Abby suddenly recalled the look of surprise on Hannah’s face that morning when Abby stepped off the bus wearing the shorts and blouse Ari had loaned her. “I wore Rachel’s clothes! That must have been so hard for you, Hannah. I’m so sorry. He never told me . . . I didn’t realize.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad he loaned them to you. All these years he would never let me or anyone else touch her things, so it was a good sign. You are almost the same size as her, with the same dark hair . . . only she wore her hair long.”
Abby looked down at the picture again and blinked away tears. “She’s so beautiful. They look so happy.”
“For Ari to come on this dig was an answer to prayer. He was returning to the work he once loved and finding healing in that work—like I did at Gamla. I’ve watched his excitement grow each day as he dug a little deeper.”
“I have, too,” Abby admitted. “Especially since he started excavating the Roman villa . . . and when we found the mosaic.”
“Yes, the mosaic! All my life I’ve dug through ruins to prove that this land belonged to our Jewish ancestors. Now these Christian symbols on the floor of a Jewish home prove that some of those ancestors believed in Yeshua the Messiah! Ari has seen it. God used the part of his work he was most passionate about—mosaic floors—to prove to him that Rachel was right, that Yeshua was Jewish. And that He was the Jewish Messiah our ancestors had been waiting for.
“But that isn’t all,” Hannah continued. “Ari had to stick close to you, Abby, and that meant listening to the message of Christ. He knows it’s what Rachel believed. He didn’t declare himself a believer or ask to be baptized before she died, but he went to church with her.” She paused. “Oh, Abby, please forgive me for not telling you. Please believe that it was for Ari’s sake. And please pray for him.”
Abby stood and accepted Hannah’s embrace. “Of course I forgive you, Hannah. Of course I do.”
“Then if you’re free tomorrow night, would you join a friend and me for dinner? There is someone else I would like you to meet.”
Abby couldn’t stop thinking about Hannah and her daughter after she returned to her room. If anything ever happened to one of her own children, Abby knew that her grief would be unbearable. Unable to sleep, she calculated the time in Indiana, then picked up the telephone and called home.
“Hello.”
It was her husband, Mark.
Abby’s heart pounded in her throat. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“Hello?” he repeated.
“Um . . . is Emily there?” she finally managed to ask. Her voice sounded so hoarse she doubted if he would even recognize it.
“She just ran out to pick up a pizza. Can she call you back?”
At the sound of Mark’s voice, Abby battled to push away a horde of memories, as if fending off a swarm of bees. Some of them stung her painfully. She and Mark had attended colleges that were miles apart, and much of their courtship had taken place over the telephone. She had once loved the sound of his rich baritone voice and its power to warm and enliven her—like smooth, strong coffee on a wintry evening. She remembered sitting on her bed in the dormitory, wrapped in a blanket as she talked to him, watching the snow falling outside her window, waiting for spring when they would be married.
“Hello . . . ?” Mark said again. “Hello, are you there?”
She realized she had kept him waiting a long time. “This is Abby,” she finally said. “Emily doesn’t need to call me back. I just wanted to remind her that I love her . . . in case she forgets.”
She gently laid the receiver back in its cradle as the tears came. That was how Mark used to begin his phone calls.
I just wanted to remind you that I love you . . . in case you forget. . . .
CHAPTER 20
EAST JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—1999
A
bby, I’d like you to meet my good friend Ahmed Saraj . . . Ahmed, this is Abby MacLeod, from America.”
“Hello, so nice to meet you,” Abby said, shaking his hand. The moment Ahmed opened the door to greet them and Abby saw his handsome chiseled face and honey-toned skin, she guessed that he was the Arab stranger who had visited Hannah in the hospital. He was about the same age as Hannah, and he greeted her with a warm embrace. Even dressed in Western-style clothing he resembled an Arab sheik.
“Ahmed is the pastor of the fellowship of believers I attend,” Hannah explained. “He also taught me to walk . . . in more ways than one.”
