The Wanting (37 page)

“As I listen to you, I think, what a wonderful girl. How lucky your parents are, your grandparents, your teachers, and your friends. You are so young, yet a person of character, of judgment, of sensitivity.”

I had to interrupt her. “Miriam, you said ‘parents.’ You know I don’t have a mother.”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I know that. Still, when I said ‘parents,’ I don’t think it was a mistake, because God leads our tongues to speak truths we may not be aware of ourselves. You have many parents, Anna. God is your parent, too. Nature is your parent. Life is your parent.”

“Maybe even you. A little bit,” I said.

She smiled at me and said, “And you know what, Anna? I believe you have listened to all your parents and learned from them all. God is in your blood no less than your biological father. I think you sense that. Do you sense that?”

I said I didn’t know.

“But look at the world, at the state it is in. You know the joke, when there is a cease-fire with the Palestinians, we cease, they fire. Isn’t that true? No more intifada, that’s what they said. And then what happens to your father? You know how many people died that day? Eight people. Twenty-seven were wounded. One girl is in a coma. She’s not much older than you. Another woman is burned so badly she will look like a monster for the rest of her life. But it’s not just that. Look at the world. Everywhere you look people are dying, fighting, starving. Why do you think that is? Do you think for one minute it has to be this way? Are we doomed forever to kill each other, to die of disease and drought and cruelty? Shouldn’t there be enough food to feed everyone? I don’t think it has to be this way. I don’t think we have to just go on the way we have always gone on. I think the world can change. I think we can change it. You can change it, Anna. All we have to do is act. We
only have to do what God wants us to do. What do you think is holding us back? What do you think is making the world such a terrible place?”

Her voice was so beautiful and tender that even the leaves of the trees were still, and the lady moving toward us with her baby carriage made not a sound, and the little boy at her side sucking his thumb had no footsteps, and the three scholars across the street argued their Torah without any words coming out of their mouths. I noticed their long stockings were striped like mine, only in chestnut and black, and their slippers were purple, the color of night, and I liked that. If I could describe it, I’d say Miriam’s voice was like a sweet, soft trumpet or maybe a flute or violin, weaving its way around my insides the way sometimes Mozart does or maybe R.E.M. or Ehud Banai does, like the call of the shofar from far, far away that told the tribes of Israel it was time to gather, time to march, time to come home. But I better write down the rest of what she said, so that it is never forgotten.

“What is missing in this world?” she asked me. “There is only one thing. Messiah. Why is there no Messiah? He has no place to call his own. No house from which to send out his armies of angels. The very center of the universe is broken. No wonder people fight each other over nothing! No wonder you get mad about things that don’t matter. Everything is upside down, and the thing that really matters most is far from us. But you see, we can change that. It’s easy to do. No one has to tell you how. We have to build God a house. A Third Temple. The last, final, and eternal Temple of Jerusalem. We cannot build it ourselves, of course, only Messiah can do that. But what can he do without us? He’s crying for us. He’s lonely. And so he is unwilling. We must clear the way. We must lay the ground. You and I will knock down the pillars and high places of the Canaanites. You and I will go to the very center of the universe, where God revealed his covenant to Abraham our father, where God commanded David the king and Solomon the king, and we will reopen the doors to redemption. It’s not a hard task. But it cannot be done without us. No one is saying to you, you have to do this. We are only asking, do you want to do this?”
So she asked me, “Anna, do you really want to do this?” And I said, “Yes.”

I couldn’t stand it another minute. I threw my arms around her and squeezed as tight as I could. My head was on her chest, and I don’t know what happened, but tears came out of my eyes, and then I don’t know why, I started blubbering, and I just couldn’t stop, and then she put her arms around me, too, and held me for a long, long time, and I could hear that she was humming her little tune, the one she hums, and she began swaying back and forth and back and forth, until for some reason, all of a sudden, I felt so much better, so much better, almost as if she had lifted me off the ground and held me up in the palm of her hand, so that I was floating above the sidewalk and above the grass and above the trees and above the rooftops, and when I looked down on everything, on all the houses and all the people and all the shops and all the cars and all the stoplights and the kids playing football in the street, I wasn’t afraid. I was just me.

And then we came inside and Miriam said, I have to go now, will you be all right? And I said, Sure, and so here I am.

And then another guy came; he wore a fat red beard and a large knit kippah with long, beautiful red sidecurls braided all the way down to his shoulders like two lit candles. He was young and I think he must have been handsome, too, but in all honesty I never saw his face, because he stood just inside the door with his nose down the whole time and Shlomo was right in front of him totally blocking my view. He was carrying an Uzi slung over his shoulder, so he was in the military, on leave, I guess. Or maybe he was Shabak and he was taking a busload of kids on a field trip. Anyway, he gave Shlomo a couple of plastic grocery bags and then he was gone.

Shlomo said, “This is what you are taking up to the mount.” He handed me two books, but they were
so
heavy, and a little Kodak camera.

“These books are really heavy,” I told him.

“If your pack is too heavy, leave some of your real books here, and I’ll get them to you tomorrow,” he said.

“Why are they so heavy?” I asked.

“They’re special books,” he said.

Obviously he thought I was stupid.

