Bloodline (14 page)

It was a big and crowded bazaar: not as large as that of Hebron or Damascus because Jerusalem had been built on a steep hillside, but it was noisy and bustling with the smells and sounds of any marketplace in any city. Some of the stalls sold the meat of sheep and cattle, some sold freshly baked bread, some the produce of the fields, and others proudly offered goods from as far afield as Acco in the north and Lachish in the south, from Damascus, Sidon, Jaffa, and Ashkelon on the coast, from Assyria, Persia, and even India in the east. Everybody, it seemed, every merchant, caravan, and craftsman, was setting their sights on Jerusalem.

As they rounded the corner, the noise of the marketplace grew louder and Ahimaaz wondered whether this was the best place to talk. Sensing his concerns, Gamaliel turned and said, “There's a stall owned by my cousin. The drink isn't watered down and he won't cheat us.”

Gamaliel led the way, weaving around the stalls, holding his breath as he passed the tables of meat sellers, whose carcasses hung in haunches, shoulders, innards, and entrails covered in hysterical flies. The acrid smell was soon replaced by that of newly baked bread. Gamaliel took some shekels out of his pocket, threw them onto the table, and grabbed two warm loaves. He handed one to Ahimaaz.

“I wish you God's good appetite.”

“Thank you,” said the high priest, slightly startled, but the hours standing in the palace had left him hungry. Gamaliel tore off a chunk and chewed openly. Ahimaaz held the bread in both hands and under his breath whispered a prayer.

They sat down on stools at the stall of Gamaliel's cousin. Ahimaaz looked darkly at Gamaliel as he ordered juice, then said quietly, “Do you always eat without blessing and giving thanks to Yahweh for providing it?”

Gamaliel's reply came bluntly. “The Lord didn't provide it. The baker did. And I thanked him accordingly with shekels on his table.”

“Is everything not provided by the Almighty?” asked Ahimaaz.

Gamaliel, shorter than Ahimaaz, graying and slightly stooped, thought for a moment before replying. “Did the Almighty give me the right to levy taxes at the gate, which has made me a rich man? No, I negotiated that myself from Solomon's treasury. There were others, but only I came to a suitable arrangement with the treasurer. So why should I thank God? It was me who paid out of my pocket. You, priest, would tell me that what I did was wrong in the eyes of God. So how do you explain that I'm still here, not struck by lightning, not brought down by a divine arrow, but standing before you with bread in my stomach and juice on my table?”

Gamaliel picked up the cup and drank deeply. He didn't know what this priest wanted, but after the brush with death at
the hand of Solomon, and now facing a strange future, Gamaliel felt oddly bold.

“And when I prayed fervently and offered all manner of things to the temple, did the Almighty save my second-born son when he fell into the ravine? No, my son died after three days in agony, his body broken. And where is the Almighty when my second wife, whose skin is constantly aflame with welts and ruptures, cries from morning till night and scratches herself so hard that she bleeds? And my daughter from my third wife, while no beauty, is still unmarried and is already fifteen years old and no man, regardless of what I offer as bride money, will take her because her arm is withered.”

Ahimaaz was clearly unused to such speeches and found himself without response as Gamaliel continued in a strangely mocking tone.

“Surely conjuring a loaf of bread is a rather unimpressive display from your god if he means to atone for the sorrow and misery of the city?”

Ahimaaz's dismay turned to shock. “How dare you speak in that way, merchant! How dare you think you can understand God's ways! Wasn't it God Almighty who gave us this city? Wasn't it Yahweh who gave our father, Moses, the strength to resist the Egyptian pharaoh and lead us out of our bondage? Wasn't it—”

“Spare me, please. Your sermons are wasted here. I'm a man of business and I make a living from those who come into this city to trade. I have no need for this god of yours, or any other god. The Jebusites had their gods and look what happened to them.”

“Our god is the one true God . . .”

