The Last Testament

by Sam Bourne

  She reached for the minibar. With a glass honeyed by a whisky miniature, she sat at the desk and stared out of the window. She could see a man emerge from the neon-lit convenience store across the street, carrying a flimsy plastic bag: inside it, a plastic bottle of milk, maybe a jar of honey. A man off home for the night.

  It was such a simple sight yet it fascinated Maggie. For some reason such basic, humdrum domesticity had eluded her. She envied that man, heading home with a bottle of milk for the children to drink with their bedtime story. He probably did the same thing every night. Somehow he had managed it without ever trying to break free.

  Draining her glass, she considered calling Edward. She wondered if her number would show on his phone and, if it did, whether he would pick up. She imagined what they would say, whether he would apologize for what he had done, or expect her to apologize for having gone to Jerusalem. Maggie sat still, drinking one and a half more whiskies as Edward’s words two days ago, slung across the kitchen of their apartment in Washington, did circuits in her head. Was he right, that she always ran away, that she couldn’t stick long enough at anything to make it work? Maybe he was. Maybe a normal person would have got over what happened last year and moved on by now.

  She dialled his number, using her mobile so he would know it was her and would have a choice to screen her out if he wanted to. As she heard the first ring, she looked at her watch. Half-past one in Washington. He picked up.

  ‘Maggie.’ Not a question, not a greeting. A statement.

  ‘Hi, Edward.’

  ‘How’s Jerusalem?’ A pause. Then, ‘You save the world yet?’

  ‘I wanted to talk.’

  ‘Well, now’s not a great time, Maggie.’ She could hear the clink of silverware and low string music in the background. Lunch at La Colline, she reckoned.

  ‘Just give me two minutes.’

  She could hear the muffled sound of Edward excusing himself from the table, pulling back his chair and finding a quiet corner. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have been so unhappy to do it: interrupting a meal to take an urgent phone call was standard Washington practice, a way of signalling your indispensable importance.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said finally. Fire away.

  ‘I just wanted to talk about what’s going to happen with us.’

  ‘Well, I was planning on you coming to your senses and coming back home. Then we could take it from there.’

  ‘Coming to my senses?’

  ‘Oh come on, Maggie. You can’t be serious about all this, playing the peacemaker.’

  Maggie closed her eyes. She wouldn’t rise to it. ‘I need to know you understand why I was so angry. About those boxes.’

  ‘Look, I don’t have time for this-’

  ‘Because if you don’t understand, if you can’t understand-’

  ‘Then what, Maggie? What?’ He was raising his voice now. People at the restaurant would be noticing.

  ‘Then I don’t know how-’

  ‘What? How we can carry on? Oh, I think we’re past that, don’t you? I think you took that decision the moment you got on that plane.’

  ‘Edward-’

  ‘I offered you a life here, Maggie. And you didn’t want it.’

  ‘Can we just talk-?’

  ‘There’s nothing more to say, Maggie. I’ve got to go.’

  There was a click and eventually a synthetic voice: The other person has hung up, please try later. The other person has hung up, please try later.

  Maggie expected to cry, but she felt something worse. A heaviness spreading inside her, as if her chest were turning to concrete. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. It was over. Her attempt at a normal life had failed. And here she was again, in a foreign hotel room, quite alone.

  It was all because of what happened last year, she understood that. She had thought her relationship with Edward might slay the ghost, but in the end it had been consumed by it. She raised her head and gazed out at the darkness of Jerusalem, knowing that it was quite within her to stay like that, staring and frozen, all night. The prospect was appealing, and she surrendered to it for the best part of an hour.

  But eventually another feeling surfaced, the sense that she had been handed a chance to break free of those dreadful events of a year ago, to balance the ledger somehow. To seize that chance she would have to do what she had done so many times before, push away her feelings and concentrate only on the job. She would have to make this current assignment work. She could not afford to fail.

  OK, she thought, as she splashed her face with water, forcing herself to make a fresh start. What is the problem? Internal opposition on both sides, prompted by two killings: Guttman and Nour. First priority is to get to the bottom of both cases and somehow reassure both publics that there’s nothing to worry about and that the talks should go ahead.

