HE WAS DRESSED in his pure white vestments, those he usually wore only on the great day of fasting and sacrifice as defined by the Levites on the tenth day of the month of Tishri, the day when he and the people of Israel atoned for the sins of their ancestors in the desert after leaving Egypt. At Mount Sinai they had doubted Moses would return and in their fear and loneliness molded and fashioned a golden god creature. Moses descended from the sacred mountain and in his fury smashed the tablets Yahweh had given him, just as today Ahimaaz descended from his mountainous temple and walked through the Western Gate to the king’s palace.
Unlike previous occasions when some palace official had stopped him and forced him to wait for some time before seeing the king, this time Ahimaaz walked straight past the servants into the throne room. The look on his face and the staff of office he carried told them to be wary of him. As he walked through the doors of the room, he was announced by the king’s servant.
Ahimaaz walked to where Solomon was sitting on his throne and wondered why the king, who normally ignored him as he entered, was looking at him so fiercely. Usually nervous, this time Ahimaaz was confident, for no matter what Solomon did to him—no matter how much he shouted or ridiculed or compared him with his pious brother—Ahimaaz knew that when he confessed, he would shortly thereafter die. And death was welcome.
Ahimaaz had listened to Gamaliel’s reasoning, a plan that would see him detail how Tashere stole funds from the temple unbeknown to the tax collector. Gamaliel would be distanced from his crime, and he, Ahimaaz, would be secured by his act of loyalty to the king, no longer at the mercy of Naamah.
But as he stood before the king, Ahimaaz closed his eyes for a moment, and in the blackness that enveloped him saw the whirling of the colored spinning top and heard his brother’s laughter. No. There would be no elevation for him. There could only be the truth to shut out from his head the silence of the Lord God and the ridicule of Queen Naamah.
Taller than normal, standing straight despite the king’s withering looks, Ahimaaz bowed before the throne. He spoke immediately, which stunned the amanuenses and officials gathered around the walls of the chamber.
“Majesty, I am here on a matter of God’s business, and—”
“God’s or yours?” asked Solomon, his voice dry and humorless.
“God’s business. I am here to tell you something that will affect your kingdom, which involves your heirs and your wives and I who preside over your temple . . .”
“What is it that people call me, Ahimaaz?”
The question surprised him and broke him from the trance of confession he had put himself in.
“Solomon, Majesty.”
The king smiled and shook his head. Ahimaaz remained mute. Suddenly, all the courage he’d been mustering vanished, and he shrank into his clothes.
“Not just Solomon, priest. My people call me Solomon the Wise. I give fair judgments when people with a dispute come before me; other kings look at the way I rule and envy me. And it’s because I am fair, wise, and knowledgeable that my people love me. Do you understand that, priest?”
He mumbled, “Yes, Majesty.”
“There is nothing you have to say that I do not already know.”
Ahimaaz was blank and unsure of what the king would say next.
“I knew you would come. It has been known to me for a long time.”
All moisture was sucked from Ahimaaz’s mouth, and his eyes shifted about the throne room. Only now did he see Gamaliel standing by the far wall of the room. The tax collector looked hard at Ahimaaz, and the stare told him he, too, was slipping into a strange panic at the king’s words.
“I know my wives very well. I choose many. But I choose them carefully. I know, too, my sons—those who remain close to me and those whom I have cast out.” Solomon paused, stood, and stepped down from the plinth on which his throne stood. He took three long strides toward Ahimaaz and the priest felt his body shrink under the king’s shadow.
Solomon’s voice lowered as he drew nearer. “I know of your schemes with Naamah. I know how it came to be that her son, Rehoboam, became my heir. And I know what part you played, Ahimaaz, high priest of Yahweh.”
The horror of realization filled Ahimaaz, but he remembered his purpose, his resolve to meet the end he knew must come. But Solomon, for all his wisdom, knew nothing of what was in Ahimaaz’s heart, and he burst out laughing.
“And would it shock you to know that I am aware of Ta-shere’s conspiracy with the tax collector?” Ahimaaz heard a dull thud as Gamaliel dropped to his knees on the other side of the room. But Solomon ignored him. “You see, high priest, there is nothing I don’t know about what happens in my kingdom, let alone what is whispered between conspirators in the corridors of my palace.”
