Brad stood quietly, awed to think that he stood near the spot where the Savior had knelt that night while his apostles fought against, and then surrendered to, sleep. Here Christ had bowed beneath the tremendous weight of the combined sins of the world and had suffered so intensely that his very vessels had ruptured under the strain and oozed blood from every pore. And now he stood here where it had happened. He was transfixed, touched, and moved more deeply than he had been for a very long time.
Miri finally spoke softly at his side. “Originally the olive grove was much larger than what you see here. The olive trees are very old, perhaps well over a thousand years old.
“They are—” Brad was going to say beautiful, but that was inadequate. He groped for a better word. “I don’t know, awesome, I guess.”
“The olive is a peculiar tree. When it dies or is cut down, the roots send out new shoots that grow into new olive trees. So if these trees do not date back to the time of Jesus, they spring from the roots of trees that were here when he was.” She pointed out one of the nearest trees. “See, there you can see a new, young tree growing out of the parent root.”
Brad nodded, still caught in the mood of reverence that gripped him.
“I suppose that is why the ancient prophets compared Israel to an olive tree,” Miri mused. “So many times our enemies have cut down the tree and assumed we were dead.”
Brad looked startled, remembering the allegory of the olive tree in the Book of Mormon.
“The Babylonians, the Romans, the Nazis. Each one has tried to kill the mother tree, and each has failed.”
The aptness of the symbolism was beautiful and caught Brad’s imagination. “And the modern state of Israel is the newest shoot,” he said with understanding. “A new tree comes forth out of the old root.”
Miri glanced at him sharply, the surprise evident in her eyes. “Yes, exactly.”
“And I guess I can’t blame Israel for getting a bit upset when she sees the world picking up their axes again,” Brad said, meeting her speculative gaze. “But this time the tree itself will survive. It may take a few solid hits. But it will survive.”
The expression on Miri’s face was a study in puzzled thoughtfulness. But all she said was, “Would you like to go inside the church and see the rock of the agony?”
Brad shook his head. “Not now. Maybe some other time. The garden is what I came to see.”
He fell silent again as he leaned on the fence and peered at the trees, trying to visualize what it must have been like on that night. Miri stood silent, sensing his desire for quiet. Finally he straightened up and nodded. “Okay. Shall we go?”
Ten
They had been on the temple mount for over an hour now, touring the majestic, almost awesome beauty of the Dome of the Rock, holy shrine to Moslem, Christian, and Jew. When they had left the Garden of Gethsemane, Miri had lapsed into silence, and Brad assumed she had retreated behind her wall of aloofness. But as soon as they had come through St. Stephen’s Gate, she had warmed again. They became tourist and guide, he ignorant but eager, she knowledgeable and sharing. Soon there was an open interchange, like that between a tutor and pupil.
Now they sat in the shade of the huge eucalyptus trees that towered over the small grassy area just south of the Dome of the Rock. Two small Arab children were playing tag among the trees, and Miri watched them with amused eyes. She was half turned from him, her head tipped slightly back, her face in profile. Filtered sunlight made gentle patterns on her face as the slight breeze rustled the leaves overhead.
Suddenly Miri seemed to sense his gaze, and looked a bit startled. “I’m sorry. I was watching the children. Are you ready to continue?”
Brad shook his head.
“No?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.
“No. It’s lovely here.” He turned and gazed at the Dome of the Rock, towering above them, its golden dome like a giant sun hurled down to rest on the blue-tiled walls that cradled it. “It really is an incredible building. It’s magnificent inside and out.”
“I have seen it a thousand times and yet, even now, it seizes the eye and leads it upward against its will.”
“And to think that it is thirteen hundred years old,” Brad marveled. “In the western United States, if anything is more than a hundred years old we say it is ancient. And then to think that just west of here are the remains of the original walls of Herod’s temple. Those stones were here seven hundred years before the Dome was built.”
“And just to the south of where we sit is Hezekiah’s tunnel, carved through solid rock when the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem, seven hundred years before that!”
Brad was impressed. “This place literally breathes history. It’s fascinating!”
Miri gazed at him steadily. “I am glad you sense it too. Americans usually jog through the holy sites, snapping pictures, dropping cigarette butts, and asking where the nearest restrooms are.”
At first it was tempting to let that pass, but it was clear that she was taunting him for some reason. Brad picked off a blade of grass, stuck it in his mouth, and chewed on it reflectively for a moment.
“Yes,” he finally mused, “I understand how you feel. When I was in the service we had a typical Jew in my platoon. His name was Samuel Goldstein. He had a big nose, smoked cigars, and was really quite obnoxious.”
He ignored the sudden flash of lightning in her eyes and the sharp intake of breath. He turned and gave her a look of bland innocence, inwardly tensing for what was obviously building rapidly into an explosion equaling Vesuvius, Krakatoa, and the bomb at Hiroshima all together. “Actually, I had never known any Jews, and so I was glad to finally meet one.” He emphasized the last word ever so slightly.
