Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  Staying put and getting strong seemed like a great idea. As long as he could get word to Rina. And figure out the rest of his life.

  That evening, he met Ben Cohen. Long, lean, and balding, Dr. Cohen—“Ben, please”—was obviously the fire in this marriage. His words were clipped and came in fast spurts, as if he couldn’t slow down long enough to ponder the next one. But it didn’t take long for Tony to figure out that the pondering went on, just at a pace that took some mind-bending to match.

  “A friend of mine from Jerusalem is with us. Another archaeologist, taking a busman’s holiday. Wants to see some of my research. Might interest you, too, when you feel well enough to join us.”

  “Sure. Great.” Whatever. The idea of perusing archaeological treatises seemed about as interesting as learning to crochet. Now, it would be great if the Cohens had any geological studies of the area. Maybe he’d ask. Tomorrow.

  His dinner consisted of boiled chicken, rice, and cooked carrots. Not elegant, certainly, but he was devoutly thankful for real food.

  Sleep overtook him before he could meet the Cohens’ guest. By the time he was up and presentable the next morning, both men had gone off. That afternoon, Gila allowed him to get out of bed and wander to the terrace, where jasmine vines draped a trellised arbor and shaded the stone patio from the desert sun. The scent of the flowers lingered.

  He was asleep in the padded chair when the men returned. He woke to the sound of ice clinking against glass.

  “Tony, meet Adam Levinson. Archaeologist, rabbi, long-time friend.”

  Rabbi Levinson made up in size what their host lacked. Tony immediately liked him, especially his laugh and his ability to be quiet. Ben shuffled words quickly. Adam eased over them.

  Gila arranged a dinner tray for Tony, rolling an adjustable table in front of his chair. “My patient mustn’t tire himself,” she said. “I’ll be right back with the rest.”

  “No, no, of course. Let me help you,” Adam said, meeting her at the door with an alacrity—and agility—that surprised Tony. Ben had barely eased himself forward by the time the heavier man returned with a tray in his hand.

  “Oh, well, thank you,” Ben said, accepting his food. He looked embarrassed, but that passed as he sniffed the lamb stew and kissed fingertips at his wife.

  “This looks delicious, Gila,” Adam said, squeezing in behind his own tray. “You remembered how much I love lamb.”

  She smiled. “I hope it lives up to your memories.”

  Ben led them in a grace that rather surprised Tony. As the man lifted his voice, his tone changed, as did his words, as if he were actually talking to a friend. The dinner conversation swirled around Tony, but he caught Biblical references as Adam questioned some of Ben’s writings. The information quest didn’t seem to be about archaeology after all.

  Every so often, Tony saw an expression on Adam’s face that reminded him of someone. Maybe one of his own cousins? He had so many.

  That night he drafted a quick note to Rina in the miserable scrawl that was all he could manage. He’d send it to the convent. Surely, they’d have a forwarding address if she’d already left Perugia.

  But he needed a return address so she could get in touch with him and a phone number, neither of which he had. He couldn’t use this one and compromise these good people.

  The best he could do was ask Rina to find a way to email him. Surely, the Cohens had Internet access.

  And then he counted the days it would take before she could reasonably hold his letter in her hand and find a moment to type an answer.

  Too long. Much too long.

  36

  RINA

  She tightened her belt to the last notch, but the slacks she’d arrived with still bagged. Lord have mercy, but pretty soon her bones would stick out and her breasts woould dwindle from midlin’ to flat. She changed into one of her pretty sundresses, which camouflaged hip bones but not clavicles that jutted out a whole lot more than she remembered.

  She ought to eat, but food stuck in her throat and wanted to come up again. Distraction sounded like a good idea. A driving tour would be better than nothing, and no one would notice her incipient anorexia if she stayed behind the wheel.

