The Gates of Zion (28 page)

Benny straightened the cards carefully before replacing them in their worn-out box. “So what’d you guys do with the mutt, anyway?”

“David had him made into a fur coat for his girl.” Bobby guffawed.

“Nah, he took him over to her house and left him. She said she’d keep the dog, but David had to go. Right?” Michael added up his winnings.

“’Bout the size of it.” David grinned and plopped down on his bed, which sagged and creaked under his weight. “I better go to bed so you guys can get out of here.” He lay back on his pillow and put his hands under his head.

“We can take a hint,” said Benny. He filed out the door after Milkin, who continued to mutter about the evening’s entertainment as he disappeared into his room down the hall.

“See ya in the morning,” Michael called after them, no doubt rousing most of the residents of the Atlantic Hotel. He shut the door and rubbed his hands together, gloating. “What a night! You’d think Bobby lost his life savings, the way he acted.”

“You got X-ray eyes, or were your cards marked?” asked David dryly.

“You’re jealous.” Michael kicked off his shoes, then opened the window and inhaled the blast of cold air that flooded the room. “You gotta have heart to play this game right, y’know?” He slammed the window shut again and threw himself down on his bed.

“You call that heart? You went after Milkin like you wanted to beat the socks off him.” David laughed.

“Didn’t want his socks or I would’ve had ’em. The man is such a schmuck. I’ll take that dog over him any day.”

“Don’t be so hard on him.” David eyed Michael’s toes sticking out of his socks. “You might have heart, but if you had a brain in your head you’d have played him for his socks.”

Michael wiggled his toes. “Scarecrow, right? Scarecrow and Tinman, that’s us.”

David leaned over and switched off the light. “Michael?” he asked as he unbuttoned his shirt and threw it into the darkness.

“Yeah?” Michael’s voice sounded sleepy.

“If we had brains, we’d be back in Kansas with Auntie Em.” David closed his eyes.

“Don’t forget Dorothy and that shaggy mutt Toto over there in Rehavia,” Michael muttered. “I’m not so dumb that I don’t know why you came to Palestine, y’know.”

“Yeah, well, she’s going back to the States.”

“You staying on?” Michael asked after a long pause.

“After what I saw on the road yesterday, I get the feeling I ought to hang around and help out.”

“Great.” Michael yawned. “Can I borrow a pair of socks tomorrow?”

***

Gerhardt leaned against the building across from the Atlantic Hotel and peered through the pouring rain at the brightly lit windows on the third floor.

The redheaded woman’s escape, as it turned out, had been a windfall for him. It had brought yet another young suitor under his ever-watchful eye. The tall American flier had not come to Palestine simply for his pleasure; he, too, was a member of the Haganah, as were those men who stayed with him at the Atlantic Hotel on Ben Yehuda Street.

What better place than this Street of the Jews to celebrate the
Jewish Festival of Lights with a little gift from Haj Amin?
Gerhardt studied the structure of the building, making mental note of its weakest points. Then he scanned the building on either side and smiled at the simplicity of his plan.

***

The staff of the King David Hotel at least maintained the pretense of opulent normality. The red-coated doorman, complete with medals and epaulets and a hint of gray hair peeking out from beneath his black cap, looked more like a retired general than a doorman.

As David pulled up to the main entrance in the battered green Plymouth, the doorman stepped forward and effortlessly opened Ellie’s door and helped her out in one movement. She stood staring up at the leaded arched windows until David joined her on the broad red carpet that led into the plush interior of the hotel.

David was angry at the news that Ellie would not be joining the other students and staff at the American school for their flight home tomorrow. “You know this was supposed to be your good-bye dinner,” he said gruffly as he took her arm and passed into the lobby.

“Well, can’t we make it a hello celebration?” she replied coyly.

“Come on, David; I thought you’d be happy for me. After all, this is
LIFE
magazine!”

“It’s
your
life I’m worried about,” he tossed back.

