Bloodline (40 page)

“But I know that you organized it because you think I'm a
threat. And I've been around long enough to know how deadly Shin Bet is. So I'm not here to play hero and I don't want to die. I want to do a deal.”

“I deal with Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Not respected American broadcasters, Mr. Grossman, even if one has become an Israeli citizen. I think you've come to the wrong department. If you want to do a deal, go to the Tax Office.”

“I'll give you Bilal if you promise to leave me alone.”

For the first time since Yaniv had entered his office, Spitzer frowned. “Give him up? He's in prison, awaiting trial. In a couple of months he'll be an anonymous nonentity in a prison cell and he'll be there for the rest of his life.”

“Is he still in prison?” said Yaniv, hoping for some reaction to play across Spitzer's face. But the Shin Bet officer said nothing and gave nothing away. Yaniv knew—or at least hoped—his words must have had an effect.

“Very soon you'll get a call telling you he's gone. I'm the only one who knows where he is. And I'm offering Bilal in exchange for my life. I know you could have me killed whenever you want to, but I reckon that with Bilal alive, it's the only bargaining chip I have to save my skin.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about. I think you should leave or I might have to call the police.” The irony of a Shin Bet commander calling regular cops was not lost on Yaniv.

“You know you won't do that. If I'm arrested, the wives of two Shin Bet operatives you had murdered will testify; I'll testify; Bilal will testify; there'll be so much mud thrown at you on every TV station you can name. It likely won't stick, but it'll make one hell of a mess and you'll feel like you're walking through a swamp. All I'm asking is a fair swap. My life for some miserable terrorist . . .”

A
BRAHAM BEN
Z
AKKAI
decided to take the high road to avoid the suffocating reek of sulfur, the noxious fumes of death and decay that suffused the entire area. He dismounted from his donkey as the track started to become steeper, and pulled on the rope to lead the overburdened animal up the narrow path, full of white rocks that were stained with yellow ghosts from the destruction by God of Sodom and Gomorrah. The burning sun forced him to stop at regular intervals, exhausted from pulling the donkey when it refused to continue upward in places where the path was precipitous.

Finding a rock ledge shaded from the scorching intensity of the sun, he took two mouthfuls of water from his flask and fed his donkey from the bag of oats.

Abraham ben Zakkai looked down at the evil sea, indistinct now in the heat of the midday sun, swathed in a heavy gray-white mist that blunted the shore and made the distant Mountains of Moab invisible. Of all the places in Israel where he hated going the most, the Yam haMelach was at the top of his list. He didn't like going to the hills of Galilee, either, because of the madmen, murderers, and robbers who seemed to infest the area, but he would happily be there right now, with its cool glades and abundant waters, rather than in this furnace, which God had abandoned when he destroyed the evil cities that once lived by its shore.

Being a man educated in many languages, he mused on the names used by travelers for the Dead Sea. The Jews, of course, called it Yam haMelach, the Sea of Salt; the Bedouin called it al-Bahr al-Mayyit, or the Dead Sea, a name Abraham thought appropriate; the ancient Greeks who visited the area called it He Thalassa Asphaltites, or the Asphaltite Sea, but later changed it to He Nekra Thalassa, taking up the Arab description of death;
and the recently arrived Roman conquerors knew it as Mare Mortum, also the Dead Sea. He smiled when he thought of the Romans. Militaristic and practical, but not a creative idea in their brains.

Abraham visited the shores of the Dead Sea once a year, for five days at a time. He lived in the open air, lit fires from dead wood and branches to cook his food and frighten away the lions and other large beasts that inhabited the area, and spent his days collecting the leaves and branches of the tamarisk tree, which grew in abundance in the salty soils and crags of the wadis surrounding the Dead Sea. The tamarisk tree's bark was invaluable for curing warts and headaches, and a distillation made by boiling it with a pinch of yellow sulfur was a certain way of curing diseases of the eye.

