Zealot (20 page)

Suddenly, MacLeod hushed him with a raised hand and a look. Noise on the stairs. Avram stood and pulled his pistol as MacLeod
moved to the door. “
Vo?
” MacLeod called out.

“
Jan-Warsaw
,” a woman’s voice answered.

The correct password. MacLeod opened the door, and Miriam came out onto the roof. “You’re looking better,” MacLeod noted.
After briefing the ZOB leadership, she’d had a chance to wash and change. But it was obvious the shirtdress she wore buttoned
firmly from chin to ankle was from some earlier lifetime—the short sleeves only emphasized how reed-thin her arms had grown.
She had to belt it tightly at the waist to keep it from gapping open.

She went directly to Avram. “Anielewicz has called a unit commanders’ meeting in half an hour, Tzaddik. I’m to take your watch
with
Der Alte
.”

MacLeod never could get used to that nickname—the Old One. The first time he’d heard the name, at a strategy meeting not long
after returning to the Ghetto and throwing his lot in with the ZOB, he’d glared at Avram accusingly, but later, after the
meeting, Avram had sworn he wasn’t behind it. “Hey, I wanted
schmuck
, but they voted me down.” Almost everyone in the organization had a pseudonym, Avram had explained—Antek, Kazik, Green Marysia—it
was a safety measure. “You get used to it.”

“So what’s Tzaddik mean?” MacLeod had asked Avram at the time, his Yiddish getting better but still not quite that good.

“It’s a kind of a wandering holy man with …” he had trailed off into a mumble.

“With what? I didn’t quite hear you, ‘holy man,’” MacLeod had pressed.

Avram had looked a little sheepish. “With, ah, mystical powers.” MacLeod raised a critical eyebrow. “I had a few close calls,
they think I’m lucky, that’s all,” Avram had said defensively. He pushed a sleeve back, indicating his smoky-dark arm. “And
it’s pretty obvious I’m not from around here.”

“So how did
I
get to be the Old One? You’ve got a good fifteen hundred years on me.”

“Look at yourself, MacLeod, and then look at them. Most of these kids are barely out of school. They should be studying algebra,
not carrying guns. You look old enough to be their father. Hell, you look old enough to be
my
father.” MacLeod had speared him with a look that promised violence, and Avram quickly backpedaled. “Adoring older brother?”

Wherever the name had come from, he was Der Alte now in all official ZOB communications, and even people like Miriam, who
also knew him as Duncan MacLeod, abided by it. She continued her message. “The commanders are to report to Yossel’s base in
the Brushmakers’ Area.”

Avram checked that his pistol was fully loaded and holstered it. “Guess this is it then.” He shouldered his rifle. “Keep my
seat warm.” He headed down the stairs.

MacLeod returned to sit at his lookout position on the wooden crate near the edge of the roof overlooking the gate. The streets
of the Ghetto were deserted, but beyond the gate, the city of Warsaw teemed with life. Despite the wartime blackout, he could
see automobiles moving in the streets, young couples walking home from the picture show. So close, and yet it might as well
be worlds away. Miriam stood anxiously near the door for several minutes before MacLeod noted, “It’s hard to stand watch from
there. Sure you don’t want to come over here? Tzaddik left a little food.” She hesitated another moment, then pulled a bundle
from the canvas pack she carried. She brought it to MacLeod and presented it to him wordlessly.

It was his bloodied, bullet-ridden shirt.

He took the shirt from her, and she searched his face for answers. She never said a word, yet MacLeod knew instinctively the
questions she was asking. Who was he?
What
was he? So many times he’d heard those questions, faced the rejection and revulsion that accompanied them. He reached up
and gently touched her bruised face, looking deeply into the dark, serious eyes that studied him so intently. He didn’t find
the fear he expected to see there, only a burning curiosity and something akin to accusation.

“Don’t ask me, Miriam, please,” he finally said, with a touch of sadness. “I don’t want to have to lie to you.”

He continued looking at her, intense, unmoving, until she finally pulled away, not satisfied but knowing somehow she would
never know. Moving to the ratty blanket where Avram had been, she sat down. She picked up the full cup of wine there with
hands that trembled just a touch and took a drink, looking out at the gate and the darkened city beyond it, avoiding looking
at him at all costs. MacLeod could sense she had much more on her mind than the mystery of the bullet holes in his shirt.
Her second drink from the cup was a deep one. “I think that was Elijah’s,” he said softly.

