YSRAEL RAMÍREZ preferred to take the stairs despite the stiffness in his knees. He was still trim, straight-backed, and brown as a nut, but his high school football days had finally caught up with him ten years ago. He lifted one leg after the other up toward his neat and simplified life in the brand-new condominium, freshly painted and hermetically sealed, on Burbank Boulevard. Not as spacious as his split-level home in West Hills but he did not need all that room anymore. Cancer had taken Ruth three years ago this August. Their son Nathaniel, a lawyer with the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, had flown down to Los Angeles for the unveiling of Ruth’s tombstone, and then spent two full weeks helping his father find just the right place to live.
“You’re going to go crazy rattling around this huge place all by yourself,” Nathaniel had said, spooning tortilla soup past his thin lips as the two sat in a booth at the California Pizza Kitchen. “Absolutely loco, Pops.”
So it was planned, a bit too fast for Ysrael’s liking. Though he himself had been a lawyer for many years, he had grown somewhat passive in retirement. And then with his wife’s passing, he seemed, at times, lost. So Nathaniel took care of everything. He even made a tidy profit for his father on the house on Valley Circle and got a good deal on the condominium two miles away. “Close to two malls, Pops,” Nathaniel had said. “Topanga Plaza and the Promenade.” Ysrael had offered his son a wan smile. “Me, Pops, I prefer the Promenade. They’ve got Macy’s and a multiplex there.”
Ysrael reached his floor, paused for but a moment, and breathed deeply. The hall smelled of different foods (Chinese takeout, enchiladas, pizza, some kind of fish), dinners now past. He then turned to the left and walked four doors to his unit. He pulled his key from his pocket with his left hand and touched the mezuzah with his right. Both the key and the mezuzah felt cool, solid. Ysrael brought his hand down from the mezuzah, kissed his fingertips, slid the key into the lock with a shoonk, and then turned it with a cleenk.
He settled down comfortably in his favorite recliner with a mug of decaffeinated Mocha Java (Ysrael was pleased to learn from his son that he now can buy Starbucks whole bean or ground at Ralphs), Vivaldi on the stereo, and the Los Angeles Times spread upon his lap. Within an hour Ysrael was dozing noisily. And he dreamed. The vibrant colors and sounds of spring swirled about him. And Ruth stood there by his side, incandescent and beautiful, whispering, “I’m waiting for you, my love.” A brook gurgled happily and birds flew in and around lush oaks, singing Vivaldi’s spring (the largo e pianissimo sempre, to be precise) with such rapture that Ysrael’s heart swelled with each successive note. And what must have been a woodpecker rapped softly, rhythmically, on a branch somewhere nearby. But the rapping grew louder, more deliberate, impatient. Eventually the brook, trees, and Ruth dissolved and Ysrael’s great brown eyes popped open. He was back in his den and the woodpecker’s rapping moved from a disappearing tree to the front door.
“Damn!” Ysrael muttered as he pulled himself out of his chair. He walked slowly to the door as the knocking grew louder. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” But he stopped, suddenly, two feet from the door. Who could be knocking? he thought. I haven’t buzzed anyone in. Must be a neighbor. Perhaps that widow Mrs. Gurley from down the hall. Probably having trouble with her dishwasher again, or so she says; in reality she has her eyes on me. ¡Dios mío! That’s all I need!
Ysrael took one more step and lifted his left hand to the doorknob. The smooth brass felt warm to the touch. That’s odd, he thought. He turned it with a quick, irritated flick of his wrist and opened his mouth to say something rather unpleasant to Mrs. Gurley but then froze, mouth agape, as the door swung open. Before him stood a man, head tilted to Ysrael’s right, away from the mezuzah, smiling and humming to the Vivaldi that still played on the stereo. He held a beautiful brown leather briefcase.
Ysrael composed himself. “How did you get in the complex? Who buzzed you in?”
The man, who wore a finely tailored blue pinstripe suit, a gleaming white shirt, and a crimson necktie, walked past Ysrael, through the small foyer, and into the living room, where he gently lowered himself onto the middle of the long green leather sofa. He placed the briefcase on his lap, snapped it open, gestured toward Ysrael’s still-warm recliner and said in a voice so soft it was nearly a whisper, “Please, sit.”
Because the man easily weighed fifty pounds more than he did (the man clearly made it to the gym on a regular basis), Ysrael closed the door and went back to his recliner. As the man shuffled through his briefcase, Ysrael realized that he must be some kind of insurance salesman.
“I’m insured to the hilt,” Ysrael said.
The man looked up and laughed a short, sharp laugh. “Oh, no. I’m not selling anything. I am, however, here to bargain a bit.” As he whispered this last statement, he pulled out a manila folder from his briefcase, which he then closed and set down by his radiant Bostonians. He opened the folder. “Mr. Ramírez?”
Ysrael leaned back in his recliner and wondered what would come next. “Yes?”
“Mr. Jesús Ramírez?”
