Wings of Refuge Read online

  “Don’t worry, it is in kilometers,” he said. “One hundred kilometers per hour is about . . . eh . . . sixty miles per hour.” It was a small comfort as they hurtled down the busy freeway. Brightly colored advertisements in Hebrew raced past, reminding Abby that she was in a foreign country. Aside from the signs, she might have been on a freeway in any American city.

  “Is this your first trip to Israel?” he asked.

  “Yes. My first trip to any foreign country, really. Well, we took the kids camping in Ontario once, but Canada hardly counts. We didn’t—” She stopped. There was no more “we.” Just Abby, alone. How long would it take to break a twenty-two-year habit, to stop thinking of herself as half of a partnership, a marriage? She had meant every word when she’d stood at the altar of her parents’ church in Indiana and vowed, “as long as we both shall live.” She had never imagined that Mark wouldn’t keep his promise.

  Abby stole a glimpse of Ari’s hands gripping the steering wheel to see if he wore a wedding ring. Like her own, his hands were bare. He glanced at her curiously, as if waiting for her to complete her sentence. She didn’t know how to finish it without the “we.” “Um . . . have you ever visited the United States, Ari?” she asked instead.

  “Not yet. I would like to someday, when there is time.”

  “Do you work at the Institute year-round?”

  “More or less.”

  Abby wanted to ask how, exactly, did a specialist in Roman mosaics make a living in Israel, but her painful attempts at conversation had already proved too tiring. A tooth extraction would probably be easier than prying information from Ari Bazak. They drove to their destination in silence.

  The hotel was a modern high-rise overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Abby caught a glimpse of the indigo water glimmering in the bright sunlight as they approached the hotel. Normally, she would have kicked off her shoes right away and gone for a long walk down the beach, but she was much too exhausted. Even the elevator ride to her room on the fifth floor made her dizzy. Ari had retrieved their keys from the desk clerk, then accompanied her to her room, unlocking the door for her. He probably meant well, but the way he hovered over her made her feel like a child. She longed to be alone for a while. During the past few months she had finally begun to adjust to living alone.

  “If I can be of further help . . .” Ari began.

  “Thank you, Dr. Bazak, but I think I can manage from now on.”

  “My room is right next to yours if you need anything.” He pointed to the door beside her own.

  “Thank you. Oh, there is one more thing. I want to call home in a little while. How do I make a credit card call to the States from my room?”

  “Would you like me to put the call through to the operator for—? Abby, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  She leaned against the doorframe and covered her face, her tears unleashed before she could stop them. “That’s what Mr. Rosen was doing for me . . . when . . .”

  Ari drew her into his arms and clasped her tightly against his chest. “Shh . . . It’s all right, Abby. It’s all right.”

  His voice was gentle and soothing, the safety of his embrace exactly what she needed. She wondered how he had known. After a moment, he steered her into the room and sat on the edge of the bed with her, cradling her in his arms, rocking her like a child.

  Abby wept, knowing it was finally safe to weep. She cried not only for Benjamin Rosen but for her unrelenting fear on the long flight overseas, for her terror when they had forced her to board the plane in Amsterdam, for the harsh way Agent Shur had questioned her, implying that she was involved in Mr. Rosen’s death. And she wept because it should be Mark’s arms surrounding her, comforting her. Not this stranger’s.

  Gradually her tears subsided. Ari continued to hold her tightly, waiting until she was ready to let go. She hoped he understood how grateful she was. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “Will you be all right?” he asked when they finally separated. Abby nodded. He stood and crossed to the door. “I’ll be next door if you need anything.” He closed the door gently behind him.

  Abby lay down on the bed and shut her eyes. Forgetting Mr. Rosen’s death wasn’t going to be as easy as she had hoped. How much should she tell her children about the experience? All of it? None of it? Abby tried to concentrate on what to say to Emily and Greg, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Ari Bazak and his puzzling behavior. Were all Israeli men like him—cold and uncommunicative one moment, warm and comforting the next? She recalled the sensation of his arms enveloping her—not as a lover but as a friend—and remembered how good it had felt to cling to him, to feel the solid, protecting bulk of the man.