Miriam turned back to him with a mournful smile. “Why would Elijah come all the way to Hell to get a drink?”

“I take it you’re not”—he indicated the remains of Avram’s impromptu seder—“practicing?”

Miriam shrugged. “I thought I believed. Once. Now?” She reached for the bottle and poured the last of the wine into the cup.
“My parents believed. My neighbors believed. You see what good it did them.”

It was a spiritual journey MacLeod recognized all too well. How to justify a loving, caring God when all around the world
lay bleeding and dying. Where was God’s love in agony, in atrocity, in carnage? He’d traveled that road many times, on countless
bloodstained battlefields and by the caskets of those he loved, but still he had no answers. He only had his faith.

He swept aside the seder crumbs and sat on the blanket next to her. “Don’t blame God.” She turned her head and tried to shrug
him off, but he grabbed her forearm, determined she would hear him. “
God
didn’t kill your parents, Miriam. The Nazis did.”

“
He
let it happen.”

MacLeod released her, stunned by the depth of her bitterness. After a moment, he leaned back on his elbows, looking up at
the bright field of stars stretched above them. “Do you ever just sit and watch the stars, Miriam?” When she didn’t answer,
he said quietly, “Some people might say God was there to comfort them at their passing.”

“And what do
you
say, Duncan?”

“I say … I don’t know. I say … I hope we find out someday.” It was the best he could do. It was the truth.

Miriam took another drink from Elijah’s cup, then offered it to MacLeod. He shook it off. “I’d better keep a clear head.”
He pointed skyward. “That one’s Polaris. You can navigate a ship all the way to America by that one tiny star.”

She put down the cup and sat with her arms hugged around her knees, trying to see what it was MacLeod saw in the heavens.
“I never thought much about stars, I guess. When there used to be light in the city, you couldn’t see them so well.”

“You know what else I like about that star, Miriam? That no matter what happens, she’ll still be there. The Nazis will be
gone a thousand centuries and Polaris’ll still be shining, leading people home.”

Miriam said nothing, lost in her own thoughts, lost in the stars. After a while, MacLeod pulled out his watch, checked the
time. Still nearly four hours until the Germans were expected. And if there was one thing he had learned, the Germans would
be punctual. He closed the watch and slid it back in his pocket.

“I would have been twenty in June,” Miriam said so quietly he barely heard her. He couldn’t tell if she meant to speak to
him or just to the stars.

“Miriam, you can’t think that way,” he protested.

She continued on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I wanted to go to University. Maybe study philosophy. Kant and Buber. Hegel
…” She paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought, then asked, “Do you think that’s silly, Duncan? For a woman to study
philosophy?”

“No, of course not.” He took her hand in his, rubbing it in encouragement. He knew that listening was the best way he could
help her now.

Miriam kept on looking at the sky. “I used to dream that maybe I’d meet someone there, someone sophisticated, an intellectual—maybe
even a poet. And he’d love me. We’d travel, we’d go all over the world together, see everything together.” MacLeod could hear
the tears coming, although she was trying her best to hide them. “Paris is very beautiful, isn’t it, Duncan?”

“Yes, it is,” he whispered, “very beautiful.”

“I wanted to see Paris. I wanted to raise a family. I wanted to grow old with someone who loved me. Was that so much to ask?
And now—” Her voice broke and she swallowed a sob.

MacLeod put his arm around her shaking shoulders. “Miriam, you don’t know that.”

She finally turned from the sky to look at him, her eyes bright with tears. “We die their way or ours, Duncan. That’s the
choice. You know what we’re up against. There are no provisions for winning.” She was vehement. “Either we’re led like sheep
to the ovens or we go down fighting, but there’s not an option left for
living
. Not anymore. Not in this lifetime.” MacLeod watched her face as she fought to control the anger and frustration, but it
was too much. She hung her head in her hands and finally allowed the strength of her sobs to overwhelm her. “Sometimes … I
just wish … I’d never been born…”

“Miriam, no …” MacLeod reached out to her, gathering her in his arms, and she melted into his chest, her tears anointing his
shoulder as she wept. He stroked the back of her hair. “You can’t grieve for what hasn’t happened yet—what may never happen.
You have to celebrate each moment you
have
been given, like it’s a gift from God.” His arms around her in a comforting embrace, he rocked her back and forth like a
child.

