by Alan Gold
‘I’ve heard of this Galen,’ the Procurator said softly. ‘Wasn’t he banished from Rome?’
‘Yes, Excellency, but only because of the jealousy of the other doctors who saw him undermining their faith in the curative powers of their gods. But when the Great Plague broke out in Rome, killing two thousand people a day, your emperor’s predecessor, Marcus Aurelius, summoned him back, and today he is the greatest physician after Hippocrates.’
‘So you have learned much from these men,’ said Gaius Lucius. ‘Now what do they suggest to cure me of this epi . . . whatever you call it.’
‘Epilepsia. We have to get your humours back into alignment. As I said, the normally cold black bile in your body is now hot, and the heat must be taken out of it. We do that by removing from your body some of the heat that is causing your black bile to become warm. This new and unaccustomed warmth causes an excess of saliva in your mouth and throat, and because there is a surfeit of it, the saliva heats, which is why it bubbles out of the mouth when you have a fit. And the fit itself is caused by black bile flooding the cavities in your brain. You lose consciousness after the fit, until the black bile slowly ebbs away and you recover.
‘So to drain some of the heat out of your body, we have to cool you by plunging your naked body into cold water, or drain some of the heat by bleeding you. I prefer bleeding. I do it by putting leeches onto your wrists and neck, or by making an incision in your leg and letting the blood drain out. I usually take a bottle full. You will need complete bed-rest for two or three days afterwards.’
‘And that’s all?’ said the Procurator. ‘The doctors in Rome prescribed wild mushrooms from caverns in the hills, and insisted that I put the flesh of a weasel onto my leg until it rotted and stank. I did as they suggested, and the stench caused me to lose some friends. But when I took it off, I had maggots in my skin where the meat had been, and a week afterwards I suffered an attack of the epi . . . whatever you call it. I had the doctors flogged for being liars and thieves.’
‘So, Excellency, do you want me to proceed with this treatment?’
‘Certainly,’ he said abruptly.
‘Then may I suggest that before we bleed you, we begin with a cold bath. I’d prefer to watch your signs and assess the success of cooling the body before I take blood away from you. Can you arrange a body of cold water?’
Abram already knew what the answer would be.
‘There are fountains downstairs. I don’t mind bathing with the fish. Is that suitable?’
‘Ah, but is the water cold? This is Alexandria, and the temperature might have heated the water.’
The Procurator smiled. ‘For the fish not to die from overheating in the little lake, I’ve created the fountains to keep the water cool. And I have a man whose job it is to feed the water regularly, day and night, from the deep wells beneath the city. This ensures that the water is always cool. But is it cool enough for me to reverse the heating of these humours?’
‘Oh yes, Procurator. Certainly. You go downstairs and bathe for as long as you can stand the cold temperature. Then when you can’t stand it any longer, continue to stay in for the same amount of time. It will not be pleasant, but the longer you can bear it, the more effective the treatment. Then, return here and I’ll examine your signs and, if necessary, I’ll bleed you. With your permission, I’ll remain here and look at the room to ensure that nothing here is causing your humours to be aroused.’
The Procurator walked out of his office, leaving Abram completely alone. His heart thumping, he walked cautiously around the huge room, looking at the tops of tables, of desks, on the arms of the chairs, on the floor, behind some wall hangings. He looked everywhere, and he knew that time was his enemy. He had no idea how long the Procurator would be downstairs in the atrium of the building.
And then he looked on the Procurator’s desk. Hidden under a pile of scrolls, pushed to the back of the surface, was a disc made of silver. He picked it up and saw that it had Egyptian hieroglyphics on it. He had no idea what they meant, but it fitted the description that Didia had given him two days earlier. Was it too easy? No, it must be the amulet. It was of momentary interest to the Procurator, so it was just another object on his desk in which he’d lost interest, but to Didia, it was the life and death of her beautiful son. And he doubted that the Procurator would miss it.
