Wings of Refuge

by Lynn Austin

  Ben’s words faded in the background as the room pitched and reeled from the explosion. The last time Hannah had only imagined it. The last time it hadn’t been real. Jake had come home to her, he had held her, loved her.

  Please don’t let this be real. Please let this be a dream, a mistake. Jake will be all right, he’ll come home. . . .

  But as she listened to Ben’s cries of despair, Hannah knew that it was true.

  “Oh, God, no! Jake!”

  Hannah didn’t realize she had screamed aloud until the nursing staff rushed into the room, prepared to give her a sedative. She fought them off.

  “No, don’t—I don’t want anything, I have kids to take care of, I have to drive home,” she insisted. “Don’t give me anything. I’ll . . . I’ll be all right.”

  She couldn’t fall apart yet. She had to be strong for Ben. For Rachel. For Devorah and the children. Who would take care of everyone if she fell apart?

  Hannah unfastened one of Ben’s wrists so he could cling to her. They wept for Jake in each other’s arms.

  * * *

  Somehow, Hannah got home. She got through the day. And the next one, and the next. She thought only of the task at hand, not allowing the truth to find a resting place in her heart. Take care of the baby. Take care of Devorah, the children.

  The war ended a week later on October twenty-fourth as both sides settled back on the cease-fire lines. The reserves returned home. Daily life slowly resumed.

  At first Hannah couldn’t comprehend that Jake was really gone, even when she moved back to her own apartment, even after the official death notice arrived. When Jake comes home . . . she would find herself thinking a dozen times a day. Jake would like this or I must remember to tell fake . . . Mail still arrived with his name on it.

  Then one day his kit bag was delivered to the house by a female soldier. Hannah carried it to their bedroom and opened it. She took out his Torah, his prayer shawl, a partially finished letter he had started writing to her. It was dated the day he died. The only words he had written in his strong bold print were, Dear Hannah . . .

  “You didn’t finish it, Jake!” she cried aloud. “You didn’t finish our life together! We were just getting started! We were supposed to grow old, spoil our grandchildren. . . . Why didn’t you finish it?”

  The finality of her loss sank in. Jake was dead. Gone forever. Hannah wanted to wail and scream at God’s injustice, but she heard a soft hurt sound, like an abandoned kitten, and looked up to see Rachel standing in the doorway. Her daughter was looking to her for strength.

  “Come here, sweetie,” she said, opening her arms.

  “I miss Abba so much,” she wept. “I want him to come home.”

  “I know, sweetie, I know. But if Abba could talk to you right now, what do you think he would tell you to do?”

  “To . . . to trust in God’s unfailing love.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do, Rachel. That’s what we have to do.”

  Even as she said the words aloud, Hannah knew they were lies. She didn’t trust God anymore because He had betrayed her. How could a loving God take Jake away from them? How could a loving God allow a good man like Jake to die? A man who loved Him, trusted Him?

  Hannah awoke that night and found herself listening for the sound of Jake’s soft breathing beside her. The room was as silent as the grave. If she reached for him she wouldn’t find the comforting warmth of his body, only the cold chill of empty sheets. Hell must be just as silent, just as cold.

  Unable to endure it, Hannah climbed out of bed and wandered into Rachel’s room. She brushed the hair from her daughter’s face and found that it was still damp with tears. The blankets were rumpled from her restless sleep. As Hannah smoothed them and tucked them around her again, she noticed that Rachel’s fist was clenched, as if clutching something. She gently uncurled her daughter’s fingers and saw the tiny green mosaic stone.

  Hannah knew she could never tell her daughter that Jake had lied to her, that the God he believed in did cruel things that made no sense. There was no design, no pattern. For Rachel’s sake she would have to pretend it was all true, burying her doubt and her pain deep inside where no one could see them. It was much better for everyone if Hannah’s life was a lie instead of Jake’s.

