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  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 . . .”

  * * *

  IT 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.

  Whatever path he chose for Bilal’s end, it would be good night and sweet dreams, traitor! Collaborator! And the chance that this deserter, this informer, would enjoy his seventy-two virgins in heaven would end as his lifeblood oozed out of his body and down the prison’s gutters. Ibrahim smiled to himself as, masked by the commotion of the other prisoners, he unscrewed the top of one of the posts of his bed and took out the makeshift dagger.

  * * *

  NOW THAT BILAL WAS GONE from the hospital and the chances of Yael seeing him again were remote, the question of their linked blood grew greater in her mind. As a prisoner on remand, there was no reason medically or professionally for her to visit his family, especially after Fuad had treated her so suspiciously when she’d asked him about his ancestry. And so Yael felt strangely isolated, as though she had a major problem but nobody with whom it could be shared.

  So she decided to follow their historical relationship, if indeed one existed; to become a researcher of records, a tracer of families, hopefully unraveling the mystery without reliance upon Bilal or Fuad or others who might or might not have any real knowledge, and who were reluctant to tell her anything. And from what little the family had said, the answers could be in the tiny Druze village of Peki’in, just south of the border with Lebanon, in the north of the Western Galilee. With determination, sipping a cup of coffee in the doctors’ recreation rooms, she made a decision.

  It took her a week, and some deviousness, to arrange for her two-week temporary residency in the hospital in Nahariya, the most northerly major city in Israel and the closest place of any importance to Peki’in. It was where she hoped to find the linkages that would tell her how Bilal’s maternal mitochondrial DNA came to be shared with hers.

  Yael had worked in the hospital in Nahariya before, in the weeks leading up to the Lebanon war with Hezbollah the previous year. Rockets rained down on towns in Israel from across the border, and when Israel retaliated, they found the targets they hoped to take out were nested by Hezbollah in civilian areas—in mosques, in schools, and on the tops of private dwelling places. Hezbollah’s tactics were cruel, well knowing that Israel’s army wouldn’t want to bomb the rocket launchers for fear of harming innocent people, and if they did, the world’s media would excoriate the Israel Defense Forces for bombing civilians.

  Yael sewed up the resultant bullet holes and shrapnel wounds while inevitably the world’s leaders decried Israel’s attack on civilian targets. And so the cycle continued. As she thought of returning to Peki’in, Yael found the experience had affected her more deeply than she had realized.

  How quickly situations could change. When she was there only last year, the hospital was frantic with Israeli wounded. Yet, in the months and years leading up to the Lebanon war, the hospital had treated free of charge many sick Lebanese who had walked or been escorted across the so-called friendly fence. But then, at the instigation of their Iranian puppet master, Hezbollah began to fire rockets into Israeli territory. Salvos of indiscriminate rocket attacks rained down on the northern towns and communities. The Western Galilee Hospital, where she was working, took a direct rocket hit and the treatment of sick Lebanese came to an abrupt halt.

  Operating in what was effectively a war zone, she’d befriended many of the medical and nursing staff. And to escape from the pressure of the emergency room and surgical ward, she and some friends would take a road trip into the countryside and to villages like Peki’in.

  So after Bilal gave her the information about his mother possibly having been born in Peki’in, once she’d finished her work for the day, Yael had gone to a private office and phoned the hospital’s director, a Palestinian thoracic surgeon named Fadi Islam Suk.

  “Darling,” he said over the phone, delighted to hear her voice, “are you coming to visit?”

  “Fadi, I need a favor.”

  “I’ve seen you on TV, Yael. I don’t know there are any favors a lowly doctor like me can do for a celebrity like you.”

  She could almost see his broad to
othy grin down the phone line.

  “I need to get away from Jerusalem for a while. I was wondering if you could request me for some filling-in or other work. I’ve got some people to see up there, but my boss almost certainly won’t give me any time off unless I’m needed, if you know what I mean.”

  “You have a lover in the Galilee and you want to spend time here with him? Oh, I’m devastated; I thought I was the only man for you,” he said.

  She laughed at the friendly jibe. But even as she did, Yael was strangely aware of the contradiction in the way she saw a fellow doctor and the way she felt visiting Fuad’s village.