He prayed to Yahweh to forgive his theft, but to keep him safe until his son had been returned to him. He slipped the disc into his bag of instruments and concoctions, and waited for the return of the Procurator. He realised that his face was flushed and his heart pounding. A man of Gaius Lucius’s skill at judging people would immediately realise that he was looking at a man with guilt written all over his face. Abram dried his brow on his tunic, took deep breaths and forced himself to think about his beloved wife, Ruth.
By the time Gaius Lucius returned, wet, blue with cold, and looked anxiously at Abram, the Israelite doctor had calmed down. He smiled at the Procurator, and suddenly felt confident that he and his beloved Jonathan would live long enough to leave the city of Alexandria and return to the country of their birth.
Palestine
1947
Mustafa’s village appeared nestled in the fold of one of the hills as they rounded a bend in the track. It was a small village, and Mustafa told Shalman that it was called Ras Abu Yussuf. Shalman knew that he’d only journeyed about ten or twelve miles north-east of Jerusalem, yet from the looks of it, the village appeared hardly to have changed since medieval times.
‘Tell me about your village,’ said Shalman.
‘What’s to tell? It’s a village. My father’s father’s father was here and many more before that.’
They rode on until they reached the edge of the village. Shalman’s head was thumping mercilessly, and his eyes were seeing double. He prayed that he didn’t have some form of clot under his skull, putting pressure on his brain.
As they entered Ras Abu Yussuf, one, then three, and then a few dozen villagers came out of their houses to look at Mustafa leading Shalman astride his donkey. Shalman attempted a smile at the villagers, but they didn’t smile back. They just looked at him in silence, recognising from his clothes, features and the cut of his hair that he was either British or a Jew. Either way, he was unwelcome and Shalman felt the hostility rising in their gaze.
An ageing woman emerged from a modest home at the northern end of the main street, and stood in the front doorway. As Mustafa approached, leading the donkey, the woman called out loudly so that everybody could hear her disapproval, ‘Mustafa, who’s this man? Is he one of us? If not, why have you brought an enemy to your father’s door?’
Mustafa answered, equally loudly, ‘Mother, the man’s fallen and injured his head. I couldn’t leave him out there. The vultures were circling.’
The woman looked at Shalman suspiciously. ‘He’s not Arab. What is he? Jew? English? Are you so stupid that you bring this into our village, to our house?’
Shalman lifted his head, deciding he needed to try to explain himself, but the simple action left him with extreme vertigo. Shalman looked at the woman, who he assumed was Mustafa’s mother, and blinked because there were two of her standing side by side. Then three. Then . . .
Shalman fainted and pitched head-first off the donkey and into the dust.
For the second time in recent days, a blinding pain shot from his left to his right temple the moment he struggled to open his eyes. He closed his eyes again, but the pain stayed with him.
He tried to lift his head above the pillow, but his neck was too stiff. Then he tried to feel the rest of his body, moving his fingers, his toes, flexing his knees, lifting his arms above the blanket. When he’d finished, he realised that not only was he still alive, but that he was safe and secure, despite his nightmares about a flock of huge black vultures tearing his flesh with their beaks.
Shalman opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room. He didn’t recognise the furniture, the bedding, or the walls or
ceiling. He tried to glance out of the window, but the glare from the daylight hurt him too much.
Cautiously, he manoeuvred his body out of bed, and saw that he was wearing only his underpants. He stood on shaky legs and looked around for his clothes, but they were nowhere to be seen. Sliding his hands along the wall for support, he walked cautiously to the door. His legs were barely responsive, and he teetered like a ninety-year-old man.
When he opened the door, he saw that it certainly wasn’t a Jewish home. It had cushions against walls instead of chairs, and the table, made of some sort of dark wood, was still laden with food from a previous meal. In the corner, at a bare kitchen sink, stood a woman, dressed in traditional Arab clothes, her head covered in a scarf, her back to him. Desperately, he tried to place himself within this landscape and recall how he got here, but it was too foreign and he was on the verge of panic. Why couldn’t he remember?
The woman heard him enter the room, and turned. In Arabic, she said curtly, ‘So, you’re awake. Well, now you can get dressed and leave my house. Enough.’
