Murder in Jerusalem (51 page)

Balilty pressed the button, and the film lurched forward, Rabbi Elharizi's voice echoing in a closed room. “Unlike Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai, who was smuggled to Yavneh in a coffin when Jerusalem was under siege by the armies of Vespasian,” cried the rabbi prophetically, “we shall leave proudly in an aerial convoy, my brothers, every hour another plane departing. These ships shall transport you to the land of water: Canada. Pack your belongings; no redemption, no revival, awaits us here. A voice came down from on high in the still of the night and visited both me and the mystic Rabbi Bashari. And it said, ‘And I will make them as a vexation to all the kingdoms of the land…and the carcass of this people will be as food for the birds of prey and beasts of the field. And there shall be no succor, for the land shall be laid to waste.' Soon it shall come to pass! Rise and depart! Depart! Depart before the destruction! There will be seventeen meeting points,” the rabbi said before Natasha's clear voice interjected to read a list of the names of towns in the Negev and in the north of Israel, as well as the names of the rabbis in charge at each point. This was followed by the continuation of the rabbi's speech: “We must save the souls of our brethren, our fellow Jews,” Rabbi Elharizi intoned, behind him the wizened old mystic himself, struck dumb years earlier and exploited now by his sons and followers at festive gatherings for the purpose of dispelling doubts on questionable matters. “Canada!” Rabbi Elharizi cried, and the head of the old mystic, who sat sunken into a velvet armchair and propped up by huge pillows, lolled backward. “We shall build the New Yavneh there, we shall save our race before—” Suddenly the speech was cut short, and the film showed Rabbi Elharizi humming a tune from the Neilah prayers of Yom Kippur: El Norah Alilah, which Michael, like any traditional Eastern Jew, recognized from his own childhood. The rabbi sang, “Judge them now, in the hour when the gates of repentance are closing,” while a choir of ultra-Orthodox men carrying suitcases and boxes joined in for the chorus: “Oh Lord of deed and action, provide us with forgiveness.” And with that the picture was cut off, the voices fell silent, and the screen was blue and empty.

“What…What are they planning?” Tzilla whispered. “They're taking all their—”

“They're leaving for Canada,” Natasha explained. “A whole city is being built for them there. All the government allocations they've received, all the contributions from wealthy benefactors, it's all been converted into gold bricks. I've got pictures of the boxes, and Schreiber's testimony. He's seen it with his own eyes.”

“But what's he talking about?” Tzilla cried. “Why are they leaving Israel?”

“Why?” Balilty chuckled. “Because they're jumping off a sinking ship. I've known about this for a while, we've collected quite a bit of material. This tape you've brought can certainly help us,” he told Natasha, “you've done a great job, no question about it.”

“Please explain to me,” Tzilla interjected, “do me a favor; I don't know whether to laugh or cry.”

“There's not much to explain here,” Balilty said dispassionately. “Rabbi Elharizi himself dealt with transferring the money. He's not just any old rabbi, he's a rabbi with vision! Wouldn't you say that's true?” he asked, turning to Michael, who was sitting the whole time behind his desk, at his usual place, feeling the weak December sun penetrating the room through the dirty window and waiting, resigned, for his room to empty of people.

“It's very simple,” Balilty continued. “Brilliant and simple. All the brilliant ideas are ultimately simple, don't you think?”

No one answered him.

“And it's not Rabbi Elharizi on his own,” Balilty proclaimed, “he's got Rabbi Bashari the Cabalistic mystic with him. You saw him in the background, didn't you, sitting in his armchair? We think of him as a puppet, but his followers believe he has supernatural powers. Don't ask! No outsider could ever understand it.”

“So, like, he's going to bring whole families to Canada?” Tzilla asked.

