Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

Somewhere in Jerusalem, Israel 3:41 A.M., Saturday, January 1, 2000

Out in the disrupted city streets, Hunter had no thought of sleep. He'd dropped Cissy off at her apartment, resisting her persistent, tempting offer to stay and ride in together for the eight o'clock meeting. Instead, he'd decided to fight the impossible road conditions back to WNN headquarters, alone, promising Cissy to return with break-fast and her car in time to make the meeting.

After several hours, Hunter arrived at the WNN offices to find the building relatively undamaged but the electricity out. Switching on emergency backup batteries, he sat at an editing bay reviewing his videotape of the moments leading up to the earthquake-particularly the segment featuring the interview with the odd Satanist, Astarte. Hunter's interest focused on the electrical storm in the background, and he used the special Advanced Definition Optics of the editing system to zoom in on the vicinity and enhance the image.

In his opinion, the storm was peculiar. Very intense and very concentrated. Stationary over one location for an extended period. Yet, while he hadn't been paying particular attention at the time, he could recall no trace of the storm after the earthquake. It was as if it simply vanished with the tremors. All this stirred unreconcilably in his mind as he carefully inspected the video footage.

Finally, as the first light of morning arrived, it dawned on him. Hunter slapped the table. Pausing the tape, flashlight in hand, he hustled over to a large map of Israel suspended on the far wall of the room. Locating the Mount of the Ascension, he attempted to orient the view he'd had from the villa balcony. Before he could accomplish this, he was distracted by the gradually increasing sound of pounding on the door of the front office.

Hunter tolerated interruptions poorly. But his irritation evaporated quickly as he opened the door to a very striking young woman flanked by two seemingly unworthy male companions. It was one of the WNN support teams, hurriedly arrived from Cairo, he learned. They'd come in style, traveling in a fully equipped, self-sufficient, forty-foot mobile video RV.

Romema Ilit housing development, Jerusalem, Israel 5:50 A.M., Saturday, January 1, 2000

In his dream, Feldman was a child again. He was studying his catechism with his beautiful, dark-haired mother. But try as he might, he couldn't remember any of his lessons, and it disappointed her greatly. He sighed and stared down at his text once more, but it had changed.

Instead of catechism, it was the Talmud. He looked back up into his father's face this time. His father was frowning, speaking to Feldman sternly in Yiddish, but Feldman couldn't understand. Feldman closed his eyes, crying, and he heard his mother's voice, soothing now, comforting. “Jon, Jon, it's okay, shush.”

He opened his eyes and the face was now Anke's. Her hair was down around her bare shoulders, a thin-strapped nightgown falling delicately across her breasts. She was smiling and whispering. “You were having a nightmare, Jon. I heard you all the way downstairs.”

The moon was up now and half full, infiltrating the room with a creamy light. Feldman was embarrassed. “What did I say?”

Anke laughed softly. “You were calling for your parents. First ‘Mama!’ Then ‘Papa!’ ”

Feldman smiled ruefully and shook his head, attempting to dislodge the uncomfortable, long-buried emotions his dream had resurrected. “My mother was Catholic and my father Jewish,” he explained. “They each wanted me raised in their own faith and it used to create a lot of tension between them. I was reliving an episode, I guess.”

“So how did your parents resolve their conflict?” Anke asked, sitting next to him on the side of the bed.

“They didn't,” Feldman answered. “They divorced when I was nine.”

“You were an only child?”

“Yes.”

“That must have been terribly hard on you.”

He stared out the window toward the divided moon. “For years I felt totally responsible. My legacy, from being the offspring of the two most guilt-inducing religions on earth.”

“So what faith did you end up?”

“Neither. I finally gave up both religions and went independent. Agnostic, actually. But I wonder what triggered these memories tonight. It's the first time I've thought about this in a decade.” And the first time, he realized, that he'd ever discussed this issue anywhere other than on his psychiatrist's couch during his difficult adolescence.

“I bad troubled dreams, too,” Anke whispered, tenderly smoothing Feldman's hair as he had done for her hours earlier. “With what we went through last night, it's any wonder we slept at all.”

Feldman sat up, more awake now, but still very tired. Anke's warm, lithe presence close to him in her slight gown was distracting. He fought for a gentlemanly comment to counter his thoughts. “I'm … I'm sorry I woke you.”

“Not at all,” she said in a way that convinced him she meant it. She stood. “It's about time to get up anyway. Why don't you go ahead and shower. I've laid out some clean towels for you, and I'll fix you some breakfast.”

Feldman agreed, threw baek his covers and rose, only to realize that all his clothes were in a pile on the floor. He promptly retrieved the sheets, embarrassed once more in front of this disorienting woman.

Anke turned to go as if nothing had happened. But he heard that sweet, soft laugh of hers as she descended the stairwell.

He sighed. She always seemed to catch him in an awkward moment.

It was growing lighter outside when, after a rejuvenating shower, he sat down in his same wrinkled clothes to a superb breakfast of ham and eggs.

She sat across from him with some toast and juice and poured him more coffee. “So what do you really think happened last night, Jon?”

“You tell me.” He avoided answering her, wanting to shrug off this topic right now. Ever since he'd abandoned religion in his youth, blaming it for his parents’ divorce, he'd felt an emptiness inside him. A hole in his soul. Assuming he had a soul. Consequently, he found it difficult to confront the underlying question of what might or might not have occurred the previous evening.

Anke leaned back in her chair and deliberated for a moment. “Well,” she ventured, “I honestly don't know what I think right now. But what if God-that is, if you believe in God-really is communicating something to us?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, there's just too much coincidence to what happened last night for it all to be simply a natural occurrence, wouldn't you agree? Whether I like it or not, that's a very real possibility. What if, after all these centuries of silence, God is finally talking to us again? Maybe there's a message in this. Or the beginnings of a message. Maybe last night was a wake-up call.”

“So, God was just clearing His throat?” Feldman needed to lighten this up, but not yet knowing Anke's sensibilities, he feared he might have come across as sacrilegious.

She wasn't offended, she smiled. “Maybe. All I know is that I've never been so scared in my life. And I can't simply disregard what happened. Can you?”

Feldman surrendered to his real feelings. “Hell, I'm not sure what to think, Anke. For a while there, I thought maybe all those millenarians, whom I'd always considered idiots, might end up being right after all. Meaning that I, this lost, ignorant soul, would be doomed to eternal damnation for having no religious underpinnings.”

He suddenly understood the roots of his nightmare, and the realization hit him full force. Never before had he attached any relevance to his dreams. Finding a significance now presented an overtone that disturbed him.