  Suddenly Abby remembered something else, and her eyes flew open in surprise. In a shoulder harness beneath his khaki work shirt, Dr. Aaron Bazak had been wearing a gun.

  * * *

  Abby tossed on the bed for more than an hour, trying to fall asleep, but she was too overwrought to relax. Against her will, images of Benjamin Rosen played in her mind like a student’s poorly edited slide presentation: his warm smile and kind eyes, his dazed horror as the lifeblood pumped from him, his inert gaze as she held the dead weight of his body in her arms. Abby thought she had exhausted all of her tears in Ari’s arms, but she found herself weeping again.

  She had just finished splashing cold water on her face when someone knocked on her door. She opened it to greet a short redheaded man in his early sixties wearing plaid Bermuda shorts.

  “Mrs. MacLeod? I’m Ted Voss from Western Seminary.” As soon as he spoke, Abby recognized his high-pitched cartoon voice from their telephone conversations. She had joked about it with her daughter, along with his tendency to emphasize random words.

  “Dr. Voss, I’m so glad to finally meet you. Won’t you come in?” She swung the door wide in welcome, but he gazed around the hallway absently as if he hadn’t heard her. He was perspiring heavily in spite of the hotel’s air conditioning. Sweat trickled down his flushed, freckled skin and glistened in his thinning red hair. When he finally extended his hand in greeting, his clammy palm stuck to Abby’s.

  “My group just got in a little while ago,” he said, “and they told me at the front desk that you were already here, although I was sure you’d be arriving later. . . . Well, never mind, I thought I’d stop by and say hello. Did you have a good flight?”

  Abby stared. “Didn’t Dr. Bazak tell you what happened?”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Ari Bazak—from the Institute?”

  “Sorry, never heard of him.”

  “He’s Dr. Rahov’s associate for this season’s dig.”

  Dr. Voss scowled, his flushed cheeks turning a darker shade of red. “I was under the impression that I was Dr. Rahov’s associate. Hannah didn’t mention anything about a new man the last time we talked.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m probably making a hash of things. Dr. Bazak told me that he just joined the expedition a few days ago. He was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. There was a mix-up with my flight and they lost my luggage and . . .” She drew a deep breath, then exhaled. “And the man I sat beside on the plane was shot.” She gestured to her bloodstained dress and realized that she was still wearing Ari’s shirt.

  “Shot! On the airplane?”

  “No, in the airport lounge. He was helping me make a phone call when . . .” Tears sprang to her eyes again as she remembered. She couldn’t finish.

  “Good heavens! No wonder there was so much extra security at the airport when we landed. But . . . but, oh dear . . . were you injured? Are you all right?” Dr. Voss seemed flustered by her tears.

  “I’m fine, just a bit shaken,” she said, quickly wiping her eyes.

  “What can I do?” He pulled out a handkerchief, and Abby thought he was going to offer it to her, but he mopped his freckled forehead with it instead. Abby composed herself.

  “I could use a change of clothes,” she said. “Do you think one of the women in your group coul
d loan me something to wear until my luggage arrives?”

  “I’ll send my wife over with something.” He looked clearly relieved to shift Abby and her problems into someone else’s hands. “Listen, I also came to tell you that dinner is at seven in the dining room, followed by a short orientation meeting. But if you’d rather skip the meeting and order room service, I’d understand.”

  “No, no, I think the sooner I get started with the graduate course, the sooner I’ll be able to . . . you know, put everything behind me.”

  “Splendid.” He jammed the handkerchief into his shirt pocket, where it drooped like a wilted flower. “We were supposed to have a much longer orientation meeting tonight, as you know from the schedule, but Hannah—Dr. Rahov, that iS—Was called away after a sudden death in the family, and—”

  Abby’s hands flew to her face. “That’s right! He said they were cousins!”

  “Who did? Are you sure you’re all right, my dear?”

  “Mr. Rosen—the man who was shot—he told me that Dr. Rahov was his cousin.”

  “You mean the man died?”

  “Yes . . . my arms.”

