Bloodline (24 page)

Some of the community rode out of Babylon on wagons, some on horses, some on donkeys and asses and mules, but most walked. Fathers carried young children on their weary shoulders; mothers hefted heavy sacks full of whatever possessions they could carry. Most of those who had decided to leave Babylon
were exultant to be returning to the land that they remembered from stories told to them by their parents and grandparents, or from the sermons they heard in the synagogues; yet others, despite wearing a broad smile on their faces, were wary of the difficulties that lay ahead, both on the road and when they reached the ruined city of Jerusalem.

It was the tenth day since the gates of Babylon had opened and the Jews had walked slowly, majestically, out of the city as a free people, their heads held high, westward as the sun rose behind their backs in the eastern sky. Merchants had trodden this road many times on their way to trade in Damascus, but few of their families—indeed, few of the Jews who had lived in Babylon for two generations—had been this far from the city.

The noise of the cheering for their freedom was still ringing in high priest Joshua's ears, ten days' walk westward from Babylon. Those who were intent on leaving Babylon had packed their few possessions and trudged behind him and the other religious leaders. More than fifty thousand Jews decided to return to Jerusalem, but twice that number determined to remain in Babylon, fearing that the one hundred days of traveling were too much for them to undertake, knowing that there would only be fifteen days on which they could rest for the holy Sabbath. And when they arrived in Israel, there would be no relief from exhaustion, as they would immediately have to rebuild the derelict cities and the devastated land.

The road to Damascus was pitted in places, and wagons found it difficult to negotiate the dips and ruts and surface erosion. Where the people traveled through a valley, the path was often well marked; but when they had to climb over a hill that had been more exposed to rain and wind, and where large boulders had fought their way to the surface, the going was slower and more tortured.

The high priest, Joshua, wasn't surprised but was horribly disappointed that only a third of the Jews of Babylon had opted
to return to Israel. But he had great pleasure in welcoming as a fellow traveler one of the richest Hebrews in Babylon, Reuven the merchant. Although neither man was particularly aware of it, the stories that were his family's history told of Reuven's ancestor Gamaliel as a close friend and associate of Joshua's ancestor Ahimaaz.

Reuven's wife, Naomi, was pregnant, and the sudden and unexpected status of fatherhood changed him. He and Naomi had been trying for years to have a son, but the Almighty hadn't favored them. And then, just when Cyrus began his siege of the city of Babylon, Naomi announced that she was with child.

The moment Cyrus freed the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, Reuven announced that he and Naomi would travel to Israel and establish a branch of his business enterprise in Jerusalem, its capital.

For Joshua, it was a coup to have such an important man making the journey. Most of the wealthy, established Jews hadn't wanted to leave their homes and businesses and the comforts found in Babylon to go to a desolate, overgrown, parched, and infertile landscape. Reuven's decision had influenced only a few of the wealthy members of the Hebrew community to leave Babylon, and so a diminished number of Jews traveled west to Damascus and then south toward Jerusalem.

Riding on a wooden wagon, Joshua said to Reuven, “It's going to be much harder to rebuild the land with so few people, but our journey is supervised by the Almighty One and so we will be safe.”

Reuven looked at him in amazement. “Tell me, Rabbi Joshua, do Jews ever die?”

“Of course.”

“But why, if Adonai is our God and He protects us, shouldn't we live forever?”

“Reuven, don't be silly. You know that God . . .”

The merchant laughed as the rabbi tried to argue, and said,
“You're as much of a fool as is this god of ours. You have a big task ahead of you, Joshua. Not only clearing a devastated land and rebuilding a city, but establishing farms, growing food, setting up trading links for merchants who have little connection with Israel . . .”

“Life will be hard for us all—even for you, Reuven.”

The merchant laughed again. “Some of us only know how to make a bed from straw. But others, like me, know how to make our beds from the down of birds. Trust me, Joshua, my wife and I won't suffer hardships.”

“But how?”

