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*Maximilian’s lightness of touch … and this lightness of touch had captured Aaron from that very first Konzert in Frankfurt …*

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Chapter One ~ Sounds of the Night

פסח: מלאך המוות | PESACH[i] ~ MALAKH HA-MAWETH[ii]

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL. Past midnight, slightly cooler. The sweltering heat lingers though, so dawn will bring no respite with an unwelcome forecast hitting thirty-five Celsius by 5 a.m.

The wide-open windows warmly invite the sounds of this troubled city, teeming with life even at this hour, the occasional siren, bins being emptied in the street below, the noise of the street-cleaning cars whirring up to the fifth-floor balcony, and with them a gabble of Hebrew and Arab chatter ... “Drinks Binyamin. Your turn tonight.”

“I know, I know, five minutes Ikraam. I’ve got them in the ice box; let me just finish off this kerbstone. The kebab store was busy again by the state of this sidewalk…!” trailing off in a giggle.

Each wave to the other, their good-humoured banter making Maximilian wonder upon the stupidity of it all, as he draws on a Time Filter, watching Binyamin and Ikraam from the balcony. Maximilian ponders ...

The whole damned world thinks that all Jews and Arabs are at each other’s throats, one lot swearing to drive the others into the sea, and all that; yet here he watches two workmen doing the same work, as a team, and meeting nightly for their diet coke or Fanta!

Why?

The concert went well, and Maxim reflected upon his good fortune to be schooled by two fellow countrymen, great conductors in their own right, catapulting his career as a Konsertpianist. The winner of many international competitions in his teens, his career seemed guaranteed with tonight’s performance of Rachmaninov, critics writing that Maximilian Baumgartner’s rendition seemed to find a hidden dimension within the score.

Performances of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven are scheduled in the coming year in Oslo, Copenhagen, Liverpool, and Frankfurt-am-Main, and negotiations are already well underway for a U.S. Tour. In particular, is his desire to perform the composer Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto from the wartime film Dangerous Moonlight.

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His growing international repertoire, widely available through a variety of internet music providers, had not prepared him for the dirt and grime of trolls, those who would write the most incredible messages on social media about his hands, his deportment, his filth of beauty. There are times when social media meets the very depths.

Caius, his agent, more a father figure to him, listened quietly. His advice - never flippantly given - the oft-quoted proverb: ‘treat it as water off a duck’s back Maximilian’. Easier to agree with than to actually make use of. Hell, why should my sexuality be an issue?

He squeezed the dying embers from the zigarette and looked at his hands. Smooth, gentle, long-fingered, dexterous, stretching an octave and half again for those especially challenging compositions, he remembered his promise to give this habit up. Caius had been candid. Max, if you persist in this you could, and probably will ruin your career.

He checked himself, a silent rebuke within, and picked up the box of TIME 20 Filter King Size strangled the nineteen filter tips, and with irritation threw them across the balcony but missing the refuse chute. As he walked across to pick them up, he recalled that other proverb from Caius. Maximilian, a man without self-control is like a city whose walls have fallen down!

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Smiling as he looked down at Binyamin and Ikraam sitting on the pedestrian wall housing the palm, putting the world to rights, each talking together, each wildly gesticulating as if conducting their own symphonies ... Ikraam glanced up, Maxim waved, Binyamin too glanced up, and suddenly all three laughed and waved, Binyamin and Ikraam sending up a harmonized shoulder shrug We know, we know, it make no sense don’t it!

A brief moment, a second, when it seemed that we could solve all our differences, the endless gate-crash upon ordinary people the world over, of arrogant ideologies and the plain-honest-to-god-madness of every religion known.

Like a war between nymphs, each religion demanded that only their fairy story was the correct fairy story. The clash of religions and ideologies.

He stepped back into the wide bedroom, giggling to himself as his friends took up their symphonies with renewed vigour ... No Binyamin. You’ve got to stop all this building. Gaza is being strangled. Then Gaza fires its rockets, and then come the air strikes, or the assassination. It can’t go on like this Bin.

I know Ikraam. I know, I know. But the politicians on both sides - Jew and Arab - are still that obstinate three millennial pair - Yizkah and Ishma-el. Idiots, the both of them.

Yes Binyamin, yes. Come on, we’d better get back to work. Politicians need people like us. At least WE can sit down and talk …

Yes Ikraam, AND work together.

Another set of giggles breezed up on the night air.

Maxim slid the glass half shut and lay back down.

As Aaron stirred and rolled over, Maximilian stroked him gently and pulled the loose sheet over Aaron’s arm to shield him from the sudden Mediterranean temperature drop - that coolness, all too brief, that presaged another day’s furnace. Aaron murmured a soft half-sleeping תודה ‘to-daa’, and squeezed him before drifting on.

Author Note on Chapter One

I well recall, on one of my visits to Jerusalem, standing in King David’s Tower. It was one of those moments where history seems to lift itself and sweep one back thousands of years, even though this tower has been destroyed and rebuilt by conquest many times since the original was built around the 2nd Century BCE (200 years BC).

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Chapter Two ~ Dilemma

פסח: מלאך המוות | PESACH ~ MALAKH HA-MAWETH

MAXIMILIAN regathered his thoughts about Karl, the anxious text earlier from Frankfurt.

Maximilian! Bitte du musst mir helfen!
Ich kann diese endlose Verfolgung nicht ertragen.

Persecution?

Max tried to work out Karl’s scenario in his head.

He must do all he can to help him, for sure. Just as Aaron had been here for Maxim, so Maximilian knew he must now be here for Karl. How, though, could he coax Karl out of the lifestyle he’d become embroiled in?

Why on earth had he turned his back on his love for music? What on earth made Karl reach the conclusion that being a highly successful impresario was not enough? But his Achilles Heel had been his striking good looks, his thick long hair that made him the object of every modelling tout in Frankfurt. Easy money, an outward personality, his natural photogenicity, his naivety.

Maxim remembered challenging the tout, a vain and corrupted little man, about this on his last visit to Hamburg and Frankfurt.

Naivety? the tout shouted back … what on earth are you fucking talking about?

Look you nerd, I’m talking about Karl … his total trust in you … his complete lack of experience, his lack of wisdom, God! His lack of judgment! That’s what I’m talking about.

Nowt to do with me laddie-boy. Ee don’t say no to the cash … the tout wheezed … before salivating the words … nor the drugs!

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The tout’s smirk only had a chance to form on the left-hand side of his mouth … Maxim’s clenched fist into that rotten apple facelifted the tout clean off his feet, taking with him his camera stand and props. Rolling over, and groaning, hey man! … … but his own lens struck him on the face - “the perfect ‘freeze’” and he was out cold. Five thousand euros of camera equipment smashed over his head.

