THIRTY-EIGHT

It took Marcus a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim lights when he entered the Cafez coffee shop. A half dozen customers huddled around small tables and talked, some playing cards, others playing games on tablets and laptops.

“Welcome Paul,” Bahir said, walking around the bar to greet him. “No one has claimed your table this hour. If they had, I politely would ask them to move for you.”

“No need for musical chairs.” Marcus smiled and took a seat at the table and turned on his laptop.

“You want American coffee, yes?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“From the first time I saw you to now, you had your computer with you. Do you take it to the bathroom, too?” Bahir grinned.

“No. I set some boundaries.”

“I will get your coffee. Baklava, too? Made today.”

“Okay.”

Marcus keyed in passages from the Bible, broke sentences from plain text into numbers, scribbled notes on a legal pad and continued to plow deeper into codes — not of past events, but possible prophesies of the future.

“Here’s your coffee,” said Bahir, setting a mug on the table. “May I join you?”

“Sure.”

Bahir grinned, pulled out a wooden chair, and sat across from Marcus. “Does your machine, the one with the window into the world of the wide web, bring you good fortune?”

“Right now this computer seems more like a time machine. Maybe it’s because I’m using it in Jerusalem with all the layers of history here.”

“Does it show you the account, the history of things to come?”

Marcus looked up from his coffee cup, gauging the old man’s dark and playful eyes. “Where’d you hear that term, history of things to come?”

“Probably as a child. We recycle our pasts in Jerusalem.” Bahir smiled and leaned forward in his chair. He rested both hands, palms down, on the table. “That night you approached the man with the long knife, you had no fear in your eyes. I could see it. Do you not fear your own death, my friend?”

“I don’t dwell on it much. Not anymore.”

“When a man loses his fear of death, he loses his zeal for life. The certainty of death gives life deeper meaning.” He raised his shoulders, eyebrows arching. “Evil, like a leech, needs the blood of good to thrive. Good needs nothing but the present and a human host. Life is to be lived in the moment. For me, it is the time I am sharing with my family and friends. Has there been a recent loss in your life?”

Marcus stared at the steam rising from his cup. “My wife and daughter were killed. I buried them at the same time.”

“How did they die?”

“They were murdered. Shot to death at night after I’d stopped to help a man change a tire. I couldn’t help them.”

“I am saddened to hear this. Did they find the person responsible?”

“No.”

Bahir looked away for a second. “You are searching for the killer, yes?”

“Yes.”

Bahir was quiet.

“I was left with my grandmother, our horses, our dog, and a lot of extreme dreams I don’t understand.”

“I believe something else died that night.”

“What?”

“Your spirit. I feel it does not long for the taste of sweet air. It will not survive in the emptiness of the past, and it is not guaranteed a journey into the future.”

Marcus drank his coffee and said nothing.

“Forgive me, Paul, it is not my intention to be intrusive. A man cannot run from his past because it travels with him. But we can learn not to give evil a room for rent in our minds. We can never escape from an oncoming train if we continue to tie ourselves to the tracks of past injustices. That man watching you the other night at Jaffa Gate, is he tied to your past?”

“I don’t know who you saw. Maybe he wasn’t following me.”

“If he is not connected to your past, he could be predestined to cross with your future.”

“But then we’re not supposed to know that stuff, are we? Isn’t that reserved for someone else? A lot of things are happening right now that I can’t control. A month ago, if you’d told me I’d been spending a few weeks in Jerusalem, I’d have laughed.”

“The Old City is haunted by its own ghosts of intolerance. They hurl it like a spear of bias. Their aim is to secure a destiny that is made from deceit and prohibits the holy tenets of most men and women — their belief in hope, faith and love.”

Marcus studied Bahir for a few seconds. The late afternoon light flowed from the bay window across the shop and backlit the old man in a golden appearance. Marcus smiled and said, “Spear of bias. I’d bet there have been a few of them hurled around this place over the last three thousand years.”

“The sharpest, most revealing, was never hurled. It was simply thrust into the side of Christ and out poured blood and water. Blood symbolized his walk among us, and the water representing his divine status.”

“Your coffee is good, Bahir. Your viewpoint is compelling. Sort of mixes with the coffee like sugar. So, tell me, just who the hell are you?”

Bahir’s eyes beamed. “I am your friend. You are my friend. Friends find a sanctuary in one another’s hearts, and they help each other. You saved my life, perhaps a man at my old age might offer some guidance for yours.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not looking for guidance in a coffee shop.”

“What are you looking for, Paul?”

“At the moment, I’m looking for some answers.”

“What are the questions?”

“Why did my wife and daughter have to die? Why did I live? I still see the eyes of the killer. Why did he do it? Most importantly, where can I find him?”

“Sometimes those answers come slowly. Sometimes they never come. Today, we see through a glass darkly, but then we come face to face.” Bahir nodded. “Like the puzzles solved by your computer. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“About your computer?”

“No, that reference about through the dark glass. Where’d you hear that?”

“God.”

Marcus shook his head and half grinned. “You spoke to God?”

“Speak. Yes, I do, but I read that reference in first Corinthians 13:12.”

“What do you think it means?”

“The passage is said to refer to our limited view and understanding of God when we are alive. The vision will only be clear when we die.”

Marcus’s cell phoned buzzed once. He picked it up from the table top and read the text sent from Alicia Quincy:

I will call you from a secure line in ten minutes.

Please be available. It’s critical.

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