  “Oh my!” A bead of sweat dripped from Dr. Voss’s nose, and he searched his pockets for his handkerchief before finally locating it in his shirt pocket. “Oh my! Then you were a witness! It’s a wonder they didn’t detain you!”

  “Well, they did . . . for a while. But as I said, Dr. Bazak came to my rescue and—”

  “He’s the new associate you mentioned?”

  “Yes, his name is Aaron Bazak.” Abby was growing weary of Dr. Voss and this circular conversation. How many times would she have to relive her ordeal? “Listen, Dr. Bazak’s room is right next door to mine if you—”

  “Bazak . . . Aaron Bazak,” he repeated, as though he were paging through an invisible Rolodex file in his brain. “Wait a minute . . . I know that name! Young hotshot archaeologist, did some brilliant work with Roman sites until he disappeared several years ago. . . . Or did he die? Yes, I think I read that he died in a terrorist bombing. Shame, really . . .”

  “No, he’s quite alive,” Abby said. She pushed past Dr. Voss to knock on Ari’s door. She had already learned from Dr. Voss’s rambling telephone conversations that it was sometimes necessary to interrupt him. “He’s not so young, either, Dr. Voss. Midforties, I would say.” She knocked again, harder. No one answered. So much for Ari’s promise to be close by if she needed him.

  Abby glanced at her watch and saw that she would have just enough time for a shower before dinner. “Do you think your wife could bring me that change of clothes now, Dr. Voss?”

  He looked at Abby blankly before remembering. “Right! You need some clothing. I’ll tell my wife.”

  * * *

  The shower felt wonderful, even if it didn’t last as long as Abby would have liked. A small sign posted in the bathroom discreetly asked hotel patrons to help conserve water in this semiarid nation. It reminded her of Mr. Rosen and his search for new ways to grow crops. Her tears for him fell freely as she showered.

  Afterward, Abby changed into the baggy sunflower-strewn shorts and neon-yellow T-shirt that Dr. Voss’s wife had loaned her, then studied her reflection in the mirror. Ramona Voss was five inches shorter and at least twenty pounds heavier than Abby. Between the dark circles under Abby’s eyes and the ill-fitting clothes, she looked like an appeal for funds for the homeless.

  Downstairs, Abby surveyed the crowd around the buffet table before entering the dining room, hoping to avoid Ari Bazak. She was embarrassed to face him again after weeping in his arms. Most of the other twenty-four dig participants seemed to be college students, with perhaps a half-dozen retired persons mixed in—no one Abby’s age. She filled her plate at the buffet and took the last empty chair at a table filled with students. They all seemed to know one another after touring Athens together, and Abby hoped their conversation wouldn’t probe any deeper than who she was and where she came from. She was relieved when it didn’t. Ari didn’t come to dinner at all, nor to the orientation meeting afterward.

  Dr. Voss explained how the graduate course, entitled “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” would consist of a series of lectures at both the dig site and on weekend bus tours to other ancient sites. His rambling instructions concerning the dig—the four A.M. wake-up call, the need to wear a hat in the strong Israeli sunlight, the necessity of drinking several liters of water each day—put most of the other participants to sleep. It had the opposite effect on Abby, making her eager to begin discovering Israel that very night. As soon as Dr. Voss dismissed the meeting, Abby headed for the nearest exit to take a long walk on the beach.

  The warm night was clear and sparkling with stars, and although it was after nine o’clock, the sandy beach was alive with other strollers like herself, even a few bathers. Abby kicked off her shoes and waded into the Mediterranean, allowing the gentle waves to wash over her ankles. She wished she had a friend to confide in and help lift the weight of the day’s events from her heart, but she hadn’t sought one among the other dig participants.

  She walked through the shallows for twenty minutes before doubling back to the beach below her hotel. The salty water was nearly as warm as bath water. In her mind she rolled down the world map that hung in her history classroom and pointed to the oval-shaped Mediterranean Sea. Of course it’s salty, she told her imaginary students; the water flows through the Straits of Gibraltar from the Atlantic Ocean. She smiled to herself. In spite of all the turmoil with Mark this past year, teaching had remained the one constant in her life, her students providing her with a purpose and a small measure of joy. Becoming a teacher had completed her threefold dream, all that she had asked from life—to be a teacher, a mother, Mark’s wife.

