Bloodline (5 page)

Solomon cut him off. “Stone by stone, pebble by pebble, until the mountain is again bare and naked before the eyes of the Lord. All I have to do is command, and it will be done!”

Azariah shook his head wearily. “That is not the way, my king. The ground must be cleansed. God has willed it so.”

“And it seems you have the monopoly on God's will.”

But despite his rebuke that bordered on blasphemy, Solomon knew that the high priest was right: for though he was beloved by his people and admired for his wisdom, all of the Hebrew people would obey the high priest. The power of the priesthood's curses for those who transgressed held more sway than all the whips and swords in Solomon's army.

He had waited with growing impatience for years, and his many wives kept chastising him, reminding Solomon that he was the king, that all knelt before him, and that it was his right to order the priests to obey his commands. And the most vociferous of all, the wife who complained long and loud in his ear, was his lesser wife, Naamah the Ammonite. He had been pressured into marrying her by her father, Harun, the king of Ammon, who wanted a political alliance, and in the many years they'd been married, she had proven herself time and again as a wildly seductive and adventurous woman. No matter how many women
were available to him, somehow Naamah was always close to his bed when it was time for him to retire.

And it was Naamah, more than any other, who had urged him to pull down the pagan temple and rebuild it as God's house, no matter what the cursed priests threatened. But Solomon was not that naïve.

Shaking off his thoughts, Solomon looked at the man who stood beside the high priest, a man named Ahimaaz. Why his daughter Basmath had married him, he couldn't understand: the man was short of stature, had a ridiculous giggle, and rarely said anything interesting. The king seemed as though he were about to renew the discussion but stayed his words and dismissed the two priests; he would win no arguments with them today, and diminutive priests like Ahimaaz were not worth the expenditure of breath. Instead he returned to his brooding over the pagan temple, starkly outlined by the cold but brilliant moon.

A
HIMAAZ AND
A
ZARIAH,
the two priestly brothers, walked in silence through the streets of the sleeping city. Ahimaaz, as a junior priest, would return to his modest house low down on the hill on which the city of Jerusalem was built, and Azariah, as high priest, would be headed to a palace just below that of King Solomon. But for now they walked together.

Ahimaaz had grown up in awe of the seeming brilliance, knowledge, and worldliness of his older brother. But as they walked he found himself questioning the wisdom of Azariah's words.

He said softly, “Forgive me for saying this, Azariah, but I don't think you should have spoken to Solomon like that. He will become annoyed and it could go against us.”

Azariah didn't bother looking at Ahimaaz before saying, “And how would you have spoken to him?”

“I would have explained to him the reasons we're not allowing anybody to build the temple until it's been cleansed.”

“Is that not what I did? As I said to him two days ago, and last week, and two weeks before that. I have been telling him since I made the decree. It's not that he doesn't understand, brother; it's that he doesn't want to understand.”

“But—”

“Our job as priests of the temple, by our descent from the line of Zadok, is to ensure that the worship of Yahweh is conducted properly, purely, and by all. Any deviation, any breaking of the rules, will weaken us.”

Ahimaaz contemplated the words of his brother and couldn't help but wonder who Azariah meant by “us”: the people or the priesthood?

Y
AEL RIPPED OFF
her gloves and mask as she left the theater and threw her bloodied gown into a dump bin. Dressed only in surgical shoes and a light frock, she walked briskly to the doctors' changing room and showered. Now, dressed in modern street clothes and partly refreshed but tired after standing on her feet for four hours, she walked to the parking lot and drove the few miles from the Jerusalem Hospital in the direction of the center of the city until she reached the Israel Museum. She could have left it for a couple of days until she had more time, but she was anxious to see her grandfather again, and the object she'd taken from Bilal's hand gave her the perfect opportunity to go to the museum.

Even though she had lunch and dinner with her grandfather regularly, she missed his gentle ways, his wisdom, his knowledge. And especially his link to her grandmother. Judit had died when
Yael's own mother was a baby, killed by snipers when Israel was first declared a state in 1948. Yael loved hearing his stories of the old days in Russia and Germany, his work founding a kibbutz, and his training in archaeology.

