“You are an American priest?” he said in a soft smooth voice, almost like a whisper.
“I am. I represent Cardinal Pesci’s office, Vatican Secretary of State.”
“And those bones are …?”
“The property of the Vatican, taken away from Israel by myself.”
“Why did you want them away from Israel?”
“You will be doing your own cause a good favor by taking me to the Vatican representative in Damascus. The Vatican has diplomatic relations with Syria.” Suddenly Jim realized he might have made a mistake. But the Arabs would have no interest in making this public.
Warris continued to explain, and Abu Silwan laughed. He called in some of his own men, dressed as he was, in tight pants, open silk shirts, and flowered sports jackets. They laughed too.
“They are bringing us something for our thirst.”
It was not water but cool champagne, and Jim got dizzy and asked for water, but he was ignored. He noticed a large red can and a hammer were brought to Warris.
Silwan and his men left the farmhouse to continue their partying outside. Warris put the two bags where there had been a fire, and then removed the disk from its plastic carrying case.
“What are you doing?” said Jim.
“It will be good. It will be good,” said Warris, but when he put his hand on the hammer, Jim pushed him away. Warris screamed out.
Soldiers came in to hold Jim down as Warris cracked half the disk, mocking the King of the Jews. It shattered with such ease, Jim wondered why he had taken so long to saw off a piece at the lab. It shattered, showing an even, red interior.
And then the poor bones, so worked over, so suffered for in a lifetime, went, so pitiful and delicate under the Arab’s hammer. They were piled up, smashed, and piled up again. And from the red can the Arab poured gasoline over them and lit the pile.
Jim screamed that they couldn’t do that to Him, but the soldiers held him back, one man to each limb.
“Jesus!” yelled Jim.
And the fire burned away the bones, as Warris gulped from the bottle of wine Abu Silwan had ordered brought in.
He took the bottle to Jim.
“It will be all right. He is out of politics now. They can’t use him. No one can use him anymore. Please drink. Don’t worry. It is good. It is good.”
“What is good?”
“You must understand Abu Silwan is under orders, for whatever reason, to see that nothing interferes with the transfer. That is Russia’s interest. But the Palestinian interest is not to see the transfer made because that would split our cause, strengthen Israel. You see? I knew Abu Silwan would understand that. Come, drink,” said Warris, and Jim felt the soldiers releasing him on Warris’ orders. Warris insisted Jim take the bottle. Warris could wait.
“You see, we Palestinians have our own way of surviving. Abu Silwan must take his orders from Russia. But if I were to destroy the barter skeleton, not he, then he has followed his orders. At the same time, the struggle is served. You see?”
Jim did not answer. He went to the pile of easily burning bones, the fire now charring away the spear mark where the Roman soldier had ended the life, burning away the oxidized iron mark where the spike had held the legs for better humiliation in death. There was no way anyone was going to find those minute marks of thorn punctures now. No way. Gone.
Jim blessed the burning pile with the sign of the cross.
“From ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” he said.
“He lives even more now, without the Zionists to disprove him to the Christian world. You’ve done well, priest.”
“I suppose I am supposed to understand you or forgive you, or something. But I don’t like you, Warris Abouf,” said Jim.
“With apologies, that is not my most pressing concern. I can only say that you do not know me.”
When the fires died, Abu Silwan returned, screaming, pointing a finger at Warris, yelling things at the man, who suddenly dissolved to pleading, desperate jelly.
“You give him last rites,” said Silwan in English to Jim. “He has betrayed the cause.”
Desperately, Warris turned to Jim. “You remember me saying he ordered this. Yes. Yes. You remember! You remember!”
“I can’t do anything. I am just a priest.”
“You heard me say what he wanted! You heard me say it,” said Warris, his bad Hebrew getting worse with the terror.
“Do you want last rites, Warris?” said Jim.
“You heard me. He said it. You heard him. You heard him.”
Two men each had an arm of Warris Abouf, and they were taking him out the door. Jim thought he should follow.
“I can’t do anything, Warris. Do you want last rites?”
They put Warris against the wall outside, but when he refused to stay there, they grabbed his arms again and held him there while Abu Silwan was given a handgun.
“Priest, give him his last rites. Yes?” said Silwan.
“Warris, say you’re sorry, and Jesus will forgive you. He’ll forgive you. I know. He will. He will forgive anything. Just say you’re sorry.”
“I only wanted to go home,” screamed Warris.
“Say you’re sorry,” said Jim.
The men who had the arms of Abouf leaned away, so no blood would splatter on them. Silwan put the barrel of the pistol against Abouf’s right eye.
“Wait, wait,” yelled Jim. “You’ve got to let him say he’s sorry.” He pushed the gun away. He didn’t care if he would be shot. Abouf had to say he was sorry. If he said he was sorry, it would be all right.
“Say you’re sorry, say you’re sorry!” yelled Jim, but apparently Warris understood that as long as he didn’t say that, the execution wouldn’t go on. And then Jim heard the laughter at the poor man’s humiliation, and that’s what set him off.
