Highlander - Donna Lettow [107]
If they weren’t standing on Holy Ground, Avram knew he’d probably be dead now. But instead, MacLeod was forced to swallow his rage and fight only with words. “You take the work that your friends in the Ghetto gave their lives for and you pervert it into this … this abomination! The Lutëtia, Hebron, how many people have you killed in their name?”
Avram decided to change the subject. He pushed past MacLeod, out into the aisle, and started to walk toward the front of the synagogue. “Boring conversation. Let’s talk about Gamal Ali Mustapha, instead. Name ring any bells?” Noting MacLeod’s blank look, he continued. “It should. You’re screwing his wife.”
“Maral’s husband is dead.”
Avram nodded. “Sad, but true. At the time of his death, he was wanted for questioning in two car bombings and a fire at an Israeli preschool. Ali Mustapha got off way too easy.”
MacLeod followed Avram. “And that makes him different than you exactly how?”
Avram turned on MacLeod angrily. How could this man he once trusted be so blind? “He was a murdering bastard, MacLeod. I’m just—”
“A murdering bastard.” MacLeod looked at Avram, searching. “Avram, when did ‘What is hateful to you do not do to anyone else’ become ‘Get them before they get you’? That’s not one of the commandments you used to follow.”
“You do what you have to do to survive. That’s the only commandment we’ve got left, remember?” There was a time Avram would have given his life for this man. Now he could hardly stand the sight of him. “You remember Rivka, MacLeod? Cute little thing, always a fighter?”
“Of course I do. I helped her get to Israel after the war. Then I … I had to move on.” Part of the penalty of Immortality, never being able to stay in someone’s life for very long. Never being able to stay and watch a young girl blossom into a woman. “We lost touch.”
“I saw her not too long ago. Did you know she helped Antek and Zuvia start a Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz? She served three terms in the Knesset. An amazing woman. Now she’s raising hell in a retirement community outside Haifa. She thinks of Tzaddik has a heck of a grandson. And you …” Avram shook his head in amazement. “She still venerates you like some kind of prophet, MacLeod. Thank God she doesn’t know what you really are. It would break her heart.”
“Your point?”
“Her eldest son served in the Yom Kippur War, was killed in the Sinai. Ten years ago, her daughter lost a leg and her unborn baby in a terrorist bombing. My point is, what had that little pigtailed girl ever done to anyone to deserve a life like that? To lose one family to the Nazis and another to the Arabs?”
“Nothing,” MacLeod answered.
“Wrong! She’d been born a Jew. Born a Jew in a world where it’s on season on Jews. Well, no more, MacLeod. No more little girls will ever have to grow up like Rivka, I swear it!”
“What about the little Palestinian girls whose fathers were at that mosque?” MacLeod didn’t want to believe what he was hearing, but he wasn’t going to let Avram get away with it. “You believe that it’s all right for you to murder? That it’s fine for you to butcher innocent men and women, why? Because you’ve suffered, Avram? Because you’ve been persecuted? And you think God approves of this?” MacLeod was livid.
Avram shouted over MacLeod. “Protecting His chosen people is a righteous act in the eyes of God!”
“‘Thou shalt not kill.’ That is what’s ‘righteous’ in the eyes of God.” MacLeod had had enough. “Okay, Avram. You and me, outside. Right now. It’s time to settle this.” He was more than ready.
Avram smiled, shook his head. “No work during the Jewish Sabbath, MacLeod.” He looked beyond MacLeod, saw someone entering the sanctuary behind them. “Rabbi!” he called out. “A word if you have the time.” Then he turned back to MacLeod. “But soon. Soon enough.”
“Not soon enough,” MacLeod muttered under his breath as Avram hurried away to meet the rabbi, then he stalked down the aisle and