Title: Jerusalem of Gold, and of Copper, and of Light
Author: Well, inako, it's quite obvious...
Rating: T
Pairing: Tony&Ziva, of course!
Warning: It is desirable to watch a certain movie, but if not, I hope this will sum up for you anyway.
Words: 3,593
Summary: It was the only film that made Ziva cry.
Author's Note: So, since here we have merely strong Jewish and Holocaust content, I was thinking to dedicate this to all Jews, Gentiles and my great-grandfather who lost their lives during the World War II. May They Rest in Peace.
Disclaimer: I SO own NCIS! *April Fools!* I also don't own any part of Schindler's List. Enjoy. ;)
"As for tonight, Miss David, I have readied this very special movie for you," Anthony DiNozzo announces as he marches towards the couch with hands full of popcorn to stare at his gorgeous Israeli co-worker.
"I am not entirely convinced in your choice of films, Tony," Ziva David shoots back immediately and pulls the bowl of popcorn from him, "You made me watch Chuck Norris last Friday," she adds grudgingly and pouts her mouth as Tony slumps onto empty space beside her, "I am still regretting it."
The man next to her snorts and mumbles something about the Holy Trinity of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jackie Chan. "But," he voices out proudly, "You are not about to regret this evening." Ziva gives him disbelieving look as he does. "I promise."
She shifts uncomfortably as Tony reaches for remote control of his high-modern BluRay system and presses 'play' button.
Ziva doesn't think much of the 'surprise' Tony is preparing her – to her, it is just another film, until the Universal intro closes. The next thing she is aware of is a hand lighting a match in the darkness, and it slides through the twilight to light a candle.
Afterwards, she realizes it is two candles the person is lighting.
People are gathered around the table – children, women, men. She knows the scene well. Ziva David had been observing it as a child every Friday evening, eighteen minutes before sundown. She is stunned at the moment – so stunned the only thing that comes to her mind is that 'the blessing should be recited by a woman of the household'. The man on the screen prays – it is familiar, and Ziva cannot help but moves her lips silently along with the words that flow out of man's mouth. She can feel Tony's gaze locked at her, but tonight, she does not care.
She watches as the Jewish family assembled around Shabbat candles disappears from the view, and she knows well what is going on. The picture turns black-and-white. Jews were ordered to register all family members and relocate to major cities. More than 10,000 Jews from the countryside arrive in Krakow daily. Ziva shifts nervously – she is not sure how she is coping with it tonight. She is unsure of how she is going to hide her weakness from Tony. "Horowitz, Salomon."
"Hudes, Isak."
"Zucker, Helena."
"Davidowich, Ignacy."
She already feels slight tremor taking control over her body. She is far from ready for this.
Camera switches to well-situated man dressing up. She watches how he ties his tie, how he buttons his shirt. She watches him put on his jacket and clasp swastika badge on it. She knows Tony senses how her fists automatically clutch around blanket they are wound into. Of course, Ziva knows who man is. She is also aware of his meaning to her and to her people.
Then, the movie shows the banquet hall – Ziva stiffens; rich, arrogant, heartless people and SS uniforms everywhere, but luckily, the party is over soon– SS soldiers are marching through the street full of innocent people wearing The Star. It is now told it is forbidden for all Jews to eat any kind of meat. She is disgusted over the people who did that to her nation, to her family. She sees how Nazis cut off one man's peyes, the curly hair growing down his cheeks. What did we do to you?, she thinks with hurt, We are only people!
She follows the film sharply – Tony beside her is observing her, she is fully aware of that, and he realizes he hasn't seen her watch a film with such intensity and so many feelings behind her glance. To be honest, she has fallen asleep during every movie they've watched before. He admires the moments she holds her breath because of what Nazis are causing to her and her nation. Screen displays Oskar Schindler, Itzhak Stern, her eyes follow the transportation of Jews into ghettos in Poland. Somewhere, there is a baby crying. She holds a cry when SS officer shoots an old, weak man and leaves him in the snow. She watches his blood pour and colour the crystal white snow in dark, painful redness.
Then, it is like a curtain goes down. A scene with Oskar Schindler making love to a woman pops onto the screen, and she is now more aware of Tony sitting beside her than ever. She feels guilt and something else consume her body and she prays it would be over soon. It affects her, she feels faulty because she's thinking such things about Tony, especially during a film describing events during horrific past. The scene seems to be endless, Ziva is aware of woman's moves, aware of their voices and moans and she wishes she would not be sitting beside person she so often fantasizes about.