She wondered what the precious stone was; she'd never have taken it to the museum had it not been for the inscription, which she recognized as ancient Hebrew writing. As she walked from the parking lot, she saw to her right the extraordinary building that housed the Dead Sea Scrolls, the roof of which was created in the shape of one of the ancient jars in which an Arab smuggler in the last days of the British mandate in 1947 had discovered the greatest treasury of biblical Jewish writings. There was a time when she would have loved little more than walking around the Shrine of the Book and the grounds of the museum. But that was a different Yael, a different life.

After passing through the metal detector and having her bag searched, Yael walked to the reception desk and announced, “I have an appointment with the director, Professor Shalman Etzion. My name is Yael Cohen.”

The receptionist looked down at her list and saw Yael's name. She smiled and nodded, then phoned through to the director's office. “Do you know the way?” she asked, and Yael nodded. She knew the way very well, as she had visited her grandfather here on many occasions.

Walking down the corridors, up the stairs, and along passage-ways, she breathed in the perfumes of the ages. This wasn't public territory; the men and women who worked in these offices were working on stones and clothes, woods and metals, papers and parchments and all other types of things that hadn't seen the light of day for thousands of years. She felt strangely nostalgic but quickly dismissed it as whimsy.

As she walked purposefully down the upper corridor, she heard a deep baritone voice behind her.

“Ms. Cohen? Yael?”

She turned to see a short, gray-haired Palestinian in a dusty cardigan. For a moment Yael didn't recognize him, but distant memories from her youth enabled her to remember the man's name.

“Mustafa?”

The old man smiled and gave a short single nod of his head.

Mustafa was a museum expert on ancient Islamic arts and culture, respected throughout the world for his knowledge, and often appeared on television panel shows dealing with cultural issues. But to Yael in that moment he was an awkward and distant memory from childhood: a man her grandfather, Shalman, knew, a friend from times long gone, times of which her grandfather rarely spoke. They had visited Mustafa and his wife, Rabiya, when she was a child. She had played with their children. But that was a long time ago, and a lot of bullets and bombs separated that time from now. And Mustafa had told Yael, many years ago, about how Shalman had changed his life, about his sponsorship and encouragement of Mustafa's love of archaeology. How Shalman had fought to have Mustafa accepted into the university and how he'd become a top-grade student. But rarely did the two men talk about the old days, no matter how much she pressed them to do so.

Yael looked at Mustafa and thought that perhaps she should hug him, kiss him on the cheek as she might have done as a child. But she didn't. Childhood was her past, and the man before her was no longer a part of her present.

Instead Yael smiled and said, “It's been a long time. Are you well?”

Mustafa shrugged and said, “I'm old, like your grandfather. We have earned our right to complain.”

Yael laughed. Grandfathers, it seemed, transcended culture.

“I have many grandchildren now, Allah be praised. But they grow up too fast. One moment you're cuddling them on your knee, the next moment they're helping you find your walking stick.”

“But we love them for all their faults of growing up, don't we?” replied Yael. She struggled for what to say next, strangely awkward as she stood in front of the old Muslim after having just saved the life of Bilal, who had murdered in the name of Allah. She was almost relieved when he broke the strained moment of silence.

“You are here to see Shalman?” asked Mustafa.

“Yes,” and before she had time to think about what she was doing she added, “I'm taking him this . . .”

She took the stone out of her pocket and unwrapped it carefully, handing it over to the elderly archaeologist. He looked at it thoughtfully, turning it over in his fingers.

“This is not in my expertise; it's not Arabic. It's Hebrew. But it looks very interesting. Where did you find it?”

“In the hands of a Palestinian terr—” she began, but cut herself off before she completed the word. Mustafa looked at her as if he understood and slowly handed the stone back to her with a frown on his face.

“Shalman will be excited to see this.”

