Chapter 14 continued

Finally, I dozed off. The next thing I remember was the cabby shaking me. “No couple went in or out all night. Just some guy, and he was alone. It’ll be light in a few minutes, Mac, and I’m off duty. Let’s call it a night, whadaya say?”
    I handed the driver a check. “Take this for your trouble.”
    The driver waved off the money, but I insisted.
    I shivered in the cold as I stood in the doorway of Ben’s townhouse. A light snow had dusted the city during the night. The street’s bleak surface reflected my desolation.
    At first light, the trees along the sidewalk were silhouetted against the gray heavens. Their black, leafless branches, stirred by a chill wind, seemed to reach out to me in sympathy, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken him?”
I held out my arms in response, and watched my breath steam into the morning air as I shouted, “Don’t bother on my account. On that fateful day when he called, I abandoned him.” I heard the door open behind me.
    “Paul, what are you doing standing in the cold at my doorstep shouting to the trees? You’re losing it, pal.”
    “Ben, what are you doing home? Didn’t you go to dinner with Maria last night?”
    “She never showed up. I went by her apartment, but there was no answer. I sat in a bar until it closed, then came back here.”
    “Yeah, the cabby said a man alone entered the building.”
    “Paul, why were you sitting in a cab outside my townhouse all night?”
    “I saw Maria yesterday evening. We had an argument.”
    “What do you mean, you saw Maria?”
    “Never mind about that now, Ben. We have to find her. I’ll check my hotel…”
    “Why would she go to your hotel? Say, what’s going on here, pal?”
    “…If she’s not there, I’ll try her office at the World Trade Center.”
    “She swore she wasn’t having an affair with you.”
    “We never went to bed if that’s what you mean. Look, Ben, we don’t have time for this. You check her university office and her apartment again.”

Maria wasn’t at my hotel. I went to her World Trade Center office when it opened. She wasn’t there, and no one had seen her since she left with me to ride the Staten Island Ferry.
    I went to her departmental office at the university. They hadn’t seen Maria since yesterday, but said Ben had just left to check her apartment again. I phoned Maria. A man answered. It wasn’t Ben so I hung up.
    Ben showed up at his townhouse about eleven o’clock. He was pale and his hand shook as he put the key in the lock. “Maria’s dead. She apparently returned to her apartment after I left and shot herself with a pistol I gave her for protection.”
    “Did she leave a note?”
    “No. Come inside, Paul. I want you to tell me why you and Maria argued.”
“I told her I had discovered the Final Story during my trip to Israel. I said I couldn’t tell anyone but she made me tell her. She became very upset and ran away.”
    “What was she doing with you, Paul?”
    “She took an interest in my search for the Final Story.”
    Ben’s face became flushed. “You don’t know anything. You were trying to seduce Maria by pretending to take her into your confidence. I’ve seen you use that technique dozens of times.”
    “What I know would not only launch us permanently into post-reality, it would start the Last Judgment.”
    Ben laughed, “There is no Last Judgment.”
    That’s when I was tempted to tell him everything.
    He went to his desk and pulled a revolver from the drawer. “You betrayed my trust.”
    “Nothing happened between Maria and me.”
    “You shut up.” Ben took a step toward me, raised the revolver, and aimed it. His hand was shaking.
    I stared into the gun barrel. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger. You’d be doing me a favor.”
Ben slumped into a chair, sobbing, “Oh, God, what am I going to do without Maria?” I slipped the revolver from his hand and removed the bullets.
    As I opened the door to leave, Ben said, “All possibilities universes are real. We are free to choose any universe by shifting our consciousness. Publish your one-universe, no-freedom idea, turn you into a world-class fool, pal.”
    I hesitated. Again, I was tempted to tell him everything. Instead, I stepped out of the house and closed the door behind me.

Maria was dead. I needed help and the only person I could turn to was Preacher John. It was snowing again, but I found John by the Arch finishing a conversation with the only two people in Washington Square.
    “Maria killed herself last night.”
    “No! Paul, I’m sorry.”
    “What am I going to do, John?”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “We had a fight. She didn’t want to see me again.”
    “Why?”
    “I told her the Final Story and wouldn’t admit it was just my imagination.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “Everything.”
    “But you say she didn’t believe you?”
    “She said it was insane to think that the Final Story was true. She wanted me to say it wasn’t true.”
    “And you couldn’t do that.”
    “No. That’s when she started crying and said she didn’t want to see me again.”
    “If Maria despaired because of what you told her, why haven’t you despaired?”
    “Because I accept myself for what I am. After you say no to Jesus, you have to say yes to yourself.”
    “There could be many reasons why she despaired that have nothing to do with what you told her, Paul. I mean, you only knew her for a couple of weeks. To be honest, Maria may have despaired because she thought she had lost you to, well, to madness.”
    “Let me tell you the Final Story and you can judge for yourself if I’m crazy.”
    “First, why did you vow never to tell anyone?”
    “Because what I know will start the Last Judgment.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “You said Jesus could do it by revealing what he knows. I now know what Jesus knows.”
    “Do you realize you’re saying you are Jesus?”
    “No, John. Only if I tell the Final Story do I become Jesus.”
    “Paul, what you’re saying is irrational.”
    “If you really believe that, let me tell you what I know.”
    “Does what you know confirm Isaiah was right about the remnant?”
    “Yes.”
    “Does it explain why there is no second chance?”
    “Yes. And more…why Nietzsche said there was only one Christian…what John Calvin meant by double predestination…”
    “Do you want to tell me? Do you want to become Jesus?”
    “No.”
    “Then don’t. Let Jesus start the Last Judgment.”
    “If he can.”
    John smiled. “You’re a devil, Paul.”
    “I’m a devil with a problem—I’ve never in my life been able to keep my mouth shut.”
    “You could join a monastery.”
    “C’mon, John, what would prevent me from telling one of the monks?”
    John pulled an address book from his pocket. “At this monastery, all monks follow a strict rule of silence.”
    “Nobody talks?”
    “Correct.”
    “It’s out of the question. I can’t leave my kids.”
    “Paul, this is your decision. If you will keep your mouth shut, or, if you doubt you are right, there’s no need to isolate yourself.”
    “I’ve never been able to keep my mouth shut. And, sane or insane, I have no doubt.”
    “I can get you an appointment with the abbot, Paul. The rest will be up to you.”

Expanding the Entertainment: Click here for background on the novel’s universe