Stateless (3 page)

‘Well? Speak, boy; I'm a busy man. Who sent you to see me?'

‘My friend. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.'

High Priest Tzadik stared at the lad in shock. ‘Shimon . . . Shimon? He sent you?'

Abram nodded.

‘You mean he's alive? He lives? Is he well? How does he fare? Where is he?'

‘Of course he's alive. I fetch him food every day. He lives in a cave near where I live. I have come from the village of Peki'in in the Galilee on a mission given to me by Rabbi Shimon. He told me to come here first, Master, and to see you. He said that of all the people in Israel, you were the only one I could trust to help me.'

Tzadik grasped the boy urgently by his arm, and led him to the desk in the shade of the tree. Abram didn't struggle against the High Priest's firm grip. They sat, and Tzadik poured the boy a drink of freshly made pomegranate juice, which he drank eagerly to slake his fierce thirst. It was obvious to Tzadik, just by looking at the boy, that he was malnourished and so he uncovered a tray of honey bread and offered it to him. He then waited patiently while Abram ate five slices and drank another whole glass of juice.

Abram smiled at Tzadik. ‘You are the High Priest, aren't you?' he asked softly.

Tzadik nodded. ‘Tell me of Rabbi Shimon. For many years, I thought he was dead. He was arrested by the Romans. I had heard he'd escaped, but nobody knew where he went. We all assumed the worst.'

‘He's alive. He lives in the cave with his son and only I know where it is.'

The boy, Abram, had a fierce determination to him. A resolve that defied his size and means.

‘And what do they do in his cave, Rabbi Shimon and his son?'

Abram shrugged his shoulders. ‘They talk and shout. I sometimes listen outside the mouth of the cave, but I don't understand what they're saying or the words they're using. They're always talking about shining lights and spirits and radiance and –'

Abram shoved another slice of honey bread into his mouth and spoke while chewing. ‘I don't understand a thing, but they're always so serious. Until I come with the food. Then they laugh and joke with me. But when I leave, I hear them starting to shout at each other again. I don't think they like each other.'

The High Priest smiled. ‘It's just their way. They're mystics and don't think of this world, but of the world of God. But Abram, tell me about the mission he gave you. What was so important that he'd risk the life of a boy your age in a land under the heel of the Romans?'

The boy stopped chewing, swallowed and looked the priest up and down as if appraising him, judging him. The scrutiny made Tzadik annoyed and in other circumstances he might have berated the boy for his insolence. But the priest sensed what the boy had to say was not going to be good news.

Abram slowly took a ragged piece of cloth out of an inside pocket of his torn shirt. He unwrapped it on the table and exposed a seal, words written into once burning white alabaster,
once beautifully radiant but after a millennium bearing stains of age. Tzadik picked it up gingerly in his hands, turning it in the sunshine to expose the writing that had been etched on the stone a thousand years earlier.

Tzadik closed his eyes, and lifted his head to heaven, whispering a prayer. Then he looked at Abram. ‘Have you read these words?'

The boy shook his head. ‘Is the writing old? What does it say? Rabbi Shimon didn't tell me.'

‘Yes, my son. The writing is old, but the words are still what we say today. They were written a long, long time ago. It is a style of writing that we Jews haven't written for centuries. They say, “I, Matanyahu, son of Naboth, son of Gamaliel, have built this tunnel for the glory of my King, Solomon the Wise, in the Twenty Second year of his reign.” Imagine that, Abram!'

The tunnel was one that ran from the floor of the Kedron Valley to the top of the mountain, coming out at the very foot of the temple. It created a water course to sustain the city.

‘But the temple is no more. Rabbi Shimon said to me that Solomon's temple was rebuilt when the Jews returned from their Babylonian exile, but then King Herod rebuilt it and –'

‘Yes,' interrupted Tzadik, ‘the Temple of Herod is no more. All that remains standing is the Western Wall.' The priest reverentially turned over the seal in his hand. ‘But our god Yahweh is still there. He remains even though the stones no longer sit one on top of the other. He waits for us to rebuild.'

The boy nodded. He didn't fully understand how Yahweh could still be in the temple if the temple was no longer standing, but there was much that he didn't understand. All that he cared about was completing the task that the rabbi had set him: the alabaster stone must be returned and Abram was to let no one stand in his way.

As if reading his mind, Tzadik looked up from the stone and into the eyes of Abram. ‘And your mission?' he asked the boy.

Abram hesitated. He felt nervous that the stone was no longer inside his shirt where the rabbi had told him to keep it hidden and safe.

‘To return it to the tunnel and hide it from the Romans, so that only Yahweh will see it and then He'll know who built it. Rabbi Shimon says that this will mark the beginning of the rebuilding of the temple.'

Tzadik reeled back in shock. ‘Return it to Jerusalem? Impossible. It's certain death for you. No Jew is allowed to enter Jerusalem, on pain of death! Only on the Ninth Day of the Month of Ab, just one day, and then the Romans watch everybody like hawks.

‘No, my child, the revered Rabbi Shimon obviously isn't aware of what's happening in the world outside of his cave. No, you will not go to Jerusalem.'

This was what the rabbi had warned him about. Not to trust anyone who would stand in his way. Yet the one person Rabbi Shimon had said he could trust, this high priest, was now one of those who would stand in his way. He didn't understand, but his immediate desire was to reach out and snatch the stone back from the priest and run. However, caution told him that he should resist and try to reason with him.

‘But he told me to. And he told me that you could help me. That's why I've come here. Now you want me to return without my mission being a success. I can't return. I can't go back to Peki'in, and tell him that I didn't do what he told me.'

