On the Third Day

by Piers Paul Read

  The sight of these Hasidim with their frock coats, beards and ringlets, had always seemed bizarre to Andrew – sometimes even repulsive. Now, however, he felt a certain kinship with them. Why, after all, should it seem strange to him that they wore the costume of the Polish gentry in the eighteenth century when he was dressed in the habit of a medieval monk? Both bore witness, in their eccentric attire, to their faith in the same God. The Muslims, too, who had occupied the Temple Mount since Saladin had taken Jerusalem, believed like the Jews and Christians in the existence of a single God. Perhaps that was all that mattered – to believe and to acknowledge that belief, whether by chanting at the Western Wall, prostrating oneself in the direction of Mecca or singing vespers in a church. Was there not a residue of righteousness in all religions? Did it matter if one believed or disbelieved that God had given Moses the tablets of the Law, or that Jesus had risen from the dead, or that the Prophet Mohammed had ascended into heaven on the back of his horse, el-Buraq, from the rock beneath the golden dome which Andrew could see from where he stood? Did it not accord not just with charity, but also with common sense, to recognize that all religions, in their different ways, reflected elements of the same truth, just as water, glass, chrome or silver reflect the light of the same sun?

  It was setting, that sun, sinking behind him, its last rays giving a pink hue to the honey-coloured ashlars of the Western Wall and reminding Andrew that he must return to sing vespers in the church of St Simon Doria. Whatever random thoughts had been passing through his mind, he retained a reflex obedience to the rules of his order.

  The nine Simonite monks in residence in Jerusalem were a company mixed in age, nationality and occupation, united only in their common calling and faith. Dressed in their grey habits, and with their faces half hidden by their cowls, it was hard to tell who was a German, who an Italian, who an Irishman, who an Arab. The reading during supper in the refectory was in Latin – still the lingua franca of the Catholic Church – and since the monk at the lectern was the same young Italian who had shown Andrew to his room, he read with a certain fluency from Eusebius’ History of the Church.

  It was just as the Prior, Father Manfred, was about to give thanks to God for what they had eaten that the sounds of commotion came from the hall. Father Manfred hurried through grace and rapidly left the refectory. Andrew and the other monks followed and saw, as they filed out, the tall figure of their General, Cardinal Memel.

  He was dressed in a black soutane with scarlet edging and a scarlet cummerbund as marks of his rank. There was a golden crucifix hanging from a golden chain around his neck, as befitted a man who was the titular Bishop of Ebolium. He was, when Andrew caught sight of him, laying a friendly hand on the shoulders of Father Manfred as he knelt to kiss the episcopal ring. Then he stooped to help the German Simonite to his feet, and turned to present the young priest who had accompanied him from Rome.

  The monks coming out of the refectory hesitated for a moment, uncertain as to whether they should greet their General or humbly make themselves scarce. Since few of them, however, had ever seen Cardinal Memel at such close quarters before, and since he was a gaunt, handsome, genial man who looked more like a film star than a cleric, they could not bring themselves to disperse but stood in a cluster around him; and Cardinal Memel, alert despite his journey, and sensitive to the flurry of excitement, turned to welcome his fellow Simonites with the informality and friendliness of a modern Prince of the Church.

  Father Manfred, a shy and pious scholar, introduced those monks whose names he knew, but since several, like Andrew, had only recently arrived, he became confused because he could not remember what they were called. They therefore introduced themselves – Father Xavier from La Plata, Brother Laurence from Cork, Father Ignatius from Cracow – filing past in a line like guests at a reception. Indeed, Father Manfred, taking the Cardinal’s geniality rather more seriously than perhaps the Cardinal had intended, herded his flock into the monastery parlour and asked the Irish brother to open some bottles of Lebanese wine.

  As they were walking from the hallway into the parlour, Andrew introduced himself to the Cardinal. At first, Cardinal Memel did not seem to distinguish him from the other monks, but the young priest who accompanied him moved forward and whispered in his ear. The Cardinal’s expression became more serious, and he turned back to Andrew saying: ‘Ah, yes. The young Englishman. Good. I’m glad you’re here.’ Then his expression changed back to that of the feted film star, and he swam into the group of chattering scholars who, with the innocence of the pious, had grown tipsy with the excitement of the occasion even before tasting a drop of the order’s Château Musar.

  Later that evening, after Andrew had returned to his cell, he was summoned to the office of the Prior. It was a large room on the ground floor with, on one side, small barred windows giving onto the street and, on the other, larger ones which looked out over the cloister. These were shut, and, although a large fan turned slowly in the ceiling, the room was unpleasantly hot. As Andrew entered, he saw, in the dim light, the Cardinal seated on a sofa and the Prior, looking tired and miserable, on a wicker chair beside him. The young priest who had come with the Cardinal from Rome was standing behind them, his body propped against the Prior’s desk.

  Cardinal Memel stood up as Andrew came in. ‘I’m sorry it’s so stuffy,’ he said, as if reading Andrew’s thoughts, ‘but we can’t risk opening the windows. We mustn’t be overheard.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Andrew.

