Past Lives

Two

Tel Aviv

Israel

October 2000

Benny Zur stuffed the last of his burger into his mouth and wiped his hands on his jeans. Dark stains on the denim said that it wasn’t the first time he’d done this. He looked around anxiously and then stamped his feet impatiently on the ground. The last bus was about to leave for Jerusalem and Eli Aswar, still hadn’t turned up. If this was all a joke, he was going to be real mad, but surely Eli wouldn’t do something like this to him: they had been friends since childhood.

If, for whatever reason, Eli didn’t show, he was still going to have to stay out all night. He had lied to Shula about having to do an extra shift at the factory so he couldn’t change his mind and go home without some good explanation. He indulged his frustration and took a kick at a pile of old cardboard boxes lying, stacked up against a wall behind the bus. A rat scurried out of the heap to run for cover elsewhere. Rats liked the bus station; they grew fat there. There were always plenty of discarded falafels to feed on. When night fell and the buses stopped running they took over from the creatures of the day.

The driver, who’d been speaking to two other drivers at a neighbouring stance, turned away and came towards his bus. He paused to stub out his cigarette on the ground and hitch up his trousers over a fat gut, tucking in his wayward shirt with both hands before looking towards Benny and enquiring with an inclination of his head whether or not he wanted to get on board. Benny scratched nervously at his stubbly beard and gave an ambivalent shrug as he looked again towards the station entrance.

Suddenly, Eli came running round the corner, one hand clutching a striped fabric bag, the other holding a baseball cap on his head.

‘Where the fuck have you been, man?’ demanded Benny.

‘Couldn’t get away,’ explained Eli, still badly out of breath. ‘Kepes wouldn’t let me leave the dishes till the morning and the place was full of tourists till late.’

‘Tourists,’ said Benny with an inflection that needed no further explanation.

The driver started the engine and a cloud of blue smoke drifted out the back. The whole bus shuddered and vibrated in sympathy with a diesel engine whose pistons seemed to be working in opposition rather than harmony. He looked round and counted the passengers before marking the figure down on a clipboard and pushing it into a pocket in the back of his brown plastic bucket seat. He took a swig from a bottle of water parked at his feet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and released the hand brake.

The bus pulled out of the station and started out slowly and laboriously on the road up to Jerusalem. It sounded so sick that both men wondered if it would manage the steep climb. Benny shouted as much to the driver but the man dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand.

Now that he’d calmed down and things were going according to plan again, Benny took time to look round at the other passengers. They comprised mainly Arab women — wearing shawls and carrying covered baskets — but there were two European tourists on board, a thin, round-shouldered man and a blonde woman who was wearing shorts. They were young and had rucksacks tucked in at their feet. They averted their eyes when Benny looked at them so he took comfort from the fact that the girl was due for a nasty surprise when they reached Jerusalem. It might be thirty degrees centigrade down in Tel Aviv but it would be a lot colder up in the hills. Shorts were a big mistake.

Benny turned to Eli and said, ‘Tell me again what this guy said.’

‘Three hundred shekels is what he said,’ replied Eli with a grin of satisfaction.

‘Each?’

‘Yes, each; I’ve told you a hundred times, man.’

‘I just like hearing it,’ said Benny with a grin that exposed bad teeth. ‘But why us?’

‘Because we are Israelis — native Israelis, not Russians or Germans or American Jews who’ve come here to live here but true Israelis who were born here and whose parents were born here and whose grandparents were born here.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘Look, he wants to ask us things about our past, what we did, where we lived, stuff like that.’

‘You said this guy’s a priest? What kind of priest?’

‘They all look the same to me. You know, Christian, dressed in black with a cross round his neck.’

‘How’d you meet him?’

‘He came to the restaurant one night last week. I was emptying the bins when he left and he came over and spoke to me. He asked lots of questions about where I was born, where my parents came from, had I always lived in Israel. I told him me and my folks had always lived here. He seemed pleased at that and told me I was just the kind of guy he was looking for. If I was interested in making some good money I should meet him when I finished at the restaurant and he’d tell me more.’