“Now, put your camera around your neck,” he said. “When you go though security, just open your rucksack as always, let them look. They won’t really look anyway. The waqf guards will also look at you but will not touch you. Believe me, you’re not in any danger. When you arrive at your destination, you will leave the books in the place I told you. That’s all. Nothing more. But first, you will spend time wandering around, taking pictures, enjoying the sites. Talk to tourists, if you like. Then, when you are ready, as you approach the steps to the Dome of the Rock, you will turn right into the area that looks like a park, going down some steps. It is the direction of the eastern gate, the Golden Gate, but you will not go to the Golden Gate. You continue straight on the path between two groves—why they allow the groves I don’t know, since the law strictly prohibits planting trees on the Temple Mount—but anyway, you will come to the next path. Turn left. Which is north. Just as I showed you on the map. Walk a few steps more, to the place where I showed you, where there is a good-sized rock with the little black mark on the base of it, you’ll have to look carefully to see it, and suddenly you will become too hot, too tired, and you will lift yourself upon the retaining wall of the grove, and you will sit in the shade of a tree. You will fan yourself. If someone comes by and asks you, you will tell them you just need a rest. If someone wants to talk to you, talk to them, no problem. Be yourself. But when you are all alone and no one is bothering you, take the books out of your backpack and also another book, one of your own, and read for a while. As you do this, you will slip the two books I gave you behind the retaining wall, and place them between the wall and the rock, just as I showed you, and cover it with brush and dirt. We have practiced this, so you know how to do it so quickly and smoothly no one will ever see you. Then you just put your own book back in your pack and continue your walk. Head up to the dome through the eastern qanatir, take a few more snapshots or
just look around, whatever you feel like, and then simply leave the mount like everyone else through the Chain Gate.”

“Shlomo, I know all this,” I told him.

But this wasn’t enough for him, so he repeated the whole thing again. And while he was speaking I guess I just sort of tuned out and remembered what Miriam had said to me when we were alone: “Anna, don’t you realize the time of the Third Temple is upon us? This little, seemingly simple thing you do is a link in the chain of Messiah. When you go there today, you will look like an ordinary, secular Israeli girl. No one will imagine the true nature of your soul and the blessings you carry with you. No one will guess that you, my Anna, my darling, my precious Anna, are a true soldier in his army, a noble Daughter of Israel, a Deborah, a Yael.”

“A Miriam!” I said.

She laughed, and her whole face turned into gold. “Anna!” she said to me. “The beauty of your soul shines from your eyes, for I believe that the Shekhinah has blessed you and touched you.”

“Me?”

“Oh yes, Anna! You! Are you ready to do her work?”

I told her, yes, I was.

When Shlomo told it, I felt a little funny in my stomach, but when she told it, I knew everything was right.

T
HREE DAYS AFTER THE TRIAL THEY CALLED
me in. It was the same Vasily Vasin.

“You lived up to your side, now I will live up to mine,” he said. “You see, we’re not so bad. You have the wrong idea of us altogether. We both are men of belief.”

“I don’t see myself as a man of belief,” I told him.

“Well, in any case, you are here for your reward, and you shall have it. There’s no reason to make a big show of anything. It’s always best to avoid a scandal. All the papers are in order.”

He handed me a thick envelope.

“I want something else,” I said.

“Really? What is that?”

“I want to speak to Collette.”

“I don’t think that will be possible. You can write to her. She can write to you. In some time, of course, you may be able to visit her, but not until she is settled and shows her willingness to be rehabilitated.”

“Anything is possible,” I said, “but not that.”

“Too bad,” he said.

“Vasili Nikolayevich, I only want five minutes.”

“She’s already on her way east. What can I do?”

“I’m sure there’s something you can do.”

He twirled his fountain pen between his fingers.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose there is always the telephone. No one, not even in Magadan, is very far from a phone.”

“Magadan,” I gasped.

“The very end of the earth,” he nodded. “I tried to warn her.”

“How can she survive Magadan?”

“We have the very best doctors. Don’t you worry. You know, though, it’s possible she’s still in Butyrka, awaiting transfer. So perhaps she’s even closer!” He smiled at me in a friendly way. He did not call anyone to check.

“She’s in Moscow,” I cried.

“Quite possibly!”

“For pity’s sake, Vasin, let me see her.”

He sighed. “I’ve already gone so far out of my way for you. We all have. Oh, Guttman, cheer up. You have your whole future in front of you.”

“Vasin, what do you want?”

“There will be no news conferences. No interviews. No scandal. You talk to no one, even out of the country.”

“Fine.”

“Well,” he mused, “perhaps I still have some power around here to do something.” He gave me the agreement to sign. It was already completely prepared. “If you break your word, it is only poor Collette Petrovna who will suffer.”

“When can I see her?” I asked.

“Go sit in the reception room. We’ll call you.”

I sat on my bench for many hours, watching the day officer lazily type on his machine. I had a ballpoint pen with me, and I did not hide the fact I was carving initials into the bench. I wrote my own, and then next to that I spelled out the name
COLLETTE CHERNOFF
in Roman letters. I spent a great deal of time on it, blowing away the sawdust and filling the carved-out spaces with deep blue ink.

At last a lieutenant came in through the hallway door and signaled me to follow him. He walked briskly, and I had to run to keep up with him. We entered a tiny elevator that still used a handle to operate. He shut the grate and we descended into a large garage. I followed him to a waiting Volga sedan; he opened the door for me and stood there stiffly as I got in. He sat down beside me and pulled the curtains on all the windows, tapped the driver,
and off we went. Moving north through the city, I sensed the life outside the car: the sunshine still bright in the early afternoon, new snow sparkling on the sidewalks, young people like myself laughing and smoking as they walked, packs of teenagers up to no good on their way home from school, girls in long braids holding hands and telling secrets, shoppers emerging from milk markets and meat stalls, the kiosks doing their brisk business of cigarettes and candies, boys in their red bandanas gobbling down glazed chocolate syrki. I thought to myself, it has its beauty, even if it is also cruel; it has its passions, and they are not skin deep. But in a moment that Moscow was behind me, and the gates of Butyrka were opening before me.