That was a year ago. The tout recovered but never pressed charges. Word had got around, and soon his ‘clientele’, young women and young men had deserted him in droves. They, too, had been at the mercy of that vile mind.

In a word, tout was Finito! FINITO!

Max walked back out onto the balcony and leaned against the coolness of its outer wall. He lit up. His one defiance.

I mean, … … he shouted into the night air … for God’s sake, Karl’s been the reason for my own success! How could Karl have concluded that, somehow, his work was second best to the absurdity of becoming involved in adult films?

He knew Karl liked to socialize.

Maximilian’s own schedule, the performances, and the need to practise twelve hours a day precluded any socializing beyond meeting guests in the suite behind the stage after the performance; he’d been schooled well in this, both by his parents and by his tutors and by the two principal conductors in both Copenhagen and Liverpool.

All of these things had fused into one, enabling him to develop his social skills, his natural diplomacy, and his passion for music and the arts. Always, always, always this passion - this cloak of beauty as one had described it - a term that clearly resonated with guests. They, too, were passionate about their love for music and the arts.

And he had his grandmother to thank for two small tips:

Maximilian, remember that even the fool is considered wise when he remains silent, and the other, Max? It is this Maximilian … remember! When you meet people for the first time, you never know who you’re talking to, especially if they’re actors.

He remembered his grandmother’s giggle, the rolling of the eyes … God, Max! They don’t even know who they are themselves, half the time!

On the balcony, he allowed himself a smile.

That was the first time he’d heard his Gran refer to G-D like that, and her swift rejoinder, again, with a little giggle as she rocked her hips back to the kettle to make a fresh tea … Max … He’s big enough to take it. And I’m not into this ‘thou hast blasphemed stuff!! … … Max, dear, close your mouth, you look like a cross between a gaping goldfish and catching flies!!

And then her open laughter and waltzing him around the kitchen!!! Wonderful memories.

Later still, he recalled Rita’s advice in Koblenz, that third tip - Höre auf Deine Innere Stimme, Maximilian | Listen to your inner voice - that seemed, with his grandmother’s tips, to conjoin, to become his personal triskelion. He returned to bed, much calmer now.

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As he studied the shadows of the room on the ceiling, Aaron’s quiet, almost imperceptible, breathing next to him brought such inner joy, that he smiled as he recalled that advice.

He giggled at how his grandmother - Oma - would quietly slip a biblical proverb into the otherwise secular conversation. It had not been subtle or underhand. It had, quite simply, been practical wisdom.

He knew that whilst his faith was flexible, moveable, and very supportive, if he indulged himself in contemplating the strict religious angle of a text, suddenly that which underpinned his faith became inflexible, immoveable, unyielding, intolerant, crushing, and worst of all, judgmental, very judgmental.

In a matter of moments, a literal interpretation could blow his world to kingdom come!

This simplistic view, this demand to foist upon him and others, ideas that were so out of sync with his concept of das Universum that he would seek his answers in the scores he learned to play and then to perform.

He recalled Hans Zimmer’s score Time, the inner peace it always brought him, that ability to somehow see way beyond the convention of three dimensions. Nein! Ein Tausend Dimensionen … and, in his mind, with each note, with every chord, with every fall and rise, the graceful glide, the sudden crescendo, his hands racing the keyboard as sails race the waves, so came the words he later penned in the quiet of an evening hour in Liverpool … Unconquerable.

Asked once at a post-performance reception, but how do you play a piece without the orchestra? How can you do this?

The question puzzled him so he gave an immediate answer … when I practise a concerto or symphony, I can, in my mind, hear the orchestra …

The reply had not impressed the enquirer who gave a sort of ‘humph’ and walked off. A moment later, a friendly voice from behind, Vasily.

A moment later, a friendly voice from behind, Vasily.

*Maximilian, you replied quite correctly but perhaps a little hastily. Always pause.*

He would be forever grateful to Vasily Petrenko, the principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and blended this, too, into his triskelion.

Aaron moved, subconsciously slightly inward, his face now covered by Maximilian’s hair. His rhythmic breathing returned the message of deep and contented sleep.

Page 10

Verfolgung

Maximilian thought of friends in different cities, different countries, different orchestras, those who are as he is. Those who needed to keep their real feelings hidden.Those who wore that accursed iron mask for fear of persecution … *Verfolgung*.

He looked across at the mantelpiece. A card.

Received by airmail after the Rachmaninov Recital. Its message from Ken in Liverpool was simple, gentle, yet direct and something akin to the velocity of a bullet …

Max, that was superb.

Rainbow ~ our Symbol of Inclusivity over Ideology and all religions Max

Never forget this …

Ken

Waterloo Warehouse
Liverpool Waterfront

ps: When you’re next in the city, another coffee methinks. Love to Aaron.

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He studied the Card. Something about it reached out as if international language harmonised as on a recital score; then turning the card over a second time, catching Ken’s distinctive handwriting, definitive, firm, … symbol of Inclusivity over Ideology and all religions Max … the card became alive, emboldening Max, and Aaron too; giving them that inner confidence, that ability to not only accept their being but to enjoy their being as natural and normal as anything else in this world.

Gazing across at it, the night sky gave just the vaguest outline of the streamers flying beautifully and with precision, through the air. The athlete’s outstretched hand was graceful, reaching out, opened but firm, seeming to stretch the full octave, solid, inviting, yet flexible, the eyes firmly fixed upon the arc intent upon being drawn through the air … the choreography perfect, a statement being made by humanity to humanity.

It relaxed him.

Yes, Max understood fully Karl’s fear of Verfolgung.

He thought too of the many friends in enlightened countries, of a new generation of children who would not even think it odd to have a marriage where both were husbands, or both were wives; where both were fathers, where both were mothers.

Then he thought of the many conversations with fellow performers, where what may be acceptable in the large cities and towns, becomes less tolerable in the smaller towns and communities. He very quickly, with sadness and anger, learned to understand that the smaller the community the less liberal. The more conservative those less giving, even lesser for-giving, the more likely would that rut in an already narrow road bring one’s world crashing down in an instant.

He recalled Liverpool, enjoying a coffee in St John’s Road, The Copper Kettle.

Max. It is very liberal here. That’s one of the reasons I love my city.
But travel twenty miles up the coast road and people are still, well, at least twenty years behind.
Never take this freedom, this rainbow, for granted.
Nor demand that the rainbow is only for us.
The rainbow belongs to everyone.
Don’t forget this,
for it is humankind’s
beacon of hope …

and he remembered how Ken had emphasised that phrase, the whole of humankind, and the firm sweep of the hand that brooked no negotiation.

