A cold and friendless time has found you
Don’t let the stormy darkness pull you down
I’ll paint a ray of hope around you
Circling in the air
Lighted by a prayer
–“Candle on the Water”

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
May those who love you be secure.
–Psalm 122:6

Outside the Manna and Quail Mediterranean Restaurant
Later that week

“So, this is how you explain owning a house,” Richie joked as the navy-blue Ford Contour pulled up before the restaurant, a small adobe building with a vine-covered wooden grape arbor leading to the door. Two swarthy middle-aged men were standing in the shade of the arbor, one turning a key in the lock while the other looked up and waved.

Chaya smiled, waving in return as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “I’ve learned, over time, to make the most of what I know in ways that fit my ‘age.’ Teaching–except at the elementary and high school level–tends to make people a little suspicious these days.” She opened the door and turned to him. “Coming?”

“Sure.”

The two Immortals climbed out of the car and crossed the parking lot to the door, which the shorter of the two men had just finished unlocking. He turned to face them with a smile.

“Ah! So, finally we learn the real reason you won’t open for breakfast!”

She laughed lightly. “Good morning, boys.”

Richie could tell by the sparkle in the eyes of the two men that her addressing them as “boys” was a private joke between the three. He smiled. Wonder what they’d say if they knew?

“So, who’s this? Your new puppy?” the other of the two asked, still grinning.

“I guess you could say that.” Chaya smirked. “He is a stray I found–over by Jerry’s.” She took the younger man by the elbow and drew him forward. “This is Richie Ryan. I’m letting him borrow my guestroom until he can find a job and a place of his own. Richie, I’d like you to meet the two best Middle Eastern chefs no longer in the Middle East, Yitzhak Levy and Ismail Baddour. Otherwise known as the Patriarchs of the Manna and Quail.”

“Good to meet you, Pup,” Baddour commented with an impish smile. The three men shook hands.

Levy grinned as well. “He’s not like your usual strays, Emah. Are you sure this one’s not finally teaching you the joys of the flesh?”

Chaya just shook her head with an amused smile.

Richie grinned mischievously. “Not for lack of trying!”

His hostess raised one questioning eyebrow at him and the younger man shrugged while the two chefs guffawed.

“Boys, why don’t we save the rest of this little would-be drama until after we’re ready to open for the day?” Chaya turned back to the two men with a scolding smile. “I don’t want customers queuing up outside the door. Besides, we already provide the waitstaff with entertainment enough.” She gestured towards the open door, and the two men nearly bounced through it, still chuckling at their own humor. Richie started to follow them, but was stopped by her hand tightening on his arm, pulling him close.

“Remind me,” she breathed in his ear, her voice still tinged with amusement, “to inquire someday how you managed to erase my memory of this ‘trying’ of yours.”

She released him then, and the younger Immortal watched her disappear into the kitchen, grateful that she didn’t turn back to see the blush that he could feel creeping into his cheeks.

When he got the temperature of his skin tone back under control, he followed the other three into the back. By this time, the waitstaff was beginning to seep in. Chaya introduced them all briefly to him before slipping out to check on the day’s shipment of foodstuffs for the kitchen.

“Anything I can do to help?” Richie offered. Levy smiled and a moment later an apron hit the younger man in the face. He plucked it off his head with a lopsided grin. “What’s this for?”

“You want to help–the sink’s right over there.”

“You want me to wash dishes?”

Baddour shrugged with false innocence. “Good practice for when you get married.”

“Right.” The young man threw them a playful glance as he slipped the apron over his head. “I’ll have you two know I’m not *getting* married.”

The two chefs exchanged a paternal smile. “Someday you will, Pup. Someday.”

The other nodded. “When the right woman comes along. Just wait a few years.”

Richie just shook his head quietly, his eyes shining as he fought a smirk. Don’t map out my life just yet, guys. I guarantee I won’t meet your expectations.

******

Two hours later…

“Hey, Pup, you want to know something funny?”

Richie grinned, looking up from his sinkfull of dishwater. “Sure. What?”

Baddour returned the grin. “You know that cartoon movie of Aladdin that came out a couple of years ago?”

He nodded with a nostalgic smile. “Yeah. An old friend took me to see it the year it came out–she said Aladdin reminded her of me.”

“Yeah, well. I tell you, whoever named the characters in that movie, they didn’t do their research very well.”

“Oh yeah?” Intrigued, the younger man turned around. “How’s that?”

“Well…the monkey. The writer, he probably thought to himself, ‘Hey, this is a pretty common name in the Middle East. Every Arab man is Abu something-or-other.’ Which is true…”

Richie nodded with a suspicious gleam in his eyes. “So, what’s the catch?”

The other man chuckled. “In my country, when a man’s wife gives him a son, his neighbors don’t call him by his name anymore. They call him the father of his son. My oldest boy is Abdullah; Abu is Arabic for ‘Father.’ If I were still in Palestine, I would be Abu Abdullah to my friends. Not Ismail.”

The Immortal laughed. “So then, you mean–?”

The Palestinian nodded, eyes sparkling. “Your Aladdin, he called his monkey his Papa!”

The younger man shook his head in amazement and went back to his dishes. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”

Ismail roared.

“What’s this?” Chaya’s voice called out from behind them. He turned to see her eyeing the apron he had donned, and his hands where they were plunged elbow-deep into soapy water. “I don’t remember hiring you,” she told him with a trace of amusement.