“Show me proof and I'll believe you. Do you know what proof is, Priest? Solomon had proof that I had cheated him. I have proof that the bread I've just eaten was baked today. Other people have stone and iron gods that they can see, but our Yahweh
is invisible”—Gamaliel pointed up to the sky, and then to the top of Mount Moriah, where the temple was soon to be completed—“and yet we're building Him a home. So when the roof is on the building and the men of Lebanon have gone back to where they came from, will Yahweh reside there? And if He does, will we be able to see Him? When I'm in my house and sitting on a chair, people can see me and nobody can sit on the chair that I occupy. Yet, if Yahweh is invisible, how will we know which chair He's sitting on?”

Ahimaaz looked at the tax collector in fury. “For such words, as high priest of Israel, I could order that you be stoned to death. You blaspheme against the Lord our God. I will have you killed.”

Gamaliel smiled as he took out more shekels to pay his cousin for their pomegranate juice. “And will my death make Yahweh appear? No. But it doesn't matter. Let us make a deal. You tend to your congregation and I'll collect my revenues. We're both now in the service of King Solomon and his temple, Ahimaaz, but we're using different doors to enter.”

Gamaliel drained the cup of juice and looked at the priest, whose face was red, not only from the exertion of the walk to the marketplace and the heat of the sun, but also from the seditious and blasphemous words of the tax collector. Gamaliel wiped his lips and smiled. “Now, what did you really want to talk about?”

Y
AEL STRODE UP THE CORRIDOR
and ignored much of what was going on around her. Patients, nurses, fellow doctors, visitors, the low din of clinking trolleys and the hum of machines. But the swirl of brown robes caught her attention. They billowed as the imam walked briskly down the corridor toward her. She saw the imam reach into a pocket deep within the folds
of the material and draw out a mobile phone. For a second she was about to stop him, to point to the sign on the wall that declared mobile phones were not to be used in the hospital, but she thought better of it and the pace and purpose of the bearded man with suspicious eyes implied he was leaving. As she passed him their eyes met, his dark and piercing, black pools deeply set into a tanned face. She quickly looked away, unnerved by his stare. But when she was farther down the corridor and many steps past him, she turned her head to look back and saw the phone pressed to his ear. And it was obvious from the position of his body that he'd just turned back from staring at her.

Yael's thoughts were interrupted by the abrupt presence of the uniformed guard outside Bilal's room. He looked her up and down as though he were about to challenge her entry or search her, even though he had seen her a dozen times. But he simply sat back down on his seat without a word and shifted his rifle's strap on his shoulder. As Yael put her hand on the door and her weight behind it, she pondered how out of place such a weapon was in a hospital.

Inside the room, the air was dry and still and quiet, the TV hanging from the ceiling remaining silent while Bilal lay in his bed. He started with a jump when she entered, and at first she wondered if she had woken him from sleep. But red eyes and the adoption of a fiercely resolute posture in the bed suggested something else. This intrigued Yael and she unintentionally quickened her steps to the bedside, but by the time she was close enough, Bilal's face was a hard mask and he refused to look at her, his eyes fixed dead ahead like those of a soldier lined up for inspection.

“How are you today, Bilal?”

Bilal said nothing. Yael's attention was distracted by thoughts other than bandages. As she checked his blood pressure she could not help but think of the blood that connected them. Who was this young man? Who were his family? How deep did the roots go that linked both of them, two people whose worlds were so
diametrically opposed? But her musings were agitated by the image of an imam walking arrogantly down the hospital's corridor, a man she knew must have just been speaking to Bilal. She didn't trust any religion or any cleric, no matter how unctuous or bland they were on the surface. To her scientific mind, God was simply an invention to allay people's fears, but organized orthodox religion had grown into a woman-hating and power-hungry institution of medieval costumes and archaic ideas. Orthodox Jews and Christians were bad enough, but when it came to hate-spewing Islamic clerics, Yael's secular tolerance flew out the window.

In lively dinner-party debates with her educated friends she would attest to her discomfort for the faith of her own people, her frustration with the Jewish religious right, her disgust at the sycophancy of the Christian churches toward the Palestinians when its very own communities in West Bank towns had been decimated by Palestinian Muslims.

In her professional life, she kept such thoughts to herself. Now that she was in the hospital, her duty was to her patients. She gazed at Bilal and was concerned about the stress, anxiety, and fear on his face. Such emotions would adversely affect his recovery.

