Istanbul Express

by T. Davis Bunn

  After making their way down a confusing maze of lanes, Jake was enormously pleased when the familiar little gate came into view. They crossed the synagogue’s tiny garden, entered the apartment building, and climbed to the floor above Daniel’s.

  They were met at the top of the stairs by a suspicious gaze and a pair of skullcaps. The hand thrust forward, and the querulous voice demanded, “You must both wear the yarmulke to study Torah.”

  “Fine,” Jake said, accepting them both. “This is my friend Pierre Servais. Pierre, this is Joseph Levy.”

  “I am charmed, m’sieur.”

  The gaze squinted down further, and the old man demanded something in French.

  “I do indeed have the honor of being French,” Pierre replied in English.

  Again there was the rapid thrust of snappish French.

  “I am here because this gentleman has brought me,” Pierre replied, persisting with his English. “I am with this gentleman because he is both my friend and my teacher. That I have found to be the rarest of combinations.”

  The old man turned to Jake. “You speak no French?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  He sniffed and turned his attention back to Pierre. “Teacher of what?”

  “Of all that is most important,” Pierre replied solemnly. “Of all that would have remained invisible and unseen, were it not for Jake.”

  The response unsettled the old man. He opened the door, stepped back, and motioned for them to enter. They followed him down the entrance hall to a study filled with overstuffed horsehair furniture. “Sit, sit. I shall fetch tea.”

  “That is not necessary,” Jake said, choosing a chair as large as a throne and slipping on the silk cap.

  “Sit, I said. The water is already boiled.”

  Soon enough he returned, bearing a large silver tray with three glasses and a vast, ancient tome. Only after he had set down the tray did he happen to notice the books in their laps. “What are those?”

  “Bibles.”

  “Christian Bibles,” he said, with a great sigh and a shake of his head. Still, he handed out the glasses, then seated himself across the low table from them. He sipped his glass, making the inblown breath to cool as he drank, again, his eyes casting back and forth from one man to the other. “You have heard of the Me Am Lo’ez? No, of course not. How could you?”

  Another sip, then he set his tea aside, and with it his indecision. Jake actually saw it happen. As though the argument that had clouded his voice and his gaze since the earlier meeting was now over. A decision had been reached.

  “Some call this the greatest work of Ladino literature ever written,” Joseph Levy said, looking down upon the leather-bound volume. “Its history is the history of my people, the Jews of the Mediterranean.” He swiveled that great book around so that it faced his visitors. “My grandfather learned his first Torah lessons from this very book, taught to him by his father. It has been in my family for over two hundred years.”

  “I thank you for sharing it with us,” Pierre said quietly, speaking for them both.

  Joseph Levy opened the book from what appeared to be the back cover, then Jake realized the writing was in the Hebrew script and thus printed from right to left. Joseph Levy showed them an opening page decorated to appear as a great medieval door. The sides were colonnaded and dressed with flowering vines, the base carved from stone, the roof crowned with light. The door was open, to reveal rows of Hebrew words. The bottom corner of the page was darkened and worn.

  The old man turned the book back toward him, ran his forefinger across the top lines, and murmured the singsong cadence of something long memorized. He looked up and intoned, “Barukh atah adonoy, lamdeni chukekha,” and then in English, “Blessed be thou, O Lord; teach me thy statutes.” He looked from one to the other and asked, “Can you tell me the source of these words?”

  “The hundred and nineteenth Psalm,” Jake said quietly.

  Both men stared at him for a moment. Then Joseph Levy gave a fraction of a nod. He placed his thumb upon the page’s well-worn groove, and in a delicate practiced motion pushed the page up and over. The next page was entirely different, written in letters so small that from where Jake sat they appeared to be an almost solid block. Along the left-hand edge was a second, smaller column, almost like an afterthought. Joseph Levy reached to the tray and came up with something Jake had missed, a silver rod perhaps half again as long as his hand, so old and used that the scrollwork on the handle had been worn smooth. “One of you shall perhaps read for us the opening passage of the Book of Genesis. You may read from your Christian Bible.”

  Jake nodded to Pierre’s silent enquiry. The Frenchman picked up his Bible and read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and—”

  “Stop, stop, the first passage only, I said.” The old man’s crossness had a different quality now, that of habit passed down over generations, a means of teaching with verve, with character. “It is just like the young of this day, wanting to take in all the Torah in one gulp. Hurry, hurry, hurry, a headlong rush to nowhere.” He examined Pierre with frosty contempt. “Well, my young man in a hurry, those first ten words alone contain enough thought and mystery to occupy you for an entire lifetime.”

  Jake leaned back, thoroughly satisfied. This was going to be good. He just knew it.

  “Listen and I will tell you. There was once a great king. His name was Talmi, you goyim knew him as Ptolemy. He inherited the crown of Egypt from Alexander the Great. In the year 3500, or 260 B.C. according to your count, Ptolemy discovered that none of the books in his vast library were able to satisfy his hunger for truth. He sent word to Jerusalem, requesting that people come to translate the Torah into Greek so that he could read it for himself. Seventy-two sages, six from each of the twelve tribes, made the journey. They carried with them the Books of Moses, written upon scrolls in gold ink. Real gold. The king thought this was done to honor him, but in truth it was because the sacred text was normally written and studied in black ink, and in this way they were handing over to a nonbeliever that which did not have the sanctity of the true Torah.

