The Celestial Gate

by Avital Dicker

  “Yeah, I think we all have something we’d like to say to Him,” said Mor and rose to his feet. He liked this Yam fellow. “Anise and I were planning to walk through the Old City. Feel like tagging along?” he asked.

  The last thing Anise wanted right now was to spend more time with Yam. He made her feel clumsy, and it bugged her. “But we’ll be coming back late at night. Your parents will worry,” she said, vexed.

  “The truth is that I don’t really give a hoot how my parents feel. In fact, I’d love for them to have to look for me for a change,” Yam answered. “Lately, they’ve been getting on my nerves, and in any case, I can always take a bus back to Tel Aviv.”

  Mor took a quick peek down below. “In that case, let’s scram,” he said, and the three headed for the stairs.

  Anise made one last effort to ditch Yam. “But you came with your folks. It’s not OK to leave them like that,” she pointed out.

  “Well, my parents aren’t OK either,” Yam chuckled darkly. “Listen, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll text them.”

  Anise was just about to answer when the entire building suddenly started to shake and everything around them exploded. As the air filled with smoke, Yam instinctively grabbed Anise to protect her with his body. He felt himself being picked off his feet, and then the world around him faded away.

  Inside the consulate’s main auditorium, the guests had gathered around Theo who stood on a small dais brought in for the event. Theo grasped the microphone in one hand and was about to officially declare the exhibition open when, suddenly, there was an ear-shattering blast. Bits of the ceiling started to rain down and the hall filled with dust. The shockwave thrust Theo backward, and he landed on a buffet table. To Theo’s right lay a woman whose lower body was pinned down by a huge block, apparently from the building’s second floor. Theo stood up and shook off the glass shards and bits of food sticking to him.

  Some of the guests – those who were still on their feet – started to run for the exits. Theo bent over the woman near him; she was groaning loudly. “Hey, I’m here, you’re going to be fine,” he yelled near her ear, trying to be heard over the screams of pain and fear filling the air. He attempted to move the heavy block, taking care not to hurt her any further. Concentrating on the effort, he managed to lift it off her body. Her right leg was bent where it should have been straight, and her slacks were soaked in blood. Theo quickly stripped off his tie and used it as a tourniquet around her upper thigh to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t do much more than that. Aiming for a reassuring tone, he yelled, “I’ll be right back.” Before anything else, he had to find Sual and the kids. He looked around but didn’t see any of them.

  Loud screaming in Arabic erupted suddenly and a group of around twenty masked terrorists dressed in black barged into the auditorium, indiscriminately spraying magazine after magazine of bullets in every direction. The only word Theo managed to make out was “al-Aqsa.” The guests who’d been scrambling for the exits were mown down one after another.

  Theo suddenly remembered that he’d seen Sual making her way to the basement pantry before the explosion, and he headed for the back staircase. Just then, someone threw a hand grenade, and Theo flung himself to the floor.

  Yoav, who’d been standing on the dais with Amalia not far from Theo, opened his eyes, seeking his wife. She was lying motionless on the floor just a few feet away. Yoav started to crawl toward her, moving as quickly as he could. His hands were bleeding from innumerable glass cuts, but he didn’t notice. Only when he reached her and felt her beating pulse did he heave a sigh of relief. She’d lost consciousness but, thank God, she was alive. If only they could make it out of here in one piece, he swore he’d do anything Amalia wanted. Just let her be all right, he begged.

  Yoav softly tapped Amalia’s cheek. After several light slaps, she finally opened her eyes.

  He cradled her head gently, pulling her toward him. His hands were now covered in Amalia’s blood as well as his own. He had to get her out of here; she needed a doctor. He lifted her in his arms and started to make his way toward the exit just as the shooting started. Yoav looked for cover. It was too late. He managed to take a few steps before the bullet hit him in the chest. He toppled backward, Amalia with him.