“You don't think that I would have turned my back on everything I've built during my lifetime? I have good people working for me in my businesses in Babylon. I will develop trading routes into Israel from Damascus, Tyre, and even as far as India. I intend to establish a series of caravanserai throughout the country, and my caravans will bring precious merchandise from the east and return with what Israel can produce and sell. So where once, hundreds of years ago, the caravans used to visit Jerusalem, I will reestablish that trade. It will take two or three years, but it will happen.”

“With God's will,” said Joshua.

“No, with my money and brains,” Reuven said sharply.

O
NCE
B
ILAL HAD BEEN RETURNED
to his cell, the imam was led to the general population area of the prison by a scrawny and impassive guard. The two men walked along stinking corridors and through guarded doorways until they reached the inner exercise yard, surrounded by ten-meter-high walls and guard towers every twenty yards.

In the exercise yard, there were hundreds of prisoners, most of them Palestinians, many of them terrorists, as well as Arabs from other nations who had committed crimes while they were in Israel, such as burglary, crimes of violence, and offenses against the state. The moment the imam entered the large area, people milling around or playing basketball or other games stopped almost immediately and began to gravitate toward him. Few knew him but almost everybody smiled at the preacher as they gathered in a large circle around him, hoping that he'd come there to pray with and for them and to offer them solace.

He smiled at the crowd and said to the Israeli guard, “Out of courtesy to our faith, I ask you to leave me while I pray with my brothers.”

The guard turned and walked back through the door into the corridor. The imam looked at the prisoners, and said loudly, “
As-salamu alaykum.
”

Almost as one, they responded, but some, more formally, replied, “
Wa alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatuh.
”

The imam held up his hands and said a blessing over all the prisoners. They responded to him and waited for a lesson from the Koran, but none came. Instead, the imam said softly, knowing that he was being viewed with suspicion by the guards, “Are any of you brothers living in the K wing?”

He noticed that two of the men nodded, although they looked surprised and were immediately suspicious. “Let me speak privately with you. For the sake of the Jews, let it look as though I am giving you a private blessing. Other brothers, I beg you to crowd around so that I can speak to these two brothers privately and not be observed too keenly.”

The crowd milled around the imam and the two residents of K wing. He put his arms around their shoulders and spoke quietly to them both as though he were praying silently for their souls.

“Your name, brother?” he asked.

One man said he was Mahfuz. The other told him he was called Ibrahim.

“Have you met a young man whose name is Bilal? He came here from the hospital. He was the boy who—”

“He tried to blow up the Jew temple,” said Ibrahim. “Yes, I've seen him. He stays in his cell most of the time. He seems as though the sky has fallen on his head. Why?”

“I'm worried about him,” said the imam. “He is a dear boy, and he was once a good Muslim. I pray for him every night, I beg Allah to look after him and protect him, but I think that the underhanded Jews have offered him . . . no, I don't know, it's not fair of me to say . . . it's not his fault . . . but since he's been here, he's changed. He talks to them of things, and he won't tell me of what he speaks. Would you brothers take care of him?”

B
ILAL NOTICED
the change of attitude among the other prisoners during the first exercise period the following day. His guard checked on him through the peephole in the door, opened it, and walked inside. Sitting on his bed, Bilal looked up, stood, and walked beside his guard in silence along the corridors until they came to the large dining hall where prisoners were already seated at bare steel tables, gulping down bowls of oats, pita bread, and lentils. Although he was allowed to eat with the other prisoners, he was always carefully scrutinized by the guards.

Bilal stood in line for his food, and when it was his turn to be served by one of the trusty prisoners, the food was slopped onto his plate; then, checking that the guard wasn't watching, the trusty spat into the food. Revolted, Bilal began to object, but the prisoner standing beside him turned and hissed, “Shut your fucking mouth or you're dead. Go eat your shit and I hope you choke.”