Yael didn't know what to say, so she said nothing as she folded the stone away into her pocket once more.

“It is good to see you, Yael.”

“Yes.” It was all she could say.

Then the old man turned and shuffled off down the corridor.

S
HE WALKED ON
until she came to the outer office of Shalman's suite, and his secretary of thirty-five years beamed a smile and walked around the desk, hugging and kissing her like a beloved daughter.

“
Nu
,” said Miriam, looking her up and down, “you've lost weight.”

“Don't start,” Yael said with a smile. “No, I'm still not married;
no, I don't have a boyfriend; no, I'm not joining an online dating club; no, I'm not interested in your neighbor's son; and no, I'm not ill. I'm just busy.”

“Did I say a word?”

“You're a Jewish mother!”

“How've you been? Seriously, you look tired.”

“You'd think there was a war on. We're still packing them in, ten operations in a day. Mines, bullets, accidents. It never stops. God help us if Iran or some other basket case decides to get nasty. Peace is busy enough for trauma surgery.”

Miriam smiled. “I'd better let you go in. He's been ringing every half hour, asking whether you've arrived yet.”

Yael grinned and walked to her grandfather's office door, knocking gently. She heard his chair scraping and waited for him to open the door.

He stood there, diminutive, overweight, balding, white-haired, and pink-faced despite the cold air-conditioning, but just as beautiful as she'd always known him.

“
Bubbeleh
,” he said, and hugged her.

“Shalom, Shalman. How are you?”

“Now, good. An hour ago, lousy. But come. Sit. Miriam, tea. And some cookies. The chocolate cookies, not the ones you usually give me.”

“But your doctor said—” Miriam began.

“
Phooey!
” he said. “
I'm
the boss. Not him. What does he know about chocolate cookies?” He winked at Miriam, and said softly, “Miriam and my doctor conspire to stop me eating chocolate, but sometimes I'm clever and I fool them.”

“But, Zaida,” Yael said, “you know you shouldn't . . .”

“Not from you! I have enough trouble with Miriam,” he said, grinning and holding his granddaughter's hand as they walked into his huge office. They sat on opposite couches, the coffee table separating them.

“It's been far too long, Yael. Why have you stayed away so long?”

“I had lunch with you three weeks ago,” she said defensively.

“In three weeks, I could have died and gone to heaven. I'm an old man,
bubbeleh
. Three weeks is a lifetime.”

She smiled. Her beloved grandfather Shalman was laying on a guilt trip. Why did Jews always play the guilt card? she wondered. Her mother had always laid on the guilt when Yael didn't call her regularly. Her excuses that she was busy or out of town never cut any ice. “What?” her mother always used to say. “There aren't any phones where you live? And why don't you phone your mother more often? Sure you're busy. We're all busy. But who's too busy to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hello, Mom'? She's all alone in that big apartment with nothing to do except have tea with the girls. What are you, the secretary-general of the United Nations, you're so busy?”

Yael didn't let the guilt trip bother her, but she suddenly felt sad, sitting in Shalman's office, conjuring images of her grandmother, Shalman's wife, all based on photographs taken with an ancient Kodak. But she had died before Yael was born, when Yael's own mother was a baby, so all she really had of her were a couple of indistinct photographs and the narratives from other people. Yael's sadness was because her grandfather had been so devoted that he'd spent the rest of his life in almost perpetual mourning.

Shalman was looking at her, waiting for a response. “I'm just so busy,” said Yael apologetically. “The hospital, my work. What can I say?”

Shalman looked at her sternly. “You can say that you'll have lunch with me every two weeks. Is that too much? You're all I have left in the world, darling, and—”

“Bullshit, Zaida!” she said in exasperation. “You think nobody knows about you and Miriam? Or five years ago, you and Beckie? Or before her, that research assistant—”

He put his finger to his lips, and motioned to the roof. “Shush! You want your blessed grandmother
aleha ha-shalom
to hear what I've been up to since she died? God rest her beloved soul.”