  Theo lay on the floor. His eyes were closed and he tried to breathe as inconspicuously as possible, figuring the terrorists would search the hall for survivors before heading to the other consulate rooms. His best bet was to play dead and wait.

  Every passing second felt like an eternity. He could tell that someone hopped over him, and then he heard more shooting and yelling in Arabic. He waited for several long minutes until noting that the echoes of the shots were coming from farther and farther away. He waited a little longer, just to be sure, before daring to open his eyes.

  When he stood up he saw the sickening destruction, but he had no time to assess the damage. He’d just started running for the back stairs when he heard a command screamed in Arabic. Theo froze and the bullet struck him in his back.

  Chapter 8

  Yam had no idea how long he’d been knocked out by the explosion. He could hear gunfire coming from every direction but couldn’t see a thing through the heavy smoke clouding the air.

  He pushed aside a heavy rock that had landed on his stomach. His arm was still protectively encircling Anise. Curled in an unnatural position, she lay beside him unmoving, her eyes closed.

  “Anise,” he yelled over the din. She didn’t respond. He shook her until she stirred feebly and opened her eyes. Had he not been so panicked, he’d gladly have sunk into those two deep, blue pools. But everything around them was on fire. Commands shouted in Arabic punctuated screams and shots. There was no time. Yam had seen enough news footage to know they were in the middle of an ongoing attack. They had to move before the terrorists reached the roof.

  Mor was lying unconscious several feet away. Yam helped Anise stand, and both them nervously looked at Mor’s leg, pinned down by a piece of concrete.

  “Help me,” said Yam.

  He and Anise grabbed the heavy mass from either side and, grunting with effort, managed to move it a little to one side.

  Mor awoke with a scream of pain.

  “Try to move back,” Yam implored.

  Mor pulled his lower body backward. After several attempts, he managed to free his leg. Yam looked at the torn trousers and the deep, bleeding gash on Mor’s leg. “Can you put your weight on it?” he asked, worry apparent in his voice.

  “Yeah,” said Mor. Fighting the pain, he struggled upright.

  Now the shooting was more rapid than before, drowning out the guests’ terrified screams.

  “This way,” Anise whispered hoarsely, “there’s an exit that goes straight to the rear courtyard.” Anise and Yam, supporting the wounded Mor between them, hurried to the service stairs on the other side of the roof. The three made their way down the stairs to the kitchen. Mor, shocked, stopped and stared at a waiter lying in a pool of blood on the black-and-white checkerboard floor.

  “I’ve never seen a dead body before,” he whispered.

  Anise was the first to pull herself together. “This way,” she urged them, and the three rapidly slipped out through the back door. No one was there to stop them, and in seconds they were swallowed by the dark.

  Clinging close to the walls, they moved forward with great care. The embassy’s back gate was unmanned; they breathed a sigh of relief and hurried out of the burning building. But in the street, too, bullets whizzed through the air. A few yards away, a woman fell to the ground with a scream, blood welling out of the bullet hole to her chest.

  Anise shrieked involuntarily. Mor quickly put his hand over her mouth.

  They fled using side streets, putting distance between them and the inferno as quickly as possible. Anise cast anxious glances at Mor; he was breathing heavily with the effort of keeping up.


  “We have to stop,” Anise whispered to Yam. He nodded in agreement, his gaze sweeping the street for a place to hide. He chose a covered parking place that stood empty between two tall buildings on the right side of the alley.

  “OK. We should be able to rest here for a bit,” said Yam. The three squeezed themselves in behind a large green dumpster occupying one rear corner of the spot.

  Mor was pale and sweaty. Anise had taken her scarf and wound it tightly around his bleeding leg when another explosion rocked the air. Panicked, all three sprang from their hiding place. Anise started to cry.

  Shots were still being fired, and now a stream of people rushed down the alley from nearby streets.

  “We have to keep going,” Yam whispered. Anise helped Mor stand and they started running again.

