In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (35 page)

A rabbi needed his own pulpit. But a jail pulpit of all places? Still, he was comfortable here, oddly. There was a rightness to it. Maybe he had found his flock.

There was a rush to his scalp, a pure blast, sending a million psoriatic cells scattering. This work, this life, was his.

“The day is short and the work is great.” So much work to be done, so little time. When he got out of here, he would finish his rabbinic ordination. It was fifteen years overdue.

“What’s the date?” he turned to Nissim.

“The fourteenth.”

Isaac ran his fingers through his shedding beard. The fourteenth, the fourteenth. Something about that date didn’t seem right. It had a bad sound to it. He pressed his forehead, willing himself to recall.

Mustafa wiped his forehead and temples with the tip of his kaffiyeh and saw how dirty his cloak had become, the edges darkened with sweat. Today of all days, he should have washed the kaffiyeh, he thought with regret.
In four gulps, he downed a bottle of Coca-Cola and ate the dried plums he had packed. He needed his strength, especially today. He washed himself at the fountain, soaping his fingers, scrubbing to the wrists and elbows, rinsing once, twice, three times. After cleaning his nostrils, he passed a damp hand over his head, wiped his ears and worked hard at his neck. He must be clean, he must be prepared. He removed his ravaged shoes and washed the ankles, the toes, especially the big, exposed toe that collected dirt under the nail. He never did fix that shoe. But what did it matter.
Nine thirty, nine thirty
. It chimed in his head.

He snuck over to his hiding place, dodging his boss and his friend Hamdi and other workers, taking great care not to be followed, and gently laid his pronger, dustpan and sweeper between two white columns. He pushed off the rock covering the hole, and dug out the burlap bag, the same color as the Jew wall. Then he tied a thin sturdy rope to the bag. To calm himself, he went over the plan. Everything was in place, the bag, the rope, the ladder he had hidden at the Al-Buraq. At exactly nine-thirty, he would climb the ledge at the Al-Buraq and lower the bag over the wall of the Jews. Miss Tamar would be there. She would take the bag and escape. No one would stop her, a harmless pretty girl. She would hide the bag in a safe place. When Rabbi Isaac got out of jail, she would give it to him, to hide and protect, because the bag belonged to him, not Mustafa. There, they would be safe. But what if she didn’t come? He closed his eyes. Just two days ago, Miss Tamar said, “Don’t do this, I beg you!” What if he lowered the bag so so carefully, but she wasn’t there to take it in her arms? He squeezed his own arms with all his might.
Laa!
It could break, or worse, be abandoned.
Laa
. Never. No. He shook away the evil thought. Miss Tamar was a good girl. She cared about him. She also cared about these precious things. In the end she would come. She had promised.

He tightened the rope, first with his hands, and then pulling it with his teeth. But what if the Israeli police saw the bag coming down?
Pow!
They’d blow it to bits, and him, too. No, it wouldn’t happen. Allah was watching over him. In his mind he was ready. This time he would repay goodness with good, not greed and lying. A sacrifice for the rabbi’s sacrifice. A gift to Rabbi Isaac and to Miss Tamar, too. A gift of his entire collection. There were good things inside the bag—rich dirt. Presents for everyone.

Today luck would smile on him, he had sensed this from the moment he woke up. Hardly anyone ever smiled on him. No success in his life. Nothing to give. A good day was when no one called him
moak
. Now everything would change. Never had he prayed so hard or cleaned himself so well. No one could have done a better job wrapping up these old treasures. He pressed the bag, so bouncy with all its layers of Bubble Wrap, and a new thought hit him: What if the rabbi got angry at him for doing this dangerous thing? But only for a little while, he was sure. Especially when his plan worked, wouldn’t Rabbi Isaac be happy?

“Reb Isaac,” he heard a distant voice say. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”

Isaac’s eyes snapped open. How could he have forgotten? He mumbled to Nissim, “I’m finished,” and he twisted to the side to catch the time on the cafeteria clock. Eight-fifteen. He hunched over his breakfast tray. It was Tuesday. He had to save Mustafa. He had to save him. Had to. But what could he do? Incarcerated. He had no will of his own. Utterly helpless. Confined. He stared at his hands, opened and shut them. What could these hands do? He shook his head. But could a man just sit there and let another man get destroyed? What about Abraham who confronted King Kedalomar and his mighty armies in order to save his nephew Lot? A man couldn’t just sit, even if he was in prison, while his friend was getting killed.

He lifted his eyes. Shani was standing near the coffee urn fiddling with one of the levers. He looked jaunty in his blue officer’s cap. His broad shoulders and arms filled every inch of his uniform shirt. As Isaac sat there and watched the commander, he got a cold feeling that went right down the middle of him, splitting his insides in two. An image flickered in his mind, the hard outline of his father’s shoulders, the slight hump of his huge back, bowed after a day’s work at his scrap and salvage junkyard. Isaac was nothing like his father, never wanted to be, and yet his father would’ve stood up to Shani, same way he’d stood up to the Italians who came around, demanding their protection money, and his father had chased the burly men off the junkyard with a wrench and a hammer. Fearless. The rabbis exhorted: In a place where there is no man, become one.
The very words hurt him, made him ache and grow cold and sore inside for all the things he had not done in his life or fought for or acquired, his very reluctance, and he girded himself for all the things he had to do in this world, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today. A force intensified in every part of him. His legs impelled him.
Go, go
.

He began to walk toward the commander.
I’m no warrior, not a rabbi, either
—the words flitted through his mind, but then he shook them off. In these men’s eyes, he already was a rabbi, and he would become their rabbi—with God’s help. A faint flush spread across Shani’s cheeks when his eyes met Isaac’s. Then he lowered his gaze. Good, Isaac thought. As long as a person could blush, there was hope.

