A Love and Beyond

by Dan Sofer

  “Where did it start?” Dave asked.

  “Where did what start?”

  “The escape tunnel.”

  Ben wrinkled his nose and the crust of mud cracked.

  “Somewhere in the Old City. Sections may have collapsed or filled up over the years. Like the hole we crawled through.”

  “Great.”

  Dave searched his shadowy surroundings for clues. Nothing in his training or life experience had equipped him for this. Cavemen had a better chance of survival. All three tunnels might lead to dead ends. They had only a few minutes of light left, enough to explore one path at most.

  Come on, Dave. Think!

  “There must be a way of testing this,” he said.

  “Testing? This isn’t a computer program.”

  “It’s the same principle.”

  At work Dave tested hidden code logic. He had developed a sixth sense for the right combinations of mouse clicks and input to ferret out the bugs that hid among the bits and bytes.

  “One of these leads out of here.”

  “Or none,” Ben said.

  Dave’s phone beeped again.

  Dave said, “Let’s head back and try the other end of the tunnel.”

  “That will take a long time without light.”

  Dave didn’t fancy crossing that narrow ledge blind. “Wait a minute.”

  Dave remembered a movie scene. A pirate on a raft and a flat ocean.

  Dave pushed past Ben to the crossroads. He wiped his forefinger on a dry patch of jeans and put it in his mouth. Mud particles swirled over his tongue. He extracted his saliva-coated digit and held it in the air. He entered the tunnel on the left.

  Nothing.

  He tried the middle.

  More nothing.

  Dammit!

  He tried the third and last option.

  A faint breeze tickled the wet skin on the edge of his finger.

  “This one,” he said. “There’s air down there.”

  Ben looked at Dave with surprise. Without another word, he led the way with Dave’s phone.

  After a short march, the right wall fell away, turning the tunnel into a cave. They pressed on. The ground rose slowly and became a chiseled staircase. They pushed ahead, faster.

  Distant footfalls echoed. Then hushed voices. Dim ambient light strengthened with every step.

  In the gloom an object emerged that brought tears to Dave’s eyes. A metal handrail.

  Ben and Dave skipped up the stairs.

  A circle of blinding, amber light opened ahead.

  A crowd of people stood on a platform. They wore peaked caps.

  “Legend has it,” the tour guide said, a scruffy string bean of an American with glasses, “that King Zedekiah—”

  He stopped mid-sentence.

  “Excuse me,” Ben said. “Slicha. Coming through.”

  A woman gasped. The crowd parted for the two mud-plastered swamp monsters.

  “Hey!” the tour guide said. “You’re not allowed down there.”

  Ben steamed ahead.

  “Are you with our group? You’re not with our group.”

  The steps wound up the cavern. Garden lamps lit a path through the wide, tent-like cave. They passed through a turnstile and stepped into daylight.

  The two friends collapsed on a bench at a street corner. They breathed. They laughed. The Old City walls towered above. Passersby eyed them with interest. Dave’s feet ached. Relief warmed his body like the beautiful, hot sun above.

  Ben placed the grimy backpack on his lap. “You look like crap.”

  “Thanks. You should have seen the other guy.”

  “Zedekiah’s Cave,” Ben said. “What did I tell you?”

  “You were right.” Dave’s wristwatch read two o’clock.

  “We should head back or you’ll miss your Swedish massage.”

  They followed the walls to Jaffa Gate and limped through the Armenian quarter.

  “I’m sorry,” Dave said. “What I said earlier. I didn’t mean…”

  “Forget it. Nothing happened.”

  Dave waited for a counter apology. Perhaps Ben had folded one into his reply. Maybe Ben still thought Dave was a spoiled brat. Maybe he was right.

  “What do we do now?”

  Ben mulled over his answer. “Call the police, I suppose. Have Ornan’s searched thoroughly. Salvage what we can, although I doubt they’ve left anything of value. But that tunnel will keep us busy for years. This too.” Ben tapped the bag on his shoulder.