Abraham had learned his skills as a doctor from his beloved and revered father, Zakkai ben Jonathan, whose knowledge had been gleaned from a long line of healers, herbalists, rabbis, and priests. Though his father was long dead, his reputation would never be forgotten. Indeed, when Abraham ben Zakkai was descending and then living for the five days in the Dead Sea area, he would begin and end each day with a prayer to his father, begging God to allow him to have the same skills and enjoy the same reputation throughout the land as the father, and the father before him.

After sipping his carefully measured drink from the flask of water, Abraham pulled his donkey upward along the path. There was still half a day of climbing before they reached the top and could travel along better roads toward Jericho and then rest for a day before finally returning home to Jerusalem. Always assuming, of course, that he didn't meet a Roman patrol that would haul him into prison to question him about why he was traveling. It had happened twice before, and had cost him his entire supply of gathered herbs and spices as well as the free treatment of the illnesses from which the Roman soldiers seemed to be suffering.

But this time he made it back to Jerusalem without incident,
and two days after he'd returned home and enjoyed the company of his family, he was summoned to the house of a rich merchant who lived much higher up the hill, closer to the temple. The merchant, Samuel, was known to be a friend of the Romans, and so, while he would give the same attention to Samuel's servant girl who was suffering from fever as he'd give to any other Jew, he would also be cautious in what he would say to people. In Roman Jerusalem these days, any loose mouth could see its owner end up crucified.

The house was large and imposing. It had acquired the trappings of the Romans, with large marble columns on either side of the wooden front doors, a fountain in the courtyard, and niches for candles in the wall. Having lived and studied in Rome, Abraham was only too aware that such niches normally supported idols of gods such as Jupiter, Janus, Diana, and Minerva. But interestingly, Samuel the merchant had also erected a niche and small shrine for the household gods, or lares, spirits who were supposed to bring comfort and safety to houses that worshipped them. Abraham smiled. He wondered whether there was any trait of Jewishness inside Samuel's body or whether, like King Herod, he was more Roman than the Romans.

Abraham knocked diffidently on the door and, within moments, a large black Nubian slave opened it. He looked with disdain at Abraham and said in a supercilious voice, bordering on insolence, “People of trade do not come to my master's front door. Round the back with you.”

He was about to close the door when Abraham said, “That lesion on your neck. An unguent of pine tar, bark from the almond tree, and a tincture of sulfur, the yellow powder I get from the Dead Sea, will help. If you'll let me in, I'll give you some.”

The servant frowned and put his hand to his neck where he felt the painful sore caused by a boil that hadn't healed. He opened the door and nodded to Abraham. “You are a doctor?”

“I'm here to cure your servant, Leah. She has a fever.” He dug
into his sack, took out an ointment, and gave it to the Nubian. “Wash the lesion with water that has been boiled. That's most important. Not water from the well. Wash it with soap and try to clean out all of the pus. Then spread this unguent liberally over the lesion and the surrounding skin. Do the same thing again the following day, and each day that follows until it's healed.” The Nubian looked at him skeptically. “If you don't, then the poisons from the lesion may enter your body, and you will die in agony in a month.”

Shocked, the servant led him into the house and to where the food was prepared and washing was done. In a side room where four or five of the serving girls slept on the rush mats on the floor, a young woman lay, her face burning, her bare arms wet with sweat; she was panting and gasping and lay with her body in a fetal position.

“Leah? I'm Abraham ben Zakkai. I'm a doctor. Your master, Samuel, sent for me.”

But the girl either couldn't hear, or was in such mortal agony that she wasn't listening.

Abraham felt her forehead. It was scorching hot. He realized immediately that her body's humors were out of alignment. He searched his memory for what Hippocrates had written about the humors and the seasons. It was summer, and so this was supposed to match the season of yellow bile, but it was obviously her blood that was in disarray, yet that was supposed to happen in the spring.

He examined her, and from the look of the girl the black and yellow bile were in order but the blood and phlegm were out of their natural orientation. He glanced up at the people gathered to see what he was doing. He had to go beyond Hippocrates and make his own judgment.

