Birthright

by Alan Gold

  The floor was of polished marble, and some of the walls were painted in delicate pastel shades. On other walls were exquisite paintings of birds and animals languishing beside streams with bushes in full bud, fruit and berry trees overhanging the water. Zakki had never seen such delicacy, such splendor. It made the Roman mosaics in Jerusalem seem like the crude scrawls of a child.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a palace guard, a retinue for the caliph’s first wife, entering the room. In the middle of the guard formation, as though protected on all sides, was the woman who’d commanded his attendance.

  She smiled at him—at least he thought she smiled; she was wearing a yashmak and he couldn’t see her face. She beckoned him to sit down on one of the many divans in the room.

  “They tell me that you’re a Jew, a doctor from Jerusalem.”

  He nodded, his mind working through the next steps of what he must do.

  “I am told you can cure that which nearly killed my son. Is this correct?”

  “Only in part. Once the disease has ahold on a person’s body, there is little that a physician can do other than give the patient clean water and offer prayers.” As he often did when he was explaining complex ideas, Zakki used his hands as much as his words. “It was said in past times that the body’s health is governed by four humors; fluids of the body. These humors, revealed by the great Hippocrates, are associated with body colors, seasons of the year, and temperature of the air.”

  Unable to see the woman’s face, Zakki had no way of reading her response or judging if the woman understood what he was saying. “Shall I continue?” he asked.

  The woman nodded keenly, and he imagined he spied a keen intelligence in her eyes, hungry for understanding. Zakki explained the four body humors, their colors, origins, and effects on the body.

  “It has been thought that when these humors are out of alignment, the body falls ill. When they are in balance, we are well. For example, too much blood makes the body overheated and we suffer fever. To cure this, the ancient Greeks cut the skin and let the blood of the patient fall into a bowl. We Jews don’t believe this to be a cure. We think it weakens the body.”

  “Then what is to be done to restore the balance of the body?” the woman asked.

  “This is the question. It is my view, based on the experience of my people and the learning I have uncovered in my experiments and from my travels to other cities, that when water is boiled, its complexion changes. Water that comes from a well or a jug might look safe but could be unsafe to drink. Yet when that same water is boiled and cooled, provided it is covered with a cloth, then it becomes safe to drink. Also, we add lemon juice to water, and sometimes other sour substances, but not enough to materially alter the taste, nor to make it poison.”

  “Boiled water can save my family?”

  “By boiling the water, you may no longer suffer the effluvium of the bowels. It is important that the water from your river, the Tigris, isn’t drunk without first being boiled. Especially in the months of the summer, and most especially when it is given to young girls and boys or old men and women.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “But in the summer, when the water we drink is warm, it is then that the effluvium becomes rampant and people fall down in the streets from illness. The exudations from the body cause the air in the city to stink. But I don’t understand how boiling water can make it different. It’s the same water, isn’t it?”

  He nodded and appreciated her logic. She had a mind for scientific inquiry.

  “Warm and boiling are not the same. We don’t know for certain, but there is a theory, first considered by the ancient Greeks, that there might be tiny and invisible animalcules in the water, smaller than the eye can see, which can live in warm water yet cannot survive in boiling water. Even the curved glass that you Arabs have created, and that causes objects to appear larger than they are, seems to be of little use when looking at water because the animalcules are too small to be seen.”

  She looked at him in wonder. “And that is all that is needed to stop this wasting disease? Just boiling water?”

  Zakki nodded.

  A servant, covered from head to toe in shimmering gossamer veils, brought in sweetmeats and sugary cakes. Zakki and the caliph’s wife ate morsels, and each drank a glass of juice. Instead of retiring, the girl stood close to the divan where the caliph’s wife sat, her head bowed in reverence.

