Next Year, Jerusalem
“. . . the holy city . . .”
Rev. 21.2
Security precautions were unusually tight at New York airport as Harry Greenwood
waited to board the flight to Tel Aviv, Israel. He had heard it rumoured that a party
of top-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials who had been attending peace talks
at the White House would be travelling on the flight. Harry thought he recognised
the tall figure of Dr Atherton Grainge, the President’s special envoy to the Middle
East, slipping past the security guards into the airport’s VIP lounge, which would
have lent credence to the rumour.
Harry had been carrying a cheap transistor radio in his jacket pocket, and when he
placed in on the conveyor belt to be x-rayed, along with his watch and wallet, it
was removed by a security officer. Harry was ordered to accompany two burly guards
to a waiting room where his passport details were checked by computer and he was
questioned about his reasons for travelling to Israel. Ten minutes later, his radio
was returned. The batteries had been removed and sealed in a plastic bag.
Harry was motioned towards the boarding gate.
“Leave it at home next time you fly,” the guard said.
Thinking about it later, Harry realised that the radio batteries could have been
used to conceal Semtex explosive. That obviously had been what the guards were looking
for.
Harry had a window seat. The passenger next to him was an elderly Jewish woman, Mrs
Goldstein. She had been unsettled by the security precautions.
“The first time in my life I fly on an aeroplane and somebody is trying to bomb us
out of the sky. What are these terrorists trying to do? Their own people are on this
aeroplane also.”
That was true: Harry had observed, among the many nationalities on board, as many
Arabs as there were Jews.
Harry said something that surprised himself, as he had never thought of himself as
a religious man. Cathy had been the believer.
“Don’t worry, Mrs Goldstein. God has everything under control. His angels are watching
over us.”
“Ah,” said Mrs Goldstein. “Of course they are. We are safe then.”
Mrs Goldstein kept her hand on Harry’s arm as the plane took off, but after a short
time in the air she settled down for the ten-hour flight.
“Is this your first visit to Israel?” Harry asked.
“Yes, my first visit. To see my grandson. He was born three days ago. On a kibbutz.
My son Ephraim, he waits until he is thirty-two before he marries. Then for six years
no baby. Think of it. All that time, and the doctors are saying there is nothing
wrong with him or Miriam. All the Rabbis they consult. All the prayers. I think they
are trying too hard, Mr Greenwood.
“Finally, they go to New York to see the great Rabbi Leibowitz. When they tell the
Rabbi they want to have a baby, the Rabbi reads them a story from an old manuscript
he is translating, by a people called the Nabusites. It is a very funny story and
they all laugh very much. The Rabbi tells them not to worry and sends them home.
Then Miriam falls pregnant and has a beautiful baby boy. Is that not a miracle, Mr
Greenwood? I am a very happy woman. When I see my grandson, I can die content. Do
you have children, Mr Greenwood?”
“No, my wife Cathy wasn’t able to. We adopted a little boy, Gareth. He died when
he was six. Of leukaemia.”
“Ah, so sad,” said Mrs Goldstein. She touched his hand in sympathy.
“You still miss him very much.”
“Yes. The four years we had with Gareth were the happiest years of our lives.”
“Your wife Cathy, she is not travelling with you?”
“Cathy died last year,” said Harry. “We’d planned to make this trip for a long time.
We used to promise each other ‘Next year, Jerusalem.’ Somehow we never managed it.
Cathy had to complete her doctoral degree and was always in demand as a speaker at
conventions. I was writing my own books, which became popular, and were made into
a television series. This was to have been our year for travel. It seemed we’d both
have the time, and money was no problem. Then, in April, Cathy took ill . . . it
was very sudden.”
“I think Cathy must have been a very beautiful person. And she was a scholar too?”
Mrs Goldstein was inviting him to talk. Harry was grateful for the empathy she showed.
There were many things he’d wanted to say about Cathy, especially at her funeral
service. But he’d broken down completely, and been unable to read the tribute he’d
composed in the days following her death.
And there had been the television cameras intruding on his grief. The Rex Colhoun
Show was doing the story.
