Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest

by Roger Herst

  Eleven Bedouin were active around their tents, one looking back at Itamar through his own binoculars.

  When Gabby was given the field glasses, she said, "They don't look friendly."

  "They probably aren't. They're armed," Itamar said. "I would imagine that's meant to send us a signal."

  The corporal confessed that their numbers made him uncomfortable. Eleven against three was a decided disadvantage, though in the event of trouble, they could radio for support from an Israeli infantry platoon operating in the vicinity. But given the rugged terrain soldiers might not make it in time to be of help.

  "When we enter the cave, keep a close watch," Itamar told the corporal. "I'll take a walkie-talkie, but I don't expect good reception inside. If these guys make any hostile moves, call or come get me and inform your commanding officer immediately. Don't wait until it's too late. Remember, Bedouin believe the cave belongs to them, not us. And they just may be right about that."

  Previous investigators from the Antiquities Authority had stabilized the crude rappelling lines along the mountainside leading to the cave's entrance. Assured that this was not Gabby's first rock-climbing experience, Itamar took the lead, but carefully monitored her progress and offered encouragement. He was relieved to see that her overall athleticism made it easy for her to handle the rappelling requirements. Good coordination. Good upper body strength and balance. No apparent signs of panic.

  The traffickers' tarp remained over the cave's entrance, but once inside, Itamar secured its flap to the cave wall, flooding the darkness with sunlight. The smell of burnt oil lingered in the dust saturated air. Gabby and Itamar strapped filters over their mouths and mounted halogen headlamps on their foreheads. The entryway was crammed with equipment belonging to archeologists from Itamar's agency, the first and only civilians to have entered the cave after the army. The looters' rubber buckets for transporting dirt were now stacked out-of-the-way along the southern wall, neatly stuffed one inside the other. Two canvas sacks filled with trawls and brushes rested beside a portable table used for maps and diagrams. Gabby recognized rectangular sifting trays archeologists used to screen for small artifacts hidden in excavated earth. Several shovels and small picks were left leaning against the eastern wall.

  Itamar stepped beside Gabby, attaching a tether to her backpack for dragging, and said, "My people are extremely cautious about damaging a site, even if it's already been badly spoiled by previous excavators. Under normal rules of the road, nothing is done on site without approval from a committee of experts. Here, for secrecy, we must be a bit more flexible. Once word of this discovery leaks, I'll be deluged with requests to work here. No matter that the place has already been trashed. For budding archaeologists, hope springs eternal. They invariably believe they'll find artifacts overlooked by their predecessors."

  "I feel privileged," Gabby said after her survey of the main cavern. She closed her eyes to imagine her ancestors and breathed deeply, trapping the filtered air in her lungs. When she started to breathe again, dust particles lodged in her throat, forcing a hacking cough.

  Itamar lifted his breathing mask to say, "We found a narrow opening in the rear that leads through two crawl tunnels, and above one, a ventilation hole to the outside. It was recently enlarged. Because the police found blood nearby, they think the wounded Bedouin escaped through it. Unfortunately, he didn't get far." As he surveyed the cavern, he said, "We hoped to discover jars for storing scrolls, containers like those found in other caves. The looters left only two empty ossuaries, two empty jugs, and many terracotta shards. Thieves always get the first pickings."

  "Are you sure the cave wasn't looted many years before?" Gabby asked, adjusting her mask to ease her breathing.

  "Good question," he replied. "Treasure hunters could have robbed this cave centuries ago and removed the best antiquities. All we know for certain is that people have been here recently and it's doubtful they would spill blood for a cave already picked clean by robbers years before. I'll learn more if artifacts turn up in the London or New York antiquities market." He pointed to a tunnel entrance in the rear. "That conduit forks in eighty meters, leading to interior chambers A and B. Care to crawl a bit? We found one empty quartzite ossuaries in Chamber A and another near the entrance here. There were seven parchment fragments in Chamber B."

  She nodded affirmatively.

  "Switch on your headlamp. Want to lead or follow?" asked Itamar.

