Stateless

by Alan Gold

  Abram looked at her in horror. ‘A slave?’

  ‘You must face that reality, Abram.’

  ‘My son . . . my Jonathan? No!’

  ‘These are evil times, my friend. And Alexandria is an evil place.’

  ‘But this is the most enlightened city in the world. Your library, your schools of philosophers, your . . . how can you allow the evils of slavery, the barbarism of –’ He couldn’t continue.

  Maria looked at his disconsolate face in pity. ‘Alchemy teaches that the three emanations of sentient beings – intellectual, celestial and corruptible – form a fourth, which is the one machine of the whole world. But the ancients tell us that it is also necessary to have the corruptible in order to form a fifth essence, the quintessence, in order to have unity. We have to have evil, like these slave traders, in order to have the quintessence of life. I’m so sorry, my friend.’

  ‘Then I’ll go to the authorities,’ he said. ‘The Roman Procurator and Governor of Alexandria. I’ll demand that they and their soldiers tear apart every slaver’s place of business until my lovely son is returned safe and well.’

  She shook her head. ‘Much of the money that runs Alexandria and which goes into the pockets of the Procurator comes from trade. And the slave trade is one of the sources of this city’s wealth. They will laugh at you, Abram. They will tell you that you should never have allowed your Jonathan to wander the streets of the city alone.’

  Terrified, he asked, ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Together, we will visit the homes of the major traders. You will offer to buy your son back. But whatever happens, don’t tell them that he’s your son, or their price will double. Don’t show them your fear or sadness or anger, because these people can smell a person’s innermost thoughts, and they will know a desperate father when they see one.’

  Abram nodded. ‘Where shall we start?’

  Maria thought for a moment. ‘We’ll begin with the slave trader Khnumbaf,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t have your son, we’ll visit Bocchoris. And then Didia. After her, we’ll go to Shebitku. These are the biggest traders in boys and girls, and the most likely to have men watching the ports for lads like your son. And remember, you’re not a father searching for his son. You’re my husband and we want to buy a slave to clean our home.’

  A valley north-west of Jerusalem

  1947

  The scent of pine was in the air. Or was it cedar? Perhaps it was a wild olive tree or a sycamore sending out its fragrance to attract pollinating bees or butterflies. Or maybe it was one of the millions of eucalypts imported from Australia and planted in order to drain the swamps and transform them from malarial death traps into arable farming land.

  Whatever it was, in the buoyant air of a Palestine awakening to the warmth of what everybody hoped would be a mild and fruitful spring, it was a refreshing perfume. It was a scent that enlivened Shalman’s senses as he trudged over the mountains on the outskirts of Jerusalem before plunging into one of the many deep valleys that dissected the landscape.

  He was alone, wandering the ancient time-trodden pathways that criss-crossed the mountains, following thin dusty tracks etched over the millennia into the barren earth by generations of shepherds tending to flocks of goats and sheep. Shalman looked at the landscape carefully, this time not with the eyes of a freedom fighter but with the eyes of a participant in the history of the land.

  Though he still loved her with all his heart, Shalman was working to ensure the family’s future. He would become a professional archaeologist, and when the coming war with Britain or with the Arabs was over, now that the universities had became proper institutions of learning, he’d qualify and earn a good living, especially as he now had interesting contacts in the American media. This meant, though, that he had to leave Judit and Vered to be on his own, to wander the landscape and engage in archaeological digs.

  Leaving Judit with Vered was also important, in part, to enforce the responsibilities of motherhood on his wife, but also it enabled him to journey out into the ancient hills and valleys that were the landscape of the Bible, of his people’s history. In no other nation in the world was a document of theology used as a guidepost to a country’s history. Yet while most Jews who came to Palestine arrived with little or no religious belief, every child who went to school was taught the Bible as lessons in Israel’s culture, geography, history and society. And the more Shalman learned about and practised archaeology, the more the accuracy of the way the ancients wrote about the events in the Bible were proven to be true.