“But . . . but . . . why? Why did you allow it? If you knew . . .”
Solomon looked down at Ahimaaz quizzically as if pondering the foolish statement of a child. “I am the son of David and Bathsheba; my beloved father wanted me, and not my brother Adonijah, to be his heir. And so my mother Bathsheba, Zadok the priest, and others conspired to bring down Adonijah. Just as Naamah and you conspired to destroy my love for Tashere and my responsibility to make Abia my heir.
“None of this is new to me. It is in my blood, and I have no doubt that my bloodline, son after son, will do what my father, David, did when I was a prince and he wanted me to be his heir.
“And because I am of David’s blood, when I came to power, to ensure my reign, I rid myself of rivals. I had my brother and his friends killed. And I now control all the lands from the borders of Egypt to the river Euphrates. Kings submit themselves to me, and my caravans travel far and wide.
“I have written over three thousand proverbs and composed over a thousand songs, and my fleet of ships at Ezion-geber has made me both strong and rich.”
Ahimaaz was barely listening. His mind was dulled.
“But though I am wise, I am not God. I am not perfect. I went against the word of the Lord, and I married women who were Moabites and Ammonites, Egyptians and Assyrians. And these women showed me that while Yahweh, the god of the Jews, is invisible, the gods of my wives were able to be seen. I built them temples and allowed them their idols in their rooms, to which they prayed, and soon I, too, prayed to them. And I grew stronger and stronger in wealth and territory.
“But my son Abia, he is a disciple of your brother Azariah, and he will allow no other god than Yahweh in this land. He, above all else, is full of zeal.”
Solomon stopped himself, seemingly in the middle of a thought, and pondered for a moment. Ahimaaz breathed deeply and slowly while Gamaliel held his breath.
Solomon sighed. “Abia would have gone to war for Yahweh. He would have attacked Egypt, perhaps even Babylon. And he would have expelled all my wives when I was dead. And what would have come of this?”
Solomon waited as if genuinely expecting someone in the room to answer. But nobody did. Ahimaaz knew his death was close. This is not what he had planned, but it would come nonetheless.
“A war, a war fought for Yahweh. But one that would have led to the destruction and enslavement of all Israel. And not just a war between Israel and Egypt but between us and Moab, and between us and the Hittites and the Assyrians. No matter what I said, no matter how I counseled and demanded, Abia was determined to rid the land of Israel of my wives and concubines and their gods. He would have brought destruction to my kingdom. So he had to be exiled. As did your brother, high priest. And no matter what militia she raises, or how much she fights or begs, Tashere will never return to my bed, and our son Abia will never rule in my place. So tell your tax gatherer that I am pleased that he told you these things, as I knew he would.”
Slowly Ahimaaz looked up at the king.
“I know what’s in your heart, Ahimaaz, high priest of Yahweh. I know what dark pain keeps you from sleep.”
The words were a lash across his back, a lash that sent the spinning colors of the child’s toy whirling in his mind once more. The laughter of his brother. The two of them running through their father’s house. The brother he had played with and laughed with. The brother he had betrayed.
“Your brother will never be returned from exile.”
Tears welled in Ahimaaz’s eyes. A rush of blood pounded in his temple.
“Abia fell in league with your beloved brother, Azariah. Together they wanted the death and destruction of all those who would not accept Yahweh. And so you were my instrument. You and the tax collector both. My instruments.”
Ahimaaz felt his knees, in danger of collapsing. All this time Solomon the Wise had known everything. Had used him.
Realizing Ahimaaz’s distress, Solomon continued. “And do you think that Naamah’s whisperings into my ear were what convinced me? Are you so stupid to believe that I’m as foolish as you, high priest? That I would allow a wife to dictate the running of my nation?”
Others in the room began to laugh. Soon the chamber echoed with Ahimaaz’s shame and ridicule.
“Return,” said Solomon. “Go back to being the high priest. Go back to your rituals. And tomorrow, when you wake up, understand that Solomon can see into your scheming heart.” He roared with laughter.
From somewhere deep inside him, a weak but insistent voice said, “No.”
The room’s mirth slowly fell into silence. All eyes upon him. Not least of all Gamaliel from across the chamber.