‘So you did?’

‘I met him in a cafe down in Atarim Square. He bought me a couple of beers and told me how I could help with his research.’

‘Research?’

‘He said it was just a case of answering questions under what he called, “controlled conditions”. He said it was nothing to worry about but I would have to go up to Jerusalem and it would mean staying the night. Then he told me how much. Three hundred shekels! Just for answering some questions and staying over at his expense!’

‘I thought these guys were supposed to be poor.’

‘They pretend that,’ said Eli. ‘It’s crap. Miriam Cohen says they’re the richest organisation in the world. I asked him if I could bring along a friend. He didn’t seem that keen at first but finally he said it would be okay providing my friend and his family had always lived here in Israel. I said I knew lots of people like that but he said just the one, so I asked you, my friend.’

Benny smiled with satisfaction. ‘Three hundred shekels,’ he sighed.

‘For one night.’

After a few moments Benny’s smile faded as worries returned. He turned to Eli, ‘Shit, you know this doesn’t make sense. This guy wants to know about us... a floor sweeper and a dish washer! And for that he’s going to pay us 300 shekels each? He must have missed out the bit about wanting our kidneys.’

‘Relax,’ said Eli. ‘Just think about what you’re going to do with the money.’

‘There has to be more to it,’ murmured Benny.

Eli grinned. ‘Come on, we deserve a little luck in our lives and think what Shula will say when you hand her 300 shekels.’

Benny went quiet and Eli raised his eyebrows. ‘You didn’t tell her?’

‘I told her I was working an extra shift at the factory,’ said Benny, moving uncomfortably in his seat.

‘You cunning bastard! You’re going to keep the money for yourself!’ chuckled Eli.

‘And you’re not?’

The two men lapsed into silence as the bus ground its way slowly up through the Judean hills in the darkness. The Arab women stared into space as if in a trance; the European man had put headphones on and the blonde girl rested her head on his shoulder. Occasionally, when the driver took a long time to change gear and the engine revs dropped, vague musical sounds escaped from the headphones, a thin, tinny sound.

It was just after eleven thirty and the moon was high above the Mount of Olives when the bus ground its way into the bus station and disgorged its passengers. Benny smirked as the blonde girl reacted to the temperature by hugging herself and complaining to her friend. Benny and Eli started making their way towards the walls of the old city.

‘He said to enter at the Jaffa Gate,’ said Eli as the walls of the old city stretched out before them, ‘and then make our way to...’ He paused while he fished out a grubby piece of paper from inside his leather jerkin, ‘the convent of St Saviour.’

‘True Israelis, eh?’ said Benny, puffing out his chest. He had been considering what Eli had said earlier. ‘He’s right. We belong here. This is our land and the Christians know it.’ He turned to beam at Eli who smiled at his friend’s ever changing moods.

‘Halt!’

Both men stopped dead in their tracks as they crossed the threshold of the Jaffa gate and heard the command barked from the shadows. It was accompanied by the sound of an automatic rifle being cocked. An Israeli soldier materialised from the darkness, his right hand curled round the trigger of an automatic weapon. He signalled with his left hand that the two men should move towards him. Both complied. Neither was nervous; it was a common enough occurrence.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the soldier.

Benny replied rapidly in Hebrew and the soldier relaxed as if soothed by the sound. He motioned with the barrel of the gun that they should proceed.

‘Shalom,’ said Benny.

‘Shalom,’ replied the soldier merging back into the darkness.

St Saviour’s was located down a small cobbled lane leading off the Via Dolorosa. The only outward sign was a wooden plaque on the wall, which the men had to struggle to read in the dim light emanating from the one street light fixed high on a wall some twenty metres away. There was an iron bell pull below the plaque. Eli yanked it and the sonorous sound echoed out to them from somewhere deep inside. A few moments later a hatch in the door slid back and a square of yellow light appeared. ‘Yes?’ said a woman’s voice.

‘The priest said we should come,’ said Eli.

The hatch closed and Benny and Eli were left standing in the lane for more than a minute before they heard a series of bolts rattle back and saw the door swing slowly open.