In surprise and shock, unsure what to do, Bilal walked from the food table to find a seat beside other prisoners who he was beginning to recognize. But the moment he sat down, the others looked at one another and shifted away from him, further isolating him.

The guard noticed and came over to speak to Bilal. “What's wrong here?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Bilal.

The guard carefully scanned the prisoners, who averted their eyes.

“If there's any trouble here, even the slightest, I'll have you all in the punishment cell before you can blink. Got that?”

The others at the table shrugged, but the guard stood close beside Bilal. It was something well noticed by all of the prisoners in the room.

When the guard had departed, Bilal whispered to the nearest inmate across the table, “Why are you treating me like this? What have I done?”

The tension in his voice was palpable, but it didn't impress the others at the table. “You piece of shit. We heard about you singing to the Jews.” It was the only reply, and the inmate stood and went to sit elsewhere, soon joined by the others, leaving Bilal alone at the table.

Bilal's mind devolved into a panic. How could he convince people that he wasn't saying anything? Why didn't they believe him? Why didn't his imam believe him? Had his imam said something to these other prisoners? He started to shake but fought to control himself, and found a kernel of courage as his hand gripped the table.

He turned to the next table and said, “You just remember who I am and what I did to the Jews. Anybody who comes near me gets his throat torn out. Understand?”

The Israeli guard turned when he heard the commotion and quickly walked back to the table. “I already spoke to you all. What's going on?”

Another prisoner, eating his oats, said softly, “He doesn't like the food . . .”

I
T TOOK LESS THAN AN
hour for the guard's concerns to be transmitted to the governor of the prison. Many years' experience foretold what the next steps might be. The prisoner Bilal had to be protected until Shin Bet had finished with him and drawn from him everything he knew. He'd read the initial report about the boy: they considered him a dumb, talentless kid who'd probably been led astray by some local firebrand. They'd get around to interviewing him within a week or so, certainly long before his trial, but he'd have to wait his turn. Despite the potential of the atrocity he could have committed, he'd done nothing except cause annoyance, and he was way down on the list of terrorists who needed to be interviewed. But it was a delay that made the governor worry.

In a cell within K wing, two floors lower than where Bilal was incarcerated, Ibrahim lay on his bunk, waiting for the guards to turn out the lights in the corridor, which extinguished the light in his cell. The two other men with whom he shared the space were already snoring. But patience was one of the attributes that determined survival or death in the Israeli prison system, and in the seven years he had been there, Ibrahim had learned the art of patience.

Punished to residency in K wing for beating another prisoner into a permanent coma, Ibrahim had learned to live with the restrictions. While the other prisoners were allowed to mingle, watch the communal televisions at night, and enjoy limited interaction, Ibrahim shared his days with terrorists, failed suicide bombers, and those who had fired rockets into southern Israel or been caught by the Israel Defense Forces during incursions from Gaza. His only society was the two other prisoners with whom
he shared his cell, and the four hours a day—two in the morning and two in the afternoon—when he was allowed under guard into the exercise yard or the meal hall with the other prisoners.

As the lights went out, he listened to the muted noises of the prison suddenly erupt into a cacophony of catcalls, whistles, shouts, screams, guffaws, and obscenities. He heard men walking about in their cells, rattling their metal plates against iron doors or bars. When the glare of the light ended, the prison erupted into the raucous symphony of the night. It was the ideal time for him to continue fashioning the strip of metal he'd stolen from the prison workshop into a knife. It was a difficult process, but one he'd practiced many times growing up in his hometown of Nablus. People often thought that the dagger they were forming had to have a sharpened edge, but Ibrahim knew that was nonsense. The only thing it needed was a sharp point. Once he'd plunged the point into Bilal's chest, the entire knife would slip neatly between his ribs and into the kid's heart; then he'd twist it around a couple of times to ensure that the boy's organs were ripped apart, and that would be that. Or maybe he'd tear his stomach apart and let him die slowly and painfully as his guts spilled out onto the floor and his body drained of blood.