He’d been glad of that advice. Yes, he’d speak with Karl in the morning. He checked his iPhone one last time, flicking it to 30 seconds, and closed his eyes.

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Page 13

In between … *that state where none of us wish to be … whatever our sphere of life*

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Chapter Three ~ Discord

פסח: מלאך המוות | PESACH : MALAKH HA-MAWETH

MAX opened his eyes again and pondered Karl’s text still further.

Aaron’s breathing continued, slowly, rhythmically, perfectly harmonising the peace he sensed at this hour in the city. An ancient sacred text flashed across his eyes but was gone faster than his involuntary blink: The City of the Great King.

Maxim had flirted with most religions. Christianity had left him cold – rituals, dogma, creeds, prayer schools and vigil circles; denominations at war with each other. Nails in hands. In direct rebuttal of his upbringing, he declared himself an atheist.

Sure, his family had gasped! Many friends cheered his defiance, but he recalled also the couple or so who goaded that even this was not enough.

Ever so quietly, the foundations of his upbringing withstood this apparent seismic shift beneath the ground. His mother worried, but his father counselled, Francesca, He’s still a boy. We were just the same at that age. Give him time. He must find his own level.

And to him directly, one evening as he passed his father’s study ...

Maximilian, have you got a moment?

Sure, Papa.

Good!. Look, Max, I’ll keep it short. The world is at your feet. You have an incredible future. Be patient with Mama. Give her space. Remember her background. The sense of guilt. Her faith is that lifeline thrown to her in a sea of horror, of genocide. Yes, we’re a thriving democracy now; but there are people who would still have us return to the Reich, God forbid!

Yes, I know.

Well, just so long as you do Maximilian.

David glanced at the clock above. ‘Bickerton of England, Westminster Clock Co’. Come, Max ... our guests arrive, and I want you to meet ... … …

And Maximilian smiled at the memory of that meeting, his introduction to the principal conductor, the intense discussions they enjoyed as they explored the hidden depths of Rachmaninov.

As he walked with his father back towards the hall, he paused ... suddenly adopting the very casual, loving, address that always warmed his father ... :

Dad ... Don’t worry. I know I’ve said things, and I know I’ve upset Mum.
But give me time. Let me put it this way.
My faith is as strong as ever, perhaps even more so now.

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Father and son continued into the hall ...

… ah, here they are! David, Maximilian, we’ll have canapes and then dinner at 7 pm.

Yes, Mum. 7 pm on the dot!

Indeed Max. On the DOT!!

A slight draught traced fingers down the long curtain, the slats in the blind for a moment vibrating as a bow across an Edgar Russ Scala Perfetta Cello. Then it was gone. Stillness.

In moments like these, it seemed that his soul was not in step with the Universe; his spirit was discordant. He needed to fill the spiritual vacuum; more accurately, the spiritual void. At its worst, this vacuum, this void, could tip him over the edge and into paganism, itself ironically religious in its demands and rituals. He grew restless as he recalled his declaration to David, his promise to his parents.

God forbid! … he thought … What on earth would they say if they found out I’d actually flirted with Islam?

Jerusalem does funny things to you, he mused. All these religions, all these faiths, all these rituals, all of them diametrically opposed and yet seemingly with the same root. That flirting had led him to the Dome of the Rock – a pilgrimage of sorts but cold, uniform, uninspiring; even more demands and rituals, prayer mats, obligatory fasts, Ramadan, and being required to listen to what was to him a tuneless incantation; never getting a straight answer from any of the clerics to his one simple question, men who just shuffled and waffled and sent him on his way with a totally meaningless blessing.

The question?

“Why does it say round the Dome of the Rock that Allah is the God that has no Son when the Old Testament in the Bible tells us “God has a Son and His Name if you know it?” Until I get a satisfactory answer from Islam and Christianity and Judaism on this pretty basic point, you can all go and get lost!”

Not one of his more auspicious moments.

After he had fired off that email, he sensed he’d acted out of turn. As the days passed, he dismissed his misgivings, but worried, nevertheless, whether he had overstepped the mark. What would his agent say, or his friends, if they could see his emails? But the feeling of abandonment since his elder brother - ten years older than him - had walked out without warning when Maximilian was six, the terrible argument downstairs as Philippe lashed out at his parents, the threats, the pleas, the long silence; and then sudden movement, the hallstand being knocked over, the front door slamming shut ... … … … an age seemed to pass, in truth a minute or so, and he crept to the landing, peering down, Francesca and David, suddenly much older, crumpled, ...David, I cannot go through this again. Philippe has gone.

That awful scene had hardened him with a couldn’t care less attitude toward anyone in authority, but he knew, too, that his father was right in his insistence on self-discipline, the very bedrock of every musician.

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Fourteen years on, how on earth would he have achieved all that now beckoned forth, without that self-discipline, without that iron determination of twelve, thirteen and fourteen hours a day at the Steinway?

But even though he had his parents’ unconditional support, their sacrifices to enable him to become a world-class Konsertpianist, the absence of any discussion about Phillippe, not even the mention of his name – as if he had been airbrushed away – bore heavily upon him.

He picked up the thread of thought again. He’d returned to Jerusalem - the City of the Great King – where Maximilian encountered Judaism full face, which in turn led him, ironically, to the Garden Tomb, standing alone inside the Tomb one beautiful summer’s day.

The Garden of Gethsemane was like nothing he’d experienced anywhere.

G-D does indeed touch each of us in a way and at a time of His choosing that, when He does, causes the most diehard atheist, in a moment, the blink of that eye again, to throw aside a lifetime’s so-called doctrine. Something clicked for him – Maximilian’s conscience was challenged. And it was this thought that occupied him now.

Pressing gently against the warm smooth thigh, he drifted into a peaceful sleep, his hand resting quite naturally beneath Aaron’s thigh.

He woke up in a cold sweat at 3 am on that hot July night in the Mount Zion Hotel.

Wrapping a bathrobe about him, looking again at Aaron, smooth as silk in the moonlight, naked and fast asleep beside him; he kissed the shoulder and breathed gently on the back of Aaron’s tanned neck. It felt good. In sleep, it felt to Aaron like a warm wind in his dream.

He smelt wonderful. Not just the bath oils. This beautiful Israeli was the epitome of manhood. This felt good. This was good. Everything about Aaron was delicious. And they had become part of each other. Joined. Wholesome. Holy. Nothing could now separate them. His humour. His cheeky smile, the little giggle that refused to allow life to be taken too seriously.

What, though, was calling him? No sense of guilt, no admonition. No. An incredible warmth from deep within his soul, almost as if he were being enveloped from inside. … …

Why did he feel so clean?