  They walked in wordless understanding and descended the ramp from the Jewish quarter to Dung Gate and turned the corner of Ma’alot Ir David.

  Ben froze at the top of the street.

  “I don’t believe it.” Dave followed Ben’s gaze past the COD. A large black A-Team van pulled off in a hurry.

  “Here.” Ben thrust the backpack into Dave’s arms. “Hang onto this for a while. I’ve got to find out where they’re going.”

  Ben sprinted down the street.

  “Wait!” Dave held the bag at arm’s length. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  Ben climbed into his Toyota Yaris. He revved the engine. The black van had disappeared down the road.

  Ben rolled down his window. “Just keep it out of sight. I’ll pick it up later.”

  He launched down the street and careened out of sight.

  ***

  Ben spotted the black van deep within Abu Tor. The jumble of apartment blocks, streets strewn with uncollected garbage, and haphazard electric cables resembled an urban warfare training set, although many hailed the old neighborhood as a model of Jewish-Arab symbiosis.

  The van showed no sign of slowing. Without indicating, it turned north onto the three-lane boulevard of Derekh Chevron and flanked the Old City to the west.

  He shadowed the black van at a discreet distance.

  Where are you going?

  He’d already hit the jackpot once that day. The new tunnels beneath the City of David alone warranted a press release, research grants, his name in lights. All this before penning his first academic paper.

  There were legal issues to iron out, granted. But Ben had been the right man in the right place at the right time.

  Now he set his sights on a second, perhaps larger, jackpot.

  The van hurtled past the Old City, through the Tzanchanim tunnel, and up Chaim Barlev toward the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University.

  Ornan, you sneaky snake.

  Ben had first visited the restaurant in the City of David shortly after the sign went up.

  Romantic ambience. An opportunity to display his value as an expert in archaeology.

  His date, a plump New Yorker doused in makeup, had railed against Israeli hairdressers and Ben’s attention drifted to the earthenware jar on a stand in the corner. He walked over to investigate. The date was not a total loss, after all. He called the restaurateur aside and explained the historical significance and the legal ramifications of his chosen decoration.

  Ornan had played the part of the obsequious and servile Arab. The man deserved an Academy Award. The jar was a gift from a wealthy friend, he had said. He had no idea of its significance. As a gesture of remorse, Ornan gifted the artifact to Ben.

  “And,” Ornan added, “next time, VIP room.”

  “VIP?”

  Ornan had Ben’s full attention. Backstage passes. Executive lounges. Access to restricted benefits was the Demonstration of Value par excellence.

  “Yes.” Ornan’s eyes twinkled. “Special room. Make girl fall in love. Guarantee!” He raised a cautionary finger. “One time only.”

  Ben took the jar home that night for further study. He would report it to the Antiquities Authority once he figured out its provenance.

  He forgot about the VIP room.

  Until Yvette.

  Ben’s dream came true. A group of international models rounded out a weeklong fashion shoot for Vogue with a tour of the COD. Ben scheduled himself as their guide for
the day and quickly honed in on the tall blond in the modest skirt.

  “You’re more knowledgeable than the others,” Ben remarked offhand, as they negotiated Hezekiah’s water duct by flashlight.

  She had asked a question earlier while the others had studied their nails and posed with City of David caps and hiking shorts.

  “That,” she said in the Belgian accent that looped rosebud tendrils around his heart, “is because I’m Jewish.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Religious too.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Ben didn’t need any more hints from God.

  But how to get her alone?

  “There’s a special place in the City of David. You’ll love it. It’s off limits to tourists but I can make an exception. How is this evening? It includes dinner.”

  Yvette didn’t say anything for a while. In the beam-lit twilight of the water tunnel, Ben felt like the diggers must have felt twenty-five centuries before, chiseling away in the dark, unsure whether they would meet their colleagues, who burrowed toward them from the Shiloah spring.