  CHAPTER 14

  JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—1973

  Three months after the cease-fire, Ben arrived unannounced at Hannah’s office at the Archaeological Institute. She had avoided him since his release from the hospital, knowing that his devastating guilt would heal faster if he wasn’t forced to face her and be reminded of Jake. She also found it harder to hide her unending grief from Ben than from any other person. He knew her too well. He would see through her facade. She greeted his unexpected visit with strained laughter and a hug.

  “You named that poor baby Mordecai? What on earth were you thinking, Ben!”

  He didn’t return her smile. “It was my father’s name.”

  “Well, I know it was, but honestly, Benjamin! What a thing to do to a helpless child.”

  “You’re too thin,” he said.

  “You should talk! How much weight have you lost—twenty, thirty pounds? As the proud papa of six kids, you could afford a little paunch, you know. You’ve earned it.” He was much too serious. Hannah wondered if he was still on medication, if he had fully recovered from his shock.

  “You’d better tell me why you’re here,” she said when she failed to lift his gloom. She closed her door and they both sat down, Hannah’s desk a messy buffer between them.

  “Devorah insisted that I come and tell you in person,” he said after a long moment. He was unnaturally still. “I have accepted a new position with the Israeli government. I’ve joined the Agency.”

  “The agency? Which agency?” She racked her brain, trying to think of any agricultural agencies he might have mentioned in the past or that she might have read about in the news. She drew a blank.

  “I’m an undercover agent, Hannah.”

  She stared at him, fighting the urge to laugh out loud. She waited for his face to split into a grin, for him to tell her that it was all a joke. Ben, the father of six children—a spy? But his somber expression never changed.

  “Are you out of your mind?” She said it without thinking, then wanted to bite her tongue off when she remembered his stay in the psychiatric ward. “Why, Ben?”

  “To make sure we’re never caught by surprise like that again.”

  “But . . . but you’re a scientist, not a spy!”

  “The Agency approached me several years ago. They said that my role as an agricultural expert would gain me access to all kinds of places worldwide. It would be an ideal cover for gathering information and making contacts. I finally agreed.”

  She stared at him, trying to comprehend. “Is the work dangerous?” When he didn’t answer, she knew that it was. It was a long moment before she could speak. “Please don’t do this, Ben. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  He gazed at the top of her desk, his eyes unfocused. “You should have already lost me. I should have died along with the others.” When he finally looked up, his voice was as haunted and hollow as his eyes. “We had some of our newest recruits manning those fortifications along the Suez. They were children, fresh out of training. All the experienced troops had been allowed to go home on leave for the holidays. The Egyptians slaughtered them, Hannah. They rained down hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a matter of minutes! The kids in those trenches never stood a chance!” Ben paused when his voice broke. “Where was our intelligence? Why didn’t we know? How could they have amassed so many troops on two of our borders and we never knew they were planning to attack?”

  Hannah closed her eyes, remembering how Jake had asked the same question the night he left for the Golan Heights.

  “My son Itzak will be old enough for the army in a few years,” Ben said. “I need to make sure that something like this never happens again.”

  Hannah longed t
o plead with him, to convince him that it wasn’t his responsibility, to beg him to think about his family. But she knew that Devorah had probably said all of those things. She gazed at her cousin’s granite face and knew that she would be wasting her words. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” she said uselessly.

  Ben never moved a muscle. “Of course, Hannah.”

  JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—1976

  Hannah’s grief seemed endlessly deep, silently eating away at her, leaving her hollow inside. When she first awoke in the morning, a brief moment might pass in which she forgot that Jake was dead, but then she would remember that he was never coming home, and the slow daylong spiral into despair would begin. But even as sorrow silently wailed in her heart, Hannah kept going, maintaining the facade of normal life for Rachel’s sake. Like a wooden marionette with a painted smile, Hannah dutifully acted her part. Get through today, get through the night, get through another day.