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Chapter Four ~ Disconcerted

He recalled that last night in England. Lying on the bonnet of the jeep on the heights above Margate in Kent. The next day, Aaron would fly back for military service. He’d stopped the vehicle. Maxim wondered why? Okay, they hadn’t spoken since climbing the hill, but that was only because the dread parting seemed, to Max, to now be hurtling towards him at breakneck speed.

“Hey, Max. Come on. Take a look at this.”

He clambered out, reluctantly. “At what?” It’s pitch-black Aaron!”

“Quite, Maxi-boy! Lie on the bonnet beside me and gaze up into the sky. Don’t speak. Just let your eyes become accustomed.”

Maximilian recalled what followed. A layer of stars became visible. Then, another layer above that; and then another layer above that! And the longer they lay there, the more layers revealed themselves. Unglaublich!

“Ich lag Ich streckte meine Hand aus
Und in den Galaxien
Ich erkannte das Gesicht GOTTES.[i]”

— © KTW 2022

What, though, two years on, was calling him now?

No sense of guilt, no admonition; an incredible warmth from deep within his soul, almost as if he were being enveloped from inside. What was this sense of inner cleansing, that seemed both physical and spiritual?

Was this G-D again? Was this His Spirit, The Ruach HaKodesh? Den Heiligen Geist?

If so, what was He sharing with him? Why won’t He show Himself literally? How can he, Maximilian, live and obtain real fulfilment? This last question had been at the forefront, dominating his every waking moment.

Page 18

Yet, now, at last, he had received his answer; his quest had found the reply. Now, he could relax. He could concentrate on his career, and he could help Karl to find his way back; he had the surety of Aaron’s love, his protection, his humour, his encouragement, and, well, his just being Aaron! Which, bluntly put, was being a right pain in the backside at times.

He frowned! But all those old religious clichés are meaningless!

Sitting on the veranda overlooking the Mount of Olives, he was angry – “I need substance answers, NOT religious rhetoric and scriptures rattled off like Musical Scores with hardly a clue of what they even mean!”

His knee started its involuntary tell-tale twitch, that sense of foreboding.

He ignored it.

Aaron stirred again and rolled over. Maximilian’s warm back was not there.

He walked on to the veranda, donning his robe, and felt the coldness of his fiancé’s skin. Yes. This secret courtship, a forthcoming marriage that only they would celebrate. But, hell, who needs witnesses and friends? What lies between them, in their hearts, intertwining them, is good enough for the Almighty.

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“Come on, Maximilian. Come back to bed. I know what’s troubling you. Let it go! Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself insane. Your leg’s shaking again. It’s not right. That’s never a good sign Max. We’re not doing anything wrong! We both love each other, and we both know we are meant to be with each other. Come on! That’s why we’re engaged to be married. Okay, I know that Frankfurt and Jerusalem seem a world apart, but we can cope. It’s a four-hour flight. Don’t get hung up on all the petty dictates and doctrines of religiosity; of the endless contradictions of my own people, our scribes and Pharisees, nor on your own equally screwy priests and bishops. Let them have their thoughts! Let them worship their rituals! These things need not, and should not, come between us. We are two halves of one whole. We are one soul in two bodies.”

He paused with that deliberation that brings a feeling of universal acclaim.

“Maximilian... ... I so, so love you! God Almighty, what would I do without you?!!!”

Barely whispered, each word opened forth rising to its declaration. To Max, it was akin to a royal fanfare.

In his mind, he caught sight of the Warsaw Concerto score being worked on; he loved this Concerto. Composed by Addinsell during his great-grandparents’ war for the Allied film Dangerous Moonlight, here, freedom dared to stare tyranny in the face, to defy horror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0QEpXYmUw&ab_channel=ChrisHill

Maximilian slowly nodded.

Aaron stood quietly, leaning on the balcony.

“Isn’t it beautiful Max? So peaceful. I always love this time of the night…”

Max stood now next to him with his back resting against the balustrade, studying him, silenced by the concept of that old line in scripture and the two shall become one … He nodded slowly, silently, a second time. Standing, the involuntary shaking in his leg had stopped.

Aaron knew these silences. In the mind’s eye, he knew that Max was elsewhere, reading a score, reliving, or creating the most heavenly sounds. His way of bringing himself back to earth. Such is the gift of the Virtuoso.

He recalled their talking this through, and Maxim laughing; ‘so, Aaron, what plays out in your mind then? Don’t say it doesn’t happen to you because it does. For everyone! We each have our ways of inner reflection, inner reading.’

And Aaron had explained that, for him, the peace came in being able to imagine stripping down the semi-automatic, or the challenge of being presented with a set of pieces, in jig-saw fashion; one, a long-range automatic with telescopic sights and the other, a handgun. For others it might be reassembling an engine; for Maxim, it was the music score, for the farmer it might be the harvester mechanism.

He paused.

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“By the way Maxi-boy, I’ve got my leave pass today; got a call from the adjutant to pick it up first thing. SO! That means I can after all come over to Frankfurt! You’ll have done your first performance, but I’d be there for the Warsaw Concerto and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and we can fly back on the Friday just before Pesach.”

“Aharon! I knew you were up to something! You were quiet this evening and now I find you’ve been hatching this all along!!”

“Well, Maxi-boy, you know me! I’m as dark and secretive as those scores you read and which I can’t make head or tail of!!”

The laughter and horseplay that followed eased Maxim’s tension. The knee had now long ceased twitching involuntarily.

“Look Maxim, regarding Karl, don’t worry. When are you next in Liverpool?”

“Two weeks’ time.”

“Okay. That’s good. I’m posted back to the Golan then; why don’t you book the flight to Liverpool in the morning? You’ll feel you’re already helping Karl and you can let him know. Send him a text. You know Karl! He always needs bags of ruddy warnings!! Look, you need to meet up with Ken again; ask his advice; he knows how Karl ticks; and the three of you go for a walkout to Fort Perch Rock, but only after you’ve popped into the Copper Kettle. Tell Andrew, I’ll be calling by when I next visit… I guess it’ll be about nine months from now. I can’t wait to see him and Darren.”

He paused and gave that impish giggle again … “and Ajax and Lucy! … … Get the wind in your hair, and get Karl to see sense … he will, it just takes him time. You and I go from A to B in a direct line; Dieter tends to go from A to B via the full alphabet A to C to Z and then to B! He got in with the wrong crowd, and he knows it; he knows too, that you’re the lifeline back to reality and sober living. And if that doesn’t work, get Andrew onto him! Remember Karl’s face when Andrew gave him his advice last time? That was pure theatre! I think when Andrew turned on his full scouse accent Karl didn’t know what hit him. Remember Ken giggling, and Debbie?

