Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest

by Roger Herst

  In the wake of this unsought celebrity, so many calls came in from TV talk show hosts and journalists that Gabby felt herself losing control. To catch her breath and put what had happened into perspective, she holed up in her Hyde Park home. Even in the dusty, out-of-the-way library of the Oriental Museum on the university campus, she felt the eyes of other readers scouring her. She managed to avoid just about everyone except the senior advisor on her PhD dissertation, Professor Alexander Cross. Though Dr. Cross provided no reason for an unexpected invitation to have a drink with him and Dr. Simon Pines at the Faculty Club, she was certain it had to do with the current controversy.

  Simon Pines, a scholar of Arabic studies on loan from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was waiting for her in the foyer of the Faculty Club. A scholarly man who had grown up in Palestine well before the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, he peered at Gabby through glasses so dirty she wondered how he managed to read the Arabic texts for which he had built a solid reputation. Alexander Cross, a middle-aged scholar who broke all the stereotypes for the ivory tower academician, showed up a few minutes late. His full head of silver hair was immaculately blown-dry into place, following the natural curvature of his scalp. Not a single garment he wore had been purchased off the shelf, but rather measured and cut by personal tailors in New York and Hong Kong. A waiter ushered them to a corner table, then hovered nearby like a pelican preparing to dive into the ocean for lunch.

  "Do you enjoy your new celebrity, Gabrielle?" Simon Pines asked in English thick with the Hebrew accent of a Palestinian Jew.

  "I hate it," she said, looking to Cross to assess his interest in the question. "Anybody with more than spaghetti for brains knows that however politically incorrect my statement about evangelists, it's true. When I agreed to let Twila Aubrenie write my profile in The New Yorker, it never occurred to me she would contort my theory on divine revelation into a Jewish battle cry against evangelists."

  "That should be a lesson," Professor Cross said, uncurling his fingers with their lacquered nails in a dramatic gesture. "None of us say no when journalists seek us out, but we never like what they write. Simon and I are well aware of your rabbinical credentials. When we accepted you into our doctoral program, we knew you would come to us with professional baggage. But irrespective of what you were in the past, you're now a graduate student and are expected to conduct yourself like one. By questioning in public how God communicates with his prophets, you impale not one but all three monotheisms. What do you expect to gain by this?"

  Gabby paused for the waiter to set before her a glass of sherry and watched him place a vial of Kentucky bourbon before Professor Pines and a glass of Merlot before Dr. Cross. When he stepped away, she said, "I never questioned how Jesus, Mohamed, or Moses receive the revelations that they claim or, more accurately, what their practitioners claim for them. I have purposely limited my criticism to born-again evangelists who say that God talks to them daily and therefore they have the right to tell the rest of us how to live our lives."

  "You can't expect them to be happy," Cross said.

  "That's their problem, not mine," Gabby shot back. "If they think God communicates directly to them, that's their business. Belief is belief and people have a right to believe what they want. But the rest of us shouldn't let them upgrade their private communications into divine revelations."

  Pines cautiously sipped his whisky as though he didn't enjoy the fiery liquid. He put down his drink and peered over the top rims of his filthy glasses. "Now wait a moment, Gabrielle. You're marching in a minefield and you're not the only one to get hurt."

  She suspected her advisors would move in this direction. Like Congregation Ohav Shalom, the University of Chicago didn't enjoy controversy. "Is this an official reprimand?" she asked.

  Alexander Cross was too polite for a blunt warning. Instead, he said, "The university is in the evidence based business. Our job is to gather evidence that the non-academic public is unable or unwilling to collect. In this department, we seek from our students what we professors demand of ourselves: to marshal proof before we go shooting from the hip."

  "Am I being censored?" Gabby pursued.

  Cross looked uncomfortable as he adjusted himself in his chair. "How can we recommend you for a teaching position if you establish a reputation for undisciplined outbursts? We want our PhD. candidates to succeed. And we want you to do the excellent academic work we know you're capable of. But until you've got your degree, keep your head down."