  After a few minutes of hard running down dark alleys, they turned right onto a side street. The echoes of the shooting were now fainter. Mor felt as if his leg were on fire, and his mouth was hopelessly dry. He stopped moving and Anise and Yam stopped too.

  None of them were familiar with the street they were on. They must have entered the Old City by accident, Mor thought. The street was empty; the doors on both sides of the street were shut.

  Exhausted, Yam leaned against a wall. He was choking back tears. Were Anise not by his side, he might well have let them spill down his cheeks.

  On the other side of the street, a heavy metal gate creaked open just a bit. A wrinkled hand beckoned them to enter.

  They looked at one another. The wound on Mor’s leg was bleeding right through Anise’s improvised tourniquet. He was barely able to move. They knew they’d never make it far and staying outdoors was too dangerous.

  They had nothing to lose. Whoever was behind that gate could already have shot them dead had he wanted to. And here, in the street, they were sitting ducks. All three shuffled carefully toward the gate.

  Through the slight crack, Mor beheld the oldest and most wrinkled face he’d ever seen. He instantly felt better. The man didn’t look like a terrorist. The old man smiled, revealing gums hanging on to a few remaining teeth. Mor gazed into the deepest eyes he’d ever looked into and knew they were safe.

  Their unexpected savior signaled them to move more quickly and all three pushed through the narrow opening. The gate quickly shut behind them.

  With surprising speed, the man beckoned them down a narrow stairwell to the building’s cellar. He stopped before a door and opened it. After a momentary hesitation, they entered a small apartment. The old man hurried to lock the door behind them. The place was small but clean and neat. The old man wasn’t armed. For the first time since the initial blast, the three breathed easy. From the kitchen wafted gratifying smells of recently cooked food. The old man motioned for them to enter.

  “Want to eat?” he asked with an Arab accent. Without waiting for an answer, he put down three plates with fragrant kebabs, pitas, hummus, and finely diced vegetable salad.

  Despite their state, the three were ravenous and wolfed down the food, which tasted amazing. The old man smiled at the empty plates with satisfaction. The aromatic scent of cardamom from a small pot bubbling away on the cooktop now filled the kitchen. The old man poured coffee into small glasses.

  “Please, taste.” He placed one of the glasses full of the hot black liquid in front of Yam.

  Yam had never had any coffee. His mom had always been quite firm: he was too young. But, after the day he’d had, he didn’t think so. His childhood had been left far behind, along with the screams of the wounded and the shrieks of the bullets. He took a tiny sip. It was bitter, but he still took another taste, feeling the coffee grounds on his tongue. His body tensed and was filled with new energy. He removed his cell phone from his pocket and tried to place a call to his parents, but there was no reception yet.

  “My name is Ali,” the old man introduced himself. He left the kitchen for a moment and came back with a first aid kit. Anise thanked him. She took out an antiseptic rinse and, with some gauze, thoroughly cleaned the gash on Mor’s leg and bandaged it.

  “Why did you open the door for us? We’re not…” Anise stopped before completing the sentence.

  “You are not Arab?” Ali completed it for her and smiled. “But you are human beings.”

  “I’m a little bit Arab,” said Anise, “half-Arab, I think.”

  “Do you know what’s happening out there?” Yam asked the old man.

  Ali didn’t know much. “Before the television and telephones were cut off, there was an announcement that Jerusalem is under a rolling terrorist attack,” he said, “but I do not know who the attackers are or what exactly is happening.”

  Ali fell silent. No one spoke. They could hear the echoes of shooting outside. Every few minutes, one of them would take out their cell phone and try to make a call, but there was still no reception. Ali turned on the TV, hoping that broadcasting had resumed, but the screen remained blank.

  It was thoroughly dark by now, and all three kids were exhausted.

  Ali led them to a narrow room with two single beds. “This is the best I can do. You will have to manage,” he said in a sort of apology.

  They pushed the two beds together and, utterly spent, crawled in between the sheets.

