The Body

by Richard Ben Sapir

  Maria moved aside and Sharon went to the hole. Her right hand held a white powerlight. Murky yellow flashlights were virtually useless in a place like this.

  With the tip of her finger she raised one edge of the disk.

  Immediately she recognized the first distinctive lines in the clay. It was Aramaic or Hebrew, similar languages. She lifted the disk higher at her end, reading downward right to left, which was the proper way to read Aramaic. The inscription was two words, single line:

  Melek Yehudayai.

  It was not Hebrew. Hebrew would have been Melek Yehudim. Both meant “Jewish King.”

  They had found the tomb of a king. But what king? What king was executed by the Romans? The Romans didn’t execute Jewish kings. The Romans didn’t execute any kings, at least not in the provinces. Kings were brought back to Rome.

  The Assyrians. They had executed kings. Yes. The Assyrians had executed a Jewish king. But what king was it? But the Assyrians didn’t crucify. Assyrians impaled prisoners on a spike, pushing the victim down a long metal spike entering the anus and letting the weight of the body carry it downward until the spike reached the heart. The special cruelty was in the amount of time they took to let the spike reach the heart.

  Assyrians also desecrated the body after death. Crucifixion was actually benign compared to Assyrian execution.

  What Jewish king? What Jewish king?

  “What does it say?” someone asked, startling her.

  “Shh.”

  Royalty would explain why an entire single tomb would have only one body. But why the disk? Why not inscribe it on the rock, such as in the tomb believed to be that of the last Hasmonaean prince, the prince hastily buried as Herod assumed the throne. That, too, was during the Roman occupation.

  The disk had a hole in it, which was why she had assumed it was a slave disk, meant to be hung somewhere. If it hung somewhere, it was to give other people information. They would not kiln-fire a disk unless they had time. It was not a sudden execution.

  And if this were a king, why would anyone have to be told he was a king? Wouldn’t everyone know it?

  If some revolution overtook King Hussein in Jordan, would the body hanging on a wall need a sign saying “Jordanian King”?

  No.

  Sharon felt tugging at her arm. She ignored it.

  Unless of course this wasn’t a king, wasn’t a king at all. The disk had been put there to mock him, to mock a claim, to show he wasn’t a king, but a helpless criminal. It was in Aramaic because that was the common language of the Jews at that time, and authorities wanted to emphasize he was not the real King of the Jews.

  And suddenly there was not enough air in the cave or the world for Sharon’s lungs. Her mouth opened and she could not move.

  She understood. Finally she understood. If she had not been raised in a Muslim land she would have known right away, thought of it right away. If she had been raised in the West, she would have known right away. It would have been the first thing she thought of, instead of the last.

  She knew now what she was looking at, lying there with its forearms across its chest, skull to the roof of the niche in the back of the cave, unopened for two thousand years.

  She was looking at the God of the Western world.

  She was looking at Jesus, the Nazarene. Jesus, the Christ. Jesus Christ.

  People were tugging at her now.

  “Nothing,” said Sharon, turning from the hole and blocking it with her body.

  “Are you all right?” asked someone.

  “Yes, yes,” said Dr. Golban.

  “Do you want to sit down?”

  “What?”

  “There is no place here to sit.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Golban. “There is no place here to sit.”

  The students helped her to the outside, where she breathed the air of the deep pit trench. She lit a cigarette there. Eventually everyone climbed up to Haneviim Street.

  The next day, four Israeli soldiers rolled back the stone, and were not told why they were doing it.

  2

  Chosen

  “Why the hell haven’t you phoned back, Jim?” said the caller, and Father James Folan, S.J., knew he had another priest on the phone.

  Laymen, especially Protestants and Jews, always made a special point of calling priests “Father.” Only another priest would talk to him like that.

  “That you, Joe?” said Father Folan.

  “Yes, unless, of course, you have a whole list of people you rudely and routinely ignore.”

  “What do you want, Joe?” said Father Folan to the deputy provincial of the New England Province of Jesuits, Joseph Wingren, S.J., the man who had been leaving notes with the rector of Jim’s formation house on Newbury Street for a day now.

  “Why haven’t you returned my call?”

  “Because I know what it’s about,” said Father Folan.

  It was lunchtime, and his secretary was out, and he was preparing his own files on the upcoming freshman class at Boston College. He was Dean of Students, and if he left these particular files to others he would spend the first semester trying to remember names instead of his real job of getting to know the people, and helping them, if possible. He had been Dean of Students here for only two years but knew already almost anything one did with an eighteen-year-old would more than likely cause harm instead of good, unless it was carefully thought out. And to do that, one had to know the people.

  And that took time. And that meant he couldn’t waste time on other things, especially not during dorm assignments. There were always at least half a dozen freshmen at this Catholic college who suddenly discovered to their absolute surprise that they were not allowed to share rooms with the opposite sex.

  One girl with a lovely ruby and gold cross asked quite angrily how long this had been going on.

  “About two thousand years for us, and you can add on another few millennia for the Jews.”

  “Jews do it all the time, Father.”

  “You’re an authority?”