‘Come,’ said the nun who had unlocked it; she was dressed in white with a long veil. Benny found it hard to tell how old she was; her face was scrubbed, pink and white, a complexion he was not at ease with, and her hair was hidden by a white cowl fixed beneath her veil. He noticed that her lace-up shoes seemed too big for her: they slid off her heel and scuffed the floor when she walked. She led the way along a narrow, uneven, stone-floored corridor where they were shown into a small chapel that smelled strongly of incense where they were left alone in brooding silence.

‘I don’t like this,’ whispered Benny, hunching up his shoulders and scowling as he looked around.

‘Christian places are all like this,’ replied Eli. ‘They like the darkness.’

Benny frowned as he examined a painting of a man in a loincloth, his side pierced by an arrow and blood spilling out from the wound while above him two angels played trumpets. Eli ran his fingers lightly along the altar cloth and started to fondle the gold cross that stood in the middle.

‘Don’t touch that,’ said an even voice behind him. It didn’t sound angry, just authoritative.

Eli span round to find the tall figure of a man dressed in priest’s robes standing in the doorway.

‘Here we are then, just as I promised,’ said Eli, showing his teeth like a chimpanzee. ‘And this is my friend, Benny Zur.’

Benny switched on a grin too as the priest looked at him.

‘I’m Dom Ignatius. You were born here too?’

‘Hebron,’ replied Benny.

‘Your parents?’

‘Both Jerusalem.’

‘What about your grandparents?’

‘My mother’s people came from Jaffa. My grandfather had a fishing boat. He used to take me out fishing when I was...’

‘And your father’s?’ interrupted the priest.

‘I’m not sure,’ replied Benny nervously, suddenly feeling a threat to the prospect of three hundred shekels. ‘I never met them. They died before I was born. A village in the north I think.’

‘But still in Palestine?’

‘Israel,’ replied Benny.

‘Quite,’ said Ignatius as if vaguely amused then he took a breath and said, ‘Good, my colleague Dr Stroud and I would both be grateful for your help with our research into life here in the Holy Land. We will need to ask you questions about your family background but, for this, you must be properly relaxed.’

Benny found that there was something unsettling about the phrase ‘properly relaxed’. He’d felt the same about ‘controlled conditions’ when Eli had used it earlier. He looked first to Eli and then back at the priest. ‘Properly relaxed?’ he said.

‘No need to be alarmed. No harm will come to you. But we would like to put you to sleep before we ask you things. It will improve your powers of recall.’

Benny’s eyes opened wide. ‘You mean you want to hypnotise us?’ he said, clearly appalled at the prospect.

‘Something like that,’ said the priest.

Benny shook his head. Eli too was unsure. Benny drew him to one side and whispered urgently, ‘Anything could happen to us while we were under the influence. We could be murdered!’

‘But they’re holy people!’ protested Eli. ‘Why would they want to murder us? We’ve got nothing worth stealing! They’ve no reason to kill us.’

‘They’ve got no reason to pay us three hundred shekels either,’ countered Benny, his eyes moving between Ignatius and Eli.

The priest saw that Benny was the more anxious of the two. ‘There’s really nothing to be afraid of,’ he said to him in a calm even voice. ‘Why don’t you and your friend talk it over while I ask Sister Benedict to bring you something to eat and drink? If after that you don’t want to go on with it we’ll say no more about it. Under these circumstances of course, we would not be able to pay you the money...’

Ignatius left the room and Eli got to work on Benny. ‘We can’t afford to let an opportunity like this go,’ he insisted. ‘How often do we get the chance to get our hands on easy money?’

‘I still don’t like it,’ said Benny. ‘I’d like to know what’s going on. They could do anything to us while we were asleep.’

‘Like what?’

‘Steal our kidneys. You hear stories of...’

Eli’s look of derision stopped Benny in his tracks. ‘Stop talking rubbish about kidneys, will you?’

Benny shrugged and tried an alternative. ‘So what’s to stop them asking us all they want to know and then murdering us so they don’t have to pay the money?’

