The Ascent of Eli Israel (8 page)

S
pring was in full flame again and Eli was a shepherd at Betar, south of Jerusalem, but up even higher in the sky. His friend Zev knew a man who had a flock of sheep out over the Green Line, who knew that Eli needed help. He asked if Eli could watch over his sheep. Most of the great leaders in the history of mankind have been shepherds, Eli thought: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Joseph. All the twelve tribes, all of Jacob's twelve sons, had been shepherds.

Eli recalled the words of Micah the prophet that said the Lord would come forth from his throne and tread upon the high places of the earth.

So he agreed to go.

“Just melt into the land,” Zev had said to Eli. “And you're gone.”

Eli fashioned a carpetbag out of an old red, black, and green riding blanket, and tied the heavy load to him with rope. And he herded sheep out there, protecting the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank, with just his wooden staff, an old .38 Special, and his lumpy carpetbag pressing into his back.

It was quiet. He had never heard quiet like this. Every once in a while, some broken-down fellahin would ride by on their donkeys and wave, or an F-15 would buzz the sky overhead, but Eli was alone out there, waiting for his next instruction.

Sometimes a gray wolf would saunter past and sit down. Even in broad daylight. And the wolf wasn't looking at his sheep at all. They would sit and stare at each other for hours, and Eli would ask him questions, questions about life and purity and goodness. He would fall asleep, and when he awoke the wolf would still be there, watching him.

With all the static of the world gone, a simple piece of grass became a thing of monumental beauty. He would hold a single blade in his hand for hours and feel its texture, as smooth as a satin dress then rough as sandpaper, causing his fingers to bleed. He discovered that all the elements of the universe existed inside of everything, and if he looked the right way he could turn a blade of grass into a meal filling enough for a week, or a sky full of stars into an intricate checkerboard that would entertain him until the sky turned blue with morning. He stretched his shadow across the land and ran after it laughing, or ran from it crying. Sometimes, he saw things that he would normally have heard and heard things that he should only have seen.

He could feel God moving throughout creation and would call out, “Do you hear me? Do you hear me?” and tell him how far he had been from him and ask him to bring him closer to his strength.

It had been more than a year since he had been called.

“Eli Haller, son of man. Go to the house of Israel.”

He had jumped up off his mother's couch, spilling the scotch he was pouring into a tall glass, and said, “What? Who?” From the darkness of his aging mother's Brooklyn apartment he heard a heavy silence. His mother's door was still closed, and only the flashing of the muted television lit the room. He lay flat against the floor, his heart beating against the carpet. Over the top of the couch he was able to see that the door was still triple bolted.

“Shit,” he said, reaching for the bottle of Dewars on the low glass table beside him. The light and shadows cast upon the ceiling from the streetlights down below seemed to blur and distort before his eyes, like something melting.

The voice came again and he dropped the bottle.

“Who are you?”

The answer was more of a breath than a name. Eli felt it through all of the cells of his body.

“Who are you?” Eli screamed.

The room filled with fire, a black fire radiating darkness, a fire so dark he could only see inside himself, his ribcage heaving, blood racing through the veins, heart pumping, bubbling cells and microcells and the spaces between them. His bones ached, and it was inside him now, a winged pillar of black fire with four faces, looking to the east, west, north, and south. He could see them all at once. One face was a child, the other a man, the third was a lion, and the fourth face an eagle. Four voices joined as one and said, “I am the Lord and I have judged you.”

“No,” Eli screamed, and tore at his hair, banged his head against the floor. He saw the hurt faces of his wife and child, felt the soft touch of her hand against his cheek. He lifted his face from the carpet, and heard a distant crying that he knew belonged to Josh.

“You have known the dark path,” the voice said. “I will breathe a new spirit into you, remove your heart, and give you a new one. You will walk in my light and follow my laws, and others will, too. And I will be your God and their God.”

A wind came and the wings whipped the dark fire into a pillar of burning orange flames. “Those who don't walk my path will know no God and will suffer famine and pestilence and the sword.”

When God had gone Eli Haller lay still for hours afterward crying everything into the carpet.

On the bus from the airport, an old rabbi turned his face away from Eli and told him in heavily accented English, “You are dying, friend.”

Just after nightfall, the bus dropped Eli off outside a barbed-wire compound at a place called Tel Romeida, which sat on a bluff overlooking downtown Hebron. His body shook beneath a crushing headache as he searched for the home of his only remaining friend in the world. Muezzins began to wail from their minarets under a tangle of faintly blinking stars. Eli forced a stiff-necked nod as he passed bored-looking Israeli soldiers who leaned against gray cement blocks spitting sunflower seed shells into the air.

Eli had managed to find his way to the city of Hebron from the address on an old postcard Zev had sent him in New York.

Zev lived in a caravan on the top of a hill, just above the Arab homes and vineyards clustered together down below. He hugged Eli close to him, saying with a smile, “Brother! Just in time for the
simcha.
” He took the bag from Eli's hand and dropped it to the floor.

“I knew you'd come someday,” Zev said, stretching his arms expansively as he whooped: “Welcome to the wild, wild West Bank!”