  She checked the Haaretz site again and saw the same picture she had seen five hours ago: Ahmed Nour, smiling that enigmatic smile. She whispered almost aloud, ‘What happened to you?’ And then: ‘Is this entire peace deal going to screw up because of you?’

  She had done her best with al-Shafi, urging him to keep the faith, to stick with the process. She had assured him that if Hamas were going wobbly, there were things the US could do to bring them back on side. She stressed Washington’s absolute conviction that the Israelis were serious, that a Palestinian state could be theirs within a matter of days. She said he bore a historic responsibility and, not meaning to, had glanced up at the portrait of Arafat as she said it.

  There was no way of knowing if it had worked. He had ushered her out of his office quietly, summoning his aides and colleagues back in. He was in a corner, she understood that: suspicious of his coalition partners in Hamas, suspicious even of his own inner circle, doubtful of their loyalty. He feared he was being led into a trap, extending his hand to Israel only to be denounced by the Islamists as a traitor. That would secure their domination for decades, if they could cast Fatah as patsies of Israel. He had not spent seventeen years in an Israeli jail for this.

  She stared at the picture of Nour as if her eyes might somehow drill down into his and extract the answers she needed. If they could only resolve the Nour killing, tidy it up and put it out of the way, then maybe things could get back on track.

  She scrolled down, to see that Haaretz had now posted an extended ‘appreciation’ of the life of Shimon Guttman. She could see from the items around it that the story was still running big. ‘Settlers’ leaders demand state inquiry into Guttman slaying,’ ran one headline. ‘Militant rabbi calls for holy curse on Prime Ministerial protection squad,’ reported another.

  She skimmed this new, longer profile. The same details were there: the early war record; the bluff, bullish persona; the inflammatory rhetoric. But now there were more anecdotes and longer quotations. She was two thirds down and about to give up, when her eye caught something.

  In the 1967 campaign and afterwards, Guttman showed his debt to those earlier Israeli heroes Moshe Dayan and Yigal Yadin. He, like them, combined his military prowess with a scholar’s passion for the ancient history of this land. He became what polite society refers to as a muscular archaeologist-and what the Palestinians call a looter in a tank. Every hill taken and every hamlet conquered were seen not only as squares on the war planners’ chessboard, but as sites for excavation. Guttman would swap his rifle for a shovel and start digging. His admirers-and enemies-said he had amassed a collection of serious importance, a range of pieces dating back several thousand years. All of them had one quality in common: they confirmed the continuous Jewish presence in this land…

  Maggie cracked open another miniature bottle of Scotch. Maybe this was just a coincidence: Guttman and Nour, both archaeologists, both nationalists, both killed within twenty-four hours of one another. She read on.

  …he was self-taught but became a respected authority, with ancient inscription an esoteric specialism. Did he cut corners, both ethical and legal to build up his hoard? Probably. But
that was the man, the last of the Zionist swashbucklers, an adventurer who belonged in the generation of 1948, if not of 1908…

  Two men, not that far apart in age, both digging up the Holy Land to prove it belonged to them, to their tribe. It was a fluke, Maggie told herself. But it was odd all the same. One killing had fired up the Israeli right, the second was whipping up the Palestinian hardliners and both now threatened to shut down the best hope for peace these two nations were likely to see this side of the Second Coming.

  Maggie glanced over at the minibar, pondering a refill. She looked back at the screen, heading for the Google window. She typed in a new combination: Shimon Guttman archaeologist.

  The page filled up. A decade-old profile from the Jerusalem Post; a Canadian Broadcasting transcript of Guttman interviewed in a West Bank settlement, describing the Palestinians as ‘interlopers’ and a ‘bogus nation’. Both made frustratingly fleeting reference to what the Post called his ‘patriotic passion for excavating the Jewish past’.