Later, they would tell him he suddenly hugged the Arab and would not let Abu Silwan shoot, saying he would not let him die in shame this time. They were specific on that. They said Jim had kept repeating that this time he was not going to be humiliated. They told him that he had indeed told the man, Warris Abouf, to go meet his God.
They explained, as they delivered Jim to the Vatican Embassy in Damascus, that they used only the force necessary to pry him from the man they had to execute as a traitor.
“I am sorry to say this was the internal business of the Palestinian struggle,” said Abu Silwan.
And then Jim remembered they had stopped Warris Abouf from pleading by shooting him in the mouth. And that was why there was so much blood on Jim, when he wasn’t bleeding at all.
23
Kaddish
The nun did not speak English, but her smile said everything and she seemed to anticipate by some miracle what Jim would need or even want, whether it was orange juice or just a little walk. She would stay by him as though he had broken a leg or something, when there really wasn’t a scratch on him. Everyone said he needed rest. He just wanted to die.
Cardinal Pesci himself had visited his room the first day when he had arrived in Rome, which was the same day he got to Damascus. That was how fast His Eminence had gotten him out of there.
“We thank you for a valiant effort. But really, you should know it was much too complex a situation for you to have created your own solution.” That’s how Pesci started.
“At least the Israelis won’t have leverage, you know,” said Jim. He didn’t know what was coming. “I think we should have recognized them, but now we don’t have to.”
“We already did, Father Folan, which is why I am so busy,” said His Eminence. He tried to smile. “Everything has worked out.”
“You once said you would help me if you could. I know you must know best how the Vatican works. I want a dispensation from my vows. I know the Church is not giving them now. But I want it.”
“You don’t wish to be a priest anymore?”
“I want to marry someone. I want to marry her within the Church. I want to do it right.”
&
nbsp; “The Israeli archaeologist?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” said Cardinal Pesci. “We will talk about that when you feel better.”
“I feel better now,” said Jim.
“You left through the Golan?”
“Yes. I think I mentioned that in Damascus, to your man.”
“Her name was Dr. Golban?”
“Yes.”
And then Pesci murdered him with his words:
“James, your woman was killed trying to follow you across the Golan. One of the outposts, I don’t even know which, fired on her. She is dead.
“No!” said Jim. “No!”
Cardinal Pesci turned away. “It is a violent place. If you still want your dispensation, we can arrange that, if you still want it.”
“Are you sure she’s dead? How do you know?”
“How did we know about your affair, Father Folan? That part of the world is more complex than you know. Friends and enemies, enemies and friends, who knows? We are not new to this world. We watch whom we have to watch. She is dead.”
After that, all Jim kept hearing was that he needed rest, but he wanted only to die, let it all go and end with a prayer, that this life was the end of all lives.
Because he had killed Sharon. He was at fault. He did it. He had murdered the woman he loved.
She would not have died if she hadn’t followed him up to the Golan. She would not have died if he had done what he was instructed to do, and no more.
One afternoon they gave him a clerical collar and a dark suit, and he was taken up for a very special audience on the third floor.
In the elevator, he heard some clerics speaking English. They were talking about the slaughter in the Middle East. Some Christian communities were being wiped out, they heard. Others were being protected by their Muslim neighbors. It still wasn’t over and no one knew where it would end.
They must have assumed Jim did not speak English because they ignored him. And he was grateful. What could he tell them? Another slaughter in the Middle East? Did winter follow autumn? Another slaughter, write another line in the history books, and he would bet that only the most learned scholars in a thousand years or so would even remember there was such a thing, because there would be so many other slaughters to be remembered.
Sharon Golban was dead, and that was the slaughter of all slaughters.
When he met His Holiness he forgot to kneel and kiss the ring, and when he started to do that belatedly, the Holy Father stopped him.
“James,” he said, “can you still keep your priestly vows?”
“I don’t have anything else, Father,” said Jim.
“Then stay with us. Stay here. We need you. We have something for you. Stay here and discover He is risen in your heart.”
“I saw the bones, Holy Father. I saw the reports.”
“You saw. You saw bones and you saw reports. James, I do not know science other than today’s facts are not tomorrow’s. I will not put faith in such a thing when I know He is risen. And this is where you know,” said His Holiness, putting a finger on Jim’s chest, reminding Jim of Mark, the Baptist, who, when the winds blew in from the wilderness, as he and Jim stood above the Kidron Valley, said the only true evidence for Christ was in the heart.
“He is risen, James, and this is where you will find Him,” said His Holiness, touching Jim’s heart again. “There. There. There, priest. There.”
“I wish I could believe.”
“Do you think I say it because I need a job?” said His Holiness with a broad grin. “Why do you think I say it? Why?”
“You’re the Pope.”
“You should believe like a child, but not think like one, James. Father Folan, I believe He is risen because it is so. That what was found in Jerusalem was a test, for whatever reason. We don’t know. Give your best friend a chance.”
“I think I lost my best friend on the Golan, Holy Father. But I will stay.”
“And you will come to see me?”
“When you give me an audience,” said Jim. “I wish I could believe, Holy Father. Pray for me.”
“You will be custodian of something for us,” said His Holiness.
