Bloodline (46 page)

When she was certain the children were fast asleep later that night, Sarah sat on the floor at his knee while he rested in his chair. “Abraham, tell me what's wrong. Is it still the thought of those Jews killed by the Romans in the Galilee?”

He smiled and stroked her hair. Shaking his head, he said softly, “No. They're in heaven. But I think of all the other Jewish souls who will soon be killed by the Romans. We're a proud people. Just as we survived the Babylonians and the Greeks, so we will fight to survive the Romans. We've lived in this land since my namesake, Abraham, first agreed to a covenant with Almighty God that we would be a light unto all the nations in this darkest of all worlds; that the sign of our covenant would be to circumcise our sons.

“Yet, our pride will soon lead us into the greatest disaster ever to befall our people. I can feel it in my very bones. I fear for the end of my people.”

Sarah looked up at him in surprise and shock. “The end? Of us Jews? No, it can't be.”

He sighed and continued to stroke her hair. “Darling wife, I can sense the disaster about to befall us. Maybe not today, maybe
not tomorrow, maybe not for years, but one day soon. It depends on whether the emperor in power is insane or just simply evil. Since Augustus, they've all been mad. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and now Nero is emperor and as mad as they come. And from what merchants and travelers tell me, he's so alienated the knights and senators of Rome that there'll be a revolt against him.”

“But that's good, husband. If he's replaced . . .”

“He may be replaced by somebody even more insane.”

“And that's what is causing you such sadness. I see it in your eyes, your heart, even when you look at me and the children.”

“Sarah, my wife. When Father Abraham made his covenant, he couldn't have foretold that a people like the Romans would arise out of nowhere and in the space of a few lifetimes control the entire world. Their power is nothing short of awesome.”

Sarah smiled and said softly, “They can't kill a whole nation, Abraham.”

“Can't they? That's what the Britons and the Germans and the Gauls thought.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” she asked, but before he could answer, there was the slightest tap on the wooden door. It was barely audible, yet the house was quiet and both Sarah and Abraham gazed at each other in concern. Sarah rose to answer the door, but Abraham held her back. “Protect the children. If it's trouble, escape out the back of the house.”

He opened the door a fraction and was surprised to see Samuel leaning on the doorpost in a state of exhaustion. Abraham immediately grew furious on seeing this man, the very merchant who'd trapped him, kidnapped him, and sent him for three months to the camp of the Zealots.

“You!” said Abraham. “How dare you come here! After what you did to me, you dare to come here, to my house?”

But the merchant was close to dropping in exhaustion. Instead of listening, he turned and lifted up a huge bundle of clothes
off the floor. He was barely able to carry it, and Abraham was stunned when an arm sagged out of the bundle. He rushed forward and helped Samuel inside with the injured boy.

“My son,” he gasped. “The Zealots. They thought—”

He sank to the floor in exhaustion from carrying his son such a distance.

Abraham immediately said to Sarah, “Water. Boiling water. Quickly. And my bag with my medicines.”

It was fortunate that the lad was unconscious, because when Abraham cleansed the wounds and sewed them together with stitches, had the boy been awake, he'd have been screaming with pain. Abraham covered the stitches with the yellow sulfur powder from the Dead Sea and a salve to protect the wound. As it was, if the boy recovered and didn't gain an infection in the wounds and if the bleeding stopped of its own accord, then the pain he'd experience from the operations would still be almost unbearable for one so young. Abraham would give him medicines to dull the pain, but he didn't envy the young man.

“What happened?” he asked Samuel. The merchant was now sitting on a chair, refreshed by the hot lemon water that Sarah had given him. Samuel told him in simple, direct terms.

“But why would the Zealots . . .”