But it was enough. Gradually he could see the light dawn in her eyes, defusing the imminent eruption as swiftly as it had been armed. “Okay,” Miri apologized grudgingly. “I get the point. Not all Americans are that way.” Then she smiled. “Was there really a Samuel Goldstein?”
Brad nodded. “There really was. My bunkmate, Marvin Barnard, and I used to lay awake nights devising ways to deflate this guy’s ego. One night Marvin asked me if I thought Sammy was typical of Jews. I was surprised. Growing up in Utah, I had never met any Jewish people, and I admitted that I hadn’t even thought about Sammy being a Jew. I just thought of him as a first-class dork.” He grinned at her. “Do you know what a dork is?”
“No, but I think I get the meaning from the context.”
“Yes. Well anyway, Marvin looked at me kind of funny, and he just said, very quietly, ‘Oh, that’s good.’ The way he said it made me curious, so I asked him why he thought it was good.” Brad looked at Miri. “Do you know what he said?”
“That he was Jewish too?”
“Yes.” Brad paused. “Marvin saved my life once in Viet Nam. He was killed three weeks later trying to help evacuate some wounded out of a mortar barrage. He was nineteen at the time. I consider it one of the privileges of my life to have known him.”
“I stand rebuked,” Miri admitted with no rancor. “I know that all Americans are not—” She paused, seeking for an appropriate term.
“Soft? Spoiled? Coddled?” Brad supplied.
Miri nodded. “You even have low-calorie dog food so your pets won’t get too fat. Somehow that is a problem many people in the world have a hard time getting very concerned about.”
“Guilty as charged,” Brad said. “But we are not all that way. There are some who care, some who still stand for what is right. I’ll grant you, there may not be as many as there should be. But there are many—a great many—who love their country and try to maintain her greatness.” Miri didn’t respond to that, and Brad decided to risk a comment of his own.
“If you want to comment on national character, the Israelis are not without their own problems. It would seem that little more softness on your part might go a long way to solving some of your problems.”
“We are well aware of our own problems,??
? Miri bristled, “but lack of softness isn’t one of them. All of the soft ones marched to their death in the ovens of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz.”
“And now,” Brad said softly, “here stands the invincible, tough-minded Israeli, a class of super-warriors, ready to tackle the whole world if necessary.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “And with the rest of the world frantically waiting at the base of the Arab oil spigots, we may have to stand alone.”
“And so you trust only in yourselves,” Brad said, knowing that this was rapidly getting out of hand, and yet not willing to let it drop.
Miri leaned forward, her brown eyes nearly jet black with anger. “You tell me—who else can Israel count on but herself? America?” She spat out the word with contempt.
Brad met her challenging stare and then slowly said, “When the barbarians were approaching Rome, someone said, ‘The Roman world is falling, yet we hold our heads erect instead of bowing our heads.’ ”
Miri leaped to her feet, startling a group of tourists dutifully following their guide toward the Dome of the Rock. “Spoken like a true Christian,” she said bitterly. “Turn the other cheek? Love your enemies? Tell that to the athletes who were butchered in the Munich massacre last year! Oh, wouldn’t Yasser Arafat love that, because he’s waiting with a razor at our throats to slash either cheek that turns to him.”
She snatched up her purse and books and glared down at him, breathing hard. “Go out into the real world, Mr. Kennison! Go out on the Golan Heights. Go into the Gaza strip. Go to the Sinai. You’ll not hear hymns and prayers there. You’ll hear the shriek of artillery shells, the screams of the dying, the cries of children as they huddle over the dead bodies of their parents. You go there and then talk to me about God and Christianity!”
Miri spun around, but before she could take a step Brad quietly said, “I’ve been there, Miri.”
She turned back slowly, caught off guard by the quiet intensity of his voice.
“I’ve been there, and I’m ready to talk about God and prayer. Why is it you Israelis think you have the corner on suffering? Do you think death is any sweeter in the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta than in the sands of Sinai? Do you think Vietnamese children have no tears? Do American mothers receive their dead sons with any less grief?” He took a deep breath, getting just a bit angry himself. “And while we’re at it, why is it that you can criticize and question and challenge my country and my religious beliefs, while if I so much as raise a tiny cloud of doubt about yours, you jump to your feet and storm off as if I’ve insulted everything you hold holy?”
Miri flinched visibly, and he could tell he had sent that one rocketing home. Her mouth opened and then shut again.
“Besides which,” he said more gently, “it’s not like an Israeli to run from a fight. If your convictions can’t stand up to criticism, then they’re not worth defending, right?”
“They can stand up to anything you can say,” she retorted. But the anger in her voice was lessening, and she walked back over and sat down facing him. After a long pause she said, “You can be an infuriating person, you know.” She was half daring him to take issue with her again.
“I know.” He grinned. “It’s one of my natural talents. And you—you really get kind of feisty when you’re angry, don’t you?”
“Now you’re teasing me.”
“Yes, I guess I am. But it’s only my way of saying I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. Here we’ve gone a full three hours without a clash. I guess it was only natural that it just kind of boiled over again.”
“My father says boiling over is my natural talent,” Miri admitted, managing a genuine smile. It wasn’t enough of a smile to bring in the photographers for, but it represented miles of progress from a few moments earlier. Then she grew serious again.