  “OK,” she said. “Tonight is our free night. But you should know: we leave Israel tomorrow.”

  A declaration of non-interest? Or a hint at future possibilities?

  Either way, Ben’s heart soared.

  He called Ornan. The little restaurateur led them to the VIP room. There was wine. There was laughter. And, two months later, a wedding.

  A red light flared on the dashboard. The gas dial touched empty. The emergency tank gave Ben another twenty kilometers.

  No matter.

  Any minute, the van would turn right and disappear into the chaos of Arab East Jerusalem but Ben would know where to send the cops.

  He hadn’t taken seriously Ornan’s claims to love magic. He had chalked up the conquest to ambience, personal charm, and the Pickup Artist’s Bible.

  But the evidence was piling up. Ben and Yvette. Dave and Mandy. Mishi had provided the theoretical foundation, Professor Barkley the historical clues. And now Ben had acquired the Foundation Stone itself.

  I earn my own keep, Ben. Not like some people I know.

  Despite Dave’s apology, his words in the tunnel added water, sunlight, and a bag of fertilizer to a dormant seed of guilt and now the sapling broke through Ben’s subconscious.

  The plant budded.

  Dave was wrong. Ben had married Yvette for love, not money. But had he taken advantage? Had he tricked the person he loved most in the world?

  He focused on the black van two cars ahead.

  Ornan was going down. He had graduated from a single, incidental artifact to large-scale illegal excavation. Ben had fallen into the proof. Add a few Kalashnikovs and you had a network for antiquities smuggling, and perhaps even the bankrolling of fundamentalist violence.

  The black van ramped onto road number one east.

  “What the…?”

  Ben followed the van as it crossed the Jerusalem city limits.

  The highway began a long descent.

  Ben eyed the gas dial with concern.

  A large road sign sped by. It read: The Dead Sea.

  ***

  Dave removed his mud-caked Skechers and socks before entering his apartment. He dropped them in the kitchen trash can. He did the same with his jeans and shirt.

  He surveyed his living room. He felt as though he had returned from a long trip overseas. He never thought he would see his apartment again. Yet the small square room with the fold-out couch and rolling shutters at half-mast had not changed at all.

  He stepped into the bathtub and drew the curtain. A long hot shower never felt so good.

  He had survived. Cracks had appeared in his equanimity but he’d played a key role in the escape. Enough adventure for one lifetime. He had paid his dues, suffered for his sins. Time to put all that behind him.

  Mandy.

  At the peak of crisis, his mind had fled to Mandy. Understandable enough. A few days ago, Dave had planned to propose to her. Under immense pressure, the mind was liable to skip a track.

  Dave put on fresh clothes and clean running shoes.

  He scraped dirt from his wristwatch.

  3:07 PM.

  He wrote a text message to Shira and his mother.

  Running late. Will be there in a few hours.

  His overnight bag still sat in the trunk of his Ford Hatchback.

  Time to head out.

  Ben’s backpack slouched beside the front door.

  He slid his hands into the bag, taking care to avoid the muddy crust. The metal container shined, spotless. Ben was right, it weighed very little. Was it empty? After all they had gone through, that would be funny.

  He moved to the couch and placed the container on the coffee table. It reminded him of the round tin box his grandmother had kept stocked with chocolate bars.

  Just a peek.

  He wrested the lid loose and tilted it upward.

  A large stone like an oversized hockey puck filled the container. The surface was smooth and dark like the igneous rocks formed by cooling lava. It begged to be touched. Held. Caressed. He could take it with him. Keep it near during a quiet moment with Shira. The universe seemed to rotate slowly around the mysterious stone.

  Dave snapped the lid shut.

  No more.

  He fetched the orange cooler from the service balcony. The metal tin lodged comfortably beside the bubble-wrapped scroll jar.

  You belong together.

  Dave replaced the white cover, returned the cooler to its shelf, and covered the box with the dishcloth.

