Jerusalem Interlude

by Bodie Thoene

  The lips of the image moved. The painting spoke. “Hermann . . . ” The eyes of the German god turned to him. He was ashamed he was not wearing his uniform. But then he remembered the blood. “Hermann,” the voice called again, ad Göring was filled with amazement—the voice of the god was that of the Führer!

  He opened his mouth. His voice returned to answer the apparition as yet another burst of red pulsed from the undulating canvas. “Yes! Mein Führer!” Göring sat up, leaving his sleeping form on the sofa. He turned to see the fat, middle-aged man and then looked at himself. Slim. Young again. He wore the green uniform of a Jäger, a huntsman. He smiled, and the eyes of the god seemed pleased.

  “Go to the window,” the god ordered.

  Göring obeyed. Outside on the lawn a bonfire of pine branches burned brightly. A row of dead stags lay on the grass nearby. A man dressed in the green of the head forester stepped from the shadows into the light of the bonfire. He held up a slip of paper and began to read the names of the hunters and the names of the fallen.

  “Shot through the heart by Field Marshal Hermann Göring . . . Theo Lindheim.” The man swept a hand toward the stag, but the animal had taken on a different form. Before the startled eyes of Göring, the stag transformed into the body of Theo Lindheim. There was only a moment to marvel as the death of the stag was sounded on the horns of invisible Jägers. With a sweep of the hand, the forester caught the flame of the fire and threw it onto the dead body. The brightness of that fire outshone all others. Göring looked down at his chest; the medals on his uniform sparkled like new jewels in the light.

  He clapped his hands together in delight and turned to show the god what he had done. The colors swirled around him, embracing him with warmth. “Well done,” the Führer said.

  ***

  Göring raised his hand to salute. His mouth formed the words Heil Hitler! and in that instant he was once again on the sofa, once more trapped inside the heavy body of the middle-aged field marshal.

  Hermann Göring opened his eyes, expecting to see the painting. It was gone. The colors were gone. The face of the German god was not there. No light shown in through the window.

  Göring sat up. There was no blood on his uniform. His medals were still metal. The air was not filled with the sound of horns or baying hounds. Yet one thing seemed clear in his mind: the broken body of Theo Lindheim consumed with the flame of the bonfire.

  ***

  True to her promise, Victoria Hassan was waiting in the lobby of the King David Hotel when Leah and Shimon stepped off the elevator at 8 am. According to her instructions, they left their luggage in the room to be retrieved later in the day by the porter. The cello was locked in the hotel vault with the assurance that even if the place was blown up, the instrument would be safe from harm.

  This was to be a trip of exploration—which buses to take where, how much to pay for what. Never, never must Leah look directly into the eyes of a man in the Old City! Nor should she smile or giggle or allow too-familiar conversation. A stern look and a sharp tongue was the safest policy when shopping the Old City souks. That is, of course, unless Shimon was also along. Then Leah could be pleasant and no one would dare bother her.

  Leah felt a sense of magic as the bus arrived just outside Jaffa Gate. The towering walls reflected the morning light in a hundred variegated shades of pink and rust and cream.

  Everywhere children seemed to be waiting for the arrival of the tourists, with feet bare and clothes ragged even in the cooling of autumn. The children were beggars by profession, Victoria explained. They were astute business people, and could spot a kind face like that of Shimon before the bus even stopped. “You will have to look angry and tell them you are German. Then they will leave you alone.”

  This proved impossible for Shimon as dirty hands reached up to him, and so Victoria clapped her hands at the troop and told them this fellow was a very mean German whom they must not trouble. In an instant they were gone, crowding around a less wary British pilgrim who stood in the center of the mob looking very unhappy.

  Victoria leaned in close. “The children are fed, you know. You must not worry. There are soup kitchens and medical clinics now.” She pointed to the bell tower of the church just beyond the square. “Christ Church,” she said simply, as if that explained everything.