  She rented a car and headed out of Jerusalem toward Tel Aviv and the sea. The act of driving proved soothing. The scenery held minimal interest, but her first view of the Mediterranean lived up to all the hype. It actually was green-blue and clear, its hue changing from turquoise to cobalt, worlds removed from the dark opacity of the Atlantic.

  A low white car had traveled in her wake all the way from Jerusalem but drove past when she entered the hotel’s parking lot. For a moment, she wondered about its destination, but who cared, really?

  She wished she could say the Indian dinner on which she nibbled and the walk along the beach did her an ounce of good. They didn’t.

  The next day, she headed southeast, away from the Gaza border and all that lay behind it. The desert fit her empty agenda: drive, stop, drive, stop, drive until she could once again focus on the present. This country had made the desert bloom. Blooms sounded upbeat and positive. And although she might not see as many as in the cooler spring, the reclamation projects in the Negev were at least evidence of life.

  The image of a galloping Arab sheik, straight out of the pages of Auntie Luze’s books, loosed a smile that turned to a choked sob when she remembered one particular Arab.

  Enough. Gone was gone, and dead was dead.

  Except in desertdom. Deserts, it seemed, could be made to live again and support more than a few camel caravans.

  Beersheba was less than a two-hour trip, but she merely drove through it, trying to think like a history major as she remembered Adam’s stories about the well where God spoke to Isaac, promising him millions of children, and where Isaac had made peace with the local herdsmen. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see peace reign again?

  Every so often, she glanced in her rear-view mirror. And every so often, a white car showed up behind her. Of course, thousands of white cars must dot the roads of Israel, but this one was an American make, not one of the really big types, but big enough to be noticed, and low to the ground. Maybe the driver was a traveling salesman for some international company. Or a spy.

  Get a grip, Rina.

  But it was easier to play around with absurd fantasies than to think about Adam and his stories. Because then she missed him. It had been years since she’d sat at his feet or snuggled against his bulk as he’d told story after story about people he said were hers. There must be something to that elasticity of a child’s brain that she remembered them all. Her adult brain felt like baked rubber, cracked and rigid. But maybe if she focused on the stories and swatted away plaguing thoughts like a horsetail at flies, she could enjoy the passing scenery and take pride in family accomplishments.

  She followed the black line of tarmac, watching road postings, stopping according to her itinerary, but seeing little, hearing less. She’d imagined a tour of the country taking days. But she had zipped through Beersheeba and approached the archaeological site at Tel Arad in no time at all. She could even make it back to Jerusalem before dinner.

  Whoopee.

  As she turned into the site, she noted that the car pulling in behind hers was tan and not white. She parked and got out just as a young woman in khaki shorts and shirt approached a battered jeep. “Hello, do you speak English?”

  The woman turned abruptly at her words. “Yes.”

  “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for my uncle, an archaeologist named Adam Levinson. I understand he’s somewhere in the south here.”

  “I’m sorry, but I know no one by that name,” she answered. “However, I’m just visiting myself. The one to ask is the director, Dr. Cohen. He was here, showing someone around, though I was not able to speak to him. Maybe if you come back tomorrow, he could help you.”

  “That’s okay, thank you anyway. I’ll just look around a bit before I head back to Jerusalem. They won’t mind
, will they?”

  “Not at all. Just follow the signs to check in. And there are many other digs. Perhaps your uncle is at one of them.”

  Reaching back into the car for her purse, Rina felt a wave of fatigue that had her climbing back behind the wheel so as not to faint. A few deep breaths later, she had the parking lot to herself.

  All she wanted to do was crawl back into her hotel bed and vegetate until Uncle Adam returned. She wished she believed in something enough to rail at it, but she wasn’t even sure Fate could take the blame, and how could she shake her fist at a hostile deity when she hadn’t paid much heed to his very existence? Or did only pagans think God hostile? Was she then a pagan? That rankled. Maybe she should believe in something. Someone. Maybe if she truly believed in God, she could get mad at him. Could one get mad at God without being zapped?

