Retribution Read online

  They were all staring at Baruch as if he had a demon.

  “Please, my sister ...” Baruch began weeping. “I ask your forgiveness for treating you as the men of this world treat women, as less than a child. I beg your forgiveness.”

  Rivka felt a rush of heat in her frozen heart.

  Baruch fell on his face before her and ...

  ... and kissed her feet.

  A horrified hiss ran around the circle of men. Baruch had just destroyed his reputation for all time among these men. Ruined his honor, his precious honor.

  Baruch kissed her feet again.

  Rivka felt something melt deep inside her soul. Love flooded her heart. Tears murked her vision. A great lump rose in her throat. She smeared the sleeve of her tunic across her eyes. “B–brother Baruch, please.” She reached down and pulled at his sleeve. “Please ... yes, of course I forgive you. I ...”

  Now she could not speak. It seemed that all heaven broke open in that moment, that somehow, the universe changed, that the Kingdom of God flooded in on her. Rivka clutched at Baruch’s arm. “My brother, yes, please stand.”

  Slowly, Baruch stood up. Dust smeared his beard, and his eyes gleamed red with weeping.

  Rivka threw her arms around him. “Yes, my brother. Yes, and I also ask your forgiveness.”

  Baruch hugged her—a strong bear hug, such as no Jewish man would ever give a woman in this city. No man except a tsaddik, a man so righteous he could not be tempted by the desires of the flesh.

  Rivka laughed for joy. Whatever Hanan ben Hanan did, he could not take away this moment, not if he came back and took Baruch away now. Only days ago, Hanan ben Hanan had killed Yaakov the tsaddik, the holiest man in all Jerusalem.

  But HaShem had raised up another tsaddik. Blessed be HaShem.

  Chapter 2

  Ari

  “YOU SPIT ON HANAN BEN Hanan?” Ari stared at Rivka, feeling a cold knot in his belly. “That was unwise.”

  Rivka sighed and snuggled up to him under the covers. “I’m sorry, I know it was stupid, but ... it saved Baruch. I told Hanan ben Hanan I was niddah.”

  “But you are not.”

  “He doesn’t know that,” Rivka said. “He thinks he’s unclean.”

  “He can immerse and come back within the hour,” Ari said.

  Rivka shook her head. “He could if he played by the Pharisee rules. But the Sadducees don’t recognize the tevul yom rule. According to them, if you’re unclean, you have to immerse, but you’re still unclean until evening. I got the idea from a Talmudic story about somebody who spit on the high priest.” She bit her lip. “I also cursed Hanan.”

  Ari’s heart flip-flopped. “Cursed him?”

  “I told him when he’s going to die. I’m sorry.” Rivka buried her face in his beard. “Ari, I’m scared. Now he’ll be after you and me like a mad dog.”

  Ari stroked her hair gently. “All is in the hands of HaShem. What can Hanan ben Hanan do to us? If he kills me ...” Ari felt a rush of heat in his heart. “I have seen the World to Come. Hanan ben Hanan is a fool if he thinks to punish me by sending me there.”

  Rivka gave a deep sigh and her breath tickled Ari’s neck. “I don’t want to die ... not yet. I don’t think HaShem wants us to die, either. He put us here to live.”

  “Of course.” Ari caressed her cheek. “But one cannot live if one is afraid always of dying. I meant only that I am not afraid of Hanan ben Hanan.”

  “I think he’s afraid of you.” Rivka pulled back her head and looked into Ari’s eyes. “He’s terrified of this monster named Kazan. He won’t rest until you’re dead. And if that means killing me and Racheleh, he won’t hesitate for a second.”

  Ari shivered. It was one thing not to fear his own death. But if Hanan ben Hanan touched his wife, his daughter ... “Tell me what is to happen next. Hanan will be ousted soon, but he is to come back to power when the war comes, yes?”

  Rivka nodded. “Four years from now, he’ll be named head of the provisional government. Your precious friends Eleazar and Yoseph are going to start a war, but it’s people like Hanan ben Hanan who’ll get the power.”

  Ari sighed. He did not know what to do about his friends. They were fools, of course, wishing to throw over the Romans, hoping to bring in the age of Mashiach. There would be no age of Mashiach, and instead they would bring destruction on themselves, the Temple, and this city of God, Jerusalem the Golden.

