“Absolutely! Tomorrow if possible.”
“Yes, tomorrow is fine.” She touched his arm. “Thank you, Brad. I really am sorry.”
“I know. Hurry now or you’ll be even later. I’ll be fine.”
He watched her thoughtfully until she was out of sight, then hoisted his camera bag to his shoulder. “All right, Jerusalem,” he said cheerfully, “here I come again.”
Eleven
Ali finished the rest of his custard dessert and pushed back from the table with a satisfied sigh. “Though I protested heartily, thank you for your insistence that I join you for dinner, Brad. That tasted great.”
Brad grinned. “For someone who said he wasn’t really hungry, you tanked away a healthy amount of food.” The hotel’s Arab waiters knew Ali well and had brought out heaping servings of each course. Brad had finally surrendered after the roast chicken and rice, but Ali had had an extra helping of salad, two more rolls, plus a generous portion of dessert.
If Ali felt any embarrassment, he had it well under control. “Just be glad you aren’t paying for it by the pound,” he retorted, patting his stomach with satisfaction.
“It gives me shudders just to think of it.”
“Actually, you shouldn’t be paying for it at all. I didn’t come here to get a free meal. So let me pay for my own lunch.”
“Absolutely not. I am here in this hotel at a greatly reduced rate for my room and meals, I have a job, and I have a car to get around in, all because of you, my friend. Buying lunch is the least I can do.”
Ali’s face was split by that infectious grin that brightened everything around it. “Well, I always like to help a man do his Christian duty.” He looked up and waved. “Hey, there’s Miri.”
Brad turned and waved too, then watched her come down the stairs with that easy, flowing grace with which she always moved.
“Hello, Ali,” she said. “Hello, Brad. May I join you?”
“Sure.” Brad pulled out the chair between them. “Have you had lunch yet?”
“Yes, I ate at home with Mother.”
“It’s probably just as well,” Brad said, gesturing to the stack of dishes surrounding Ali’s place. “There may not be much left in the kitchen.”
Ali gave her a contented, lazy smile. “Brad was paying.”
At that moment one of the waiters saw her and hurried over. “Would you care for some lunch, Miss Shadmi?”
Miri shook her head, but the waiter was anxious to please the owner’s daughter. “Would you like some dessert, please?”
“No, thank you, Avraham. I’m fine.”
“We have some iced lemonade. Very good.”
“Okay,” she laughed, giving up in the face of such persistence.
“Mr. Kennison?” he asked.
“Yes, that does sound good,” Brad answered.
Ali held up a hand and forestalled the waiter before he could even ask. “No, thank you. I’ve got to get going. They are supposed to deliver the paint for the school this afternoon.”
As the waiter moved away, Miri turned to the young Arab. “So how is the school coming, Ali?”
He beamed. It was his favorite subject. “Wonderful. I have all the furniture and equipment now. We found a building in Bethlehem. When we get it painted and fixed up, it will do very nicely. My brother Ahkmud and Brad have been helping me, so we should easily be ready in time for school. We will open on the third of September, not even two weeks from now.”
“What you are doing is an important thing for your people,” Miri said, her voice warm with praise. “I hope it succeeds.”
“How can it fail?” Ali asked. “Brad is going to teach for me.”
“He is?” She turned to Brad in surprise. “You are?”
“Only because one Ali Khalidi twisted my arm,” Brad growled good-naturedly. “And only until his regular Arabic English teacher can start around the first of October.”
Avraham came bustling out of the kitchen with two glasses of lemonade on a tray and set them on the table, while Miri looked at Brad in astonishment. “I didn’t know you spoke Arabic!”
“You bet,” Brad intoned seriously. “I have it nearly mastered now. ‘Yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘you’re welcome.’ The rest is still coming.”
“We’re trying an experiment,” Ali explained to her. “Like your ulpans, where you teach Hebrew to the immigrants through teachers who do not speak the immigrants’ language. Only Brad will be teaching children six to fourteen who speak no English.”
Miri gave Brad an appraising look, almost as though she saw him with new eyes, but she sipped her lemonade without speaking.
Ali stood up. “Well, I’d better get going. Thanks for lunch, Brad. See you tomorrow?”
“Right. Eleven or eleven thirty?”
“Fine.” Ali waved, then turned and ran lightly up the stairs and was gone.
For a moment they both fell silent, sipping their lemonade. Miri watched his fingers as he traced the patterns in the tablecloth. She studied him quietly, keeping her eyes lowered, not wanting to draw his attention to her scrutiny. She smiled briefly as she thought of her first impressions and their first few encounters. They still had flashes of fire, but out of the tourist-guide relationship mutual respect and genuine friendship were developing. His demand for knowledge about everything they saw constantly surprised her. He was like a desert wadi soaking up the first rains of winter. Equally surprising was his knowledge of the Bible. She had guided some Christian ministers who knew the scriptures thoroughly, but other than that, Brad’s knowledge was a rarity.
She looked up and caught him studying her closely. Slightly flustered, she smiled, but then almost instantly became sober. She decided to go ahead with her purpose in coming down to the dining room.
“Brad, may I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he said lightly. He became serious as he sensed her hesitancy. “Yes, go ahead.”
