The Gates of Zion (27 page)

Howard blinked in disbelief. Then rage clouded his face and he rushed down the steps, pushing the startled young soldier to the side.

“Idiots!” he exploded. “You have just arrested Professor Moshe Sachar of the Hebrew University!”

Thirty minutes later, behind the closed door of the study, Moshe nursed a cup of tea as Ellie held an ice bag to his cheek. He was wrapped in Howard’s red plaid robe and felt for all the world like a man with a very bad hangover.

“And so you can see, Howard―” he looked sorrowfully at Ellie―“and Ellie, why I felt I must come back. I know that my words will not pass beyond these walls. But it is most important that you understand the seriousness of your association with me now.

Perhaps it is I who have placed you in danger.”

“Oh, Moshe,” murmured Ellie, “I am so sorry. All this time I thought you were―”

“It is I who need your forgiveness, my love,” Moshe said. “Also yours, Howard.”

Howard sat in his massive leather chair, his fingers pressed together at his lips. He had listened to Moshe’s story without comment. Now he said gently, “I have suspected as much for some time. There is no need to ask for forgiveness from this quarter, my friend. My heart is fully with you―surely you know that.” He picked up a pencil and tapped it on his desktop. “If there is any way I can be of help, Moshe. Please …”

Moshe reached across the desk and took Howard’s hand. “My dear friend,” he said quietly.

“We both have Ellie to consider now, of course. Next Wednesday the students from the school will be leaving for the States. She is going with them,” explained Howard.

“If you are staying, Uncle Howard―,” Ellie interrupted.

“Nonsense,” Howard responded gruffly.

“I’m over twenty-one,” she argued. “I can make the same offer, Moshe. If there is anything …”

Moshe put his hand on her cheek. “I had a lot of time to think on the ride from Tel Aviv. I think perhaps your uncle is right. Your skill as a photographer would be of great benefit to publicize our plight. But, Ellie, in case you have not guessed it by now, I love you. You must go home.”

***

Miriam knelt with difficulty among the packing crates that littered the floor of the professor’s study. Ellie watched as the old woman tenderly wrapped an ancient clay bowl in newspaper, then placed it in the crate before her.

“Ah, I remember when the professor finds this one!” Miriam said. “I do not think he will ever have to leave Jerusalem. Even in the riots, when my beloved husband is killed, the professor stays and makes a place for me here.”

“He’ll be back, Miriam. And Beirut is not so far away. He asked you to go there until this thing blows over. Why don’t you go with him?”

“I am too old. Too old. And if we all go, as the Mufti would wish of us Christians, who then shall be left in Jerusalem? Only the Mufti.

Miriam will stay here, thank you. My son, he finds me a nice room at the Semiramis Hotel in Katamon. Not so far away.”

“Your son will be staying with you?” Ellie asked, carefully wrapping a clay tablet.

“Oh yes,” Miriam replied brightly. “And my young grandson. But I will tell you the truth, Miss Ellie. Miriam shall miss you with your strange ideas. And shall pray daily for you as you return to your home.”

“And I’ll tell you the truth: I wish I weren’t going. If I thought for a minute I would be anything but a bother and a worry―”

“Ah, yes, but now the America government says that those who stay and help will lose their … what do you call it?” Miriam asked.

“Citizenship,” Ellie finished in a disgusted tone. “Somebody’s making a bad decision over there, if you ask me.”

“Without the help of America, I fear gravely for my Jewish friends.”

The old woman sighed. “But our Lord, He sees it all, does He not?”

Ellie did not answer. Instead she continued the work with renewed vigor. Her bags were packed and standing at her bedroom door, waiting for the flight that would take her home the next morning with the other students and most of the school’s staff. Her heart felt heavy as she thought about leaving Moshe and David, who had decided to stay in spite of the U.S. Embassy’s warning to American citizens.

She scanned the room and the half-empty bookshelves, wondering if she would ever be back again.
If only there were something I could
do,
she thought miserably.

“Soon the Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. This year will be most sad and quiet, I fear. And Christmas!” The old woman threw up her hands. “We must celebrate in our hearts Christ’s birth.

If others knew Him, then there would be no need of packing and talk of armies and killing. This old woman has seen too much.” Miriam got to her feet and left the room without another word, leaving Ellie alone with her thoughts.