  Next came Minerva, the International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology. She couldn’t see any obvious pieces about Guttman, so she did a text search and even then it was barely visible. Just his name, small and italicized, alongside someone else’s at the foot of an article announcing the discovery of an unusual prayer bowl traced to the Biblical city of Nineveh.

  She scoured the text, looking for…she didn’t know what. It made no sense to her, all the talk of ‘embellishments’ and ‘inlays’ and cuneiform script. Perhaps this was a dead end. She rubbed her forehead, pressed the shutdown button on the computer and began closing the lid.

  But the machine refused to turn off. It asked instead if she wanted to close all the ‘tabs’, all the pages she was looking at. Her cursor was hovering over ‘yes’ when she saw Guttman’s name again, small and italic. And now, for the first time, she read the name next to it: Ehud Ramon.

  Maybe this man would know something. She Googled him, bringing up only three relevant results: one more of them a reference in Minerva, all three appearing alongside Shimon Guttman. Of Ehud Ramon on his own, as an independent person in his own right, there was nothing.

  She found a database of Israeli archaeologists and typed Ehud Ramon into the search window. Plenty of Ehuds and one Ramon but no Ehud Ramon. Same with the Archaeological Institute of America. Who was this man, tied to Guttman yet who left no trace?

  And then she saw it. Her skin shivered, as she fumbled for a pen and paper, scribbling letters as fast as she could, just to be sure. Surely this name, apparently belonging to an Israeli or American scholar couldn’t be…And yet, here it was, materializing before her very eyes. There was no Ehud Ramon. Or rather there was, but that wasn’t his real name. It was an anagram, just like the ones Maggie had unscrambled at uncanny speed as a teenager during those interminable, dreary Sunday afternoons at the convent. Ehud Ramon was a scholar, committed to exhuming the secrets of the soil. But he was the unlikeliest partner for Shimon Guttman, right-wing Zionist zealot and sworn enemy of the Palestinians. For Ehud Ramon was Ahmed Nour.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  B AGHDAD , A PRIL 2003

  Salam had headed to school that morning more out of habit than expectation. He didn’t really believe that his classes would go ahead as normal, but he had gone along anyway, just in case. Under Saddam, truancy from school was, like any other act of disobedience, a risk no one who valued their safety would ever take. Saddam might have been on the run, his statue in Paradise Square toppled for the world’s TV cameras, but amongst most Baghdadis, the caution bred over the course of twenty-four years endured. Salam was not the only one who had dreamed of the dictator rising like Poseidon from the Tigris, drenched and angry, demanding that his subjects fall to their knees.

  So he went to school. Clearly others had suffered the same fear: half of Salam’s classmates were milling around outside, kicking a ball, trading gossip. They made no outward show of exhilaration: too many of their teachers were Baathists, apparatchik supporters of the regime, to risk that. Even so, Salam sensed a nervous energy, an electrical charge that seemed to pulse through all of them. It was a new sensation, one none of them would have been able to articulate. Had they known the words, and had they been free of the fear that was bred into them, they would have said that they were, for the first time, excited by the idea of the future.

  Ahmed, the class bigmouth, sauntered over, with a quick glance over his shoulder. ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘I was nowhere. At home.’ The reflex of fear.

  ‘Guess where I was?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘At Salima’s?’

  ‘No, you dumb ape! Guess again.’

  ‘I don’t know. Give me a clue.’

  ‘I was making a fortune for myself, man.’

  ‘You were working?’

  ‘You could call it that. Oh, I was hard at work last night. Made more money than you’ll ever see in your whole lifetime.’

  ‘How?’ Salam whispered it, even though Ahmed was happily broadcasting at full volume.

  Ahmed beamed, showing his teeth. ‘At a store packed with the most priceless treasures in the world. They had a special offer on last night: take as much as you want, free of charge!’

  ‘You were at the museum!’

  ‘I was.’ The proud smile of the young businessman. Salam noticed the fluff on Ahmed’s chin, and realized his friend was trying to style it into a beard.

  ‘What did you get?’

  ‘Ah, now that would be telling, wouldn’t it? But, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, says, “The hoarded treasures of gold and silver seem fair to men”-and they certainly seem fair to me.’