“Tens of thousands of them,” Natasha said, her eyes flashing. “There's already a whole settlement set up there, they've got…”

“Not tens of thousands,” Balilty corrected her, “it's more like
hundreds
of thousands.” When he saw the look of disbelief on Tzilla's face, he hastened to add, “We're talking about
vision
here! This is
prophecy
! There were doubters in the distant past, too, but believe me, we're talking about a prophecy of destruction and redemption here! Our people have attended rallies, and I've heard all about this from them, but we didn't have any concrete evidence before. We weren't able to get our hands on a videocassette or a finger on all that money. I still haven't figured out where this young lady here got it all,” he said, glancing at Natasha, “how she managed to come up with all the material we couldn't—”

“There are about one hundred seventy-five thousand believers at present,” Natasha said.

“Anyway,” Balilty continued, “whole families are going to emigrate to this Canadian New Yavneh. Rabbi Elharizi himself said that Jerusalem will soon be laid to waste, that's what he saw in his vision. And here,” Balilty said, pointing at the empty blue screen, “will be the New Yavneh. Is that all, Natasha?”

“There's just a little bit more,” she said humbly. Balilty extended the remote control to her, and she fast-forwarded the tape until the screen showed Rabbi Elharizi, once again in the hooded garb of a Greek Orthodox priest. Natasha's voice intoned, “Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai was smuggled in shrouds and a coffin out of besieged Jerusalem, but Rabbi Elharizi has made do with a different disguise…”

“Great work,” Balilty mumbled. “That's first-class journalism, honey. Come with me, we'll take this film to where it needs to be. What do you say?”

Natasha looked at Michael. He intended to nod in affirmation, but just then the telephone rang, and Tzilla rushed to answer it. While she chattered happily into the receiver, obviously talking with someone she particularly cared for, Natasha followed Balilty out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“It's Yuval,” Tzilla said with a big smile, handing him the phone. “He's in Jerusalem, arrived here half an hour ago. He wants to know if you have a little time for him. Did you even know he's doing a stint in the army reserves? He's barely got half a day off before he has to go back.”

Michael took the receiver, wondering from where he could draw the strength to sound normal, but his son, uncharacteristically agitated, did not even ask how he was, only whether Michael could meet him. “Are you all right, Yuval?” he asked, startled; abruptly, he snapped out of the state of floating he had been immersed in.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Yuval reassured him. “I just wanted…I've got a couple of hours, I wanted…I was hoping that if you had a little time…”

Michael recognized the budding disappointment he remembered so well from his son's childhood, which had affected Yuval each time like a slap to the face; time after time he had let the boy down by failing to keep their appointments. So Michael hastened to name a place they could meet.

Pale rays of sunlight filtered through the glass-brick walls of the coffee shop, where large gas heaters warmed the room, illuminating Yuval's whiskers and the dark eyebrows he had inherited from his father.

“Let's have breakfast,” Yuval said, and Michael, nodding, signaled to the waitress. She hastened to inform them about the healthy-breakfast special. “It's new,” she told them, “not on the menu yet.”

“I'd like a three-egg omelet and a big salad,” Yuval said. “How about you?”

“The same for me,” Michael told the waitress.

“And we don't smoke,” Yuval announced to the coffee shop at large, which at the time contained only the two of them, an older man reading a newspaper, and a young woman who continually looked at her watch.

“I didn't know you were doing reserve duty,” Michael said. “How come you didn't tell me?”

“Didn't have a chance,” Yuval said. “It's just an exercise. It was supposed to be a regular three-day exercise, but—never mind, it's not important…I wanted to ask you something,” he said hesitantly, glancing away as if uncomfortable.

“I'm listening,” Michael said, simultaneously thanking God for installing in children the mechanism that prevents them from discerning that something has befallen their parents.

“It's something we almost talked about once,” Yuval said, “when I was doing my regular army service.” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “Back then I had—I don't know if you remember, but—I had thoughts about…you probably don't remember—”

“I'm going to need some kind of clue, some kind of a lead. Anything,” Michael said apologetically. “There were a few things that…how can I know if you don't say anything?”

“Tell me,” Yuval said, leaning forward, “without making fun of me”—Michael was about to assure him he would never dream of making fun of him, but Yuval did not wait for his reassurance—“and don't tell me this isn't the kind of question a guy who's one year away from finishing his bachelor's degree should be asking, okay?” Again, he did not wait for an answer: “I wanted to ask you—but really now—if you're a Zionist. Are you a Zionist, Dad?”