  That brought a smile producing playful dimples under Gabby's mask. "What kind of a question is that for someone with a Type A personality? Follow me!"

  The tunnel was tighter than she anticipated and, for a few minutes, she suffered acute claustrophobia. Ahead, there was nothing but a murky darkness; behind, the reassuring sound of Itamar's breathing. So oppressive was this confinement that she considered signaling her need to retreat to the entrance chamber where there was room to stand in natural sunlight. But could she seriously entertain withdrawing after having begged Itamar to bring her here? To pull out now, she knew, would trigger a lifetime of regret.

  After an additional ten meters, Itamar's hand grasped her ankle to stop her from crawling forward. She rotated her head to look back and viewed his fingers curled into an O, a signal asking how she was doing. By twisting on her hip she was able to slip her hand behind to return the O, signaling that she was doing fine, which, she admitted to herself, she definitely wasn't. A moment later, she resumed crawling forward.

  Itamar had given no indication which fork to choose. She paused for his instruction, but none came. The bristling of walkie-talkie static suddenly echoed in the confined space. Itamar wrestled with the radio strapped to his belt, and eventually maneuvered it near his lips. "Say again," she heard him repeat several times in Hebrew, obviously frustrated with the poor reception. There was a voice from one of the Israeli soldiers at the other end, but his words were muffled. Several times, Itamar sought clarification without success.

  Between gasps for breath, he spoke to Gabby. "The soldiers are trying to tell me something. Could be trouble with the Bedouin. I must head back to the entrance. Want to come?"

  To pull out because she was frightened to be alone in a suffocating enclosure, or fearful of what unfriendly Bedouin might do, was tempting. All her instincts told her to follow Itamar. But that, she knew, was nothing but raw fear, not the controlled rationality she aspired to achieve. Mastering her emotions was something she knew how to will and, at the moment, she lacked no determination to see this adventure through. She lifted her mask to say, "No."

  "Okay. I'll be back as soon as I make contact. We may have to evacuate fast, so be ready." The beam from Itamar's light immediately faded as he inched backward toward the tunnel entrance.

  Where the path forked, she paused to choose a direction. Since there was no compelling reason to go either left or right, she simply left it to habit. In a situation like this, right-handed people usually swerve to the right while left-handed people, the left. She pressed on in the direction of Chamber B, suddenly imagining that, outside, the Bedouin had launched an attack against the three Israeli soldiers, joined now by Itamar. She strained to hear shots, but heard nothing but the eerie silence of the cave. Time seemed to compress. She couldn't tell whether she was moving through a long tunnel very fast or a short tunnel very slowly. The dust seemed to be swirling with greater intensity and breathing became more difficult. Was this simply because her heart was beating faster? Next, a nagging thought caused her to wonder why she was here in the first place. Qumran was a long way from the comfortable library at the Oriental Museum in Chicago. But did library research ever approach treading upon the very path of history?

  Her doubts left her when she discovered a tunnel feeding into a vault large enough to lift herself on her elbows, a small improvement that conferred a modest measure of comfort. In her imagination, she conjured up this tomblike cavity as the burial site of an Egyptian pharaoh, cluttered with gold statuary and earthen bowls. But what she actually saw was n
othing of the kind. The chamber was little more than an enlargement of the tunnel, with an earthen floor and a chiseled sandstone ceiling. She circled her head to let the beam from the lamp flood the empty cavern, then crept forward on her knees to make contact with something from the past, but all remnants of previous human presence had been removed. Everything except…

  It was lodged in a small outcrop of sandstone. She squinted, circled her head to refocus the light, then crawled forward to discover not an artifact from the distant past but an object from the immediate present, something mundane and utterly common in the twenty-first century.

  "No, no," she muttered to herself, clenching the object in her fingers and bringing it forward under her headlamp for closer inspection. A PLASTIC ZIPLOC SANDWICH BAG!