  “And what payment do you require for your advice and services, Doctor? Would you like money, or perhaps you’d prefer to spend a night with Raniah?” She nodded to the girl, who bowed slightly in Zakki’s direction. “She is a slave purchased last year from Persia. She’s just thirteen and has known only one man in her life, my husband, and from what he’s told me, I am able to assure you that taking Raniah into your bed is worth ten thousand times more than any money you will ask for.”

  Zakki smiled. “I don’t want money for the advice I’ve given you, Great Lady. And as to Raniah, I’m afraid my wife would be very angry if she knew that I’d spent even a brief moment thinking about her, let alone lying with her.”

  The caliph’s wife nodded and then, with a flick of her fingers, dismissed the girl, who scurried away.

  “Is this the way with you Jews? You have one wife and none other?”

  “That is our way, Lady,” he said. “I want no reward save one request.”

  Through the gap in the veil, Zakki could see an eyebrow raise.

  “I beg your indulgence so that I am allowed to speak with the caliph. That is all the recompense I require. A word with the Caliph.”

  The raised eyebrow turned into a frown. “You wish to speak . . . to the Caliph? Why?”

  Zakki had known this question would come. “There is a danger to him. People within his household who wish for the peace that the mighty caliph has brought to Baghdad to be ended and replaced by war.”

  Zakki wondered what she was thinking. He’d taken a great risk, one that might see him and his family die at the hand of Hadir, or else here by the hand of the caliph. Yet his family was his greatest concern, and there was no turning back.

  The woman remained staring at him for a long moment, until she finally stood. “Remain here,” she said in a commanding voice.

  She left the chamber, and Zakki sat for what seemed an age. He looked at the corpus of guardsmen. All twenty soldiers were dressed in impressive turbans with light body armor. Their waists were weighed down with swords and deadly daggers in scabbards positioned at strategic points on their arms, legs, and chests. They were the fiercest-looking men he’d ever seen. And each, as a badge of honor, looked identical, having grown a bushy black mustache as though it were another deterrent in their aggressive armory. None looked at him, but he knew that were he to move a muscle without permission, or try to escape, he wouldn’t even reach the door.

  Eventually, a servant entered the chamber and told him that the caliph would give him an audience. Zakki followed the man and realized that without being ordered or instructed, the guards had pivoted on their heels and were surrounding him in perfect formation.

  He walked down seemingly endless corridors, glancing into rooms where important people were meeting and discussing matters of consequence. Yet unlike the arguments and discussions conducted at the House of Wisdom, these conversations were hushed, almost reverential, so that none could overhear what was being said. Nobody even glanced up from their deliberations as Zakki and his guards walked past.

  They entered a huge hall, the caliph’s official office, whose open windows faced a garden somehow built within the structure of the house. Zakki, knowing only Jerusalem before coming to Baghdad, had never seen such a construction. It appeared to be outdoors and yet was within the building; it was open to the skies but constrained within the walls of the palace.

  What was even more remarkable was that the garden contained a wondrous fountain, its water lapping over a series of statues and rocks until it fell from the height of a tall man onto a large
blue pond.

  Walking around the garden were the most remarkable birds Zakki had ever seen. Birds that seemed to be wearing crowns on their heads, birds whose feathers were blue and gold, green and yellow. Some stood with their heads bowed to the ground, their massive colored tails in a huge fan that looked like a painting containing a hundred eyes. Then Zakki looked up into the trees and saw monkeys jumping from branch to branch. It seemed to him like the Garden of Eden.

  The servant leading him came to a stop at the far end of the hall and Zakki stood there, surrounded by the guardsmen, the vast room before him.

  Zakki’s amazement turned to acute focus as he fixed his gaze on the far end of the room where the caliph sat on a throne. The slender man looked resplendent in his multicolored gowns and his turban emblazoned with enormous white and blue feathers. Of all the color in the room, and outside in the garden, it was the caliph whose clothes were the most vivid.

  Beside him sat a young boy not more than nine or ten years of age, dressed in the pure white of a Muslim holy man giving way to a cloak of deepest crimson.

