with one car driving and the other one being pulled along. But the most exciting thing in my opinion is what’s happening in Google. Google has a service called Street View. They’re photographing and scanning the streets, uploading it onto their maps and enabling a street level three-dimensional view.”