In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (15 page)

Another lash. Mustafa was melting, dissolving into the stones. He raised his shaggy head. “But didn’t you promise me?”

“My dear fellow.” The sheikh folded his hands, ceased clipping altogether. “I don’t remember ever making such a promise. You see, I like to encourage my workers. That’s all. If there was a misunderstanding”—he opened his soft hand—“such things occur and it is regrettable.” He coughed, and his thin neck agitated. “The main thing is, continue to work hard and all will be well.” He frowned at an errant pinky nail.

Mustafa struggled to remember what the sheikh had told him that day. Something about taking on more responsibility. Those were his very words. That had to mean a promotion, didn’t it? Ach, what did it matter? A half promise, a promise. Broken words, like all the others. “Do I get a raise, for all my hard good work?”

“A raise?” The sheikh lifted a wispy brow, and his almond eyes took on a sharper aspect. “You are lucky to have this job. It is expected that you work hard.” He gathered up his nail parings and handed them to Mustafa. “Bury these, please.” Mustafa stared, puzzled, at the yellowed bits of nails, and Sheikh Tawil said, “Your teachers never taught you? Or your parents? We come from the soil and return to the soil,” he explained. “It is the Islamic way. Then please hurry over to Solomon’s Stables. You’re needed there.” He patted Mustafa’s shoulder, the good one. “You’re needed.”

As Mustafa knelt among the rocks at Solomon’s Stables, he repeated the sheikh’s words:
Work and all will be well
. He went on bending, dumping, and filling the wheelbarrow. His fingers became stiff like wood sticks, his wrists black with dust. His back had no more patience. Soon it would snap in two.
Ya’allah
. And now, he thought with a pang, he would have no money to buy his mother jewels. She would never want to see him.

Oh, soon he would be like the rocks themselves, ground into bits and bits, and whatever was left, the sun would finish the job until nothing remained of Mustafa. His dirt-gritted hands sifted through stones and debris in the wheelbarrow. He brushed against a new thing and fingered it. A coin. And he remembered Rabbi Isaac’s words. So much on the mountain was precious. Everyone’s history all smashed together inside this dirt. Would he give it to Sheikh Tawil to crush it with his foot? His eyes swung here and there, at the workers, at the ground, the sky. No. Would he give it to the rabbi to make more trouble? No, and no again! He wiped dust from his eye with the heel of his wrist.

During his lunch break, he went searching for a hiding place on this hot, hard mountain, a desert of sunshine. He shielded his eyes against the sun bouncing off rock. He walked to a grassy, private area among the cypress trees where he liked to eat his snacks. Slim olive trees flung up their branches like dancers’ arms. A huge pillar lay on its side. With his dustpan and pronger he carved out a hole in the ground, placed the coin inside, and separated his fingers—or tried to—as he had seen the kohein do. Then he covered the hole with a gourd-like stone. Good. From now on he would save everything. His own private collection. If anyone should ask him why he was doing this or for who, he would say (what would he say?), oh—he would shout,
Go away. Nothing here but garbage
.

There. He stood up. Smiled. Thrust his hands into the deeps of his pockets. Just as quickly, he yanked them out. Shuddering, he shook out his pockets and Sheikh Tawil’s dirty nail parings fell to the ground. He stepped on them, hard. Good as buried.

“
Atta rotzeh?
” asked a young woman in a short orange skirt (more like a hyphen across her midsection). She set down a small pot of Turkish coffee for the district police commander of Jerusalem. Isaac thanked her, no, he’d pass on the coffee. He checked his watch. Itai Shani, the commander, was on the phone. Isaac had been waiting forty minutes at the precinct in the Russian Compound. The young woman (a teenager?) leaned over to pour the coffee, and he averted his eyes. With a slight groan, he pressed his thumb and forefinger against his closed lids.

