by Jeff Spence
She nodded. In her father's eyes, this terrible thing that was happening was also a kind of miracle.
He looked at her more sternly then, but still with tenderness. "You will do this thing for me? For God?"
She nodded.
"Good, my child," he reached out, pressing a silver object into her palm. It was the length of her hand, rolled into a cylinder about the circumference of her wrist. "Do not show anyone what you have. No one, not even our brothers or sisters. Hide it from friend and foe alike, until you can get word to the Yahad. I am proud of you, daughter. As proud as I could be of a son."
They strode over to the wall and looked across at the gathering storm. Her father leaned out over the edge at the result of the past few weeks of their enemies’ effort. She could hear the men working, still building the earthen-work rampart that would soon bridge the gap between the fortress and the long rows of soldiers on the other side. It was beyond her imagination, and she still struggled to believe it was really happening. Her people had fought for months, then delayed the construction with bows and slings from behind the sturdy Herodian walls.
But progress had been made. Slow and relentless.
When the foreign soldiers came within range of the battlements and her people began hailing stones and arrows upon the basket-bearing men, the general pulled back his troops to work on the side farthest from the fortress. He sent civilian slaves in to work in the shadow of Masada's walls. Many of them Jewish slaves. The stones had stopped. Faces on both sides of the wall were grim.
The work had continued.
The ravine between the two forces was nearly gone, a broad rampart of rubble and sand growing up in its place. Still too steep and loose for an army to cross. But the time was coming. As sure and steady as darkness followed the setting of the sun. The war was over. The Jewish forces utterly defeated — or very nearly so — and the rebellion quashed.
Not the spirit of the people though. A plan had been proposed.
A grim act of final defiance and dignity.
The enemy swords would not drink the blood of this remnant.
Tears continued to stream down Ruth's face as she followed the other women down into the tunnel, into the caves below the courtyard. Above her she could hear the low tones of her father and the other men as they sang the great prayer of her people, grim and immovable as the earth itself. Shemaaa… Shemaaa… Her footsteps led her downward, into the coiled bowels of the place. One of the women fled back up, to die with her husband. Ruth paused, then continued on her way as her father had told her to. She would wait there. Wait for the invaders to enter the fortress, to see the fallen forms of her father and the others, all slain by their own hands in defiance of the unclean conquerors.
She would hide the rolled piece of silver.
And then she would await her doom.
1952.
Cave Three, Northeast of Jerusalem.
"It's empty, let's go back."
"Just a last look. We're so close, it won't take a minute. My light was dodgy last time we were in. I want to make sure. The damn ceiling cave-in did some damage, but it may have covered something good as well. We need to be thorough. Pity if we leave something behind and the Bedouin find it."
"Wouldn't surprise me. They’re like bloodhounds out here. A sixth sense or something."
"You ever hear that luck comes to those who work hard?"
"Yeah yeah, but whoever said that…” he grunted as he stepped up and over a rise in the faded trail, “…wasn’t out here. It's bloody sweltering. Must be over a hundred in the shade today. Can't bear to think what it is out here in the naked sun. I'm sweating buckets."
"Well, luckily we'll be in the shade soon enough — there it is."
The two men walked up the slope to the angled slab of exposed marl and sandstone rock. Ducking in under the lip, they crawled through to the open area where the scrolls had been found — the third cave of them.
The first one had been discovered only five years before, by a young Bedouin shepherd, and once the desert nomads knew there was money to be made, they soon found another. And another.
Even as the two men crept in through the dark, Bedouin tribesmen and an international community of eager archaeologists were combing the hills, searching the hundreds, maybe thousands, of natural and man-made caves that might hide another hoard of ancient documents.
Nothing like this had been found since the tomb of Tutankhamen, and even that didn't have the religious and cultural impact that these writings promised. A bangle or a crown might tell something about those who made them and wore them, but written documents? About a religion that was, in several forms, still alive and flourishing? That was something else altogether. And nowhere else on earth were they preserved so well. Below sea level, in one of the driest, most inhospitable environments on earth, the priceless artefacts sat in their subterranean caches, waiting for their owners to return and reclaim them.
But those owners never had.
"Here, there's a silted-in area back here… I think I see something."
"What is it?"
"Not sure… might be another jar."
"Odd that it wasn't with the others, can you-"
"Get over here! Look. Touch it!"
"What's wrong with it?" He reached out and gingerly ran his finger along the encrusted edge. "Is that metal?"
"I think so… copper I would guess… bronze maybe? Jésu, this thing is in rough shape."
"Rough is a relative judgment, it depends on how old it is."
"You're right there. But for it to be here? The initial dating on the other scrolls… And here, farther back in the cave? Has to be older, doesn’t it?”
"Yes, probably. Let's get it out of here, into the light."
The two men stared at the two cylinders placed gingerly on a flat rock, a folded canvas duffle under it as protection from the rough stone.
"Damn… that's fantastic."
"Definitely copper then?"
"That's my guess. Looks like it might have been one piece originally, but this edge… a fracture right down the middle of it. It'll be something to clean this up."