  Ahhh! She needed the fog to uncurl from her brain. She longed to get on with life, back to simple pleasures, or forward to anything other than this deadness. Except, not to more agony. Maybe nothingness was better.

  Exhaustion—and her friend in the white car—kept her company all the way back to Jerusalem. Of course, it might have been another white car, because why would anyone follow her? Either it was another car or… But she couldn’t come up with an alternative.

  She parked the rental in the hotel’s garage, checked for messages at the front desk, and returned to her room. Then she called the Institute.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Roberts. I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  “I’m back at The King’s, so if you do hear…”

  “I’ll let you know the moment I do.” Miss Barden cleared her throat. “You must remember, of course, that this is your uncle’s vacation time. It would be like him to forget to write. After all, he knows I can manage the office.”

  “Yes, and he has no idea I’ve shown up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  No sorrier than she.

  She looked down at the cradled phone. She felt tired and sick with a wad of nausea stuffed in her throat. After stripping and pulling a nightgown over her head, she tumbled into bed, only to wake an hour later, feeling worse. When the cramping started, she hauled herself to the bathroom. She sweated the sheets wet before racing to the bathroom again. Two trips later, she curled up on the floor with a blanket. She was dying, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. All that mattered was her proximity to the toilet.

  Perhaps she dozed. Eventually, she stumbled back to bed. She remembered sipping water—a very little—in between trips to the bathroom. She remembered sweating and shivering.

  Once, she thought she heard a knock, a voice calling, but she may have imagined it. Time sifted over her. The aspirin she’d swallowed once upon a time hadn’t remained in her long.

  She was only mildly surprised when she heard a soft voice speak her name, when a cool cloth touched her forehead. She slept.

  A lamp illumined the space around her, but objects appeared in silhouette, not quite in focus. A face loomed. Familiar. Odd how it resembled Acie’s. But Acie was in Italy.

  She closed her eyes. Thinking was too hard. Words floated around her, a voice that reminded her of something. Hands lifted her so she could sip water, turned the pillow, tucked blankets around her shoulders. She slept again.

  The nausea passed, but pain echoed through her body. A man’s voice spoke, a man’s hands prodded. A needle stung her thigh.

  Light filtered through wooden slats. Where was she? Oh, yes, a hotel. Jerusalem. Her eyes hurt, a dull ache threaded its way behind her retina and outward toward her skin, down her spine, into her muscles. The nausea had passed, but she wished she were still asleep. She could forget the pain while she slept.

  She pictured aspirin on the bedside table. If she could just turn enough, reach for the pills, a glass of water…

  “Hello.” A red-haired woman leaned over the bed with a glass in her hand. “It’s time for your medicine.”

  She squinted again. “What… what are you doing here?”

  Acie helped raise her enough to swallow the pill. “Your email. We couldn’t believe you’d actually come here, and I was delegated to get you out when we didn’t hear from you again. You said you’d check in.”

  “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, well, you made us very nervous.”

  “But why do you want to get me out? I-I don’t understand.”

  “There has been trouble. Lots of it. The Italian news is full of the troubles here.”

  She fell back against the pillows, wincing. “What day is it?”

  “Hush, don’t worry about it. You just go back to sleep.”

  The pain dragged her down, day after day. The doctor had come again. Her weakened state had exacerbated a nasty virus. Acie’d asked about food poisoning. He’d agreed it could have played a part but certainly hadn’t explained the whole; the symptoms would have been different—and worse. Now, she needed to eat, he said. But the thought of food made her shudder.

  Acie brought out a pack of cards, two Agatha Christie’s—one a Poirot, one a Miss Marple from downstairs—and a dozen English newspapers to read aloud. She also took walks outside to keep from going stir-crazy.

  Finally, Rina pronounced herself well enough to get out of bed and do more than sit in a chair near the window. She needed a shower. Badly.

