“No, Ari. I can’t do that.” Then she turned to face Abby again. “When we reach the top of this hill, you will have your first glimpse of the Sea of Galilee There it is! What do you think?”
Abby caught her breath. Below her the sea resembled a deep blue sapphire, mounted in a setting of gentle green hills. The lake was smaller than she had imagined, but much lovelier.
“I never dreamed it would be so beautiful. For some reason, I always thought of Israel as a desert, but it isn’t at all. No wonder people have been fighting over this land for centuries.”
“Yes, and unfortunately we are still fighting,” Hannah said. “You experienced that for yourself yesterday.”
Abby gathered her courage to ask the question she had been avoiding. “Hannah, about what happened yesterday . . . do you think I’m still a suspect?”
“I can’t imagine that any sensible person would think so! Why?”
“I called home after we talked last night. My house in Indiana was broken into yesterday. Someone robbed it and ransacked the place.”
“Is your family all right?”
“No one was home at the time, but my daughter was pretty upset when she discovered the mess. I should call her again tonight and see how she’s doing. But I’ve been wondering . . . Do you think the two events are related somehow?”
Hannah and Ari exchanged glances. Hannah looked very angry. “I’d like to say no, Abby, but I honestly don’t know. There are radical groups in my country who would easily stoop to such tactics. Israel is still a nation in crisis, just as it was in Jesus’ time. There are people who want to fight and people like Ben who want compromise and peace. . . . You’ll probably hear several other points of view, too, while you’re here. Once again, Jesus offers us the only real solution. And once again, no one is listening.”
Ari mumbled something to Hannah in Hebrew, then they both rode in silence, staring straight ahead.
Abby tried to enjoy the lush scenery as they drove around the lake, passing groves of avocados and bananas, seeing date palm trees for the first time in her life, but she was too upset by Hannah’s answer to appreciate any of it. “I’m wondering if I should go home,” Abby finally said. “The idea of common thieves invading my home is bad enough—but not nearly as alarming as terrorists. My maternal instincts are urging me to get on the next flight to Indianapolis and protect my children.”
“I understand,” Hannah said quietly. “How many children do you have, Abby?”
“Two. Gregory is twenty, a college student, and Emily is eighteen. She’ll be starting college this fall.”
“You don’t look nearly old enough to have a grown son!” Hannah said. “You must have been a child bride!”
“Thanks, but at forty-two, I’m certainly old enough. We . . . that is, my hus . . .” Abby drew a breath and started again. “The children were born right after I was married. I wanted it that way. I loved staying home and being a mother. Eleven years ago, after Emily started first grade, I hardly knew what to do with myself. Both of my kids have always been quite independent and self-sufficient. So I applied for a teaching position and I’ve been mothering entire rooms full of children ever since. I love teaching.”
“Is this the first time you’ve been so far away from your children?” Hannah asked.
“Well, they’ve been gone from home for summer camp and school trips and things like that—and, of course, Greg has lived on campus for the past two years—but
I’ve
never left
them
for so long before now. We’ve always traveled together, as a family.”
“Are there other family members living close by who could look in on your children?”
“Both sets of grandparents are within driving distance, and their father is nearby, of course. . . .”
Hannah nodded. “Then if I were you, I would talk to your children again and see how things look today before making any hasty decisions. You did say they were independent and self-sufficient, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And in spite of everything, Mark was
. . . is
a good father.” She had a sudden memory of Mark sprawled on the farmhouse floor with Emily and Greg, building Lego creations and drinking imaginary cups of tea, reading storybooks and playing checkers. She shook her head. How could she reconcile that image with the man who had walked out of their life?
“Next time you talk to your children,” Hannah said, bringing Abby back, “tell them that if they lived in Israel they would have to serve in the military right after high school—your daughter for two years and your son for three.”
“Really? That must be tough on them.”
“It grows them up in a hurry.”
As they pulled into the hotel parking lot, Ari’s eyes met Abby’s in the rearview mirror. “I have a laptop computer,” he said quietly. “You are welcome to use it while you are here if you want to contact your family by email. Telephone calls can be very expensive.”
