Armageddon According to Mark: The Second Novel in the Michael Fridman Trilogy

CONTENTS

PART 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part 2

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

PART 3

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

To Rosa, Isabel and Yulenka

with all my love

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

M ARK SCHTIRLITZ HAD A PROBLEM and it wasn’t the size of his belly. The problem was that no man alive, fat or thin, could handle Charlie and the Yamaha at the same time. Charlie was a black poodle. Yamaha was an electric piano, basically a keyboard in a leather case. Charlie on his own would’ve been a doodle. He was intelligent and well behaved. The Yamaha under normal circumstances could’ve been easily carried under one arm. But if you combined the two, as was the present case, and had to transport them on four consecutive busses from Jerusalem to Natania, you were asking for hell. Not to mention the fact that Mark also had a bottle of brandy on his hands. I had to be nice to Mark—he was my mother’s boyfriend. And again the size of Mark’s belly wasn’t a problem as my mother herself could compete in that department with the best of them.

Mark, let me carry the Yamaha, I offered.

I know what you’re thinking, he said, flashing a gold tooth at me. You’re thinking, look at this fat old guy, he can’t even manage a dog and a Yamaha.

No, I protested. I’m thinking no man alive, fat or thin, can cope with Charlie and the Yamaha at the same time.

I’ll prove you wrong, he promised.

Braggadocio is the privilege of silly young Italians, I said.

God, what I wouldn’t give to be one, he said dreamily.

Probably not your brandy bottle. I chuckled.

You’re right, he said after giving it some thought. One has to draw the line somewhere with Italians.

And generally speaking, I said, I can’t imagine you pretending to be someone you aren’t.

No, he agreed. Not me. My brother does, though. He dyes his hair black, he’s got a gold ring in his ear and he has a pony tail, silly arse.

Who does he think he’s kidding? I wondered.

The Belgians, Mark explained. He lives in Antwerp. He’s a diamond cutter.

Mark was a musician from Kiev. His version of himself pretty much agreed with those given by the people who knew him. In his youth, he was considered a prodigy, playing the mammoth war-horse piano concertos with the philharmonic orchestra at the tender age of seventeen. The ovations of the grateful Kievites were cut short when Mark, with a curt nod, jumped off the stage and hurried out of the hall. He ran across the park to a restaurant where he played jazz with a couple of like-minded alcoholics. He never fulfilled his promise in either field, ending up as an ordinary piano teacher with a secret mission. He was philosophical about it, saying the same thing his friends said: ‘it’s the drink and the women, and I still have some unfinished business with both. But I don’t complain. If you don’t expect much from life, everything you get is a bargain’.

Mark had been in Israel six months, living in a hostel for new immigrants in Jerusalem. Now he was moving in with my mother.

My mother was a non-smoking mature professional widow with a sense of humour and a son who never lived up to her expectations. According to my late father’s prosecutor deposition, she was a woman capable of the heinous crime of spending the last twenty rubles of the family monthly budget on a pair of shoes she would never wear. My mother’s speech for the defence stated that she was practically a saint, capable of the ultimate sacrifice of wearing laddered stockings for a day and a half, not to mention the fact that she was so thrifty she spent no money on nail varnish remover, toiling instead with a knife where other, more fortunate women, used a piece of cotton wool.

They played that game every Sunday throughout my childhood. I suspected they were moved by the strange ambition of winning the best rehearsed couple prize on the Day of Judgment.

Mark is the kindest, the most sensitive person I ever met, my mother said as we took the seats halfway down the isle on the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv bus.

There were no people on the bus except us three at that late hour. Mark, Charlie and the Yamaha occupied the broad bench at the very back of the bus.

Making the above astonishing statement, my mother ruffled my hair, a gesture that never failed to send me through the roof. I turned back to see Mark holding the upturned brandy bottle to his lips as if he was a trumpeter signalling some kind of a major universal upheaval. Then, as the bus began its decent from the eternal hills, the empty bottle rattled down the isle, bumping into the back of the driver’s seat and causing the latter to do a sitting jump and emit a juicy Hebrew expletive. Mark didn’t hear the driver’s critique as he was already asleep and snoring.