She is grateful, very, very grateful when the scene passes, but she finds herself facing something that might show even deadlier. The railcars inhumanely filled with innocent people, driving them into concentration camps, nothing more than very much painful death.
People's belongings stolen from Nazis, and photographs – so many, many memories. Golden teeth. Freezing people in the ghettos. Death, more and more of it. Shooting and blood everywhere. She does not know how she even manages to cope with it.
And out of sudden, she is faced by liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. Ziva realizes she is now visibly shaking. Her arms are covered in gooseflesh, even as she's tightly wrapped into the warm blanket, and yet, she is cold. Children on the screen are shaking, too. They silently await and she can almost see how they soundlessly pray to their God for help. Mothers are screaming. People are put on edge; they are looking for every bizarre hiding place or escape way they can find.
"Seine Papiere, Jude!"
Women are grieving above their dead men, on the street, surrounded by both terrified and terrifying humans. Babies are crying. Soldiers invade the hospital. They go bed by bed, leaving bloody trail on the blankets. One of them shoots already dying woman in her husband's lap. Her blood sprays over his face.
"Mama, mama..."
Ziva feels tears sparkling in her eyes, but she does her best to hold them back. The effort makes her vision blurry, and she blinks them away eventually. Streets are now empty, except of dead bodies with eyes open and faces tear-stained, and there are very few unharmed.
And then appears the little girl wearing red coat that burns the eye on black-and-white screen. She goes unnoticed into a building, hides under the bed. Ziva is fully aware what fate awaits her. And there are soldiers again, many, many soldiers. People come from the hiding places you wouldn't remember in your craziest dream – one from the inside of piano, others from bed frames. You see only the light and sound of the deadly shots, but it is too much. They riddle houses with bullets, and they bring death over and over. She feels like breaking down, crying her heart out, but she can't. She tries to reach for Tony's hand to support her, but Ziva feels paralyzed. She cannot move, even if she wants to. She wishes she could close her eyes and rip the DVD in thousands of pieces, but she cannot bring herself to. And after all, she keeps reminding herself, there is no chance she could change the history, to help her people, no, all people. Because they are just people. Well... were.
She feels Tony shift beside her slightly. He puts an arm around her shoulders and holds her tiny, shaking body closer. She suddenly realizes she subconsciously let the tears fall and that they keep streaming down her cheeks as a man holding her lowers his head to her ear. "Are you okay?" he whispers and his soft lips touch her ear lightly. She would be normally painfully aware of how close and caring are they to each other, but she can't bring herself to see that tonight. She is only glad there is someone who can hold her unconditionally, no matter what. "Kind of," she answers with strangled voice, but he continues. "Do you want to stop watching?" YES! Yes, I want to!
And yet, does she really? She feels obliged to keep watching, she needs to do so. Her brain wishes she could say Yeah, stop it, but her heart tells her otherwise. "No," she states, winds closer to him and focuses her eyes on the screen again.
It is Amon Goeth shown now, a camp warden, Nazi who shoots Jews from his balcony for pure fun, who is positive into his own so called mercy and greatness.
Ziva is disgusted. By him, by his subjects. Her hair bristle with abomination she feels for people responsible for humiliation and suffering of innocent people and her nation especially.
She hears Jewish prayers again, right on the night of Schindler's birthday. Right when Goeth beats his Jewish servant in the cellar to blood.
They make him a cake. A birthday cake. Jews baked a cake for their saviour, and they send small girl to bring it to him and wish him Happy Birthday. "Thank you very much for the lovely cake." He kissed both of her cheeks, and her eyes shone with pride.
"The train's arrived and the people were driven out with clubs. They were lined up before two big warehouses. One was marked 'Cloakroom' and the other 'Valuables'. And then, they were made to undress. A Jewish boy handed them pieces of string to tie the shoes together. They shaved their hair. They told them it was needed to make something special for the U-boat crews. And then, they were headed down the big corridor to bunkers with Stars of David on the doors and sign that said 'Bath and Inhalation Room'. SS gave them soap. They told them to breathe all the time because it's good for disinfecting. And then, they gassed them."
It is the camp again. Six-month medical check-up. Naked men and women are colouring their cheeks with their own blood, not to look pale, because they would execute them. Emaciated bodies everywhere.
Then there are children. SS put them on the military cars, and mothers are screaming, reaching to touch their kids' hands and pull them off. "Olek? Olek!"
"Danka!"
Some hide into toilets, under boards, into the furnace, but most of them are carried away, away from their mothers. Ziva finds herself crying again and Tony's hand caresses her tightly clutched fist gently.