  For a hundred years, scientists, archaeologists and adventurers had been scouring the land of the Ottomans and more lately the land of Palestine, using the Bible as a tour guide to history. And more and more archaeological digs had uncovered what the ancient scribes of David and Solomon, Elijah and Ezra had written thousands of years earlier in stone and priceless artefacts.

  Shalman’s forays into the biblical landscape were both an enlightenment and an escape for him. But it was also the realisation of something latent within him. Shalman had spent so long steeping himself in the history of this land and yet feeling removed from it that he believed it was time he put his hands in the earth and into his history.

  He was one of hundreds of students who had enrolled at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem since the Second World War had come to an end. He joined the many young men and women who wanted to further their education despite the growing tensions with the Arabs and the British. But instead of studying agriculture, politics or science as might have been expected by those seeking a career in a young growing nation, Shalman had decided to further his love of the ancient world by studying archaeology.

  Resting after the exhaustion of the climb up the mountain, he sat on a rock and surveyed the landscape.

  It gave him time to catch his breath and ponder the future. Britain had recently announced that it would hand back its mandate over Palestine, allowing the fledgling United Nations to determine the land’s future. This had been read by Lehi as a reason to intensify attacks on the British and Arabs alike. The logic expressed by the Lehi leadership was that if the countries that were going to vote in the United Nations saw the region as a powder-keg of violence, nobody would want to take up the mandate that Britain wanted to relinquish.

  ‘They’ll vote for our independence, split the country between Arabs and Jews, and leave us alone,’ Yellin-Mor told a gathering, his calm voice carrying a weight of rationality that galvanised his fighters. But for Shalman the logic increasingly felt flawed. All he could feel was despair because of a coming war, which was seeming more and more inevitable as each side grew further apart.

  Shalman took out a flask of water. There would be streams in the valley below so he wasn’t worried about conserving it and he swallowed deeply. He then stood and began to walk down the steep path towards the bottom of the valley where he knew there to be a network of caves. The ancient Hebrews had often buried their dead in the caves, and in the time of Jesus, bodies had been laid in shrouds on ledges in caverns and grottos. When the bodies were decomposed, descendants would re-enter the cave and collect the bones, depositing them in boxes. These ossuaries often went untouched for thousands of years, and it was an archaeologist’s dream to find one that was still sealed. That was what Shalman was hoping to do.

  It was these thoughts that filtered through his mind as he climbed down the steep path. As he walked quicker, more from the demands of the slope than his own volition, he was forced to steady his feet with his hands on the rocks as he descended. Distracted, he imagined himself holding ancient relics in his hands, sifting soil to unearth Roman ruins, dusting away centuries from the objects of antiquity.

  And then his foot slipped.

  It was a gnarled root of a long-dead tree that had caught the side of his boot and his ankle twisted over. Pain shot up his leg but was quickly replaced by fear as he fell head over heels, tumbling down uncontrollably. He screamed in pain and terror as his arms flew out to try to
catch something solid but there was nothing but loose stones. Each time his body tumbled over and over, his side crashed down heavily, knocking the air from his lungs and filling his mouth with dirt. He put out his hand to stop himself falling on the scree, but the weight of his body kept propelling him down the steep hill.

  Shalman twisted his body, trying to dig his boots into the ground, trying to force traction that would stop the fall to the valley below, but by now he was moving too fast.

  In an instant the earth and stones gave way beneath him and he found himself in the air, tumbling over a rock ledge. As he twisted in the void he saw the hard ground beneath him rise up dramatically and then everything was dark.

  It was not just the pain but the intense light that hurt him. Shalman squinted and forced his eyes carefully open to see the ground undulating and moving past him in a strange rhythmic way. It took him a few moments to understand that he was lying on his stomach across the back of a donkey, which was walking forwards over a narrow path. Each lurch made his bones hurt and the sway of the ground made his stomach turn.