What had astonished me was not the fact that my mother had said something positive about a man who seemed to be doing his utmost to appear revolting. I am always willing to give a chap another chance. It was the fact that she had said something positive about a man at all that astonished me. She was a woman who needed a man so that she had someone to criticise. It was good news, definitely. That fat soak had captured her heart.

Tel-Aviv bus station, like most such places, is adjoined by quarters that with the best will in the world cannot be described as salubrious. There is dirt and dust and small shops defining description and an occasional pool of light under a rare street lamp that lives up to its name. It was one of those that Charlie and Mark chose to relieve themselves against. Charlie was easy. He lifted his leg and let go with a vengeance. Mark, who was holding Charlie’s lead with one hand and the Yamaha with the other, faced a challenge. My mother and I watched with mounting suspense. But Mark was a good facer of challenges. He grabbed the lead between his teeth, enabling himself to prepare for and commence the necessary activity.

Then Charlie was fully relieved and ready for action. Mark, who was also fully relieved and feeling rather pleased with himself, discovered at that point that the challenge was not over by any means. It transpired that Mark, probably for a number of valid technical reasons, had been holding his breath the whole time. So, without as much as by your leave, his mouth opened to gulp some air and the lead fell to the ground he knew not where.

It so happened that a neighbourhood cat chose that very moment to stroll past, making a remark to Charlie that no self-respecting dog could be expected to tolerate. Charlie emitted a battle cry, setting off after the offending feline at a pace that would have inspired admiration in bystanders, had there been any bystanders in the vicinity.

Now, for a rotund man of over seventy, running down the street with his fly undone and his tackle hanging out is an experience that tries his soul to the utmost. Add a Yamaha electric keyboard to the mixture and the toughest competitor sits down by the roadside and cries bitter tears. Not Mark. He came from Kiev. He threw the keyboard at me as if it was a mere rugby ball and sprinted after his beloved dog into the darkness, leaving the matter of his fly until a later date.

My mother and I spent the next thirty minutes pleading with the driver of the Natania bus to delay departure. Then Mark came back, complete with Charlie, looking like he had had to chase the dog through a fully functioning car wash. He collapsed on the curb muttering, This is not what I came to the Promised Land for.

We had to practically carry him and Charlie on the bus.

CHAPTER 2

T HE REST OF THE JOURNEY was basically uneventful if you disregard the fact that I had a piss stop near our ultimate bus stop. By the time I was done, my mother and Mark had vanished and I got lost with the bloody keyboard. I wandered for about an hour among building sites and the ruins of a British military base. When I eventually rang the doorbell, I looked like I’d been through a fully functioning car wash.

Where have you been? my mother wanted to know. Mark and I have been worried stiff.

There we go, I thought. I’ve only been around for a day and we’re already back to normal.

My mother never missed a chance to make me feel guilty. She didn’t mean it; she just couldn’t help it. It got so bad sometimes I avoided her for months. I wouldn’t be sitting there now if Lydia hadn’t made me. A great believer in being nice to people, Lydia was.

The fact was my mother lost me in my childhood, when she refused to put up any resistance to my father’s punitive wars against me, waged with belts, humiliating sermons and an occasional fist. Being a bad loser, my mother dedicated herself in my adulthood to antagonising any woman I was remotely involved with, the exact opposite of what could bring me back.

Mark gave me a wink, screwing up his face to show indulgence was the name of the game here. I was beginning to agree with my mother’s assessment of him as the kindest and most sensitive man she ever met.

Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Keglevich, Mark said, pulling out of the fridge a misted bottle with broad hips and narrow shoulders, which looked like a smaller version of himself.

I pointed at the brandy bottle on the table, asking, Do you think it’s a good idea mixing vodka with brandy?

I certainly do, he said. And I have every intention to test the idea in practice.

Now I fully expected my mother to object strongly to Mark’s intoxication research proposal. The hair-raising scenes between her and my father when it came to opening bottles were still fresh in my memory. But there was none of it now. She plumped herself on Mark’s lap and ruffled his hair. I wondered if there was a Mark fan club I could join.

You see, Mark said. My problem is I can’t get drunk here in Israel. And don’t run away with the idea that I’m a lazy fat sod who doesn’t try hard enough. I don’t know if it’s the Jews or the heat or the Arabs, but I just can’t get drunk. I drink to have a good time, but at the end of it I expect to be rewarded for my efforts with sweet oblivion, feeling no pain. It just doesn’t happen here. So tonight I will submit myself to a scientific experiment of great value to humankind.

