“What kind of doctor were you?” Amit continued to probe.
“Amit,” Malkah snapped. “Quit interrogating him. He just saved Cyrus’s life.”
“I’m not interrogating him. I’m just curious.”
“I thought we were in a hurry,” Gideon said.
“All right,” Amit said. “Let’s go.”
Cyrus turned to the old man and respectfully bowed his head. “Thanks…again.”
Dr. Tishbee nodded. “Don’t thank me, friend,” he replied in a foreign language. “Thank HaKodesh Borachu and your new guardian angel.”
Tomer looked at Amit. “What did he say?”
Amit said, “Not sure. It sounded a lot like Hebrew, but—”
“Hey, tough guy,” the doctor said to Amit as he grabbed the oars. “Give me a shove, will ya?”
Amit scowled but did as asked, pushing the boat free.
The five of them watched as the mysterious stranger rowed away, and slipped disappearing into another rolling fog bank.
As they walked to the van, Amit said to Cyrus, “What did he say to you?”
“He said, don’t thank me, thank HaShem.”
“In what language?” Amit asked, dubious.
“Aramaic.”
“Bullcrap. That’s a dead language.”
“Endangered, not dead,” Cyrus corrected.
“You’re telling me you know Aramaic?”
“I do,” Cyrus answered.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Malkah,” Amit said, “is this guy for real?”
Malkah chuckled. “He’s a man of many hobbies.”
“Yeah, right,” Amit said. “And what are the odds that an old fart in a rowboat in the middle of nowhere fishing on a rotten day like today would have the same stupid hobby?”
“Pretty slim, I admit,” Cyrus said.
“So…?” Amit pressed.
Cyrus shrugged. “Coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Amit said.
“Good,” Cyrus rejoined. “Neither do I.”
“I’m saying I believe in explanations.”
“How about this one, then,” Cyrus said. “I was fished out of the lake by Eliyahu HaNavi, Elijah the prophet, who came in the guise of a curmudgeonly old doctor.”
Malkah and Gideon chuckled as they followed Cyrus into the back of the van.
“I said explanations, not fairy tales.” Amit slammed the door shut. He walked to the driver’s side of the van, got in and started up the engine.
Cyrus said, “If you don’t like mine, then come up with your own.”
Amit shook his head in annoyance, put the van into drive and pulled away.
He turned to Tomer in the passenger’s seat. “Hear that?” he snorted. “Elijah the prophet!”
“Ya never know,” Gideon said. “Eliyahu has a history of showing up in times of need.”
Tomer craned his head around to address Malkah. “You’ve got some meshugenah friends.”
Malkah smiled and put her arms around Gideon and Cyrus. “I know. Aren’t they wonderful?” She kissed them both on the cheek.
“So, are you going to tell us how we’re gonna get out of here?” Gideon asked.
“We head south to the border,” Tomer answered. “Along the way we have some Drews underground who will help us out. We switch vehicles a couple of times, and with their assistance, cross into the SLA. From there we catch a plane to Tel Aviv. Easy.”
“And what about the all-out manhunt that is surely underway as we speak?” Gideon said, skeptical.
“You already bought us at least twenty-four hours,” Amit said. “That ought to be enough to get us to the Drews and to SLA. Brilliant work, gentlemen.”
Gideon and Cyrus exchange puzzled looks. “Come again?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Tomer said. “That was genius. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but we are very impressed.”
“Want to give me a hint?” Gideon said.
“Come on,” Tomer said. “Abdul Raqib and Jalal al Din.”
“Oh…of course, the terrorists,” Gideon said. “And you are impressed because…?”
“The two vans you blew up,” Tomer said.
“Yeah…?” Gideon said, still not following.
“One of our guys monitoring police communications picked up that they are prime suspects. According to Rosso’s security team, the vans were registered to a catering outfit owned by a lady by the name of Margo Blythe. She was rounded up immediately. After interrogating her, it was learned that the drivers were Abdul Raqib and Jalal al Din. They haven’t been found, and there’s a manhunt going on for them as we speak. Seems this Blythe lady also has ties to some radical Islamic groups. Did you know that?”
“Cyrus did,” Gideon said.
“Good job,” Tomer congratulated. “This goose chase ought to buy us enough time to flee the country. Whose idea was this set up anyway?”
Gideon and Cyrus looked at one another, shrugged, and then they both pointed skyward and said, “His.”
39
Mazel Tov!
Israel, Samaria. Six months later.
The once barren and rocky mountains of the Shomron, also known as Samaria, that had sat in sackcloth and ashes unloved and unattended for almost two-thousand years, had already begun to green and revive with the return of their lost children after the ‘67 War of the previous century.
It wasn’t, however, until the end of the great Pesach War, and with it, an unhindered and unapologetic settling of the mountains of Judea and Samaria at the insistence of Prime Minister Ephraim Ben-Yosef, did those early verdant blushes really burst forth, just as foretold by the prophet Ezekiel:
“But you, mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel; for they are at hand to come. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn into you, and you shall be tilled and sown; and I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited, and the waste places shall be built; and I will multiply on you man and animal; and they shall increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited after your former estate, and will do better to you than at your beginnings: and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Another plentiful rainy season had birthed yet another shade of green to a dozen shades of green, splashed with red and yellow and violet. The entire mountain spine that ran through Judea and Samaria had responded to the youthful touch of their energetic inhabitants. Freed from decades of unjust and stifling demands by foreign nations and interlopers who had no legitimate claim, the mountains made up for lost time, pushing up woods and vineyards and grazing as if by the hand of a Master Time-lapse Photographer.