The High Priest smiled, and reached over to hold Abram's hand. ‘My boy, rest here, bathe, and when you're ready, return to Rabbi Shimon. I will keep this seal. It will be safe with me.'

Abram looked at the High Priest sternly. ‘No!'

The priest was shocked. No one ever said no to him, least of all a child.

‘I must do as the rabbi ordered.'

Tzadik sighed. ‘Then, like so many of your brothers and sisters, you will die at the hands of the Romans. No. I will not have your blood on my hands. The seal will stay with me . . .'

Abram was young but he was smart and careful and cunning. It was these traits that the old rabbi in the cave had recognised and that had encouraged him to entrust the boy with the task of returning the seal. Abram demonstrated all these qualities as he waited and watched in the dark while the lamps inside the home of the priest were, one by one, extinguished for the night.

Tzadik had wrested the seal from his grasp and now he needed to get it back. The priest had offered him food and drink and water to bathe. He had even given Abram fresh clothes for the journey home. The boy had accepted all of these while watching carefully and waiting. The priest had also offered a bed for him to stay and rest in until he was ready to return. Abram agreed and had been shown to a small room at the back of the house where the servants lived.

He hadn't stayed in the room long before he gathered his things and as much food as he could carry, and slipped out of the window. He doubled around, through the dark, to where he now crouched beneath the window that looked on to the High Priest's study.

Once all the lamps had been extinguished in the house, he pushed himself up and over the ledge and into the study.

He crouched low and felt with his hands to orientate himself. He could see nothing – the room was entirely blanketed in darkness – but he knew this would be the case once the servants had turned in for the night. He had studied the room carefully
for an hour earlier in the evening, so that he had a mental map of its layout.

Abram's hands found the wall and the stool that rested near it to his right. This told him that the priest's desk was directly ahead. The young man got to his hands and knees and crawled, counting off the distance in his mind. With one hand extended before him he felt for the timber of the desk until his finger touched the wood, then he stopped once more. Abram listened carefully but could hear only his own breath and the beating of his heart. He'd never been a thief. He'd always followed the injunctions of the Bible. Now . . . this . . .

Old Rabbi Shimon back in Peki'in had said to seek out the High Priest, but he'd also warned him to trust no one else. These thoughts commanded his mind as he turned left at the desk, still on his hands and knees, and headed towards the shelves of scrolls and parchments against the far wall. It was here that Abram had watched, with eyes barely above the lip of the windowsill, as the priest had hidden away the seal he must now retrieve.

The lad was aware of the sins he was about to commit. The priest had taken the seal away from him, but in Jewish law did that now mean that it belonged to Tzadik? And if it did, was Abram about to break one of Father Moses's commandments? What would the priest do to him if he was caught? Would he be beaten or whipped or worse? Was it an even greater wrong to defy a priest? Tzadik had been explicit in his decree that the seal should stay with him and Abram was to return home without fulfilling his charge. And yet, Abram knew that his only true loyalty was to the rabbi and the mission he had been set.

‘Trust no one . . .' The words of the rabbi echoed in Abram's mind and gave him courage enough to defy the High Priest and break the commandments.

Still crawling, Abram's extended hand came into contact
with a loosely wound parchment scroll. It was thin and light and the small pressure from Abram's hand knocked it from the shelf. It clattered off the ledge and in doing so rattled against another, larger scroll. The two together now tumbled off the shelf in the dark, falling to the floor.

The sound would not have been so loud had the night not been so deathly quiet. To Abram's ears the falling scrolls sounded like a short, sharp spasm of rattling bones. Abram froze and turned his head but there was only darkness. His ears listened for the sound of footsteps and his eyes opened wider to find any light from newly lit lamps that may be coming his way.

Long slow moments passed and then a distant shuffle, somebody moving in another part of the house. He had to move more quickly. He turned back to the shelf to find the small wooden box he'd seen the priest pull from the top of the shelf where he'd placed the precious seal for safekeeping. Abram drew himself up to his feet and pushed himself up onto the tips of his toes to try and reach the top shelf.

Behind him, and beyond the door, the rustling was combined with a swishing – feet on the floor and the swirl of clothes. Abram dared to turn his head and he saw a small soft glow down the hallway. Someone was coming.

Abram pushed himself higher, one hand holding onto a shelf to help force his free hand higher. His fingers traced the edge of the shelf looking for the corner of the box.

The sound in the hallway turned from rustling to footsteps and the glow of the lamp the person carried began to illuminate the room. Abram could now see his fingers above him and they were but a fraction away from the box. With a last effort, almost a jump, he grabbed the corner of the box, sliding it off the shelf and catching it with his other hand.

The lamp light grew brighter and the footsteps beat on the stone floor; the person would soon turn the corner into the
room. With the box in his hand Abram spun to see the window, then turned back to the doorway. The distance was too great; he wouldn't make it to the window before the servant rounded the corner and entered the office. Between him and the window was the desk of the High Priest, covered in scrolls and with parchments heaped up around it. It was his only choice. Abram dived under the table clutching the box to his chest and lay as still and silent as he could, his eyes never leaving the doorway.

The lamp light grew brighter, spilling a yellow glow into the office until a foot appeared, followed by legs and a long gown. Abram held his breath as he saw the feet stop. He knew the desk would not fully conceal him; it was a matter of time before the man would see some tell-tale sign of him, raise the alarm or a weapon and then . . .

Abram trembled. It was dark under the desk but the light from the lamp held by the man would soon reveal him. The boy's mind raced as he considered running, or staying and facing his accuser. He felt the muscles of his legs tense beneath him and his fingers bind tighter around the wood of the small box in his hands.