She felt a small measure of relief. “Thank you. That’s a wonderful idea. We do have email.”
Abby was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Golani Hotel, where they would be staying during the dig, was a plush resort. It perched on a hillside on the eastern shore of the lake, with a view of rolling green farmland and the Sea of Galilee in the distance. The expedition members would be housed in private bungalows that had a pair of rooms in each one. A separate building housed the sprawling hotel, dining room, and gift shop. Signs directed guests to the swimming pool and tennis courts.
“Wow, I had no idea it would be this luxurious,” Abby said. “Are we allowed to use all these facilities?”
“Yes, but don’t be surprised if you are too worn out after a day of digging to take advantage of them,” Hannah said. Her bungalow was the first one in the row, with Ted and Ramona Voss’s room next door. Abby’s was farther down the path with Ari’s room adjoining it.
He glanced at his watch as she unlocked her door. “Give me fifteen minutes and I will have the computer ready to send your email message.”
Ari sat outside on the front step while Abby typed a long letter to Emily. After apologizing to her daughter for hanging up last night, Abby described her flight, her impressions of Israel, and as many of today’s sights as she could remember. Once again she decided not to mention Benjamin Rosen’s death. The idea of terrorists still disturbed her, so she added a postscript:
If you want your father to stay with you for a few more nights, it’s all right with me
.
“I’m ready to send this,” she called to Ari when she finished. He pushed a few buttons and her message disappeared into cyberspace. “Thank you so much, Ari.”
“It’s time for dinner,” he said. “I will show you the way.”
Abby hoped she wouldn’t have to eat with him. His abruptness made her uncomfortable. So did trying to converse with him as they walked up the flowered path to the dining room.
“I want to thank you and your wife again for the clothes,” she said. “Will I have a chance to meet her? Will she be joining you here this summer?”
“No.”
He didn’t seem to mind the strained silence that followed, but Abby did. “Listen, I meant to ask . . . is there something I should be doing to help retrieve my lost luggage?”
“I took care of it.”
“Thank you. I haven’t flown much—and never overseas like this. How long does it usually take for them to find lost baggage?”
“A few days.”
“Umm . . . did that horrible man, Agent Shur, say anything more about questioning me?”
Ari shook his head.
The walk back to the bungalow with Hannah after dinner was much more pleasant than the walk with Ari. “I recommend you get a good night’s sleep tonight,” Hannah said. “Morning will come very early tomorrow.”
“I’m so excited about my first day of digging, I may not be able to sleep!”
Hannah laughed. “I hope Dr. Voss warned all of his volunteers that real archaeology isn’t like Hollywood. What is that popular movie series called?”
“You mean
Indiana Jones?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Real digs aren’t nearly that glamorous. They’re mostly a lot of hard work in the hot sun, moving a ton or two of dirt.”
“You mean I’m not going to find the lost Ark of the Covenant?” Abby said, laughing.
“Don’t we both wish!”
“Oh well, I don’t mind. It’s thrilling just to be here.” Hannah’s arm circled Abby’s shoulder for a quick hug. “Good night, Hannah.”
“Good night, dear.”
CHAPTER 4
THE GOLANI HOTEL, ISRAEL—1999
A
bby’s room was dark when the telephone rang. She bolted out of bed, her heart pounding. The digital clock read 4:00
A.M
. It was her wake-up call.
“Have mercy!” she said, groaning. It felt like the middle of the night! She dressed sluggishly, then applied a thick layer of sunscreen, found her hat and her water bottles, and stumbled down the path to the dining hall for a quick cup of coffee.
She was still yawning and trying to rub the sleep from her eyes as she walked to the rented vans that would transport them to the dig site. Hannah was there already, looking wide awake as she instructed the drivers and ironed out last-minute details with Dr. Voss. When she saw Abby, she limped over to greet her.
“You look like you want to crawl back into bed,” Hannah said, laughing.
“I do. I’ve never started work this early in my life.”