“No, I will not return.”
Solomon glowered at Ahimaaz, but this time the priest did not shrink from his gaze.
“I won’t be your high priest anymore. I will be the instrument of no one.”
And Ahimaaz tore off his pure white vestments, beneath which he was wearing sackcloth covered in the ashes of the sacrifice, the dress of a sinner, and left the throne room without having been given permission.
The king watched him leave, and for just a brief moment there was a smile of acknowledgment, perhaps even admiration, on his face.
YAEL WAITED in the hospital’s main reception entrance area and saw him leaving his car. She watched him walking toward her, self-confident, self-possessed. In another life, he could have been a movie star; not pretty but ruggedly and strikingly good-looking, he was tall, lean, attractive in a very masculine way, with dark, Semitic looks and jet-black eyes, dressed in easy and casual clothes matched top and bottom with enormous care. Color and style harmonized as though he had a willing wife or a shrewd butler, and he looked as though he knew that he was at the top of his game. To a passerby he could have been any successful young Israeli man, yet she, of course, knew he was an American. She couldn’t help noticing that as he walked toward the hospital’s doors, nurses he passed turned for another glance.
When he saw her, he beamed his best television presenter’s smile, walked purposefully toward her and shook her hand. She was tall for a woman, but he stood a head taller. As they made their way to the cafeteria, she couldn’t help but feel that people were looking at them both. The white medical overalls and stethoscope around doctors’ necks normally made them invisible in the hospital, but the two of them walking together were turning heads.
They sat with their coffees and Yaniv came straight to the point. “Yael, I said to you that you’re the face of modern Israel: talented, clever, professional, and dedicated. If you’re willing, I’d love to do a feature story on you, a profile of who you are. It’ll be shown in America, and we have tens of millions of viewers, and it’ll almost certainly get picked up here in Israel.”
“And what do you think makes me interesting? Or different?” she asked.
He smiled and said, “I’m a good storyteller. I can make anyone interesting.”
She suddenly felt miffed. “Then you don’t need me. If you’re Pygmalion, I’m nothing more than a dumb marble statue called Galatea.”
He blushed. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
His reaction in the moment made Yael soften. A man with such self-confidence caught off guard, floundering before her. It made her feel assertive and poised and helped her see him as a slightly less clichéd American.
“I didn’t mean that at all, Yael. Of course you’re interesting and fascinating. But it’s the angle of the story I choose to take, and the way it’s shaped by the editor that makes or breaks a good story or makes a boring story compelling. That’s all I meant.”
“I know. I was only teasing. So, if I said yes, what angle would you like to take?” Yael asked, skeptical of the word’s meaning.
“I need to know more about you and your family. When you came to this country, where you’re from, what your parents do, what their backgrounds are, your work as a surgeon—what compels and drives you . . . Then we’ll—”
“Whoa . . . wait a minute . . . That’s a lot of investigation. I don’t want to talk about my family. Anyway, I don’t have time for this sort of thing.”
“It’s all research. I won’t take up too much of your time. The work you do here in the hospital, you standing near the Wailing Wall if you’re religious, looking over the West Bank if you’re political, outside the Knesset if you’ve been a demonstrator—that sort of thing. We’ll pick you up, have makeup and hair in another car ready just before you appear on camera, schlep you quickly from place to place, and deliver you back. Like you tell people before you give them an injection, ‘It’ll only hurt a bit . . .’ ”
“And the other stuff . . . my parents’ background, where we came from . . .”
“I’ll interview your family and anybody else appropriate: friends, schoolmates . . .”
“Why? Why all this fuss just because I found an old piece of stone?” she asked.
“It’s a bit more than that. You’re A-grade talent for TV. Who knows? If I make you famous, you could put this surgery business behind you and become what every young woman really wants to be.”
Yael raised an eyebrow.
“A weather girl on TV.” Yaniv’s smile was his trademark and he used it to full effect.
She forced herself not to laugh. His American bravado might work on a lot of other young women, but Yael didn’t want to seem like putty in his hands. He quickly changed tone.
“Look, good-news stories don’t come often for Israel in the U.S. media. You and the archaeological find are a good-news story.”