There were big-name stars among the mourners at the funeral of preacher Cathy Greenwood,
wife of crimeshow writer Harry Greenwood. An English Salvation Army officer, Captain
Denzil James, who many say was the model for Captain John Adams in the television
series “The Mark of Cain”, read the tribute to Dr Cathy Greenwood when her husband
was overcome by emotion during the service at New York’s All Saints Church. Actor
Joe Hazeldean, who plays the part of Captain John Adams in the series, says hearing
Cathy Greenwood preach turned his life around and helped him beat a narcotics problem
that was threatening his career as an actor . . .
“Cathy was a very talented woman,” said Harry. “She was a professional painter and
sculptor. She’d loved the Bible all her life but she only became a scholar in her
mid-forties. It began when she enrolled for a summer semester program at the Grainge
Bible College. She became fascinated with Old Testament and wanted to be able to
read the Bible in the original languages. She went on to do a master’s degree and
graduated cum summa laude. Then she won a scholarship to do her doctoral degree at
Oxford.
“Cathy discovered she had a talent for preaching. I guess her gift was to bring the
Old Testament to life for people. She understood the lives and times of the psalmists,
for example, and could illuminate the imagery of their language and relate it to
the lives of people living in the twentieth century in a unique way.
“Cathy always wanted to visit the Holy Land – especially to see Jerusalem. She used
to say she knew its physical and spiritual geography better than the geography of
New York. ‘Next year, Jerusalem’. I’ve got the Fodor guidebook, so I shouldn’t get
lost. Is your husband still alive, Mrs Goldstein?”
“My Arnie died six months ago,” said Mrs Goldstein. “He loved the Scriptures too.
His father wanted him to be a Rabbi but poor Arnie was no scholar. He was a tailor
all his working life. Overcoats, you should see the beautiful overcoats Arnie made.
Always the finest cloth, and his stitching was exquisite. He made a beautiful barathea
overcoat for Rabbi Leibowitz, and the Rabbi told him it was the finest coat he had
ever owned. Arnie was longing to be a grandfather. Maybe in the next life, I will
see my Arnie again, and you will see your Cathy, and there will be no more tears
for anyone. Do you believe that, Mr Greenwood?”
“I hope it may be true, Mrs Goldstein. Cathy certainly believed it.”
A beautiful Jewish stewardess – Lena – brought them their meal. Harry ordered a bottle
of Israeli wine, which he shared with Mrs Goldstein. The in-flight video – Terminator
Two – held no attraction for him. He put on the headset and flicked through the channels.
A violinist was playing Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, an intense, prayerful work, drawing on
traditional Hebrew melodies. Cathy had a recording of the work by Isaac Stern among
her collection of gramophone records. Harry realised he had not listened to a record
since she died. He had not read a novel, visited an art gallery, or been to the theatre
or a concert. Part of his life had died with her. But Bruch’s music seemed to bring
something back to life within him.
Harry felt tired. Mrs Goldstein, he noticed, was already asleep. The passengers across
the aisle had also nodded off.
He pulled down the window shade and switched off the overhead light. He closed his
eyes. The deep hum of the jet engines was soothing. Although he was being carried
in a fragile, pressurised metal cocoon, thirty thousand feet above the ocean, he
felt utterly secure. It was the first night he had not taken a sleeping pill.
A warmth was stealing over him. It had begun, barely noticed in his feet, travelled
up his body to the shoulders, and was now spreading down into his arms and up his
neck. He slept and yet part of him was still awake.
He could see the crowd waiting in the airport terminal. He knew exactly where Cathy
was standing but he did not want to look just yet. He preferred to scan the other
faces first, knowing that hers, the most beautiful of all, was still to come.
Strange how he had never met these people and yet he knew who all of them were. There
was Arnie, just as Mrs Goldstein had described him, right down to the blue and white
polka dot tie and the gold pin in his shirt collar. And Arnie’s father and mother,
and their respective parents, and all the aunts and uncles and cousins . . . what
a prolific family the Goldsteins were.
But not only the Goldsteins. There were the parents and grandparents of the stewardess
Lena. Small wonder that Lena was such a beauty, with a mother and grandmother like
that. And all so incredibly young.