“Some gift,” he heard her say in a small voice, but gradually the tremor of her sobs quieted until she lay still against his
chest.

After a time, while he held her close listening to the sound of her breathing, Miriam stirred. She reached up to him, wrapping
her arms around his neck. She placed a kiss on the base of his throat.

“Miriam?”

Slowly, her lips traced the line of finely articulated muscle connecting shoulder and jaw.

“Miriam, what—” He drew in a sharp breath as her teeth brushed the sensitive area where his head joined his body, the vulnerable
place that was his sole defense between life and everlasting death. Embolded by his reaction, Miriam sat up on her knees so
she could bathe his face with her kisses. She tangled one hand in his hair and tilted back his head, kissing him hard on the
mouth.

MacLeod pulled back—“Miriam, wait”—but her lips urgently sought his again. He grabbed her face with both hands and held her
still in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“I want you to make love to me, Duncan.” Her voice was breathless, her eyes pleaded with him. “Please … I don’t want to die
without knowing about love.” Her eager hands moved to caress his face, fingers tracing the path her lips yearned to follow.

“Sex and love aren’t the same, Miriam. You know that.” He could feel her pain, her loneliness, her longing welling up inside
of her as she stroked the strong, dark ridge of his brow. With the very tips of her fingers, she traced the contours of his
lips, the touch of a feather. He could feel his senses begin to awaken.

“Please, Duncan, I want to be touched by someone who cares about me.” One fevered hand moved to unfasten his jacket. “I need
to be held by someone I care for. Just once.” With her other hand she explored the silhouette of his face, the curvature of
his ear like someone blind, taking it all in, memorizing the shape, the feel, the sensations. “Please,” she said urgently.
“Now. Before the Germans come. Show me what it’s like to be a woman. Make love to me.”

His senses coming sharply into focus, MacLeod looked at Miriam with new eyes. Her bleached hair tied simply back, her face
free of the makeup she usually wore to look older to her contacts on the Aryan side, she projected a bittersweet innocence
even through the cuts and bruises. She was so very young and fragile. And beautiful. He’d never allowed himself to see how
beautiful she was before. But behind the facade of the brave, dispassionate ZOB courier was a young woman barely out of her
teens, scared and vulnerable. He was torn. “Miriam, I … I can’t. We can’t.”

“Duncan, please, don’t say no.” Her voice took on an edge of desperation. “I don’t want my first time to be like today … or
some German …” The prospect left her speechless and trembling. Her eyes bored into his, filling with tears once again, begging
him.

The last thing a wounded psyche like Miriam’s needed was sex for sex’s sake, loveless, meaningless, mechanical. But he knew
that with caring and affection, the act of love could rise above that, become a rite of celebration, an affirmation of life,
a ceremony of healing and, as such, not out of place on this night, so different from all other nights. He cared deeply for
Miriam, although never until this moment had he thought of her in a consciously sexual way. Perhaps some affection and tenderness
could help prepare her spirit for the ordeal he knew would come with the rising sun.

Wordless, he rose to his knees and answered her, moving closer to her face still cradled in his hands, touching her lips with
his own, parting those trembling lips and claiming her mouth with his tongue. He felt her shiver ripple through her body and
into his own.

He released her for a moment and watched her gasp for air, her body awakening to new possibilities, sensations she was only
starting to imagine. Every breath a sigh of longing. He removed his leather jacket and wadded it into a pillow, which he placed
at one end of the tattered blanket. As soon as the jacket was off, Miriam began unfastening his shirt with a fierce passion,
but her inexperience showed as she fumbled with the buttons. Taking one of her tiny hands in each of his own strong ones,
he helped her carefully work each button.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked as she pulled the shirttail from his trousers and finished unbuttoning it.

“More than anything in my life,” she responded with grave seriousness as she ran her hands under the shirt, up his taut abdomen,
and across a chest as firm as steel. She pushed the shirt off each of his shoulders, and he helped her pull it off behind
him and throw it aside.