Bloodline (19 page)

The rabbi had concurred that violence committed to bring about the downfall of the secular government was justifiable. And as an expert in counterterrorism, it was just a small step across the line for Eliahu to go from protector to destroyer. But, unlike most destroyers, his plan was to rebuild a Messianic Israel after the destruction, the foundations of which would be the Torah, and this would lead to the return of his beloved daughter.

In the eyes of Neturei Karta, Israel was an illicit, amoral collection of Jews who should have stayed in the diaspora created by the Romans until the Messiah arrived. Then He would gather up His people and return them to God's land. A small number of blessed Jews had lived in Roman Judea, in Islamic Palestine, in the Crusader kingdom of Christendom, and under the rule of the Ottomans as caretakers, and this was God's will until the arrival of the Messiah and the return of all the Jews from around the world. But then political Zionism had begun the artificial building of the Jewish nation and secular lawmakers had introduced things that weren't in the Jewish law of the Torah, and so the Messiah would not come.

Eliahu reached for another piece of chewing gum as he
remembered his many conversations with Reb Telushkin in the two years after his heart operation. But the first steps in their plan had gone slightly awry. In the ordinary scheme of things, it wouldn't have mattered. The Palestinian kid had failed to be killed, and he could have been seen to in prison or anywhere. But this doctor was getting involved, and that was adding an unnecessary layer of complication. If there was one thing Eliahu hated, it was external complications to a neat and clever plan.

This damnable woman doctor was frustrating him again. What had Bilal told her? What had he said to others? Had he named the imam? For if he had, Eliahu was concerned that if the pressure on the imam was too great, the bastard would tell the cops about him. It was unlikely, and he'd covered his tracks, but he didn't want any cop or colleague in Shin Bet examining what he was doing. Two had already become suspicious and he'd had to deal with them.

But this doctor—she was a problem that needed to be removed! He continued chewing, realizing that he was chewing faster than normal. To calm himself, he began to sing the Neturei Karta anthem under his breath.

God is our King, Him do we serve, the Torah is our Law and in it we believe.

We do not recognize the heretical Zionist regime, its laws do not apply to us.

We will go in the ways of the Torah in fire and water.

We walk in the ways of the Torah, to sanctify the Name of Heaven.

He sighed and felt calmer as he remembered the brilliant white light and the path he'd followed ever since.

A
HIMAAZ SAT ALONE
in the silence of his office—a silence that was not only in the room but also in his mind. Yahweh's silence was the most profound indication that Ahimaaz was abandoned. The duties of the day were nearly upon him but he could not empty the silence from his mind.

There was a knock on the door and he didn't have time to say “Enter” before it opened and Gamaliel the tax collector walked in. The man was so rude, so arrogant, that Ahimaaz nearly ordered him to leave. Since they'd been working together, administering the temple, they'd barely spoken a civil word to each other.

Gamaliel sat himself down and drew out an assortment of papers and accounts relating to money and expenses in the maintenance and construction of the temple. Small talk of small financial matters filled the room in short, sharp statements, yet Ahimaaz saw that there was something in Gamaliel's face. Today he was a different man, his arrogance dissipated.

Finally the small talk between them was broken when Gamaliel abruptly said, “You and me, priest, we are not so unalike.”

Ahimaaz raised an eyebrow. Gamaliel lowered his voice, the first time he'd done so since Ahimaaz had known him. Normally he didn't care who heard him or what he said.

“We find ourselves elevated to high office, with much further to fall,” said Gamaliel.

In past times Ahimaaz would have been defiant in his denial, but today he was silent.

“We were both raised up and now those who raised us have no need of us. We are expendable and we teeter at the top of a precipice. You and me . . .”

Ahimaaz remained silent.

“I, too, was offered advancement and protection beyond my station. The first wife herself, Tashere, came to me, just as Naamah came to you.”

Ahimaaz flinched. Gamaliel smiled and said, “You can't hide anything from Solomon—or me.” He pushed himself back slightly from the table and eyed the priest coldly. “Naamah gave you power when your invisible Yahweh did not. Tashere gave me protection when I could not protect myself. But what price did we pay, my dear priest?” Gamaliel didn't wait for an answer and Ahimaaz had none to offer.

The tax collector continued. “Tashere came to my house and asked me to divert money to her so that she could raise a militia to overthrow Naamah. She wanted to expel the third queen from the city, along with her son, Rehoboam. She wanted her son, Abia, to be brought back from exile and be Solomon's heir.”

Ahimaaz finally found words. “And what did you do for her?”

“I gave her money. Money from the temple taxes.”

Ahimaaz stood up suddenly, his chair falling backward. “How dare you!”

But Gamaliel stood to match Ahimaaz and cut him off. “Protection from Naamah was the price I charged Queen Tashere. What was your price when Naamah bought you? Which of your fellow priests did you cast out? How many opponents did you have removed?”

“Enough!” yelled Ahimaaz, his mind aching with pain. “Enough!”

But Gamaliel persisted in softer and more resolute tones. “And what of your brother? Is this another story of Cain and Abel? How did you convince Solomon to get rid of him?”

The words sucked the air from Ahimaaz's lungs and he sat back in his chair, his face ashen.

“Do not fear. I am no judge. Your god has the monopoly on that. But now is not the time for giving in . . .” Gamaliel sat back down and leaned across the desk to be close to Ahimaaz's face. “Now is the time to protect ourselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“Naamah has no need of you any longer. And as Tashere
circles her with soldiers my money has just bought, Tashere will soon have no need of me. You and I must make ourselves needed, valued, by someone higher than a queen.”

“Solomon? How?” asked Ahimaaz, his hands trembling. “When he finds out, he will have us killed.”

“The truth. The truth about the plotting of his queens. Such truth will set us free,” replied Gamaliel with a smile.

“It will be a half-truth,” said Ahimaaz, shaking his head.

“Better than no truth at all.”

“Is it?”

“My dear priest. We used different doors to enter, but we are both now, as always, in the service of the temple.”

H
E 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?”