His voice rasping, Shalman asked in Hebrew, ‘Who are you? Where am I? What’s happened?’
The woman put down the cabbage she was washing under the single tap, dried her hands on a towel, and walked over to him. But there was no warmth in her face, no empathy.
She continued to speak to him in Arabic. ‘My son found you nearly dead. Now you’re alive so it’s time to leave.’
Switching to his less than articulate Arabic, Shalman mumbled, ‘My head hurts.’
The woman turned away and went back to her work in the kitchen but continued to talk to the room. ‘I didn’t want you in my home, but Awad doesn’t allow you to be sent away. My husband has the mind of a goat. He insisted that we put you into our bed. Awad and I have been sleeping here,’ she said angrily, pointing towards the cushions on the floor. ‘Our mullah came to see you and he looked at your wound. I cleaned it, and you have a big bump on your head. But your skull isn’t broken. So now you can walk and you can leave and that will be that.’
Shalman waited for a pause in the woman’s monologue. ‘Might I have a drink of water? I’m very thirsty . . .’ And then aware that he was standing in his underwear he added, ‘ . . . and my clothes?’
She turned, and handed him a glass of water. ‘Your clothes are washed,’ she said. She wiped her hands, went outside and returned with them. ‘Now you get dressed and go. Before my husband returns.’
‘I’m sorry that you and your husband had to sleep elsewhere . . .’
He took the clothes and walked slowly and painfully back to the bedroom. He was desperate to wash and brush his teeth, but as he was struggling to put on his trousers, he suddenly felt faint again. The room spun, and he sat heavily on the bed.
He may have blacked out. He didn’t know. But a disturbance outside woke him. He had half put on his trousers and was lying sprawled out over the bed.
The door opened and Mustafa was standing there, beside an older diminutive man with a week’s growth of beard, who was obviously Mustafa’s father. They looked at him, said nothing, but turned, and the older man said to his wife, ‘You will not send him away, Rabiyah. The man can barely dress himself. What’s wrong with you, woman?’
Awad turned to Shalman and said softly, ‘You speak Arabic?’
‘A little,’ answered Shalman.
‘Then understand, until you are recovered, my home is your home . . . this is the way of my people.’ The man touched his hand to his heart. Then raising his voice so that his wife could clearly hear him in the next room, he added, ‘Our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said “feed with food the needy wretch, the orphan, and the prisoner”.’
Then he walked back out of the room.
Memory was returning. Shalman remembered Mustafa as the young man with the donkey who’d rescued him.
‘Which one am I?’ asked Shalman, putting his hand to his aching head once more.
‘Maybe all three,’ came Mustafa’s dry reply. ‘You feel like shit, don’t you?’
Shalman nodded, lightning flaring up behind his eyes and he lay back on the bed.
‘Do you remember anything?’
‘You’re Mustafa. You stopped me from being eaten alive by vultures. You have a donkey that stinks.’
Mustafa grinned. ‘I’ll have him washed next time I rescue a Jew from certain death.’
‘Your mother really doesn’t want me to stay here. I’ll dress and go. I need to get home to my wife and daughter.’
‘And how will you walk the ten miles to Jerusalem? You can’t even walk to the kitchen. Don’t worry about my mother. She’s not prejudiced; she hates the Jews and the British equally.’
This brought a smile to Shalman’s face despite the pain in his head.
‘There’s a car in the village that belongs to the headman,’ continued Mustafa. ‘I can drive it. When you’re feeling better, maybe in a couple of days, I’ll drive you back to the outskirts of Jerusalem. Until then, rest. Go out in the garden. It’ll do you good.’
‘How long have I been here, unconscious?’ Shalman asked weakly.
Mustafa shrugged. ‘Three days.’
And Shalman thought immediately of Judit and Vered, and how his wife must be worrying.
‘I have to get a message to my wife. She’ll be – ’
‘I’ve already sent her a note. I told her you’d banged your head and we were looking after you.’
