He heard groans from another room. There was someone in pain there, pitifully weak, crying for mercy. And then there was a soft laughter, and then nothing.
A man of Warris’ age came down the hall drying his hands on a towel, which he gave to a bodyguard. There was a red spot on his white jacket. It was blood. He had just washed his hands.
“Well, Warris, you are looking very, very good. What did you do wrong?”
“Sir?” said Warris. The man looked familiar. There was something about the face that was very familiar. “Bashir Hussein. Little Bashir Hussein. From Patrice Lumumba. Yes. I remember you were very, very intelligent.”
“I am Abu Silwan now. My revolutionary name.”
“Yes, of course. Of course,” said Warris. Now he remembered. He had classified Bashir Hussein, now Abu Silwan, as both intelligent and prone to violence. He could not take his eyes off the stain on the suit.
Abu Silwan noticed Warris’ eyes. “A traitor. We have so many traitors,” he said. “So many.”
The voice was like the hiss of a snake, and Warris knew Abu Silwan would kill him as easily as peeling a fig, and with as much thought. Even in that luxurious white suit, Abu Silwan was a menace.
“What did you do wrong to lose that good position, Warris?”
“Nothing,” said Warris. “I am the only one who can do this thing they need.”
“Come, come. You are not leaving that nice position in Moscow and facing Zionist torture because you have not done something wrong.”
“I haven’t,” said Warris.
“Come, come! I am not a Russian. I am your friend. Your old friend. One needs compassionate brotherhood in these troubled times of traitors. You befriended me in Moscow, I befriend you here.”
“Yes, yes,” said Warris.
“So, what did you do?” said Abu Silwan, and Warris knew this was a man who had to be satisfied.
“I stole,” said Warris.
“They didn’t give you enough? The pigs. They think because you are an Arab, you will work for nothing. They are like that, the Russians. Good that you stole. Good.”
Abu Silwan embraced Warris, and told him he would not have to steal in the home of Abu Silwan, for they were brothers. Everything in Abu Silwan’s house was the property of Warris Abouf.
“Unfortunately, you must leave for Jordan tonight, because everything is arranged, and the Russians, you know how they are, rush, rush.”
“Yes,” said Warris, even now being guided right back out the door.
“The greatest danger we face and are ever going to face in the Arab cause is traitors,” said Abu Silwan, guiding him to another Mercedes, which was forming into an armed convoy for Amman. “They have been our greatest enemies, they are our greatest enemies, and when we win, there will be no scores left unsettled. I am glad you are on the right side. I like you. If it weren’t for traitors, the Jews would be hiding behind trees this very day, and the trees would give them up.”
“Of course,” said Warris to the very same logic that had started his family on their trek more than thirty years before.
“Traitors. Revisionist, defeatist traitors. Struggle till death.”
“Absolutely,” said Warris.
On the way to Amman, he remembered what his father had told him about their home in the Galilee, how neighbors had said the Syrian armies were coming, and any that did not rise up and fight the Jews would be considered traitors. And they would be killed. But those who did fight would not only have honor, but the homes and property of the Jews as well.
And that was 1948. In 1967 traitors were the ones who stayed behind on the West Bank of the Jordan to live under Israeli rule. In 1970 it was the traitors who did not join the guerrillas in their fight against the reactionary King Hussein, tool of the American imperialists and Zionists.
Warris was old enough to remember that argument, because one side of the family stayed in Jordan and the other, with his father in it, retreated with the guerrillas to find a new place outside of Beirut in a refugee camp, where Warris was lucky enough to be selected for Patrice Lumumba University and Moscow, where he learned about more people he was supposed to call traitors.
He had always thought that, perhaps, if no one was calling anyone else a traitor, he would be this very moment not traveling by car at night in an armed convoy, but safe in his bed in his home in Galilee, with a son who loved him and would inherit the olive trees that he would plant, if they were not there already.
In Amman he did not go immediately to the arranged contact but to a distant cousin, part of those Abouf who stayed in Jordan and moved no farther. All the Abouf, it turned out, were prospering under the reign of King Hussein.
They would not let him stay in a hotel under pain of insult. He was one of them. He would go no farther. He was home.
Warris’ first message back to Abu Silwan contained intimations of the unsuitability of the contact. Warris was sorry to say the man might be a traitor, and it would be traitorous to risk such a valuable mission at this time. He would have to stay where he was.
19
Palm Sunday
It was the worst time to see Zareh Tabinian, and yet Tabinian was the best person to help them. Jim and Sharon had no choice anymore, they would have to go into the illegal market.
But this was the worst time to take the time of any antiquities dealer. The holy season was upon them, and with each passing day and with each increase in the number of tourists every piece became more valuable. Antiquities moved closer and closer to the personae of those involved in the Passion. Bountiful Roman oil lamps somehow were associated with the good centurion who recognized Christ as a holy man. Pontius Pilate’s wife had strewn enough mirror fragments around the Mediterranean to cover the retaining walls of the Second Temple.
And there was hardly a silver coin that could not have been part of the thirty which paid for the life of Christ to Judas Iscariot, the traitor.
