Living Stones (10 page)

The next afternoon her parents came and sat with Ashley, sometimes chatting and other times reading as she slept. She had been up and walking in the hall and wanted to rest. She awakened and began to talk.

“Do you know why we went to the synagogue in the first place?”

“No, you haven’t explained that,” Dorothy replied.

“It’s because of the Seattle church’s support of Israel, just like ours in Oklahoma City. I wanted to find out how Jewish people understand the situation, particularly the active way that we help them. They must question our motivation. They certainly don’t believe as we do, and yet there is a common background in the Old Testament. So I wanted to get it directly from them. But I’ve never been to a synagogue and so really don’t understand. That’s why I invited Najid. He speaks Hebrew and has close friends who are Jews.”

“We won’t discuss Najid anymore,” Frank Wells said. “But we have Jewish friends, as you know, and have helped fund projects for new European Jewish immigrants now living in Israel. It would be good for you to get involved a bit here, as you have time.”

“I’m also thinking of taking time off from school to go to the Middle East. There are a number of tours offered at reasonable prices. Our church has one coming up to see the places where Jesus walked. I’d like to do that.”

“Do you think you’d be well enough?”

“It’s not until July, Dad. I should be fine by then. I’ll take the MCAT in June, and I don’t need to take anymore classes to apply for medical school, so I can skip summer quarter and still get my master’s degree by finishing my thesis.”

“It sounds like you’ve thought this through. Touring Israel would be a good education for you, and you could use the funds you’ve saved up that would have gone for tuition. But perhaps you should see how you are recovering before making definite plans. Do you agree, Dorothy?”

“I think so.” She looked at her watch. “Ashley, we’d better be going. We’ll be flying home tomorrow and want to get some good sleep. You seem to be recovering well and . . .” She stopped and looked at the door opening slowly.

“Najid! Come in. My parents are here. Sit down and let us know how school went today.”

Najid put out his hand, but Frank shunned him, looking the other way. Najid looked puzzled and nodded a greeting to Dorothy, who dipped her head slightly without saying anything or extending her hand. Ashley forced a smile and a nervous laugh. “Najid, did our friends discuss the bombing, and did you tell them in the lounge about what happened to us?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, how did it go?”

Najid gazed at the floor. He shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “They wanted to know about your injuries, so I told them.” He stopped talking. Ashley sighed, shifted in bed and turned to her parents in the awkward silence. They both looked away and said nothing. Finally Frank got up and retrieved his wife’s purse from the windowsill.

“We should be going now, Ashley,” he said.

Her mom had tears in her eyes as she kissed her daughter goodbye. “We’ll be in touch by phone when we get home tomorrow.”

Frank leaned over to kiss Ashley, while Ashley fought her own tears and didn’t smile. They left without speaking to Najid—as
though he didn’t exist. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe it.

After an awkward silence, Najid looked up at Ashley. She saw a pained expression on his face she had never seen before. He didn’t speak.

Finally Ashley shook her head. “I think my parents are tired with all the events that have happened, Najid.”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I suppose that is true. I think you are tired too, Ashley. Why don’t I go now and let you rest.” He gave a perfunctory wave of his hand and tiptoed out the door.

Ashley burst into tears and sobbed. Everything seemed too much. The bombing and nearly dying, the pain of recovery, and now her parents’ rejection of Najid. Why was being Palestinian so bad? Would Najid think she didn’t want to be his friend? How could she deal with her parents’ strong feelings against him? She didn’t know. What should she do?

As her tears dried, Ashley looked up.
“Oh God. Please comfort Najid right now. And my parents, God, I know they want the best for me. Please help me to know what to do.”

Each day Ashley grew stronger. Dr. Thompson freed her from her chest tube. She began to eat and changed to oral pain medication. Walking in the hall, she met other patients and families. They all seemed glued to the TV news to learn the latest in the hunt for the terrorists. Despite the intense manhunt all over the world, nothing turned up.

Dr. Thompson came in to check Ashley and view the computer monitor with all the day’s lab and clinical information. He tweaked her toes with a hint of a smile. “You’re my most popular patient.”

“What do you mean? I still look like I’ve just crawled through a knothole.”

“The news media are clamoring to interview you, Ashley. Lots of national reporters, cable news people. We’ve kept them away. You need time to recover before they pounce on you.”

“Thanks, Dr. Thompson. I couldn’t tell them much anyway. I really don’t remember what happened except that we planned to meet at the synagogue.”

Later a police detective did come to her room to quiz her about what happened leading up to the bombing.

He introduced himself briefly, but Ashley couldn’t remember his name. She explained her interest in visiting the synagogue and her discussions with Najid, her friend and would-be translator. She remembered planning the visit, but had little memory of the hour prior to the blast, nor of the explosion itself, or being rushed to the hospital. The detective thanked her and left.

Several of her new friends at church and her housemates came to see her. She received a card and flowers from her grad school colleagues. Najid had signed the card, but he didn’t come to visit her again.
After what we’ve been through together, why does it have to end like this?

A week to the day after the bombing, Ashley’s friends drove her home. Signs over the front door welcomed her. Walking into the living room with its dark-blue rug, walnut paneling, and white ceiling, she sat in her favorite chair, a comfortable recliner. She could smell the curry and soon learned her housemates had put on a special dinner for her.

Two days later she appeared in the zoology department lounge. “Welcome back,” read the sign. Then she noticed the bottom line, which said, “to our colleague, famous for two days!” Soon her fellow students gathered, and Najid appeared. She greeted them with a smile and then gazed at Najid, who looked at her blankly and nodded. He didn’t speak.