  During the next two hours, Victoria walked between them, showing them her city as only a native could. “Here you may buy orange juice. Mitz tapuzim. The vendor will squeeze it before your eyes. It is wise to bring your own cup. And there you may find boiled eggs and ka’ak, like a roll. Ask for za’atar, which is a salt and cumin mixture. A very cheap breakfast, and you will be respected in the Old city for knowing what to ask for!” She nudged them. “You have not had breakfast. I had mine already this morning. Go on . . . this is a good time to learn!”

  Munching the ka’ak, which tasted suspiciously like a bagel, Leah and Shimon followed her through the teeming souk of el-Dabbagha, past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and through the Triple Bazaar where everything needed for existence in the Old City was sold.

  Within the crowded souks and vaulted bazaars of the Old City, a flood of humanity threatened to overflow the narrow boundaries of shops and stalls, Like rivulets, the tiny alleyways emptied their human current into side streets, which then poured men of every nation into the teeming bay of the marketplace.

  Wide-eyed, Leah clung to Victoria’s hand in front and Shimon’s hand behind as they wove through the traffic like little ships maneuvering through a great port. She bumped into a Copt priest. Jumping back with an apology, she stepped on the toes of a giant Armenian priest, who glared at her from beneath the pointed hood of his cowl. Arab porters groaned beneath the burdens on their backs, like the little donkeys who seemed to carry their own weight of the merchandise that filled the shops. Rolled carpets extended fore and aft of one heavily laden animal. Sheepskins were piled high atop another. Bolts of bright cloth were stacked onto the back of one donkey, who seemed to disappear beneath the load.

  Within the open booths that lined each street, Muslim merchants sold Christian crucifixes alongside Jewish menorahs. There were whole streets crammed with brass candlesticks and urns and ashtrays. Other streets had olive-wood carvings packed on every shelf, and each member of the Holy Family was said to be carved in genuine olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. Leah made a mental note that they must visit Gethsemane to see if there were any olive trees remaining after such a harvest of timber!

  There were Bibles for every language and every sect, covered in carved mother-of-pearl. Leah considered this merchandise to be the one great treasure in the Old City souks. Stacked up like all the other wares and hawked and bargained over like so much cabbage, the Bibles, nonetheless, contained precious treasures between the carved mother-of-pearl covers.

  As Victoria looked on with benevolent patience, Leah purchased a Bible printed in the beautiful fluid script of Arabic. She bargained for it herself, without the assistance of Victoria, and when she asked Victoria’s opinion of how she had done, their lovely guide informed her that she had paid twice too much, but she would learn.

  Leah slipped the purchase into her pocket and determined that she would give it to Victoria as a thank you on another day—perhaps when Victoria was not thinking of the price Leah had paid.

  The beggars were everywhere, the spidery-legged children whom Victoria promised were actually well fed. Large, liquid brown eyes stared up at them. Hands reached out to these wealthy-looking European “tourists,” and all the while Victoria warned that Leah must not pay attention to them; must not give them anything.

  “Please, lady! Hey, lady! Something. Just a little change!”

  At last, Leah removed her newly purchased bible from her pocket and placed it into the hand of a ragged little boy whose right arm was just a stub protruding from his torn shirt. He looked up at her as if she were crazy. A Christian Bible? He could not eat it. He could not read it. The souks were overflowing with su
ch merchandise.

  Leah took his dirty face in her hands. His black eyes considered her with puzzlement. “It is the prettiest one,” she said, sorry now that she nothing else to give him. “You can sell it after you read it if you like.”

  “I cannot read, lady.”

  “Then sell it today, and remember the Word of God has fed you. I wish I had something else for you.”

  The boy’s face brightened. Yes, he would sell the Bible. Eventually someone would buy it from him, and he would earn in one moment what it took an entire day to make in begging.

  “Thank you, lady!” he cried as he ran off to join his sobered friends. Their looks at Leah betrayed their new conviction that maybe she was not so rich, after all.