  The Cardinal extended his hand but, before Andrew could stoop to kiss the ring, he felt his own hand grasped and then shaken, and the Cardinal’s other arm came around to take him by the shoulder and guide him towards a chair.

  ‘You don’t know my secretary, Father Pierre,’ he said, nodding towards the pale young Frenchman by the desk. ‘But you know Father Manfred, of course.’ He turned briefly to the Prior. ‘Sie kennen diesen Jungen schon?’

  ‘Natürlich, Eminenz.’

  Cardinal Memel pointed to a chair next to the sofa and they all sat down in a circle, except for the secretary who remained leaning against the desk.

  ‘Father Manfred knows why I am here,’ the Cardinal began in his deep, drawling voice, ‘and Father Pierre is also in our confidence, but it is of the utmost importance that no one else should know. The Holy Father does not want the news of the find to leak out before we are ready to react. He has authorized me to make a preliminary assessment of the claims made by your friend Professor …’

  ‘Dagan,’ said Father Pierre.

  ‘Dagan. That’s right.’

  ‘Now, as far as I know, the Church has never pronounced upon the validity of the Slavonic additions to Josephus’ Jewish War, let alone the Codex that turned up in Vilnius. However, the tendency among our scholars has been to accept their authenticity, and what reactions there have been to the Vilnius Codex have been affirmative. This does not mean, of course, that we can discount the possibility of a fraud or even a coincidence of some kind. Quite the contrary, we must bear that very much in mind. But we must not close our minds to the possibility that Almighty God now considers us ready for a new revelation that may alter our understanding of the Faith.’

  Andrew nodded. The other priests were silent.

  ‘Too often,’ the Cardinal went on, ‘the Church has been caught on the hop – by Galileo, by Copernicus, by Darwin. Too often, she has reacted to uncomfortable facts by burning those who brought them to her attention, or simply by anathematizing any awkward developments, as did Pius IX with his Syllabus of Errors.’

  ‘Na, ja …’ murmured Prior Manfred, nodding his head in agreement.

  ‘Therefore, we must approach this discovery of Professor Dagan’s with an open mind – not so open, of course, that it should endanger our fundamental faith and let in despair, but open with a total trust in Almighty God who, in his own good way and his own good time, reveals to his children the truths of his creation.’

  He stopped, rather as if he had reac
hed the end of a sermon; and stood up – not to go to an altar to say the Creed, but to suggest that they all should get a good night’s sleep because they would need their wits about them the next day. Then he left the room, accompanied by the Prior, and Andrew prepared to follow them, but the secretary, Father Pierre, held him back.

  Unlike the German Prior, who had appeared devastated by what he had been told, the alert young Frenchman remained quite calm. He asked Andrew, almost as a courtesy, whether he spoke French; but when it became apparent that, however adequate, Andrew’s French did not compare with Father Pierre’s exquisite English, they reverted to that language to go over the arrangements for the following day.

  ‘It is unfortunate,’ said Father Pierre, ‘that the Cardinal is never willing to travel incognito. It means that there are many who will learn that he is in Jerusalem, and will wonder why. The Patriarch, for example, has not been informed, but he will certainly know by tomorrow morning. So will the Greeks and the Armenians, the Jesuits and the Dominicans. We have therefore prepared a story that the Cardinal is here for an informal conference of biblical scholars at the Ecumenical Institute at Tartur. Of course, there is no such conference, and his Eminence rarely has time to meet his fellow exegetes these days, but it was the best pretext we could come up with at such short notice.’

  Andrew, who had not considered complications of this kind, merely nodded to signify his acquiescence to anything Father Pierre might propose.

  ‘We have therefore arranged to travel tomorrow morning to the Institute, dressed in our clerical habits, and there to change into something less formal before returning to West Jerusalem, where Professor Dagan is to meet us. He has been entirely cooperative in making these arrangements. He is aware, I think, of the sensitivity of the Cardinal’s visit.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘As the Cardinal told us just now, the Holy Father is particularly anxious that before the find is validated, the Church should not be seen to be taking it seriously.’

  ‘But how …’ Andrew began.

  ‘Of course,’ the young Frenchman interrupted, as if confident that he could express better than Andrew what Andrew intended to say. ‘How can the Church validate or invalidate the find without investigating it, and how can it investigate it without appearing to take it seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That, my dear brother, is the kind of conundrum which is not uncommon in the Vatican.’

  ‘Does the Cardinal himself intend to make the initial assessment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But how can a biblical scholar decide upon an archaeological question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Father Pierre gave a Gallic shrug. ‘How indeed? He is not even much of a biblical scholar, and his theology is deplorable.’

  ‘Then why was he sent?’

  ‘He sent himself, mon cher. He was, most unfortunately, the first to know, and he told the Holy Father only yesterday when all his arrangements had been made.’

  ‘But surely the Holy Father could have stopped him?’