The mountains seemed giddy at the chance to be the backdrop for the wedding of Malkah Stern and Gideon Baer. It was the place the couple now called home. The wedding was held on the lawn outside a modest synagogue in a young yishuv, or settlement, of some forty families, all of whom came to join in the celebration.
An informal affair, plastic tables and chairs were set up on the lawn, and upon wooden picnic tables laid at length, waited dozens of delicious homemade foods, brought by the families of the yishuv. It was the yishuv’s way of welcoming their newest members, Gideon and Malkah Baer.
At the edge of the lawn, a chuppah, the traditional wedding canopy, where Malkah and Gideon had earlier taken their vows, overlooked the hills and valley’s below. Live music from local musicians played nonstop, as people danced and danced without rest. The musicians’ repertoire had something for everyone: from classic Israeli folk songs and popular Mizrahi music that combined elements from Western, Middle Eastern and North African countries, to current pop favorites, and even Klezmer.
Virgil and I were there, as were Commander Sett and two-dozen new recruits. One thing that hadn’t changed since our portion of Heaven had come under new management was the fact that weddings were still a great place to make matches.
Sett was in charge of the recruits, lecturing and guiding them through the new process. Yetzers still had to be battled and defeated, but our methods were now in line with those of the ancients.
Yeshiva weapons were reintroduced into the arsenal, and thorough background checks employing the Midrashic Records replaced the flawed dossiers that the Academy used to hand us. We no longer relied on orders passed down from Academy bureaucrats, but sought out and created our own matches. One might say that matchmaking had gone free enterprise.
Angels spent months at a time in the field searching for and carrying out new matches. The cupid angels took to their given purpose with restored gusto. Not only were we making more and better matches, but knowing who we were, and for Whom we really worked, had made our jobs a thousand times more meaningful.
“Kohai,” Virgil asked, “do you think Captain Volk is watching?”
“I like to think so.”
“Yeah, me too. It’s kinda ironic that although Volk isn’t here, Cyrus is. I mean, he was the one given up for dead, but look at him now.”
We both smiled as we watched Cyrus dancing the hora with a bunch of yishuv youths.18
Note 18: The iconic hora was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers in the second half of the 19th century. It became one of the symbols of the Zionist movement and the rebuilding of the Jewish state. The handholding, circular dance was usually performed to Israeli folk songs, the best known of them, "Hava Nagila". Hora dancing diminished in popularity in the last decades of the 20th century, but since the end of the Pesach War and the beginning of the Ben-Yosef administration, the joyful dance—updated with some modern hip-hop-like additions—was once again very popular.
“I never knew Cyrus liked to dance,” I remarked. “I wonder if Volk did too.”
Virgil chuckled at the image it conjured. “You could check the Midrasha and find out,” he said mischievously, knowing that the captains frowned upon snooping.
“No, we can’t,” I said with assurance.
“You tried?”
I nodded contritely. “I missed him,” I confessed.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t find it. It was gone. As was Captain Cyrus’s.”
“What does it mean?” Virgil asked.
“Someone doesn’t want us to see them, that’s what it means.”
“But why?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. But it gets stranger. Malkah Stern and Gideon Baer’s records are also missing.”
“We knew Malkah’s was incomplete, but Gideon’s too?”
“Yep. Both now gone. Or inaccessible, anyway. And get this, Ellen Veetal’s record is back. Whoever hid it, for some reason thought it was now okay to reinstate.”
“Weird. Who’s doing it, you think?”
“Clearly someone with a much higher clearance level than we,” I said. “The who, however, doesn’t interest me as much as the why.”
“We’re not supposed to know some things, obviously.”
“And yet—”
“Conspicuous by absence,” Virgil said, finishing my thought.
I nodded.
“Do you think it has something to do with the Swerver?” he asked.
“What else could it be?”
“Then we were right, Kohai. The Swerver of the generation is either Malkah Stern or Gideon Baer.”
“So it seems.”
“Which one is it?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? If their love is true, the result is the same. They don’t know it, but they just won the humans a little more time.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then why hide the records?”
“I don’t know, V,” I said, having taken to using the same moniker for Virgil that Cyrus had used for Captain Volk. It was my little way of keeping the captain’s memory alive. “But think about it, we have never found the records of any Swerver, have we?”
“No, but we never knew where to look either.”
“True,” I said. “Yet, the fact remains that we don’t know, and have never known for certain who the Swervers were. Only that they existed. Perhaps the disappearance of their Midrashic Records is our only clue.”
We cast our eyes towards the happy couple, surrounded by their new friends, shaking hands and hugging their well-wishers.
Virgil said, “I think it’s Malkah.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s so beautiful. Like Gideon said, she could be a celestial.”