“You’ll understand why we do once you feel how hot it gets by quitting time. But God gives you two rewards for rising so early. Look up, Abby . . . there’s your first one.”
Abby tilted her head, looking at the sky for the first time since crawling out of bed. Billions of stars studded the black velvet expanse, with the shimmering blaze of the Milky Way cutting a swath across the middle. The sight took her breath away.
“Wow! I’ve never seen so many stars! There are too many city lights where I live.”
“God told Abraham to look up at the heavens and count the stars—that’s how numerous his offspring would be.”
The sky was already growing light when they arrived at the excavation site—a jumbled pile of stones and weeds on top of a mound forty feet high. While Dr. Voss issued orders for the equipment to be unloaded—picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, spades, and dozens of black plastic buckets—Hannah drew Abby aside.
“Ready for your second reward?” They walked to the eastern edge of the mound, overlooking a grove of fruit trees. “Have you ever heard the song of praise the birds sing as they greet the dawn? Listen . . .”
The sky above the distant hills resembled an Impressionist watercolor in muted shades of pink and blue. Then, as the hazy sun slowly rose above the horizon, it was greeted by a chorus of birdsong in the trees below. The sound slowly grew in a mighty crescendo of joy.
“You’re right,” Abby said softly. “It was worth getting up early for this.”
“Jesus told us to look at the birds; they don’t worry about the future because our heavenly Father feeds them. I think that’s why they praise Him, don’t you, Abby?”
They enjoyed the ever-changing sky in silence for a few minutes before Hannah sighed and said, “Well, now we must get to work.”
“She gathered all the volunteers around her to begin the day with a walking tour of the site, deftly maneuvering with her crutches over the rough terrain. “This
tel
, or archaeological mound we’re standing on, is like a layer cake of ancient history. Each time the village was destroyed, the survivors would rebuild on the remaining rubble, layer after layer, until the result was this flat-topped tel. The oldest civilizations are on the very bottom, the newest ones close to the surface. This is only our third year at this site, and as you can see”—she gestured toward the eleven-acre plateau that remained largely unexcavated—“we have a long way to go. If you look around among the weeds as we walk, you’ll probably find some stray pieces of pottery.”
“Can we keep what we find?” one of the college students asked.
Hannah smiled. “That depends. We already have plenty of ordinary potsherds, so you can keep those. But promise me you will show your area supervisor any pieces that have writing or designs on them, okay? All of the artifacts belong to the State of Israel . . . and we still live by the Ten Commandments here—‘Thou shalt not steal.’” Everyone laughed.
Hannah stopped at a work site near the village spring. “During our first season, we dug this shaft all the way down to the bedrock and learned that the village was occupied almost continually throughout the Old Testament period, probably because of this freshwater supply. Last year we did more probing, searching for promising sites, and stumbled on a few, including the synagogue that you’ll see in a minute. This season we want to concentrate on the top layer of occupation, which dates from the Roman period.”
Abby found herself walking beside Ari as they followed Hannah to the next work area. “This should be right up your alley,” she said.
“My
what
?”
Seeing his puzzled expression she added, “The Roman period, I mean. Didn’t you say it was your area of expertise?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “Yes, I’m looking forward to it.” But there was no enthusiasm in his voice.
“We are still unsure of the name of this tel,” Hannah continued. “No one thought to put up a welcome sign on the outskirts of town, announcing the name. But we have tentatively identified it as the village of Degania, which was last occupied in the first century The name comes from a little blue wild flower, the
deganit
, which grows all over this area in the springtime.”
Hannah guided the group across the rocky ground to an impressive pile of building stones and sections of fallen pillars. “Now, what we have over here are the remains of the village synagogue. It would have served Degania as a place of worship and also as the village school. Close to it, over here, we found a public
mikveh
, or ritual bath. Since the Pharisees were very concerned about all the ritual cleansings prescribed by Mosaic Law, we can probably conclude that the Pharisees played a major role in the life of this village. Tell me,” she said, addressing the students, “what comes to your mind when you hear the word
Pharisee
?”