by Alan Gold
Bilal’s eyes widened in shocked relief when he saw Yael in the room. But he said nothing until he was seated and the guard had retreated to the corner.
“Hello, Bilal,” Yael said in English, her eyes flicking over to the guard to scan for a reaction. He looked from her to Bilal and back and she took this as a sign that he likely spoke English; most Israelis did. She then switched to Arabic.
“Are you well?” Again she looked to the guard, who wrinkled his nose and lost interest, staring at his feet. Reasonably confident the guard didn’t speak Arabic and wouldn’t understand what they were saying, she pressed on. “Bilal, I’ve met your friend. Hassan.”
Bilal took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Is he okay?”
“I think so,” said Yael. “I . . . I don’t know for sure. He ran away. He told me you’re afraid that someone was trying to hurt you.”
“Please, Doctor . . .” Bilal’s voice was firm and low but his eyes were desperate. “They are coming for me.”
“Who is?” she asked, although she knew the answer. She found herself wanting confirmation rather than an answer.
“Men in here want me dead for being a traitor. But I don’t fear them. It’s the man with the white hair . . .”
“Has he been to see you?” asked Yael.
“He tried to kill me. Right here in this room.” Bilal’s voice was flat. Calm. Almost resigned.
“Why do you think this is happening to you?”
With nothing left to hide and no doubt now that his life was close to ending, it was time to speak. In hushed tones he told Yael about the attempt on his life by the prisoner Ibrahim just after the imam had visited; about the visit from the man from Shin Bet—the skunk—and the hypodermic needle. And finally he told Yael about driving the imam to the meeting, about Spitzer and the old religious Jew.
It was this final confirmation that seemed to put the entire thing together for Yael. All the pieces had been inchoate until Bilal spoke of the rabbi. What Yaniv had told her about the Neturei Karta and Spitzer, the confrontation with Hassan, the imam in the hospital. All the pieces refused to align until this one last scrap of information. And over it all were the remarkable strands of shimmering DNA that connected her with this young man.
“I want to help you, Bilal. But I don’t know how,” said Yael. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I want to, but it doesn’t matter what I believe.”
“But that bastard Ibrahim, he tried to kill me in here. I broke his arm. The Shin Bet man tried to kill me. A miracle stopped him. They won’t just kill me, they will kill my family!” he said.
As emotion caused him to raise his voice, the guard looked up and eyed them suspiciously.
“It’s fine,” Yael said to the guard with a forced smile. “He thinks I’m trying to steal his organs.”
The guard snorted and went back to the magazine he was reading. Yael turned back to Bilal.
“I know you’re scared. And I believe you. If what you saw is true, then . . .” Yael didn’t really know what would happen if it was true. Instead she said, “But there’s no proof. There’s no way to prove what you say. He can explain meeting the imam—just part of his job; he could probably even explain away meeting him with the old rabbi—”
“I know what I saw. I was his driver. I was there. I know what I saw.”
“But we can’t just take your word for it, Bilal.”
Suddenly his face went dark, his eyes narrowed as if he were trying to focus on a faint memory. “My phone!”
“Your phone? What phone?” asked Yael.
“That night. The camera on my phone. Hassan stole it from a Jew in the market and gave it to me. I used the camera on my phone. It was new and I was playing around with it. On my phone . . .”
“Where is your phone? What happened to it?” asked Yael, an urgency rising in her throat that she quickly swallowed back in case the guard noticed.
“I don’t know. After the bomb, I woke up in the hospital. My stomach hurt. My leg hurt . . . my clothes . . . I don’t know.”
Yael’s mind raced back to that fateful day. She remembered Bilal in triage, remembered surveying his wounds, his closed hand, the fragments of rock that she had taken from his fingers. His clothes were cut from his body, soaked in blood. His cheap plastic bracelet, his shoes, his . . .
“The hospital!” said Yael suddenly. “Your phone. Your possessions and clothes. They’re always put into a secure bag in the hospital. It’s standard security. After a certain amount of time, they’ll be sent to your parents. Your phone might still be in the hospital.”
Bilal took a sharp intake of breath and Yael thought for a second he might smile.
She reached across the desk and grabbed his hand, holding it firm.
“No touching!” shouted the guard. She thought he was reading his magazine. She withdrew her hand.
“Bilal, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you.”
He nodded. Solemnly. As if he wanted to believe her.
“You stay alive, okay?”
He nodded again.
She’d felt the warmth of his body through his hand. The sweat and texture of his skin. The pulse of blood. Blood they shared.
“My parents . . .” Bilal paused as if unable to say the rest. “Please go to them . . . tell them . . . Tell them I’m sorry . . .”
* * *
YAEL WAITED UNTIL SHE was safely away from the prison and heading back to the city. Yaniv had warned her not to drive her car but to take public transportation. But she had ignored this suggestion. With one hand on the wheel and the other on a cheap phone she’d bought in a suburban phone store with a pay-as-you-use SIM card, she dialed his number.
“It’s me,” Yael said.
“Have you left?”
“Yes. I’m heading back to Jerusalem. I think I have something.”