  “The king received the wise men with all honors and great gifts. He set an entire island at their disposal and asked that they set about immediately translating the five Books of Moses into Greek. And here is where the hand of God showed itself. The king had made arrangements so that once upon the island, the wise men would not be able to converse either with each other or with the outside world. Ptolemy, you see, wanted each sage to translate the entire Torah.”

  It was only when the thumb lowered to the page corner and lifted and turned that Jake realized he was hearing a teaching from the inscribed text. Not once had the old man even glanced at the page before him, so well did he know the story.

  “In this way, the king felt he would be able to tell the difference between what was human and what was divine within the sages’ scrolls. The human would vary from person to person, and the divine would remain the same. And here is the first way we know that the great Lord intended this as a miraculous sign. Although the sages had no contact with each other, all seventy-two of them completed their work upon the same day. What is more, all five Books—the Books you call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—all were translated in just seventy days. And that is where the name for this translation comes, the Septuagint, the Seventy.”

  “We use that term as well,” Jake offered.

  “Of course you do. All the world, Christian and Jew alike, refer to this great work, yet who takes time to remember the miracle of its making? And the miracle does not end there. Oh no. It continues with what was written in those seventy-two translations.

  “How do we know the Lord’s hand was at work? Look at the words of the passage again. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens.’ But this is not how the Hebrew is written. Oh no. The original says, Bereshith bara elohim, which means literally, ‘In the beginning created God.’
But these sages, all working separately, decided that this would be misleading to someone who was not aware of the Hebrew tongue. They might think that someone or something called beginning had created the divine.

  “And yet why did the Torah not simply say ‘God created in the beginning’? Why was this so? Listen, and I will explain. It is because God is not like an earthly king, who wishes to be first and ahead of all others. No, God is in the middle of things. He is here with us, wherever we are, and the placing of His name was intended to show this.”

  The old man looked from one to the other, then said in quiet triumph, “And so it was that when the sages were brought back to the court of King Ptolemy, not only did they present him with all the books completed by all the sages upon the same day, but every word of every translation was identical. Not a difference was to be found, down to the smallest item. Thus did Ptolemy and all his court come to accept that the entire Torah was truly divine.”

  Again the unseen page shift, a pause for a sip from his glass, time enough for Pierre to cast an astonished glance in Jake’s direction. Jake nodded his agreement. This was incredible.

  “One more point, and then we in our modern hurry shall move on. Notice the word beginning. Now turn to the Book of Jeremiah, the second chapter, the third verse. Read this, one of you.”

  Jake found his place and read, “Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase.”

  “That is enough. Observe the word firstfruits. This in Hebrew is another word for beginnings. And so we see that Israel, the chosen people, were alluded to in the very first words of the Book of Genesis. The gracious Lord set them there at the onset of His divine teachings, reminding us for whom the words were spoken.”

  Another sip, then the dark eyes glanced from one man to the other and Joseph Levy asked, “Shall we continue?”

  * * *

  The knock, when it came, was so unexpected that all three men jumped. The door opened, and a worried Daniel Levy called from down the hall. “Papa? Miriam noticed your light was still on. Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Daniel Levy stepped into the room wearing a dark overcoat buttoned up over what appeared to be pajamas and slippers. “It’s almost two o’clock in the morning. What are you doing?”

  “Two o’clock? It can’t be. We have not even finished the first chapter.”

  “First chapter of what?” He walked over, looked down at the book, and his eyes widened. “Bereshith? You are teaching them Bereshith?”

  “Genesis,” Joseph Levy corrected, rising slowly to his feet, testing each joint in turn. “They do not speak Hebrew, remember.”

  Jake tried to follow him up and realized only then that his back had locked into place. Pierre rose at an equally gradual pace. Jake said, “I guess we better be going.”

  “Yes you should,” the son agreed, still scolding the father. “Miriam and I worry over you constantly, but when our backs are turned, look at what you do.”

  “There is nothing wrong with the teaching of Torah. A man does not grow ill studying the holy word.”

  “No,” Daniel countered, supporting the old man with one hand on his arm. “A man becomes ill by staying up all hours of the night and not taking care of himself.”

  “This has been a great honor, Monsieur Levy,” Pierre said gravely.

  “I’d sure like to do this again,” Jake said, then added for Daniel, “and I promise to watch the time.”

  Joseph brushed off his son’s hands, turned to the pair, inspected the two faces. “Look at them, would you? Where have I seen that expression before?”

  “Papa, it’s late, and we must all—”

  “I remember another face that shone after six and seven hours of study,” the old man persisted. “A young boy who ate the words, who could not learn fast enough, who cried when it was time to halt.”

  Daniel’s hand dropped back to his side. His beard moved up and down, but no word came.