  His first words were incoherent, but they caused somebody nearby to say, ‘Whoa,’ to the donkey, which obeyed and stopped. Shalman was greatly relieved and the feeling of sickness rapidly disappeared. Then, still staring at the ground, a pair of naked legs and sandalled feet suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

  ‘So you’re alive,’ said a young man’s voice in Arabic.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Shalman in Hebrew, understanding the Arabic but not yet cognisant enough to answer in the same language.

  ‘You are,’ said the young man, in awkward but clear Hebrew.

  ‘I think I’ve died and this is my punishment,’ said Shalman, speaking in Arabic as his brain caught up with his situation and some comprehension of his circumstances.

  The young man laughed, and said, reverting back to Arabic, ‘Another hour or so out there you’d certainly be dead. Or blind. The vultures first go for your eyes, then your lips, then your tongue. That’s how I found you. I saw the vultures circling and I thought it might be one of my goats. But it wasn’t. It was you.’

  Shalman tried to push himself off the back of the donkey, but his head was throbbing so much that he couldn’t raise the strength. So the young man grabbed him by the shoulders, and eased him off the back of the animal and part carried, part manoeuvred him into a sitting position. Shalman propped his back up against a large rock and faced his rescuer.

  ‘Mustafa,’ the man said, sitting down beside him and holding out his hand.

  ‘Shalman,’ he responded, clasping it. The young man had a weak grip, or was it because he knew that Shalman wouldn’t be strong enough for a good handshake after his accident?

  Mustafa looked at him questioningly. ‘What kind of a name is Shalman?’

  ‘In your language, I’d be called Salaam. In Hebrew it means “peaceable”.’

  Mustafa shrugged. ‘I thought you may be British. But you’re a Jew.’

  Shalman nodded, but a pounding roar reminded him that he had cracked his head on a rock. He put his hand up to his skull, and felt a large patch of bloodied and matted hair.

  ‘At first I thought you’d been shot in the head and were dead. I’m taking you to my father’s house.’

  He helped Shalman to his feet, but his legs were still like jelly.

  ‘You’d better ride the donkey. It’s only a mile or so to go, but you have no strength to walk.’

  Sitting on top of the animal, Shalman looked down at the young shepherd. ‘You’re being very kind,’ he said gratefully.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mustafa. ‘I am. Allah demands it.’

  Even through his haze Shalman thought this curious and found himself staring at Mustafa walking beside him.

  Mustafa added, ‘Many I know would have left you there to die if they’d known.’

  ‘If they’d known I was a Jew?’ asked Shalman.

  Mustafa just shrugged. But Shalman pressed the question as the reality of his situation and his rescue dawned on him.

  ‘But not you . . .?’

  ‘Not today . . .’ Mustafa replied drily, and Shalman could not tell if it was meant as a joke.

  Shalman put his hand to his head once more and felt for the wound with his finger tips.

  ‘My mother will wash the wound for you and then you can go on your way. Better you don’t touch it,’ said Mustafa. ‘Leave it to bleed and you won’t become infected.’

  In that strange moment, Shalman remembered his own mother, washing his cuts and bruises when he was a child.

  ‘Where are your family; where is your father from?’ asked Mustafa, his curiosity surprising Shalman.

  ‘He’s dead. The British killed him . . .’

  Mustafa responded with a silence that spoke of shared tragedies, and then he walked ahead to lead the donkey.

  A year ago, Shalman may well have been instructed by Lehi to kill such a man; to bomb a building or street where such a man walked. And Shalman knew just as certainly that Mustafa might well have joined an Arab resistance group armed to kill Jewish settlers and attack kibbutz villages. Such groups had been rallied by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, who was now exiled in Egypt because of his collaboration with the Nazis. But his influence was still powerful.

  Yet at this moment in the story of their peoples, an Arab was walking on an ancient rocky path trodden by countless forgotten men and women of history, while a Jew was riding the Arab’s donkey. Shalman looked at his rescuer and saw a young man of his own age, probably with so much in common with him; they lived together as neighbours, yet were worlds apart.