Dark-skinned Arab bellhops scurried to and fro about the walnut-paneled lobby. Aristocratic gentlemen reading the London
Times
slouched in red leather chairs, while waiters served them Glenlivet whiskey or gin and tonic with twists of Palestine-grown limes. The carpet, a rich red floral, swirled around the well-polished shoes of British officers and government staff, who spent their spare hours relaxing and reliving the latest events.

All in all, the establishment bore remarkable similarity to the Savoy Hotel in London. Brass lamps on tables near the chairs gave the feeling of an English manor house, and in the bar adjacent to the lobby Ellie glimpsed paintings of horses soaring over jumps and galloping across the broad meadows of England.

Why,
Ellie wondered,
if they are so in love with the atmosphere of
Great Britain, are they so eager to stay here?

Dressed in a tuxedo, the headwaiter stood at attention near a small desk as they walked into the high-ceilinged dining room. Tablecloths and gleaming silver adorned the delicate Queen Anne furniture.

Waiters gracefully moved from one table to another, bowing slightly and seeing to the needs of the diners before needs were even realized.

Ellie had a strong sensation that she had walked into a Cole Porter comedy, where everyone was droll and witty and the world was simple. She tried to forget the military guards stationed outside throughout the grounds. For tonight, she decided, she would pretend that this charade was the real world and that the world outside did not exist.

“Sir?” asked the headwaiter with a heavy British accent.

“We have a reservation for two. David Meyer. I stopped by this afternoon. Your phones are all messed up.”

The headwaiter smiled slightly―uneasy, Ellie guessed, at the reminder that the real world touched even the King David. “Quite,”

he said. “Meyer. Ah yes, this way.”

He took two leather-bound menus from a rack and led the way to a small corner table for two almost hidden behind a potted palm. He pulled Ellie’s chair out for her, lit a tall white candle, and with a bow, was gone.

David, still angry, skimmed the pages of the menu.

Ellie looked over the top of hers and watched him with a tolerant smile. “Would you rather take me some place else?”

“Yeah. How about the Copper Kettle on the corner of Gower and Sunset in Los Angeles?”

“My mind is made up.”

“Your parents are going to be worried.” He glared at her.

“I’m a big girl. And I can take care of myself.”

“Like you did in the riot? They’d have been shipping you home in a box if I hadn’t―”

“I know that.” Ellie laid her menu down. “But something has happened to me.”

“You could say that.” David eyed the menu again.

“I mean inside. Something is going on in me,” she tried to say calmly.

“You’re on overload, that’s what.”

“There might be some way I can help here.” As she picked up the menu, she felt a surge of irritation.

“Who do you think you are, Joan of Arc? Saint Ellie?” David fired back. “You’re going to get yourself killed for the noble cause of journalism. Even people who fought their way across Europe are going to get blasted in this thing. Walking down the street can be fatal. If we―you and I―have any future at all together―”

“You’re assuming an awful lot, David,” Ellie interrupted, “just like you always did. I told you I’m not the same.”

“How do you think Moshe feels about you if he asked you to stay?”

David’s voice got a little louder.

“I think he loves me.”

“Not as much as he loves this stinkin’ little piece of real estate, he doesn’t.”

“I’m a journalist. This is my job.”

“Two days ago you were an archaeologist’s flunky on your way back home. Now all of a sudden you’re a journalist?”

Ellie noticed a couple casting sidelong glances at David as his voice got progressively louder. “Lower your voice,” Ellie said too loudly.

“I’ve had it with you, David. If that is all you think of me―”

“I don’t care if it means you’re going to win a Pulitzer; do you hear me?”

“Yes, and so does everybody else in the room.”

“You want to be a journalist, go ahead. But do it without me. I want a woman, okay? This is it. We’re finished!”

The shadow of a waiter fell over the table.

Ellie and David both glared up at him.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” the waiter asked, obviously uncomfortable.

“Yes—” Ellie stood up— “a taxi.”

***

Moshe stared blankly out the window to where the sun shone on the glistening surface of the Dome of the Mosque of Omar. Only once before had he stood on the soil of the sacred spot where Abraham had offered his son on the altar he had built with his own hands… .