“Tell us about what happened,” one of them insisted. “We’ve tried to get the story out of Najid here, but he won’t say much.” Najid looked out the window and remained silent. “We read in the paper that he tried to help you before Medic One arrived.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it now. It’s true that Najid tried his best to help me right after the bombing.” Ashley smiled at Najid, but he didn’t notice. She walked over to the coffee urn to fill her
cup as the conversation drifted to other subjects. She tired of the constant news and the obsession with catching the bomber, apparently on everyone’s mind.

After a week Ashley returned to studying for the MCAT exam, her full schedule of classes, her work on her master’s thesis, and her lab assistant duties. She did have an hour with reporters and TV people, but they seemed dissatisfied with the little she could remember.

Rabbits had replaced frogs for dissection, and she enjoyed the eager freshmen, so anxious to play doctor even though their patients had been euthanized.

She saw Najid occasionally in the department or during coffee breaks, but they rarely spoke, and then only briefly. Finally, unable to stand their distance any longer, Ashley made a special effort to track him down in the Suzzalo library.

“Najid, we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About you and me.”

“I’ve recovered, Ashley, and it looks like you have too.”

“It’s not about recovery. I want to talk to you because I have hurt you deeply.”

“I don’t blame you for asking me to go to the synagogue. I chose to go.”

“You don’t understand, Najid. It’s about feelings. We Americans can’t just sweep all our feelings under the rug. We need to talk them out and reach an understanding. Otherwise they keep festering—I mean . . . they continue causing problems in relationships.”

“I don’t understand the rug part.”

“That’s just an idiom. What I mean is we try to hide our feelings and not deal with them.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “I learned long ago in Nazareth that when people don’t like you, you just be quiet and move on with your life. There is nothing you can do about it—except talk to God.”

“And I’ve done that too, Najid. But now it’s time for us to talk. When can you do it?”

Najid grew silent for a moment and gazed at the bookcases lining the walls and in aisles too numerous to count. “I guess I have no choice. You and I have been through so much together. Maybe
lunch tomorrow, at the HUB?”

“Let’s meet at the lounge and we’ll walk over together.”

Ashley noticed Najid seemed to be enjoying the special of the day, a rice pilaf with lamb. She finished her salad at their table in the corner. Students filled the cafeteria and the noise level made it hard to hear Najid’s soft voice. They started tentatively on safe topics, such as what their students were learning. Najid talked about the embryology of the brain and his increasing amazement that such a complex computer could develop out of two cells coming together. He had challenged his students’ thinking. “What genes direct that process? Who builds them and why does it work so well?” He smiled for the first time since the bombing.

“I don’t understand the process or the genetics, Najid, but I do know who got it going.”

Najid nodded. “Macs and PCs don’t just happen either. Or smartphones.”

“And relationships can be complex, like the brain, and they also don’t exist without a reason.”

Najid flashed a knowing smile. “So what are you trying to say, Ashley?”

“Well, first of all, Najid, I want to say I’m so sorry for the way we treated you during that last hospital visit. I still feel terrible about it. You did not deserve it. You came into the room as a friend, and we were rude to you and made you want to leave.”

“It’s OK, Ashley. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. It must have been something I didn’t even realize. So I thought it best to leave.”

“Oh, Najid! You did nothing wrong.” Ashley had tears in her eyes.

“Are you sure? After that I didn’t know whether you wanted me to visit anymore, so I just signed the card instead.”

“No, no!” she said, shaking her head and grabbing his arm. “I did want you to come. And I do want us to be friends just like before!” She squeezed his forearm and then let go.

“So then if I did nothing wrong, why the trouble?”

“We have a saying in America that some things are like an elephant in the living room. It’s huge, but we don’t want to deal with it or admit it exists, so we walk around it as though it’s not even there. Some subjects are like that. They are very big, but we never talk about them. They’re too painful. So we pretend that they simply don’t exist.”

“I like that example. I’ll have to remember that. We have lots of ‘elephants’ in our living rooms at home.”

“One of yours may be here as well, Najid. I’m going to come right out with it so we can deal with that huge creature. Some Christians in this country believe that God has ordained that Jews return and take over Palestine, even the West Bank and Gaza. They believe this began with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. So helping the Jews will speed up the return of Jesus in our own time.”

“I didn’t realize that Christians here actually believe that.”

“There are a lot who don’t. There are all kinds of speculations and beliefs about what might or might not happen, and when. That’s why I wanted to go to the synagogue.”

“I don’t understand that.” Najid looked puzzled.

“I wanted to go because I need to know how Jewish people feel about Christians supporting Israel all the time. Jews don’t believe like we do about Jesus as Messiah, so how can they possibly understand why we send them so much money and support them? They must wonder.”

“OK. Now I understand why we were there at the synagogue.”

“Good. We in the church I attend generally believe that Palestinians hate Israel, and that Israel should rule all the Holy Land. Then there is the Muslim thing. Like most Americans, we don’t know that there are many Christians in the Middle East, in lots of countries. In our church, we never talk about Palestinian Christians even though they’re our brothers and sisters.”

“I didn’t realize that we Arab Christians are so unknown here.”

“It’s sad but true, Najid. You probably picked that up when we first talked in the lounge and our friends assumed you were Muslim. Many Americans seem to think all Palestinians are Muslim. And then some people lump all Muslims in with the terrorist fringe of Islam.”

Najid paused, nodding. “Terrorists are bad; therefore, all Muslims
are bad because they’re all the same and they want to harm you. And since all Arabs are Muslim, they are bad too, even though some of us live in Israel?”