  And he could do nothing to prevent it. Yes, he had free will. No, he could not change the historical facts which he and Rivka had learned in a far country, growing up in the twentieth century, on the other side of the wormhole that brought them here. Now they were trapped on this side, and nothing he could do would change the disaster to come. And yet he could act—must act—so as to minimize that disaster.

  He would do what he could. HaShem had allowed him to live for just such a reason, to do one great thing. Ari did not know what that great thing might be, but he felt sure that it would be here in Jerusalem, that he would recognize it when he saw it. He would do that great thing gladly, and then he would go free. That was why he did not wish to leave yet. He owed a great debt to HaShem, and he would repay it at the cost of all. His own life. Rivka’s. Even Rachel’s.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Brother Ari, are you well?” Baruch’s voice.

  “Come in, Brother Baruch,” Ari said.

  Baruch stepped in quietly, his eyes glowing in the light of an olive-oil lamp. “Brother Ari, Sister Rivka.” He walked around to Ari’s side of the bed and kissed him on the cheek. Then he leaned over further and kissed Rivka’s forehead.

  Ari felt a little shock spasm through his body. Rivka had not been joking. Something had changed in Baruch. Radically.

  Baruch knelt beside Ari. “How are your wounds?”

  Ari pulled aside his covers. Long scars lashed his chest, but they were healing rapidly. “I will be well enough to stand in a few days.”

  Baruch nodded and looked straight at Rivka. “Sister Rivka, your heart is not right on the matter of Hanan ben Hanan.” He put a hand on her cheek. “You will pray for him, please.”

  Ari stared at him. “Hanan ben Hanan tried to kill you an hour ago. He would kill all of us if he could.”

  “It is true.” Baruch said. “Sister Rivka, you will pray for Hanan ben Hanan, yes?”

  “Y–yes.” A strangled whisper.

  Ari cleared his throat. “Baruch, there is still the simple fact that Hanan ben Hanan will come back tonight to take you. You must go into hiding again.”

  Baruch shook his head. “The master of this palace, the man named Mattityahu, has sworn an oath not to give me into the hand of Hanan ben Hanan.” He smiled at Rivka. “In the first place, he thinks that I have lost my wits in touching a niddah woman. In the second place, I prayed to HaShem just now for him in the matter of a fogginess in his left eye. It is healed.”

  Ari was not surprised. Baruch had great skill in healing. That was why Ari believed in HaShem—because he had seen Baruch do things that were not possible according to the laws of physics.

  Baruch knelt beside the bed. “We will have nothing to fear from Hanan ben Hanan. Please, Sister Rivka, you will pray for him each morning and each evening.”

  “Why don’t you pray for him?” Rivka said.

  Ari also wondered this. Nobody could pray like Baruch.

  Baruch merely smiled. “I have prayed many hours for Hanan ben Hanan. He is a man with much fear. But HaShem wishes that you especially, Sister Rivka, should pray for him also. Please do not ask me why. I am only the messenger.”

  Baruch had changed very much in the last three days. Ari liked this new Baruch even better than the old. “My brother, there is a matter of great importance which Rivka and I have been discussing. We need your advice.”

  Baruch closed his eyes. “Speak.”

  “War is coming,” Ari said. “Within four years, men of violence will take control of this city. The Romans will come and destroy our people and
our city and our Temple.”

  Baruch nodded. “Yeshua prophesied that a day would come when the Temple would be thrown down.”

  Ari did not think it required a prophet to see that evil was coming, but he did not wish to argue this point. “Before the evil day comes, we must leave. Rivka says that The Way is to leave the city and travel across the Jordan to a new place, but she does not know when this is to happen. Please, you will ask HaShem.”

  Baruch stood up. “I will go inquire now.” He went to the door and stepped out.

  Ari felt a sense of peace wash through him. It was good to know a man such as—

  Baruch strode back into the room, his face knotted with surprise. “Sister Rivka, HaShem says that you must ask this thing of him yourself.”

  Ari felt Rivka’s body tense. “But I’m not a seer woman,” she said. “Not a real one. All I know is what I’ve read in books. I’m a fraud.”

