In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (29 page)

Shani lifted his pen. “And you don’t know his name?” he said incredulously.

“Oh.” His cheeks heated up. “I told you, I didn’t know his exact name.
Arabs go by a few names, you know. But,” Isaac fumbled, “his first name is Mustafa.” Every Arab and his uncle knew a handful of Mustafas.

“You know, this Arab could cause even more trouble than the pomegranate.” Shani paused. “Mr. Markowitz, things would go a lot better for you if you told me how to get a hold of this fellow.”

He tried to sidetrack Shani. “Why go to all this trouble? Why bother with me?”

“We can’t endanger state security because of a few fanatics.” He pressed both hands onto the table and leveraged himself to his feet. “You’ll be going in to see a judge soon. Get yourself a lawyer.”

“But how could I possibly get a lawyer that fast?”

“A difficult thing,” Shani acknowledged, eyes empty of sympathy. “You better use one of the court-appointed lawyers. Get moving.”

But first Isaac had to be fingerprinted. A beefy-necked police officer sat him down, firmly took each finger and rolled it on an ink pad.

Isaac rooted around in the bag Shaindel Bracha had packed for something to clean his inky fingers, and he brushed past socks, tefillin, siddur, toothbrush, handwashing cup, hydrocortisone, but no towel. The officer handed him white paste and a cloth. “Try this.”

Isaac thanked him, touched by this small kindness. “What’s your name,” he asked.

The officer lifted a skeptical brow. “Gilad.”

Isaac asked where he could make a call.

Gilad pointed with a smirk.
A pay phone for you, Rabbi
. As if they were in a café or restaurant.

Isaac dialed the number that had been encoded in his fingertips these past few days.

“Isaac?” Tamar’s tremulous voice filled the receiver. “Is that really you?”

“It’s me.” So she’d heard the news already through Shaindel Bracha.

“I can’t believe you’ll be spending the night in jail,” she choked out.

Her concern was a balm to his soul. “Maybe even longer,” Isaac said.

“Where are you?”

“The Russian Compound.”

“How bad is the place?” Her voice now sounded a little distant, recovered
from the shock.

“
Nu
, I suppose it’s your average jail.” With a backward glance, he took in the cavernous building that had to be at least a hundred and fifty years old. He rubbed his inky fingers against the cloth. The paste helped only a little.

“Did they ask you about … Assaf?” she said.

“Yes. A few times.” He lowered his voice while throwing a furtive look over his shoulder. “But they’re not getting anything out of me.”

“What if they”—she hesitated—“hurt you?”

He swallowed. The thought had occurred to him. “What’s there to say? I don’t know anything. Not his last name or where he lives.” He said tightly, “I won’t let them hurt that man.”

“Are you going through a preliminary hearing?” she asked.

“Yes, probably before the end of the day.”

“Then why are you talking to me?” She sounded exasperated, and he could practically see her standing with her hand wedged on her hip. “Get a lawyer—now!”

This line of conversation depressed him. It wasn’t the reason he had contacted her first, before anyone else. “You know, I wanted to call you before, after our trip together, but I—”

“Forget it,” she said shortly, and he knew she hadn’t. He was a louse. Was it just a week since that day they’d stood on a hill in Yoffi HaGalil, their faces six inches apart? There on that grassy plain, though they never touched, he had, in effect, kissed her. But he couldn’t bring himself to even call. “Just watch your back,” Tamar signed off now.

“Mr. Markowitz,” Isaac heard Gilad say behind him. “Here’s your lawyer, Mr. Navone.” The officer’s arm extended dramatically as if introducing a game show contestant. Isaac glimpsed a tall youth in green khakis, carrying a briefcase.

Isaac stared dubiously at this skinny man-boy, pouchy-eyed as if recovering from last night’s party. So this was his court-appointed lawyer? Still, Mr. Navone—or Shuki, as he insisted on being called—struck Isaac as eager to do the job.

Half an hour later, they walked toward the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, a shabby-looking building a block from the Russian Compound.
“Remember,” Shuki said, “be quiet and only answer the questions you’re asked.”

Isaac spotted Itai Shani in the courtroom, standing near an electrified menorah, and Yossi, the “reporter” who was wearing a police uniform, his sandy sideburns looking out of place under the police cap. Isaac walked past and said, “Where’s your yarmulke, Yossi, or was that a prop, just like the journalist card?”

Yossi wiped his forehead and tried to smile. “We all have a job to do.”

“Some job,” he commented, and was taken to the witness podium.

The judge was all plump cheek and jowl. In his black robes, he looked both simple and magical, a clever magician hiding in the rotund body of a Jew from Poland.