  Acie helped dry her hair, helped her slip into the blue and green dress, then pointed to her make-up kit. “Blusher, at least.” After brushing on color, Acie said, “Much better. You look as if you’ve rejoined the land of the living.”

  “Thanks to you.” She met her friend’s eyes reflected in the mirror.

  “You think you could handle a regular meal?” Acie asked.

  She had very little energy, but the idea of spending another hour inside seemed worse than the risk of collapse, and she no longer recoiled from the mention of food. “Point the way.”

  “You’d better take it slowly. Perhaps the place around the corner. Then, if you faint, I won’t have to carry you far.”

  “I can picture me draped over your shoulder. We’d have all the men running to help.”

  “Or running as fast as they could the other way.”

  “So complimentary.”

  Acie grinned. “Come on. You can lean on me.”

  The restaurant was gloomy, the wooden tables packed together and covered with questionable linen, but the smells emanating from behind a half-wall at the back made her mouth water. Acie inspected the flatware. “Clean, I think.”

  “I want roast lamb and rice. But smallish, please.”

  Acie ordered the same, not smallish.

  When the plates came, Rina stared guiltily at the mounded rice and chunks of meat. “I’m going to end up leaving half, unless you want some.”

  “This’ll do me.”

  “Thank you again for coming.” She set her fork on the edge of her plate. “But you can’t stay here.”

  “Well, thanks a heap.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I know you saved my life, coming like you did. I certainly couldn’t have taken care of myself. But you’ve got Mae there, needing you, and now Nicco.”

  “And you?”

  “It’s different for me.” She blinked back tears, swiping at ones that leaked out. “I’ve really nothing to go back to, except my aunt, and I so desperately want to see Adam. I can’t leave until I do.”

  “And I don’t want to leave without you, not like this.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Well, you’re not okay yet. I’ll stay a few more days. If your uncle comes, then you and he can make the decision.”

  Rina was ashamed of the relief that washed over her. She brushed away new tears.

  “Adam will come soon.” Acie reached across the table. “Don’t worry so. Nicco would want me to stay. Mae, too. And, girlfriend, I actually have a cell phone with me. One that works.”

  They ventured forth the next day to visit places Acie wanted to see, moseying on
a slow tour and wending their way among some of Jerusalem’s many inhabitants. So, with all those people, what were the chances of bumping (more than once) into the man with the gray jacket, a blazer this time? It wasn’t as if she’d walked the same route.

  Later, when Acie returned from a ramble alone, she reported no new gray-jacket sightings. “It’s odd though, isn’t it? I mean, you seeing him so often? And what’s with the blazer? It’s a scorcher out there.”

  “I know. Maybe we’re just paranoid after what went on in Perugia.”

  “Possibly. But this place is full of Arabs,” Acie said.

  “That just makes my case. The Arabs in Perugia stood out. But we may be biased—and skeptical of odd men—because of what happened there.”

  Over breakfast the next day, Acie asked if she were up for a drive north to the Sea of Galilee. Travel with a friend instead of languishing in Jerusalem?

  “Perfect.” Impulsively, she reached over to clasp Acie’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. I really, really don’t like traveling alone. Firenze was lost on me.” She didn’t mention that the loss may have had something to do with mourning.

  “Then let’s make it an overnight.”

  Meir called a hotel by the lake and reserved a room. By noon, they were off.

  She probably shouldn’t have tried to do so much so soon. And they should have checked the weather forecast. The sky turned to slate as they drove north. Rain pattered the car roof and slicked the road, and the wipers swept huge drops across the windshield. She muttered darkly.

  “You have any idea where we are?” she finally asked.

  “Not a clue. Too bad you didn’t get a GPS with the car.”

  Who knew they’d need one? She’d never driven with a GPS. “Keep an eye out for road signs.”

  Acie waved ahead. “Slow down, one’s coming up.”

  She slowed.

  Acie leaned forward, squinting. “I think it says Mashhad and maybe Tiberius.”

  “How far?” She accelerated slowly.