  Victoria looked at her disapprovingly. “Why did you do that? His father probably sells Bibles in the souks.”

  Shimon squeezed her hand and winked with relief. He had been wanting to do something like that all morning long.

  “I will buy another Bible sometime and will not pay twice the price,” Leah said brightly. “And I will pray that he sells it for twice what I paid for it.”

  Victoria walked on. “Be careful. He might sell it back to you!”

  Leah knew she looked foolish in Victoria’s eyes, but it didn’t matter. The truth was evident within the walls of the Old City that poverty and want pervaded Jerusalem. This place, which drew the hearts and love of people from all nations, was also harsh and brutal to her own citizens. Even the faces of the children seemed old, hungry, and desperate.

  Leah studied the undulating human current and suddenly knew why Jesus had wept over Jerusalem. She watched the little beggar run up to an English soldier and hold up the Bible for sale. The soldier brushed the boy aside, and for a moment Leah thought she might weep as well. She silently prayed that one day she and Shimon might be able to offer these little ones bread in the name of the Lord, and that then the children might beg for the bread of God’s Word. She looked up into Shimon’s pained face. He felt it, too. They could not speak of it in front of Victoria, who seemed not to see, but Leah loved Shimon for the wordless depth of his compassion. Their souls and the desires of their hearts were one.

  She tugged on Shimon’s arm and he bent for her to whisper, “I love you.”

  He smiled and nodded as they pressed on after Victoria.

  “Now will we go to the Jewish Quarter?” Leah asked, her head spinning from the sights and smells of the Old City Christian Quarter.

  Victoria’s smile faded. “I cannot take you there. I am an Arab. A Muslim. The Christian Quarter is a sort of neutral ground for us these days. I can walk with you here. Show you the shops, greet the merchants. But a Muslim woman cannot go into the Jewish Quarter, and you will not be safe in my neighborhood at any time either.” She frowned. “Not in these times.”

  Shimon and Leah exchanged glances. They had just lost their guide, it seemed. And the rules of the Old City still seemed obscure to both of them. They had seen every Christian vegetable merchant and every shoemaker’s store with the help of Victoria’s mastery of Arabic. But now they were to be cut adrift in the land of beggars and unscrupulous merchants who expected that anyone sensible should know how to dicker over prices. The unwary, on the other hand, deserved to be cheated.

  “Well, then.” Leah extended her hand in farewell. “Does this mean I cannot invite you home for tea?”

  “It means I will take you to Christ Church, and Reverend Robbins will guide you the rest of the journey home.” Her eyes were apologetic. “And I will meet you for tea sometime outside these walls. Perhaps at the King David.”

  “Tomorrow, if you like.” Leah tried to press a coin into her hand. “When I fetch my cello? Four o’clock?”

  Victoria recoiled from the attempted payment. The concert last night had been payment enough and then some. “A cup of tea with you would be an honor. But tomorrow is Friday—our day of worship. Next Tuesday, perhaps?” The young woman looked momentarily distant and thoughtful. “I spoke with Reverend Robbins about you last night. You are expected.”

  Leah sensed that she had somehow insulted Victoria in a way she could not understand. Victoria’s warm personality cooled noticeably as she cut across Omar Square and led the way down the Armenian Patriarchate Road toward Christ Church. Her conversation was less than friendly, almost terse.

  She entered the iron gates of Christ Church like one who had been there before. Greeting the British pastor with a proper, yet preoccupied hello, she did not meet his gaze when she introduced her charges and passed them into his care. And when conversation turned to the concert of the night before, Victoria slipped away without another word.

  19

  Strangers in Paradise

  There were beggars here, too, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. But the beggars were not children. Here and there, old men sat shaded by an alcove as they put their cups out in hope of reward from Leah and Shimon. “A blessing for a coin,” called one feeble old man from his street corner.

  Children ran everywhere, playing in the lanes. Yarmulkes perched atop shaved heads, and earlocks bobbed as they called out to one another in Yiddish. These children had shoes, at least.