But in this fevered time, Zareh Tabinian put up a sign that said in English, Arabic, and Hebrew that the shop was closed.
“Welcome, friends,” he said, and took them to the back room, where he ordered coffee to be brought in from a nearby shop, and served sweet cakes and relaxed as though this were a casual visit.
He sat forward in his chair, but his smile was ever present, and he waited on Sharon’s words.
“We are looking for something. We have exhausted museums and all known legal collections,” said Sharon.
“I hear you have come into some money,” said Tabinian.
“How is that?”
“What I hear is that you have money and you are willing to spend it if you get the right piece.”
“Your sources are correct,” said Sharon.
“Unfortunately, you want Pilatus. Something with Pilatus’ name in writing on a kiln-fired piece. Not stone, not silver, but kiln-fired.”
“Yes,” said Jim.
The coffee came and Tabinian was quiet until the young serving boy left. Jim noticed the crates in this back room, marked Egyptair, Olympic Airways, Alitalia, and El Al. Briefly, he wondered if the old Roman legions might not have carried things away from here which were now being brought back, so that only by remote accident were pilgrims actually buying the real artifacts of the Holy Land.
There was something different about Tabinian this day from the last time. Now his back was straighter, and he was very careful to stay on the edge of his seat. Sharon apparently did not notice this.
“There is a piece of kiln-fired pottery with Pilatus’ name on it,” said Tabinian.
“Where?”
“Unfortunately, you will never get it.”
“How much did it sell for?” said Jim.
“If I knew, then I might be suspected of being the dealer. But this man gives up nothing, not for money or anything.”
“I have resources,” said Jim.
“No, no. Trust me to know there are those who will not give up things. You must understand why people buy ancient
things. Why should they have to own them in the first place? His ego will not allow selling it.”
“So we can forget Pilate,” said Jim. “Pilate is out. But you have closed your shop for us.”
“What can one do for perfect friends who come to call,” he said. “And to be frank, for the last few weeks I have been intrigued by the Golban quest. Why kiln-fired, I asked myself? Is it possible that the whole thing is not some religious connection? That Pilatus’ name is only desired because of dating? And then I remembered Dr. Golban being such an authority on dating. Am I correct so far?” asked Tabinian.
“Yes,” said Sharon.
“May I ask why you did not come to me first?” said Tabinian. “Am I not a friend?”
“Yes,” said Sharon. “You are.”
“But you thought, oh, Tabinian deals in illegal things. I will not deal with Tabinian, right?”
Sharon nodded.
“And so now you come here for your illegal dealings, the honest professor from Hebrew University.”
Sharon nodded. Jim could tell she was mortified.
“Good. I just wanted to know that some of us are not all that much better than others. If you used your brain properly, Sharon, you would drive a Mercedes too.”
“She is here for me,” said Jim. “She is helping me. She would never do this if it weren’t for me.”
“That’s all right, Jim. I’m doing this, so let’s get on with it,” said Sharon.
“So you want a date, yes?”
“Yes,” said Sharon.
“Thirty-two A.D.,” said Tabinian.
“Plus or minus what?”
“One year at the most.”
“Impossible,” said Sharon.
“At least over five thousand dollars,” said Tabinian.
“Then it doesn’t matter,” said Sharon. “What else do you have?”
“Well, something from the Tenth Legion, eight hundred dollars.”
“No,” said Jim. “The Tenth Legion was here a long time. It was an institution. Some legions were older than my country.”
“Good point,” said Tabinian.
“What is your piece?” said Jim.
“Caiaphas, the high priest. A tributary jar to the temple.”
“The high priest was a lifetime appointment. How can you say plus or minus one 32 C.E.?” said Sharon.
“Ah, the beauty of this Caiaphas piece is that it refers to the earthquake.”
“Thirty-two C.E.,” said Sharon, excited. “I worked at a dig in which a floor had been cracked and that was how we knew the date.”
“This kiln-fired piece contained a portion of honeyed fruit, and the writing referred to the fruit as the Jew’s temple offering, that it was reduced because of the earthquake. Apparently the donor had problems because of the earthquake. What we have is Caiaphas’ name, probably put there by a clerk, accepting a reduced temple donation. It’s a big piece,” said Tabinian. He held out his hand to show the size of the shard. It was the size of an elongated dinner roll.
“Where can we get it?” said Jim.
“It is out of the country, as so much of the valuable antiquities are.”
“Which country?” said Jim.
“Please,” said Tabinian.
“Jim, he has his ways. This is a very difficult and subtle thing. It’s all illegal. You can’t go rushing in,” said Sharon. And then to Tabinian, “How long and how much would it cost us to get a fragment of that shard? You’ve done a brilliant job in dating for our time period.”
“It will take at least a month. It is in France, you know,” said Tabinian.
“No. It’s not,” said Jim.
“Jim,” said Sharon angrily. “Mr. Tabinian will do things, but will not do other things. I think you have insulted him wrongly.”
“No. I appreciate what Mr. Tabinian has done, by letting us know of the existence of the piece. But there can be only one reason why he needs a month in this era to supposedly find out how much it would cost. We have telephones. This is the twentieth century. Mr. Tabinian hasn’t sold it yet. He is using that time to feel out a price.”
