Читать книгу Pigs In Paradise - Roger Maxson - Страница 10

Mel walked along the fence, keeping within earshot of Levy and his friend Ed, the two orthodox Jews from before. Levy was listening to an iPod with wireless earbuds as they passed through the moshav.

“The Americans are coming!” Ed said.

“We’re saved!” Levy replied with the iPod and earbuds in his ear.

“It appears Perelman might be.”

“What does that mean?” Levy removed the iPod.

“He’s looking to sell the moshav.”

“Sell the moshav? He can’t do that.”

“The livestock, I mean,” Ed said. “He’s looking to sell off the livestock, the pigs, goats, chickens anyway.”

“Americans are coming to Israel to buy pigs?”

“They are in the market, yes, but their real interest is the red calf. So, while they’re here, for one thing, they might as well be here for the other.”

“I see. Evangelicals again on their way to save us from ourselves.”

“They’re good country people,” Ed said.

“Of course,” Levy said, “Christian fundamentalists. Why else would they be interested in the red calf?”

“Good eatin’?” Ed said.

“Perelman is selling the Jersey and her calf?”

“I believe so. They’re interested in its outcome for us and them.”

Levy placed the earbuds back in his ears. Those people, or as they say, ‘them people.’”

Mel stopped at the end of the property line where the two fences came to a point at fence-post corners. The two Jews continued on their way past the farm, following the road north.

That night Mel shared with the rest a vision he had had from a dream and it was prophecy. “I see men arriving at the farm. They will offer us salvation and paradise on earth, but what they want is to enslave us once again to the yoke and worse. Therefore, we must follow our newly arrived savior, Boris the Boar. He offers a different course of action, a new future, and a direction for us to go in. We must listen to Boris for it will mean the difference between our survival or our demise. Listen closely, we will pray on this, but we will follow the great boar, who art our Lord and Savior.”

“All right, Julius,” Dave said from the olive tree the next day. “What is this all about?”

“Remember our hero, Bruce, and the 12 Israeli Holsteins? Well, look,” Julius said and pointed an expansive blue-and-gold wing. In the meadow, the Holsteins were dropping calves, one calf after the other. “Bruce knew them all,” Julius explained. “As fetuses fall from the backsides of cows, the 12th Imam, as per our neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula or the Gaza Strip to the north, will appear or reappear depending on which family member they follow. Not only that, but we’ll also see the return of Big J himself. Few people realize just how close they were. That’s right, Jesus will accompany his friend the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, when he climbs out of a well. We’ll know the difference between the two because although they’ll both have prominent noses, Jesus will be the guy with blonde hair, blue eyes, and sporting a tan (the American Christians have landed, wink, wink).” The Israeli Holsteins were in clear view of the rejoicing Muslims on the Egyptian border, and the Americans, standing in the road on the Israeli farm. “When fetuses fall from the backsides of cows,” Julius continued his cautious tale, “in this fairy story as in the one about the red calf, it will bring about the end of the earth. The problem, though, for the Muslims anyway, these fetuses are breathing and kicking.”

The American evangelicals, two of them anyway, had arrived on the scene in time to witness the spectacle of fetuses falling from the backsides of cows, then the rejoicing and chants emitted from the foreigners on a hill. The younger of the two was lean and fit at 27 and had blonde hair, blue eyes. The other minister was 50, with dry, wiry Grecian Formula brown hair, and dry, gray eyes. About 5’ 9”, and stocky, he had never known hunger. Both men wore long-sleeve white shirts, opened at the collar, dark slacks, and black shoes. The Israelis who escorted the two ministers explained that it was supposed to be a sign for the arrival, or the return, of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, depending on whose camp they belonged. However, these fetuses were alive, and the Americans witnessed the sudden end of rejoicing only to be replaced by monotonous chants before the foreigners on the hill disappeared into their village.

“Oh, well, better luck next time, I always say,” Julius said. “The good news is we live another day–whew!”

“I don’t understand,” Ezekiel said. “Fetuses are dropping. Why isn’t this omen a good sign?”

“Oh, it’s an omen all right, and a very good sign for those of us of the living. The fetuses that fall from the backsides of cows are supposed to be dead when they hit the ground. When 12 of them do, by the way, 12 of them fall dead; thus, cometh the Lord, hand in hand with the Mahdi to kick infidel butt like the supernatural superheroes that they are. Unfortunately, for our Muslim faithful, those fetuses hit the ground running. Way to go Bruce! Cigars all around!”

Before the crestfallen Muslims turned away, they witnessed the Christian infidels, as if on the road to Damascus, experiencing convulsions, rolling on the ground from laughter. The Muslims cursed the ground on which the infidels convulsed.

Once all the fun was over, and the Americans regained their composure, they saw two orthodox Jews heading toward them outside the farm for what would be a brief first encounter among friends with common interests.

“Shalom Rabbis, we come in peace.”

“We’re not rabbis,” Levy said, with the iPod and earbuds.

“I’m Reverend Hershel Beam,” said the older minister. “This is my young protégé and youth minister of our megachurch in America, Reverend Randy Lynn. We’re Christians.”

“Hi, I’m Randy. Whaddya listenin’ to, ‘The Yahweh Hill Song’? It’s about Jesus, you know?”

Levy’s friend Ed looked at his friend Levy.

Levy took out the earbuds. “Chopin,” he said. “‘Polonaise op. 53 in A-flat major, Heroic.’ A work he composed at the height of his creative powers, and during his love affair with the French novelist George Sand.”

“Nice to have made your acquaintance,” Ed said. He and Levy nodded, tipped their hats, and bid farewell. They turned back into the road and continued along their way.

“Did he say George Sand?” a confused youth minister said. “Chopin was gay?”

“No, no,” laughed Reverend Beam. “Don’t start biting your hand, Randy. George Sand was a woman.”

“Whew, I hope so,” Reverend Randy Lynn said. “Funny name for a woman, though. But wait, I thought he said George Sand was a novelist?”

“She was, Randy, a French novelist.”

“Oh, right, one of them people. Let me see if I have this right. He’s listening to Chopin, a Polish piano player who was in love with a French novelist, a woman named George?”

“So far, so good,” Reverend Hershel Beam said. Welcome to Israel.”

I would have thought ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ maybe, something closer to home.”

“Yes, you would think,” Reverend Beam agreed.