  “Thinking of taking a swim?” someone behind her asked as she stood gazing out at the water.

  She recognized Ari Bazak’s deep voice and nasal accent even before she turned to see him wading into the water beside her, gripping his boots and socks in one hand. She felt annoyed with him for destroying her solitude.

  “I’d love to, Dr. Bazak, but I can’t. My bathing suit is with my missing luggage.”

  He looked her over from head to toe, appraising the flowered shorts and garish T-shirt. “Where did you get those clothes?”

  “Dr. Voss’s wife was kind enough to let me borrow them.”

  “They look terrible on you.” He spoke with no hint of amusement. His rudeness angered her.

  “Well, we have a saying in America—‘beggars can’t be choosers.’” She waded into deeper water to get away from him, but he stayed stubbornly beside her.

  “This beach is one of my favorites,” he said a moment later. “Do you know any of its history?”

  Abby shook her head, wishing he’d go away.

  “Before Israel won its independence, we were under British rule. The Royal Navy used to patrol this coastline to prevent illegal refugees from landing here. Thousands of Jews wanted to come to Israel from war-torn Europe, but the British wouldn’t allow them to immigrate.” He crouched to dabble his fingers in the water, and a slight smile crossed his face. “Of course, that didn’t stop my people from smuggling refugees ashore, right on this beach, by every means they could find.”

  Abby brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, imagining lights from British patrol ships bobbing on the dark water in the distance, the shivering forms of desperate people swimming to freedom in the night. “What would happen if they were caught?” she asked.

  “Many of them were.” He stood again. “The British shipped them back to Europe or stuffed them into refugee camps on Cyprus. The Israelis who were caught smuggling them went to prison.”

  Ari turned to face her. He stood very close, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to embarrass her by mentioning her tears earlier that day.

  Instead he said, “If you’ve finished your stroll, there is someone who would like to talk to you.”

  Abby’s stomach lurched. Agent Shur
must have thought of some more questions. Her heart pounded as she walked with Ari across the beach. He led her to a bench near the steps to the hotel where a lone figure sat waiting in the shadows. As Abby approached, she saw that it wasn’t the Israeli agent but a woman about sixty years old with dark gray-threaded hair and a beautiful, serene face. She wore a long, silky caftan that billowed like summer curtains in the breeze. She looked insubstantial, ethereal—like someone you might meet in a dream.

  “Hello, Abby,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Hannah Rahov. Thank you so much for allowing me to intrude on your solitude. Won’t you sit down?”

  Abby sank onto the bench beside the archaeologist with relief, her heart gradually slowing to normal. She was only dimly aware of Ari saying good-night and climbing the stairs to the hotel. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Dr. Rahov,” Abby managed to say. “Your cousin seemed like a very kind, gentle man.”

  “Thank you, dear. He was.” She rested her hand on Abby’s for a moment. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to relive what happened today. I simply wanted to meet you and to thank you on behalf of our family for . . . for holding Ben until the end. And for caring. Ari told me how you wept, not for yourself but for Ben. Thank you.”

  Dr. Rahov paused to wipe a tear from her dark, luminous eyes. Then she smiled, and Abby glimpsed the hope in her grief. Once again, Abby was struck by the simple beauty in Hannah Rahov’s aging face, the warmth of her smile.

  “I hope we shall become friends, Abby. And that you will call me Hannah.”

  “I’d like that very much.” Abby already felt drawn to her, as quickly as she had been drawn to her cousin, Benjamin Rosen. “Please tell me about him,” she said. “Was he married? Does he have children?”

  Hannah smiled. “Yes, he and his wife have five children, three boys and two girls. I can’t even recall how many grandchildren now—dozens of them! They’re scattered all over Israel.” She spoke of him fondly. “Ben and I grew up together, almost like brother and sister, though he’s nearly three years older than me. Our fathers were brothers—as well as business partners—and we all immigrated here together in the 1950s. Ben has been a foundation stone in my life for so long that I can’t quite imagine that he’s really gone . . . or how I’ll get along without him. I shall surely miss him,” she said simply.