  Stay here.

  Dave locked his apartment and got in the car.

  ***

  Ben shifted the Yaris into neutral and barreled down the winding highway. The Ma’aleh Adumim turnoff flew by.

  The gas dial dropped below the empty line.

  He was in no shape for a long haul. The old gym bag on the back seat contained shorts, a T-shirt, an official City of David peaked cap, and rubber sandals—his emergency kit when a younger guide didn’t show for the aqueduct tour. But fresh clothing was the least of his worries.

  An army checkpoint rose in the distance like a four-lane toll gate. Cars entering the West Bank faced less scrutiny than those traveling in the opposite direction and the black van hardly slowed. Ben coasted through.

  His phone rang in the docking station.

  The caller ID read Erez Lazarus.

  His boss didn’t bother with hello. “Where are you?”

  The faux British accent packed a double dose of peeve.

  “I had to step out. Will be back soon.”

  “I’ve been looking for you all morning. Why was your phone off?”

  “Battery ran out. I’ll get back to you later, OK? I’m in transit.”

  “Where are you?”

  What was Erez on about?

  “Can’t cope without me for a second, can you?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Benjamin. Either you come back right now or don’t bother. Understand?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The police are here and they want to speak with you.”

  “The police?”

  Erez hesitated. “About the missing jar.”

  “I thought you kept that quiet.”

  “I kept it out of the papers, but the detective thinks you might be able to help.”

  Police? The scroll jar? Months after the break-in? Ben remembered Professor Barkley’s warning.

  Obsessed is the word.

  “My battery is running low again,” he said. That much was true. “I have to hang up now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  He tapped the foot brake to slow the car around a sharp bend.

  Ornan and Erez.

  He’d never put the two together. How had the COD come to possess a Cave Three scroll jar?

  Ben had been asking the wrong questions.

  Policemen, my ass.

  Erez had his dodgy Christian connections
. Was Ornan another dot in the picture? Had Ornan connected Ben with the missing Foundation Stone? Had he alerted Erez?

  The northern edge of the Dead Sea rose into view, a flat inland bay at the foot of the Jordanian valley ridge.

  The road leveled out. In a few kilometers, they would reach Qumran, the origin of the scrolls and their jars.

  Returning to the source.

  Poetic resonance aside, Ben found that unlikely. Today’s Qumran was a tourist attraction complete with sound-and-light shows, souvenir stores, and dusty ruins, not an ideal base for militant antiquities looters.

  And the caves were slippery death traps.

  The black van slowed and, again without indicating, turned north onto the 90 toward Bet She’an and away from the Dead Sea. The sign post read King Hussein Bridge Border Crossing.

  Of course!

  If Ornan crossed the border, the chase would end. Ben’s gym bag did not contain a passport. The Jordanians had controlled the scrolls until 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the scroll fragments in the Rockefeller Museum.

  Was Ornan a Jordanian agent? That explained the unfamiliar guttural dialect. Had he sacrificed one measly jar in order to keep a larger hoard under wraps? Or was the neighboring Arab country merely a convenient safe haven?

  Even without Dave, Ornan would have moved his treasure eventually. At least now Ben had a trail to follow.

  He dialed 101 on his phone, then changed his mind. Border police might intercept smugglers but there was no such thing as an anonymous tip from a cell phone. Ben would have to explain how he had come upon his intel and he did not care to add fuel to the police’s growing interest in his affairs.

  “It’s just you and me, Ornan.”

  Ben would tail them in the waiting line for border control. Cause a commotion. Slip away while the police cuffed Ornan and his thugs.

  Ben stepped on the accelerator to keep moving. The gas dial slipped below the empty line and over the large E. The bridge was near Bet She’an. Would gas vapors take him that far?

  It didn’t matter. Ben would follow if he had to hitchhike the rest of the way.

  Then the van veered left, off the 90 and toward a distant patch of palm trees against the mountain rise of the valley.