  "From your lips to God's ears," she said. "I never sought this publicity."

  "What does Timothy think?" Simon Pines reentered the conversation.

  "I haven't talked to him about this brouhaha. I haven't been able to reach him. He's disappeared."

  "That's not good news," Pines said, mopping a double chin that had begun to roll over the rumpled collar of his shirt. "Tim's a risk taker who's prone to trouble."

  "Would any of your colleagues in Jerusalem be able to find him?"

  Pines sipped the last of his bourbon and passed a small burp. He bobbed his head as if trying to shake off effects of the alcohol. "I've received five calls from Jerusalem in the past week alone. Nobody's seen or heard from Timothy. Something's brewing."

  Thirty minutes later, as the three were standing on the granite stairs of the club looking down 56th Street, Gabby was gratified that her advisors had let her off with a warning, not disciplinary action. It seemed to her that Simon Pines was more interested in Tim than her. By the time she reached her home, she was convinced that something untoward had happened. Why else would Tim's colleagues in Jerusalem be making repeated inquiries?

  ***

  Two days later, on a bitter-cold February morning, Gabby stepped into a taxi in front of the Oriental Museum and rode to O'Hare Airport for a non-stop El Al flight to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. Mid-morning the following day, she paid a taxi driver outside the Ussishkin Street apartment she shared with Tim in Jerusalem, then searched the tightly parked cars on the street for his Hyundai. A man smoking in the front seat of a sand-colored SUV nearby caught her attention. In the States, she wouldn't have taken notice, but it was uncommon for Israelis to sit in parked cars like Americans. The incongruity of this left her as she mounted stairs to the second floor apartment. After knocking on the door, in case Tim might have returned, she let herself in, switched on the vestibule lights and was immediately struck by the musty odor of abandonment. An initial survey of the adjoining rooms confirmed that this was, indeed, none other than Tim's palace with homeless books and manuscripts strewn about and every horizontal surface covered with papers. She had once accused him of converting the objects that cluttered his life into nomads like himself, waifs of the air like the Luftmench she believed him to be.

  The kitchen, where Tim concocted his imaginative meals, reeked of his presence, or was it his absence that struck her so acutely? The cabinets were crammed with canned foods and dried pasta. Plastic bottles of condiments and half-filled jars of sauces stacked on top of each other filled all available shelf space. A dark growth of mold coated a half-dozen desiccated lemons on a serving platter, citrus remnants Gabby vaguely remembered being there from her previous visit. Cups containing rings of evaporated tea marked stations where Tim had once stopped, perhaps to read archeological article or scribble one of his ubiquitous notes to himself. Unwashed dishes still encrusted with food particles were piled in the sink. The mess confirmed her conviction that she was still needed in his domestic life. This disarray somewhat eased her mind. For weeks, she had wrestled with a nagging thought that Tim had found another woman to replace her. But if this were true, he certainly had never brought her here. No woman Gabby could imagine would put up with such untidiness.

  The answering machine contained dozens of messages, including those she had left from Chicago. His laptop computer might have provided a clue to his whereabouts, but it was nowhere to be found. That wasn't unusual because Wi-Fi access to the Internet was ubiquitous in Isr
ael and Tim usually took his laptop with him wherever he went.

  As she unpacked her clothing in an armoire, she was suddenly struck by a sense that Tim was not the last person in the apartment. What gave rise to this premonition she could not identify, still the feeling was nevertheless palpable. To test this intuition, she walked over to the bookshelf in Tim's study and glanced at the bottom three shelves reserved for her books. She and Tim had once had a nasty spat when he had borrowed her Commentary on the Book of Revelations, by Remosa Singer, and failed to tell her. When she needed it for reference, he couldn't remember where he had put it. Since he seldom returned a book to its original place, that was no surprise. The lost commentary threatened severe damage to their relationship until he agreed to designate the bottom three shelves of a bookcase for her exclusive use. Exclusive was the operative term they used.