"Is it pliable?" He reached down to it, gently pulling on the outer corner, where no text would be damaged, hoping that the metal still held some flexibility and the ability to bend. A tiny fragment of the rim snapped off into his hand, a few flakes of copper-crumb tumbling away onto the canvas.
"Old then."
"Yes."
"Very old."
“Oh yes.”
The two men looked at each other. This was a find like neither of them had ever seen before. Whatever was written inside could change their lives. Their very field of study.
But how on earth were they going to open it?
1st June, 1967.
The Fortress of Masada.
“It's stuck."
"Easy, easy, don't force it!"
"It is lodged in the stone, Robbie, and stone does not bend."
"Old metals don't either, my friend."
"How long have we got?"
"I don't know; a few minutes maybe." He glanced back up the stairs the way they had come.
The first man grunted and blinked sweat from his eyes as he gently rocked the item from side to side, fractions of an inch each time, watching the rolled metal make almost imperceptible progress from the stone cubby into which it had been jammed.
"I hear them coming!" the whisper struck the walls and ran off up the tunnel, "Quickly!"
He made one last attempt to slide it free. It would not move. He could leave it, but…
They had only spotted it by chance. Had he not been trained as an archaeologist, or Robbie not a geologist, they wouldn't have even noticed anything out of the ordinary.
A funny anomaly was all it was, until they bent to take a closer look and realised that it was a hollow in the wall with some ancient metal item in it, tightly packed around with sand and seemingly undisturbed for some time. In a place like this, it could be th
ousands of years old, and might be an item of importance. Even more intriguing, it might be an item of great value.
They could leave it, try to pack some sand back in around it, but he doubted the result would be as subtle as when they had first spotted it, especially now that it had been disturbed. Someone else would find it, whatever it was, and they would miss this chance.
Hearing footsteps approaching, he pulled one last time, deciding a damaged item in his possession was better than an undamaged one in someone else's pocket. The metal popped from the cubby and he threw an old shirt around it before dropping it into his carrying bag.
"Hello? Hello?" The guide's voice was clear as he rounded the corner and saw the two men, one on his knees, the other crouching beside him.
"Please," Robbie said, his hand on John's shoulder, "My father has collapsed. I think it is the heat."
John glared at him, his thoughts clear. Father? You smug bastard, I'm only ten years older than you are!
It was all Robbie could do to keep the concerned look on his face. The consequences, should they be caught stealing an artefact from a protected site, was enough to keep him serious.
"Here," the guide produced a canteen and handed it to the fallen man, "Are you okay Monsieur? We have received a call. The tour must be cut short. Political reasons they say. Something big is brewing. We must return to Jerusalem. Are you able to stand? We will help you."
At a nod from the guide and from John, Robbie helped the latter to his feet amid all the pageantry of a feigned illness. As John reached his feet, the bag slid from his shoulder and hit the ground. The shirt-wrapped item rolled half way out of the opening.
The guide stooped to grab it.
"No it's alright…” Robbie said, with the volume of a whisper but the intensity of a shout.
"No, no, do not worry," the guide said, nudging the item back into the bag and lifting it to his own shoulder, "I have seen this before. It is the heat. Your father will be fine, he just needs cool air and water. We can get him more water right away, and cooler air on the bus, once we’re on the road and have the windows open. Do not worry."
Robbie and John both kept their eyes on the ground but their attention on the bag, gently swinging on the shoulder of their guide as the three men moved toward the stairs. They would no-doubt laugh about it later, well into a good bottle of wine, or two, but for the moment, the sweat now pouring from John's brow was very convincing, and very real. They left the cavern and made their way toward the cliffside paths to the upper levels of the fortress.
On the floor behind them lay a broken fragment of metal, roughly triangular in shape, with just a hint of ancient writing discernible through the thick layer of encrusted sand and black decay.
All around them nations armed themselves and pointed planes and tanks toward the small city of Jerusalem, ready to crush the little country, to push it screaming into the sea.
But Israel would not wait.
3rd June, 1967.
Beth-Shalom Tea House, Jerusalem.
"It isn't much, is it?"
"C'mon mate, that's ancient writing on that!"
The older man scrunched his features and stared at the surface, his eyes more skeptical than interested. "Hmm, a little perhaps."
"This thing's old, mate, it's gotta be."
"Why does it have to be old?"
"Look at it."
"Besides looking at it. Why must it be old?"
He knew what the old man was getting at. "I told you. I can't tell you where I found it."
"Such things, without provenance, are just trinkets."
"I told you though, I found it. I didn't buy it or dig it up — it was just layin' there on the ground."
"If it was just lying there, then it can't mean much to you, financially I mean. After all, it was mere chance."
"But my mere chance, not yours. The thing has value, you and I both know it. So c'mon mate, throw me a number."
"You also didn't tell me what ground you found it on."
"I can't do that. C'mon… make an offer."
A pause. Another close look. Could be something. Could be something very valuable. Could also be nothing. Could bring with it a lot of trouble in the first instance, and nothing but disappointment in the second. "Maybe… I could give you a pound for it, British sterling."