We drank to science, first vodka, then brandy. Then Mark said we must be methodical so we drank to science again, this time reversing our vodka and brandy intake.

Feel any effect? I asked.

Early days, Mark replied. So what are you doing with yourself these days?

We tucked into my mother’s famous gefilte fish.

Journalism, I said. I’m on my way to Hong Kong to cover the annual World Bank and IMF meeting for the American newswire Bridge News.

Who needs your news? Mark demanded, not with disdain, but with a challenge.

Financial markets; industry; farmers; people. I counted on my fingers.

Is it going to be good news or bad news? he wondered.

I’m so happy you two are getting on together so well, my mother said, and we drank to that, vodka-brandy, brandy-vodka.

Any effect? I asked again.

There is some, Mark admitted. But I need a few more test intakes to make sure.

The kind of news I write, I said, is not subject to moral judgment. My only imperative is to report news truthfully and on time. There’ll be everybody who matters in the world today in Hong Kong. Momentous decisions will be taken. I’ll report them to the world.

So you don’t expect any moral dilemmas? he egged me on.

None, I assured him.

Strange, he said.

Why? I asked.

Everybody who matters in the world, momentous decisions, he mimicked me. And you’re sitting here telling me you don’t expect moral dilemmas. Are you guys trying to run the world without bothering to wonder whether your decisions are good or bad?

I’m not running the world, Mark, I protested. I’m just reporting. It’s not my job to subject news to moral judgment.

Whose job is it then? he asked.

I don’t know, I said. When decisions are made, those who benefit from them say they’re good; the others say they’re bad.

That’s not moral judgment, Mark decided. That’s self-interest. One of these days, I’ll write a musical about self-interest.

We drank to Mark’s musical, and then came the question I had been dreading.

How’s Lydia? my mother asked, ruffling my hair this time.

Oh, fine, I said. She sends her love.

When is she going to apologise to me? my mother demanded.

Now what happened was that Lydia and I came to see my mother shortly after our wedding in Moscow a few years ago. My mother was welcoming, Lydia was anxious to be accepted, and for a day or two everything was just fine. Then my mother began making her trademark remarks featuring my unwashed socks and the bones sticking out of my emaciated body due to the neglect practiced by certain parties. It all culminated in a question my mother asked five minutes prior to our departure for a restaurant in Natania where my mother had organised a shindig for Lydia to be introduced to the local intelligentsia. My mother looked Lydia up and down and asked, Aren’t you going to change, sweetheart?

Now Lydia was wearing a dress especially purchased in London for the occasion with much thought and care. It was not showy, I grant you, but it was elegant. Well, my mother decided she was the victim of a plot to embarrass her in front of Natania’s high society. Nothing could sway her from that conviction, not even the dentist’s wife especially complementing Lydia on her dress and taking note of the shop where it had been bought. To this day, my mother considered herself the injured party, demanding apologies and getting them in profusion in letters and telephone calls, but ignoring them so she could suffer some more. That’s why I was visiting her on my own now, despite the fact that it was Lydia who had made me stop over in Israel to see my mother on my way to Hong Kong.

Mark, who was certain to have had an earful of the imbroglio, squinted at me, asking, Is that why you’re here on your own now? I deemed it superfluous to offer a response. Mark winked at me again and said quietly, Leave it to me, my man.

Mark, I said. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

CHAPTER 3

I F YOU STROLL ALONG THE divine stretch of seashore south of Natania between the hours of six and seven in the morning, you will come within a kilometre upon a small public beach, enjoyed by the denizens of the district of Eizorim, where you will hear the Russian language spoken. Among the seventy-year-olds standing like so many penguins both on the sand and in the waves, you will be certain to encounter many a person who made a significant contribution in his or her time to the recently demised industrial, military and cultural might of the Soviet Union. Now they’ve come to the Promised Land and they are looked after by the state of Israel well enough to have the leisure to enjoy the sea and to give vent to their frustrations with one another and with the world in general.

