The Master Returns

The tapas bar in Haifa was buzzing with conversation and light music that desperately wanted to be a club mix. Busses and cars passed outside with the usual cacophony of traffic in Israel’s second-busiest city. The clouds portended rain, but who could tell in a country built on a desert on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea?

Peter sat at a small table off in a corner. He sat alone, waiting for a friend. It was his first time out in public since the incident had happened. Subsequently,, it was more about funeral planning and grieving the end of a wonderful man. Now he was trying to alert everyone that things had taken quite a different turn. He wanted to keep it off social media or messaging apps. This message was better delivered in person. Besides, he wanted to avoid ending up in the middle of a riot or in jail again.

“Hey Peter.” Peter turned around to see his friend shaking off his coat and sliding into the table.

“Hi, Thomas, pull up a seat.”

Thomas hung his jacket and slid into the chair. He leaned forward toward Peter.

“I’m surprised you’re showing your face in public,” Thomas said as he pulled out a bar stool and slid into it. Peter had a glass of red wine in front of him. Thomas ordered the same. The pretty bar tender with the roman nose brought him a glass and set it down on a napkin coaster on the table.

“I don’t think the IDF has any idea what really went on in that graveyard. So, it’s not like I’m a suspect in anything.”

Thomas shook his head, “I still don’t understand what you think you saw. You said he was alive?”

Peter swirled the wine around in his glass and pursed his lips, “That’s right. The funeral we went to last week was meaningless. He’s alive.”

Thomas shook his head. His brain tried to tease out the notes from the generic music playing throughout the bar. Waitresses dashed around with trays full of drinks and tapas. More people walked into the place looking for a drink or a bite to eat.

“I have my doubts about that. Are you sure the body wasn’t exhumed for more tests or something?” Thomas looked down at the floor. When he looked up again, Peter was looking right at him. Thomas met his gaze.

“I’m telling you that he appeared to me, Mary Magda and his mother. We all saw him, he spoke to us and told us where to meet him. I don’t get why you don’t believe us.” Peter’s tone was serious. As serious as when he was doing business in the diamond trade.

“I saw him die. I saw them kill him. You don’t come back from that. Besides, isn’t the body pumped full of embalming fluid? Don’t they check that sort of thing?”

Peter sighed, “We’re talking about the son of God here. Do you really think that modern science can contradict the will of our almighty father?”

Thomas tipped the glass back and drained before ordering another. He didn’t reply to Peter right away. He pondered. Why would they all be lying? Why didn’t he believe them? He finally spoke, “I need to see him for myself to believe he is alive.”

Peter dropped his arm over the back of the chair. He chuckled, “Don’t you have a little faith?”

“It’s not about faith. It’s about what we’ve seen. What we’ve been through since we started following that man. Why did we start driving around with him to start with? We all had jobs, lives, families, and somehow we started following this guy and when he got shot by the IDF for helping Palestinians we saw that. I saw him pleading with god in your arms. I saw that.”

Peter ordered another round. Rain resumed again. The clouds seemed to envelop the city. God was generous and blessed the ground of his chosen people with rain. The slosh of water against tires could be heard every time the door of the popular bar opened. People now passed by in the popular nightlife district with umbrellas up or at least makeshift coverage before they dashed into the next bar.

“He was a wonderful man. He led people. He got them to open their eyes to the suffering within our country. Not to see those people as an ‘other’ but to see them for what they are, children of the same God.” Peter touched Thomas’ shoulder. He rubbed the expensive fabric of his blazer. Peter let his hand stay there for a moment. Thomas didn’t look at him. Peter wanted him to believe. Peter wished he could cast out the doubt in the heart of his friend. Peter wished Thomas could have just a little faith. The faith of the children in the West Bank who ran to their master’s side. The faith of people who followed him and believed that he could set them free.

“He was a remarkable man. But that doesn’t mean he can defeat death,” Thomas countered.

Peter looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. He was silent as if in prayer. Thomas waited for Peter to return to the moment. Peter opened his eyes and looked at the bottles on the bar. All the colors and the spouts sticking out of them. The bartender was making drinks for another table. Peter watched the process for a moment.

“Did you not believe when he fed that refugee camp? Did you doubt him when he saved that young boy who had been bombed?”

“Yes, I believed him, or at least I thought I did,” Thomas volunteered.

“Then why not believe now? Why not believe that our leader, our master teacher, is alive, and he has left his grave, and he is walking the earth again with us as he promised?”

Thomas shook his head, “It’s not possible. It’s just not possible. Aren’t we supposed to follow the science? Aren’t we supposed to be educated about this stuff? Why are we basically believing in magical stories and then hoping it’s real? What’s wrong with us?”

Peter stood up on uneasy feet. He finished his third glass of wine. He pulled out some money and put it on the bar. He stuffed his hand-tooled Italian leather wallet back in his pants.

“Thomas, you have to come and see him. Come sit with us at my house. Mary is there too. He said he would come by. Trust me, come see him with us.”

Thomas slid off the stool, “If I can see him with my eyes then I will believe.”