The 13th Tablet

by Alex Mitchell

  ‘He purified humanity in forty days, with strength and kindness’ concluded Tammim.

  My holy master asked Tammim ‘No-one doubts His Strength and Kindness, nor his divine Plan, Tammim, but what of those who will not survive, the men, women and children who will die in the process?’

  Rabbi Tammin did not answer. My master pursued his argument, ‘as Avraham bargained with The Holy One, Blessed be He for every soul in Sodom, not merely the just ones, but the fallen ones too, it is our sacred duty to choose to save ALL life, good as well as evil.’

  I thought of the discussions we had had with my holy master only weeks before on Ramban’s commentaries on miracles and free will. We were all part of The Holy One, Blessed be He’s, plan. All was written from all time, and Nature is both illusion and one form of reality. There was no contradiction between our having free will and being the instruments of His Holy Will. Had I wanted to answer to Rabbi Tammim, I would have reminded him that The Holy One, Blessed be He, was justice. I had also noticed that when Rabbi Tammim spoke…’

  ‘A name is crossed out again’ said Eli, ‘I think it is the same person. Clearly he must have done something very wicked for his name to have been obliterated in this way.’

  ‘[XXX] stirred. He had not spoken a word for more than a year, since the time he had, in youthful exuberance, and against all the forewarnings of our master, tried to unravel the Zohar’s teachings. He was no longer glassy-eyed. It was as if the conversation he was witnessing had brought back his soul from the depth of madness to the tip of his tongue. He did not speak. Had I only known what would come to pass, I would have tried to speak to him then, but we were all so confused and focused on Tudela’s letter and how to find this magical tablet that I did not pay any attention to him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Eli, ‘the next passage is illegible.’

  ‘… but the blessed Ari spoke: ‘As it is written “as in water, face answers to face, so the heart of man to man”. If we decide to act to save lives, this action is just. As it is written, “whoever saves one life saves the entire world”.’

  His last words still hung in the room, as prophetic beams of light. He hummed to himself in the surrounding silence, and his hands waved gently over the table. He then opened his eyes, and very matter-of-factly said: ‘these mabuls will not occur in our times. I will send a search party to Jerusalem. If they find the tablet, we will conceal its existence until the time is right.’ I think we all silently interpreted his vision in the following way: if the simple people knew of the mabul before it happened, humanity would turn to chaos, and we all shared the wisdom of his words.

  By now night was upon us, and my holy master considered the matter concluded. He left Tudela’s letter on the table overnight for us all to meditate upon His Holy Will. I dared not touch it, not even to put it in safekeeping back in the archive. When I woke up the next morning, I returned to the study. The letter had disappeared.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Eli, ‘the next passage is illegible.’

  ‘… A month had passed since our beloved Ari sent the search party to Jerusalem with special instructions to locate the tablet. Finally, last night, they returned from their quest. I watched in awe as the five cautious and watchful men, their clothes still dusty from their travels, entered, silently, one-by-one the study of our blessed Ari. I watched, as the last one locked the door behind him. We all gathered in the hall, disciples and masters, trembling with anticipation, and in utter silence, impatient to know the outcome of their search, like young men on their wedding night. I still remember my excitement, my heart pounding in my chest at the idea that this tablet, which had caused such disturbance in our scholarly community was perhaps just a few feet away, in this small study, a small crack in the divine plan.

  At last the blessed Ari opened the door and from the way he looked at us, each in turn, we all knew without a doubt that the search party had been successful. A wave of relief swept over me. I felt tears running silently down my cheeks. Yet, this profound joy lasted but a few seconds for suddenly…

  ‘The crossed out name again,’ said Eli.

  ‘[XXX] whom we thought had disappeared, came storming in the hall accompanied by Rabbi Tammim and a few other disciples, and pushed us aside to get closer to the Ari. [XXX] stepped forward, with darkened brow, his eyes rolling in angst and his body shaking with fury. He pointed his finger at the Ari and screamed at him like a rabid dog: ‘Hand over the tablet, Rabbi, give us the tablet, as it must be destroyed’.

  Everyone stood frozen in horror. It was all too clear now that it was he who had stolen Tudela’s letter from the study. But the blessed Ari, raised his hand in a sign of peace, and said to [XXX] ‘You were given the grace of recovering your sanity and returning to life, yet you still turn a blind eye to His Will. Know this, that the tablet you crave for is out of your reach and that it is with sadness and humility that I cast you out of this community. You shall become dark like the night and be nameless, as shall be your descendants for all the years to come’.

  ‘The rest of the document is totally illegible’ said Eli, ‘and I can’t see any signature at the bottom which could tell us more about the author of this chronicle.’

  Mina and Jack were dumbfounded. They were incapable of uttering a single word. Eli just kept repeating ‘It’s incredible!’ over and over again, his face beaming with ineffable joy.

  Jack carefully placed the stone back in its place in the wall. Eli, holding the bundle of papers under his coat, close to his heart, walked hesitantly out of the synagogue, followed by Jack and Mina. They walked down the cobbled path towards the main road. The night was pitch black. Jack told them both to wait for him there while he picked up the van.