“My role was accidental. It all sounds like such a fuss and I did very little. I’m frantically busy. My surgery list is so full.”
“For the good of the nation . . .”
“For the good of Yaniv Grossman, is more like it.”
“Oh, absolutely!” And he smiled again.
ACROSS THE KIDRON VALLEY from where Yaniv was sitting with Yael, in the village of Bayt al Gizah, another meeting was taking place. The mosque was tiny compared to the palatial mosques of Mecca, Medina, or Istanbul, but the intensity of the prayers and the yearning of the congregants were no less passionate. It was a prosaic building at best, with a blue-domed cupola and a minaret that was almost invisible among the nearby houses. It had been constructed in the 1930s following the demolition of three houses that clung to the edge of the cliff, and for years it had been little more than a house of prayer.
But recently the intensity of the sermons delivered by a new and fervent imam, Abu Ahmed bin Hambal bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, had roused the younger men of the town to new heights of passion, their fervor channeled into hatred for the Jews who lived in their mansions across the valley. The imam had tapped into the frustration of the youth, and in the two years since his arrival he had drawn around him a group of men whom he’d dubbed his Army of God. Bilal was one of them. So was his unemployed friend Hassan, who earned his meager income from being a pickpocket in the Jerusalem marketplaces.
All the young men were assembled for the usual Wednesday-night sermon, a gathering of intimates and initiates behind closed doors, where the imam would explain why the young men were disadvantaged and unemployed, why the Palestinians were poor and dispossessed, and why the Jews across the valley were to blame; these Jews, he told them, drove their Porsches and BMWs, living like ancient kings in their ten-bedroom mansions because they were thieves who had stolen Palestinian land, dispossessed the rightful Palestinian owners, and were prospering while the Palestinians were forced to live in squalor. Fueling their anger, the imam told them that he’d heard there was a secret Jewish law, not on the statute books, that allowed a Jew to abuse his Palestinian servants, even kill them, just for displeasing him.
To the young men, for whom prosperity was an idea far removed from the poverty of their lives, the imam’s words rang loud and true. He quoted history and the Koran, ancient and modern Muslim leaders, Islamic heroes and great warriors, telling his listeners of their bravery and selflessness in the name of Allah. His knowledge never failed to astound the young men listening because the imam was able to make the great men of Islam come alive to them.
He painted vivid pictures so that, in their minds’ eye, they could see how easy it would be to take back all the land stolen from them by the Jews and Christians, to re-create the glory of the ancient Islamic caliphate, the Great Empire of Mohammed, which after his death had exploded out of Arabia and even stretched from India to Spain. And when they were again a great people, they would cleanse Islam itself of the heretical Shi’ites and Alawites and Druze and return all Muslims to the purity of the Sunni religion, which Mohammed had created in the sands of Arabia.
As Yaniv was kissing Yael on the cheek and saying good-bye, the young men in the mosque were sitting cross-legged on cushions, waiting eagerly for their imam to begin his lessons. But on this night it was delayed for some time while he was in his office speaking in hushed tones. Some were listening carefully but couldn’t distinguish what his muffled voice was saying on the telephone.
In his office, the imam sipped apple tea as he listened to the subdued and unrecognizable voice of the other man on the telephone. Most of what he said was audible, but the device the other man was using obscured his voice, making it sound as if he were speaking from inside an underground vault on the other side of the world.
“She is a Jew, no? Then why is she not your concern?” the imam asked.
“She’s already been too much in the media. If it is one of yours, any investigation will come through my office. And then I can control it.” The imam remained silent while the voice on the other end continued, “I wouldn’t have thought you, of all people, would be hesitant to spill Jewish blood to bring about your caliphate.”
The imam bridled. He hated the Jew Shin Bet man but he was prepared to dance with the devil if he supplied him with weapons and targets and ensured that his terrorist acts were successful, even if the idiot wanted to bring down his own Israeli government.
He said softly, “If I see this thing done by one of my Arab brothers, then it’s your hands that will be red with her blood. Not mine. For me it is war. For you . . .” The imam let his words trail off.
“Will you deal with it?” the other voice asked, ignoring the comment.
