I’m sure that’s quite right,’ Will tried, in the short moment the man drew breath. But it was no good; he was off again.
‘Then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters.’
‘Sir, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I wondered if I could borrow your bible.’
‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.’
‘That’s truly what I pray for, too, sir. But if I could just take a peek at your bible.’ Will bent down and tried to take the book from his hand. The man’s grip was surprisingly strong. He would not let go.
‘Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s what I think too. So if you’d just let me glance at the holy book.’ The man’s hand gnarled itself even more tightly. Will tugged but the man tugged back, still muttering.
Will looked up; TC had arrived. By now he was almost sitting next to the tramp, pulling horizontally at the book. He knew he looked ridiculous: he was mugging a tramp for his bible.
‘Sir,’ TC said softly. ‘Do you think we could pray together?’ Suddenly the man stopped talking. TC continued, her voice a gentle stream of pure reason. ‘Can I suggest we take as our text, the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 10?’
Without complaint, the man opened up the book, thumbing through its tissue-thin, closely printed pages. Within a few seconds, he began his recitation: ‘The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.’
Will tried to peer over his shoulder, to skim the rest of the ancient text at top speed. To him, it looked like the usual biblical mix of profundity and obscurity. Scripture always had this effect on him: the words might make stirring music, but their precise meaning only ever became clear through great effort. Most of the time, in church or at morning prayers at school, the sounds just washed over him. As they did now, in this odd, spontaneous prayer meeting.
Their leader was onto Verse 2: ‘Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.’
Eyes down, Will was racing ahead. Confronted now with verse after verse of the stuff, he found his eye lighting upon anything either immediately intelligible or, better still, familiar. One word stood out, again and again. It had appeared in Verse 2 and was there again in Verse 3. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.
And again in Verse 11. The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.
And in Verse 16. The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin.
Verse 21 had it too. The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom.
Wherever Will looked, the word seemed to jump off the page. In his sleep-deprived state, he could almost hear voices, angry male voices, shouting the word at him. There it was again, in Verse 24. The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.
Listening to the rambling murmur of the homeless man, he pictured the Rabbi of Crown Heights swaying as he read Verse 25, his bearded disciples swaying along with him. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.
The word refused to let go. Verse 28 had it – The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish – and so did Verse 30: The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.
It was even there at the very end, in the final verse. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked speaketh perversity.
The tramp now had his eyes shut, incanting the words from memory. But Will had heard enough. He stood up and moved round, so he could whisper in TC’s ear.
‘I’m going.’
He knew they could have discussed it for hours, parsing every clause for multiple meanings like a pair of the sharpest Talmudical scholars. But sometimes you just have to go with your first instinct. Journalism was like that. You would be at a press conference, handed some voluminous document, and somehow you would have to whip through it in five minutes, decide what it was all about, ask your question and go. In truth, the document could not be read properly in less than four or five hours, but journalists liked to think such strictures were for lesser mortals.
So Will trusted his judgment. Besides, he was sick of talking, deciphering and interpreting. He wanted to move, to go somewhere. He had been inside for hours, inhaling air made sweet and sickly by fast food.
He had heard what he needed to hear. He knew exactly where he had to go – and he knew he would have to go there alone.
Saturday, 9.50pm, Manhattan
A long line of elevators, maybe ten of them, and barely a soul to elevate. All big offices were probably like this on the weekends: still functioning, still with a guard at the front desk and lights on in the canteen, but skeletal versions of their weekday selves.
The lobby of the New York Times building looked especially bereft. On Monday at 10am, this space would be jammed, as circulation managers jostled with graphic designers to cram into elevators, half of them clutching steaming cups of overpriced coffee. Now the same space was empty and silent, with only the rarest ‘ping’ to announce that an elevator had moved up a few floors and come back home again.
Will nodded a hello to the guard on duty who gave him the merest glance. He was watching a ball game on a TV monitor that Will was sure was supposed to be tuned to closed-circuit pictures of the fire escape or rear entrance or something. Will swiped his card and headed to the newsroom.
He was glad to be here. He had not worked at the Times for long, but this office felt familiar. And he could not face going home. Just the thought of closing the front door and hearing the silence made him shudder. The pictures on the wall; Beth’s clothes in the cupboard; her smell in the bathroom. Even imagining it scared him.
Besides, was this not what Yosef Yitzhok had told him to do in person, before he began communicating by texted riddle? Look to your work. Now, via Proverbs 10, he had been more specific.
Will’s pace quickened as he walked into the newsroom, deliberately avoiding eye contact with anyone who might spot him. At this time of night it was mainly production staff, not friends of his, but still Will kept his peripheral vision switched off, focused only on reaching his desk.
As he got nearer, glimpsing something over the flimsy partition wall, his heart thumped. There was a box, placed on his seat. Could this be what YY had been talking about? Had he been perfectly literal? Go to your office, it’s all there waiting for you. A box containing all the answers?
Will knew it was pure fantasy, but he could not help himself. He sprinted the last yard or two, grabbed the box, feeling its weight and tearing it open all at the same time. It was much lighter than its size had suggested and hard to open too. Finally the two top leaves came apart, Will stuck his arm inside and felt something soft and fleshy, like a fruit. What the hell was this? He dug in deeper; it felt moist. He hooked his fingers through some kind of opening and, using it as a handle, pulled up the entire object.
A Hallowe’en pumpkin. Will had poked his fingers through an eye socket.
Attached was a card.
The Better Relations Company invite you to a special evening . . .
Some bullshit PR freebie. Invitations for promotional events in New York had become increasingly