Outside, one of Cardinal Pesci’s functionaries was waiting for Jim. Was Father Folan ready to take a little walk outside? he asked.
“Sure,” said Jim, and they crossed St. Peter’s Square and entered the front like so many tourists, passed the Bernini altar, and then down flights of marble steps until they reached an old metal door, which was open, with a robed priest waiting, a large round key held in front of him. He nodded them through.
They entered a passage with small crypts on either side, and Jim realized he was in part of the catacombs that stretched under St. Peter’s and throughout parts of Rome.
Down the passage a man waited by a sealed wooden crate. The man was fairly short and had tufts of white hair, and Jim suddenly recognized Mendel Hirsch.
“Mendel,” he said, happy because the last time he saw Mendel, Sharon was alive. She became alive again in that memory.
“Ah, Father Folan,” said Mendel Hirsch, shaking his hand warmly.
Cardinal Pesci’s man immediately wheeled and walked back along the passage. Mendel signaled Jim to wait before he talked.
Then he said, “I want you to inspect the contents, because you must sign for them.”
“What’s in there?” asked Jim.
“What you came for.”
“That’s not the body!”
“You can’t tell, looking at the unopened case,” said Mendel Hirsch, and he began peeling away the strapping and prying open the case.
“Come, come. You’ve got to help inspect,” said Mendel.
This time Jim saw how bones were packed properly, with a separate box for each hand, each bone pinned by deep cotton. There was the polyvinyl covering on the bones, just like the bones the Arab had smashed.
“You’ll understand this. You are supposed to note the very small indentations on the ribs’ right side. It’s round,” said Mendel, looking only at the sheet in front of him.
“The pilum mark,” said Jim.
Mendel had more. He had a whole checklist for Jim.
There was even the scraping where jaw met skull. And measurements coinciding with those done precisely by a Dr. William Sproul, a name Mendel had trouble pronouncing.
And then the disk, which matched photographs, one-to-one scale, including a portion sawed off.
Mendel saw Father Folan tap the disk.
“This one is heavier. It is as heavy as I remember. The other one broke too easily. Yes. This is the real one. When did you take it out?”
“The first day your church began negotiations. I wasn’t even told until afterwards.”
“Why did you people take it out?”
“You saw what happened. We didn’t know where trouble would come from, but we were sure it would come. So we protected ourselves.”
“The Reb Nechtal went along?”
“He was given a whole graveyard in exchange. Talmudic law requires him to give up the one for the many.”
The next was hard beyond belief. Jim felt as though spikes were tearing at his chest. But he got out the words.
“You know, one of your agents was killed because of that trick replacing the body with a phony.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sharon Golban. She died chasing me. You should have told her.”
“Father Folan, do you think Sharon Golban, an obsessive archaeologist, madly in love with you, is someone we could rely on as an agent? Father Folan, we have done many stupid things in our lifetime, but that was not one of them.”
“She wasn’t a spy?”
“Father Folan, really. Really.”
“You know, it hurts, but it feels better. I am going to pray for her.”
“Good,” said Mendel, “very good, Father Folan,” and he got the signature from Father James Folan, S.J., and wished him well, and then left the lower level
with the piece of paper, and left St. Peter’s without proper greetings to the proper clerics because he was in a rush. He had to get to the second floor of the Vatican, where His Eminence Almeto Cardinal Pesci broke off a meeting to greet Mendel Hirsch and accept the signed paper.
“Your Eminence,” said Mendel.
“Director Hirsch,” said Pesci.
They exchanged formal pleasantries for less than a minute because both were busy. The hardest part of his mission was yet to come.
The Vatican needed its man and its secret safe from an endangering love interest. Cardinal Pesci had stressed that such a high price had been paid already for the body, the least Israel could do was to keep its people in place while Pesci made sure the Vatican did the same.
In Jerusalem, Mendel went right to Beit Vagan, and rang the doorbell. A beautiful dark-haired woman, tight with anxiety, answered the bell.
It was Dr. Golban.
“Yes. Yes. Did you hear?” asked Sharon.
“Let me come in, Sharon,” said Mendel Hirsch.
“Did you find him? Is he all right?”
“Sharon,” said Mendel, “Father Folan tried to escape across the Golan Heights, and we found out this morning that his body was returned to Vatican authorities by the Syrian government.”
“No. No. Why? What was he doing on the Golan?”
“Sharon, whatever his reasons were, he had taken the bones and the disk.”
“No. Jim doesn’t do things like that. What would he do that for?”
“Maybe he thought the negotiations for recognition with the Vatican had something to do with his discovery. I don’t know.”
“No!” said Sharon.
“I’m sorry,” said Mendel Hirsch.
“Can I go to the funeral? Can I share grief with someone?”
“No,” said Mendel. “The mistress of a Roman Catholic priest would be a disgrace to family and friends. I am sorry, but that is how they are.”
Sharon saw Mendel bow his head and leave. She wanted to run after him to make sure he had said what he had said.
But it was so. She could hardly turn back into the apartment. Jim was there with his things, with the brandy he always liked, three quarters finished. She had reminded herself to get some for him. She wouldn’t have to do that now.
The Body Page 37