  ‘You got gold and silver?’

  ‘And much else that will seem fair to men.’

  ‘How long were you there for?’

  ‘I was there all night. I went back five times. For the last four trips I took a wheelbarrow.’

  Salam took in Ahmed’s wide smile and made a decision. He would not let on that he too had been at the museum last night, not because he feared the law-there was no law now-or any Baathist punishment, but because he was ashamed. What had he taken from the National Museum but a single useless lump of clay? He wanted to curse God for making him such a coward. For, as always, he had been too meek, holding back from danger and allowing others to barge past him to glory. It was the same on the football field, where Salam never plunged into a tackle, but kept his distance, gingerly avoiding trouble. Well, now that habit had cost him his fortune. Ahmed would make it, he would be a millionaire, he might even escape Iraq and live like a prince in Dubai or, who knows, America.

  That evening Salam looked under his bed with none of the fever he had felt when he had checked there that morning. His booty was still in place but now as he pulled it out he saw it as drab and worthless. He imagined Ahmed’s stash of rubied goblets and gold-encrusted figurines and damned himself. Why had he not found those treasures? What had sent him poking around in a dark basement when the dazzling glories of Babylon were there for the taking? Fate was to blame. Or destiny. Or both of them, for ensuring that, no matter what, Salam al-Askari would be a loser.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Salam instinctively doubled over the clay tablet, as if he had been winded. But it was no good: his nine-year-old sister had seen it.

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘That thing. On your lap.’

  ‘Oh this. It’s nothing. Just something I got at school today.’

  ‘You said there was no school.’

  ‘There wasn’t. But I got this outside-’

  Leila was already out of the room, skipping down the corridor to the kitchen: ‘Daddy! Daddy! Salam has something he shouldn’t have, Salam has something he shouldn’t have!’

  Salam stared at the ceiling: he was finished. Now he would take a beating and for nothing, for some worthless piece of dust. He held the tablet, stood on the chair by his bed and began
fiddling with the window. He would chuck this chunk of clay out of the window and be done with it.

  ‘Salam!’

  He turned around to find his father in the doorway, one hand already moving to the buckle of his belt. He moved back to the window, working harder now, his fingers trembling. But it was jammed, it would open no more than an inch wide. No matter how hard he pushed, it was stuck.

  Suddenly he felt a hand gripping his wrist, pulling his arm back. He could feel his father’s breath. The two of them were wrestling, Salam determined to get that window open so that he could hurl this damned lump to the ground.

  The chair beneath him began to wobble; his father was pushing against him too hard. He could feel himself toppling over, falling backwards.

  He landed hard on his backside. He let out a cry of pain at the impact on the base of his spine. But that, he realized, was the only sound. There had been no crash, no shattering onto the stone floor. And yet the clay tablet was no longer in his hands. He looked up to see his father calmly pick it up from the bed where it had fallen.

  ‘Dad, it’s-’

  ‘Quiet!’

  ‘I got it from the-’

  ‘Shut it!’

  What a mistake this had been from beginning to end; how he wished he had never set foot in that museum. He began to explain: how he had got swept up in the fervour of last night, how he had been carried in there with the mob, how he had stumbled on this tablet, how everyone had taken something, so why shouldn’t he?

  His father was not listening. He was studying the object, turning it over in his hands. He paid close attention to the clay ‘envelope’ that held the tablet within.

  ‘What is it, Father?’

  The man looked up and fixed his son with a glare. ‘Don’t speak.’ Then he headed out of Salam’s bedroom, walking slowly and with extreme care, his eyes on the object in his hands. A moment later the boy could hear the muffled voice of his father on the telephone.

  Not daring to venture out of the bedroom, lest he provoke his father’s anger anew, Salam perched on the end of his bed, thanking Allah that he had been spared a beating, at least for now. He stayed there like that until, a few minutes later, he heard his father open the apartment door and step out into the night. Salam pictured the ancient tablet that had been his for less than a day and knew, in that instant, that he would never see it again.