“Did you just have a visitor?” she asked him. “I saw a priest in the corridor.”

But he said nothing. His eyes locked on an imaginary spot on the far side of the room.

“You'll be leaving soon.”

This statement turned Bilal's head but he remained silent.

“Can't stay here forever . . .” She stopped her inspection and returned the clipboard to the end of his bed. “So we'll be saying good-bye to each other, Bilal.”

“I am not afraid of what happens next,” said Bilal flatly but unconvincingly.

“So you've said.”

“Understand, woman. I am not afraid.”

“Yes, Bilal. You're very brave,” replied Yael. She was feeling sardonic and didn't mind sounding patronizing.

“I will stand up straight and say to the world that I am a freedom fighter!” said Bilal, exhaling defiance with every syllable.

“Then your trial will be mercifully short.”

Bilal turned his head and looked Yael hard in the eye. “I will be a hero! My brothers will embrace me and they will call me a hero. Of that I promise you.”

Yael knew she should remain silent and dispassionate. She shouldn't have cared for his beliefs or assertions. They were nothing to her. But despite the bluster in his voice she could not dismiss him. Whatever he'd done, he'd been controlled by others and he was only a kid. Sure, he was eighteen, but in his attitudes he wasn't much more than a boy.

She stopped examining his wounds and looked at him intently. “Listen, Bilal, you're in trouble. You don't understand. These people you think love you . . . they . . .” Yael snatched at words. “You have no value to them anymore, Bilal. They don't need you. And they will abandon you. They've used you for a couple of weeks, and they'll leave you to suffer for the rest of your life.”

“You lie!” Bilal spat. “My imam tells me that—”

“Son, listen to me for a minute . . .” Yael put her hand on Bilal's arm. He tried to snatch it away but the handcuff held it and Yael's grip was firm. She could feel his pulse throbbing under her fingers, feel his blood pumping, blood that they shared. She softened her attitude toward him but her grip on his arm remained. “Bilal, you're not safe. You won't be safe in prison. You need to protect yourself. You need to tell the police that you're not a hero but that you've been led astray—”

“You lie!” Bilal yelled, as if he could drown out her words.

Behind Yael, the door was suddenly pushed open and the security guard entered the room to see what the shouting was
about. His eyes narrowed on Bilal and Yael turned to him. “It's okay. We're fine.”

Bilal yanked with all his strength at his handcuffed wrist in anger and the bed lurched with a force that surprised Yael and brought the guard over to the bedside.

“It's okay. We're fine. You don't have to . . .” Yael said urgently to the guard, but as she did she was conscious that the chance to garner more information from Bilal about his heritage had slipped through her fingers.

“Calm down, boy!” said the guard with one hand outstretched and the other hovering near his weapon. There was no chance the guard would actually use his rifle, but many years serving on West Bank checkpoints had ingrained a muscular memory and a reaction to Palestinians that was not easy to let go.

“You lie!” yelled Bilal again. “I am a hero. I am a fighter. And you lie!”

The guard pushed Yael away from the bed with a sweep of his arm, a strong signal that she should leave.

“Bilal . . . Please . . . It won't be what you think. You won't be a hero in prison. You'll—”

But her words were smothered by Bilal's yelling. “YOU LIE!”

Yael turned her back and moved toward the door with the image of Bilal's enraged face in her mind. She left the room, and as she walked down the corridor her mind began to doubt the science that had been her mainstay since she'd been a university student.

The match between their DNA must be wrong, the idea absurd; how could this idiotic failed terrorist be related to her? This deluded boy shared nothing with her—not heritage, not culture, not reality. The blood profile was a mistake, the DNA map was wrong. Or it was a one-in-a-billion chance that their DNA was identical but that they had no relationship to each other at all. And the proof was in the room behind her, painted in denial and ignorance.

Putting one hand in her pocket as she walked quickly toward the stairs that would lead her back to modernity and the certainty of her reality, Yael felt for the slip of paper that she'd retrieved from her hospital mailbox: the letter from Bilal's father. They deserved to know the truth of their son's fate and Yael needed to put this stupid absurdity to rest.