Jews are funny birds. Most other nations would be lolling on chaise-lounges, beach towels or straight on the warm sand. Not Jews. They are too anxious for beach towels. They stand in a circle waving their arms and talking all at once at the top of their voices.

Mark waddled the few short steps to the sea, stopping just where the dying waves could lick his toes. He surveyed the golden sea, the blue sky and his noisy buddies, and said, This is where we make our last stand, our last ditch. When Syrian tanks get here, they’ll find us standing in the sea and making rude gestures at them, all lined up nicely, ready to be shot.

Well, I said. As last ditches go, this one’s pretty luxurious.

We live here between the Scylla and Haribda of complete peace and total annihilation, Mark declaimed.

Mark, I said. I couldn’t put it better myself.

God, I’m in a poetic mood this morning, Mark marvelled. That means I drank just the right amount of brandy last night. Mixing it with vodka definitely works. I should write a musical about that. Did you happen by any chance to make note of the exact amount I consumed?

No, sorry, I apologised. It all got rather blurred toward the end.

Don’t worry, he comforted me. We’ll have to do some more tests tonight. It’s a science that requires absolute precision.

He made a few slow-motion steps further into the water to where the waves could rise to his navel. Then he stretched his arms up in the air until a pleasant tremor ran down his spine and declaimed, And I gently plunged my sweaty balls into the cool streams of the Mediterranean.

Mark, are you working on a sequel to the Iliad by any chance? I wondered.

No, he replied earnestly. I tend to follow the advice of my elders and betters in being wary of the Greeks bearing gifts. However, I am indeed embarked on a creative project.

Really? I asked. Do tell.

I am composing a musical, he informed me proudly.

A musical? I asked. Do you have a working title?

I do indeed, he assured me. "Armageddon."

He went further into the sea and began to swim back and forth parallel to the shore at a sedate breast stroke. I hurried after him.

As in the ultimate battle between good and evil? I demanded.

You never spoke a truer word, he confirmed smugly.

Well, I said. It must be a truly original idea because nobody else would dream of it. I do see a problem, though. Even if I can stretch my imagination to the impossible extent of seeing one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse as a romantic hero, it is utterly beyond me to imagine who the love interest may be.

Original ides are always met with snide remarks like that, Mark said stoically. I am sure the man who first thought of sliced bread was jeered at in a similar fashion.

CHAPTER 4

I F YOU DRIVE NORTH OF Natania along the coast for a while and turn inland at the Hedera junction, you’ll soon come to a little hill whose name has been firing imaginations for centuries, inspiring much fear and a bit of hope. Megido. The hill is called in Hebrew Har Megido, Armageddon to us. It overlooks the rather smallish plane where the ultimate battle between good and evil will rage one day.

Mark and I left the hired car in the car park of the adjacent farm and climbed the hill. Mark was panting like a big fat fish out of water and I was saying it wasn’t surprising how many people drove past without realising what they were passing because the hill was so small. We had a little argument when Mark insisted we carry the icebox with the beer. I persuaded him to leave it in the boot while we inspected the historic site, promising to fetch it afterwards.

We wandered among the ruins trying to guess which were the remains of King Solomon’s chariot city and which the remains of the other twenty cities that had been built on top of one another over two thousand years. Those conquerors of old were great believers in starting with a clean slate. The plain was always there; you could see it through the piles of ancient stones. Thermals danced all over it, creating the impression that something pretty big was going on.

Just as we were about to go down one of the oldest tunnels in human history leading deep underground, where rain water used to be collected in a huge tank, Mark said, You know, you were wondering about the love interest in my musical.

I was indeed, I said. Still am, more than ever.

He looked at his watch and said, Well, you’ll see her in about four minutes.

He dismissed my eager enquiries with a finger pressed across his lips and led me down the tunnel, the whole steeply sloping hundred metres of it.

How it was possible to dig such a thing without any drilling equipment was a mystery. I supposed that explained the numerous wars at the time of its construction. You needed a war to engage workforce. You could only do it by capturing a nation, a largish nation preferably, and making it dig with its bare hands. Germans got the idea in more recent times. Then Stalin took it further, realising there was no point in bothering with other nations when you could arrest a quarter of your own citizens and make them dig with their bare hands.