“Now that I have a little better control of myself, may I try to answer your question?
“Did I have the gall to ask a question in the midst of all that?”
Miri laughed, and Brad knew that for the moment at least they were back on safer ground. “Actually, it wasn’t a direct question. But it was implied. You were asking why we don’t turn to God.”
“Yes, I guess I was.”
She spoke in a low voice but one filled with intense emotion. “To what god would you have us turn? The god of the Hebrews who watched six million of his children go to their deaths in gas chambers and did not answer? The god of the Lutherans whom the Germans worshipped as the trains rolled eastward to the death camps? Or maybe the Catholic god who presided over the Vatican while they ignored the pleas of Jews begging for help to escape the Nazis? Tell me, Mr. Kennison, to which of these gods should the Israelis bow their necks?”
He started to answer, but she went quickly on. “For three thousand years we have been God’s chosen people. For what are we chosen? Look at our history and there is only one answer. We were chosen to suffer. What a privilege, that God should select us! We waited all these years for God to help us. We went like sheep through the slaughtering pens. Now we will help ourselves. We have bowed the neck long enough. Now we bend the bow and unsheath the sword, and call on all Israel everywhere to die like sheep no more. If we die, we will die like human beings.”
Gradually the passionate intensity faded. Her eyes focused, and she looked at him directly. “And that is the answer to your question.”
Brad met her gaze and then said gently, “Why is it that we alternate between intense heat and bitter cold, you and I?”
His question took her back, and immediately her defenses went up again. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, here we are scorching each other now, and yet in the car on the way over I nearly froze to death.”
“Froze to death?” Miri looked puzzled, then laughed. “Oh, yes. Of course. I was very angry with you for making me serve as your guide.”
Brad had a pained expression. “Somehow I had sensed you might feel that way. May I make a confession?”
“Of course.”
“When I asked your father for a guide, I had no idea it was you. When he told me, I nearly died. I would have backed out except that after all he has done for me, I didn’t feel I could.”
“Well, that makes me feel better.” She pulled a wry face. “I think.”
“Can I make another confession?”
“I think I’m up to it.”
“I’m glad I didn’t back out. You are exactly what I was hoping for.”
Miri raised an eyebrow. “You wanted the hot and cold?”
Brad laughed. “Well, it certainly keeps one alert. But no, that’s not what I meant. I decided to hire a guide because I wanted to come to feel the spirit of this land. I told your father that, and he said you were the best.” His eyes caught hers and held them. “And he was right.”
Miri lowered her head, suddenly embarrassed by his sincerity. “Thank you. This morning I dreaded it, going through the day pointing out things to you while you taunted me, laughing at me behind my back.”
“I have never laughed at you,” Brad said softly. “Nor even felt like it.”
“I finally realized that. I could sense you really did want to see Jerusalem. That made me feel better.”
“Good. Then I have a proposal. What do you say to the idea of setting up an Israeli-American détente?”
A smile stole slowly over Miri’s face, revealing even white teeth and a slight dimple in her left cheek. “Détente? Yes, it is a good word. The two hostile superpowers agree to seek more friendly relations.” She stuck out her hand. “As you Americans say, ‘It is a deal.’ ”
Brad took her hand, pleased at this sudden turn of events. “Yes, it’s a deal. On one condition though. That you stop calling me Mr. Kennison. It’s just Brad, okay?”
“Okay.” She stood up and brushed down her skirt. “Then let us continue our tour. We have—” A horrified look suddenly sprang to her face. “Oi vavoi!”
“What’s wrong?”
&nbs
p; “Oi,” she said again. “This is terrible. Can you wait here for a moment? I must make a phone call. I’ll be right back.”
“Can I help you?”
“No, no! I will only be a moment.” She plunged away, leaving Brad to stare after her.
In three minutes she was back and obviously flustered.
“Brad, I’m terribly sorry,” she burst out as she came up to him. “But I have a problem.”
“Oh?”
She blushed but looked him directly in the eye. “I made an appointment this morning, and I forgot all about it until right now.”
“Hey, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I made it deliberately yesterday so I would have an excuse to end our tour as soon as possible.” Her flush darkened. “I was afraid that by now we would both be ready to quit.”
Brad checked his watch. To his surprise, it was ten after nine. “I only contracted for a half-day tour, and we’ve already been going for almost five hours.” He grinned at her. “Was I really that fearsome?”
She was too embarrassed to return his smile. “I made an appointment to go shopping with a girl friend at nine o’clock. I tried to call her when I remembered, but she has already left. I am terribly sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, we’re making progress.” He smiled, his gray eyes teasing. “It’s all right, really. In fact, I’d like to stay here on the temple mount for a while anyway. I’ll just poke around and take more pictures. I can find my own way back.” He pulled a face, remembering his last two excursions into the Old City. But there had proved to be an abundance of little Arab boys waiting to fatten their purses. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
“I feel badly about it,” she said. “I promise it won’t happen again.” Her face dropped. “Oh, that is if you still want the guide service.”