  Beside the thrones were the important men of the court, advisers to the caliph, men who would listen to any nuance or gossip if it would advance their wealth or position.

  It was these men, in this moment, whom Zakki feared. These men were closest to the Caliph and to his vizier, Hadir ibn Yussuf ibn Gibreel, the man Zakki had come to denounce.

  Nervously, Zakki surveyed the assembly. Though they were dressed almost identically, he couldn’t discern Hadir’s face among the others gathered at the feet of the caliph. The absence of Hadir gave him confidence.

  The guard allowed Zakki to walk up to the raised dais where the caliph sat with the young imam. Zakki looked from right to left, and the closer he came to the advisers, the more certain he was that the vizier wasn’t there. Was it just luck?

  As Zakki bowed, the caliph spoke in a voice of authority. “You are the doctor my wife has spoken of? The one who can prevent assaults of the effluvium of the body?”

  “Yes, Great One.”

  “You wish to speak with me?”

  “Yes, Great One.”

  “Well?”

  “Great One, I wish to speak with you about a matter that is for your ears and the ears of none other.”

  There was silence, but with his eyes still lowered to the ground, Zakki could not read the silence and pushed on. “It concerns a person within your court, close to your throne, who wishes to do harm to this great city, and the empire you and your father have built. To say these things, however, I need to speak with you and you alone.”

  “Who is this man of whom you speak?” asked the caliph.

  “Great One, I cannot—”

  Zakki raised his eyes for the first time to look at the caliph. There was silence for what seemed to Zakki the longest time, until the caliph held up his hand.

  “I will accede to your request and grant you a private audience. All will leave my court until I command your return. All except his holiness the imam and the captain of my guard.”

  The guard captain looked sternly at Zakki, a gaze that could melt stone, and Zakki knew it was a warning. If he moved too fast or in the wrong way, Zakki would die there on the steps at the feet of the caliph without another word.

  Zakki bowed in respect and then waited for the others to leave. When the room was empty, the caliph beckoned him forward until he stood close enough to speak in a voice that could not be overheard in the galleries above.

  But before Zakki could speak, the caliph whispered to him, “I know why you are here this day. You have a friend in the House of Wisdom who is also a friend of somebody close to me. He has made your concerns known to my ears.”

  The words stole the air from Zakki’s lungs and with it the words he had to say to the caliph.

  “Your fellow Jew is not here. I have sent him away. You have nothing to fear.”

  Zakki felt dizzy and struggled to comprehend his position. Was he about to be killed, or did the caliph really already know what Zakki had to say?

  The caliph smiled as if reading the doctor’s mind. “Do you see the vizier in court today? No. I have ordered him to go to the eastern deserts to collect tributes from the tribes. What you tell me is not new to my ears, Doctor. There is nothing you can tell me that is not already known to me. Do you think I have no knowledge of what is happening in my court?”

  “No. No, Great One. I came to warn . . . I came because I was afraid . . . I came because . . .”

  The caliph waved his hand for silence. “The vizier has done well for me, and my city is richer now than at any time. As I have grown wealthy, so, too, has he grown wealthier. But I know my people. And I know my faith.”

  His eyes drifted to the nine-year-old boy-imam at his side, who sat silent, listening carefully, judging Zakki.

  “You are aware of the Silk Road, which brings great things from far in the east to our city. At the far end of the Silk Road is a land called China. We have brought many books and scrolls from that land, and they have been translated by our scholars, by ones such as you. One of the books, written over a thousand years ago, was by a great warrior called Sun Tzu. His advice was to keep friends close but enemies closer. This is wise counsel, Doctor. For knowing where the vizier is and what he is planning makes me safer. Aiding him in his plots is someone even closer to me, someone who wishes to sit on my throne, to usurp me. No doubt you will know of whom I speak.”

  Zakki nodded.

  “Then you will also know that my brother has a large following. Were I to move against him, the bloodshed would be great. And the risk to the imam”—he turned and reached over to hold the arm of the young lad—“would be immense. Things will happen in my court, Doctor, but at a time of my choosing and my discretion.”

  Zakki drew in a deep breath.

  “That is why I have not moved against the vizier, because it would precipitate bloodshed at the very doorstep of my palace, and my forces are not strong enough to ensure my victory against the militants my brother could call upon, forces that are interested only in their own wealth and not the good of the empire.”

  The caliph smiled. “I placed great trust in you, Doctor. I know much about you. I knew from the imam’s uncle that you’d been to see him; and I knew from your friend Hussain of your concerns. I trusted that when you came to see me, you would ask to see me alone. I was right to trust you, for had you told me of your conversation with the vizier in the presence of my court, then all would have been exposed. Those who are not loyal to me among my advisers—and I know who they are—would have scurried to inform the vizier. But in the coming months, perhaps years, my brother’s base of power will be diluted. Then I shall deal with him and all who try to bring discord to the House of Allah.”

  Zakki knew then that conflict and destruction would come. The divisions were too deep and the layers of power struggle too complex. The greatest of learning and everything the House of Wisdom represented might be brought low when Sunni and Shi’ite were set against each other for the inheritance of Mohammed.

  Did the caliph know this? Or was he too caught up in the machinations of his own power to see the future of his people with clear eyes?

  “I’m sorry to say that your presence here in Baghdad is likely to cause trouble for me. You will become an object of division, which is why I am commanding you and your family to return to Jerusalem and to have no further contact with my court. You have nothing more to fear from the vizier, but your time in the House of Wisdom, Doctor, has come to an end.”

  RAF Station, Lydda Airfield

  between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

  1947

  SHALMAN MADE CERTAIN that the rope tying the hands of the British Tommy was secure enough for him not to escape but loose enough for proper blood circulation. The ball of fabric in his mouth would prevent him from shouting for help, and the ropes that tethered him to the wall heater would keep him warm in the cold night air.

  Satisfied that unt
il he was discovered the man would be safe, Shalman stood and found himself speaking when he knew that he probably shouldn’t. “I’m sorry to do this to you . . .”

  Shalman thought he heard the British conscript mumble, “Fuck you.” It was the least Shalman deserved for the crack on the head he’d been forced to wield. But it gave him access to the fuel truck, which was what he needed.

  The massive Avro York military transporter was sitting out on the No. 3 runway of the airfield like a giant bird of prey at rest, waiting to be fueled so that it could carry its cargo of supplies to British forces stationed in Egypt. The mission Shalman had been given by Dov was to take command of the refueling vehicle, initiate the timing mechanism of the bomb, drive it to the underbelly of the aircraft, and then crawl away unnoticed.

  Wearing a stolen British uniform, Shalman climbed into the cabin of the fuel truck and turned the key. It roared into life, making a terrible rumbling noise in the confines of the hangar, and Shalman said a quick prayer. Odd, because he otherwise thought of himself as an atheist. But what did the American soldiers say—“There are no atheists in foxholes”? If there wasn’t a God, then at least the prayer made him feel better; if there was a God, maybe the Almighty would help Shalman survive. Either way, he felt he’d covered his bases.

  He drove the truck away from the hangar, along the periphery of the airport until he came to the end of Runway 3. Then he turned hard left and traveled down the runway toward the aircraft. He checked carefully through the windshield and saw there were only three or four men standing nearby. Earlier, there had been at least twenty.

  Shalman put the truck into second gear so that it was trundling along slowly. Slow enough to be thought of as casual and ordinary, not so slow that anybody might easily see Shalman’s face and wonder who he was. He pressed his knee up under the steering wheel to hold it on course and free his hands. Beside him was a small satchel; he removed a heavy brick. He placed it on the floor near his feet. With his eyes flicking regularly up to check his slow, trundling trajectory, he reached deeper into the bag. His fingers found the mechanical mass of explosive and wire that was the bomb.