  Sorrow filled Baruch’s eyes. “HaShem says that now you must become a seer woman in truth. No longer may you lean on your books. You must learn to look past the veil to the Other Side. A day is coming when many will stand or fall in Yisrael because of your hearing of the word of HaShem.”

  Ari gaped at Baruch. Rivka? A real prophet?

  Baruch turned to Ari, and now there was steel in his eyes. “Brother Ari, I fear for you.”

  Ari felt a wave of cold run down his spine. Since when was Baruch afraid of anything?

  “You think to walk together with the men of violence, and you do not know your hazard. These are the men who will bring destruction on the land, and they are your friends? No. What has good to do with evil?”

  Ari frowned. “Brother Baruch—”

  “There is another matter also.” Deep pain filled Baruch’s eyes. “You have been my friend now for five years, and still your heart is not right in the matter of Rabban Yeshua. You will pray on this matter, please.”

  “I—”

  “You will pray on this matter, please.” Baruch turned and went out.

  Ari did not wish to pray on this matter. Baruch did not know what he asked. Ari conceded that Rabban Yeshua had been a good man, a prophet, a healer. A tsaddik.

  But Ari would never believe Rabban Yeshua was HaShem, nor that he was Mashiach. Ari had grown up in the twentieth century. His grandparents had come through Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But the camps were only the last chapter in a long tale of Christians murdering Jews. French Crusaders. Spanish inquisitors. Polish peasants. Italian Catholics. German Lutherans. Russian Orthodox. Killing Jews was an ecumenical enterprise.

  For Ari to believe in Rabban Yeshua after so many centuries of murder—in the name of Jesus, under the sign of the cross—that would be an abomination, a desecration of those who died. A spasm of rage ran through Ari’s frame. Never!

  Baruch, a man of this century, could follow Rabban Yeshua.

  But not Ari the Kazan. This was a simple matter of principle.

  He would not do it to save his life, nor his wife, nor his daughter. If HaShem could not understand this, then he was not HaShem.

  * * *

  Rivka

  Late that afternoon, Rivka walked in the courtyard with Hana, watching Dov and Rachel playing chase with Baruch.

  Baruch would stand quietly, pretending not to notice the children sneaking up behind him. At the last second, he bolted away. Rachel shrieked with glee. Dov shouted, “Abba!” Then they would do it all over again.

  Hana’s face wore a look of dreamy content. Not a flicker of fear on her face revealed that they were all prisoners in this palace, so long as Hanan ben Hanan ruled as high priest.

  Rivka’s mind was still buzzing from what Baruch had told her this morning. A long time ago, when she first came through the wormhole into this strange century, Rivka had been pretty sure of herself. Pretty sure HaShem had sent her to fix things up, to save the world.

  And she’d spent the last five years learning that it just wasn’t so. She wasn’t God’s solution to the problems of the world. She had gone running so far ahead of God that she’d lost her credibility. Nobody listened to her anymore.

  Now, HaShem wanted her to go the prophet route? After she’d already ruined her good name? When every snotty little kid in the city pointed at her and shrieked, “Witch woman!”?

  Rivka sighed. Great timing too. If she was pregnant now, wouldn’t that just crack the camel’s back?

  Rivka looked at her friend. “Hana, I need help.”

  Hana raised an eyebrow.

  Rivka hesitated. “Did Baruch tell you the word from HaShem that he gave me this morning?”

  Hana smiled. “How wonderful, that you are to be a prophet! I am glad.”

  Rivka pursed her lips. “I don’t know the first thing about being a prophet. I can’t do it.”

  “If HaShem asks you to do a thing, then he will show you how.”

  Rivka sighed. Hana had an infuriating way of getting to the nub of the matter. “What he’s asking is dangerous. People already think I’m a witch woman.”

  “In the arms of HaShem you will be safe wherever you go.”

  Right. In theory. In practice, Rivka wasn’t very good at staying in the arms of HaShem. She shook her head impatiently. “It isn’t going to work. I don’t know how. If HaShem wants—”

  “No.” Hana’s eyes pierced her. “Please, no more talking. Why must you always talk?”