  “Barbi Adler, who is an absolutely perfect Jew, has been doing it since fifteen. And she is my best friend, Father.”

  “Have you heard of the Babylonian Talmud and why it is different from the Palestinian Talmud, or the Mishnah, and why it became almost a second Pentateuch?”

  “What?” said the girl.

  “What I’m saying is, you couldn’t tell whether your friend is a perfect Jew, but let me assure you, it is the same for them as it is for us. It’s no.”

  And to explain things like this took time, and Father Wingren should have known he didn’t have that time, not just before fall semester.

  “The provincial is looking for archaeologists and ancient historians, right? Am I right, Joe?” said Jim Folan.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I happen to have only a master’s. I teach a course in Roman history, only because B.C. can save money by not hiring a doctorate for that course. I’m Dean of Students. I’m an administrator. I personally can name half a dozen Jesuits in this very area with better credentials for ancient history than I.”

  “So could I. But you’re going.”

  “I can’t go over to Commonwealth Avenue now. We’re beginning a semester.”

  “You’re not going to Comm. Ave., Jim. You’re going to Rome.”

  As a Jesuit, Jim Folan was under a vow of obedience but he did not interpret this as obsequiousness. He was going to argue this one.

  He was thirty-five years old and felt much younger than that, sometimes like a freshman himself, with all the bounce of life, and all the joy that only autumn in New England could bring.

  He was strongly built, with a light complexion and blue eyes and a handsomeness that came more out of his honestly happy smile than his square pug features. He combed his sandy blond hair as he had since he was four, with pompadour in the middle and part on the left, and a cowlick that had remained triumphant over time and tonic. He wore chinos, a checkered shirt, and a sweater beca
use if they got dirty no one would be able to point to a slovenly priest.

  He wore black and a collar only when he had to sit on podiums or for formal occasions, which were blessedly rare.

  He was not bothered by women making advances while he was out of collar because he never knew they were coming on. Friends would sometimes ask him how he felt about a woman showing him some attention somewhere, and he would always be puzzled at how the friends might see it and he didn’t. He called it God’s safety net for weak priests, although since his vows he had never violated chastity.

  He took a bus to the deputy provincial’s office because, even if Rome were calling, he still had to live on $800 a year. And besides, he was sure this call was some form of clerical error.

  Father Folan arrived at the deputy provincial’s office talking.

  “Joe, Boston College is going to have a mess if I leave now. You don’t fully understand the mess.”

  “I take your word for it,” said Father Joseph Wingren, S.J.

  “If you were choosing a scholar in archaeology or ancient history, would you choose me?”

  “If I had no one else, yes. But compared to what’s available, no.”

  “Then does it make sense to send me to Rome? I mean I wouldn’t mind seeing Rome, I’ve never been there. Does it make sense?”

  “Not to me,” said Father Wingren.

  “Then would you tell that to the provincial?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said you’re going.”

  “Did he have any reasons?”

  “I think he was told they want you.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “You’re going to Rome and you’re asking who they are?” said Father Wingren. “The Kirov Ballet, of course. Mikhail Baryshnikov has defected, and they have sent out a call to the Society of Jesus for a replacement. The Jesuit Curia, of course. The Black Pope.”

  “Am I going to meet him?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not just American Jesuits. From what I gather, and I am not supposed to gather this, it’s a call to Jesuits all over the world.”

  “Why so many?”

  “I shouldn’t say. I know all of this is supposed to be secret.”

  “It’s your conscience and my life,” said Father Folan.

  “I think they’re looking for one man.”

  “Then I definitely wouldn’t be that man.”

  “You’re going, Jim. You can draw money here. And Jim …”

  “Yeah?”

  “God bless you.”

  “And you, Joe.”

  Father Wingren had promised to take care of everything with B.C. until Jim got back. All Jim had to do was pack and make airline reservations. Jim carefully folded a black suit and collar into a Georgetown University polyester overnight bag, and added one set of underdrawers and undershirts, one toothbrush, one razor, and the most used toothpaste tube in the bathroom of the Jesuit formation house, wrapping the toothpaste several times in plastic lest his fresh, black official priestly suit suffer a gruesome white smear.

  There was a Jesuit cassock in the formation house, but no one ever used them anymore. He borrowed a tweed jacket almost his size to cover the sweater, and took a cab to Logan Airport, which would have cost his entire weekly expenses if he hadn’t had traveling funds. He took a shuttle to New York City and by nightfall he was on an Alitalia jet, first class because that was the only seat they had available immediately. He ordered an orange juice, and looked back down the aisle.

  A white-haired priest motioned for Jim to sit. He recognized an old teacher of his in the rear. Since Jim Folan did not drink, he offered his first-class seat to the older Jesuit. The old man refused.

  “We took vows of poverty, not stupidity,” said Jim. “Why waste free booze?”

  The old man smiled.

  “Do you know what this is about?” asked Jim. The older man was from another formation.

  The older man shook his head. “I believe that they are looking for one man.”

  “I know. I got a round-trip ticket,” said Jim.

  “So did I,” said the older man. “Do you know who’s on this plane?”