“I do not wish to offend you.”
“Offend me? Why would you offend me?”
“It is about your religion.”
Startled, Brad nodded. “Okay.”
“Father says you are a Mormon.”
“Yes.”
“Are Mormons Christian?”
“Yes. Actually Mormon is a nickname given to us. The formal name of our church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
She was silent for a moment, digesting that. “Do you—I mean, does your church believe that Jesus was the Son of God?”
“Most definitely.”
“In the literal sense, not just in a symbolic sense?”
“Absolutely. We believe that God was his literal Father, and Mary his mother.”
“Doesn’t that seem—” She stopped, the indecision clear on her face.
“Go on,” he urged.
“Well,” she said, still unsure of herself, “first maybe I ought to explain something. When I studied history at the university, I specialized in the period of the Second Temple—what you would call the Christian era. I was required to study much of the Christian literature of that period, including the New Testament. And, of course, to become a guide, we had to learn Christian history and study the New Testament quite intensively.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Oh no, not in that sense. My grandfather, whom I never knew and who was an Orthodox Jew from Eastern Europe, would not even have allowed me to speak the name of Jesus in his presence. But he and his generation vanished into the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Now all but the most Orthodox Jews are willing to accept Jesus as a great rabbi, though, of course, we reject the Christian notion that he was the Son of God, or the Messiah.”
“I understand.”
“There are many things in the life and teachings of Jesus that I like. I am fascinated with him as a man and a teacher. But the theology is very puzzling.”
“In what way?”
“Okay. You say that you believe Jesus was the literal Son of God?”
“Yes.”
“And Mary, was she divine too?”
“No, she was a mortal woman. In fact, I picture her to be very much like yourself.”
Miri’s head shot up, and she stared at Brad.
“Hey!” he added hastily, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I am not offended.”
“All I meant was that I picture Mary much like you—a young Jewish girl, a native of Israel. I suppose she didn’t have to be, but I picture her as very lovely.” He hesitated, then added softly, “Like yourself.”
Her face flamed red as she lowered her eyes. “Thank you.” She was silent for a long moment, then said, almost shyly, “Do you know what Mary’s name is in Hebrew?”
“No, what?”
“It is the same as my name. Miriam.”
“Ah.”
Again there was a long pause. “You are not making it any easier to ask my next question,” she finally said.
That surprised him. He thought he was being the model of cooperation. “I’m sorry,” he answered, although he wasn’t sure exactly for what. “Please go ahead.”
She took a deep breath and plunged in. “Do you believe Jesus was a god before he came to earth to be a man?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t find that peculiar? That a god has to become a man in order to save other men? If you told me it was the other way around, I might question the reality of the story, but at least it would be logical. Vice versa is profoundly illogical.”
Brad toyed with his glass, nodding slightly, his eyes thoughtful. He remembered that the Apostle Paul had said that the Jews found Jesus to be a stumbling block. To say that Jehovah, the god they had worshipped for centuries, would divest himself of that majesty and glory, enter life through a stable, go about like other men, and, most incredible of all, allow himself to be arrested, whipped, spit upon, crucified! No wonder that Jesus as the Messiah caused them to stumble. Only the Spirit could render such a statement not only logical, but the only possible choice.
He looked up at Miri, knowing that a quick answer now was not what she needed. Groundwork had to be laid, foundational concepts established, before she was ready for the answer. And he was not prepared to lay that foundation properly. Not yet.
To his surprise, she reached across the table and touched his arm gently. “Now it is I who have offended you,” she murmured.
“Oh no, I am not offended. It’s just that your question is a good one, but a deep one. I was trying to think how best to answer it.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I can answer your question.”
It said something for this woman that her reaction was that of disappointment rather than triumph.
“But,” he went on quickly, “the problem is not that there are no answers, only that I am not prepared yet to answer you.”
She nodded. “I understand. Thank you for your honesty.”
“But I promise you this,” Brad vowed solemnly. “I will get those answers and share them with you.”
Twelve
Brad put down his paintbrush and pulled out a rag to mop his brow. “You know, I can’t figure out whether the Lord put the Arabs in the Middle East because they like the heat, or whether they like the heat because the Lord put them in the Middle East.”
Ali grinned down at him from the top of his ladder. “What makes you think we like the heat?”
“Well, look at you two. Here I am sweating like a polar bear in a sauna bath, and your foreheads aren’t even damp.”
Ahkmud made a face. He was obviously a Khalidi, though more darkly complexioned and at least twenty pounds heavier than his younger brother. “Allah has blessed you with poor eyesight and no sense of smell, my friend.” He was sitting below the ladder on the floor, painting the baseboards of the schoolroom. “Ali smells like the unwashed colt of a donkey, and he is doing hardly any work at all.”
“Ah!” Ali cried in mock outrage. “Only because I grow faint from the odor that rises from beneath me.”
Ahkmud grabbed the ladder and rocked it wildly. “Silence, little pup, or I shall bring you down to where the air is more fair.”
Brad grinned broadly, watching the two brothers. In the last few days as they painted the classrooms in Ali’s new school, they had kept him laughing with their gruff insults and mock battles, which did not disguise the warm affection that lay between them.