  ‘I’m speechless, Eli,’ said Mina.

  ‘I understand. It is as if one had stumbled on a sacred gathering and felt still under its spell. I know I feel this way.’

  ‘Yes but there is a detail you don’t know yet.’ Speaking quietly and slowly, she said, ‘I have the tablet they speak of. I have it here, in my bag.’

  ‘You have what?’ Eli dropped all the papers in the snow.

  He got slowly to his knees and started gathering them with Mina’s help. She went on, ‘I have one of the tablets. It’s actually a stone tablet, but that’s a story which I’ll tell you some other time. I believe there is more than one tablet. I think that the one described by the Safed rabbis was a clay tablet sent to Israel long ago, maybe even before the building in Jerusalem of the first temple of Solomon. I suppose we’ll never know how Tudela found out about all this’.

  Eli looked at Mina in amazement and then sunk deep into thought. Suddenly his face lit up. He seemed relieved as if he had finally understood something but was reluctant to share it. He turned to Mina and confessed ‘I haven’t been entirely truthful with you either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mina.

  ‘Let’s wait ‘till we’re out of the cold and in Josh’s van.’

  As they drove off, Mina looked at Eli. She felt miserable about lying about their identity. She was about to tell him her real name when he spoke.

  ‘Miriam’, he began slowly, ‘Over the years I’ve collected many documents relating to the Ari. Among them I found a short letter which only makes sense to me now. It’s in my bag, which I left at your place. It dates back to 1755. It’s a letter from a Jewish gentleman in England to his brother living in Safed. I know it by heart.’ The old man began to recite,

  ‘Dear brother,

  I hope the printing business is picking up as you hoped it would when you left for Safed. I am writing to reassure you. As you probably know by now, we had to leave Lisbon in a hurry. Everyone is alive and well. As for the clay tablet, I followed father’s instructions. I keep it with me at all times. Let’s hope that when the time is right, our sons or their descendents will receive a sign from G’d, and return this burden to its rightful place, wherever it may be. I miss you brother and I pray G’d we can be reunited before long. If
you wish to write to us, we’re now in Cambridge. Hildersham’

  I remember thinking it was a rather odd letter, but not until now did it make any sense’.

  ‘Well, I still don’t understand…’ said Mina.

  ‘I do’, said Jack, ‘the tablet which was found by Ari’s search party was entrusted to this guy or his family in Portugal, and the tablet’s now in England’.

  ‘Exactly’, said Eli, ‘or at least it was there in the 18th century.’

  ‘But where in England? And what were their names?’ asked Mina.

  ‘The man signed his letter ‘Hildersham’ from Cambridge, so I guess we have the answer.

  Eli sighed. ‘I am too old for all this. But you should continue.’

  ‘We will,’ said Mina.

  ‘Then go to Cambridge at once. A number of scholars from Cambridge came to visit Safed years ago. They worked at a Research centre in the University Library. I’m sure they could help.’

  Suddenly, Jack braked hard and the van juddered to a halt. A car was blocking the road up ahead and because the road was very narrow he could not do a U-turn. Three men had jumped out of the car and were flashing their torches up the road in their direction. They were armed and pointed their guns at the van.

  ‘Oh my god,’ said Mina.

  ‘Maybe it’s the plain clothes police,’ said Eli.

  ‘I don’t think so’ hissed Jack, ‘Stay still!’

  The men slowly approached the van. Jack waited until they were almost at arms length from the passenger door, then suddenly reversed at full-throttle. One of the men fired his weapon, but the van was already out of range. Mina and Eli cringed in terror, as Jack drove the car backwards at high speed into the darkness, scraping against the walls on either side of the road. The men had run back and jumped into their car and were driving fast down the alley after them. They were almost back to the cobbled stone path that led to the Ari shul. There was no way out.

  ‘I’ll stop the van in the middle of the road, and we’ll have to run for it,’ yelled Jack, ‘Eli, go back to the Ari synagogue and find a place to hide. We’ll hide in the old cemetery.’

  The poor man, still clutching his papers, hobbled out of the back of the van and Jack and Mina watched him hobble as quickly as he could back to the synagogue.

  ‘He’ll be alright. Let’s go,’ said Jack, pulling Mina by the hand.

  As they rushed towards the cemetery, they could hear the men climbing over the van. They ran as fast as they could, trying not to fall on the uneven ground.

  Safed had known a number of earthquakes and the cemetery was a chaotic assemblage of tombs and paths from different ages. They could hear the men’s heavy steps thumping the ground in hot pursuit. Mina hid behind a tombstone as Jack slowly crept to one side, gun in hand, waiting for the men to arrive. As the first one appeared, he shot at him but missed. Mina started running again. He could not rush after her as he was cornered by two of the gunmen. The third man was catching up with Mina. Jack saw her stumble and lose balance. She dropped her bag in her fall, and for an instant hesitated to pick it up. But as she saw the man fast approaching, she left it where it had fallen in the dust and ran further on. The man stopped to pick up the bag. Jack watched him as he searched with one hand while holding his flash light in the other. He pulled out something and dropped the bag. He then turned round and signalled to the other two to follow. Jack understood at once what this meant. They had the stone tablet. There was no need to pursue Mina or him any longer. They had what they’d come for.