“Of course,” the imam said, and hung up the phone without saying good-bye. He left his office, and as he walked into the adjoining prayer rooms of the mosque, he pondered how strange it was, being in bed with a Jew.
HASSAN STOOD in a small chamber adjacent to the main prayer hall. The small space offered a modicum of privacy in a building otherwise devoted to bringing people together in communal acts, although, as the imam often told him, no secrets could be kept from Allah. The pickpocket felt strangely scrutinized and nervous as he waited.
Hassan thought of his friend Bilal, his best friend, and for so long his only friend. But Bilal was gone now. Hassan knew he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t a martyr, and the whole village knew that the sniper’s bullets had not killed him. But still, Bilal was gone, like so many of his cousins and brothers, into the darkness of an Israeli prison. Bilal had failed.
Hassan hadn’t been asked to be on the lookout for the woman doctor whom Fuad claimed had saved Bilal from the bullets. Nobody ever thought she would come to the village so far across the valley from where the Jews lived. But when Hassan saw her enter Fuad’s house, he knew he must wait and see. He knew the imam would want to know. The imam had spoken of the Jew doctor, how a woman had dared to touch a soldier of Allah, and how he feared for Bilal and the drugs and poisons the Jew doctors might use on him.
Months ago, the imam had put a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye and said that one day he would have a special purpose. Hassan had nearly burst with pride, wanting everybody to know, but then the imam had walked away and none of his brothers had been there to see. He knew the feeling was wrong, that it was vanity. But he so badly wanted everyone to see how highly the imam thought of him. If only they could see . . .
Now, once again, the imam had asked Hassan to wait for him so that he could talk to him privately. Hassan’s thoughts and memories were interrupted by the sweeping brown robes of the imam as he entered the antechamber.
“Hassan, my son. As-salamu alaykum.”
The greeting caught Hassan off guard, but the formal reply came habitually and reflexively. “Wa alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatuh,” he said, nerves prompting him to use the most formal reply he could muster.
“There is no need to be nervous, Hassan.” The imam smiled. “What have you to tell me?”
As if he were in trouble, Hassan said urgently, “Nothing, imam.”
“Hassan, you have spoken to one of your brothers. He told me you have seen the Jew doctor. Yesterday. That she dared to enter our village. Talk to me about what you saw.”
Relieved that this was all, Hassan told the imam, “Yes, I saw the doctor, the Jew woman who saved Bilal . . .” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted using the term “saved.” He knew the imam would not approve. Bilal had not been saved. Bilal had failed. But if the imam noticed or cared, he didn’t show it. “She was driving a very expensive car. She parked outside Bilal’s house. She was in the protection of Bilal’s father, Fuad.” Hassan hardened his voice, wanting to be clear to his imam how he felt about the woman. “She was dressed in expensive clothes. Her face and arms were uncovered, like a whore’s.”
The imam nodded. He took a long moment before he spoke again and did not look at Hassan when he did, as if the chamber were full of listeners.
“Our brother Bilal has suffered greatly for our cause. He faced the enemy bravely. But make no mistake, Hassan, our fight is not easy. Allah is with us but we must prove ourselves worthy. Prove that we are deserving of victory.” The imam stopped and stared at Hassan, his eyes boring into him like drill bits. “Are you deserving, Hassan?”
“I pray so,” Hassan said, and tried his hardest to sound like he meant it.
“Let us return to your brothers. And when we’re there, show me, show them, what kind of a Muslim you are, what kind of a man you are.”
The imam put an arm on Hassan’s shoulders and guided him out of the small chamber and into the open prayer space of the mosque. A half dozen of Hassan’s brothers—the chosen young men who gathered fervently to listen to the imam speak after the rest had left—watched as the imam guided him into the space. The imam held Hassan in his gaze, his arm still on Hassan’s shoulder in a fatherly grip.
“If a bucket is full of holes, what happens to the water?”
Hassan was confused but not surprised by the question. The imam often spoke in such ways. “The water runs out,” he answered flatly.
The imam continued. “And what use is water if it is spilled on the ground? It cannot be drunk. It cannot fill the mouths of thirsty men. Water is most precious; there is no life without water, and so, too, the bucket that holds the water, that holds life, must be free of holes . . .” The imam turned outward, away from Hassan, to spread his arms to the gathered youths. “We are the bucket that holds the water. In us there must be no holes. We must be complete.” He turned back to Hassan, this time placing both hands on the boy, one on each shoulder as if about to embrace him.