  Rachel wanted to continue attending the synagogue, so Hannah fulfilled all of the rituals with her, performing her lines by rote. When Yom Kippur rolled around each year and the rabbi promised that “Those who trust in the Lord shall exchange strength for weariness,” she wanted to shout aloud that it was a lie, that God was a cruel tyrant. She and Rachel said prayers every morning, just as they had when Jake was alive: “How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.” But they were words—empty, meaningless words.

  Rachel clung to the tiny mosaic stone Jake had given her, trying to remember and believe that his death had meaning. Afraid Rachel would lose it, Hannah had it mounted in a jewelry setting and hung on a chain so she could wear it around her neck. For her daughter’s sake, she mouthed Jake’s words about God’s design, but Hannah wanted nothing to do with God’s purposes. Jake was dead. Even if He showed her how Jake’s death fit into His grand design, she would never agree that it was worth such a terrible price.

  As the third anniversary of Jake’s death rolled around, and Hannah stood with Rachel at his grave, she longed to simply lie down beside him and wait to die. She was nothing but a hollow shell. She had reached the end of her strength. With the puppet strings stretched tight and ready to snap, she knew that she couldn’t keep up the act much longer. But then Rachel looked up at her, her dark eyes trusting and hopeful.

  “Abba isn’t really in this grave, is he, Mama? He’s in paradise, resting in Abraham’s bosom.”

  “Yes, that’s right, sweetie.” Hannah knew she must keep dancing, keep performing for Rachel’s sake.

  * * *

  Hannah sat alone in her office eating lunch one day in late winter, staring at the gunmetal gray sky outside her window. It was always so cold when it rained in Jerusalem and so de-pressingly dreary. She could have eaten lunch with her colleagues in the faculty lounge, but she was avoiding them, avoiding the endless discussions of their summer dig plans, the boastful stories of last summer’s finds.

  At work she staggered through her classes because she needed the income to live, but Hannah lacked the energy or the will to dig in the summer, afraid that it would be a painful reminder of the summer that she and Jake had met. He had played such an important part in her work after they married; she had dug for him, not for her career or for personal glory. Her discoveries always excited Jake as they proved again and again the truth of the Scriptures. He had been the one who had encouraged her when the work grew hot and difficult. But all the joy had gone out of archaeology without Jake.

  She sighed and turned from the window to review her lecture notes. When someone knocked on the glass window of her office door, she looked up. Her department chairman, Jonas Zimmerman, opened the door a crack and stuck his head inside.

  “May I come in?”

  “Sure, Jonas. What’s up?” Hannah’s stiff puppet smile sprang into place as he leaned against her doorframe.

  “I just got off the phone with an old friend of mine in America. His university has raised enough funds to start digging at Tel Batash next summer. He’s looking for an Israeli colleague for a joint project. Are you interested?”

  “Nope. Sorry.” She quickly looked down at her notes again, as if too busy to entertain the idea. Her features carefully shifted into neutral.

  “Just like that?” Jonas said. “You won’t even take time to consider it?” She shook her head. He came inside her office, closed the door, and sank into the chair that faced her desk. “Hannah, don’t you think it’s time—”

  “Please, Jonas, don’t pressure me. I’m not ready to go back into the field yet.”

  “When will you be ready?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe when Rachel is older—she’s only eleven.”

  “And next year she’ll be ‘only twelve,’ then ‘only thirteen’. . .”

  Hannah heard the frustration in his voice and knew he would not remain patient with her much longer. She looked up, meeting his gaze, but said nothing.

  “Will you at least think about it . . . and let me know if you change your mind?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Jonas sighed and tossed a file folder onto Hannah’s desk. “In the meantime, I’m assigning you a student. He just finished his three years in the army and wants to study archaeology.”

  Hannah held up her hands in protest. “Listen, I’m not sure I have anything to give—”

  “No, Hannah, you listen.” He leaned toward her, his words controlled and deliberate. “You have to start carrying your share of the work load. We’ve all tried to be sympathetic to your circumstances these past three years and not lay too much on your shoulders, but we’re all overworked. You don’t dig, you don’t publish—the least you can do is advise a few students.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was too close to tears to say anything more.