Commander Shani said to the judge, “Mr. Markowitz presides over a cult of followers in the courtyard of a so-called kabbalist, who’s dead, by the way. The people who come aren’t what you would exactly call stable.”

Isaac shook his head. That all the seeking souls of the courtyard should be reduced to mere pathology. “I have a written statement,” Shani went on, “that this Mr. Markowitz received a so called antiquity from an Arab worker called Mustafa. This worker found it originally on the Temple Mount. Mr. Markowitz, after consulting with an archeologist, believes this artifact dates from the time of the First Temple. With this information he went to the press under my express orders not to.” Shani placed two papers before the judge who nimbly snatched them up into his plump palms.

The commander, speaking in a straightforward clipped manner, seemed plausible and trustworthy, even to Isaac.

“We have reason to believe Mr. Markowitz wants to endanger our fragile relationship with the Islamic authorities. He was told quite explicitly that for state security reasons he should not contact the press. He did not listen or accept our assessment, and chose to take matters into his own hand. There is no reason to believe he wouldn’t do so again. He obviously poses a danger to the government, to Israeli citizens, and to the investigation itself.”

“Shani entrapped me,” Isaac said in an undertone to Shuki. “He sent that bogus reporter”—he motioned with his head toward Yossi—“to trip me up.”

“Forget the reporter,” Shuki muttered back. “Where’s this Arab worker? How can I reach him?”

Isaac said quietly, “I can’t tell you.”

“Not good,” the lawyer shook his head, but there was nothing Isaac could do. The lawyer might feel duty-bound to inform the court, for “security” reasons.

Shuki faced the judge who stared at him with a bland expression. “My client, Isaac Markowitz, has no criminal record. He provides social services to the poor, the elderly, and disabled army veterans, working at minimal pay, helping these disadvantaged people. He worked as an assistant to the late Rebbe Yehudah Grodin. He poses no danger to the government whatsoever. There is no reason Mr. Markowitz can’t be placed under house arrest, to spare him the indignity of jail. Holding him at the Russian Compound serves no purpose other than to punish him for acts he never committed.”

Isaac nodded along. Shuki also sounded entirely reasonable, and by extension, himself.

“Mr. Markowitz contacted someone he thought was a reporter,” said Commander Shani. “He might contact his accomplices, the Arab worker, for instance. He’s a loose canon.” The commander’s cupid lips were now working themselves up into a froth of excitement. “He might suddenly ‘discover’ this artifact—or another phony one—and run to the press, successfully this time. Who’s to say this pomegranate is even authentic? Even if the artifact was discovered to be phony, it would be too late—there’d be mass hysteria in the Arab world, riots everywhere, and worse. Mr. Markowitz’s release would absolutely hamper our investigation. That’s why I’m recommending he be remanded in jail for five days.”

The judge took a sip of water, carefully wetting his lips. “Where”—he lifted his bulk and leaned toward Shani—“is this troublesome artifact?”

“It was sent out for testing by an archeologist.”

Isaac, with effort, suppressed his anger. “How many weeks or months should that take?” he said under his breath.

The judge kneaded his jowly cheek. “Are you by any chance a Temple Mount Messianist?” he sternly asked Isaac.

“No, your honor,” Isaac answered. “I’m happy to rely on the Messiah to rebuild our temple, but regretfully he hasn’t come yet.” Shuki shot him a
look, but he ignored it. “Still, should I allow pieces from our past to simply get bulldozed or thrown out?”

The judge lifted a scant brow and wrote another note on his paper. “You mentioned a worker. Where can we find this, ahem”—he consulted his notes—“Mustafa?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac answered, and Shuki shot him another look. Isaac shrugged. He didn’t have Mustafa’s address. And he wasn’t going to help them find it.

The judge made more markings. “Another question,” he asked with exaggerated politeness. “Did you or did you not contact the press?”

“I did not actively seek the press. The press came to me.”

“But you spoke with the press.” He took another sip of water.

“Yes, your Honor.”

“Even though you were told not to.”

“Yes, your Honor.”

The judge paused at this. “And you did so, knowing this would enflame the Arab population.” Another sip.

“Your Honor, with all due respect, you presume my intention was to enflame.”

The judge adjusted his black robes. “You people are always provoking.”

“With all due respect, your Honor, I have a right to make a claim on our heritage.”

“Now you’re sunk,” Shuki hissed at him from the side of his mouth.

The judge motioned for the commander and the defense attorney to approach the bench. They conferred, pointing to the papers, arguing, a Talmudic back and forth. The judge after a minute let out a clipped nod. He stated aloud, “I hereby prolong the arrest for five days on the basis of prima facie evidence, hampering the investigation, and on the basis of the arrested being a danger to public safety.”