  Anise found herself in the middle, between the two boys. She really didn’t want to sleep next to Yam, but she was too tired to make a fuss. In any case, the situation was, to say the least, unusual. Within seconds, she was asleep.

  In the morning, when Yam opened his eyes, he was sure it had all been a nightmare. Sunrays flickered cheerily around the room, and for a moment, it seemed as if everything was fine. He then looked at Anise sleeping next to him, her arm flung over his torso, her head on his shoulder. So it wasn’t a dream. Yam fought the desire to close his eyes and go back to sleep.

  “Good morning,” whispered Mor who was already dressed. Gently, Yam moved Anise’s arm to the side and sat up, taking care not to wake her. Reality could wait a while, he thought. There was no need to rush.

  When they entered the kitchen, Ali was already standing next to the ancient cooktop making omelets. The two boys ate with gusto.

  “We’re so lucky you opened the gate,” said Mor, sipping the hot coffee.

  “Every child has worried parents. Both an Arab child and a Jewish child,” the old man laughed softly and poured more coffee into all the glasses.

  “I’m Christian,” Mor corrected, “and Jewish too,” he added after a moment’s thought.

  “I’m Muslim on my mother’s side and Christian on my dad’s, but was raised Jewish,” said a refreshed-looking Anise who’d suddenly materialized in the doorway. Everyone laughed.

  “I’m Jewish,” said Yam hesitantly. “Who was shooing at us yesterday?” he asked Ali. The old man shrugged.

  “ISIS, Jabhat a-Nusra, Price Tag. The names change but the terror is always the same. There is no way of knowing really. Jews, Arabs… Everyone looks the same with masks and guns.”

  “What about the army?” Yam asked, but Ali shook his head. “The army cannot go into the Old City. Too many civilians.”

  “I totally don’t understand what happened,” said Mor.

  “It is the same old story of the Temple Mount,” the old man sighed.

  “But it’s only a pile of rocks,” said a puzzled Anise.

  The old man laughed, this time bitterly. “Yes. You are right. This is an ancient fight over old rocks. The Jews want them, and the Arabs want them too.”

  Yam took his cell phone out once again, but there was still no reception.

  “Our parents,” whispered Anise, “they must be frantic. Maybe the TV works.”

  The old man shook his head again. “No television, no internet. Everything is down.”

  Mor thought about Dad and Sual. He knew Anise was thinking the exact same thing. “I don’t get it. Everyone has
the same God. I think it’s the religions that exploit God,” he said, frustrated.

  The old man smile. “You know, ya ibni, when I was a little boy, my father would tell me a legend about a gate in Jerusalem. A gate no one had ever seen.”

  Yam, stunned, looked at Ali. “The legend says that Jerusalem is holy to all the religions and therefore God decided that the gate to heaven would be here, in this city. But then every religion wanted the gate to itself and everybody started to fight, so God became very upset and discouraged. He thought Jerusalem would unite all the religions because they all have the same God. But instead, they started to kill one another in His name. God started to cry and his tears became rocks that blocked the gate so it disappeared.”

  “My father told me the exact same story! He even drew me a picture of the gate,” said Yam, still dazed.

  The old man look at Yam, a strange smile on his lips. “Habibi, there is a reason for everything, even for you being here right now,” he said. “In any case, nobody has found the gate to this day.”

  “I’m going to find it,” Yam declared.

  “We’ll find it,” Anise corrected. Yam wondered what was wrong with her. Everything irritated her.

  “You have to take care not to be taken hostage or killed. You do not look like you are from this part of the city,” said Ali as he cleared the table. “You look like tourists and terrorists like to capture tourists. It looks good on TV.”

  Ali went to the dresser, opened a drawer, and took out an old map yellowing at the edges. He held it out to Yam.

  “Be careful. There is only one copy of this map in the whole world. It has been passed down in my family from father to son for many generations. My father told me that when the time came I would know what to do with it.”