“No, no. I don’t go by ‘Jesús’ anymore, I mean,” Ysrael said through a cough. “I changed my name to Ysrael after I converted.” He didn’t know why he was answering this stranger at all, but somehow he couldn’t help it.
“Converted?”
Ysrael coughed again. “Why, yes. To Judaism. Thirty-five years ago.”
The man riffled through the file. “No. That can’t be. It’s not in here.”
“I was raised Catholic, you see. But after I met my wife, Ruth, who was a Jew, I fell in love with Judaism. I studied for years. Converted after we married.”
“No,” the man repeated as he put the folder down on his lap. “There’s nothing of this in your file.”
“It’s true. I do not lie.” Ysrael smiled. “I changed my name after I converted because, as you can imagine, you get a lot of strange looks at Temple when you say your name is Jesús. Even if it is pronounced the Spanish way and even though Jesus Christ was a Jew himself.”
The man’s eyes widened in surprise. And then, ever so slowly, his eyelids lowered as he let out a little snicker. “Ah! That explains the mezuzah. I figured it was left by the prior owner.”
“No. My wife bought that for me when I converted.”
“Wait until they hear about this at the home office!”
“And where’s the home office?” Ysrael asked, finally getting curious again.
“Hell, of course.”
At that moment Ysrael knew he should have been startled or, at the very least, confused. Perhaps, he thought, after several decades as a criminal defense attorney, he was not easily shocked because he had heard millions of very strange utterances. Ysrael laughed. “Hell? That’s rich.”
The man returned the laugh. “Well, you see, Jes—I mean, Ysrael, you are going to die tonight, in your sleep, very peacefully, and I wanted to make a little deal with you. But because you’re no longer a Christian, my hands are tied.” He reached for his briefcase, snapped it open, and slid the file back in.
Oddly, Ysrael was not afraid, merely puzzled. “Why can’t you make a deal with a non-Christian?”
“Well, you realize that Torah makes no direct reference to either Heaven or Hell, don’t you?” He snapped his briefcase shut for emphasis, not without a little irritation.
This whole issue of the afterlife was the biggest chasm Ysrael had had to leap when he started his Judaic studies all those years ago. Heaven and Hell, for a Mexican Catholic, were as real as the nuns and priests who taught him how to be a “good” Christian. But then, reaching back to his wonderful long meetings with Rabbi Burke (as well his son’s Torah worksheets from grammar school), Ysrael said, “Ah! What of Gan Ayden and Gehenna?”
The man paused, scratched his goatee, and thought for a moment. “Hhhmmm. Interesting point, Ysrael. Interesting point. But those were concepts of Talmudic times. And besides that, those were actual physical places, here on Earth. Very different from reality. My reality.”
The man was, of course, correct. As a post-Talmudic Jew, Ysrael believed in the immortality of the soul. But as Maimonides wisely noted, there are neither bodies nor bodily forms in the world-to-come, only the souls of the righteous. He looked at the man and said simply, “You are right.”
“I must be going,” said the man as he stood up, knees cracking just a bit. “Many more trips tonight. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
Ysrael stood as well, and his knees echoed the man’s. “No problem, really.” Ysrael suddenly laughed. “My father used to say, ‘De puerta cerrada el diablo se vuelve.’”
“Languages were never my forte,” said the man.
“From a closed door, the devil goes away.”
The man chuckled. “Again, Mr. Ramírez, I’m sorry about all this.”
“Except that business about me dying tonight, and all, it was sort of nice having a little company. But I have two questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s the least I can do. Shoot.”
“First, by your existence, does that mean Jesus Christ was indeed the Messiah?”
“No. Next question.”
“Yes, well,” and Ysrael looked around and coughed a bit. “Well, what was the bargain you planned to offer?”
“Oh, that. You know. The usual. I’d bring back your wife and the two of you could live for ten happy years together.”
“In exchange for my soul, I suppose.”
“What else would I want?”
Ysrael rubbed his hands together. “Now that would be tempting indeed!”
“But I can’t offer it. I couldn’t offer it to a Buddhist, a Hindu, an atheist, or any other non-Christian. I’m sorry. Rules are rules.” With that, the man headed toward the door, nodded a goodnight, and was gone.
Ysrael sighed and sat down in his recliner. Vivaldi still played in the background. He let out another sigh, closed his eyes, and quickly fell asleep. His mind eased into the same wonderful dream he’d been having before the man came to visit. The lush greenery, playful brook, singing birds, and his beautiful Ruth. And in his sleep, Ysrael’s heart stopped. And as he slipped from this world into the next, he found himself lying in Ruth’s arms as they lay in the clover.
“My love,” Ruth said. “I’ve been waiting. What took you so long?”
Ysrael kissed Ruth’s soft young cheek (for they were both in their twenties now), and noticed with delight that she smelled of fresh lemons. He said, “Oh, mi amor, I had a visitor. Please forgive me.”
She pulled him closer and nuzzled his thick black hair with a laugh. “Of course, my love,” she cooed. “Not another thought of it.”