The sound of the gavel hit Isaac in his breastbone. A dull roar rumbled in his ears, like mean applause, hands clapping for him to fall. He was going to jail. “Mama, Tatty,
Gott in Himmel
,” he uttered, wiping his brow as they left the courtroom.

Ali the carpet seller gave a loud thump on the wall. “Stop your pacing! I can’t sleep.”

“Sorry, brother,” Mustafa called to the next room. He adjusted the fan so it would blow on him. Oh, he was getting roasted inside this hot box of a room. If only he could go out into the cool night air, but if he walked through Ali’s room, his flatmate would complain bitterly. So Mustafa sat on the corner of his mattress. His eyes rested dully on his few possessions, a prayer mat rolled into the corner, a frayed blanket lying on a kerosene heater, two cartons in the corner that held his clothes, a radio that played only on one station. “A little bird wants but a little nest,” his father liked to say, but even this small nest could be taken from him.

Just yesterday he had come to Miss Tamar’s office to ask her to deliver a note to the rabbi. In his best Hebrew he wrote:
Let us meet under the clock at the Mashbir to talk. It will only take five minutes
. When he got to her office, she was speaking with all these men dressed in black jackets like Rabbi Isaac. Her face was red and she was pointing a finger here, there, all over. When she saw him, she said, “Not now, Mustafa,” as if she had forgotten all their nice talks they once had. But then she ran up and whispered, “Isaac is in jail! Be careful!” And Mustafa left as fast as he could, his palms clammy, heart hammering in his throat.

From that moment, the fear got bigger and bigger and wouldn’t leave him.

He sniffed his armpits. They gave off an animal smell. That morning, he had swept and scrubbed and cleaned like a crazy man, to distract himself. Sheikh Tawil had patted him on the back and even said, “Slow down. Drink some water. You’ll never last through the day.”

He crept to the small bathroom and washed himself in the sink, soaping
his neck, arms, and all along his stomach, trying to muffle his movements so as not to disturb Ali. A fat fly buzzed loudly around the room. When the police came for him, Ali would look at him in wonder: What could the fool Mustafa have done to catch the attention of the Israeli police? Maybe Ali would even think better of him.
Laa
. He erased that possibility with a sharp shake of his head. As soon as anyone knew that he had handed over the pomegranate to the Jews, his life was over anyway. Betrayer, that’s what they’d call him. One who brings dishonor to the family, his people. His mother would pour ashes on her head, refuse to even talk to him on the phone. The same with his brother Tariq. Sheikh Tawil would fire him in an instant, and if he should try to beg on the streets, the sheikh would make a
fatwa
: “Don’t give a single coin to the infidel Mustafa. Which Mustafa, you ask? The ugly man with the crooked neck. That one! He is forbidden from receiving
zakat
, not one coin of charity!” If he had to go to jail, the other Arab prisoners would kill him, chop him into little pieces, the same thing that happened to Ali’s neighbor.

Oh, foolish Mustafa. What had he done? Why had he gone to the courtyard of the Jews and delivered a fruit, all because the rabbi had called him a kohein? Bit by bit he had gone to their way of thinking—
ta’thir—
getting influenced by the Jew. Tariq would turn away from him. “You never went to school, you never learned to properly hate the Jews,” he’d say in disgust and with sadness. “Even at home, you paid no attention to what we said. You always were soft, like a fruit gone to rot.” In truth, he and Tariq hadn’t spoken in months anyway, but now it would be over for good. His mother would scream, “Mustafa can’t see the truth anymore. Satan has urinated in his eyes!”

His heart was jumping so much he placed his soapy hands on his chest to still it. He dried himself off with a just laundered kaffiyeh. The huge fly landed on the sink. He could see it rubbing its front legs together, as if in greedy anticipation of eating food. He raised his arm and it flew off. Well, he would go back to Miss Tamar and she would tell him what he should do. She was a good girl, she talked to him when no one else did, she would tell him everything. Didn’t she care about him? He stretched himself out on his mattress. Then he thought: What if the police asked her questions? Would she tell them everything? Of course she would. A Jew is loyal only to a Jew. And he saw how she loved Rabbi Isaac, he knew this from the
first time he put the honeysuckle on her desk. She would protect him and not Mustafa, the Arab janitor. Well, he must find her, and if he had to threaten her too or even hurt her, he would. The fat fly landed now on his mattress and again he raised him arm threateningly, to scare it off, but it remained on the edge of the mattress. Even the fly didn’t take his threat seriously, he thought glumly. Then, with a sudden lunge, his fist came down and squashed it.