“Excuse me, Commander Shani.”

Shani glanced up. “What is it, Markowitz?” Then he concentrated on a sugar packet he was trying to open.

Isaac coughed. “I’m not here to make small talk. There’s a man’s life in danger.”

“Yes, there are many men’s lives in danger.” Shani twisted open another sugar packet with his teeth.

“This one you’ll want to know.” Isaac licked his dry lips. “It’s a matter of urgency.” He flashed back to any thriller he had ever read to find the right words. “A man’s life hangs by a thread.” Pathetic. “You’ve got to release me.” Also pathetic.

Shani stirred his coffee with the stem of his fork. His thick pelt of hair gleamed under the fluorescent lighting. “Because only you can save him, right?” he said with a sardonic lift of his black brow.

“It’s not a joke,” Isaac said sharply. “That Arab worker—the one who brought me the pomegranate—he’s in terrible danger.”

Shani stopped stirring. He set down his coffee so hard it scalded his fingers and he winced. “What’re you saying?”

“If I tell you, you’ll send your whole police force to stop him. Every Arab in Jerusalem will be after him.” A headache came pounding at Isaac full force. “But if I don’t say anything, he could get lynched anyway.”

Shani took a step closer. “You mean a bomb?” He pulled Isaac close by the collar. “Don’t fool around, Markowitz. Is it a bomb?”

The assistant cook turned with his serving spoon held in midair to look at Shani and Isaac. A few prisoner heads swiveled.

Isaac leveled a look at Shani until the commander released his grasp. “Not a bomb. I’m talking about the Temple Mount.”

Shani’s tanned cheeks went taut. “Tell me,” he demanded, and took a gulp of coffee.

“How can I know if you’ll do the right thing?” Isaac stalled.

Shani gripped his coffee cup. For a second Isaac feared the commander would throw the scalding liquid in his face. Instead, he just fixed a stony gaze at Isaac, who chose that moment to take off his glasses and rub away the smudges with the tip of his shirt.

“What are your terms?” Shani said roughly.

“That only you and I go to stop him,” Isaac said, and carefully put on his glasses. “You’ll find him on the Temple Mount, and I’ll be waiting down below in the plaza area where everyone prays. He’s got a bag he’s lowering down.” Isaac hesitated. Maybe he was revealing too much. But he had to give something. “You can stop him beforehand—discreetly. No one in his Arab community needs to know. This way, he won’t lose his job or—his life,” he finished. “But we have to stop him.”

Shani tapped an impatient finger against his baby lips. “I agree to your terms. Now tell me when it’s taking place.”

Isaac grasped his shedding beard. If he told the commander, what cards would he still hold? His mind raced, wove in and out Talmudically. “All right. It’s today, at the Kotel, in, say”—he looked at the cafeteria clock—“just under an hour.”

Shani took another gulp of coffee and threw the rest into the garbage. “This is moronic. Give me a description of the Arab, and I’ll call one of the policemen stationed on the Temple Mount, and he’ll get him.”

“ ‘Get him’,” Isaac repeated dully. “You’re breaking the terms already.” Shani’s a liar, went through his head. How could he have trusted him? “I won’t let any random policeman cart this Arab man away in front of everyone. He’ll be a marked man. This has to be”—he groped—“finessed.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The commander made a backward hand flip. “I know how to handle these things. It’s what I do.” But Isaac wouldn’t budge.

“You think you can do better?” The commander’s thick brows hiked up with incredulity.

“He knows me.” Isaac felt a cramp under his rib. “That’s the difference.”

Shani looked with longing at the coffee urn, then turned his head
abruptly toward Isaac. “Why do you care about this Arab? He’s just a lousy informer doing whatever he did for money, right? A betrayer of his own people.”

“You don’t know him,” Isaac said in a tight voice. “He’s not a betrayer.” Isaac knew that better than anyone.

Shani snorted. “So you won’t give me a description of the Arab.”

“I will. When we get there,” Isaac said, half-amazed at his gall.

The commander folded his stocky arms and glowered at him. “I could squash you, you know. Like this.” Shani ground the toe of his shoe into the floor several times, for emphasis, making him look for a moment as if he were doing the cha-cha. The image made Isaac smile, despite himself. And suddenly Shani came at him, pushed Isaac against the wall, Shani’s broad nose and forehead ramming into his. Shani’s nose pressed so hard against his own, Isaac thought it would crack. Ah! He was too frightened to move, to breathe. All the bullies he had ever known compressed into that one blunt schnoz. He felt the violence of the officer’s every shift of his body.
Gottenyu
, Isaac screamed inside, but made no movement or sound, only hardened himself. Just as suddenly, Shani stepped back and brushed his hands against his pants. “All right. There’s no time.” He twisted his neck this way and that, releasing the cricks. “Let’s get going.”

“Wait.”

Shani’s eyes narrowed. “What now, Markowitz?”

“Drop the charges.”

A curl of the commander’s upper lip. “Why should I?”

Isaac’s heartbeat still hadn’t returned to normal, but he said, “Because it’s just, and you know it.” His eyes locked in with Shani’s reddened ones. The commander was tired, he saw. “The world functions and exists only in the merit of justice.”

Shani worked his lower lip. “Okay, but”—he thrust a hard finger at Isaac, right between his eyes—“no pomegranate. It’s state property. Or it belongs in a museum. Not with you.”

“I don’t want it,” said Isaac. It was never his to keep or Mustafa’s to give. He just wanted it safe. “But there’s a certain young woman who needs to come with us.” He coughed into his fist, then gained strength and a bit more. “She knows the Arab worker, too, and he listens to her.
Her name’s Tamar. I suggest we call her now.”