After a few minutes Miriam returned, holding her hands out of sight behind her back. As she neared Ellie, she pushed a wrapped package into her face. “Here,” she murmured, “take it. I buy it especially for you. You are sometimes a very foolish girl but also―” her voice broke― “very dear to this old heart.”

Flabbergasted, Ellie took the red package from Miriam’s gnarled hands. “But it’s not Christmas yet,” she protested.

“Just so,” Miriam responded. “Well, then, you have to pack it, and when you are happy in Los Angeles, you will think of us here and pray for the peace of Jerusalem, eh?”

Ellie clutched the package to her, then stood and embraced the Arab woman who for a lifetime had lived in the hope of peace and the threat of war. “You know,” said Ellie, gazing tearfully into Miriam’s faded brown eyes, “I feel like I’m running out on something I’m supposed to do. I feel … bad.”

“May the Lord hold your life in the palm of His hand, child.” Miriam patted her cheek, then left to work away her emotion with some task in a distant part of the house.

Ellie sat on top of a large, sealed crate and cradled her Christmas gift. She was tempted to find Miriam and open the present now so the old woman could share the joy of having her gift appreciated.
But
maybe she will be happier thinking of me on Christmas Day, just
as I will feel sad thinking about the ones I am leaving here.

She had just returned to her task when she heard a loud, insistent knocking at the front door. Uncle Howard hurried past the study and answered the door. Ellie strained her ears but could only hear muffled words of a very short conversation and the solid closing of the door.

Still in his pajamas, robe, and slippers, Uncle Howard padded into the study and plopped down on a crate next to her, his face grim. He held two envelopes in his hand. “Now child,” he began, “I am sure this is nothing serious… .”

He sounds serious,
thought Ellie with alarm. “What is it?” She eyed the envelopes suspiciously. Both were telegram envelopes, and telegrams usually brought only grief with their brief messages.

“What?” she asked again.

Uncle Howard held them out to her. “They are both for you. One from L.A. and the other from New York.”

She took them gingerly from his hands and sat staring at the envelopes, trying to guess their messages. “They are addressed to me.”

“That’s what I said.” Uncle Howard leaned forward impatiently. “So open them, child!”

Ellie tore the flaps first of one and then the other. She handed the one from Los Angeles to her nervous uncle. “Here, you read that one,”

she instructed, pulling out the contents of the envelope from New York. She didn’t know anyone in New York, so she felt certain that whatever message it carried would not be news of a death or some other tragedy.

Uncle Howard read aloud the message from Los Angeles as relief flooded his weary face.

“Daddy and I flying to meet you in New York Stop Will celebrate Christmas in Big Apple Stop Pray for your safe return Stop Kisses for Howard Stop Mom”

***

Shaul lay stretched out in the middle of the parquet floor of the study, reveling in a patch of warm afternoon sunshine. Fifteen minutes earlier, Ellie had sent her parents a wire that would stop their trip to New York.

Unshaven and clearly distraught, Uncle Howard followed her into the study. “I am responsible, ultimately, for your safety, Ellie.” He clasped his hands behind his back and paced to and fro in front of the now-empty display cabinets. “If anything ever happened to you, I would never forgive myself.” He stopped before his desk and picked up a rumpled telegram. “Worse than that—” he waved it under Ellie’s nose―“your mother would never forgive me.”

Ellie reached down and patted Shaul’s broad head, then scratched him under the chin, pretending not to hear Uncle Howard’s stern voice. “If I leave now,” she said with an amused smile, “
LIFE

magazine will never forgive me.” She pulled the New York telegram from her trouser pocket and rattled it at him. “You can’t argue with the power of the press, Uncle Howard. Neither can Mother.” She unfolded the paper and began to read deliberately: “…
LIFE
Editorial very impressed with Palestine photographs … Hopeful you can accept assignment … All expenses …

“… etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” Ellie finished triumphantly.

“Ellie, if you take that assignment, there’s no telling what you’ll get yourself into. Haven’t you had enough? Haven’t you heard enough and seen enough to know that no one is playing games here?”