Ahmed invited them into his house, which was very similar to Marwan’s, except that more of the clustered rooms had been completed. He shared his home with his youngest son, Ibrahim, his daughter-in-law, Safia, and his beautiful five-year-old granddaughter, Nada. The child climbed onto Hannah’s lap as soon as she sat down and barely left Hannah’s arms the entire evening. When Safia announced that dinner was ready, Nada and Hannah seemed reluctant to part. Abby suddenly realized that Nada must be the baby that Ahmed had brought to Hannah in the hospital.
Safia had spread the meal on a cloth on the floor, and everyone sat on rugs and cushions scattered around it to eat. Abby took helpings of couscous and lamb and fresh pita bread, along with a variety of the delicious Middle-Eastern salads that she had grown so fond of while in Israel. When Ahmed said grace, it was a Christian prayer, in Jesus’ name.
“I’m probably showing my ignorance,” Abby said as they began to eat, “but I always thought that all Palestinians were Muslims.”
“Most are,” Ahmed said, “but there is also a small population of Palestinian Christians in Israel. Their faith in Christ dates back many centuries. Sadly, my family was not part of them. I was brought up in the Islamic faith.”
“Tell Abby how you became a Christian,” Hannah urged.
Ahmed laughed. “It was through the back door, you might say. My father was a gardener for a Christian church on the Mount of Olives here in Jerusalem. My grandfather had been the groundskeeper before him, and so on, all the way back to the time when the church was first founded. It was a great honor to hold this job, an honor that I, as the eldest son, would one day inherit. But I was much more interested in listening to what went on inside the mysterious sanctuary than I was in trimming shrubs and pulling weeds. And so whenever I had a chance, I cracked the door open and listened.
“What I heard for the first time in my life was the message of God’s love. I saw His love portrayed on the crucifix in front of the church. I learned that through Christ, I could become a child of God—a new idea for me. I had been taught that to earn Allah’s favor I must follow the five pillars of Islam: believe in one God; pray five times a day; fast during the month of Ramadan; give alms to the poor; and fulfill the
Haj
or pilgrimage to Mecca during my lifetime. I was taught that prayer would carry me halfway to God, fasting would bring me to the door of His palace, and giving alms would gain me admission. But that was wrong. The Christian God had already thrown open the door of His palace through His Son, Jesus Christ, removing all the sin that stood in my path. To walk through, all I had to do was repent and believe.”
Ahmed was a fascinating man to watch. He had a natural dignity and gracefulness in the way he walked and sat, and his gestures conveyed a sense of royalty. Abby had never been in the presence of princes or kings, but she could imagine none more regal than Ahmed. She saw that it had nothing to do with human pride and everything to do with the Spirit of God within him. She would have loved to hear him preach the Gospel.
“Eventually, a very kind priest wedged the sanctuary door open for me from the other side,” Ahmed continued. “He offered to educate me for free at the school, which his religious order sponsored. This was a very difficult decision for my father to make. He knew the advantages that a Western-style education would bring me, an education that he could not afford. But he also feared that it would draw me away from the faith of my ancestors. He didn’t know, of course, that I had already been drawn to Christ by His message of grace.”
Abby was so intrigued by Ahmed’s story that she had forgotten to eat. She took a few mouthfuls of food and let Ahmed eat some more before asking, “Was your family upset when you finally became a Christian?”
“I am no longer their son. They mourned for me as if I had died. They no longer speak of me.”
“That’s a very great price to pay for your faith,” Abby said.
“Yes. But God has given me new brothers and sisters in Christ,” he said, smiling at Hannah. “I had the privilege of meeting Hannah’s daughter, Rachel, first. It was only through the great tragedy of her death that I met Hannah. . . .”
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—1994
H
annah was no longer on mind-numbing medication when the handsome Arab stranger walked into her room in the rehabilitation hospital one afternoon. She knew he wasn’t an angel, but a flesh-and-blood man. A Palestinian man. Her enemy.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “I don’t know you. Why do you keep coming here?”
“I am Ahmed Saraj. I was a friend of your daughter. I baptized Rachel into the Christian faith.”
“You did
what?”
“I am the pastor of the church she belonged to.”
“Get out! Get out and don’t come back!” When he didn’t move, Hannah looked around for something to throw at him. There was nothing within reach.