The arrival of the waitress with a tray upon which stood their mugs of coffee and a basket of fresh rolls, and her setting of the table with plates and forks and knives and spoons and napkins, delayed Michael's response and restrained the astonishment he was about to express. Of all the things in the world he was preparing himself for—problems with a girl or a crisis at university or even waffling thoughts about the future—he had never imagined that this was the matter about which his son would ask to meet with him so urgently.

“Why are you asking?” Michael was trying to gain time; finally the waitress left them alone.

“First answer me,” his son said as he pulled a fresh roll from the basket, tore it open, and smeared it with butter.

“True, it's no longer the clear and simple question it was once,” Michael pondered. “What exactly are you referring to? The need for a Jewish state?”

Yuval nodded. “I guess,” he conceded.

“If that's the issue, then yes, I suppose I am a Zionist. Sure, Zionism has brought on tragedy—both sides are its victims—but what can you do? I…if Zionism means a home for the Jewish people, then you could say I am a Zionist.”

“Why?” Yuval exclaimed. “Like, you really care if you live in a Jewish state?”

“I guess I do,” Michael said after several moments. “Jews, too, need their own homeland. Where else would your grandparents have gone after the Holocaust?”

“But why here, in Israel?” Yuval demanded. He lay the buttered roll down next to him, as yet uneaten, and opened three packets of sugar to pour into his coffee, then handed three more to his father, who absentmindedly poured them into his own mug. Yuval watched him, alert with anticipation.

“It's our home, no?” Michael asked at last.

“Why? Because of the Holocaust?” Yuval argued.

“Not just because of the Holocaust,” Michael answered, thinking of Yuzek, Yuval's grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who had been preaching against gentiles, and the anti-Semitism he believed to be globally pervasive, ever since Yuval was a small child. “A long time before that, in fact. Since the Bible.”

“The Bible!” Yuval screeched, then looked around. “Now
you're
talking like that, too? About that fairy tale? It's just a myth, isn't it?”

“What's so disagreeable about myths?” Michael asked, turning his head away from the sunbeam that was threatening to blur his vision. Suddenly his son's agitated excitement and doubts flooded him with unexpected joy. “It's a serious claim, certainly no less serious than the Muslim claim to the Temple Mount, and just as fair. If not more so.”

“Tell me,” Yuval said, pushing away the plate holding his roll. “Is Judaism a religion or a nation?! I mean, after all, it's a religion!”

“No, that's not true,” Michael said, breathing in deeply. “In Judaism, the religion
is
the nation. Which means that being Israeli is also being Jewish.”

“But what do I need the Temple Mount for? I don't want it at all!” Yuval cried.

“There's nothing you can do about it,” Michael said. “I don't think we need the Temple Mount for the time being, at least not until the time of redemption; there's no reason to get mixed up with the Holy Temple: at the End of Days when the redemption comes then the Holy One, Blessed be He—as they call him—will take care of that himself. So for the time being the question of the Temple Mount is only theoretical.”

“Listen,” his son said as he took a sip from his coffee, grimaced, glanced into his mug and then at his father. “That's the reason I don't want to take part in guarding their outposts or dismantling them, either. I think it's completely insane that in this country—Zion!—all the guys my age walk around with rifles and have to defend these thickheaded Jews who have settled on Arab land.”

“What are you talking about? The entire land of Israel, or only the territories?”

“Well, even during the War of Independence Arabs were driven away and their lands confiscated,” Yuval claimed.

“Now it's clear that we settled land that had been previously occupied, but there's nothing we can do about that today. And anyway, do you know of any people in the world that has attained its place without conquering someone else? The Arabs who came here did it too, that's the human condition,” Michael said, eyeing the waitress as she approached with a large tray. “The problem is that as Jews we had expectations of ourselves, that we would be more moral, more understanding of others. Turns out we're just like everyone else, and nothing more.”