Bloodline (50 page)

Bilal examined his hands, his arms. They were the same as yesterday morning, but last night they became the hands and arms of a Jew. But they couldn't be. It was impossible.

It was all too much. He needed to talk to somebody. But who? Who could he speak with that wasn't trying to kill him? Not the imam, who wanted him dead; not the Jews, who wanted him imprisoned. Dr. Cohen? Could he trust her? Hassan, his brother? Only Hassan could help him . . .

E
LIAHU
S
PITZER WATCHED
as the kid, Bilal, who had become such a problem, slunk down the narrow streets of the village. The boy wasn't entirely stupid, staying out of the open, but he was easy to track from the clear vantage point on the hill where Spitzer had positioned himself. His high-powered field glasses gave him a clear view of almost the entire village.

Eliahu hadn't known where the boy was in the village. Going from door to door wasn't an option, and there were no informers in the Druze village that could be relied upon. But the Shin Bet officer didn't need such ham-fisted searching. He only had to sit in his hiding place and wait.

He removed the tiny electronic speaker from his ear and slipped it into a pocket. He had earlier been listening to the voice
of a young Arab man, apparently named Hassan, and the more familiar mutterings of the imam, Abu Ahmed bin Hambal, as they drove toward the village. The car the imam and Hassan had taken had been easy to bug and from his position he had only needed to wait for their arrival, which he knew would draw Bilal out.

S
AMUEL THE MERCHANT
stood in awe and looked at the doors of his synagogue.

His
synagogue.

It wasn't the Peki'in synagogue, or Abraham's synagogue, but
his
synagogue.

Not, of course, that he would ever use this name to his wife, Sarah, or to their newly born baby boy whom they had named Abraham in memory of his mother's first husband, a man the child would never know. But as he'd paid for the stone and the timber, the stonemasons and the carpenters, the artisans and the other craftsmen, he felt entitled, when he was alone and provided he said it silently to himself, to call it “Samuel's synagogue.”

It was finished, complete. The final stones had been laid, the women of the village had put in a special effort to sweep the floor and polish the new pure silver seven-branched menorah he'd bought from a craftsman's shop in distant Acre, and now he was making a final inspection before its consecration in the morning by the learned and blessed Rabbi Gamliel of Yavne, leader of those Jews who had not fled from Israel to other lands after the destruction of the temple. Rabbi Gamliel was also the head of the Great Sanhedrin of Israel, the body of lawmakers and adjudicators that had re-formed since the obliteration of the city of Jerusalem.

Such great rabbis rarely left their schools, but Samuel had known Gamliel from his days in Jerusalem when he was a friend to the Romans and a spy for the Zealots. Gamliel was one of the few who stood up for Samuel when he was accused of being a traitor to the Jews by those citizens who were ignorant of his role as a spy. And so, when Samuel had sent word to Gamliel that the synagogue he'd financed was about to be opened, Gamliel asked whether he could consecrate it.

The moment Samuel told his wife, Sarah, who would be visiting the village the following day and officiating at the very first community ceremony and prayers in the synagogue, she looked at him in amazement and then threw her arms around him.

“Truly, Samuel, when I was married to Abraham, I didn't think there could be a better husband in the world than him. But in this past year as my husband, and in the two years before that as the friend who supported me and my children when we were at our lowest ebb, you have risen in my eyes to be a dear friend and a true love. While nobody can replace Abraham, you have become my husband and father to my children, and now that we have our own son, Abraham, we are a family.”

In the first several months of building, Sarah had visited the synagogue many times a week, both as a woman standing on the periphery, watching the men working on the stones and the woodwork, and as a worker, assisting the men in carrying panniers of dirt and stones to be thrown into the bottom of the valley. But as the frame of the building was completed and the men cut and shaved wood and began to carve sacred images into the stones, Sarah visited less and less. Samuel thought it was because she was bored, but her reality was very different from his. As the building became more and more complete, it became less Abraham's memorial, and more and more Samuel's donation to the village. She felt guilty for thinking these thoughts, as though the sacred memory of her blessed doctor husband had somehow become lost in the act of building his memorial: the flesh and blood
of her first husband was replaced by the physical beauty of the building, the carvings and the ornaments. In ten years or a thousand years, who would remember Abraham the Healer when they were praying to Adonai Elohim? All they would see was a beauteous building, its purpose forgotten, its value vested in its silver and gold, not in the man whose memory it served.