“I agree she’s a beauty, Virge. But I don’t think Hashem would make that a prerequisite. Besides, Gideon is a handsome fellow himself. I think it’s him.”
“Because…?”
“Just a hunch. I think he had more yetzers to overcome. He was also a loner, never one for a real relationship. He never thought he’d marry. He took the bigger gamble.”
“Maybe, but only if we think of the Malkah we thought we knew. One could argue that, considering her line of work, it was she who took the bigger chance.”
I slapped Virgil on the back. “Good point, buddy, but I’m sticking with my hunch.”
“And I with mine.” He smiled, and then exclaimed, “Watch it!”
Virgil jerked me out of the path of a decapitated head of a woolly, spike-toothed Fault-finding Yetzer. The beast’s head sailed past my shoulder.
I looked up and saw Cadet Theo raise his ruby-edged Zweihänder longsword in victory. Commander Sett, however, wasn’t nearly so impressed. He stomped over to Theo and let him have it with both barrels.
“Cadet Theo,” he barked. “How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t go hand-to-hand with a yetzer if you don’t have to. You’re still a long way from a Virgil or Kohai. Got that?”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” Theo answered.
Virgil and I exchanged chuckles. I said, “Who’d have thought we’d ever hear Sett say something like that?”
“Who’d have thought he’d become our number one confidant?” Virgil rejoined.
Indeed, we had grown to both like and respect Sett a great deal. He couldn’t replace Cyrus or Volk—nobody could—but he still had plenty of admirable qualities, and we came to see him as a kind of uncle figure. He took to his studies with a vengeance, and although Sett was very much my senior, he had obtained a new level of humility, and so was never ashamed to come to me with questions.
Sett, Virgil, and I had become chavruta, study partners. I led the discussions, acting as guide through the ancient texts and the various works of the great sages of yore. I lacked the captains’ knowledge and wisdom, of course, but I studied hard and applied myself as best I could to the job.
When I had questions or was unsure on a matter, I would either spin down to Earth and ask Cyrus, or enter the Midrasha and seek the wise counsel of Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, the holy Baal Shem Tov. I so enjoyed conversing with the Besht, that I must confess that sometimes I would use the excuse of advice to visit him. He was well aware of my ploy, but the affable rabbi never called me on it.
I tried to consult with other great sages from the past as well, but so far I was only able to establish a mutual connection with the Besht. That didn’t mean that his spiritual level was greater than theirs, only that he was open to my calling. He ‘expected’ me. If the others knew that a lowly angel like I was knocking on the spiritual pane that separated us, perhaps I’d have been able to appear before them as well. I intended to keep searching.
Virgil nudged me and pointed to where Gideon and a tall, handsome, middle-aged man were chatting convivially. The man looked familiar, and by the strapping bodyguards standing discreetly a few feet a way, very important.
“Is that who I think it is saying mazel tov?” Virgil asked.
“Yeah, I believe so.”
“What are we waiting for?” Virgil said excitedly. “Come on!”
One of the many benefits of being an angel was that we could be a fly on any wall. Even if there was no wall to rest on.
40
Family Ties
Gideon was talking to Israeli Prime Minister, Ephraim Ben-Yosef, who, to the yishuv’s wonder and delight, had shown up at the wedding unannounced. The prime minister had already met the couple during the course of Malkah and Gideon’s debriefing upon their arrival to Israel. Gideon and Ben-Yosef hit it off immediately.
During that introductory encounter, Gideon was surprised to learn that he and Ephraim Ben-Yosef had more in common than he could have imagined. Ephraim’s father, Avram Ben-Yosef, a noted historian and professor, had been friends with Gideon’s Grandpa Shimon. The two sages corresponded by letter (both having preferred paper over email) for some twenty years prior to Shimon’s murder. Avram Ben-Yosef passed away about three years after “the son of my old age” became Israel’s prime minister.
Ephraim discovered the letters in the attic of his father’s home while searching for a family keepsake that he wanted to hand down to his third son as a bar mitzvah gift. This occurred about three months before the Mossad had brought Malkah Stern and Gideon Baer to the prime minister’s attention.
Most of the letters dealt with deep and insightful discussions about Torah and Kabbalah. Like Gideon, who learned the Bible on his grandfather’s knee, Ephraim Ben-Yosef’s own scholarly father introduced him to the Holy Book as a child across the kitchen table. The fact that Gideon’s Grandpa Shimon was an observant Orthodox Jew, and Avram a secular and traditional Jew, was never a point of contention between the two respectful men.
The prime minister read their correspondence with both relish and consternation. The dismay came when Ephraim read in later letters that his father, Avram, had begun to pepper the sagacious Shimon with questions about the existence of the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim, the Lamed-Vavniks.
The prime minister knew that his prudent and judicious father was not a superstitious man. He knew that right up to when he died in his sleep at a ripe old age, his father’s shrewd mind was untainted by even a hint of senility. In fact, he died just days after publishing an encyclopedic history of the great Jewish sages, a work he had been researching and writing for two decades. Only three years earlier he had published the first comprehensive history of the recent Pesach War.
Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3 Page 87