The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Chapter 21

A Greek Orthodox priest leaned against the smooth edge of the altar, keeping watch over the entrance to the cave where Jesus was born. He stroked his long black beard, gathering its thickness repeatedly in his fist like a girl fixing her ponytail, and stared as Omar Yussef came across the floor of the empty Church of the Nativity. His eyes were hooded, ringed with a black as vivid as his short mitre and long gown, and his face was immobile with a lazy hostility.

“Greetings, Father,” Omar Yussef said, when he reached the corner of the church by the cave.

The priest mumbled something that probably wasn’t loud enough even for him to hear it.

Omar Yussef restrained his irritation. The priest was a Greek. The other denominations allowed locals to rise in the priesthood, but the Greek Orthodox almost always shipped men from Athens to minister to a people about whom they knew nothing. The imports ended up alienated, resentful, and churlish like this one. Omar Yussef figured there were no tourists today for the priest to bully, so he must be in a bad mood.

“I’m looking for Father Elias Bishara.”

The Greek priest looked at Omar Yussef’s muddy, damp pants. He lifted a languid hand and, with a crooked finger, angled his wrist toward a small door in the north transept. The hand went back to stroking his beard and Omar Yussef had been dismissed.

Beyond the door was St. Catherine’s Church. The Franciscans built it onto the side of the Nativity Church in the nineteenth century. Its white marbled interior was quiet, so Omar Yussef went into the cloister. The granite medieval columns had been restored to a grayness that shone unnaturally in the blank light from the cloudy sky. At first the cloister seemed empty. There was a statue of an old man in a monk’s habit at the center of the courtyard. Then, behind the statue, Omar Yussef saw a kneeling priest, his head bowed in prayer. He recognized the thinning, curly black hair as Elias Bishara’s.

The priest rose as Omar Yussef crossed the flagstones and smiled. “Abu Ramiz, welcome.”

“How are you, Father Elias?”

“Don’t call me ‘Father.’ It sounds strange in the mouth of a man who has instructed me since childhood,” Elias said. “Am I supposed to call you ‘my son’?”

“Aren’t you cold out here?”

“Well, that’s the point, really.” He looked around the cloister. “The discomfort concentrates my prayers. So does this old bastard.” He gestured to the statue.

Omar Yussef looked up into the bearded face of the carved figure. He detected nothing spiritual in it. It was as blank as if it were set in a supermarket jello mold. “St. Jerome?”

“Yes, our local saint and martyr,” Elias Bishara said. “I was meditating on our friend George Saba earlier. I realized that I felt hatred toward the Muslims of our town for what they have done to George. I hate them for their unthinking orthodoxy and their crazy compulsion to martyrdom. I came here, to the feet of Jerome, to be reminded that we Christians have had our share of lunatics, fanatically rejecting those who thought and worshipped differently.”

“Not to mention those who worshipped the martyrs almost above God himself,” Omar Yussef said.

“You’re right, Abu Ramiz. This fellow Jerome’s translation of the Bible into Latin was the official version of the Roman Catholic Church for sixteen hundred years. It was a great achievement for a man who lived as a hermit in Bethlehem. But he destroyed the careers and lives of other theologians who dared to challenge his orthodoxy, and he decorated the tombs of martyrs with so many candles that people said he was a pagan worshipping the light, instead of God.”

Elias Bishara dusted off the front of his robe where his kneeling had soiled it. He looked at Omar Yussef’s muddy trousers. “Did you fall, ustaz?”

The mud had dried to a dusty cake on the outside of Omar Yussef pants. Underneath, his legs were wet and cold. “It’s nothing,” he said.

“Let’s go inside, anyway. There’s no need for you to join me in scourging yourself out here.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

The two men went into the quiet, white chapel. From the small door to the Nativity Church, the Greek priest watched them, his fingers still brushing his beard. Elias Bishara took Omar Yussef’s arm and led him to the rear pew.

“Elias, I must warn you of a danger to the church,” Omar Yussef said. “There was an attack, a suicide bomb, this morning in Jerusalem.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“It was carried out by the Martyrs Brigades. The operation was organized from Bethlehem. I fear the Israelis will come tonight to capture or kill the leaders of the group. They will need to exact some kind of revenge for the deaths in their marketplace.”

“How does this involve the church?”

“Jihad Awdeh, who is a leader of the Martyrs Brigades, has become a neighbor of mine. He told someone that if the Israelis came to take him, he would flee to the church.”

Elias gasped.

“You understand, of course, that if he enters the church, it could draw the Israeli soldiers inside, too. There might be a gunfight in the church. Who knows how it would end? But it would be bad for the town, and bad for the Christians, either way. Your shrine could be damaged, even destroyed, if the gunmen enter. If they are denied sanctuary by the priests, the Muslims of the town will rise up against the Christians for abandoning the so-called resistance heroes to the Israeli army.”

Elias glanced toward the watching Greek priest, who dodged behind the stone lintel of the door, out of sight. “Abu Ramiz, I can’t believe it has come to this,” he said.

“Why do you think the Martyrs Brigades has its headquarters right around the corner? They could be out of their hideaway and inside the church in a minute. You must close the doors early tonight.”

“I can’t, Abu Ramiz. It isn’t my decision. Even if I can persuade the Latin patriarch to shut the church, the Greeks won’t allow it. They’ll be suspicious. They’ll think we’re trying to change the operating arrangements of the church. Nothing has been done differently here for hundreds of years. You’re a history teacher, so you know all about it. Remember how the French empire ended up at war against Russia a hundred and fifty years ago because the priests here argued about a new decorative plaque on the spot where Jesus was born? Even today, a Catholic priest sweeps some steps that are supposed to be cleaned by the Greek Orthodox and he gets a punch in the face. It’s hopeless even to ask about locking up early.”

“Surely they’ll understand the threat?”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s such stubbornness in this church, there are priests who’d rather see the place destroyed by Muslims and Jews than concede a point to another Christian denomination.”

“Then there’s nothing you can do?”

“Maybe there’s something.” Elias looked down the aisle toward the figure of the crucified Christ on the altar. “I’ll be here. I’ll stop them.”

“Elias, they’ll just kill you. How will you stand up to them alone?”

“Abu Ramiz, I’m not a hero, of course. I fear these gunmen. But I hope that I fear them less than I love this church. This building is the history of Christianity in the Holy Land. You always taught me that history was the essence of life, that its study gave us the key to a better future. Even if these stones were to be destroyed, the spirit of their history must be protected. This place represents a past when Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully and the chance that it could be so again, when all of this madness is over. I will be here tonight, and I will pray for the church. I will stay here even when the Martyrs Brigades come, and I will pray for them too.” Elias laid a warm hand on Omar Yussef’s leg. “Thank you for the warning, Abu Ramiz. Now I will be ready for them when they come. But you must go home and change into dry clothes, before you catch your death of a cold.”

“I’m beginning to think that would be a blessing.”

“Do you want to be an influenza martyr?” Elias Bishara laughed. “They will give you seventy-two cups of hot cider in Paradise.”

Omar Yussef laughed, too. But as he left the church, he noticed that Elias Bishara was back on his knees. The priest’s gaze was stern, fixed on the cross.