Ali dipped his brush into the can and leaned out, holding it so it was directly over Ahkmud’s head. “Your tongue is slick as a serpent’s belly and black as a Bedouin tent. One more word and I shall paint it white and perform a great service for the whole of mankind.”
At that moment a great drop of paint broke free of the brush and plummeted downward, hitting Ahkmud squarely in the center of his jet black hair. Ali was down the ladder in a flash and darting for the door. But Ahkmud was faster. He dove across the room and wrestled him to the floor.
“Ahkmud, no!” Ali wailed. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to.”
With great deliberation Ahkmud reached up with his thumb and wiped the glob of white paint from his hair.
“Brad! Help me!” Ali screamed, but Brad couldn’t have walked three steps, he was laughing so hard.
“People should be warned of a dangerous beast,” Ahkmud said. He took his thumb and slowly ran it down the length of Ali’s nose, leaving a broad white smear. “May all see you coming and get out of your way.” He stood up and let Ali free.
Brad tossed his rag to Ali, still doubled over with laughter.
“Thanks a lot, American,” Ali said, only half succeeding in wiping away the smear. “I ask for arms and miltary aid, and you send cotton goods.”
“Hey, little brother,” Ahkmud said, “one sends cotton to one who has cotton for brains.”
“All right, you two,” Brad finally managed. “If you don’t cut it out, I’m not going to be able to sit up tonight at the desk. How do I explain to Levi that I can’t work because my sides are too sore from laughing?”
“Which reminds me,” Ahkmud said, “what time is it?”
Brad looked at his watch. “Almost twelve o’clock.”
“Then I must go.” He handed Ali his bucket and brush. “We have a delivery from Hebron coming to the store in half an hour.”
“You only fear retaliation,” Ali quipped.
“Ha!” his brother snorted. “The lion flees from the goat? No chance. Besides, you are almost done now.”
“Ah!” Ali retorted. “Only with the painting and fixup. We still have all the equipment and furniture to move in, and school starts on Wednesday. That gives us only three more days to have everything ready.”
Ahkmud punched him lightly on the arm as he started for the door. “Only because you have let your Mormon ideas ruin a perfectly good workday tomorrow.”
There was the slightest hint of criticism in Ahkmud’s voice, but Ali ignored it. “The Sabbath is not a Mormon idea, my infidel brother,” he said with a patient smile. “Originally, I think it was God’s.”
Ahkmud shrugged and headed for the door. Brad and Ali walked to the door after him and watched him climb into a maroon Mercedes sedan. They waved as he roared away in a spray of gravel.
Ali shook his head, but his eyes were warm and affectionate. “These Moslems,” he said. “They are a stubborn lot.”
Brad smiled and returned to his paint bucket. “I’d better hustle too. I told Levi I’d cover for him at the desk at two-thirty. Miri took that group from England on tour today, and he has an appointment somewhere.”
“So that puts an end to your touring for awhile?”
“No, they are only here for a few days. She’ll be finished with them today.”
Ali gave him a long speculative look. “And how is your pocketbook holding up under all this?”
Brad stopped in midstroke and pointed the paintbrush at Ali. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Mean? Nothing. I just figured at fifteen dollars a half day, one of th
ese times you might run out of money.”
“Oh no,” Brad said. “Don’t play that inscrutable Arab bit with me. I know you too well already. What’s really on your mind?”
The young Arab was meticulously studying the brush strokes as he painted the wall. “Well,” he finally said, “it just seems that for two people who started out as the star participants in the Middle Eastern version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, you seem to be getting along famously.”
“Ha!” Brad retorted with more vehemence than he had intended. “You ought to come on tour with us. This morning, for example, we really got into it over the Palestinian question. I was so foolish as to suggest that Israel had treated some refugees with gross unfairness and downright intimidation in order to take over their land.”
“You are a foolhardy devil, aren’t you?” Ali laughed. “You’re lucky she didn’t bite your head off.”
Brad reached up and pulled his shirt collar down, baring his neck. “Care to see the teeth marks?”
Again Ali gave him that long appraising look. “Have you made any decisions about how long you are staying yet?”
Ali studied his friend, noting that the frustrated, strung-out air that had been so evident in Brad the first few days was largely gone. His tanned face was relaxed and broke into a smile much more easily than at first. The pinched look around his eyes had smoothed out, and the nervous drumming of the fingers whenever he faced inactivity was rarely seen now. The young Arab was deeply grateful for this American Mormon, and marveled that it had only been a couple of weeks since they had first met. It seemed as though they had known each other for years.
“Well,” Brad mused, cutting into Ali’s thoughts.
“I was just thinking of our conversation on the plane, why you said you were coming to Israel. As I remember, it was to find yourself, set some goals, stop smothering. I was just wondering how that is coming?”
Brad rested his brush on the paint-can lid. “Good question. I was asking myself the same thing just the other day.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know for sure, but I am sure that coming here was right. Dad said my problem was that after four years of mission and Viet Nam, I had spiritual battle fatigue. Suddenly I came home with no demands on my time, no real commitments. It left me dangling in a spiritual void.”