Oskar splashes thirsty, heated Jews packed like sardines in the railcars and the SS laughs and mocks him.
"He loves women. He loves good-looking women. When he sees a woman, he doesn't think. He has so many women, they love him! ... Alright ... She was Jewish, he shouldn't have done that..." Despite her weakness and sadness at the moment, she cannot resist and miss the opportunity. "Tony, he's you!" she grins and Tony snorts. "That has changed in the last time, Zee-vah." He pauses. "Besides, I haven't kissed a Jewess. Not that I don't wish to..." he adds with far more serious tone and that brings her back to reality, she grows solemn in the moment – she shifts uncomfortably in his arms. Tony can almost hear her brain drooling over the decision of freeing of his embrace, but she doesn't. Great, DiNozzo, he thinks darkly, You practically just admitted it.
He is however distracted in a moment – there are Jews again, so, so many Jews, burying and burning their comrades in massive stakes of only bodies by the order of Germans. There is smoke it is dark and heavy atmosphere, it burns Ziva inside her chest when she's watching it. 10,000 victims killed in Plazsow and Krakow ghetto massacre.
And that's when Ziva sees it. On the handcart, among other bodies, that is headed for burning stakes. Actually, the only thing she sees is red, dark red coat, shining from the black and white, covered in mud. She feels something in her collapse. She wasn't even six years old. She is just another body now, she always was. To them.
The scene is cut, but Ziva finds herself follow only halfway. She does see Schindler making a list, list of people he will save by making them work in Deutsche Email Fabrik. But the girl, the girl, she was so innocent, they all were...
The list is absolute good, says Stern, The list... is life.
But the train loses its way, it goes to Auschwitz. Women's hair is cut; they put them in Bath and Inhalation Room... But, oh, what a joy! What a joy when the water pours, and no gas. Ziva realizes she is smiling, smiling and holding Tony's hand tightly.
But he saves them. Oskar Schindler saves his Jews, brings them back to life. Now they are working, in his factory. He is saving them, and when he visits a man working on steely tubes, and allows, suggests them to observe their faith and customs as he says, "How are you doing, Rabbi? Rabbi!"
"Good, Herr Direktor."
"Sun's going down," he says, as it's obvious – it actually knows very well where this is going.
"Yes, it is," Rabbi confirms, clearly puzzled.
"What day is it? Friday? It's Friday, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"What's the matter with you? You should be preparing for the Sabbath! Should you?"
Rabbi is stunned, and they pray again, with Shabbat candles. Ziva is grateful, so grateful to the man who helped her nation to survive. And yet, he grieves, he blames himself for not saving more. He saves eleven hundred people. Generations will live. He cries, and whole Jewish nation cries along.
The last scene. It's the Schindler Jews, and they sing Jerusalem of Gold, and of Copper, and of Light, to all your songs,... they are violins. They visit his grave, his, who has offered a hand when they needed it most. The scene is endless, Ziva knows she is crying over and over again, and Tony is wiping her tears simultaneously with his gentle fingers. Her head is leant onto his solid chest as they watch it end, she is soaked with tears and he appears strong for her. He realizes how much this means to her and what meaning it holds for her. End credits fall, the picture goes dark on his screen and the only light in the room is given by the moonlight through the window ajar. They lie wordlessly. Yes, tears keep falling, but they also keep getting rubbed off. She sniffles quietly before finally stating with weak voice:
"You... made me watch Schindler's List."
"I did," he confirms and she shoots back offensively.
"Why?"
He shrugs and Ziva raises her head to look into his eyes. "Did you want to make me cry?" she blurts out, folds her arms and twitches her eyes with suspicion.
"What? No! Of course not, I just-"
"Wanted to make sure I was human, yes? Is that the phrase you're looking for?" She now storms at him openly. "What did you want from me, Tony?"
He doesn't have an answer, and she knows it. Heavy, uncomfy silence lies upon them and Ziva's deadly glance is focused on him with force. Awkward, difficult silence.
"I have seen it before." Ziva's voice is unexpected to him, especially so calm under the current circumstances. When her lips part again, he is more than surprised. "It is... the only film... that makes me cry." She shuts up for a moment, but then goes on. "But you were aware of that, yes?"
Tony shifts again and attempts to sit up – which is not an easy task to perform, if Ziva David is sitting stubbornly on your legs. "You loved The Sound of Music, Ziva," he frowns therefore, "You aren't even supposed to see Steven Spielberg's greatest classics!" Under normal circumstances, she would laugh, but it is getting quite clear these are no normal circumstances, and this is why she keeps quiet.