  “I could certainly do with somebody of your skills. We’ve got a list that is growing longer and longer by the day. Shall I phone Pinkus and beg?”

  “That would be good,” she said. “But make sure you tell him that only my skills or my knowledge of the hospital will do, or he’s likely to send somebody else.”

  * * *

  539 BCE

  IT WAS AT NIGHT on the road from Damascus that the Israelite exiles understood the reality of their journey. When they lived in Babylon with all its oil lamps and nighttime fires obscuring the firmament, rarely did anybody walk beyond the gates after the sun went down. So it was only on very few occasions, and always within sight of the walls, that anybody other than merchants sleeping in tents or under blankets to ward off the cold saw the full panoply of the night sky.

  As they slept under the brilliant and luminescent stars that shone radiantly in the pitch-black desert sky, Joshua felt closer to Adonai than he ever did when he had prayed in his synagogue of Babylon. Even Zerubbabel, whose name meant child born in Babylon and who was the leader of the Jewish community, felt closer to the Almighty.

  On the twentieth night since the beginning of the return, when the exhausted community had lit their fires, cooked their bread and lentils, and begun preparing to say their evening prayers, Joshua’s thoughts were interrupted by a visitor. Living communally in the open air, people tended to mix more frequently than when they retired to their houses, and Joshua welcomed Reuven as he sat on a mat beside the blazing fire.

  “So, merchant,” he said, “how is the travel with you?”

  Reuven shrugged. “I’m a merchant. I travel a lot. But all you do is sit on your bottom in the synagogue and tell people what to believe. How are you faring? Do you miss your comfortable bed? Are you getting used to a mattress of stones and a pillow of rock?”

  “May I help you, merchant? We haven’t spoken in some time. Do you wish to ask a service of me, Reuven, or are you here to seek my advice?”

  The merchant threw a stick onto the rabbi’s fire. The days in the desert were stiflingly hot, but when the sun sank below the western horizon, the nights turned to freezing in the time it took a man to yawn; and where one moment people had sweated under their protective clothes, the next they were hurriedly lighting fires to protect themselves from the bitter cold.

  “Neither,” said Reuven. “I’m here to rest my bones and warm my skin beside your fire.”

  The two men sat in the glow of the flames, staring into the burning straw and wood and dung, which flared and popped and glowed. Joshua remained silent, waiting for Reuven to open up to him.

  Out of the desert darkness, Joshua’s wife, Shoshanna, walked into the light of the fire carrying two cups of hot anise drink and poppyseed cake that she’d baked the previous night. The men took the refreshments and nodded in gratitude. She retired to her tent.

  Sipping the aromatic drink, Reuven said, “When my wife first told me that she was pregnant, I was overjoyed. She said she wanted our baby to be born in Israel. I agreed, and we undertook this journey. I’m doing it to increase my trade, but why is it so important to my wife that our baby is born in Jerusalem?”

  Joshua began to answer. “Well, our father Abraham—”

  “Our home is in Babylon. We could be just as Jewish there as in Jerusalem. King Cyrus has promised us safety and security. Why are we lesser Jews in Babylon? Why are we better Jews in Jerusalem?”

  “Yes, we could be both,” said Joshua, “but when God prevented Abraham’s knife from sacrificing his son Isaac in Jerusalem, and when we entered into the covenant of circumcision—”

  “We could pray in the synagogue, live our lives according to our customs. Yet, Naomi insists that we leave the comforts of our home to live like desert nomads. I love her and so I agreed. And I’m happy to set up my trading business in Israel. But you haven’t told me why it’s so important.”

  “At the end of our journey, we will—”

  “At the end of our journey, Rabbi, we will still have to live in tents until we build proper houses. Even Naomi and me. There are no houses for us to buy. We have to build them ourselves. Slaves captured by our Babylonian masters built our houses back there,” he said, pointing to the east. “Yet, we’ve left those slaves behind, and who amongst us remembers how to build a house? Who knows how to quarry and cut rock? How to hew stone? Who remembers skills that our ancestors knew?”

  “The Lord God will show us the way,” said Joshua.

  “Then pray that He’s listening, priest. Because if He’s not, we’re in serious trouble.”