“I understand how you feel—”
“How dare you tell me you know how I feel!” Hannah shouted. “You
don’t
know! It was one of your people who killed my daughter!”
“Yes, Hannah, I do know,” Ahmed said gently. “It was one of your people who killed my wife.”
His voice held none of the terrible rage and bitterness that Hannah knew hers did. She saw sorrow and kindness in his ebony eyes, but she walled off her heart to them. Ahmed took another step into the room.
“When my wife’s father was dying, she went to his home in Hebron to care for him. Israeli commandos raided the wrong house, searching for terrorists. They didn’t look. They just opened fire on the occupants with their guns blazing. Nada and her father were both killed instantly.”
His words, and the gentle, dignified way he said them, left Hannah shaken. She still wanted nothing to do with him, but when she spoke to him again it was less vehemently than before.
“Get out, or I’ll ring for someone to come and throw you out.” She tried to wheel her chair toward the telephone, but the brake had been left on. She was too rattled to remember how to release it.
“You wanted to know why I’ve been coming to see you,” he said.
“I don’t care why you’ve been coming. I want you to leave!”
“I would like to do that, but I can’t . . . I came because God told me to come.”
“What a ridiculous thing to say!”
Ahmed slowly walked across the room and sat in the visitor’s seat facing Hannah’s wheelchair. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees so that their eyes were level. The intensity of his gaze and the compassion in his eyes left Hannah defenseless.
“Whenever I pray for you, Hannah, God speaks the same verse of Scripture from the Psalms to me, over and over again. ‘How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.’”
Tears filled her eyes as the stranger recited Jake’s words. She hadn’t heard them spoken aloud since Rachel died. How could this man possibly have known? She covered her face and wept.
“I knew that message was for you We can trust God’s
unfailing love, Hannah.”
He left her alone to grieve, but he returned the following morning. “I have come to help you with your physical therapy,” he announced. “I understand that your cousin has work he must do, and that his wife lives in Galilee. I told them I would be happy to come each day and work with you. I have had experience with such therapy before.”
Hannah turned away from him. “I don’t want your help.”
“I know,” he said softly, “but I will work with you just the same.” He gripped the handles of her wheelchair and released the brake.
“We’re enemies—Jew and Arab,” Hannah said.
Ahmed sighed. “This strategy of an eye for an eye has blinded all of us. What both of our people long for and cannot find is grace.”
It was the first of many days that Ahmed spent with her. Once Hannah had been fitted for a prosthesis, she needed to strengthen her atrophied muscles, adjust to her new limb, practice walking.
“This is impossible,” she wept one day after tripping for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I’ll never get the hang of this. It’s too hard.”
Once again, Ahmed helped her up. “Rest a bit, Hannah, then we will try again.”
“No. I quit. Why should I walk?”
“For Rachel’s sake. Rachel loved you. She would want you to be whole.”
“Rachel is gone, and I don’t care if I walk or not. I can lecture to my classes in a wheelchair. I won’t be excavating anymore, so why bother?”
“You must also walk for your son-in-law’s sake.”
“What does Ari have to do with it? He resigned from the Institute. He hasn’t even come to see me.”
“As long as you’re in this wheelchair, you are a reminder to him of what happened. You must walk so that Ari will be able to look at you without feeling guilty, so that he can forgive himself. You must go on with your life and return to archaeology so that he won’t blame himself for destroying your career. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for him. Rachel loved him. He is a shattered man just now, and Rachel would want him to be whole, too.”
Hannah’s muscles slowly grew stronger. She gradually adjusted to the artificial limb. She learned to walk. Hannah also reached an uneasy truce with Ahmed. As she learned to lean on him, she also learned to trust him. He was strong when she felt weak, compassionate when grief overwhelmed her, a companion when she felt all alone. No matter how angry or depressed she became, Ahmed always returned her harsh words with gentle ones. And she also grew accustomed to his prodding lectures. He talked about the Holy One the way Jake used to do. And he talked about Yeshua the Messiah the way Rachel had.
“Why do you still come around to annoy me now that I can walk?” Hannah asked when he showed up at her apartment one afternoon.