  “Listen to me—”

  “No more. Be silent. It is your turn to listen.” Hana folded her arms across her chest and glared at Rivka.

  Rivka waited for several long seconds. “Well? I’m listening.”

  Hana shook her head. “You must learn to be silent and listen to HaShem.”

  “That’s it?” Rivka stared at her. “Just sit there quietly and listen for a voice from heaven? I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Then you must learn.”

  “You don’t understand! I don’t want to be a prophet.”

  Hana smiled. “Perhaps that is why you are chosen.”

  Rivka could not think of an answer to that. Apparently, she was going to be a prophet, whether she wanted to or not.

  Chapter 3

  Ari

  THE NEXT DAY, ARI FELT strong enough to get out of bed. He sent his friend Gamaliel with Rivka’s key to their house to fetch clothes for him. Rivka went off alone to try “listening to HaShem.” Ari waited impatiently in bed, wondering what the day would bring. He did not think Hanan ben Hanan would return for Baruch. Evidently, Hanan had a spy in the palace. By now, he would know that Mattityahu had sworn an oath to protect Baruch. Hanan ben Hanan could not force Mattityahu to open the palace. Therefore, he would not risk losing honor by asking.

  Ari threw back the covers and examined his body. Long scars lined his chest in parallel rows. They had healed almost completely—a miracle. Baruch’s powers of healing had only increased since the terrible night last week. Rivka was right. Baruch had become a holy man, a tsaddik. His presence brought with it an electric freshness, like morning in summer when you are nine years old and there is no school and you have the whole day for marvelous adventures.

  But Baruch had lost all sense of honor. Before, he had been overconcerned with his honor. Suddenly, he seemed to care nothing for it. Now, he would speak to a child or a man or a king in exactly the same way. He would kiss a woman in public as if she were a man. Such things were not done in Jerusalem. Only a tsaddik cared so little for his honor.

  A loud knock on the wooden door interrupted Ari’s thoughts. “Ari, my friend, may I come in?” Gamaliel’s voice, cheerful as always.

  Ari covered his body—Gamaliel, like any Jew, would be embarrassed by his nakedness. “Enter!” he shouted.

  Gamaliel burst through the door carrying a stack of tunics. “I did not know what you would wish to wear, so I brought them all!” He dumped the armload on Ari’s bed. A small wooden object tumbled out.

  Ari snatched it up and hid it in his hand.

  Gamaliel raised an
eyebrow. “You keep a toy in your clothes?”

  Ari shrugged. He had hidden it where Rivka would never find it, because her questions would be unbearable, but ... Gamaliel would not know the significance of the thing. Ari opened his fingers. Nestled in his hand lay a small cross made of olive wood. It was very thin, but carved with much ornamentation at each of the four ends. At the top was a small metal ring. As Ari understood it, Christians in America hung these small crosses on a tree at Christmas time. He did not know what a tree had to do with That Man, but of course he knew why a cross would be considered significant.

  For him, this cross meant something else.

  Gamaliel leaned in close to look at it. “What is it used for?” He poked a thick finger at the tiny ornament, which looked nothing like a real cross.

  Ari closed his hand and pulled it away. Heat flooded his chest. “It is for remembering,” he said in a thick voice. “It means much to me.” He blinked rapidly several times.

  Gamaliel straightened. “You will dress swiftly, please. Brother Eleazar and Brother Yoseph wish to speak with you on a matter of some importance.” He crossed to the door and went out.

  Ari slipped out of bed and began dressing. Sunlight streamed in from a window slit overhead. It must be already midmorning. He had been in bed for four days, and he felt stiff and sore. And lucky to be alive. No, not lucky. He had been chosen by HaShem. Chosen to do a task he did not yet know, a task to be revealed at the appointed time. Very well, he would wait. He pulled a scratchy wool tunic over his head and let it drop around him. The rough cloth caught at the scarred skin on his back. Ari tugged it down, wincing at the pain. Perhaps he would live with residual pain for the rest of his life. Better life in pain than none at all.

  He selected a long linen cloth belt and wrapped it twice around his waist. Inside it, he hid the small ornamental cross. It was precious to him. He had treasured it for more than twenty years, but he had never shown it to Rivka.