  “I remember,” the old man continued, “a boy who would never leave me alone, who met me at the end of my most tiring day with pleas to open the sacred book, to teach him more of the stories and the mysteries of the words.” Joseph pointed with one ancient, crooked finger at Jake. “Why do I remember? Because here before me are faces shining with that same hungry light. Minds and hearts so open to the words that the eyes illuminate the room.”

  Daniel glanced uncertainly toward Jake, his mouth opened slightly, the dark eyes questioning and vulnerable.

  “Perhaps you should join us, my son,” Joseph Levy said quietly. “Perhaps it would do you good to come and see these two eat the words as you once did, to join with us in the miracle of Scripture.”

  “With our wives,” Jake said quietly, “if that would be all right.”

  “Of course with your wives,” Joseph Levy agreed, yet kept his eyes upon his son. “For what is a family without the Holy Scripture to bond them?”

  “It is late, Papa,” Daniel Levy said weakly.

  Jake and Pierre shook hands with the pair, then let themselves out. Silently they walked down the stairs, passed through the outer portal, and stepped out into the night. Only when they were back upon the lane, beneath the stars of another Istanbul night, did Pierre sigh and glance down at his feet. “How is it, my friend,” he said to Jake, “that I can walk upon this tired and wounded earth while my mind and heart soar through the heavens above?”

  Chapter Ten

  Jake awoke to the smell of coffee and the sound of rustling papers.

  He rolled over, sat up, and watched as Sally poured a cup and walked to the bedside. “You were so late coming in last night, I decided to let you sleep.”

  He nodded thanks, took a long sip, sighed at the pleasure of that first swallow. “I was at Daniel’s. Pierre went with me.”

  “I saw your note.” Her gaze was calm, resolute. “Jake, we have to talk.”

  The set of her chin and the sound of her voice called his fuzzy mind to attention. “Can I finish this first cup?”

  “Just sit and listen.” She took a breath, went on, “I know you said what you did because you love me and because you were worried. But you have to understand, I am who I am, just like you. I want you to live the life of adventure that you crave, but I have to be a part of it. Not waiting at home for you to return when it’s over. I want to be there taking part with you.”

  Jake finished his cup and watched as she took it from him, walked back and refilled it, then returned to sit and hand it over and say, “This is the only way it is going to work.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I knew it before I opened my mouth two nights ago.”

  “Let me finish. I have lived through too much and been on my own too long to ever be happy just sitting around, waiting for my man to come home.”

  “I wouldn’t ever want you to be that way,” he said, loving her.

  She gave the mattress between them a muffled slap. “How am I supposed to argue with you if you keep agreeing with everything I say?”

  “I don’t want to argue with you,” Jake replied. “Not ever again.”

  The resolute squaring of her chin softened a little, despite her best effort to keep it set. “You need me, Jake.”

  “More than anything,” he agreed.

  “I can be a big help to you.”

  “I could not get through a single day without you,” he agreed.

  The chin quivered, but this time with suppressed laughter. “And you love me. A lot.”

  “More than life itself,” he agreed happily.

  “So there won’t be any more of this nonsense over where I go and what I do?”

  “All the time,” Jake countered. “I can’t love you like I do and stop worrying. I just have to squelch my desire to give orders.”

  She flowed into him then, her arms welcoming, her gaze loving, her lips warm and tender. She kissed him, leaned back far enough to stroke his face, smile, and whisper, �
��Apology accepted,” before embracing him again.

  Sally watched him dress from her place on the bed, a habit of old which had somehow been misplaced during the clamor of their new assignment. Jake raised his collar, slid the tie into place, repeated the thought: Their new assignment. He turned toward her and reveled in the half-smile which played over her lips. Such an incredible lady.

  He pointed down at the scroll of maps strewn over their table. “What’s all this?”

  “Oh, something I heard yesterday.” She related her trip with Phyllis and the old couple’s tale. “I had a lot of trouble even finding the place.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Kumdare.” She slid from the bed and walked over, her robe billowing about her. Jake straightened enough to watch as she leaned down, her reddish-gold hair spilling upon the page. She set a finger down, said, “Here it is.”

  He squinted to see an alien name perched upon a narrow spit of land. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “They said it was a tiny village, just one road in and out.”

  Jake knotted his tie, leaned over and tried to concentrate, but found it difficult with the closeness of her. He gave up, turned, and kissed her neck.

  “Pay attention,” she ordered, but hugged his arm to keep him close.

  “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “I know. But they were so insistent that the Americans were paying for this construction project.”

  “Kumdare,” he repeated, committing the name to memory. He studied the map again. The tiny village rested upon an empty elbow of land. The place appeared utterly isolated, situated at the other end of the Bosphorus, at the point where the strait opened into the Black Sea. “It’s miles from anywhere.”

  “I know.” She straightened and wrapped her arms around him. “There’s not much time left, is there?”

  “Less than two days,” he said as lightly as he could manage, not wanting the moment to end just yet. “According to what Fernwhistle said in the meeting, the dispatch should arrive sometime tomorrow.”