“My activities as a friend of the Zealots have been known to very few. Jonathan kept me very secret because my information was so valuable. So the others must have looked at me reveling with the enemy and thought I was a traitor to the Jews. The Zealots are going around killing everybody who they see as a friend of the Romans. And the Romans won't tolerate this. They'll bring in a dozen centuries and scour the city. It'll be mass murder tonight and tomorrow and . . . I've been speaking with the head of their army and he told me that they're prepared to kill every Israelite to quell this rebellion.”

“You fool of a man. You've brought this on your own head. You've created this,” Abraham said, pointing to the bandaged,
unconscious body of Samuel's son Raphael. “His blood is on your hands. Not the hands of the Romans. You've brought this pain on our people. And now, because of what you've done, we have to leave. All of us. Once the Romans begin to torture people, they will come to my house and arrest me and my family because for the past three months I've been with the Zealots. They'll never believe I was forced. We have to leave. All of us. Now. Tonight.”

“But my son? My Raphael? Can he travel? My wife and my children. I have to bury them.” Samuel was ashen-faced.

“We must look after the living and the sick,” said Abraham. “We'll pray for the souls of your wife and children. But now we must leave. All of us. Raphael is young and strong. He will survive.”

Samuel was disconsolate. “But the Romans are on all the gates. There's a general alarm. All soldiers are out of their barracks and searching the streets for the Zealots who are doing these things.”

Abraham nodded. “There is a way. My father knew of it, as did my grandfather. In the days of King David of blessed memory, a tunnel was dug. It leads from the top of the hill on which the temple is built down into the very depths of the valley. Some old rabbis know of it, but few others. We can escape through there.”

Y
AEL PARKED THE CAR
in a tiny stone garage beneath a hillside shop, some distance from the house where Yaniv had secreted Bilal away. The house itself seemed almost derelict, with large cracks in the strangely leaning wall that made it seem as if it might topple over at any minute.

With her headscarf on, Yael walked the road from the hillside shop that meandered beneath the massive carob tree that for thousands of years had spread itself by new roots and growth over almost an entire hillside. Hidden within the hillside was the cave where Orthodox and spiritual Jews believed that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon, had spent thirteen years hiding from the Romans, living only off the fruit of the carob tree and water from the spring that still flowed into the center of the village. During their isolation from the ravages of the Roman destruction of Israel, the two rabbis supposedly wrote one of the great books of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, a central work in the Kabbalah, the body of Jewish spirituality.

Below where she walked on the steep hillside was the ancient synagogue of Peki'in, the oldest continuously used synagogue in the world. Yet, despite the important Jewish history that infused Peki'in, only a few elderly Jews still lived there, some of them claiming to trace their ancestry back to the priests of the temple of King Solomon.

But Jewish history and traditions were the last things on her mind as she walked as inconspicuously as possible toward the house. Yaniv was looking out of the window, and when he saw her, he immediately came out to meet her. Neither said anything as she stood in front of him. But then, much to her surprise, he opened his arms and embraced her. She'd never been so close to him before, but she felt the comfort of his muscular body.

“I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry” was all he said. “I know how much you loved your
zaida
. It was a terrible thing that happened.”

“It was them, wasn't it?” she said. It wasn't a question. “They killed him because of me.”

Yaniv didn't answer but led her gently away from the street and up the hill to the shop and the small, disheveled house.

“Keep to the shadows when you walk down these narrow
alleys,” Yaniv said. “Try not to expose yourself by walking in the middle of the street.”

She turned back to him. It was good not to think about her grandfather for a while. “Why? Snipers?”

“No, satellites.”

“Israeli satellites look at the borders, not tiny villages.”

“Spitzer has the power to point them anywhere he wants.”

She didn't ask any other questions until they came to their house, but made sure she walked in the shadows.

When they entered the house, Yaniv bowed his head under the low lintel and walked into the room where Bilal was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The moment he saw them—saw Yael in Arabic dress and headscarf—he sat bolt upright. He looked as if he wanted to ask a thousand questions. Instead he stayed silent, just staring at Yael and Yaniv.