  Alexandria, Egypt

  184 CE (fourth year of the reign of Emperor Commodus)

  It was already the middle of the night when a tired, frustrated and increasingly anxious Abram and his friend Maria the Jewess knocked on the door of Didia’s home.

  A slave opened the door a fraction to see who was standing there so late; robbers and murderers didn’t knock, so the slave wasn’t all that wary, especially when he saw a well-dressed middle-aged man and woman, carrying no obvious weapons.

  ‘We wish to see your owner, Didia,’ the woman said, her voice strident and confident.

  ‘Come back in the morning,’ the slave said. ‘The house has retired for the night.’

  ‘We will see her now,’ said the woman, walking forward and pushing past the slave.

  They entered the opulent home, with its marble statuary, its tiled mosaic floor and walls painted with flying birds and naked men and women. Abram looked around in amazement; he’d seen such a house, a Roman villa in Tiberias on the shores of the lake that was shaped like a harp, but it was the only time he’d even been amid such wealth . . . until now.

  Standing in a doorway that led off the vestibule was a tall, thin woman, wearing a gown edged with lapis lazuli and a collar glistening red with rubies scintillating in the light of the oil lamps.

  ‘Leave us,’ she said to the slave. She motioned to Abram and Maria. ‘Please, enter my home and let me offer you some refreshment.’

  Maria and Abram walked unsurely from the door into a chamber furnished with carpets and chairs made of wood and the finest animal skins. The table was of a dark brown wood, almost the colour of black marble; like much in this place, Abram had never before seen such a thing. He felt as though he was in the home of a king.

  A woman slave suddenly appeared and on a tray were drinks. As Maria and Abram sat, the drinks were placed on the table, and the slave, bowing, presented them, bowed again, and walked out of the room.

  ‘Thank you for allowing us into your home, and our apologies for visiting you so late at night, but our boat leaves for Greece on the morning tide, and we wish to purchase a young lad, a slave, to take back with us. We have particular needs,’ said Maria. ‘He must be –’

  Didia held up her hand. Smiling, her voice like that of a priestess rather than a merchant, she said, ‘I know and understand perfectly what are your n
eeds. You are the Jewess Maria, the alchemist; and you are Abram, the doctor from Israel who searches for his son. I have your boy. He is perfectly safe and well.’

  Abram looked at her in astonishment. Until now, in the two slave houses he’d visited, he’d remained silent, letting Maria do all the talking. Now he was about to say something, but Didia continued. ‘You want the return of your son, Jonathan. Of course you do. And you shall have him.’

  She smiled, and looked at their faces. Maria’s became hard and uncompromising. Abram looked stunned, as though he’d just been hit on the head. ‘How much?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Nothing. No money. You can have him back without payment.’

  Maria frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Surely one favour deserves another,’ said Didia softly.

  Warily, Abram said, ‘You stole my son. You’re a thief. You’ll give him back without any favours or conditions. If not, I’ll – ’

  But Maria didn’t allow him to finish, cutting across him. ‘What favour?’

  ‘I want you to steal something for me. Something that belongs to me. Something of no value to anybody, except me.’

  Abram was about to speak again, growing more and more furious, but Maria quickly cut in again. ‘What is it you want back? And who has this thing?’

  Didia sipped her drink, and fixed Abram with a stare that made him feel suddenly wary. ‘Let me tell you about my son, Kheti. My beautiful boy. He died last year of the wasting sickness. For a year, he grew weaker and weaker, coughing blood, until he was so weak, he took to his bed. I watched him die. Every day, I fed him, washed him, prayed to the gods of Egypt, of Greece, of Rome and even of Israel. But he slipped further and further away from me, until one day he breathed no more. His four brothers and three sisters and I mourned for him for seven days and seven nights, until the priests had finished with his body and it was time for him to be entombed. And it was they who supported me through my grief, because even though I have children who will carry my name into the future, my Kheti was my youngest and most beautiful of sons.