Birthright

by Alan Gold

  He looked at Mustafa. “It’s written in Hebrew on the front and Aramaic on the back. It must be from one of the early centuries, around the time of Christ. This is . . . this is . . .” Shalman had no words for his amazement.

  Mustafa gazed at the shroud and wondered at the skeleton inside the folds. “What sort of a woman was this Ruth? Who was this Abram?” The young Arab man’s face glowed in the light of the torch, though his beaming smile seemed to reflect more light than the torch globe. “Was this Ruth tall or short, beautiful or ugly? Did she live to an old age or die young? Where did she come from? What did she do? How did she die?”

  Shalman smiled and laughed. “Very good questions, my friend . . . and that’s why I’m going to help make you an archaeologist.”

  Jerusalem

  1947

  JUDIT SAT WITH Anastasia in a small one-room apartment that was a designated safe house for NKVD operatives. Anastasia sipped at a small tumbler of vodka as she sat on the edge of the bed. The room had only one chair, and Judit was seated in it.

  She had been summoned to the meeting by the usual dead-drop note and had expected to see the same gathering of operatives. But when she arrived, Judit found only Anastasia.

  As she sipped her own vodka, Judit could not help but take in the figure of the woman before her. The years she had known her had been short, yet Anastasia had seen Judit grow from schoolgirl to woman and spy. Judit remembered the instruction and the motherly hand of Anastasia, always on her back, pushing her forward. The memory of her own mother seemed by contrast as indistinct as a faded photograph.

  When Vered was born, Judit unwillingly found herself reflecting on her own childhood—a childhood she had long since pushed aside—and her mother, whom she’d come to think of as weak and broken. But her imagination often confused the beautiful face of Anastasia with the reality of what she was, a master spy, a woman who had ordered a rifle to be put in her hands and for her to assassinate her own mother or father. Sure, it was nothing more than a test with an empty rifle, but Anastasia’s hand on her back was a touch that brought back sharp memories, not all of them good.

  The test hadn’t broken her; it had made her strong. As she looked at Anastasia, Judit felt that the woman was proud of her, and somehow this mattered. Anastasia stood and walked over to the table to refill her vodka glass.

  “You’ve now met all of your colleagues, the men and women who will bring our plan to fruition. And I have to make a choice.”

  “What’s that?” asked Judit, having no inkling where Anastasia was going with this or why she had been summoned.

  “Which of them should lead? Who should carry responsibility? Who is capable enough?”

  Judit thought back to the group. According to Anastasia, they’d gone their separate ways, some to Tel Aviv, some to Haifa or Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Nablus or Nahariah, some to Cairo and Damascus. Each had a role to play, and Judit might never encounter them again.

  Some had been given the names and biographies of politicians, governors, newspaper editors, journalists, and political advisers whom they’d been instructed to befriend and influence, to sleep with and seduce, so that when the crucial time came, they could be blackmailed. It was all in an effort to swing allegiances away from America and the United Kingdom in favor of the USSR. Others had been given a list of future Israeli politicians and influentials who were not well disposed to Mother Russia and would need to be exterminated.

  Judit knew that this had been going on in Palestine from time to time. The newspapers carried occasional stories about prominent people being killed or dying in strange circumstances. She knew that this was communist Russians in place. But the real task in the months ahead would be handed over to Judit and the group.

  But who should be the leader? Judit looked at Anastasia, who was waiting for a considered answer. The young woman didn’t answer immediately but quickly went through all of the men and women in her mind. Eventually, she came up with two names, at which Anastasia nodded and smiled.

  “Goshia is a brilliant woman. Viktor is highly resourceful and reliable. Hmmm . . .” said Anastasia.

  “So who will it be?” asked Judit.

  Anastasia smiled and sat back down on the edge of the bed closest to the younger woman. Her knees touched Judit’s.