Shalman frowned. ‘But how . . .’
‘Your wallet. It has your address. One of the men from our village was going to Jerusalem to buy from the market, and he took the message. Your wife insisted that she come to see you, take you back to Jerusalem, but my friend insisted that you couldn’t be moved and that you had to stay. Then she said she’d send a doctor, but he assured her that you were alright, except for needing to rest. Look, Shalman, everything’s alright. Just lie down, shut up and get better. Then we can get rid of you.’
An hour later, Shalman, his head still pounding, was dressed and sitting on a rough wooden seat in the garden of the house, feeling the sun on his face. Mustafa walked up and sat down beside him, holding in his hands a Lee-Enfield rifle. The weapon was aged and worn, poorly maintained and had taken more than a few bumps and scratches. It was also a British military standard issue.
‘The sun heals better than any medicine,’ Shalman said.
Mustafa worked the bolt action of the rifle with his hand, attempting to loosen a jam in the mechanism, and he swore under his breath.
‘Can I help?’ asked Shalman. He knew the rifle well, having stolen many of them. In fact, it was these types of rifles and pistols, stolen by Dov on the kibbutz, that had led to his father being taken away, never to return.
‘You know something about guns?’ asked Mustafa.
‘A little,’ said Shalman. ‘May I?’ He held out his hands for the rifle. Mustafa hesitated for a second but then quickly unclipped the magazine from beneath the barrel and disarmed the rifle before letting Shalman take it from his hands. His brief moment of uncertainty didn’t go unnoticed and Mustafa held Shalman’s gaze for a moment.
Shalman set to work on the rifle and quickly stripped the bolt-action out and dislodged the debris that was clogging it.
‘Where did you get a British rifle?’ asked Shalman, knowing full well the question was a loaded one.
‘How did you learn how to fix one?’ asked Mustafa.
The two young men looked at each other. But there was something in Mustafa’s face that demanded complete honesty from Shalman.
‘Fighting the British,’ he said.
Mustafa simply nodded, taking the rifle back from Shalman’s hands. ‘And what of Arabs?’
Shalman didn’t answer. Mustafa looked at the strange Jew for a moment and then shifted subjects.
‘There are many who fight the British. Not just here. Everywhere the British have gone. You have to wonder how many British weapons have shot bullets back at Britis
h soldiers over the years.’
Shalman smiled. ‘Many.’
‘Yes . . . They fight the British in India too. And in Africa. I hate the British. What right do they have to be on my land and tell me what to do?’
Shalman looked at Mustafa curiously. ‘And that’s how I feel. Funny you should talk about India. It looks as if the natives have beaten the British. A man called Gandhi. He’s led an entire nation in fighting the British . . . but he didn’t use guns or anything like that. He invented a method of fighting without violence, called peaceful non-cooperation. He got the people to just sit down in the streets and refuse to cooperate. And the British army just doesn’t know how to stop them.’
Mustafa stood and slung the rifle over his shoulder. ‘You Jews are killing the British to drive them out. Maybe if you just sat down in the streets, they’d leave sooner.’
Mustafa turned to leave. But Shalman caught his arm.
‘I never thanked you,’ said Shalman. ‘I want to thank you.’
Mustafa just shrugged again. He hesitated for a moment, and then asked, ‘When the British are gone, will you fight us?’
‘We don’t want to. But if we have to,’ replied Shalman.
‘Perhaps we should just lie down in the streets and refuse to move. How will your terrorists in the Irgun and your army, your Haganah, deal with millions of Arabs who won’t move?’ asked Mustafa. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He changed the topic. ‘What were you doing out there, anyway? In the hills. Alone.’
Shalman let out a small laugh. ‘I was looking for something.’
‘What?’
‘History . . .’ he said and Mustafa looked at him more closely, evidently concerned the blow to Shalman’s head may have affected his brain. ‘It’s a science called archaeology,’ added Shalman quickly. ‘Archaeology is when you study – ’
Mustafa cut him off. ‘I know what archaeology is.’
Shalman apologised. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’