Eli held up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘The man is a priest. We’re not dealing with robbers and thieves here,’ he said. ‘Besides, what are we going to do if we don’t go through with it? It’s too late to go back to Tel Aviv and we’ve no money to stay.’

A nun entered the room carrying a metal tray with sandwiches and a jug of wine on it. She put it down and left without saying anything. Eli filled a glass and handed it to Benny. ‘At least have a drink,’ he said. ‘Maybe it will help you to see sense.’

Benny took a mouthful then drained the glass in one go.

‘That’s more like it,’ said Eli. He took a bite out of a sandwich and murmured approvingly. ‘You said it yourself out there,’ he said. ‘We are important people, real Israelis. Our help is worth three hundred shekels of anybody’s money.’

Eli topped up Benny’s glass and watched him continue to mellow as the wine allayed his fears. He could see he was becoming much more relaxed about the whole affair. Eventually he broke into a smile and said, ‘Maybe you’re right about these people,’ he said. ‘They probably don’t mean us any harm.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Eli. ‘We’ll finish our supper and tell Ignatius that we’re going to help.’

Benny began to notice what a pleasant room this was — warm, friendly, reassuring. He was glad he had come.

When Ignatius returned, he was accompanied by a second man, even taller than he himself but not nearly so well proportioned. Ignatius was slim but the other man was painfully thin and gangly; his right shoulder drooped lower than the left and he held his head at the opposite angle, as if to compensate. He was wearing a lightweight linen suit that showed off wrinkles to advantage and the collar of his shirt had been made for a much larger man.

‘Well gentlemen, what have you decided?’ asked Ignatius without bothering to introduce the second man.

‘We will be happy to help you sir,’ answered Eli with an exaggerated smile. ‘We feel it’s our duty as Israelis.’

‘Good,’ replied the priest. ‘This is Dr Stroud. He will make sure that no harm comes to you. Come with us please.’

The fact that Stroud carried a small leather bag registered with Eli more than it did with Benny. It seemed that, whereas Benny’s reservations had been dealt with by the wine, his own had just started to arise. They passed another small chapel where a group of five or six nuns were singing. The Latin words meant nothing to him but it was a sound he had known all his life.

Ignatius led the way down a narrow flight of stone steps near the back of the building and Eli felt the walls close in on him. They entered a basement where they all had to duck to avoid contact with the vaulted stone roof.

‘In here,’ said Ignatius, leaning back so Benny and Eli could enter a room at the end of the corridor ahead of him. He clicked on the light with his outstretched right hand and Benny drew in his breath and looked at Eli. This room didn’t seem to belong in a church at all; it was much more like a doctor’s office.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Ignatius, sensing the pair’s unease. ‘You’ll be more comfortable here and the doctor will be able to look after you properly.’

Eli looked at Stroud and wasn’t at all sure that he wanted the doctor looking after him. He looked as if he could do with some looking after himself. Stroud opened his bag and took out several glass vials and a box of plastic syringes which he laid out on a tray. Eli tried to catch Benny’s eye but Benny was obviously still enjoying the euphoria the wine had bestowed on him. Eli saw Stroud remove two syringes from their wrappers and fit needles to them. Ignatius noticed him staring and said something to Stroud who responded by stopping what he was doing to open a small cabinet and take out a bottle of pills. He handed it to Ignatius who opened it and gave two pills to Eli. ‘Here, these will help you relax.’

Eli was shown into an adjoining room by Ignatius while Stroud indicated to Benny that he lie down on a leather-topped couch.

Benny stared up at the ceiling, wondering why it was moving. He’d only had two glasses of wine... He felt the doctor bare his arm and rub it with a swab. It felt cold, icy cold. Ignatius had come back into the room and was looking down at him. ‘Just relax,’ he was saying. ‘Relax and listen to what I say.’

Benny felt a slight sharp sensation in his arm. The light feeling in his head became more intense. It was as if his brain had suddenly become free of his body. His body had been a prison for his real self.

‘What is your name?’

‘Benny Zur,’ he replied slowly. The words seemed heavy; he had difficulty getting them out.