She had said this to Samuel over breakfast on the day he inspected the synagogue to ensure that all was right for the visit of Rabbi Gamliel. Samuel listened attentively and said gently to his wife, “Dearest love, Abraham will live on in your heart and in the hearts of those children who you and he shared. And our love will live on through our own child, our own Abraham, whose blood is yours and mine, and who I'm sure will grow up to be a healer like your first husband.”

She smiled and said, “But from the way he grasps my breast when I feed him, I think he will be more merchant than doctor, for no matter how much he drinks, he never seems to be satisfied.”

Samuel smiled as he thought back to their conversation. He sat on a bench in the middle of the synagogue feeling the coolness that the stone building afforded. He looked around and saw in delight the niches where ancient columns from the Jerusalem temple had been saved and now stood. He saw the two stone plaques that Abraham had retrieved from the temple after the Romans had thrown the huge building blocks into the nearby streets, pulling it down and leaving one of the world's greatest buildings in rubble.

He knew that his modest building could never begin to equate to the palatial temple that King Herod had constructed or the magnificent edifice that King Solomon had created a thousand years before; but his building was a temple nonetheless, and he loved every stone, every ornament, every niche.

Sitting alone in the middle of his synagogue made Samuel think about who he was and how he had come here. One year he was a wealthy merchant, friend of the imperial commanders,
confidant of the Zealots, treading a dangerous path between the two. A year later he was doing everything in his power to earn a living from trading olive oil in a tiny village nobody in Jerusalem, even ruined Jerusalem, had heard of; and now he was making the village prosperous, he had a wife and a son, and he was sitting in the middle of the synagogue that he had founded.

How had he come to this? He knew that he was surrounded by all of the people, now dead, whose lives had gone to create him and his life. He thought of his father and his grandfather and all the unknown and unknowable generations back to the time of Solomon and David and Saul and Abraham. Had Father Abraham passed this way as he walked from his home of Ur in Mesopotamia toward Jerusalem with his son Isaac, instructed by Adonai Elohim to sacrifice the boy, only to be held back when the Angel of God told him not to slaughter the boy but instead to slaughter a ram? Had Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob or Moses or Aaron, known of Peki'in? Did they know of the wondrous olives that grew in the valleys and on the sides of the hills? Did they know how sweet the water was that bubbled up in the center of the village? Did they know how pure the air was, or how sweet the view was to the north of the mountains, sometimes capped in snow in a harsh winter?

He sat there thinking how wonderful the next day would be, how glorious for himself and Sarah, when Rabbi Gamliel arrived with his students and assistants, and the whole town gathered in the center to see him, to be blessed by him, and to listen to him say his blessings when he officiated at the first ceremony in the Peki'in synagogue.

And as he remained seated, Samuel smiled to himself. Only through the joining of himself, a merchant, with Sarah, the wife of the healer, had all this glory come about. Indeed, the Lord God did work in mysterious ways.

His thoughts were interrupted when the doors of the synagogue slowly creaked open . . .

B
ILAL LOOKED AT THE DOORS
of the synagogue and wondered whether he should wait in the courtyard or open the doors and wait inside.

While he was thinking, a dusty old Toyota pickup rolled down the central narrow street of the village. Inside were two men, one young and fresh-faced, the other much older, wearing the clothes of a Muslim priest; Hassan and the imam rode in silence amid the noise of the engine.

Bilal heard the car draw near and stop. In the early morning the village was eerily quiet. The only noises were from farm animals in nearby fields and the barking of a distant dog.