“Your ‘Patriarchs’ have been ribbing me about my love life. Or lack of one, right at the moment,” the young man told her with a smirk. “Just because I offered to help out…”

Chaya grinned. “Get used to it–it’s their favorite pastime.” She grabbed a dishtowel from a nearby rack and tossed it to him. “Thanks for the offer, by the way.”

“You’ll pay me, right?”

“Pfft!” She waved a dismissive hand in his direction, fighting to conceal a smirk. “Like I said, I don’t remember hiring you.”

“Hey!”

Playfully ignoring him, Chaya turned back to the chortling chefs. “Ismail, we’re starting to run low on Baklava in the front counter. When you have a moment, could you–?”

“Of course. And if I don’t have time, I’ll teach the Pup to make it.”

“Ah…”

“What, George? Don’t you like Baklava?”

“I’ve never even had it!” Richie protested. “How could I make it?”

“Well, unless you’re absolutely devoid of cooking talent, Ismail can teach you.” She turned to leave, still smiling. “Oh, Yitzhak, the gefilte fish smells wonderful! Remind me to invite you and your cooking over for Shabbat again sometime soon.”

“Anytime, Emah,” Levy called after her.

******

Closing time, that night…

Chaya looked up when Richie appeared suddenly from the back, the young man letting out a low breath of relief. Behind him, raised voices could still be heard bickering in snatches of English, Hebrew and Arabic. She cocked her head for a moment to listen, even though only the words shouted loudest could be heard clearly. Benyamin Netanyahu’s name echoed through the restaurant and she winced.

“Oy! If only Rabin had lived, then maybe we would have a chance for peace both in Yisrael and in my restaurant!” she stated with exasperation, sending up a short, silent prayer in memory of the late Prime Minister. She swiped a cloth angrily over one table and glared in the direction of the kitchen.

Richie frowned. “I don’t understand. This morning, they were getting along like best friends and now they sound about ready to launch World War Three.”

“They are best friends,” the older Immortal confirmed with a sigh. “But unfortunately, friendship can’t always overcome the prejudices of a lifetime. Even a mortal lifetime. What started it this time?”

“Baddour stopping for his evening prayers.”

“Of course. Levy hates being reminded that his friend is a Muslim terrorist.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“Huh?”

She sighed again. “They’re like just about everyone else in Yisrael, these days. Yitzhak thinks all Arabs are terrorists and Ismail hates Jews.”

“Oh.” Richie glanced behind him. “I never would have guessed.”

Chaya smiled sadly. “That’s because they both consider each other the exception to the rule. Most of the time.”

“What about you?”

“I’m an exception to a lot of rules–technically not even Yitzhak should like me because I ‘betrayed’ my Jewishness by trusting in Y’shua.”

He nodded soberly. “So, why aren’t you just as gung-ho Pro-Israeli as he is? I mean, you lived there longer, after all.”

“I think that’s probably why. I’ve seen two Temples destroyed, my people exiled and return twice, seen them hunted like animals almost to extinction so many times…” She sighed again, sinking into a seat at one of the tables. “Adonai promised us the land forever if we obeyed him, and I don’t feel that we’ve done so. Treating the other people in our land as subhuman because they aren’t like us…that’s little better than the Nazis who tried to wipe us out. And every time Yisrael disobeyed before…” Her eyes took on a haunted look. “…we were exiled again. I don’t want to see that happen. I want to see peace, and I want to see everyone learn what Y’shua tried to teach us, that Adonai loves all people equally…”

A hand fell softly on her shoulder and Chaya shook herself out of her reverie to see Richie crouching before her, a look of understanding and compassion on his face. He flashed her a lopsided smile. “I sorta know the feeling. Not really…but sortof.”

When she didn’t answer him except with a weak smile of her own, he decided to take a risk and pulled her towards him. The older Immortal collapsed into his arms like the dishrag he’d hung up only a short time ago, her head falling onto his shoulder and her arms slipping around his waist. She didn’t cry but only held onto him tightly, too weary to grieve anymore for a sorrow older and dryer than the desert where she had been born.

“You know the real tragedy of it, Richie?” she asked him, her tired voice softened to a whisper. “Holy Ground is only a place of peace for Immortals. It’s only a refuge for us.”

He didn’t answer, instead letting an easy, companionable silence fall between them that provided more comfort than words or tears.

Across the room, finally leaving the kitchen, Ismail Baddour threw a hard punch into the upper arm of his companion.

“Ow! What did you do that for, you Meshuggenah Arab?” Levy protested. Baddour shushed him.

“Look over there,” he hissed. “Look what you almost made us miss!”

The Israeli’s eyes followed the Palestinian’s pointing finger. A wide, impish grin spread over his tan face as he took in the figure of the young man they’d just met. He was kneeling beside a chair with his arms wrapped around the woman seated in it, their boss. She was burrowed against him, her own arms disappearing around his waist, her eyes shut and a world-weary expression beyond her years coloring her face. Neither of them seemed to notice that they were no longer alone in the room.

The two men just watched for a little while, their expressions gradually softening to fond smiles.

Levy broke the heavy silence first, his voice low and wistful. “It’s good to see her not alone.”

“Yes.” Baddour nodded. “Yes, it is.”