  “Not all situations require the same leaders. Leaders are not all the same. What we need is someone who can and will do what needs to be done. Someone who can see the past and present and judge the right action for the future.”

  Judit frowned.

  “You, my little dove. It’s you,” Anastasia said softly.

  Judit said nothing but placed the glass on the table and looked at her handler quizzically.

  “It’s you I need. It’s you I want.” She let the last word linger in the air before she continued. “Goshia and Viktor are capable, but they’re not leaders. It’s you who is so very special, my dear.”

  “But I’m too young,” protested Judit.

  Anastasia reached over and put her hand on Judit’s knee and smiled sweetly. “I recommended you to Comrade Beria himself. Long ago, after your group’s training in Moscow finished. He agreed but ordered me to wait a year or two, until you’d had field experience as an assassin. That’s why we encouraged you to join Lehi. And now you’re ready, my dove. You’re bloodied and sharp and wonderful. You have an innate ability to command. You will be the leader, but I will be here every minute of the day. You will answer only to me. I will be here in Jerusalem as an attaché to the Russian Mission.”

  Too stunned to speak, Judit just nodded.

  “This is not an easy burden, I know,” she said, and Judit was only vaguely aware of Anastasia’s hand absently stroking the top of her thigh. “You are married. A wonderful and loyal man. And you have a child. A beautiful child. Yet you sleep with other men.”

  Judit twitched in reaction, but Anastasia continued.

  “At least two other men in two different groups. David Law and Yossi Schwartz. This is right, my darling. We know everything.”

  Trained not to show emotion in times of trauma, Judit simply said, “Yes,” though she felt her pulse quickening.

  “How would Shalman feel about this?” asked Anastasia.

  Was this another test? thought Judit. What was her handler looking for? What answer did she seek?

  Judit had slept with David to elevate her position in Lehi, and with Yossi in case she decided to move over to the Palmach, the elite strike force of the Haganah. Both were strategic maneuvers. She could and did rationalize them. But the question of how such news would affect Shalman pained Judit more than she wanted. She hated cheating on him, but having done so, she had come to the notice of the most senior men in the two forces, not as a woman of easy virtue but as a much discussed fearless and potent fighter for the cause. Making love to them was little more for her than a calling card that empowered her to serve the objectives of her homeland, Mother Russia.

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “Of course you did, my darling.” Anastasia’s hand stroked Judit’s thigh once more. “Just one of many things you will have to do. Are you prepared to do them?”

  “Yes,” answered Judit as straight and as coldly as she could.

  “And what of the Jews? The hardships they have suffered, the faith and traditions they cling to? The things they believe?”

  Judit was acutely aware of the word “they.”

  “What are these things to you?” asked Anastasia.

  “I am Jewish,” said Judit, though even as the words slipped from her lips, she knew that they were the wrong thing to say. She expected Anastasia to pull away, get to her feet. She expected a change of gear in the test. Perhaps anger. But there wasn’t. Instead, the beautiful, elegant woman who had shaped Judit’s life leaned closer still.

  “No, my child. Jewish is how the world sees you. But it cannot be who you are.”

  Anastasia left one hand on Judit’s thigh and raised the other to Judit’s ches
t, placing an open palm at the base of her throat, her long fingers spread to touch the tops of her breasts beneath the thin cotton of her blouse.

  “In here, leave the Jewish girl behind. Be what you must be: a daughter of Russia.”

  Outskirts of Jerusalem

  1947

  DOV SPLASHED VODKA into his glass unceremoniously. It was thrown back and refilled before Shalman had even raised his own to his lips.

  The two men stood in the dark on the outskirts of Jerusalem. There were no streetlights and no houses nearby, only the lights of the ancient city in the distance and the sounds of crickets in the night air. They were alone.

  Shalman had received word that Lehi command wanted to meet with him. He had been back several weeks after the trip into the gorge with Mustafa where they’d made their extraordinary discovery. His every waking thought was to return, and he had promised Mustafa that he would. A strange and unlikely bond had formed between the two young men, and yet when he had said goodbye, promising to return soon, Shalman could not help feeling that Mustafa did not wholly believe or trust that he would.

