her eccentricities.
“You'll be relieved to hear Cissy's got things under control now.” Feldman brought the discussion back to the main topic. “She tried to call you, you know. To apologize.”
“She did?”
“If I were you, I'd talk with her tomorrow, over the phone first, and see if you can mend the fences a bit more.”
“Yeah. I'll do that Hey, you don't mind if I crash here tonight, do you?”
Feldman lapsed into an accommodating smile and started removing cushions from the sleeper sofa.
Back in his own bed, he lay awake as Hunter's snoring drifted into the room.
59
WNN regional headquarters, Cairo, Egypt 9:30 A.M., Wednesday, February 16, 2000
There was good news at the morning staff meeting. WNN's latest report on Jeza's appearance at the university was a sensation, capturing record ratings.
And then, just as the meeting was about to break up, an excited cameraman from one of the field teams suddenly raced into the room. Breathlessly, he announced another Jeza encounter. Waving the prized video in the air, he explained that less than an hour ago he'd happened to catch the Messiah in a major engagement.
This latest development, by the sound of it, could prove to be one of the most amazing reports yet. If the advance billing was correct, at last WNN had caught on tape an apparent Jeza miracle. Possibly three miracles, the cameraman claimed, as they all hustled off to the viewing room.
By way of prefacing his video, the cameraman explained that he'd been stopped at a traffic light in one of the poorer sections of downtown Cairo. Sitting there, he'd noticed a little urchin with a rag in his hand bounding out into the street from across the intersection. The boy was heading for the cameraman's car, evidently to wash his windshield for a handout. Sadly, in his haste to nab his customer before another competitor, the boy had dashed in front of an oncoming bakery van and was struck.
Compounding the tragedy, the bakery's name appearing on the side of the truck happened to be that of a Sunni Muslim company. An unfortunate circumstance in that this accident occurred in a predominantly Shiite Muslim district igniting instant outrage. In moments, the vehicle had been completely surrounded and the luckless driver dragged from behind the wheel.
This was the point at which the alert videographer had swung his camera into action. The alarming scene materialized on the viewing room screen, waves of people appearing magically from nowhere, rallying to the cries of the onlookers and rushing to the scene of the accident. Watching the drama unfold, Feldman was certain the poor delivery man was about to be pummeled to death. But as the mob descended upon him, there was an abrupt division at the crowd's far end and the angry mob began separating and falling back.
The focus was off-center for a few moments as the cameraman scrambled on top of the roof of his car for a better view. A hole had formed in the middle of the action now, and the camera zoomed in to show a small woman standing boldly before the downed and bloody driver. It was Jeza, of course, but over the noise, it was difficult to hear what she was saying.
Recognizing who this was, the crowd began quieting. It sounded as if Jeza were talking in Arabic, and she was pointing to the forlorn man at her feet. She then gestured toward the front of the vehicle and barked a command. The crowd parted again to allow an anguished man with a small boy in his arms to pass through. It was apparently the father of the child who had been struck by the vehicle. The boy's extremities dangled loosely, his face was buried in the crook of his father's elbow, and it was impossible to tell how badly he was hurt, or if he were even alive.
Jeza called out to the father, and he squatted on his haunches in front of her, rocking to and fro, howling, still holding the limp child. Jeza raised her arms skyward and the sleeves of her robe cascaded to her shoulders, exposing the vivid whiteness of her limbs. She called out loudly, presumably in prayer, ending with the only word Feldman recognized, “Allah.”
Despite its unrestrained fury only moments ago, the crowd was now dead-still, with only the ambient sounds of the city audible. Jeza, also silent, lowered her arms to her sides and watched the child intently. So did everyone else. They didn't have long to wait. The legs stirred. The head moved. The man holding the boy relaxed his grip and revealed the child to the astounded audience. The boy's eyes were open, flitting around puzzled and scared.
A tumult overtook the crowd. “Allah! Allah! Allah!” they shouted and hands began moving out to touch the prophetess. But she halted them with both palms upraised, gestured down to the truck driver again, and motioned them back. Stooping, she took hold of the terrified man's wrist and helped him to his feet. She placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, speaking with him momentarily, and then turned with him back toward his vehicle.
Guiding him by his shaking arm, she was given a wide berth as they made their way to the side of the truck. It was a panel van, and Jeza grasped the sliding door by its handle, throwing it open wide. She pulled the driver carefully out of the way, then made another brief announcement to the crowd.
The mob paused for a moment, looked at one another, and then started to burrow full bore into the truck in a feeding frenzy. Hundreds of men, women and children pillaged its goods hand over fist, grabbing as much as they could carry. One man waddled by the camera with hard rolls stuffed down the sleeves and front of his tunic and pants to the point his clothing was about to burst.
And then it suddenly occurred to Feldman that Jeza was missing. Even reviewing the tape again in slow motion, it was impossible to tell exactly when and what had happened to the Messiah. She was there, and then, quite implausibly, she vanished, leaving the deserted driver to gawk nervously as his bakery truck was greedily relieved of its freight.
But if rescuing the driver and restoring the boy were two miracles, then there was yet another to behold. As- toundingly, the procession of scavengers went on for the duration of the video, at least twenty more minutes until the camera ran out of tape. And still, the small van hadn't exhausted its cargo. Roll after roll, loaf after loaf, baskets of pastries, buns and all manner of baked goods flowed endlessly from its doors until it would appear that every last pocket, shirtfront, box, bucket and apron was sated.
“The only thing lacking,” Hunter pointed out, “are the fishes.”
While none of these three events could be conclusively demonstrated to be miracles, the new video nevertheless presented some very powerful and fascinating images. The temptation to promote this extraordinary material as the
Working late into the night to ready the
Alone in the darkened viewing bay, he played with the editing controls, trying to identify the precise moment when the Messiah seemed to suddenly vanish in plain sight Perhaps there was a fourth miracle here. Concentrating on the segment of tape taken just before Jeza disappeared, Feldman examined a wide shot in which the figure of the Messiah was continually in the frame, visible the entire time. She was conspicuously there, immersed in onlookers near the side of the truck, then suddenly she turned and seemed to simply evaporate.
He rewound the tape for the umpteenth time, magnified the image a bit more, zoomed in on the grainy image and worked patiently with the controls to enhance the resolution of the Messiah's immaculate face. Frame by frame he advanced the tape until the final moments when she looked directly into the camera, just before she turned and melted away. After some effort, he succeeded in making the image clearer than in any of his previous attempts. Now he could view her ennobled, divine features with a relative degree of clarity. Those bottomless, enervating eyes. Drawn into them, once again he was suddenly overcome with that disquieting, swooning, paralyzing sensation that he'd come to recognize so well.
As before, he regained his equilibrium quickly, amazed that a mere video image could affect him so
