Rebecca stood in the dim light of the candles in her father’s home and smiled at Caleb who sat at the wood table. Solomon looked out the window as he had on a thousand nights, gazing at the Temple Mount to the east.
The Dome of the Rock glowed gold by the moon’s light, just as it had each of those nights. The Waqf guards marched its perimeter as they always had, and if you looked long enough, you would see one of them walk to the Western Wall and look down on the courtyard, empty now in the moonlight. Nothing at all had changed.
It had been two days since the meeting of the Knesset.
Solomon turned from the window. “Then do you believe it will one day be rebuilt?” he asked.
Caleb grinned. He hadn’t lost his enigmatic flare, but Rebecca had decided it was part of what attracted her to him. “Many do. I don’t know. The New Testament seems to suggest it, but in reality the Temple is here.” He pounded his chest twice with a fist.
“Yes, I think you’ve made your point with bells and whistles,” Solomon said.
Solomon had run from the Knesset that day, and they hadn’t found him until late in the night. He’d been thrown into an abyss of confusion. But if Rebecca was not mistaken, he was beginning to emerge.
The camera footage of Caleb’s finger pointing at the Ark while it slowly melted into a puddle on the floor had been played and replayed on nearly every television station around the globe. The Arabs had watched in disbelief as the reason for their war dissolved before their eyes. It had taken them twenty-four hours to begin their withdrawal, mostly because of the confusion left in the wake of the footage. Not that the footage itself was confusing, but the implication of this undeniable supernatural intervention of God clearly was confusing. What did this mean to Islam? Or to Judaism? Or to Christianity, for that matter? Abu Ismael, at least, had seen the hand of God and had called the prime minister personally. He had actually asked to speak with Caleb. It was hardly imaginable!
The talking heads were just now placing their spin control on footage that had made it to the street level already. The rabbis were beginning to line up with some nonsense about illusions and the Islamic imams were saying something similar using different words. Even Christians, in substantial numbers, were voicing dissent, decrying the destruction of the Ark, which would have hastened the end of days.
No matter how you looked at it, one thing was clear: there was no Ark and therefore no need for war. The U.S. brokered the pullback, but it would have happened on its own, Rebecca thought.
Caleb glanced at her nervously.
Ask him, she mouthed. And then she winked.
Caleb faced Solomon. “Actually, I have come to ask you something, sir.”
“Yes? Then ask. I doubt you can do any more harm than you already have.”
“Yes. Well then I would like to ask you for the hand of your daughter,” he said and glanced at Rebecca again. She dipped her head and smiled in support.
Solomon’s face lightened a shade. “Ask for her hand? You’re not suggesting . . . marriage!”
Caleb cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, her hand in marriage.”
“She’s a Jew! You’re a Christian, for God’s sake!”
“I’m an Ethiopian and she’s an Israeli!”
Solomon stared at Caleb, and then at Rebecca. He finally let out a long sigh and turned back to the window. Rebecca hadn’t expected his immediate approval and, all things considered, this was actually a good start.
“So you think you love my daughter; is that it, boy?”
Caleb looked at Rebecca. “I love her deeply. She is beautiful beyond my imagination. She is wise and she is kind and she is tender. She is—”
“I know my own daughter, Caleb. No need to fill me in.” Solomon turned back. “Tender? Are you sure you know her? The rest I’ll grant you, but killing isn’t done with a tender hand.”
“I think she’s done with killing. Her hands have become too tender for killing,” Caleb said.
Her father raised an eyebrow. “You have taken one treasure from me already this week, and now you ask for the other? All my life I have done little but dream of rebuilding God’s holy Temple.”
He couldn’t let it go, and Rebecca hardly blamed him.
“Then build his Temple,” Caleb said. “But build it in here.” He placed his hand on his chest again.
Solomon nodded. “Yes, yes. In here. How silly of me. And what about you, Rebecca?”
“Father?”
“What do you think of this ludicrous suggestion?”
“I have felt his power in my veins, Father. I have given him my life.”
“Whose power?”
She hesitated. “The Nazarene’s.”
“I’m talking about your marriage to Caleb!” he said.
“Oh.” She looked at Caleb and smiled. “Then I don’t think the suggestion is ludicrous at all. I can’t imagine a man I’d rather marry. He’s won my heart already; why shouldn’t I give him my hand?”
Solomon glared at her for a full three seconds. Then his face softened and he closed his eyes. “My, my, you have taken the other treasure from me, haven’t you?”
Caleb spoke softly. “My treasure is Christ—”
“I’m talking about Rebecca!”
“Yes, I know. But I would like your blessing.”
“And now you want my blessing as well as my treasures. Then take it.” For a moment, Rebecca thought he was speaking out of spite. But then a soft smile lit his face. “Winning my daughter’s heart is no small task. God knows you have earned it.”
“Then you agree?” Rebecca asked, slightly surprised.
“But you will live in Jerusalem.”
“My home has been destroyed,” Caleb said. “Your government has been good enough to promise funding the restoration of the Debra Damarro—the least I can do for my parents is to rebuild it.”
The flap with Ethiopia over the Ark had been short but heated. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church insisted that they still had the original Ark at Saint Mary’s in Axum, and they were demanding an apology. Israel’s first gesture was this rebuilding effort.
“Then go to Ethiopia and return to Jerusalem when you’re ready,” Solomon said.
“But I am ready now.”
“You want to take my daughter to Ethiopia?”
“Just while we rebuild. I would also like to visit Father Hadane.”
“We can marry here, Father,” Rebecca said. “A Jewish wedding.”
He frowned and faced the Temple Mount again. “You have made a mess of my life, Caleb. Do you realize this?”
“Yes. Yes, sir.” Caleb stood and stepped towards Rebecca. “But what gets torn down may be rebuilt. I am confident you will rebuild your faith, as I have mine.”
Caleb smiled and took Rebecca’s hand. “I think it’s time to begin building, don’t you?” he said.
Solomon turned around and looked at his daughter. For a long time none of them spoke. When Solomon finally did, his voice was soft and introspective.
“Perhaps you are right, my friend. Perhaps you are right.”