  The note summoning Shalman to the meeting concerned him. He hadn’t been in touch with Lehi, nor they with him, for some months, and as he wondered whether the organization would have orders for him—a target, a mission, an objective in the fight for an independent Israel—the cave and its ancient treasures seemed a world away.

  A truck had picked up Shalman at a designated time and place and driven him here. It was over that truck’s wheel arch that he and Dov were now drinking vodka.

  “To victory!” said Dov, and knocked back another shot.

  Shalman waved his hand to prevent Dov from pouring another for him.

  “What? You’re getting soft,” said Dov.

  “It’s late. It’s the middle of the night. And we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You are getting soft,” repeated Dov, and this time it seemed more an observation than a jibe. “There are orders for you,” he continued, closing the bottle and plonking it down on the hood.

  “For me?” asked Shalman.

  “Yes. Just for you.”

  “Dov, I d-d-don’t think . . .” stammered Shalman, his chest clenching at the thought of another order, another mission, another killing.

  “You know people are talking. We’re both from the kibbutz, so you know how people talk—” Dov cut himself off and put a fatherly hand on Shalman’s shoulder. It was a familiar hand, one that reminded Shalman of being a boy and especially of the day Dov had handed him the pistol, leading to his father being taken away from him forever.

  “I know you have doubts. We all have doubts. When will it end, you’re thinking. It ends when it’s over,” said Dov with a strange melancholy that Shalman had never heard.

  “Is it getting better?” asked Shalman. “We’ve done so much, but is it getting any better?”

  “Soon.” Dov drew out a roll of paper from his coat and spread it on the truck panel. “The target is an airfield,” he said, stabbing a finger into the map. “It’s crucial to the British for their planes that spot refugee ships bringing our people here from Cyprus.”

  Shalman wasn’t listening. He turned away from Dov and the truck. “I don’t want to kill anymore, Dov. It’s not in me.”

  “It’s just an airfield. No civilians. Just hardware,” replied Dov.

  Shalman turned back to face the man who had been his guardian at his father’s request. “Why me? I’m not a good shot, I’m not good with bombs.”

  “Because we’re spread thin and there are other targets that night. Your attack will be the diversion that keeps others safe,” Dov said softly.

  Shalman turned away again with a sigh.

  “And because I need to know you are committed,” Dov continued.

  Dov’s words stung. Shalman turned around again. “Committed? I’ve done everything I was asked to do!”

  “And yet we don’t see you anymore. I hear you’re in the hills digging up ruins with an Arab!”

  Shalman had made no secret of where he went and what he intended to do, but he had made no mention of Mustafa and his rescue. So to hear these words from Dov made him aware that he was being watched by his comrades. There was nothing he could say, nothing that would change the order or the expectation that he would carry out the mission.

  “Your daughter is beautiful, Shalman. Little Vered . . .” Dov’s voice dropped in pitch and turned cold before he went on, “One day your daughter may watch you taken away by the British who took your father, or shot by an Arab, one just like your friend with whom you’re digging. Is this the legacy you want to leave your child?”

  “They took my father because of you!” The accusation had been a long time coming. But Dov seemed to be expecting it and didn’t flinch.

  “Yes. They took him because of me. He sacrificed his life because I have six children, all of whom are fighting the British and the Arabs. Is this how you want your father to look down on you from heaven? I live with your father’s sacrifice every day. And you know what it does, Shalman? It makes me want to fight. It reminds me that we need to fight. Without the fight we can never protect ourselves or the ones we love. Your abba’s death has to have meaning. We have to make it meaningful. There will be time enough for peace, time to dig up the past, when the fighting is over, when Israel is ours.”