“Did you get a new phone?”
“Yes,” she replied. So had he. “Bilal said that the night he was there when he saw the three men, he had a smartphone that had been stolen in Jerusalem. Anyway, he said he was fooling around with the phone’s camera and that he may have a video of the three men together. He can’t remember, but he was pretty excited.”
“Where’s the phone now?”
“I think it might be at the hospital.”
“I doubt it,” said Yaniv. “Shin Bet would have taken it for examination.”
“Maybe. But I can have a look. It’s on my way, regardless.”
“On your way to where?” asked Yaniv, concern rising in his voice.
“He’s terrified, Yaniv. I don’t think he’s going to last much longer in there.”
“You can’t stop that, Yael. He’s not your problem. I’ll find a way to break the story, but it won’t save him. He’s history, I’m afraid.”
“And that’s why I have to—”
“Have to what?” demanded Yaniv.
“I have to see Bilal’s parents.”
“Are you out of your mind?” he shouted in exasperation.
“I have to.”
“Yael, for God’s sake, you—”
“I owe them, Yaniv! They don’t deserve what’s happened to their son. One of their kids is already in prison; now their other son has been locked up. Bilal isn’t the source of the problem . . . I have to tell the parents.”
“But the phone . . . it’s more important than—”
Yael didn’t wait for an answer and quickly turned off the phone.
* * *
ON THE DRIVE FROM THE prison, Yael felt a sense of guilt that she wasn’t going back to the hospital to look for Bilal’s phone. But her mind was set on the image of Bilal’s grieving parents and the bloodline she knew they shared.
An hour later she was again sitting in Bilal’s family home in the village of Bayt al Gizah. Across from her were Fuad and Maryam. It was the first time Yael had seen the mother and father together for more than a few
moments. Maryam’s face was streaked with tears but her composure was solemn, quiet, restrained.
“I know this is hard for you to hear. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of such awful news,” said Yael.
“You say people want to kill my son? The other prisoners want to kill my son?”
“I think they have been ordered to. I think Bilal knows something that is putting him in great danger.”
Fuad shook his head. “My son has gone mad, Doctor. He is talking crazy. He needs some pills for his mind.”
“No, Fuad. He’s not crazy. He’s scared but he’s not crazy.”
Yael couldn’t tell them about Eliahu Spitzer or the Neturei Karta rabbi, but she could ask about somebody they knew. She carefully softened her voice and said, “How well do you know your imam here in the village?”
Fuad shrugged. “He is new. He’s not been here more than a year. The young men, they flock to him. But . . .”
“But what?” she asked.
“I say nothing more. To me, I don’t like what he has to say. I don’t go no more to mosque to pray. Not in a long time. Why do you ask this?”
“A young man was sent to kill me,” said Yael, trying to sound matter-of-fact to remove the anger in her voice.
Maryam clapped her hand over her mouth in shock, and Fuad eyed Yael incredulously.
Yael told the couple about Hassan, that he had been ordered by the imam to kill her, the same man of God who also wanted Bilal dead for betraying them.
Fuad and Maryam sat in silence as Yael told her story.
Then Fuad said softly, “You must go to the police. You must have him arrested.”
“I can’t. Hassan won’t testify, and aside from him I have nothing. The imam will laugh it off, as if I’m the one who’s nuts. I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want to tell you these things. I was afraid.”
“Why did you come here, Doctor? If what you say is true, why did you take such a risk?” asked Fuad.
Yael bit her lip before replying. “Bilal asked me to. He wanted me to tell you that he was sorry.” The final word broke Maryam’s composure and tears fell unabated from her eyes. Fuad drew in a long, deep breath through his nose and exhaled as if breathing out smoke from a cigarette.
“I don’t know what I can do. But we need to make sure that the imam doesn’t know that we suspect him.”
Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, Maryam interjected. “Why?”
Fuad looked at his wife in shock. His wife never interrupted when her husband was in the room.
“Because the imam—” began Yael, but Maryam cut her off.
“No. Why are you doing this for Bilal? You are a Jew. He is a Muslim who killed a Jew. Why are you helping Bilal . . . helping us?”
The question was direct and sharp and Yael had no answer. The best she could stammer was “I’m a doctor.”
But Maryam shook her head. She became vehement. “No, Doctor. Other doctors would not have lied to keep him in the hospital so my husband and I could see him. And no Jewish doctor would have come here to try to save his life and warn us of these things. Why do you do this?”
“Enough!” said Fuad angrily. “Leave, Maryam.” He offered no explanation and Maryam asked for none. She simply stood and left the room.
Part of Yael was angered by Fuad’s dismissive rudeness and arrogance, but the rest of her was relieved that she didn’t have to answer the question. And as Fuad turned back to face her, she wondered if he, too, wanted an answer. But instead Fuad looked Yael squarely in the eyes and spoke in hushed tones.
“I lost my son. He was lost from me years ago. He wanted more than I could offer. He wanted a reason we live like this. This imam . . . he gave the reason. Now there is nothing for him here. I tried but . . .” Fuad’s words trailed off. Yael felt as if she should say something but didn’t.