Zev was still a big man, with giant shoulders and long hair, and could have been Eli's brother or a mirror image only five years older. Now he wore a
kippah
on his head and a long beard with sidecurls at his ears. They had met years back at a John Lennon memorial at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, had prowled the streets of New York, and flunked out of A.A. together. Zev had been at the hospital when Eli's son was born and they'd celebrated together on pills Zev had stolen from the E.R.

Eli covered his ears and said, absently, “You look great, Zev.” He felt burning throughout his body, as if his veins were filled with something other than blood. His eyes felt as if they were swathed in cotton.

“I'm doing my best to be my best,” Zev said, leading Eli into his home. “You look like shit.”

“I do,” Eli said, and he wanted to sit down before he fell down. He still heard the voice in his head, but it was in no language he had ever heard.

“What?” Zev said.

“I don't know,” Eli said, and was silent for a moment as he looked around at the spartan interior of the caravan. “Is this the house of Israel?”

“This is the house of Zev, man. Come on, take a load off.”

“Okay,” Eli said, and Zev suddenly looked like some giant biblical Samson. “You look healthy. Really.”

“It's the Torah, man,” Zev said. “You have no idea.” He led Eli to a red plastic chair, and watched him drop into it. “The shiksa?”

“Gone,” Eli said.

“The kid?”

“Gone, too.”

“Well, he's not Jewish anyway,” Zev said, surprising Eli. “Thems the breaks, bubelah.”

“What?” Eli said.

“One man's garbage is another man's treasure. I wish her luck,” Zev said, ruffling Eli's hair. “Smile, man. You're part of the tribe of the Messiah. We're going to a party.
Sefer Torah,
man. A party for the new Torah scroll. Stick with me. I'll get you back on your feet.”

“Let me lie down first.”

“You just got here and you're crashing?” Zev said.

“I'm an ‘elder statesman of American television,' ” Eli said bitterly, quoting the
TV Guide
critic who pronounced his production company, Ellis Hall Home Entertainment, and his Cold War schlock “a dinosaur deader than Ed Sullivan.”

“You're only forty-three, dude.”

After Eli rested and drank some coffee, he felt somewhat renewed. His footsteps marched in synch with Zev's down the hill past dimly lit Arab homes. They heard children laughing and the sound of televisions blaring in Arabic. Zev pointed out, “This was a Jewish home. This was a Jewish home,” as they walked.

The air smelled to Eli like nothing he had ever smelled before, clean and fresh and natural. He felt the cool spring air wash over him and felt healthy for the first time in a long time. He looked up in the sky and the stars seemed closer than they had ever been before.

The synagogue was crammed with black-clad yeshiva
bochers,
and full-bearded men wearing jeans and knitted
kippahs,
like Zev. It was the first time he had been in a synagogue since his bar mitzvah, not long before he left home for good. This was not the way Eli remembered synagogue.

Zev whispered in Eli's ear, “It's like we are actually standing at Sinai waiting for Moshe Rabeynu, our great rabbi of rabbis, Moses to bring us God's commandments. You have no idea how special it is when a Torah scroll is completed. They are not mass produced like some Gideon's Bible, they are written by hand on parchment the same way they have been written since the time of our prophets.”

Eli noticed there were no women and thought of his life in New York. His wild days when his shows were doing well:
Spy, Berliner; Hotel Cadillac;
and
Walkabout Willie,
all top ten in the Nielsen ratings. Women constantly. He remembered going on a talk show and admitting he was a sex addict. Later he said he had become a Buddhist. He didn't come home for days at a time, found himself in orgies without even knowing how he got there. His wife was hysterical, threatened to throw him out. It was simple to drink. And then that last night with the prop from the set. Didn't she know he was only playing?

Eli saw a room full of praying men and was thankful that temptation had been removed. Had these men also been called by God? And where was God now, hiding in the parchment of the new Torah scroll? A whining clarinet started up and the men began to dance in spinning circles.

Zev squeezed his hand and pulled him closer to him. “This is great,” he shouted. “I can see us together on Judgment Day, riding the lightning with Moshiach.”

Eli stood still, trying to maintain his balance. The nap and the coffee had only provided a temporary respite. Zev invited him to join the circle, but he begged off, saying he wanted to watch first. He felt his eyes must have looked like swollen golfballs. His head began to spin again as the men whirled around and around.

“Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael Chai!” they all sang.

Zev pumped his fist from where he stood beside Eli and sang along. The room smelled of sweat and one of the dancers slipped on the floor, flying out of the circle.

“Have some vodka,” the man said, gripping a bottle in his hands. Sweat poured down his face from underneath his large-brimmed hat. He looked like a gangster. This can't be what God intended, Eli thought.

“I'm okay,” Eli said.

“Drink,” he said, climbing to his feet.

“No,” Eli said.

“Take a drink,” Zev said, taking the bottle in his hands. “Just one.”

He gulped at the bottle and a lightning bolt shot straight to his head. He felt adrenaline kick into his heart. The man plunked his hat onto Eli's head and pulled him into the circle. The Torah scroll appeared, carried by a tiny white-bearded man under a blue wedding
huppa,
and the men began to whirl even faster. Eli felt his legs melt beneath him, and then he saw feet blurring all around him.

“Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael Chai!”

Eli survived on olives, almonds, figs, sage, carob, mint leaves, anything he could find in the hilltops and wadis out there in the wilderness. He slept in caves when he could find them, bathed himself in fresh mountain water, and sometimes didn't speak a word aloud for weeks.

One day as he was grazing his sheep on the rough tangled bushes and grasses of the Judean hills, an army jeep pulled to the top of a rocky cliff above him. He could see an Israeli flag standing stiff in the wind. He knew there was no use in running, so he sat among his sheep, staring into the distance. They called and waved him to come up. And now the grass stopped singing to God and Eli's blood began to churn up again.

Zev had warned Eli before he left Hebron not to talk to anyone; Arabs, of course, but especially the army.

“That's my hill,” Eli shouted and pointed with his staff to another bare hill. “And that belongs to King David.” He had not spoken aloud in such a long time, he was not even sure his voice would carry far enough for them to hear.

He sat on his carpetbag and looked back toward his sheep. The sun was a giant copper disk, pressing down on his head, and he looked toward his .38 lying nearby.

A few minutes later a dark, Sephardi-looking soldier wearing a helmet two sizes too big sauntered down the hill lighting a cigarette.
“Nudnik. Boker tov,”
he called.

Eli called back good morning in English.

The soldier lit another cigarette then took off his helmet and sat on it near him. He unstrapped his M-16 and laid it on the ground beside him.

Eli's heart began to pump faster than it had since he had come to the wilderness. He could feel his heart squeeze like a fist. He shifted on his pack. Eli thought, this punk is eighteen, nineteen at most. What does he know?

“Nize day. Cigariah?” He held the cigarette out to Eli, who didn't say anything. He noticed that the soldier had a terrible case of acne and a long feminine nose. Two soldiers laughed like camels at the top of the hill and danced to music blasting from Army wave radio.

“You don't smoke,” the soldier said with a slow thick accent. “You can't to be here. It's not safe.”

“I don't see any Arabs,” Eli said. “Just me and my sheep.”

“You are paralyzed to an army shooting range,” the soldier said.

“You mean ‘parallel'?”

“It's not safe,” the soldier repeated.

“I'm okay,” Eli said. He only wanted the soldiers to go away. But then he thought about his beard, and sidecurls, and the fringes of his
tzitzis
hanging from his pants and realized: these rock 'n' rollers think we all look the same.

“What is that stink?” the soldier said, pinching his nose.

Eli didn't even notice anymore that his bag smelled. He didn't answer.

“Come. Have some tea and nana in the jeep. Let me invite you,” the soldier said, pointing up to the jeep.

“No.”

“You must not to be here,” he said, putting the second cigarette in his mouth. And then one of the other soldiers called to him from the hilltop. “Motti.
Yala! Imshi!
”

He waved him away and said, “You like young girls? Boys? Come to the base. You can't to be here. We have food and beds to sleep.”

“What about my sheep?” Eli asked.

“You like fuck sheep?” The soldier laughed. “Okay. Sheep okay.”

“Get out of here,” Eli said. “My sheep don't eat in a mess hall, and I don't need a bed. The land will take care of us. I can go wherever I want, I'm a Jew on Jewish land.”

“It's not safe,” the soldier said.

“Safe, not safe. I don't gave a damn.”

The soldier looked toward the red, black, and green bag again. Eli shifted uneasily. “That is the Palestine colors,” the soldier said, moving closer. “I should take that from you.”

“No!” Eli screamed in the upper register.

“I joke,” the soldier said, laughing. “Let me help you carry your sack up the hill.”

“No,” Eli said forcefully.

“Homo,” the soldier said, laughing, and ran back to meet his comrades. “You stink.”

The jeep drove back toward the road, and Eli could still see them laughing. He picked up his .38 Special from the ground and pointed it toward the soldiers in the jeep as they got smaller and smaller in his sight. “Bang,” he whispered. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”

Eli's beard grew in thick and gray and he rested in Zev's bed for the next month. He was restless to answer his God when he first arrived, anxious to walk the land and drink in his wisdom, and he felt God's spirit burning through his veins, but was too weak to move. This must be a joke, Eli thought. I'm here and I can't even get out of bed. He threw up in the mornings and apologized to God: “I'm failing you. I'm sorry.” Zev slept on a cot in his makeshift kitchen, cleaned up Eli's vomit, washed his urine-stained sheets, and nursed Eli back to health.

During the first week of his convalescence Eli awoke one night and thought he heard Josh calling, “Daddy!” He rolled over to tell his wife to check on him, but the bed was empty. He could see stars and a glowing moon pasted onto the ceiling, as mysterious as the real night sky, and he remembered he was with Zev in Hebron. It frightened him at first and he rolled over, sure that he smelled Kate on the sheets. He felt emptied out inside and thought out loud, “What do I do now? What do I do now?”

“It's okay, man,” Zev called from the kitchen. “Trust in Hashem. God will take care of you.”

“Has God ever whispered in your ear?” Eli said, thinking of the voice that sent him to Hebron, the voice that was silent now.