  As a subliminal message directed to him, she carefully arranged her books alphabetically by author's last name. But when she lifted the first volume from her top shelf, she found not her copy of Ancient Judea, by Sigmond Abbot, but Biblia Hebraica, the text of the Bible as recorded by 9th Century Masoretic scribes, and compiled with scholarly notes by Rudolf Kittel. Further examination confirmed that additional volumes had also been tucked in new locations. Had Tim violated their agreement? Possibly, but that she deemed unlikely after their explosive argument over the matter. She knew him to be messy beyond belief, but never duplicitous. Besides, if he had actually borrowed a volume, there was little chance that it would make it back to the bookshelf at all.

  A cup of tea settled her nerves as she considered her next move. First, she would clean the apartment, preparing herself for what she suspected might be a long stay. By the time she finished a can of corn to satisfy a ravaging hunger, she had mapped out a preliminary plan. She phoned the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Bethlehem and asked to speak with the director and Tim's longtime collaborator, Father Benoit Matteau. An English-speaking receptionist with a French accent replied that Father Benoit was in retreat and unavailable. But if Gabby would leave a phone number, she would see it would reach Father Benoit. The receptionist refused to say when Gabby might expect a return call.

  Her thinking was interrupted by a heavy, determined knock on the door. In the corridor stood a lean, strong-featured man with bronze skin from exposure to the elements and wavy salt-and-pepper hair. He thrust a strong hand out for her to shake, formally introducing himself as Dr. Itamar Arad, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

  "May I come in to talk with you, Rabbi Lewyn?" he asked in the clipped English she immediately recognized as originating in South Africa.

  "I apologize for the mess, but I just arrived from the States."

  "I know," he said, not waiting for permission to enter.

  "You do?"

  "I've had a man outside on the street, hoping for Professor Matternly's return."

  "Somebody's been in this apartment before I got here," she relied in an accusing tone. "One of your people?"

  Arad failed to respond. Once Gabby had closed the door behind him, she observed what she guessed to be a nervous, high-strung man, most probably a workaholic. His puffy, reddish eyes reminded her of someone who suffered from sleep deprivation.

  A smile emerged slowly on his cheeks, as he said, "You're not what most Israelis envision when they think of a rabbi. No beard, no pa-ot, no lachrymose eyes reflecting three thousand years of Jewish suffering."

  When she answered his smile with one of her own, her nose, which had been fixed at age fifteen, snuggled between deep dimples. Thanks to a skilled orthodontist in Los Angeles where she had grown up, her teeth were almost perfect. "And you're also not an average Israeli," she responded with a defensive repost, "Your accent is Johannesburg, yes?"

  "Good ear. Houghton District."

  "Sorry about the mess. You can see Tim isn't a tidy person. I haven't had a minute to straighten up." She ushered Arad toward the study and cleared off the least cluttered chair. The moment he sat, she said, "Why are you waiting for Tim?"

  His eyes scanned the bookshelves, taking in the environment where Tim produced his scholarship. "He's published more on the Dead Sea scrolls in the past ten years than all other scholars combined. Dead Sea scholarship would be dormant by now, were it not for him."

  "Tim keeps working small niches with the hope that something big will break."

  A grimace crossed Arad's face before he shot another glance in Gabby's direction. "Professor Matternly produced a tour de force with Fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls."

  "Is that why you're looking for him?

  "Partly."

  "You can find a copy of Fragments in any archeology library."

  "We believe there's still more to be done in the field."

  "To my knowledge, everything has been studied, you might say, ad nauseam."

  "Until now," he said, then fell silent.

  "Tim's mentioned your name many times. He's no fan of the Antiquities Authority."

  "Nobody loves a policeman. Particularly scholars and archeologist who must play by my rules. You can imagine some are more disciplined than others. Most don't like me, but comply because when I veto an excavation project or withhold a foreign work permit a career can be ruined."

  "And have you?" she shot back.

  He almost grunted when saying, "Often."

  "And those who don't play by the rules?" she asked.