The moment Bilal heard the car, he decided that he should meet them inside the synagogue. It would make his imam uncomfortable, but that was good. The young man stood from where he'd been crouching in the corner of the courtyard since escaping from the house and walked quickly toward the synagogue's closed doors. He pushed them open and walked inside. He'd never been inside a Jewish religious building before, and it wasn't what he expected. It was drab, old, with white plaster on the walls, and columns that looked as if they had come from ancient Rome, and above the door was an old, brown, faded handwritten part of some ancient scroll.

Heart pounding, he found a seat and waited for the arrival of Hassan and the imam. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the conversation last night with Dr. Yael. She'd told him so much and had undermined everything that he had ever known about himself. Yet, she'd also opened a door to hope, to a golden future. He felt like a pauper who'd suddenly seen the inside of a treasure house and been told that he could go in and take as much as he wanted.

He opened his eyes again and looked at the Jewish markings on the walls, at the ark at the front of the synagogue with its Hebrew writing on top, and at the prayer books. Was he really part of this? He'd grown up to believe that this was all evil, but . . .

Bilal's thoughts were interrupted by a blinding light in the synagogue doorway. He looked over and saw the dark outlines of two men. One of them entered. The other stayed.

He heard his imam's voice. “Bilal, my son, come outside. Come here into the light.”

“No, Imam, it's better to meet here. Inside. Where we can't be seen.”

He saw Hassan turn and hold out his hand for the imam, as though helping a crippled man to walk. Slowly, reluctantly, he saw the imam walk inside the doorway. They lingered at the entrance for a moment, looking into the small building, to adjust their eyes from the brilliance outside.

Bilal stood and bowed slightly as the imam walked over to him. As he neared, the imam looked around at the Jewish symbols adorning the walls, the star of the shield of David, the menorah, and the Ark of the Covenant at the front facing in the direction of Jerusalem.

The imam then turned his attention to Bilal. “My son,” he said as he walked toward the young man. He put his arms on the boy's shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks. “It is so good you are alive. Allah the merciful has given you a great blessing.”

Bilal said nothing as the imam stood face-to-face with him, still holding his shoulders. Not so long ago such an embrace would have overwhelmed him; it was all he'd ever hoped for. But now there was no similar feeling, no sense of confidence or pride.

The imam continued: “We should not be meeting here, my son, not in this unholy place. But because Allah has willed these Jews to free you, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you in these times of your adversity. You were right to contact us. And now you can be safe. Now you can come home.”

Home . . .
Bilal pondered the word and what it might mean now.

“We should leave here. We might be seen,” Hassan said, breaking the moment, his eyes darting nervously and refusing to look at Bilal.

Quietly, and looking at the floor, Bilal asked, “How do you know I'll be safe, Imam? Where will you take me that's safe? I can't go back to my parents' home, so where will I go? Egypt? Jordan? How will you get me out of the country?”

The questions took the imam by surprise and Hassan took a small step backward.

“You doubt and question me? You've sworn an oath in the name of Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, that you would obey, not question. Why would you doubt me?”

Bilal didn't answer but found himself staring at Hassan, and for the first time since he had arrived Hassan didn't avert his gaze.

“What has happened to change you, my son? You forget yourself. Too long in the company of the infidel,” the imam said. His voice was quiet and confident.

Bilal's eyes slowly left Hassan's and he faced the imam.

“The doctor saved my life when the Jew soldiers shot me. She may be an infidel, but by custom, and all that you have taught me, is my life not now hers?”

“Bah!” The imam waved a dismissive hand at the suggestion. “You were not saved, Bilal. A martyr is not
saved
when his martyrdom fails because of the enemy.”

But Bilal was not deterred and a stoic tone rose in his throat. Hassan took a step back, frightened and confused by the Bilal in front of him, so unrecognizable from the childhood friend he knew.

“And she saved my life again when she helped me escape from the prison. There were people who would have killed me in the prison. Muslims! Muslims would have murdered me. Yet, she saved me.”