"A pound?" the man looked as if his best friend had just accused him of treachery. "A single pound for what could be a real treasure?"
"Or a full pound for a tarnished paperweight, and not much use as that even."
"At least a tenner, mate. At least a tenner."
"I could go a pound fifty, as you bought the tea. No more."
"A fiver?"
"Still too much."
"I tell you what, you go two pounds, and if you sell it for more than ten, we split the profits, eh?"
"So I carry the risk, and you share the benefit?"
"No, we both carry the risk. I sell for a mere two pounds, after all."
"Unless it is worth more… and then you get more, don’t you?”
"Alright, mate, I see what you mean."
The older man suspected that the Australian had seen what he meant before even making the proposal. "I'm sorry, I must go to meet my son, he is visiting from England and returns home tomorrow. If we have not reached an agreement, then…”
"Okay, you have a deal at two pounds. You drive a hard bargain!" He thrust out his hand to the old man.
The man held his hand out, one pound fifty in it in coin. He held out the other, palm up but empty. "I have no more time."
"Fine." The younger man grabbed the coin and placed the fragment of crusted metal, wrapped in tissue, into the waiting hand. "It's true what they say about you Jews." He stormed away.
The old man smiled to himself, Yes, it is probably true of us. And of so many more people besides.
The Egyptians had mobilised troops along the borders and there was little doubt that tensions were about to burst. There was talk even that the Israelis should preempt the attack, strike first to gain the upper hand. His son, an archeologist's clerk working with the French École Biblique in Jerusalem, was due to return to his studies at the University of Oxford the next day. Normally he would have preferred his only son to stay, to become part of Israel and the new Zion, but these days his thoughts had strayed to other visions. He still hoped for grandchildren, though his son showed little inclination for anything outside of his books and the funny items and trinkets they dug out of the ground. Perhaps, back in England, at school, the boy would find a woman who shared his passion for such things. Perhaps other passions would follow, as such things often do.
In any case, he was pleased to have stumbled upon this opportunity to buy the small fragment. The Australian had come into the tea shop for lunch, asked the man at the counter where he might find an antiques dealer. He had been right there.
The object might be fake for all he knew — he dealt in tables and chairs mostly, a few cabinets and the like — but it looked old. Peculiar. It was the kind of thing his son liked. It would make a good parting gift. Perhaps it would help the boy’s thoughts and prayers lean toward his old father from time to time.
A car backfired and he jumped. He shook his head. War, again. Would they never see enough of war, these men? He looked down at the line of fading green numbers on his wrist. He thought of his own father. Wondered where his father's thoughts were in those last days. If he had been able to see any further into the darkness of the future than his son could. Perhaps. There were rumours, after all, that the old man had tapped into secrets in the great tomes he poured over, day after day. Jewish secrets. So alike, his old father and his young son. How had fate made this man in the middle so different from each of them? So alone in the way he saw the world?
He tucked the trinket into the breast pocket of his shirt and left the tea shop, waving at the waiter as if they would see each other in the next day or two, as usual. But he would be wrong.
War had retu
rned to Israel.
The following is a bonus peek at the next part
in the adventures of Marina Saalik.
THE BOWL
OF MARDUK
ONE
The trip had been a long one, train and airplane combined. Backache and noisy neighbours, and he’d spilled coffee down the side of his leg a half hour into the eight-hour ordeal. At least it had been his shin, and he hadn’t had to suffer the self-consciousness of a stain on his crotch, or down the inside of his pant leg. All the same, he felt clumsy. Anxious. And if he were honest… old.
Intellectually, he knew that mid-forties were the new mid-twenties, whatever that really meant, and that he was likely to have a long and productive life ahead of him, especially since the finding of the scroll hoard and the international publicity it had gained him. His career had hit orbit.
And that was part of the problem.
He’d left Marina at home, ostensibly hunting for a new job. She’d been doing retail sales since they had returned, but the pay wasn’t great, and hours had dropped since Christmas. She complained about it, and professed a desire for something different, more “grown up.”
He suspected there was a lot more contemplation and boredom going on for her than actual pounding of the pavement. He didn’t mind that part. He’d made nearly ninety thousand dollars so far that year on his previously published works, and the new short book he’d written on the finding of the hoard was predicted to double that, at least. Those numbers were almost unheard of for an academic. Add to it the speaking fees and the bump in pay he’d received from the university — a desperate attempt to keep him out of the clutches of Ivy League institutions, or the Oxbridge set — and he was less concerned with money than he’d ever been. Marina could live off of that as long as she wanted; it was mainly because of her that he had the acclaim at all.
She’d been living with him since about a week after the find had been verified, about a year. Though inundated with offers to have her speak, or appear on talk shows, both radio and television, Marina had not made a single public appearance. She had no interest in becoming any kind of celebrity, and wouldn’t even appear alongside Ben, unless it was a university event to which she would otherwise have been invited. And so she stayed at home, sifting through the ads at jobs she didn’t really want, and trying to figure out what it was she was really suited to do.