  “Adonai is always listening.”

  The merchant looked at the rabbi quizzically. “Really? Was He listening when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and so many Jews died?”

  “We were sinners. That was our punishment. But when our sins had been forgiven by the Lord, we prospered in exile. And now that our Babylonian masters have been conquered by Cyrus, instead of us being butchered, the Lord our God opened the Persian king’s eyes and softened his heart and so today we’re free men and women, able to return to our homeland—a land given to us by God on the provision that we remained pure and always worshipped Him. We lost our way and now we are finding it again. Perhaps, Reuven, it is because of men like you—men who have wandered from the path of righteousness, who, like Solomon, have worshipped false gods—that Adonai punished us. Remember the psalm that our fathers composed when we found ourselves in Babylon, when we were led away from Israel by Nebuchadnezzar?

  By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

  There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

  They said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

  How can we sing the songs of thee, while in a foreign land?

  If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.

  May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth

  If I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

  That, Reuven, is why we are returning. Jerusalem is our city, Israel is our homeland. It was and it always will be. It’s what makes us a people. We might live in foreign lands, but our hearts will always belong in the city on the hill.”

  “Yours might, priest, but my heart quickens when I trade goods, when I smell leather and know I can make a profit, when I buy beautiful painted pottery or carpets or cloth cheaply and sell it for a fortune in a foreign market.

  “No, priest, you pray to your heart’s content, and don’t get in the way of people like me.”

  Joshua bridled at the insult. As their journey progressed, Reuven was becoming more and more unhappy that he’d left Babylon, and he was taking out his frustration on his servants, fellow travelers, and now on the chief rabbi.

  Restraining himself from answering intemperately, Joshua said, “Perhaps this journey isn’t for you, Reuven. Perhaps you and Naomi should return to Babylon and let pioneers like your fellow Jews pave the way.”

  Reuven laughed. “No, priest, my wife wants our son to be born in Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem he’ll be born.” As an afterthought Reuven said softly, “And I, too, will be happy that he’s to be born there. He’ll be the first of a new generation of Jews. Who knows what will come of him and those who are born after him?”

  It was to
o much. Weeks of growing insults and aggression caused Joshua to say angrily, “Don’t lie to me, merchant. You’re merely coming with us to make yourself a greater fortune. You see it as a new and brighter opportunity for yourself. This has nothing to do with your wife, Naomi, and your future baby. This is all to do with greed. That’s why you’re here, Reuven. I know the greed in your heart. It has nothing to do with your wife’s desire for a homeland for your son. It’s for money. You’re exploiting your own people for your own gain.”

  Although it was dark, Joshua was certain that Reuven was sneering. “The difference between you and me, priest, is that I’m not a liar. I know I can make a fortune and that fortune will be shared by all who work with me—a fortune made by toil and cleverness. Sure, I’ll make a lot of money. I’ve been given a warrant by King Cyrus to open up the trading routes I told you about. But I’m honest in my greed, whereas you . . . you give your people empty lies about a mystical temple and an invisible god of benefit to no one. When they get to Israel, will they see a glowing city on a hill? No, they’ll see desolation. You’ve sold them lies to get them to come with you. I just hope that this god of yours will forgive you.”

  * * *

  November 2, 2007

  ONLY WHEN SHE LEFT Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, Haifa or Jaffa, did Yael come to appreciate the antiquity of the land. In Jerusalem, even though the streets were named after heroes of Israel, they were part of her everyday life and so she often failed to appreciate their heritage. Only when somebody asked, “Who was Ben Yehuda?” did it occur to her that the street was more than just shops and traffic, but that its name, and the man it immortalized, was part of the blood, muscle, and sinew of Israel.

  Not that Yael was any different from a Parisienne or a Londoner. Just as somebody in Paris might say, “Meet you on the Champs-Élysées,” or a Londoner would arrange to meet at Oxford Circus, so Yael would arrange to meet friends at Ben Yehuda or Derech HaNevi’im without thinking about why the roads had been so named. Who in Paris wondered about the fields or knew that Elysium was the mythological Greek place of the dead, and which Londoner wondered about the circus and what it had to do with Oxford?