  She contracted into herself, acknowledging that somebody not from the first century but very recently had left this telltale item behind. And it wasn't one of Itamar's archeologists or a soldier because she knew exactly who. She often accused Tim of suffering from a sandwich bag obsession. He made a habit of storing a fresh box of Ziplocs in his car, employed for carrying sweets or dried fruit, but more often for loose change, personal notes, and trinkets. Similar sandwich bags filled with pencils and pens were in every drawer of his desk. It was a rare moment when one or more was not stuffed in his pockets, and showed up when she took his shirts and pants to the laundry. And no fewer than two unopened boxes of reserve Ziplocs sat on the pantry shelf in their Chicago kitchen and at least one in the Ussishkin Street apartment.

  She speculated that Tim had probably pulled several from a backpack and inadvertently left one behind. Being so ordinary, inspectors from Itamar's Authority and the army had simply ignored it. This, she told herself, was her first clue to what Tim meant by the discovery of a lifetime. She stuffed the Ziploc in her breast pocket, then hesitated as the implications of removing it weighed upon her. By taking evidence of Tim's presence here, was she now conspiring with him in the theft of state property? A small thing, but with huge ramifications. In the leisure of academic life, people would relish debating subjects like this. But in a dusty, claustrophobic cave with the possibility of hostile Bedouin outside, there was no time for such a measured approach. The Ziploc remained in her pocket as she rotated on her knees inching back through the tunnel, then turned right at the fork to follow the second conduit where Tim might have left more bags behind. But Chamber A, somewhat larger than Chamber B, provided no additional signs of human presence.

  The crawlspace enlarged as she made her way toward the cave's entrance and blessed sunlight. Itamar had just dropped back into the entry chamber when she arrived.

  "What's wrong outside?" she inquired as she accepted his help lifting her from her knees.

  "Nothing serious," he said. "The corporal learned that Bedouin are here to bury their tribesman, just as you suggested. Apparently, Major Zabronski returned his body to their camp and now they want to give the fellow a dignified burial. These people don't have designated burial grounds like other Arabs and usually put their dead to rest where they died so their souls may ascend to Allah where their life ended, linking life and death seamlessly according to the Divine will."

  Gabby was brushing dust from her face and hands, when Itamar said, "Well, that solves at least one mystery, doesn't it?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked, thinking that he somehow knew about the Ziploc bag. Perhaps he had had it planted there for her to find!

  "The dead Bedouin's name was Mumud banu-Nazeem."

  "Who did it?" Gabby asked, deflecting her worry over Tim onto the Bedouin.

  "That's for Zabronski to figure out," he said with a dismissive sigh. "Thank God, I don't have to deal with things like this. By the way, did you come across anything interesting?"

  She knew he would eventually ask and had prepared a lie. "No. Your people left the place spick-and-span."

  ***

  As they approached Jerusalem in the Agency's vehicle, Gabby fell silent, gazing out of the passenger window, consumed by thoughts of Tim. It was only when they neared Ussishkin Street that Itamar broke into her reverie by remarking, "You were a good sport today. Most women I know wouldn't have much fun under those conditions."

  "I can't say I did. I didn't see much, but somehow I felt close to my ancestors. And who in the twenty-first century gets a chance to reach back two thousand years and visit their predecessors?"

  "You love this stuff, don't you?"

  "And you don't?"

  Outside the apartment, tension had returned to Itamar's face and he spoke in short nervous bursts. "Only a handful of officials and four of my staff know about the cave. I must report to my bosses what happened at Qumran and, as soon as I do, I'm toast at the Agency. My enemies will soon be dancing at my funeral. I've got no more than a week to find some answers and I'm counting on your cooperation. I had to pull strings for you to see the cave today, Gabrielle, but I don't work free. You're holding back."

  To that, she said nothing, hoping he wouldn't pursue the subject.

  "You probably need a shower," he finally said.

  "Yes," she replied, moved by his patience under what must be enormous stress.

  "Can I return later and take you to dinner?"

  "I'm surprised you're not busy every evening."

  "It's a long story."

  This perked her curiosity as she opened the passenger door to get out. "I can probably guess."

  "I doubt it," he replied, turning to look through the windshield and failing to satisfy her curiosity.