“What did Debbie say? ‘I really don’t think you wanted to say that did you, Karl? Take it from me. When the boss speaks in full scouse, then you listen and learn. Come on pet. You’re white! Coffee everyone? Yes, I know you want one Ken … you don’t count!! Get back to reading your book!’”

“Ha, yes, I do. What a day that was!”

He shivered and was glad of the warmth he felt through the palm of Aaron’s hand. He nodded. Yes. It would be cold, but it would be good to walk the beach again by the Lighthouse, to meet up with Karl and chat all these things through. Ludovic, too, was in Belgium and aiming to visit Liverpool before heading back out to Mexico City. To have the inevitable laughs, puddle-jumping and then dashing to Fort Perch for that great mug of steaming hot tea they always made, and then meeting up with Liam and the girls just up the road in New Brighton. Yes! His ‘life in Liverpool’ - as he called it - was playing through his mind, soothing him, relaxing him.

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His heart was settling, and he smiled in that way that always made Aaron go weak at the knees, because when he smiled, not only did the one corner of his mouth slightly upturn – the hint of the beam about to follow – but his eyes, too, just seemed to light up and glow with warmth. In no other did he see this.

Aaron soothed Maximilian’s beleaguered mind, his troubled conscience.

For unlike Aaron, he still fought this endless war within, where the hordes demanding that his normality be abnormality, assailed him, rendering him inert and even unable to read the score, let alone perform the recital. Was this from guilt of wrongdoing or a false accusation under which he was labouring?

How had Aaron put it earlier?

‘Look, Maximilian! Boot the bigots into touch! And you do that, and I do that by ignoring them.’

Slowly turning, Maxim missed a beat as his heart caught those deep dark Israeli eyes, ‘eyes darker than wine, teeth whiter than milk’, as it is written; Messianic, and something flickered in his mind.

He remembered being reassured many years earlier when a white feather floated down on his schoolbooks, just when he was ready to give in and run away from the "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi", Germany’s leading University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig.

It was as if an angel had passed overhead! … …

As he looked into those eyes, a solitary blackish-grey feather drifted down out of the star-studded skies of Jerusalem.

Was this his, Maximilian’s, Passover? Was it His – G-D’s - way of communicating? His heart knew a sort of ‘peace’ he had not felt in years.

All seemed to fall into place. He could never survive without Aaron. He had everything to live for. He had dreamed of this union, this marriage, and now he had it within his grasp and no whispering serpent was going to take this freedom from him now. And his career? Love is about making sacrifices, and Max knew he was ready to make whatever sacrifice was needed to ensure that he and Aaron would never be separated. He knew also that Aaron was the foundation for his confidence in performing in public, not to mention Aaron’s full understanding of the self-discipline of practising twelve hours daily.

“You’re absolutely right Aaron, I’ll book an El Al in the morning, then. Yet again you’ve come to the rescue and given reasoned argument when my mind is going every ruddy which way. You always seem to have a practical solution … haha … that’s why you can assemble and disassemble those firearms, whereas my head is full of notes, scores, cadences, and crescendos! He giggled. You know, if I played music like I allow my mind to rage away, well, they’d sack me on the spot! I just thank G-D we’ve got each other.”

That night he lay again with Aaron, and he slept soundly, safely it seemed to him, for the first time in years. The warmth and security were all-enveloping. And he knew him.

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[i] I lay, I held out my hand, and in the Galaxies, I recognised the Face of GOD. © KTW 2022

[ii] The terror was replaced by harmony, rising, and falling cadences, pure beauty, and then the defiance in the score that shattered tyranny. © KTW 2022

Der Heilige Geist

*And the Ruach did visit Maximilian and did counsel him in the night hours … ‘strike not, be strong …’*

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Chapter Five ~ Crescendo!

Time by Hans Zimmer

| PESACH : MALAKH HA-MAWETH

That same night in King George Street, Jerusalem, The Angel of Death [i] passed over too and took a restaurant and nightclub out in a sudden, violent, but meticulously planned, explosion.

The shrapnel, fragments and nails became lightning bolts through the night sky, the people, acacia trees and buildings spattered by what remained of the two suicide bombers - and those who had been stood in the queue within which they had embedded themselves. In the last millisecond of life, a girl looked at them thinking “Oh! How lovely, they’re so in love …” and in the final trillisecond her joy turned to abject horror as she read their lips recanting that voice of the devil himself ~ Allahu Akbar.

Maximilian awoke, instantly; he shot bolt upright!

Even as he sat there, the blast of the shock wave hit the open windows, lifting the heavy drapes, and shredding the mosquito-net so that it clung to the ceiling, catching the blades of the whirling air-con blades high above them. Shards of glass blew inwards, but of these Maximilian was completely unaware.

III

The carnage across the way was unbelievable. Burning cars, screams, shrieks, sirens, flashing lights, smoke, overhead, already, the deafening helicopters with their equally tragic downdraughts, the weeping and wailing so peculiar to Middle Eastern peoples … … Almost autonomic, Maximilian whispered a prayer of thanks, the speed of inner thought, no words expressed, of just how ‘lucky’ - NO - how blessed he and Aaron were! Surely was his old faith returning, and he glimpsed in his mind’s eye a page in Ecclesiastes – Rejoice in thy youth, O young man! [ii]

„Aaron. Aaron. Aussehen. Komm schon, wir müssen da runter. Wir müssen helfen!"

His voice raised, this time in english …“Aaron. Aaron! Look. Come on, we’ve got to get down there! We’ve got to help!”

He paused. In exasperation…

“Aaron!! AARON. Ah-HARON!!!”

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Why wasn’t he moving? He’s in the IDF - Goddamit - he should be attuned to the battlefield - he’s seen enough of it! These thoughts, amid a myriad others, flew through his brain in an instant, like the intricately made terrorist bomb seconds earlier, like the myriad particles swirling their room.

"Aaron. Komm schon, um Gottes willen, komm … … sch………….o………………n!"

Fear gripped him.

He paused, daring not to allow entry to the thought now knocking on the door of his mind.

"Ach nein! Oh bitte, bitte, bitte nein. Aaron. Aaron. AARON!"

His eyes blurred and burned, his vision went, the shaking returned again, uncontrollably, this time not the nervous pre-Konzert involuntary knee-shake but wracking his whole body. He shrieked out for his mother even though he had not seen her since his last return to Frankfurt.

„Oh, tu mir das nicht an! Bitte, bitte, bitte mein Gott."

“Oh, don’t do this to me!” he shouted, sobbing, unseeing, into the ceiling above him, all vision long gone.