Now, the tall blonde man who was smiling at Harry, that could only be . . . of course
I recognised you, Gareth, even though you’ve grown so much. Life has obviously been
good to you since you went away.
How are you, Pop?
I’m doing well, son. Better all the time. I know who that is standing next to you
and now I’m going to look. O my! Cathy, you are just so extraordinarily beautiful.
I’m going to spend eternity with you, my darling, and I can’t wait for it to begin.
“They are all well, Mr Greenwood,” said Mrs Goldstein, from within her deep sleep.
“Cathy, and Gareth, and everyone else. All well. No need for you to worry.”
“Arnie is well, too, Mrs Goldstein,” Harry replied. “I knew they were all there.
I just wanted to see them, that’s all.”
He slipped between the dark folds of sleep, and let himself sink deep, deeper, into
peace. Stillness. Sleep. The hours passed.
He heard, or saw, in a dream, a white flash of light cascading over the dark ocean,
and felt the salt wind in his face. He passed yet deeper into sleep.
He was rising now, gently, up from the warm enfolding dark, towards wakefulness.
The aircraft cabin was quiet.
“You’re awake Mr Greenwood?”
A stewardess was leaning towards him, her hand brushing his cheek.
“Yes. I’ve had a wonderful sleep.”
“That’s good. Just relax. The others aren’t awake yet.”
He closed his eyes. Lena, their stewardess, had been a beautiful girl, but this woman,
he thought dreamily, was stunningly beautiful. There had obviously been a change
of cabin crew, as her uniform, pale blue and gold, was quite different from Lena’s.
But surely, he thought, the cabin crew don’t change during a flight. He must have
been mistaken.
He opened his eyes. Mrs Goldstein, he noticed, was still asleep, a peaceful smile
on her face. He could hear a low murmur of voices coming from the first-class cabin
at the front of the aircraft There was a popping sound that reminded him of a champagne
cork being drawn. It was very early to be opening champagne, he thought.
He looked at his watch. Six a.m. With luck, he’d catch a news broadcast. He switched
on his transistor radio and held it close to his ear, so as not to wake his fellow
passengers.
This is the BBC World Service. Here is the news, read by Nigel Dennis. An Israeli
airliner, bound for Tel Aviv from New York, has crashed, killing all one hundred
and ninety people on board. It is believed that a terrorist missile downed the aircraft,
which was carrying Israeli and Palestinian officials returning from peace talks at
the White House . . .
Harry switched off the radio. Only then he realised there were no batteries in it.
They were in the sealed plastic bag in his other pocket. He felt them to make sure.
He stood up and squeezed past Mrs Goldstein, into the aisle. Even though the cabin
was in semi-darkness, he saw he had not been mistaken about the cabin crew’s uniforms.
There were five or six stewardesses in blue and gold uniforms bending over passengers
and talking to them softly.
There was a strip of light coming from the door to the business class cabin. The
door was partly ajar, and Harry heard what sounded like another champagne cork popping.
He moved down the aisle, pushed open the door and entered.
A party was getting under way. Three Israelis had linked arms with three Palestinians
and were raising their glasses in a toast. Lena and the rest of the Israeli air crew,
including the captain, tieless and in his shirtsleeves, were also holding glasses
and looking at each other with smiles of amazement. The door to the flight deck was
open. Harry saw a large male figure, in a blue and gold uniform, at the controls.
The hostess who had touched Harry’s cheek as he awoke looked up from the tray of
glasses she had been filling and smiled.
“Good morning, Mr Greenwood. Would you like a glass of champagne? We’ll be landing
in Jerusalem shortly.”
“Jerusalem? But I thought we were going to land at Tel Aviv?”
“Look out the window, Mr Greenwood.”
Harry looked. He recognised the city from the
description penned by St. John the Divine, who had seen it in the spirit while in
prison on Patmos, nearly two millennia before.
“Good heavens! I can see the . . . airport?”
She nodded.
Harry took a glass from the tray.
“I think I need it. Cheers everyone! Jerusalem!”
“Jerusalem!”