  “I’m sorry, too, Hannah. Honestly I am. I thought the world of Jake.” Jonas leaned back again, his expression softening. “I’ve met this new student. He’s a bright kid. I told him he has an appointment with you today at two o’clock.”

  The frayed puppet strings strained as Hannah summoned the energy to perform another weary dance. “Of course, Jonas.”

  Shortly before her new student was due to arrive, Hannah set aside her lecture notes to read through his file. He was twenty-one, a sabra, or native-born Israeli from a town in northern Israel. He was quite intelligent, according to his transcript and all of his teachers, a thorough and diligent scholar. And he was also extremely popular with the opposite sex, according to a humorous postscript on one of his letters of reference.

  “Shalom, Dr. Rahov.” Hannah looked up from the file to find a very handsome young man standing in front of her with his hand extended. “Sorry I’m a little early. I’m Ari Bazak.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ari. I was just reading through your file. Please sit down.”

  Although he didn’t resemble Jake at all, he reminded Hannah of him with his striking classic features in a perfectly proportioned face. Ari’s hair and beard were darker than Jake’s, his eyes a deep chocolate brown, instead of green, but his height and build were nearly the same, and he carried himself with the same confident self-assurance. She had misjudged Jake about being a woman chaser, but she didn’t think she was misjudging Ari. It was easy to imagine swarms of girls fluttering around him.

  His broad smile drew a genuine one from her, and they began to talk. Young Ari was very personable and articulate. Hannah sensed a sharp if somewhat unformed intellect, waiting to be shaped and molded. But he seemed so young to her—a few years younger than Jake had been when they first met.

  Why was she comparing him to Jake? It unnerved her that she lacked the strength—or the will—to stop. As the interview lengthened, she found herself testing him, challenging Ari the way Jake’s fellow scientists had challenged him that long-ago summer in the Negev. She wanted to see if Ari displayed the same strength of character and integrity under fire that Jake had. She silently cheered when, like Jake, he held his ground without
rancor or retreat. Against her will, she felt a bond of simple friendship begin to form between herself and her new student.

  “What made you decide to study archaeology?” she asked at last.

  “A lot of factors, but visiting the dig at Masada clinched it for me. They took our commando unit there to be sworn in.”

  “Yes, Masada is a very impressive place.”

  He leaned toward her, his eyes intense. “But it wasn’t just the historical importance of that place—the fact that it was the last Jewish stronghold before the exile, and all of that. I was intrigued with the overall design, the finely tuned details of the place.”

  “For example . . .” she prompted.

  “The Roman mosaics,” he said fervently. “Such artistry! All those delicate shadings of color! I was amazed how each tiny, individual piece of the design had been carefully shaped and fitted together to form the bigger picture—” Ari halted when he saw Hannah’s face. “Dr. Rahov? What is it, what’s wrong?”

  “Excuse me—”

  Hannah barely made it to the ladies’ room down the hall before the last of the puppet strings finally snapped. She collapsed onto the floor, weeping, knowing she had danced her final performance. The good-looking young man who reminded her so much of Jake, who spoke like Jake but who was not Jake, had severed the cords neatly with his devastating words. She lay on the imitation mosaic floor—small white hexagons that were cold and featureless, not part of any pattern—and finally cried out to God.

  “How could you take him from me? How could you let Jake die? What kind of a God are you?”

  Jake was dead. God had cruelly snatched him from her. She had covered the gaping wound he’d left behind as if placing a rug over a ruined floor, cleverly dancing around it, ignoring it for three years. God alone was strong enough to heal her wound, but she had turned from Him in anger, instead of turning to Him for refuge. Now the act was over, the festering wound exposed by a handsome young student named Ari Bazak and his ghostlike echo of Jake’s last words.