Hassan felt all the eyes of his brothers on him.
“Bilal failed, Hassan. Water has spilled. I am informed that he has told the Jew security about us . . . We must stop more water from spilling.”
Hassan’s heart should have soared with pride at the attention and trust of his master in full sight of everyone. But in that moment he felt fearful as the image of the attractive young Jewish doctor passed into his mind’s eye. And he saw his friend Bilal lying on a hospital operating table with her standing over him, saving his life.
But Hassan knew what he must do. There could be no mistake.
AHIMAAZ DESCENDED THE ROAD from the king’s palace toward the gate that led out of the wall and into the valleys beyond the city. The people of the city all looked at him in surprise and bewilderment. Nobody had ever seen the high priest in sackcloth and ashes before. Occasionally priests who had sinned were forced to wear such as penitents, but the high priest, who was supposed to be without sin, wore it on only one day, the ninth day of the month of Ab. This date commemorated the occasion when only two of the twelve spies sent by Moses as scouts to the land of Canaan, Joshua and Caleb, returned and spoke positively. All the other spies returned and said that the land was unsuitable for the Hebrews. And the people had wailed and panicked, and the Lord God Yahweh was furious and said that from that time forward, because of their lack of faith, all Israelites must fast on that day. And only on the ninth day of Ab did the high priest close himself in the Holy of Holies and spend all day and all night praying for the redemption of his people.
So to see Ahimaaz walking through the city, wearing the garb of a penitent, caused shock and disquiet among his people.
Ahimaaz could see the city gate looming as a dark orifice in the bright pale stone of the city’s huge walls. Around him people parted; donkeys and carts were led aside by their owners to make way as Ahimaaz walked slowly forward to the gate.
Gamaliel the tax collector ran after him as the people looked on.
Surprised, Ahimaaz turned. When they were standing together, the full heat of the day made both men sweat as Gamaliel struggled to catch his breath.
“Why?” gasped Gamaliel.
Ahimaaz said nothing.
“Why? I don’t understand. The king has swept away all troubles. You’re free to return to the temple.” Gamaliel cast his hand up to where the temple stood at the top of the hill.
Ahimaaz shook his head.
“But I don’t understand. How can you walk away? You know as well as I what’s out there.” Gamaliel pointed beyond the gate to the fields and the valleys and deserts beyond.
Ahimaaz put his hand on the tax collector’s shoulder and held his eyes in a fixed gaze.
“Out there is my brother.”
And with that, Ahimaaz turned and walked away through the gate into the land beyond.
Gamaliel watched him leave until the sun was almost lost to the shadow of the wall. At long last he turned and faced the hill. Slowly, wearily, he began the long climb back to the temple. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, to pray for the safety of the priest, and to give thanks . . .
DESPITE HER PUNISHING operating schedule, Yael found time between ripping off her bloodied gloves and gown and scrubbing up for the next operation scheduled for midday to walk up the two flights of stairs to the men’s surgical ward and visit Bilal. It was perhaps her last chance before he was hauled off to prison to uncover something of the mystery that so haunted her.
She nodded to the guard as she entered his room and found Bilal with his eyes tightly closed, his lips moving in silent prayer.
“Bilal?”
He opened his eyes and glared at her.
“You know, the men from Shin Bet were here yesterday to collect you and escort you to prison, but I wouldn’t let them take you.” Yael had hoped such a statement might soften him, but if it did, he didn’t show it and he didn’t respond.
“I’ve been to see your parents, Bilal. In Bayt al Gizah. And I’ve promised them that they can come and visit you before you’re taken away.”
“When will they be here?” asked Bilal.
Yael saw a faint crack in the armor. “Tomorrow. I’ve spoken to the guard. He’s promised not to interfere and to allow them as much time with you as you need.”
Bilal’s eyes followed her as she moved to the other side of the bed to check his chart.
“You met my father?”
“He’s a lovely man. He’s worried about you, you know?”
“And my mother?”
“I only met her for a moment. And your sister.”