  Shalman had no answer. He’d been a Lehi fighter for so long that he was finding it difficult to fight against the other part of him that was growing day by day. And yet right now, with the dirt from the ancient burial site still on his clothes and under his fingernails, he felt like a different man.

  Finally, Shalman lifted his head to Dov. “So, it’s just an airfield?”

  The House of Wisdom, Baghdad

  820 C.E.

  ZAKKI BEN JACOB wore his history and his fate on his troubled brow. Today the Jewish doctor needed to gain access to the palace of the caliph Ja’far al-Ma’mun so that he could reveal the trickery being perpetrated by his vizier. Aside from gaining the ear and confidence of the caliph, Zakki could see no other way of freeing himself from the threats that Hadir was making against him and his family.

  And the threats were real. He was entangled in a spiderweb of deceit and contrivance that could lead easily to the murder of his wife and children and himself. He had to extricate himself, but he knew that even if he were to escape in the black of night with his family and steal away over the desert, he’d be chased by the vizier’s men and slaughtered. Baghdad was full of the stories of murders, of men found in their beds with their throats cut, of sudden and inexplicable disappearances.

  Zakki could see only one way out. And if not that, then to do as the vizier asked and hope that the efforts would satisfy him.

  Zakki knew what was at stake if the vizier’s plans came to fruition; murder that might lead this caliphate into civil war. But it was the preservation of himself and his beloved family that motivated Zakki to overcome his natural caution and approach the caliph.

  While the Sunni leader of the empire and the spiritual leader of the Shi’ites seemed to be living beside each other in harmony—one concerned with administration, law and trade, and the other the spiritual well-being of the people—Zakki believed that neither had any conception of the nest of snakes that inhabited the lower levels of officialdom.

  He had discussed his situation with the man who had become a close friend during the many days and many nights he spent studying and translating in the House of Wisdom. Hussain of Damascus, one of the most perceptive scholars of the Koran, had listened carefully to what Zakki had to say about his dilemma, about the pressure he was under from the vizier, and continued to caution him. But, as was the way of the House of Wisdom, personal advice became scholarly debate, and the men had spoken at length about the origins of their peoples and their shared God: Yahweh and Allah.

  Hussain, apparently transported to another time and place, looked at Zakki. “Times have changed since the death of our
Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. And so, my friend, while you as a Jew are welcome here as a scholar, I don’t know whether our caliph will listen to your words. Vizier Hadir bought favor with business acumen. But the caliph would need some token of your worth and trust.”

  What Zakki needed was a way in. And the answer came from what he knew best: the diseases of the body and maintenance of health.

  Through his network of scholars at the House of Wisdom, Zakki spread the information that he had discovered a cure for effluvium of the bowels: a disease causing epidemics that struck down huge numbers of people and made them incapable of work for days as their bodies purged the contents of their bowels as liquid. In some cases, especially the young and elderly, it caused death.

  This illness was well known to Zakki. It was so commonplace that members of the royal family had been struck down in the past. Knowing how scholars loved to talk, Zakki was certain that the news of his discovery would come to the notice of the palace. He prayed for the summons that would surely come for him.

  In the end it was one of the caliph’s wives who sent for the Jewish doctor; her son had nearly died from the disease, and the doctors of Baghdad had been unable to do anything for the boy. The child had recovered and was now healthy, but it had been a battle to save him from death, and they had been advised to burn a cat’s entrails in wood from the olive tree and bury an idol to the god Marduk in the sands of the desert. The family feared the illness’s return.

  Zakki set out for the palace and was admitted into the first vestibule. He looked around and was amazed by the lightness of the building. His own home in Jerusalem was a typical dark structure of walls and rooms and a roof where he and his family ate and slept during the hot summer nights. This palace seemed to have a permanent cool breeze blowing through the corridors and chambers, rustling the delicate fabric of the shimmering white curtains and even sifting through the intricately carved marble and latticework of the upper chambers of the house. It was a miracle of grace, lightness, and color.