“Your parents have been told you're dead, Bilal,” said Yael calmly.

Bilal gasped and for a moment Yael feared the young man's reaction. “It was the only way to be sure they remain safe, and that we can protect you.”

“My mother . . .” Bilal began to ask, but couldn't finish the question.

“You're her son. She weeps like any mother would.”

Bilal took the news with a resigned nod as if it were strangely comforting.

Yaniv cut in, “And as expected, your imam was there. He must know you're not dead, so there's no doubt he'll question Hassan about where you are.”

“But Hassan knows where I am,” said Bilal, close to a whisper. “I told him. So if he tells the imam . . .”

“And that's what we want. That will bring them here.”

Beneath the head covering, Yael suddenly shuddered. What was she doing here? She was a doctor, not a secret agent. But if Bilal or Yaniv noticed, they said nothing.

“And the Jew? The Shin Bet man? With the white hair? What of him?” asked Bilal.

Yaniv hesitated to respond.

“He will come after me,” said the young Palestinian, fear suddenly inflecting his voice. “He will find me and kill me.”

“No, Bilal,” Yael said, trying to reassure him. “We won't let that happen. The one thing he fears is exposure, and he knows that if he comes here, he'll be exposed. Once we've dealt with the imam, we'll deal with him.” But not even Yael thought that her answer was convincing. They were amateurs in this deadly game. Spitzer could hire any assassin he wanted, without even filling in any paperwork; the imam, too, could get anybody to come in his place. Both of these men could be sitting behind their desks in comfort while their minions did the deed. The risks she, Yaniv, and Bilal were taking were huge. But what choice did she and Yaniv have?

Bilal lay back down heavily on the bed. He was thinking about his future, if there was a future for him. “And when I am put back into prison, I will be killed by other prisoners. I am a dead man.” He closed his eyes.

Yael turned to Yaniv. “Can you give us a minute alone?”

Yaniv nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Yael turned to Bilal, and said, “There's something else we have to talk about, Bilal. If we come out of this alive, you'll still go to prison. You have to, and I can't change that; nobody can change what you did.” Bilal gave the smallest of nods. “But there is something . . .” She hesitated, trying to find the right words. “There's something I have to tell you. It's going to come as a shock, but it's something you have to know. And once you know it, Bilal, it'll make your life much easier.”

She hesitated, and saw the questioning look in his eyes. “Bilal, do you remember when I'd just operated on you in the Jerusalem hospital, and I was asking you all those questions about where you were born, about your mother and father and your relatives?”

He nodded again.

“Well, the reason was that your blood is very similar to mine. So close that we could be relatives, brother and sister, from way back in history. I went to see your mother, and she told me something . . . something about you and where you're from. She told me about her religion today and about the religion her ancestors followed. Bilal, what I'm trying to tell you is that . . .”

A
BRAHAM LED THE WAY
on his donkey and was followed by his wife, Sarah, and his children riding their mounts. Samuel rode on his donkey behind the youngest member of Abraham's family, pleased to be in their company, glad that they'd reached an understanding. Raphael, though in great pain, was healing well, and Abraham was pleased that his wounds didn't seem to have become hot through infection.

Though Abraham still harbored anger at the way he'd been abducted from his home and forced to join the Zealots, in the intervening traumatic period the disaster that was being wrought in Jerusalem was so overwhelming that any personal animosity was subsumed by the ordeals all Jews were suffering.

Because of Raphael, their progress was slow, and so they were often overtaken by people on horseback fleeing the havoc the Romans were wreaking. Some would spend the evening around the campfire that Abraham and Samuel made and tell their tales of the misadventure befalling Jerusalem.

For two months, they said, General Titus and his second in command, Tiberius Julius Alexander, had laid siege to the city, starving the inhabitants. First to die were the children, then the elderly, then the women. Those who managed to escape through
holes in the walls or in the underground tunnel told of men eating the dead bodies of their neighbors.