“Her blood is too hot and it is causing problems for the phlegm, which is why she has problems breathing. Bring me cold water so that I can cool down her skin, which will cool her blood.
Then take this potion of roots and barks and dilute it in the same amount of water. Get her to sip it slowly—very slowly—for the rest of the day. That will bring down the fever that is racking her body.”

They stood there staring at him. “Go!” he ordered.

When he'd ensured that her body was cooled by the water and that the cold, wet towels on her forehead, chest, stomach, and legs were changed regularly for fresh wet towels, he followed the Nubian servant into the master's area of the house. He waited in an antechamber until the master was ready to see him. The noise from the adjoining room was loud: men laughing. Abraham watched as the door was opened and three men, Roman soldiers of elevated rank, walked out into the corridor and toward the front door, followed by a tall, swarthy man in rich merchant's clothes. One of the soldiers peered into the antechamber and saw Abraham sitting there. He didn't smile but merely looked away. It was obvious that Abraham's crude clothes and hat identified him as a Jew not worth knowing.

When the three soldiers had left, Samuel the merchant walked back, and his Nubian servant whispered into his ear. Samuel nodded, looked at Abraham, and said curtly, “Come.”

Abraham followed Samuel into his sumptuous office. It was lined with pillars, scrolls, ledgers, tables, and chairs. On the wall were marble busts of Roman gods and dead Roman emperors and figurines of beautiful women in scanty clothing. So different from Abraham's simple yet homely house.

“My servant tells me that you have not just cured Leah but that your salve has already made his lesion feel better. You're a good doctor.”

Abraham shrugged. “I use the knowledge I've gained by studying in Greece and Rome. I also use local herbs and remedies, which seem to work well.”

Samuel nodded. He picked up a small cloth bag and weighed it roughly in his hand. He threw it to Abraham. “Here: it's more
than you expect, but you've saved the lives of two of my servants, so it's what you deserve.”

Abraham put the bag into the pocket of his tunic. “You care about your servants? I thought that friends of Rome adopted Rome's attitude toward us.”

“I'm a friend of Rome, Doctor, but also a Jew. I treat life as sacred, whether it's a Roman's life or the life of a servant.”

“Yet, you sit here with Romans clasping your hands as your friends while Israel's back is crushed under their heel. How can you do this, Samuel the merchant; you, a Jew?”

Samuel looked at him scornfully. “You continue to treat your patients, Doctor, and I assure you I won't interfere. Let me deal with my business with the Romans, and don't you interfere with me. You are no longer required in my house. Go!”

He sat down at his table and started to read a scroll. Abraham knew that the interview was over. He left Samuel's house and walked down the hill to his home. But Abraham didn't notice as he left Samuel's compound that a man was standing in the shadows, observing him leave. The man was dressed in the clothes of an Israelite and could have been a farmer, a craftsman, or one of the growing numbers of men whose lives had been destroyed by the Romans and who now idled away their time betting on the throwing of bones or robbing merchants who came to trade in Jerusalem's marketplaces.

The man waited until Abraham had walked beyond the walls of Samuel's compound before he ran quickly through the shadows and entered the house. He didn't knock, nor did he wait for servants to open the door. Nobody knew he was there. As he walked softly into the vestibule, he felt underneath his robes for the handle of his dagger, the essential uniform of the Sicarii, the group of Zealots, determined at any cost to rid Israel of the Romans. And as one of the Jews who'd been Jerusalem's most important merchants trading with the Romans, Samuel was the man he'd come to see.

Softly, slowly, cautiously, he listened outside Samuel's office for the sound of conversation, but there was silence. All he heard was the noise of vellum scrolls being moved around. He pushed the door open so that he could see into the room, and was relieved that Samuel was sitting at his desk reading, his back to the door.

The man crept from the doorway, as silently as a stalking lioness, until he could hear Samuel's breathing. It was then that the merchant sensed that somebody else was in the room. He turned suddenly and stood in shock when he saw that a man had crept up behind him, an arm's length away. His chair nearly fell onto the floor as he turned to face the man.

They clung together, embracing.

“By the Lord our God, Jonathan, you frightened me. Why creep up on me like a thief in the night?” said Samuel.