An image of another young woman pushed its way into his mind. Tamar. What a mess there. He feared she had feelings for him. And he, he had simply never seen her in that light before. He had certainly noticed her, though. How could he not? A man is a human being, not an angel. Tamar. Always thrusting her red hair off to the side as though it were an encumbrance. So tall, so forthright in the jaunty way she walked into the courtyard, and yet he sensed one wrong word or look could make her collapse. After talking with her, everyone else looked a bit faded. But why was he thinking of her at all? She was twelve, thirteen years younger, for goodness sake. She rode a motorcycle. She was a
ba’al teshuva
, religious only five years. The two of them together, it was like
milchigs
and
fleishigs
, meat and dairy; they just didn’t mix. Another entanglement, more trouble, like the pomegranate.

Finally, the young secretary ushered Isaac in. The commander, with a head of thick, black hair and handsome florid cheeks, spoke into the phone wedged between his head and stocky shoulder:
“Atta meshugah?”
He burst out laughing and hung up. With a residue of a smile on his face, he turned to Isaac. “So tell me what’s the problem. Something about the Temple Mount?” He opened three packets of sugar with one sharp twist
and poured them into his mug. “Don’t tell me you’re one of these crazy mountain faithfuls.” He stirred and took a big gulp.

“What’s a crazy mountain faithful?” Isaac inquired, removing his black Borsalino, newly purchased at a reduced, post-holiday price.

The commander’s dark eyes squinted at him, as if trying to decide exactly which religious crazy he might be—right-wing-settler crazy or the black-hat-
haredi
-Ultra-Orthodox kind. “You know, a crazy right-wing messianist,” he said. “Wants to bring back sacrifices to the temple,” his large hand made flips to elaborate, “bring back the priests, the blood, the works. The Third Templeniks.” His hand halted midair. “They sneak up on the mountain. Make trouble with the Arabs. They want to get the keys back from the Waqf so that ownership reverts back to them.” The orange-skirted teenager entered, bearing a plate of cinnamon rolls. The look that passed between her and the commander was so charged, Isaac blushed to his collarbone. “A district commander’s nightmare,” Shani finished, his eyes lingering on the teenager’s shapely legs as she held out the platter of rolls.

Isaac’s hand tightened on the blue container in his lap. Grown men and teenage girls. Oy—and what about himself? He shook his head sharply. No one would ever say he had preyed on a young, vulnerable woman. Tamar had simply misunderstood his intentions. His cheeks burned at the memory of their last meeting.

“Every religious Jew wants the Messiah to come and have our holy temple in working order,” Isaac said after the girl left. “But I’ve no interest in claiming our mountain before the proper time. I’m here for something else.” He snapped the container open and carefully placed the pomegranate on the table. “This was originally found on the Temple Mount in the debris pile. About to be dumped.”

The commander brushed a thick shaft of black hair off his eyes and read the words. “Make for Me a Temple.” He whistled through surprisingly soft-looking cupid lips. “Well, what have we here, Rabbi?”

“I’m not a rabbi,” he said in a low voice. “Mr. Markowitz will do. Here’s a letter from the top archeologist at Tel Aviv University attesting that this artifact in all likelihood is from the Second Temple period, at the latest, if not earlier. It was going to be dumped, as I said.”

“Amazing, amazing,” the commander murmured. He read the letter
Isaac had slid across the desk. The phone rang, and he grabbed it. He listened for ten seconds then barked, “Not now!” He slammed the phone down, gave a small, self-indulgent smile—what’s a little outburst among friends?—and said, “Do you know, Mr. Markowitz, I had a case last week—a bunch of Christians who insisted they’d found a bonafide red heifer? You know, the holy cow the Jews need to put the Temple Mount back on the map, with sacrifices and all the works? The Waqf went absolutely bonkers when they heard this. They threatened to riot like a bunch of crazies. That cow is history, Mr. Markowitz.”

“Excuse me,” said Isaac. “What do red heifers have to do with pomegranates?”

“Did you ever serve in the army?” the commander asked abruptly, his sarcastic tone implying such a thing was inconceivable.

“No. I came to Israel when I was forty. Too old to interest the army,” he said ruefully. “Though I do civil guard duty.”