  Eli hid in the only place where he felt truly safe, in the Ari’s room. A candle was still burning, but he couldn’t summon up the courage to put it out, even at the price of his own safety. He waited in absolute silence for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly he heard footsteps coming towards him. A tall dark shape entered the softly lit room. Eli clutched the bundle of papers as tightly as he could under his coat. When he saw who the man was, he was surprised and started to rise to his feet, but the man pushed him violently against the back wall and held him there by the throat. Eli‘s eyes widened in shock. The man grabbed the scarf from around the old man’s neck and slowly tightened it around Eli’s neck until he was gasping for breath. Eli’s last sensation was that of his precious papers being wrenched out of his helpless hands.

  PART 3

  ENGLAND

  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

  (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5)

  Chapter 20

  December 12th, 2004. Flight from Tel Aviv to London

  ‘Two whiskeys and a coke, please,’ Jack said to the flight attendant, smiling meekly. Mina was sitting next to him, brooding. He reckoned she would need more than a few drinks to shake off her mood, but he did not want to get her drunk. Her dark eyes were lost in a world of despair and hatred. He understood how she felt; everything had gone so horribly wrong in Safed.

  They had discovered so much information about Tudela and the tablet in just a few days and then, within hours, Wheatley’s men had retrieved it and murdered Eli. Jack would never forget the pitiful sight of Eli’s frail body propped up against the wall in the Ari’s room. Luckily, they had been using false identities while in Safed, so no-one knew who they really were. They’d be long gone by the time the local police found out about the young couple that had wanted to meet Eli. Their quest now hung by a fine and mysterious thread: a short letter written from Cambridge about a tablet being safe. They didn’t even know if it was linked to ‘their’ tablet. Jack had found the letter in Eli’s shoulder bag and taken it with him. Eli’s death had plunged Mina into a deep melancholy.

  Jack had done the only thing he knew how to do. He channelled his grief and guilt into a cold rage aimed at one person: Oberon Wheatley. He missed Eli and knew they would mourn his loss, but right now they had to bite the bullet and pursue their journey. Wheatley’s men were assassins. Where Mina’s first reactions to Eli’s murder had been to freeze up with guilt and shame, the effect on Jack had been the opposite; it had spurred him on to pursue their search. Based on sparse information from an 18th century letter and an ancient kabbalist chronicle they were now travelling to England. With any luck, what the letter hinted at was true and the mysterious tablet was still in England.

  Even though he knew it was seriously inappropriate at a time like this, Jack couldn’t help but look at Mina’s desolate face and think she looked more beautiful than ever. He felt sick to the stomach. He needed to focus right now, not start thinking like that. Mina raised her head and noticed his expression. She turned her head away as if she knew just what he was thinking.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said, serving her a whiskey and coke, ‘drink up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So, what now?’ asked Jack.

  ‘I don’t know. I thought you had great plans for us in England.’

  She was angry with him. She had noticed his look earlier on, and could not believe how insensitive he was. How could men think of sex at such times? But she also felt guilt, grief and frustration at their situation. She knew her anger ought to have been directed at Oberon, but Jack was the only one around. It was unfair, but she was not in a state of mind to think properly.

  ‘We’re on a plane now. So, why don’t we just think through what’s happened in the last few days?’ Jack said.

  ‘You think we can make matters any worse?’

  ‘Mina, all I mean is we need to assess the situation. I don’t think it’s that bleak.’

  She did not answer and instead looked through the round cabin window into the open sky.

  ‘Right. I’ll talk then.’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’ She said, and instantly wished she hadn’t.

  Jack looked hurt. She guessed he did have some feelings after all.

  ‘I think you’re as shocked as I am to realise that your initial academic interests are connected to the tablet and our current quest. You were looking for information on Tude
la, and you got much more than you bargained for.’

  He did not wait for her to answer. He was trying to force her, not very subtly, to re-engage with the matter at hand.

  ‘Although I didn’t really follow everything Eli translated,’ he continued, ‘I think I got the gist of it. Feel free to fill in the details where you see fit. After all, you took notes while he spoke to us.’

  He heard her sighing and went on, ‘Tudela knew about the tablet you found in Mosul and…’

  ‘No, my tablet is in stone. He found information about a clay tablet.’

  Jack smiled to himself, ‘Right, the one which was sent to the Temple in Jerusalem?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Mina.

  ‘Can we assume this Jerusalem tablet is a copy of the same tablet you found in Mosul?’

  ‘We have no choice. Let’s assume that.’

  ‘Well, that arrogant bastard Wheatley did say that there were four copies of the tablet. There’s no reason to believe he lied to you. He couldn’t imagine you’d rise from the abyss,’ Jack said, trying to make her smile.

  ‘He might have been wrong. Let’s focus on the two tablets we know of.’

  ‘OK. Not only does Tudela find out about the Jerusalem tablet, but also that it can be used to forecast natural disasters. He sends this information to a friend in Safed and it’s lost and forgotten until some archivist finds it in the 16th century.’