  “No,” said Jim to the man who had given him two years of Hebrew and Talmudic studies, a Semitic-language scholar at Georgetown University.

  “Some very important people in archaeology,” said his former teacher, and he mentioned their names as though Jim should know them immediately, and as in the classroom when he wanted the teacher to pass by and not dwell on a subject he was not familiar with, Jim Folan kept a very blank face.

  “You never heard of them?” asked the teacher.

  “I think I heard of one. I just teach a course in Roman history. I’m an administrator.”

  “Oh, that’s a cross.”

  “As a matter of fact, it seems to be kind of easy. Everything is reasonable,” said Jim.

  “Oh, to have you for a week in my office.”

  “The key to administration is knowing what is most important and that decides everything else. It really does. It lets you know what you shouldn’t bother with. Even phone calls.”

  “I try to do everything well.”

  “That’s why you’re a scholar, Father,” said Jim, reverting to the way he had always addressed the older man when he was a student.

  “You weren’t a bad student, Jim.”

  “Thank you,” said Jim, knowing that was the old man’s kind way of saying his student wasn’t good enough to make teaching his job. Every Jesuit had a job, even though the order was famous for scholars. There were surgeons and lawyers and, like Jim Folan, sometimes administrators.

  He went back to his seat and along the way he heard some other priests he assumed to be Jesuits talking about nauraghi in Sardinia. He asked what they were, out of curiosity, and one man gave a detailed explanation of nauraghi formations, which could have been fortresses or storerooms at one time. What Jim heard was that they were huge piles of rocks found in Sardinia, at least three thousand years old. He listened politely, sorry he asked, and then went back to his seat alone.

  He had never been to Rome before and had flown out of America only once, and then across the Pacific. He had been nineteen years old going, and twenty-one coming back. He had served in Vietnam for one tour as a Marine, and stayed one more year, going into Laos for the government, spending a year with one group of villagers, setting up a system to find out what people were talking about when they came back from markets. Someone had rightly figured that the best rough information came from general gossip. He had for one year organized that flow of gossip.

  When he came home he was a hero of sorts, because in Portland, Maine, the Vietnam War was still believed in at that time. It was the year his father had died in the state hospital, screaming that rats were going to eat him alive.

  His father was an alcoholic, and almost all the wine that passed Jim’s lips thereafter came in later years during the Mass.

  There was an incident at the funeral home. They didn’t know the Folans were on state assistance. The funeral director had been talking in all these warm, caring phrases until he found out the Folan financial situation, and then he didn’t want the body. It was horrifying to hear the same warmth come from the man’s lips as he referred to “an appropriate home for your father.”

  “That’s not my father, that’s his body,” Jim had told the funeral director. “And this is not a home, and you’re not sending him to a home. He left a home when he had to go to the hospital, and he’s going to one when he goes back to God. You’re not a home. You’re a fucking greedy way station.”

  The family was poor at that time and he was worried about his mother needing financial help, but she had said:

  “Jimmy, if that’s what’s keeping you from the priesthood, let me share your poverty. Let it be mine too, if that’s the only thing.”

  She lived to see him ordained and hear him say of his poverty, “Well, at least now it�
�s on purpose.”

  There had been sadness in his life, and horror, but nothing that didn’t strengthen the faith more.

  And he had come to believe, in his thirty-fifth year of life, that his God was never really going to test him spiritually. Perhaps rough him up a bit from time to time, but never open those great troughs of despair that so often afflicted holy men and saints.

  He was quite happy not to be even remotely a saint. Unless of course God decided that. Which was not Jim Folan’s job. As a good administrator, he knew what not to worry about.

  He got two hours’ sleep on the flight. At Leonardo da Vinci Airport there was some confusion with the cabs. The taxi drivers wanted to make single fares out of the Jesuits, who had now become a group of nine, milling about in some confusion, trying to get the right pairings for two cab rides and falling all over each other with politeness and a willingness to go along with whatever anyone else wanted.

  In the midst of this, two Jesuits got into a discussion over the proper conjugation of an Italian verb when one was addressing a taxi driver, and were trying to get one of the drivers to act as a final arbitrating source of knowledge. All this while the driver was trying to split them up into separate, more profitable fares.

  Jim Folan sent four Jesuits into one cab, and got in the other, which took five.

  “That was rather good,” said the Semitic scholar. “You really handled that well.”

  “Yes, that was rather good,” said another Jesuit.

  The average IQ in the group came in at genius, and here he was getting compliments for dividing nine into four and five.

  The Jesuit Curia was just off Via della Conciliazione, on an ill-dressed street of vulgar lighting and souvenir shops in Rome. It stood out by its grayness and mass. The simple address plate read “Borgo Santo Spirito 8.”

  The door had just the address, and no other sign that it controlled twenty-six thousand Jesuits around the world.

  Unlike other orders, there was no formal religious greeting at the door, but a check of names. Behind the Jesuit at the entrance was a large switchboard for the phones.

  Somewhere in the building was the new computer complex, which Jim had thought might have made a mistake in calling for him. Going onto a computer system always created problems. It was like translating something into an entirely new language.