Tabinian smiled.
“How much exactly?” said Jim.
“I don’t know, there is someone who already is quite interested.”
“We just want a piece of the piece. He can have the rest after we’re done with it,” said Jim.
“Unfortunately,” said Tabinian, “I cannot sell a piece of it. The private collector is a French general, a friend of the Dessaults’, who manufacture the Mirage jets, as you know. Now what does a private collector need with a piece like this? It is not to add to mankind’s knowledge, but to show off to friends. Maybe even to know that he alone has it, you see. Taking away a small piece from it robs his feelings of exclusivity.”
“How much?” said Jim.
“I do not wish to make him an enemy.”
“How much?”
“Seven thousand dollars.”
“I’ll get it,” said Jim.
“You can get that much money?” asked Tabinian.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Tabinian, who had been sitting rather stiffly this day on the front of his seat, asked Dr. Golban to leave the room momentarily. When she was gone, he carefully took off his jacket and pulled his shirt up out of his pants, revealing a giant gauze bandage in the small of his back.
“Take it off,” he said. Jim gingerly unpeeled the white surgical tape from Tabinian’s hairy back. He emitted little cries of pain as the hair went with the tape. Inside the tape was the shard, the same reddish color as the disk in the safe in their lab at Hebrew University.
Tabinian called for Dr. Golban to come back in, and they spent the rest of the afternoon examining the fragment. The writing was, of course, Aramaic, since it was obviously some Temple clerk’s calculation.
They made several attempts to complete sentences, interrupted where the shard of what was left of the jar was broken. The notations were inscribed in a faded black ink, very much like the ostracon Tabinian said people accused him of selling once to a German professor.
“For this, this help, I think I can have that bad mark removed,” said Sharon.
“Ah,” said Tabinian. “And all my life people have been telling me two wrongs do not make a right. But now it does.”
“Is it possible,” asked Jim, “that the jar was fired old, kept around for twenty years, and then filled with the temple offering?”
“Oh no,” said Sharon. “A Jew would never use an old jar for a temple offering.”
“Why is it you seem so willing to understand your religious law as long as someone isn’t practicing it?” said Jim. And that was his joke.
“Perhaps,” said Zareh Tabinian wisely, “Jewish laws cannot hurt her when they apply to the dead.”
Father Winstead had to disobey the monsignor’s order for the monsignor’s own good. The monsignor had to know the American priest’s business.
“Within less than fifteen minutes Cardinal Pesci’s office wired in seven thousand dollars to Father Folan.”
“Is he still here?” said the monsignor.
“Do you think we could get seven thousand dollars from Cardinal Pesci like that?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t it make you wonder?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t it make you wonder that his response was coded, he will know ‘yes’ or ‘no’ shortly. The man’s been here the entire winter, getting moneys as though he’s Pesci’s illegitimate son, and now seven thousand dollars, and a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ Doesn’t it intrigue you?”
“That’s not intriguing you, Father Winstead, it’s punishing you. You’re very unhappy.”
“You’re not bothered?”
“No,” said the monsignor pleasantly.
“I don’t see how you cannot be.”
“Spring is here. Easter week is coming. It is here where He rose. That is why we are here. The redemption of mankind happened here, and it is beyond me,
Father Winstead, that when infinite good abounds, you worry about someone else’s money.”
“Infinite good doesn’t pay the light bills,” answered Father Winstead.
The monsignor smiled. He knew Father Winstead was a good man and a good assistant, it was just so sadly funny how the man would worry about light bills when this was where God chose to offer the Light Himself.
“I don’t know what is so funny,” said Father Winstead.
“I was thinking about the Resurrection, and how even great trials are made trivial by the great promise of a happy ending. The beginning.”
“You would,” said Father Winstead, “which is why the Church, in its great wisdom, has me here to pay the light bills.”
“I’ll do it,” said Jim.
Tabinian’s Caiaphas piece was set in a horizontal vise over a table in Sharon’s lab. Jim had a surgeon’s saw.
He felt Sharon’s hand cover his palm. She looked worried. He knew what she was worried about. She was worried about him.
“I’ll do it,” said Jim.
“I love you,” said Sharon. She backed away. The shard was hard, and while the saw was precise, it was slow. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He did love her. But he was too filled with despair this morning to allow himself a moment of peace. And for love one needed some fraction of one’s soul to be in peace.
This very morning, before he exchanged money for shard with Tabinian, he had committed the greatest betrayal of his life. Jim Folan had turned on Jesus as no man ever had. It did not happen in bed with Sharon. Nor had he handed Him up to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver, which when analyzed was less of a betrayal, because Judas did not know he was selling out God.
Judas was turning in someone who said he was God.
What Jim had done that morning happened in a flash, and it happened in his head. It was a little wish.
He had thought for just a moment that if Christ did not rise, then he would not be sinning with Sharon, that all that felt so incredibly good, was good. If Christ had not risen, it made Christianity invalid, along with what it said were sins.
He had been willing to trade in that one thought, his momentary innocence, for the hope of the world.
Good for you, Jim Folan, you low bastard, he thought.
The Body Page 30