When we were down by the dry water tank, Mark pushed me into a nook behind a column, shook his fist at me not to make noise and squeezed in next to me, soaking my shirt with his friendly sweat. Then we heard footsteps coming down the tunnel. Mark and I stopped breathing as a man I had known many years ago back in Moscow polluted the scene with his presence. His name was Pinkie Green. He was a piano player of some considerable talent who just couldn’t help getting involved in a swindle of some kind or another. The last I had heard of him, he was doing a stretch at a US penitentiary for some property fraud. Pinkie had a ginger beard now, which didn’t suit him, making his eyes appear even smaller than they really were. He sat down on a stone and began to pick his nose. Then we heard the music of high heels on stone, indicating that a woman with a strong presence was about to join our little get-together.

And by God she was a presence, all right. Her hair was black, her skin milky translucent and she was wrapped in something white and luminous. Pinkie threw his arms around her and began to chew her face. His right hand forced its way inside her luminous white wrap and massaged her breast. She moaned and threw her head back, and Mark and I thought we were about to have us a sex show. But no. She handed Pinkie a black leather briefcase and vanished, probably leaving behind a cloud of sweet aroma that I couldn’t smell for Mark’s profuse sweat pouring all over me. Pinkie did some more nose picking and dragged himself and the briefcase up the tunnel. We were left alone and wondering.

How about that! Mark said triumphantly. Young lovers embracing down here while the battle rages up on the plane.

But what does it mean? I asked, totally confused.

I have no idea, Mark replied. But it looks good. I started coming here a couple of months ago, to soak up the atmosphere for my musical, and I noticed them. They meet once every two weeks, always kissing like that, and she always gives him the briefcase. I’ve been watching them every time, hoping to get a clue what it’s all about. You see, I’ve done the first scene of my musical and I can’t go on until I find out what they are doing here.

Mark, wake up, I said. While you’re agonising over your musical, you lose sight of the fact that you’re quite possibly putting yourself in great danger. You have no idea how dangerous this can turn out to be.

Of course I do, Mark protested. What can be more dangerous than the ultimate battle between good and evil? That’s what gives my musical the spice it needs. And the lovers, it’s all there. I can hear the music in my head.

But the briefcase! I cried. There’s probably guns or drugs or diamonds in it. You can get seriously hurt if they realise you’re watching them.

Diamonds, he said dreamily. I never thought of that. Diamonds make good music.

The man was incurably mad.

Mark, I said. As far as I understand, a musical is supposed to entertain people. How are you going to entertain with scenes of horrendous violence?

He gave me a tired look, as if I was trying to convince him of something he knew anyway.

Okay, he said. Let’s go up and sit down somewhere. You go and fetch the beer. I’m parched.

I sneaked into the car park, fearing Pinkie was still there. But all I saw was a cloud of hot dust settling on the yellow grass. The icebox was bloody heavy, but also bloody cool.

Right, this is where it’s at, Mark said, panting.

He stretched out his arms to embrace the flat valley before us. There were some fields in the distance, hazy hills beyond them and a road cutting the plain neatly in two. Nothing much really. Birds twittered and the whole scene was serene and heavy with heat. There was not a single human being to be seen anywhere, as was proper on Shabbat, or Saturday, when all good Jews were supposed to be sitting at home sorting out their differences with God.

What an amazingly peaceful place it is, I said. Incredible, considering its ultimate purpose.

Funny, nobody’s thought of turning it into a theme park. Mark giggled.

Yea, bus-loads of fat-arsed Americans, McDonald’s restaurants, King Solomon’s tunnel impersonating the descent into Hell, a show of some kind, effigies of bloodied saints and minor devils, I echoed the idea.

You may laugh, Mark said, suddenly serious. But what if it’s for real, the battle I mean. Can you imagine the reaction up there and down there if they discover that some joker has scheduled their ultimate battle as an attraction in a theme park?

We found a shady spot where we could sit on the grass leaning our backs against the wall of King Solomon’s city and looking over the Armageddon plane. There was just enough shade left for the icebox. I pulled out two misty beer bottles and popped them open against the ancient stone.

Mid-September and it’s so hot, I said, wiping my brow and banging my bottle against Mark’s.

Far be it for me to argue the point, Mark said, wiping his. "But it’s not the heat that fills me with trepidation on