As the commotion heightened in the City of the Great King, [iii] slowly, the seizure subsided.

He lay still, easing his head away from the bedstead that the seizures had flung him back into with such force, grabbing the back of his neck as he sidled downwards towards the end of the bed. He was incapable of sitting, let alone standing. All strength had been catapulted from him.

A thousand Lights - all colours - flashed across the ceiling; the dread of epilepsy; he had to shield his eyes; he’d not cope with another seizure unaided.

Aaron had not moved.

Maximilian’s mind slowly regained a ragged composure; his vision now of the world was through the eyes of a Score where nine-tenths of the crotchets, quavers, semi-quavers, and whole bars had fallen off their staves …

Reason took flight, playing with his mind as reason all too often likes to do when its presence is most needed.

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Reason’s sheepish flip side then tip-toes in, hip-hopping across the keyboard of the mind, three black semitones - oooh naughty me, a minor crescendo - sorry Maxi - there you are C, G and C. Perfect harmony again Maximilian! Oh … frivolous me, backstepping the B-Flat and hitting the F, then …. oh, look Maximilian …. brrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh as reason plays the skating rink across six white octaves, pausing to make sure he pays attention, then airborne, Reason lands at the opposite end on all the base semitones in perfect disharmony … …

CRESCENDO!

Reason watched Maximilian extricate himself from the webbed barbed wire into which she’d ensnared him. Such fun! Oh, such fun!!

Maximilian grabbed at any note, any quaver, any hint, any whisper, of a tune…

He was sleeping. Yes, that’s it! Of course!! Aaron’s sleeping. Had he taken drugs or something? Surely not!

With a near-blank Score, Max now had nothing to guide him; rationale was the terrorists’ second victim in the room that night.

VII

His brain raced the keyboard of his mind, now just a cacophony of notes crashing into each other, harmony long departed; but now those dread metallic sounds of heavy drums and cymbals, louder and louder with each pummel, each second … that all-too-familiar ominous rollcall of the next seizure. Each crescendo was, to the victim, akin to a thousand hammers beating at the skull but from within.

VIII

He looked again. Warum ist meine Hand nass?!

Why is my hand wet?! He felt around the bed and dimly saw the large crimson mark moving silently across the sheet.

With his vision now almost black, so too did the crimson blacken, Maximilian tracing the seepage back to Aaron’s torso, feeling up the side. To his horror, he came up against a nail, blunt, thin, lethal.

He felt around its base, embedded deep in flesh. His mind blank, no words uttering, no pleas. Only that long vile nail to a single wound, that hole in the hand as he sat once more in the church at home as a choirboy, the nail’s end, grotesque, in its offensive and deliberate hammering through that sculpted hand. And here, now, the hammer-end of this nail sticking up and out of Aaron.

Unable to see it, his sense of touch heightened, turning it into a stake. That stinking effigy of a Christ-on-the-Cross had haunted him, had made him and everyone else sense guilt when no guilt had even any rightful place.

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He hated that effigy then; he detested its recall now.

Then and now. Now and then.

Everything merging into one.

Reality and Unreality.

Medieval murals in that horrid church flashed back to the forefront of his mind, the self-righteous pompously walking their narrow path to heaven, alongside them cast head-first into the fiery pit, the so-called ‘unrepentant sinners’ - men, women, children, babies, all ages - it mattered not; righteousness and paradise were for but the tiniest handful of the ‘so-called righteous’!

Faith departed in that instant but played its wicked game of hide-and-seek.

In what seemed like hours but was in fact less than ninety seconds, Maximilian very slowly regained partial vision.

‘Reason’, playing her devilish game too, even allowed him a brief helping hand. Not because she felt sorry for him, oh no. No, not at all. She liked to play, to have fun; and in her more rebellious moments, Reason could be downright evil.

His mind awhirl, for the briefest moment he recalled first aid classes back at school in Hamburg : Pumpen Sie die Brust, um sie wiederzubeleben. Drücken Sie eins, zwei, drei und atme Sie Luft in seinen Mund ein.

He tried resuscitation …

Drücken Sie eins, zwei, drei, …

Drücken Sie … … eins, zwei, drei, … …

Drücken Sie … … … … eins, zwei, drei, … … … … press, one, two, three, … breathe …

Each cycle tired him more. How long could he keep this up for? Vision was departing, the drums were beating louder … The seizures had robbed him of calm, lucid thought, plan and action, his mind like a violent winter storm … flakes of snow whirling around in a winter-wonderland scene of total mayhem.

XII

Maximilian tried everything, and despite his anger, despite faith’s departure, he prayed.

He held Aaron’s hand. He could feel the pulse. Feeble, but alive.

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Yes! Yes. Oh, Yes! Thank you, G-D!! Bitte Gott, Bitte Gott, danke schön mein Gott.

Yes, G-D was answering him.

Feeble. So feeble. Dying … …

His mind blurred again. Then left. Moments later, partial vision returned. The tiniest part of the mind resonated a single chord of hope.

XIII

Wir brauchen Hilfe … Ich brauche Hilfe… … Mein iPhone, … … Oh Gott! Mein Handy, wo ist mein cell phone … his mind slipping, reason departing, languages mixing, gibbering … sliding down to the floor, the saliva dribbling a long rivulet. His hand felt around the carpet … round and round … shards of spiked glass, a thousand blades cutting into him.

The shaking started afresh … another dread drum roll …

Bitte Gott. Bitte Gott! Nein. NEIN! NEIN!!

XIV

The third seizure wracked him from head to toe. The crescendo of drums was deafening. Each beat struck the inside of his temples, blasting his mind to kingdom come.

Mercifully, he passed out, unaware of the convulsions wracking him to oblivion, the involuntary screams he had never heard but would only ever learn of as his strained throat muscles slowly healed, and he began the process of learning to swallow again.

Slowly, very slowly, semi-consciousness returned … an Aurora Borealis above him blinded him … light shafts flew at him like flaming darts. The dread of anyone … that final lethal injection into a body wracked by grand mal epileptic seizures.

Every shade of red, blue, orange, white … dancing a thousand steps in a second … then blinding white … as the H-125 police helicopter trained its search beam along the shattered balconies. The noise was deafening. The Whoomph of the down blast, mixing with the accursed fucking drum roll …

By reflex, he shielded his eyes with his arm. The last seizure had forced him to let go … he could not see Aaron, but he sensed that both were falling, and in that dread plummet to oblivion, further and further apart from each other …

Wo bin ich? Oh God, where am I? Mama? Mama? Papa? Papa? Oma? Meine Schwestern? Wo sind Sie? Where are you? WO SIND SIE??!!!!