“Guns. Bombs. He thinks there are answers in these things. But there is only blood—first one son, now another.” Tears welled in the old man’s eyes, and he did nothing to stop them from falling down his face.
* * *
YAEL DROVE SLOWLY along the road away from Fuad’s house. The image of the weeping father scorched her mind. She turned right to ascend the hill that led to the major road skirting the hills of Jerusalem and taking her back into the northern parts of the city. But to her surprise, as she passed a lane that ran close to the rear of Bilal’s home, a woman dressed in Arab clothes with a hijab pulled down low and hiding much of her face suddenly jumped out into the path of her car. Yael braked sharply, but before she could recover from the shock, the woman came around to the passenger’s side, opened the door, and climbed in. “Drive. Quickly,” she said.
Yael didn’t have time to answer before the woman took off her hijab. It was Maryam. “Please, good Doctor, drive before I’m seen in here.”
“Maryam, what’s this about?”
“Drive. I beg you. Away from eyes that look out of windows.”
So Yael drove toward the main road, but before she reached it, she turned left into a side street and parked the car.
“Is this all right?” she asked Maryam.
The Arab woman nodded but pulled the hijab over her head and around most of her face so that she would be unrecognizable.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing?” asked Yael.
“There are things I can’t say in front of my husband. Things that my mother told me and for which I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
Maryam sighed long and hard. “You’re a good woman, Dr. Yael. You saved my Bilal and now, if it pleases Allah, you’ll save him again. I don’t know why you’re saving him, because he killed one of yours, but I open my heart to you and place it in your hands.”
Yael said softly, “Things your mother told you? I’m confused.”
“She told me what her mother told her, and her mother before her . . . and her mother before that. I don’t know when it was. I don’t know where it was. I’m not an educated woman. I have little schooling. I have a letter written by a woman who I think is my great-great-great-grandmother. I don’t know for sure. I don’t understand. I can’t read it. It’s a letter,” said Maryam.
“Can I see this letter? Perhaps I can get it translated for you.”
Maryam hesitated. “Dr. Yael, for a hundred years or more, the women of my family have kept this letter from all eyes. When we are given this letter, on the day of our wedding, our mothers tell us a story and swear us to secrecy.”
Yael had no idea what this was about, but the gravity in Maryam’s voice told her that it was a crucial moment in her life and if Yael were to pressure her, the woman would run from the car like a frightened fawn. So she remained silent and smiled at Maryam reassuringly, reaching over and touching her shoulder.
“My mother told me this story on the day I married Fuad. I break the vow of silence, and I tell you because my Bilal, who has been led astray and done terrible things, I will never ever see again. My Bilal . . .” She began to sob. Yael reached over, pulled Maryam gently toward her, and hugged her while she sobbed. Maryam did not pull away and the two women sat silently for a brief but eternal moment.
“I’m sorry, but when you told my Fuad about why you came to see us, I realized that, for the first time in a hundred years, our great family shame must be made known. It is the only way that I might save him.”
Yael wanted to ask a thousand questions, but her understanding of what was motivating Maryam forced her to remain silent.
“He is in that prison because he is a Palestinian, isn’t he? If he were a Jew, he would be in a better prison, wouldn’t he?”
Yael remained silent.
“If I told you that he wasn’t Palestinian, he wasn’t Arab, he would be released?”
Of course Bilal would not be released. Jewish or Muslim, he was still a murderer. But such thoughts were a thousand miles away. Maryam’s questions were rhetorical, driven by hope and ignorance. Yael continued her silen
ce.
“My Bilal is born a Jew. I am Jew. My mother was Jew. By blood. It is my great shame, Dr. Yael. It is my great secret.”
Too stunned to say anything, Yael watched Maryam take a letter out of her pocket, thrust it at her, open the car door, and run down the hill. Watching her disappear, Yael was too stunned to move or even breathe.
When Maryam was no longer in view and had disappeared into the lanes that took her back to her house, Yael sufficiently recovered from the shock to take the ancient letter from its yellowed and creased envelope. It reminded her of taking the precious stone out of Bilal’s hand and holding it as though it were divine.
Carefully she opened the folds of the letter. The once-white pages were tinged with brown from age, but the writing in black ink, although faded, was still clearly visible.
Her heart was pounding as she looked at the lettering. It wasn’t Arabic; it was written in the Latin alphabet. And German. But it also had overtones of Yiddish. Yael read the first few lines, and tried hard to remember either the German she’d heard from her father’s mother or the Yiddish her bubbeh had spoken when she didn’t want Yael or her brother to know what she was saying. And she especially remembered her grandmother, an elegant and sophisticated Russian lady, who would never use bad language in English yet would swear like a trooper in Yiddish.
Yael read first the Germanic Yiddish:
Um meine liebste Tochter,
Ich schreibe diesen leter Ihnen in der Hoffnung dass . . .
Quickly, she translated the German into her own language of Ivrit, modern Hebrew. She would read and translate the rest of the letter when she was safely at home: