An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  “The stations are marked,” Abdul said. “I don’t think I have to explain them.” He and Barbara let Philip walk ahead of them as they entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Abdul telling her softly, “The last four stations of the cross are inside this church. I think Mr. Carter knows that. The church was built on the Hill of Golgotha, but I suppose most of the hill was leveled before they built the church. The Old City was much smaller then, and two thousand years ago, this spot was outside the walls. These present walls are only four hundred years old, but the tourists like to think that they are the original walls of the old Jewish city. These little chapels belong to the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Christians, the Roman Catholics, and others. Protestants are not allowed to hold services here.”

  Philip had disappeared in the crowd of tourists gathered around the final stage of the cross, where Jesus was buried and then resurrected. The church itself was dimly lit, gloomy, dirty, and in poor repair—this, the holiest spot in the Christian world, fallen into decay and disrepair, airless and unwelcoming. The smell of the place was rank and disturbing, and Barbara said to Abdul, “We’ll wait for my husband outside.” She shivered.

  Outside she said to Abdul angrily, “Everything in Israel is so glistening, clean, and impressive—and this! This means nothing to me, but to my husband and others it’s the center of mankind, and you allow it to rot and decay. You boast of the freedom of religion in your country and you turn this into a slum!”

  “Don’t blame us,” Abdul pleaded. “We have no authority here, and no right to touch anything here. It’s the Christian sector of the city, and it’s governed by the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox and by other Christian churches here. We’ve begged them to let us reconstruct. We’ve offered them money to do it themselves. We make this area available to people of every faith. We guard it and keep it safe. But we have no authority to touch any relic or chapel or church.”

  Barbara listened and said she was sorry. In any case, why take out her feelings on Abdul?… What had provoked her so? Why did all this make her skin creep? Did she want Philip to scorn this strange display of what had happened two thousand years ago, or was she hardening the rift that had always existed between her and Philip? And if so, she told herself, it must stop. Somehow she must understand without condemnation. Somehow she must accept religion as a thing millions of people required, and without which they could not live, though she had lived without it and lived well—or so she felt when she reflected upon it—and most of the people she knew and loved lived without it, and they lived well and kindly. She had been drawn to the Unitarians, after the first retreat from the rain that led her there, because they appeared to be a group of people who simply felt that gathering together to celebrate life and compassion was sufficient—and yet under that celebration, when she thought deeply, was a need for something more than themselves and each other. Now, she told herself firmly, she must be neither provoked nor impatient with her husband. She would let him take the lead, whether to talk about it or not to talk about it.

  Through all of her cogitation, Abdul remained silent, thinking perhaps of his own experiences with those who had come down the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. He had guided people of every religion down the street, Jews and Christians and Muslims and Buddhists, but this woman was difficult to understand. He had been told that the man was a Unitarian minister, but what a Unitarian was, he had not the faintest notion. As for the woman—well, she was a Christian. He had given up any attempt to understand Christians.

  After about fifteen minutes, Philip emerged from the church and announced, “I’m hungry. Where can we eat?”

  Abdul suggested an Arab restaurant. “Have you ever eaten Arab food?”

  “No, but isn’t it dangerous?”

  “To go to an Arab restaurant? Oh no. They’re very hospitable people. Many of them are angry with us, but when you break bread with them, they are very pleasant. If you can still enjoy walking, we’ll go through the Arab part to our parking place. It’s very interesting.”

  The Arab marketplace reminded Barbara of the Italian market in the North Beach area of San Francisco when she was a child. The stands were filled with fresh vegetables, corn and squash and beans and tomatoes and potatoes and cabbage, and stands of fresh-baked pita bread. “The old bread,” Abdul explained. “It’s why our matzo is round, not like the square matzo we export to the States. They flattened the pita and let it bake in the sun… You do know what matzo is?”

  “I should think so,” Philip said. “The winery where my wife’s family lives began its business by selling sacramental wine to the San Francisco synagogues and churches.” Then he bought one of the pitas and broke it up, and they ate the fresh bread as they walked. They passed a butcher’s stand, chickens and cuts of lamb. “Was that during what your country called Prohibition?” Abdul asked.

  “The sacramental wine?” Barbara asked him. “Yes, they had to make that legal. This bread is absolutely delicious.” She was tired when finally they reached Saint Stephen’s Gate and the car. Abdul drove down the Jericho Road and then turned onto the Port Said Road. Sunshine had warmed the day. Abdul parked the car and led them to an old Arab structure where a balcony was set with tables. Abdul knew the proprietor, and they bowed and exchanged greetings in Arabic.

  Barbara and Philip dropped into their seats gratefully, and Abdul went on speaking to the proprietor in Arabic. Finally those two shook hands, and the proprietor left them. They had the balcony to themselves, and Barbara wondered why the other tables were empty. “It’s a bit early for Arabs, and few of the tourists come here. He’s in an anti-Israel phase now, and he’s pleased that I brought Christians here.”

  “How does he know we’re Christians?” Philip asked.

  “How does he know I’m Egyptian? My Arabic and the way I look… We tell a story about a religious Jew who goes to Tokyo. He goes to the synagogue and meets the rabbi, who is also Japanese. The rabbi looks at him suspiciously and says to him, ‘You don’t look Jewish.’ Hassan here doesn’t believe I’m Jewish.”

  A waiter entered the balcony, bearing a tray of pita bread and cakes and a pitcher of iced tea. “They don’t serve wine,” Abdul said. “It’s against their religion, so they only drink it at home.”

  The table and the tableware were clean, but there were no menus. “They don’t have menus here,” Abdul explained. “You tell him what you want and it’s brought out. I didn’t ask what you wanted because I didn’t think Arab food was familiar to you. But if there is something special, I’ll be happy to tell him.”

  “Oh no, not at all,” Philip said. “I’d much rather see what you ordered.”

  “Just lunch,” Abdul said.

  The waiter returned a minute or so later, bearing a great tray that he set down on the next table. There were eight bowls on the tray, and as he set them down in front of them, Abdul listed the contents, “Chopped eggplant and herbs, chopped lamb, peppers and stuff, cucumbers and radish, hummus—and these two I don’t know, but very good. Try it all. And this, I think, is some sort of cabbage. You can either put it on your plate or pick it up with pita bread. Yes, I thought so, pine nuts and olives in this one. For dessert, we’ll have halvah and honey cakes and Turkish coffee.”

  They ate everything in the eight bowls, and Barbara, who recalled eating in an Arab restaurant in New York, admitted that it had been nothing like this. Abdul suggested that they return some evening for dinner, when they would be served lamb on a spit—“melts in your mouth”—and rice such as they never tasted. Abdul said that they still had time, if their legs held out, to visit the original wall of Herod’s Temple and a new archaeological site that was being excavated nearby. After which he would drive them back to the Mishkenot, where they could rest before dinner. Barbara would just as soon have gone back to her bedroom at the Mishkenot, but Philip was still filled with enthusiasm, and since his face no longer pained him as much as it had, he was eager to go on with his exploration of the Old City.
Once, Abdul told them, there had been nothing but wooden shacks and garbage in front of what was then called the Wailing Wall, but that was all cleared away after the Israelis took Jerusalem, and today there was a great plaza in its stead. Barbara, determined to remain placid and willing, agreed; and off they went to Herod’s wall.

  The space before the Wall was governed by Orthodox Jews, as Abdul informed them with some annoyance, and he gave Philip a yarmulke to cover his head and warned Barbara to cover her bare arms with her sweater, telling them that men and women were separated at the great Wall, and must leave their prayers, if they desired to pray, in separate places. The prayers were to be written on bits of paper, curled up, and left in the crevices between the stones, where, so it was said, God received them gratefully. Barbara contained herself, and Philip said he would just as soon whisper his prayers; and Abdul apologized for such foolishness but reminded them that religion was religion.

  They were impressed with the height and strength of the two-thousand-year-old wall but found the archaeological dig more fascinating. Half a dozen young men and women were carefully excavating what might have been an old tomb or place of worship. They were blue eyed and blond, and when Barbara asked who they were, she was told by Abdul that they were archaeology students from Sweden.

  “They’re not Jewish, are they?”

  “They could be Swedish Christians, but these happen to be Jewish. They’re from Sweden, so they look like Swedes.”

  BACK AT THE MlSHKENOT FINALLY, Barbara dropped onto her bed, with a sigh of satisfaction. She was silent for quite a while, her eyes closed, and Philip thought she was asleep. But then she opened her eyes and stared at Philip.

  “Why not talk about it?” Philip asked.

  “To what end?”

  “I love you. We’re man and wife, and I hope we’ll be man and wife for the rest of our lives.”

  “I hope so, too. But a good part of it is not to hurt each other.”

  “Good heavens, did I hurt you?”

  “No, no, dear Philip, but if I tell you my reactions, I’ll hurt you terribly.”

  “You couldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

  “Ah,’ well, Philip, that may or may not be so. I wish we hadn’t gone to that museum they call the Old City. If I were the prime minister of this land, I’d tear it all down and build a park. For two thousand years, we Christians have murdered millions of Jews—six million in the Holocaust, and God only knows how many millions before that—”

  “I’m afraid they’d lynch anyone who even dared to suggest that they tear it down.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. It’s probably the greatest sideshow on earth. And did you notice the Israeli soldiers who guard the Via Dolorosa every step of the way—not against the Christians but against the possibility that the Arabs might interfere with Christian worship. Why don’t the Jews hate us?”

  “Because they’re Jews.”

  “What does that say? Explain it to me,” Barbara demanded.

  “I can’t. That’s why I became a Unitarian.”

  “Were you a Unitarian today?”

  Philip smiled, reached for her hand, took it, and kissed the palm. “I suppose I’m many things,” he said gently. “We’re all many things. The Buddhists say that when we become one thing, then we are enlightened. I know that this speck of cosmic dust we call the earth is one of billions of stars and planets in a limitless universe, and now the physicists are saying that all we see is an illusion, a momentary play of forces. And I know all the crimes and horrors of Christianity through the ages—perhaps better than you do. The Jesuits trained me well, and they don’t look for loopholes in the truth. Perhaps the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are inventions, but I felt something mysterious and heartrending—perhaps a vibration from the people who were there, perhaps something in myself—but I felt it. You didn’t feel it. We are different. I love you for what you are, compassionate and merciful. In my mind, you are the best Christian I have ever known.”

  “I’m not a Christian,” Barbara said bluntly. “I had not taken communion since I was a child. What happened in Westminster was for you.”

  “Then I love you for whatever you are.”

  She broke into laughter. “Philip, my darling, how can I argue with you? And all that white gook has come off your head, so you had better go into the bathroom and smear yourself up again. How are the blisters?”

  “They’re coming along nicely.”

  “Well, that’s something positive. Sarah told me that Teddy Kollek left a message that he is taking us to dinner tonight at eight o’clock, and it’s after five right now. I want to have a nap, as befits an old lady.”

  Mr. Kollek took them to a Jewish restaurant in West Jerusalem, the New City, where they were welcomed like visiting dignitaries. They were overwhelmed with food and wine. Kollek had read one of Barbara’s books that had been translated into Hebrew, the most personal of her books, which told of her journey to El Salvador and her experience there with the guerrilla movement, and he appeared delighted to meet them. He enthralled them with the history of Jerusalem, its captures by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Turks, the Crusaders, and finally the British and the Arab Legion. “But now it’s ours, and you must see every part of it.” Barbara had the feeling that he was Jerusalem, that there was no separation between himself and the city. The peace in Jerusalem was his peace; every house built, every shop opened, was his house and his shop. Mostly he spoke of the New City of west Jerusalem, the housing, the growth into a great metropolis. The only bit of annoyance he displayed was his anger at the architectural critic of the New York Times, who had dared to complain about the towering high-rise apartment houses. “But we have so little land. If we don’t go up, we take away farmland.”

  He mentioned that some members of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, then in session, had asked whether Philip would appear there and say a few words, but Philip begged off, pleading that he had done nothing worthy of mention. Kollek agreed that if it caused him pain, he could avoid it, and Barbara found herself liking this plainspoken burly man more and more. He embraced the city, and he told them that now that they had seen the Old City he would tell Abdul where to take them. “There are two places here you must visit. One is Yad Vaskow, our memorial to the six million who died in the Holocaust. The other is our museum and sculpture garden.”

  “The memorial hill,” Philip said. “Yes, I have read about it.”

  “You speak Hebrew?”

  “A little. I can understand it when it’s spoken slowly.”

  “Nobody in Israel speaks slowly,” Kollek said. “Everyone is in a hurry in Israel. Everything must be done yesterday. But I will give Abdul a dressing-down. Too much for the first day.”

  “No, he’s delightful,” Barbara said.

  “Yes, but take your time. Stay as long as you wish. You must go to the Galilee and see Lake Kineret, and perhaps to the Negev, where you will see what we have done to the desert. You are a writer,” he said to Barbara. “You must see the miracle we have worked, and then you will be able to write about it in a different way.”

  FOR THE NEXT NINE DAYS, Barbara and Philip, with Abdul at the wheel, roamed through Israel. They saw all that Teddy Kollek had suggested and more. They drove to the Lebanon border in the north and to the Negev and the Dead Sea in the south, and for the first time Barbara had a sense of what Bernie, her first husband, had given his life for.

  “This is not a honeymoon,” she finally told Philip. “It’s a lesson in something, but I’m not sure exactly what… I’m three days away from my birthday, and I want to go home.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow—if we can get seats.”

  The following day they left Israel on a flight to Geneva, the only passage they could get on short notice. They remained in Geneva for a single day, so that they might see at least one city in Switzerland. Then they flew to Kennedy Airport in New York, remained overnight, and then went on t
o San Francisco.

  On the flight to San Francisco, Barbara said to Philip, “I was seventy yesterday, or is it today, or is today yesterday? I think it was yesterday. I’m very tired. I don’t want to ever go anywhere again—except perhaps to Highgate. I gave Abdul fifty dollars. Do you think that was enough?”

  “I gave him fifty dollars,” Philip confessed.

  “Then it’s enough. He’s a canny Egyptian.”

  “Well, we did get to the Holy Land. I got that out of my system.”

  “Thank goodness. And it rained all the time we were in New York.”

  “So it did.”

  “Do you still love me, Philip?”

  “That was never in question. Do you still love me?”

  “Even with no hair. But I’m glad you got rid of that white gook you had to smear on. You look almost human.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Well, it’s nice to be married to an old man. You don’t worry about his appearance.”

  “Thank you again,” Philip said.

  INSIDE THE HOUSE ON GREEN STREET, their luggage still piled in the living room, the two of them drinking coffee in the kitchen, Barbara said, “I’m still, uncertain whether it’s tomorrow or yesterday. As for the mail, we could hardly get the door open, there was such a pile of it. When am I going to answer all those letters? I don’t dare roll back the answering machine. Also, we have to learn to be unimportant. We no longer have a small country at our disposal, willing to pay all our bills. You got the short end of it, my dear. You paid the fare, I went along for the ride.”

  “We’re not unimportant, Barbara. Every human beings—”

  “Philip.”

  He paused.

  “Philip,” Barbara said sternly, “I love you because you’re kind and brave and loving, and because you’re my husband. I will always love you. You had begun to say that every human being is important. I will not be married to a saintly man. You are a human being. You’re not obligated to be personally responsible for every other human being. That’s God’s job. Leave a little bit for God. Every human being is not important in our scheme of things. Every human being may be born equal, but some are more equal than others. Millions and millions die of hunger and war—”