  "My rogues, as I call them. Always trying to sneak by me."

  "And Tim?" Arad cuffed strong fingers into a fist, pausing for a moment to think about an answer, before saying, "Your Dr. Matternly is a definite rogue. I respect his scholarship, but I'm suspicious of his conduct."

  "I don't get it," she said to combat a mounting sense of exasperation. "I don't know where Tim is and I'm worried as hell about him. You put men in cars on the street and probably searched this apartment. What's going on here?"

  "Can I count upon you not to speak of this to anyone?"

  "I've been a rabbi for years. Everything anybody told me was confidential, much like a lawyer."

  "But you're not in the States now. In Israel, we take a different approach."

  "I want to find Tim," she changed gears, sounding more conciliatory. "I'll do what I can to keep what you tell me to myself." She gave him a quick nod to proceed based on this understanding.

  "The army noted suspicious activity at Qumran and discovered a new cave there. My people investigated and found hundreds of ancient shards and a few parchment fragments. It was obvious the major treasures were already gone. A black eye for my agency. My job is to protect historical sites from looting much like this. I'm particularly incensed because this happened right under my nose and I didn't know a damn thing about it."

  Gabby struggled to mesh what she knew about the Dead Sea scrolls with her knowledge of Qumran geography. She concluded that finding new artifacts was unlikely, though not altogether impossible. "And you suspect Tim looted that cave?

  When Arad twisted his torso, she read the stress in his tired eyes. He said with no attempt to conceal his frustration, "Right now, Rabbi, I suspect everybody, Tim Matternly included. Suppose you took possession of new scrolls and that the parchment was in a state of decomposition, as it is very likely to be. You'd need an expert to help sort out what you had. Whom would you look to for such expertise?"

  "Tim, of course."

  "The IDF team found bullet slugs in the cave's wall. And human blood on the ground, along with remains of a recent fire. If ancient artifacts were removed, that's theft of state property. And judging from the bloodstains and bullets, some foul play, too. The police are interested in the blood. I'm interested in what's been taken. That's why I need Professor Matternly. It's damn curious that just when he's in most demand, he's missing."

  Arad handed her a calling card. "Here's my phone number and e-mail address. And, by the way, don't be surprised if you're contacted by the police. There are multiple investigations under way, a
nd unfortunately government officials don't always communicate well. What is it they say, 'One hand doesn't know what the other is doing.' The IDF isn't finished in this matter either."

  "Am I also a suspect?" she asked, as he stepped back into the vestibule.

  "Not for the moment. But don't interpret that to mean you're free to do something foolish. Since you now know we're looking for Matternly, any attempt to withhold information might be construed as an attempt to subvert justice. You don't want to become complicit with Matternly in criminal behavior."

  "Is he in danger?"

  "In the past few years, Russian criminals in Tel Aviv have become active traffickers in antiquities. They're bad people who have no scruples when it comes to protecting their markets."

  That remark chilled Gabby, partly because it had never occurred to her that organized crime might be interested in antiquities. Unlike many friends who read novels about the mafia and loved The Godfather movies and the Soprano TV series, she had shown little fascination with the subject. "Are Russians more dangerous than Italians?"

  "Worse. Italians have a sense of family loyalty. Russians murder their fathers for money."

  In the hallway, Arad turned with a last thought. "Father Benoit Matteau at the École Biblique in Bethlehem has worked with Tim Matternly for years. Do you know him?"

  She thought about denying it, but also knew that the call she had made to Matteau's school in Bethlehem could be traced. "I met him twice, both times at Fink's Bar here in Jerusalem. He's a good drinker, but seemed to hold his alcohol. Is he one of your good boys or one of your rogues?"

  "My most consistent rule breaker. He's constantly asking for special privileges and when denied, does whatever pleases him. Benoit and I go back a long way, not as bosom buddies. He's been working with Dead Sea scrolls for more years than I've been in the business and is one of the most likely people to help us understand what happened out there in the desert."