As a tall, lanky boy of fifteen, Moshe had donned the stolen uniform of a British soldier and walked past the Muslim guards at the gates of the mosque. No Jew could openly visit the site without fear of reprisal or arrest. Sweat had formed on his brow, and his heart had beat faster as he strode into the courtyard. He had imagined how Abraham had felt, knowing that he had come to this place to offer his son as a sacrifice. Moshe’s mouth tasted of iron and the pit of his stomach churned.

And yet God had been faithful, Moshe remembered. God had provided a ram for the sacrifice, so Isaac had not died. Moshe had raised his eyes toward the Western Wall, the last remaining edifice of the Great Temple, which had been destroyed along with the nation of Israel nearly two thousand years before. Moshe had not entered the mosque but instead had visualized the ragged band of Jews who prayed just on the other side of the wall. They, too, prayed for a Savior who would one day deliver Jerusalem. Only a thin wall of hand-hewn stones separated those Jews from the Muslims he had walked with in the courtyard. But it was a line that marked the hardness of men’s hearts, he had thought… .

Today Moshe turned from the window and sat down heavily at his desk. He toyed with the photographs of the scroll: the book of Isaiah as it was written when the Great Temple stood where the Muslim shrine now glistened. Not one word had been changed. The promises remained the same. The destruction of Israel and the wanderings of her people had all been foretold. Now her people were returning.

But what of the Messiah? Moshe had long since turned his back on the belief in the Holy One of Israel. And yet the Orthodox Jews who prayed at the wall still denied that there could be a nation again unless the Messiah came to personally govern and redeem. There were so many different beliefs among the Jews of the world. Surely there must be one truth in it all. Had the Messiah come to Israel once already, as Howard believed? Had God provided the Holy One as a lamb of sacrifice to redeem and restore in a different way than the way they had always expected?

The brass lamp on Moshe’s cluttered desk illuminated the glossy photographs of the Isaiah scroll. Moshe reread the confirmation from Johns Hopkins University:

Congratulations. You may well have uncovered the most significant
find in recent history. The material confirms the scroll to be of first-century origin… .

For what seemed like the hundredth time, Moshe leafed through Ellie’s photographs, amazed at the clear, precise lettering of the ancient writings. He opened his most recent edition of the Hebrew text of Isaiah and scanned the pages for any variation of wording between the scroll and the modern printed page. Letter by letter the words read the same; the message was the same. Moshe flipped to Isaiah 53 and frowned as he carefully reread the words:
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon Him;
and with His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Moshe’s eyes fell on the modern rabbinical commentaries below the text: “The prophet refers to the nation of Israel… .”

Although the text had remained unchanged over two thousand years, the interpretation of the Scripture had, indeed, changed. Moshe leaned back and scratched his head, trying to remember the ancient commentaries he had come across on this passage so many years earlier. He stood and searched his bookshelves for the Aramaic translation written in the second century by Rabbi Jonathan ben Uzziel, a disciple of the great Hillel.

“Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 53,” he muttered, taking the dusty volume from the shelf. He opened the book to the fifty-second chapter first and began to read the Aramaic.
Behold my servant
Messiah shall prosper… .
He frowned at the word
Messiah
, then laid the book down. With a feeling of urgency, he searched for a ninth-century prayer book on the topmost shelf. He carefully removed the crumbling book and leafed through its pages until he found the paraphrase of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah written for recitation on Yom Kippur:

Messiah … our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions
He did bear, for He was wounded for our transgressions: He
carries our sins upon His shoulders, that we may find
forgiveness for our iniquities… .

“And so,” Moshe said aloud, “the interpretation was changed, although the words have remained the same. The ancients knew the prophet spoke of the Messiah. How inconvenient truth can be at times!” He half smiled, staring down the scroll photographs washed in light. “Especially when for so long the one you thought to be your enemy is, in fact, your Savior. This is truth, Moshe Sachar,” he told himself. “So what will you do with the Messiah? the one they call Christ?”