“So I suppose you know the other meaning of a pomegranate.” The police commander leaned forward, his thick arms resting on either side of the fruit.

The other meaning? Isaac looked at him. Could he be referring to the adage, “Even the most empty, vain Jew is as full of good deeds as a pomegranate is filled with seeds”?

The commander said, “It means a hand grenade, Mr. Markowitz.”

“Please, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Hand grenades, red heifers—” Isaac passed a tired hand over his forehead. “Just tell me.”

“This sweet little pomegranate could cause a big bomb in the Middle East. I suppose you want me to supervise the Waqf’s building and renovations on the Temple Mount, right?” He looked steadily at Isaac. “Well, we can’t interfere, not any more than we already do.”

Isaac swallowed. “Why not?”

“That’s how Moshe Dayan decided it in ’67. Israel got back Jerusalem after being attacked, remember?”

Isaac shrugged—who didn’t?—but the commander wasn’t to be denied his lecture. “Six monster-size Arab countries going after little Israel, David and Goliath, right? Well, Israel had the gall to win that war. We could’ve blown the mosques away or at least taken full control of the mountain, but Dayan wanted to be magnanimous. He gave the keys”—his
muscled hand dangled an imaginary set—“back to the Islamic authorities. He allowed them to retain control—under our jurisdiction. But they think they’re granting favors when they let us go up there. They could give a crap for our archeology and our historical ties. In short, we can’t rock the boat. Especially not now, not with our new prime minister and—”

Isaac’s head lifted sharply. “Who won?”

Shani let out a short laugh. “Didn’t you hear? Where are you living? It was on every station. Oh, that’s right”—he tapped his right temple—“you people don’t own any televisions.” He took another swig of coffee and set the cup down hard. “Listen, Rabbi, you have to relax. Things are finally looking good for the Jews. We’re back on track. Even Europe has a nice thing or two to say about our country these days. Don’t despair.”

“I’m not a rabbi,” Isaac said. “So you won’t protect the Temple? Look what’s getting thrown away!” He paused in disbelief. “Is that right?”

“It’s all politics, Mr. Markowitz. There’s nothing we can do. You saw how the Arabs rioted when the police opened the Hasmonean tunnel. They went meshuga. They could cause a Third World War up there.”

“And what about us ‘crazy black hatters,’ as you call us? Don’t you think we’ll riot when we find out our holiest site is getting destroyed?”

“Maybe a demonstration here and there, a few tires set on fire,” he said with a dismissive flick of his thick wrist. “No bombs, though. Nothing we can’t handle fairly easily.”

Isaac digested this. He said, “But aren’t
you
concerned about protecting our national treasures?”

“Of course I’m concerned. I’m a Jew, too.” The commander’s face reddened with anger. “But I have to actually deal with these problems while all of you hide behind your Torah books. I live out these problems, in the real world, every day of my life. You’ll never know how volatile the situation is. You couldn’t know.”

Isaac bowed his head. “All I’m pointing out is, this is the place where our Temple once stood. You can practically smell it, feel it. The stones are still there. For the past two thousand years of exile, we begged God in our prayers—take us back to Jerusalem, return us to your temple, rebuild it, dwell in it so we can serve you, and we still beg him, three times a day, and more.” He quoted from Psalms: “ ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right
arm wither and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.…’ ”

“Et cetera, et cetera,” intoned the commander in his deep voice. He placed a finger on the indent of his cupid lips. “Excuse me, I thought you said you weren’t a crazy mountain faithful. Or maybe I’m mistaken.”

“You don’t need to be a”—Isaac’s fingers lifted, making ironic air quotes—“crazy mountain faithful, or a right-wing settler to care about the Temple Mount. You could be a truck driver, a professor, any Jew who wants better supervision up there to protect our past. If we abandon our holiest site, what point is there to a Jewish state?”

Commander Shani said, his gaze level, “Mr. Markowitz, you can be as idealistic as you want. My job is to be pragmatic.”

Isaac tiredly got to his feet. He reached across the table and began to enfold the pomegranate in its cloth.

He heard the commander say, “Better leave that here.”