  She glanced down the street, not surprised to see a man seated in a Subaru sedan. Rather than close the door to the SUV, she leaned over and pointed to the Subaru. "Another one of your people spying on me?"

  "Wrong. I don't have personnel for this kind of work," he replied. "But Major Zabronski does."

  "Did your people enter my apartment? I know the place has been searched. I'd be fuming mad if I knew what was taken."

  "There are several investigations going on simultaneously. If I were you, I'd regard that guy watching you as protection."

  "From what?" she snapped.

  "Whoever is looking for Matternly."

  By the time Gabby entered her apartment, a black mood had replaced the initial shock of finding the Ziploc bag. Tim had spoken in his e-mail about the discovery of a lifetime. Now it was clear he had been at Cave XII and probably stolen state property. Did it matter, she asked herself, that he had devoted himself to Essene scholarship and that no other academic was more worthy to study new documents from this period? She was well acquainted with his contempt for Itamar's agency, which consistently restricted archeology in the Holy Land to appease the Orthodox political parties in Israel's chronically unstable coalition government. Scholars often became possessive of the material they studied, sometimes stepping over a delicate line between what is legal and illegal. Still, she had always known Tim to be a man obsessed with doing the right thing and couldn't imagine what had possessed him to make an exception at Cave XII. Whatever it was, she was certain he never intended to profit financially from this windfall.

  For more than a half-hour, she sat on her bed, staring into space, numbed by a flow of conflicting thoughts. On an impulse, she decided to take a second look through the apartment. During her first search, it had not occurred to her to check the bedroom closet for the World War II rifle Tim had stashed behind a laundry basket. It was unlike him to own a firearm because during his years in the ministry, he had been a strong advocate of gun control. Often he had said to her that his view remained unchanged about guns in the States. But Israel was another animal. Only a fool would ignore the reality of acute terrorism. Just as the state must protect its citizens, so must an individual protect himself and his family.

  The rifle was missing!

  Until then, she had hoped that Tim would eventually turn up with an explanation no one had thought of before. But now, she knew this to be fantasy. The truth was, Tim wasn't missing and never was. He was now
a fugitive from the law. And an armed one at that!

  She wished she had not made a date with Itamar. The timing couldn't have been worse. Naturally, she could call and plead that she was not feeling well. Or invent another lame excuse. But while in one respect she didn't want to see him, in another she did. At Qumran, she had shared with him an extraordinary experience when their bodies had touched at the very moment they were making contact with a previous generation. However moody and strong-willed he appeared, what she saw in Itamar she liked. Still, his position as director of the Antiquities Authority complicated any thought of real friendship.

  The restaurant Itamar chose was hidden on an alley running off ha-Emek Street, the second floor of which provided a panoramic view of the Roman and Ottoman granite walls encasing Jerusalem's Old City. The municipality had illuminated the wall with bright floodlights and decorated the tower of Zion with blue bunting. Multicolored flags on the parapets fluttered in a mild wind. Two waiters with shaven scalps in tight-fitting black silk T-shirts, looking as if they had just worked out in a gym, provided menus and a wine list.

  Gabby watched Itamar study the offerings with the intensity she imagined him to examine an ancient potshard. In his stressful capacity as director of the Antiquities Agency, she had found his conversations to jump nervously from one subject to another, but in the relaxed, quiet atmosphere of the restaurant, he stayed on subject. After she had selected a brace of pigeon, cooked with garlic Arab style, and her favorite, green salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, he ordered a compatible Italian Chianti.

  When it arrived, he poured for her and swirled the ruby-colored wine to enhance its bouquet. With his own glass cupped in two hands, he said, "So, Gabrielle, tell me more about your doctoral work. I recalled skimming an article you wrote in Archeology Journal last year and two days ago went back to read it. About how prophets in the bible prepared themselves to become spokesmen for God."

  That such an important scholar, the director of the Antiquities Authority, would take time to read an article she believed more flawed than its reviewers, startled her. "I'd do a better job today," she said.