Yael then tried to extend the topic of Bilal’s mother unselfconsciously into the conversation. “Where did your mother come from?”
Bilal seemed to answer despite himself. “Peki’in. She was born there. So was I, but I left there when I was a baby. We’ve been back to see Peki’in when we were children, me and my sister and my brother, but I don’t remember it.”
Yael said softly, “I know Peki’in. I was there when I was in the army. Did her family always come from there?”
“My grandmother came from Peki’in. And probably her grandmother before her. I don’t know these things.”
“And your father? Was his family always from Peki’in, or somewhere else?”
He looked at her curiously. “My father . . . once he told me that he would take me to where my grandfather came from, Egypt. I think my grandfather worked for a Jew business. He came here with them.”
“So then your mother and father met in Peki’in?”
“I don’t know. It was when you Jews made Israel and you forced my grandfather’s family out.”
Forced out: a complex narrative made simplistic and disposable, she thought. The lies they were told fed on themselves in the landscape of victimhood.
“I made a promise to your father and mother that they could visit you tomorrow. I don’t want their last sight of you to be behind bars. That’s what I would want if you were my son, Bilal.”
Bilal was taken aback by the sudden change of topic and tone. He’d been taught to see such treatment by the Jews as lies and deception. Who was this woman? Part of him wanted to trust her, but the rest of him knew he shouldn’t. The good manners his mother had always tried to teach him compelled him to thank her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that either.
The image of the Shin Bet man and the imam, and the phone and the girl and the tunnel beneath the temple wall, and the bullets tearing open his leg, seemed to scorch his mind. How did it come to this? How could he escape? What was happening to him? Who could he trust?
Bilal ran his hands over his face as if to wash it clean before he knelt in prayer. When he opened his eyes again, his jaw hardened and he clung on to the last of what he knew to be true. “I am a freedom fighter!”
The words made Yael angry. “You think freedom comes by killing innocents and blowing yourself up? What does that achieve, Bilal? Who is more free when you’re dead? Your father? Your mother? Your brother and sister? Are any of them more free?”
“It’s so easy for you, Doctor. Was your father a doctor? Was his father a banker? Was your father’s father a fat and wealthy merchant with servants? You know nothing except an easy life. You know nothing except having whatever you want, whatever you need, and being able to do anything you please! You live in a palace and drive an expensive car and have servants—all on Palestinian blood!”
“So your answer is spilling our blood? And this will make your family wealthy, make your people prosperous and happy? Do you know how stupid that sounds, Bilal?”
“If we do not kill, we rot! If we do not fight, we die.”
“Fighting for what, Bilal?”
“Fighting for our own nation.”
“Every time, since Israel was created, your people have been offered a nation, you’ve rejected it. You chose war over peace every time.”
“There will be no peace until the Jews have gone!”
With anger and frustration rising in her, Yael was ready to respond. It was the Arab states that had never allowed the Palestinians freedom and never would. The Palestinians were pawns in the Arab game they were playing with the rest of the world.
Yael wanted to tell him that the Palestinian expectation of freedom was a farce. Their land had been annexed and occupied and fought over by other Arabs a thousand years before Israel was formed. And since Israel’s creation, Palestinians were forced to remain refugees because no Arab states would offer them citizenship. They were tragic hostages to Arab politics, with nowhere else to go, bullied and exploited by other nations. And as the rockets fell on Israel, launched from Palestinian rooftops, Israel was forced to build bigger walls. Walls to protect the remnants of a people who had survived Hitler’s Holocaust, who’d come out of two thousand years of persecution and diaspora to return to their home, where they would no longer be outsiders.
Yael swallowed and exhaled. The endless cycle of it all was made visceral in her mind by the blood and the bullets and the bodies of those who lay on her operating table; by childhood friends who had died in the wars.
All bodies look the same when they are bleeding. Israeli and Palestinian. Arab and Jew. Boys, girls, mothers, fathers. All victims of a cycle that seemed as old as history, and from which nobody could seem to envisage a way out.
These images and memories softened her. She looked Bilal in the eyes as if searching him for something of herself.
“You and us, Palestinians and Jews, we have something in common, Bilal . . . Neither of us has anywhere else to go . . .”