The Ascent of Eli Israel by Dara Horn Jonathan Papernick Page A

take that from you.”
    â€œNo!” Eli screamed in the upper register.
    â€œI joke,” the soldier said, laughing. “Let me help you carry your sack up the hill.”
    â€œNo,” Eli said forcefully.
    â€œHomo,” the soldier said, laughing, and ran back to meet his comrades. “You stink.”
    The jeep drove back toward the road, and Eli could still see them laughing. He picked up his .38 Special from the ground and pointed it toward the soldiers in the jeep as they got smaller and smaller in his sight. “Bang,” he whispered. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”
    Eli’s beard grew in thick and gray and he rested in Zev’s bed for the next month. He was restless to answer his God when he first arrived, anxious to walk the land and drink in his wisdom, and he felt God’s spirit burning through his veins, but was too weak to move. This must be a joke, Eli thought. I’m here and I can’t even get out of bed. He threw up in the mornings and apologized to God: “I’m failing you. I’m sorry.” Zev slept on a cot in his makeshift kitchen, cleaned up Eli’s vomit, washed his urine-stained sheets, and nursed Eli back to health.
    During the first week of his convalescence Eli awoke one night and thought he heard Josh calling, “Daddy!” He rolled over to tell his wife to check on him, but the bed was empty. He could see stars and a glowing moon pasted onto the ceiling, as mysterious as the real night sky, and he remembered he was with Zev in Hebron. It frightened him at first and he rolled over, sure that he smelled Kate on the sheets. He felt emptied out inside and thought out loud, “What do I do now? What do I do now?”
    â€œIt’s okay, man,” Zev called from the kitchen. “Trust in Hashem. God will take care of you.”
    â€œHas God ever whispered in your ear?” Eli said, thinking of the voice that sent him to Hebron, the voice that was silent now.
    â€œEvery day, brother. Every day,” Zev said. “There is nowhere that a Jew can be alone, because wherever he goes, his God is with him.”
    Eli pulled his pillow close to him, remembering the words, “You will walk in my light and follow my laws, and others will too. And I will be your God and their God.”
    â€œIs God with me?” Eli said.
    â€œYou betcha.”
    It began to dawn on him that maybe Zev was one of God’s angels, sent to watch over him, to lead him in the right direction.
    The next morning Zev began to speak to him of the miracles of Torah study as he fed Eli yogurt and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.
    â€œThe words of the Torah, man, are like golden vessels,” Zev said, “and the more you scour them and polish them the more they shine and reflect the face of who looks at them.”
    Zev brought Eli a new hardcover translation of the Torah, with Hebrew on one side of the page and English on the other. Eli began to read, slowly, bit by bit, of the creation of man, the sacrifice of Abraham, Jacob’s blessing of Isaac, the darkness of Egypt, and the Exodus.
    He lay propped up against two pillows and thought of his studies as a child for his bar mitzvah. “Are these the same words?” he wondered.
    Later, as his mind wandered to the slick bodies of his past, his hand slid down to stroke himself underneath the blanket.
    â€œYou’re gonna want to save that.”
    Eli stopped.
    The voice?
    It was only Zev standing in the doorway. “You’re not going to flush a nation down the toilet.”
    Zev lit candles for Shabbat and taught Eli the prayer inviting the sabbath bride.
    Eli’s fever began to break near the end of Shabbat and Zev brought in a spice box for him to smell.
    â€œHow are you feeling?” Zev asked, taking a sniff from the silver spice box.
    â€œBetter,” Eli answered. “But awful.”
    â€œYou’re back in the world, man,” Zev said, smiling.