The seizures rendered him immoveable. He could only sit against the collapsed bed, a heap on the floor, as the most important life of all - the only life he had – the only true family – slipped quietly away and left him bereft, alone, abandoned.

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And in that abandonment, this time his faith ended its cruel hide-and-seek, and stepped blithely to the side, giving way to the Menace of Darkness approaching.

XVI

And in the early hours did the Angel of Death pass over a second time.

Maximilian screamed out at the Dark Shadow.

Someone in the street below looked up as, in the same instant, the hotel room door was battered open and rescue services rushed in … … to a scene of total devastation.

A room blasted to smithereens by the shock wave. Blood, flesh, even hair, across the walls.

Maximilian had felt but one nail. Had he seen the reality … … … had he seen or even felt his own wounds … … had he seen his face, his smashed eyes, had he seen his hands, once the delight of thousands watching his skill on a Steinway or Roland or Kawai, now ripped from the thousands of shards matted in his long hair as he clawed his desperate retreat from each seizure … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

XVII

When Aaron’s body was buried by sunset the following evening, the Jerusalem Times reported that two young men, an Israeli off-duty soldier and the already famed young German Konsertpianist Maximilian Baumgartner, had also died in Mount Zion Hotel, in direct line of sight to the explosion, even though three hundred meters away.

Aaron Levisohn had died of a single piercing to the heart by a sixteen centimetre nail from the nail bomb that had claimed the lives of fifty-three people at the scene, and also the death of Herr Baumgartner of a massive coronary seizure, which, at a subsequent hearing, the coroner affirmed had followed at least three Grand-Mal epileptic seizures and which the coroner, in her Learned Opinion, attributed to a sudden and fatal shock, evidenced by a rescue worker in the street below recounting the terrifying, chilling scream she had heard coming from the line of shattered balconies several floors above her in the street - so awful, she had testified, that it seemed louder than the helicopter above her - and corroborated by the rescue services who witnessed the same scream at the very moment they hammered the door in.

The coroner had confirmed that their deaths were to be added to the fifty-three at the scene.

Later, in a more comprehensive report, The Jerusalem Times, confirmed that at the request of the German Government, Herr Baumgartner’s body was being repatriated immediately to Germany, and in light of Pesach and as a gesture of goodwill between Israel and Germany, the office of Israel’s Prime Minister confirmed that this would be by special military flight and that the flight was already en route to Frankfurt am Main, the two nations having worked together seamlessly behind the scenes.

The office of the German Chancellor had been ‘very moved and grateful to the People of Israel, with whom,’ the communique affirmed, ‘we stand four-square’.

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A month later in Liverpool …

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Chapter Six ~ Victory

Liverpool and New Brighton, The Wirral - A Month On

But to Karl and four friends meeting quietly at the Lighthouse on Fort Perch Rock off the Wirral Peninsula opposite the Port of Liverpool, it was not that at all, but rather a broken heart.

Privy to the secret engagement to marry, they had a very different perspective; they knew how Aaron had done more than anyone in quietly helping Max to overcome the epilepsy that had entered his life, without warning, at age seventeen, four years earlier.

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Karl had been sitting quietly on Pier Head waiting for the Mersey Ferry, yet to any one passing, they would have been only too aware of a simmering anger and intensity in a young man it would be best to steer well clear of …

Later, he recounted to his friends at Fort Perch … …

“You know, earlier today just before you arrived, this chap sat by me. I was surprised because I thought, ‘why are you sitting in a great big puddle, mate?’ That huge shower had passed overhead a few minutes before. The guy commented on the day, that it’d be good to have a walk over to the Lighthouse … and I thought, ‘how do you know where I’m going, and what I’m doing?’

“Then … … …” and Karl paused, wondering whether he’d be told he was a fool … … … “then get this! He said …

‘Karl, Max did not lose his faith. He may have felt like he wanted to; and that is often the case in last moments, but we’re always there. Unseen, but here all the same. So don’t be downhearted. Neither Max nor Aharon would want that.’

He paused again…

“And that’s another thing guys. Who WAS this guy? He talked of Max and Aaron, and he even said AH-Haron like we used to like it said at the Copper Kettle, and we’d all get the giggles because we’d be trying to say it in Hebrew and not in Scouse!! And only Andrew could get the H right!

Darren chipped in … “yeah that’s coz he’s a scouse-lad. He knows how to sound the H …” and again another round of good-natured chatter and banter.

Karl continued …

“I sat there thinking, ‘who on earth is this flippin guy, and how does he even know my name? And something else, he really emphasised the plural … like there are loads of people around, but somehow, unseen. Weird!

“But when I looked back, the seat was empty!

“Not a soul in sight. And you know how big that area is by the terminal. That’s your original no place to hide! Just a feather. And there was the puddle of rain. Untouched. Just a slight breeze rippling it and this perfect feather at its edge. Not even a splash mark on the pavement. And the seat? Still wet even though his clothes would have dried it up, like mine!!

Ludovic listened. “What did he look like Karl?”

“Well, that’s the thing Ludovic. I honestly can’t say!

“He was kind of there but not there. A shimmering … you know? Like when you look at certain star-clusters, but you can only see them properly if you look at the cluster out of the corner of your eye, and the haze disappears, and you see the cluster perfectly; but if you try looking directly at the cluster then all you see is a vague outline at most.

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“And then I heard this shout - real Scouse accent. God! I tell ya! That brought me back with a jolt!

“‘Hey La! Shift ya butt, laddie, if yuse wanna catch ferry? I’m aboot ta cast! You been sittin’ thur in a world-ya-oon laa … Come on! I dunno!! Looks like yuse-a-needin’ a good cuppa. The caff’s open below!! Get yuse warmed up laddie! Wind’s a kneef out thur on’t water!’”

Karl giggled.

“That’s why you lot thought I’d missed the ferry. I was below enjoying a ruddy welcome Tea”.

And the four giggled with him too. He was back on track. Back with them and with new purpose, rebuilding his business as an Impresario.

Andrew looked at him pensively.

Karl winked. “What’s up Andrew?”

“Oh, nothing. There’s this piece Maximilian played for me once … Debussy, I think.”

Oh, sure. Clair de lune.

“Ah, That’s it! Goodness, he had a way of playing that … well, I know it means ‘Moonlight’, but he enabled me to see something more too. The waves on the sea. Thanks Karl.”

“Sounds exactly what Maximilian and Aharon would like to hear!

“Come on you lot, the tide’s coming in, so we need to get back, otherwise we might be having an encounter with waves in a very real way, not to mention the RNLI! [iv]

“Last one back buys the teas!”

Three quietly watched … three Shimmering Figures, there, yet not there. Real, yet, seemingly, unreal. Almost as if there is a fifth dimension.