“You’re right. Nobody’s playing games. Least of all me. You remember what you said to me about everything having some kind of plan? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe this crazy, mixed-up mess I call my life is meant to be lived right here, at this exact moment.

Maybe I can be a tiny part of some kind of miracle.” Excitement rose in her voice.

“That’s not what I meant, young lady.” He scowled.

“You don’t think God can watch over me, Uncle Howard?” She lifted her chin defiantly, having sprung a trap he could not maneuver out of.

“God is not some kind of bulletproof vest, Ellie.” He frowned at her.

“Take a look at Yacov―”

“That’s right. What about the boy? He’ll be getting out of the hospital in a few days. He can never get past the Arab blockades into the Old City. Where’s he going to stay?”

“You’re changing the subject, Ellie Warne. You remind me more of your mother every day.” He sighed with exasperation and plopped down in his chair. “I had already considered staying here myself,” he said absently. “But you―”

“I didn’t change the subject. Yacov has no place to go, and I think he ought to stay here with us.” She sat back with finality and glared at him.

He slammed his fist on the desk and leaned forward angrily. “Not with
us
. You, my dear, will be back in sunny, nonviolent California in time for Christmas. And regardless of my decision to stay here or wait it out in Beirut …”

Ellie raised her chin again in defiance. “Take another look at my telegram.
LIFE
has offered me all expenses, a room at the King David Hotel. Go ahead and close the school. Pack up your jar handles and move to Beirut. Either I stay here with you and work for them, or I stay at the King David and work for them. It doesn’t matter. I’m taking this assignment.”

Uncle Howard exhaled in resignation. “I should have you shipped home, you know.”

“Crate me up like a mummy and send me back out of harm’s way, is that it?”

“I had considered it.” He gazed around the room. “I’m sending these treasures to Beirut for safekeeping, regardless. They’re worth more than I am,” he mumbled. Then a light of humor flickered in his eyes once again. “You think God can use the likes of us, child?”

Ellie rolled her eyes, as if to comment on the seeming impossibility of it. “Who knows?” She laughed.

“Well, then, you better call Moshe and find out where we begin.”

18

The Sacrifice Lamb

David rubbed his stockinged feet together under the makeshift poker table in his hotel room. Wearily he toyed with his dwindling pile of matchstick chips as Michael Cohen leered from behind a miniature lumberyard of winnings.

“Good grief,” drawled cherub-faced Benny Rothberg as he shuffled the dog-eared cards, “don’t you get sick of winning?”

“Yeah,” David chimed in, “if he gets any more matchsticks over there, the whole table’s gonna collapse.”

“Shut up and deal already!” snapped Bobby Milkin, a coarse-featured New York–born Jew. His large green cigar clouded the room with a reeking haze.

“Why don’t you put that thing out?” Benny wrinkled his nose and fanned the air with the deck of cards.

“Nah,” snarled Bobby, “I gotta fumigate the place. Get rid of the bugs from that stinkin’ dog.”

“He didn’t have fleas,” said Michael defensively.

“He had a terminal case of mean.” Bobby chewed the cigar.

“He just don’t like cigars.” Benny dealt the cards.

“Or people who smoke.” Michael nonchalantly picked up his cards one by one.

“Or people who smell like Milkin.” David smiled as Bobby blew smoke in his direction. Then he began to cough and choke as he examined his cards. “It’s not the cigar that stinks, fellas; it’s this hand!” He pitched his cards to the table. “I’m out.”

Michael’s eyes remained cool as he picked up two matchsticks and tossed them onto the ante. “It’ll cost the rest of you guys two to stay.”

David scraped his chair back from the table and stood and stretched.

He walked slowly to the windowsill and looked out over the rain-soaked stillness of Ben Yehuda Street below.
Never has the Street
of the Jews housed such a motley crew as the American Haganah
volunteers.

“Has it stopped raining yet, David?” Michael asked as he triumphantly laid his full house on top of Bobby’s three nines.

“Just a little drizzle,” David answered.

Milkin groaned, and the others laughed. “At least it don’t smell like wet dog in here no more,” groused Bobby as he counted his meager ration of matchsticks.

“Guess that cigar’s good for something,” Michael agreed. “But it’s a good thing for you, Milkin, that we weren’t playing for cash.”