Tony stares at her, and she does just so. Her dark, well, a bit reddish eyes are studying his face, and she is not sure she likes what she sees.
"Come on, talk to me, Ziva," he whispers and manages to sit up to look directly into her eyes. Their faces are inches away from one another, and she visibly gulps at this realization. "Are you sad? Angry? Pissed-off?"
She slightly nods at every adjective he voices out and feels tears threatening to fall again. Tony seems to sense them kind of preventively and seizes into her lap to reach her cold, shaking fingers. She stares at their intertwined hands and watches him caress her palm. "I am confused also."
To Tony, her confusion is nothing compared to his. As for him, it does not happen every day to have crying former Mossad Liaison Officer in your apartment. His face apparently shows his bewilderment, because she continues and offers an explanation. "I am confused about the... motives that put people into destroying their own species." He now supposes he can now understand her perplexity. He however, doesn't have much time to think about it, because another tear slides down her cheek treacherously. "They were only people, Tony," she sniffles quietly as her is reaching to her face to wipe the tear away. He, on his way back, touches her chin and forces her face to look at his gently.
They are silent again, and Ziva can see the understanding in his glance. His thumb is caressing her cheek softly and she has suddenly this urge to share her thoughts with him. "My-" she pauses and wipes what she feels is building up in her nose away, "My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor." His eyes widen in surprise – not that he was supposed to be surprised, because the massive dimensions of Holocaust hardly let any Jew in this generation not to be related to Holocaust participant. "She was fourteen when she was... unveiled along with her parents and sister while hiding in abandoned warehouse near former Yugoslavia's borders." Ziva took a breath more. "They were taken to working camp Dachau in Germany, and a year later, American soldiers freed the camp. It was in 1945." She looked directly into his eyes and the purity and honesty in hers delighted and frightened him at once. "I am not going to describe what they'd been going through, Tony, since we've just seen that... She and her sister, however, who were the only survivors from their family, were transported to newly established country in the Middle East. They moved to Israeli Kibbutz during six-day independence war, and that's where she met my grandfather." Her eyes are now gleaming with tears and, to Tony's confusion, pride. He gapes at her, both for sharing a piece of her with him and her own magnificence. He somehow feels the feelings she is radiating with zealousness and senses her skin burning under his fingers. "I am proud of them all, you see. I am proud I am a Jew. I like being a Jew. I despise people who do such things, but sometimes, Tony..." she lets another tear fall and looks at her lap – pride in her gaze is now replaced with shame. "Sometimes... I think I am no different from them at all. I bring death, too, Tony."
Ziva is now visibly and unashamedly crying. She raises her head and searches for Tony's gaze and is relieved when she finds it. He slides his hands up to her shoulders and pulls her closer. She leans her head onto his solid, warm chest and he feels her relax against him.
His hand now glides down her smooth brown locks onto her back. She seems so tiny in his arms and he enjoys it more than he was supposed to, even if his shirt is soaked wet by now already. Tony kisses the temple of her head lightly and whispers nearby her ear. "Ziva, this people... You are nothing like them. You don't kill people because you hate them, you – we – kill them to protect the innocent ones. Those people were soulless, emotionless, you-"
"Tony... Don't." Her broken command stops him in the middle of his sentence.
"What?"
"Do not say I am not soulless. You, Abby,... Once even Ducky, you keep reminding me I do not care. I-"
"But you do, Ziva," Tony cuts her off gently, "If you don't believe it..."
"Tony," she interrupts again, "But I care. Really, I swear."
"I know that, Ziva," his voice is gentle purr against her ear and she rises her head to find their faces a couple of inches apart. They take risk and lean forward, just enough their noses and foreheads touch. She leans hers at his and blinks in astonishment – her eyelashes flutter against his skin. "We should not be doing this, no?" she mutters and her chilly breath caresses his cheeks – he likes it much, much more than allowed, he is now positive.
"You said you cared, Ziva," he replies a bit later when their breaths steady, "I care, too."
Her tiny, pinkish lips twitch into soft smile and he smiles back at her. "That is nice," she comments then with voice much stronger than anytime this evening, despite its quietness.
"Yes," he replies with smile still dancing on his lips as he reaches for her hand in her lap, "It is."
I hope you liked this. :) I was having gooseflesh while writing and rereading the middle part.
I also hope you'll leave a review, what do you think? =) I would be really, really grateful :)
Thank you for reading, I highly recommend clicking the button below.
Love, inako
P.S.: Here is something you simply must see if you liked my story:
http:/www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=LPQQ5iuUsKg