‘They’ll be fine. And we’ll never be far away from them. They’ve taken it all very much in their stride.’

And the Shimmering was Gone, and five lives, independent, free, and very happy, embarked afresh upon their own timelines, each making their mark in this exciting, albeit roller-coaster, Twenty-First Century.

*** *** ***

Der Engel des Herrn

Bleibt überall

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die den Herrn verehren

und der Engel des Herrn

liefert sie.

Psalm 34 v 7

The angel of the Lord

remains all around those

who revere the LORD,

and the angel of the Lord

delivers them.

das Ende

[i] Exodus Chapter 12 verse 23

[ii] Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 verse 9

[iii] Psalm 48 verses 1-2

[iv] Royal National Lifeboat Institution

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The Angel of death Passed Over

A short story in six chapters, set in Jerusalem, Frankfurt, and Liverpool, but which centres upon

Sometimes I’m asked to explain the metaphysical reference to the Angel of Death, and other times to explain why it is set in Jerusalem, and why I refer to it passing over. Is this not something in the Bible? Yes, it is. I spent much time in Jerusalem during the period 1997-2003 and being in Jerusalem brought me into contact with the three monotheistic faiths, as well as with communities who live side by side, in and amongst each other, and yet, 25 miles down the road we have the Gaza Strip. The questions Maximilian raises with some impatience, are the questions I asked. One evening, whilst staying in a small hotel near the Jaffa Gate, my friend and I walked into the city for dinner. It was a very pleasant evening, not too hot unlike earlier in the day. Later that evening we walked back and enquired why several police cars were at the junction that we would cross to the final meters towards the Jaffa Gate. There had been a very small device that had detonated and, at that stage, it was still not certain whether this was an act of terrorism or just something like a discarded can that had gotten too hot and blown up. We were allowed to continue.

Inside Jaffa Gate, it is a hive of activity, with stalls set up and stallholders being quite forward in their attempts to sell their wares. One afternoon, a young man stepped from his stall to tempt me with genuine religious artefacts. I think the look on my face said enough, and we both burst out laughing. He was dressed in a very smart black open shirt and matching trousers (pants as the Americans say), and spoke fluent English with a high German accent … again, we laughed … I said that his English was better than mine. As soon as he said he was German, well, that was game, set and match for me … we hit it off immediately. I remember the temperature just touching 100 F (38 C) and it was getting to me. Then something happened. A first. I remember the line clearly … I think you need a bottle of sparkling water, but being a Brit, I bet you’d go for a lovely iced tea! And then his beaming smile and giggle. I remember, too, the light in his eyes, but most of all I remember his thick long blond hair. When I confessed to never having had iced tea one can imagine the banter that followed. So, whenever I see Jerusalem on the News Streams, and especially when I can see the Jaffa Gate high up above and set in the original city walls, well, I have many pleasant memories. And, yep, I always enjoy iced tea.

Here, then, is Maximilian.

As regards Chapter Five, I’ve drawn upon my own experience of going through grand mal epileptic seizures. I draw upon the ones I had in Jerusalem and to my great consternation (I found out later) my Christian friends decided instead to gather around me and pray the demons and evil spirits out of me and ask that chap, Jesus, to come in, rather than getting the paramedics. The seizures were not good, and the paramedics attended. But nothing prepared me for what happened in April-May 2011 at home in Liverpool. I’ve been free of any seizures since February 14, 2012, a minor one caused by the stress of losing my father a month earlier. But in 2011, I was burning the candle at both ends, writing, publishing, holding down a law job, and in the end, the body just says, enough! Yet, those accursed heavy metal drums I can recall as if it was only this morning. It was indeed ein Crescendo-Trommelwirbel (a Crescendo drumroll).

The Copper Kettle in Chapter Six really does exist, and whenever I’m in Liverpool, that’s where I’m found. It is a very, very special place and many times have I seen a lifeline thrown, and a person feeling that they are not alone anymore.

The world takes all sorts. Our problem is when humankind steps into that equation and modifies it by saying “only certain sorts”.

KTW

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[1] Pesach - Passover - חג פסח

[1] Malakh Ha-Maweth - The Angel of Death - מלאך המוות

INDEX

Aaron, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35

Addinsell, 5

atheist, 15, 17

Baumgartner, Maximilian, 5, 30

Beethoven, 5, 22

Bible, 16

Bickerton of England, Westminster Clock Co, 15

Binyamin, 5, 7

Christianity, 15, 16

Dangerous Moonlight, 5, 21

David, 4, 15, 16, 17, 36

Dome of the Rock, 16

Ecclesiastes 11 v 9, 34

Edgar Russ Scala Perfetta Cello, 16

Epilepsy, 32

Exodus 12 v 23, 34

Fort Perch, 22, 23, 32

Fort Perch Rock, 22, 32

Francesca, 15, 17

Frankfurt, 2, 5, 8, 21, 22, 26, 30, 35

Garden of Gethsemane, 17

Garden Tomb, 17

G-D, 9, 17, 19, 23, 24, 28

Great King, the City of, 15

humankind, 13

Ikraam, 5, 7

Impresario, 33

Islam, 16

ISRAEL, 5

Jerusalem, 2, 16, 17, 21, 23, 25, 30, 35, 36

JERUSALEM, 5

Judaism, 16, 17

Karl, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 20, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33

Karl’s, 8, 9, 12, 15, 22

Ken, 13, 22

Kent, 19

Koblenz, 10

Lighthouse, 23, 32

Liverpool, 2, 5, 9, 10, 13, 22, 23, 31, 32, 35

Louis, 12

MALAKH HA-MAWETH, 5, 8, 15, 25

Margate, 19

Max, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 21, 32

Maxim, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 19, 21, 22

Maximilian, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33

Montreal, 12

Mount Zion Hotel, 17, 19, 30

Nails in hands, 15

Old Testament, 16

PESACH, 5, 8, 15, 25

Philippe, 16

Psalm 34 v 7, 34

Psalm 48 vs 1-2, 34

Rachmaninov, 5, 12, 15

Ramadan, 16

Reich, 15

Rita, 10

RNLI, 34

Ruach HaKodesh, 19

seizures, 26, 28, 29, 30

St John’s Road, 13

Tchaikovsky, 5

The Copper Kettle., 13

triskelion, 10

Triskelion, 10

Universum, das, 10

Verfolgung, 8, 11, 12

Warsaw Concerto, 5, 21, 22

Webb, Kenneth Thomas, 2, 35, 36

*KTW Long Hair Days ~ Wonderful days of Life in Liverpool 12 March 2007*

Kenneth Webb

Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.

He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.

Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.

In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.