‘Where do you live?’

‘I told you... Tel Aviv.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty fi...’

‘Relax...’ soothed the voice from somewhere far away beyond the horizons of light. ‘Just relax.’

The sun was coming up... no, it was night. He was in a desert... no, he was in a forest and he was afraid. He couldn’t cope with the flood of images that were streaming through his consciousness, all demanding his attention. His pulse rate rose sharply. He became disorientated. The pictures kept coming and he couldn’t view them dispassionately because they all featured him. Each one triggered a different emotional reaction and he couldn’t keep up. He needed more air. He felt his legs go into painful spasm and tried to sit up. But he couldn’t; he was now trapped in a body that weighed too much. He broke out in a sweat: he could feel it running down his face but he couldn’t wipe it away. He was filled with foreboding. Something awful was about to happen, something awful... had happened.

‘Your name?’ asked the voice.

‘Ishmael Hamadi.’

‘Where do you live, Ishmael?’

‘Beer Sheva.’

‘Tell me about yourself. What do you do? Do you have family?’

‘I’m a camel driver. I live with my wife Ruth. We have two sons, Saul and Eli. Ruth’s mother stays with us too — she’s blind. Her father used to live with us but he died two months ago. He was eighty years old.’

‘Do you own your camels, Ishmael?’

‘No, they belong to Zachariah. He owns more than a hundred but I am in charge of three other drivers. Zaccharias trusts me.’

‘Have you ever heard of someone called the Nazarene?’

‘The one the Christians follow?’

‘Yes.’

‘He died a long time ago!’

Ignatius nodded to the Stroud who administered another injection.

Benny appeared to have some kind of convulsion. He sat bolt upright with fear etched on his face and cried out in anguish but the moment passed and he slumped back down on the bed. Stroud indicated to Ignatius that he could continue.

‘Your name?’

‘Ibrahim Dwek.’

Whereas Ishmael had spoken with a coarse accent, Ibrahim Dwek spoke in cultured tones and told of his life as a librarian at the Temple in Jerusalem. He wasn’t married and lived with his widowed mother Nesta and his sister Shula. Ignatius made notes while keeping up a string of questions as he gradually built up a picture of Dwek’s life. ‘What do you know about a teacher from Galilee, the one the Christians follow?’

‘Jesus of Nazareth? He’s long dead but people still speak of him and he has a big following.’

‘Are you or any of your family or friends, followers?’

‘No.’

‘A little more, please, Doctor.’

In response to the look of doubt that appeared on Stroud’s face, Ignatius whispered, ‘He hasn’t been put under any real stress.’

Another small injection was administered and Benny’s skin became pallid and his breathing laboured. There was a vague chemical smell on his breath which made Ignatius recoil slightly. ‘Tell me who you are and where you live,’ he asked in his even, reassuring tones.

‘James. I’m from Caesarea.’

‘What do you know about Jesus of Nazareth, James?’

‘He died that we might live forever.’

Ignatius exchanged glances with Stroud. ‘You’re a follower?’ he exclaimed.

No reply.

‘You do know him?’

‘The Romans crucified him the year I was born.’

The disappointment in the room was almost palpable. ‘Why did you say what you did about living for ever?’

‘I met a man in prison.’

‘You were in prison? Where?’

‘The Roman prison in Caesarea.’

Ignatius suddenly became very excited. He had to work at keeping his voice calm. ‘You were in prison in Caesarea where you met a man who told you about Jesus of Nazareth?’

Ignatius did not blink as he waited for a reply. He was almost too frightened to take a breath. When no reply was forthcoming he said, ‘The man who told you these things, he came from Tarsus, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, Paul of Tarsus.’

Ignatius silently mouthed the words, ‘Saint Paul.’

‘Tell me about your time in prison,’ he said hoarsely.

A tremor started in Benny’s hands, which quickly spread to his whole body and he became very restless. His words didn’t make sense any more.

‘Another injection,’ said Ignatius.

‘Not possible,’ said Stroud. ‘There’s none left.’