  Leah craned her neck up to the arch of the Great Hurva Synagogue. Although the residences of the Jewish Quarter were mostly poor and shabby, the synagogues were mighty reflections of the synagogues of Europe. The cupola of this temple had been donated by the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. Two blocks beyond, an entire complex had been built with money donated by the Jewish citizens of Warsaw. Indeed, Leah thought as she laid eyes on her new neighborhood for the first time, the faces that peered out at them from the shops and houses were faces she had seen a thousand times before. In Vienna. In Prague. In Warsaw. Some fragment of the broken Jewish homeland had always remained here in Jerusalem in the shadow of the Western Wall.

  The lack of even the barest luxuries within the tiny shoe box apartments did not seem to be a matter of personal concern. As long as their houses of worship reflected the glory of God and Zion, then what did it matter if water must be fetched from a cistern? Who was concerned if the toilets were down the stairs and to the right behind the building? Tenacious poverty was a way of life.

  Knowledge of the Torah was the only wealth here. The young faces of children and the ancient faces of the learned rabbis who taught them . . . this beauty Leah saw as they entered the Quarter.

  Most streets were unpaved. Squealing with delight, ten young boys dashed through the puddles, then stopped to stare at Shimon and Leah as they trailed after the resolute Reverend Robbins. Dressed in their New York clothing, the couple looked as if they had dropped in from another century.

  Childish whispers followed them. Their high, urgent voices found Leah’s ears and made her smile at the excitement their arrival seemed to be causing. Wide Orthodox eyes followed their progress down the street toward Tipat Chalev, and then the tide of children turned to follow after at a safe distance. There had been rumors that the great-nephew of the recently deceased Idela Feldstein would be coming to claim his inheritance—such as it was. Perhaps he would sublet the flat and then leave. The thought was intriguing. Two members of the black-coated coterie peeled off to find their mothers.

  “They do not look like us.”

  “Are they goyim, you think? Maybe Mrs. Feldstein’s great-nephew from Europe is one of them! Oy! You think they’ll stay here?”

  “Mama says people in Europe do not even keep a kosher kitchen, let alone believe in the Eternal! Look at the big man. A goy, surely. He does not even have a beard!”

  At this, Shimon self-consciously put a hand to his cheek. He wished he had not shaved. Leah eyed him in mock dismay. He would have to grow it back, and she liked his kisses so much better without the whiskers.

  Two mothers, guided by the hands of their determined children, emerged from a side street. Heads were covered in scarves. Their dresses were as plain and drab as the coats of their tiny future rabbis. Shimon tugged his slee
ve in a signal that none of the clothes Elisa and Leah had purchased at Macy’s were made for the streets of the Jewish Quarter.

  “We might as well leave our bags at the King David,” Leah said quietly to Shimon as she smiled and nodded back at the unsmiling eyes and suspicious faces that studied her openly.

  “Shiksa,” hissed one woman to another. “Shaygets.”

  “If Idela Feldstein were alive to see this, it would kill her!”

  “A goy for a great-nephew! Oy gevalt!”

  “Such nerve. They bring their priest with them.”

  “Maybe they will sublet Idela’s flat, nu? Poor Hayim and Judith are living with her parents. Maybe these goyim relations of Idela Feldstein’s will sublet the flat to them, nu? Go get the rabbi. He can ask them. They probably do not even speak mama-loshen, the mother tongue.”

  Reverend Robbins turned one last corner and then stopped before a white house that stood like an upturned rectangle listing slightly to the left. He smiled good-naturedly. “This is it.”

  The Orthodox chorus stood a few yards away, waiting for the reaction of these Jews who were not Jewish at all. Leah drew in a deep breath. Rickety stairs led up from a mud puddle to a door covered with peeling white paint. Two windows looked down on the unpaved lane, where the crowd grew by the minute. There were bars on the windows, giving the stark little place the feeling of a jail—a very small and impoverished jail, at that.