  ‘That might have been even more dangerous. At least, if his Eminence feels himself to be responsible to the Holy Father, he may think twice before he opens his mouth to the press.’

  ‘Is he likely to do that?’

  Father Pierre shrugged again. ‘He is an American. He feels that the people have a right to know. And there is nothing he likes better than a Press Conference.’

  ‘So what should we do?’

  ‘Restrain him. Don’t let him get carried away.’

  ‘But is he likely … to get carried away?’

  The Frenchman closed the folder that had lain open on the desk, picked it up and started towards the door. ‘The Cardinal has many virtues,’ he said in a lowered voice, ‘but humility is not preeminent among them. He is quite convinced that the Holy Spirit has already chosen him as the next Pope, and he seems to think that the best way to ensure this destiny is to run for the post as one would for the Presidency of the United States.’ He hesitated at the door. ‘Did you notice how he spoke German to Father Manfred?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He can hardly speak German at all, but he likes to practise for his blessings Urbi et Orbi.’ He mimicked a Pope giving his blessing from the balcony of St Peter’s. ‘And he chose me as his secretary to teach him French.’ He opened the door and ushered Andrew out of the room. ‘To be a candidate for the throne of St Peter’s these days, you must be a graduate not just of a seminary but also of Berlitz.’

  Thirteen

  At seven the next morning a black Mercedes, having squeezed through the narrow streets of the Old City, drew up outside the Simonite monastery. Cardinal Memel, wearing his scarlet skull-cap and black, red-trimmed cassock, got into the back seat with Father Pierre beside him. Andrew, also wearing his Simonite habit, but clutching a hold-all containing jeans and a tee-shirt, sat beside the driver. Under the curious eyes of the passing Arabs, the car edged away, drove down past the Casa Nova hospice and left the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. It then crossed the valley of Hinnom and went out on the road to Bethlehem.

  At the Ecumenical Institute everything was prepared. The Cardinal was led off in one direction by an older man whom Andrew took to be the director, while a younger man in an open-necked shirt showed Andrew and Father Pierre to two bedrooms where they changed from their habits into their more casual clothes. The French priest, whom Andrew met again in the corridor, looked much younger and more vulnerable without his habit – the éminence grise suddenly reduced to a precocious normalien. They followed the young man across the Institute garden to a second, smaller car – a white Peugeot – and waited beside it in silence until the Cardinal appeared, dressed in white cotton trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt as if ready for a game of tennis. They all climbed into the car, and the young man who had accompanied Andrew and Father Pierre drove them back into Jerusalem to the Staedtler Institute of Archaeology.

  There Jake, who must have been waiting, stepped forward to greet them. Andrew presented him to Cardinal Memel, who shook his hand vigorously and put his arm around his shoulder as if Jake were yet another young Simonite monk. Andrew saw Jake wince at this avuncular gesture, which he was obliged to endure until they reached the entrance to the Institute. He then moved ahead to open the door, ushered them into the lobby, and led them up the stairs to Professor Dagan’s office on the first floor.

  The Professor and Anna awaited them. Andrew stepped forward to introduce the Cardinal and Father Pierre, winking at Anna, who responded with a smile. Professor Dagan offered them coffee, but the Cardinal said that he would prefer to move straight on. They therefore returned to the cars – the Cardinal and Father Pierre going with the Professor in the white Peugeot, while Andrew and Anna went with Jake in his little Subaru.

  ‘Is that guy really a Cardinal?’ Anna asked as they drove towards the Old City.

  ‘He’s the head of our order,’ said Andrew.

  ‘His predecessors,’ said Jake drily, ‘used to preside over the burning of Jews.’

  ‘You’re thinking of the Dominicans,’ said Andrew.

  ‘In 1486 the Simonites in Salamanca had a dispute with Rabbi Tagus to persuade him of the error of his ways. When he would not recant, they denounced him to the Inquisition and he was burned.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Andrew.

  ‘You can never catch Jake out on a point of fact,’ said Anna.

  Following the Peugeot, Jake drove around the south of the Old City, skirting Mount Zion, and in through the Dung Gate. Here they were stopped by the police who, upon recognizing Professor Dagan, let them pass into the plaza where they parked their cars. The two groups got out, and followed the Professor across the plaza to the building adjacent to the Western Wall. Cardinal Memel, who had put on sunglasses, looked like a visiting American academic, and Father Pierre like a graduate student. At the entrance to the excavations, Jake and Professor Dagan took yarmulka
s from their pockets and put them on their heads. Jake then took three paper skull-caps from a box by the door and handed them to the Gentiles.

  ‘We are entering sacred ground,’ said Professor Dagan. ‘We must cover our heads.’

  ‘I should have brought my own,’ said Cardinal Memel, as he placed the little cap on his head.

  They entered the excavations and made their way along a narrow passage towards the Western Wall. ‘These foundations are from many different periods,’ said Professor Dagan. ‘Some Hasmonean, some Herodian, much of it used by the Umayyads as foundations for the structures overlooking the Temple Mount.’

  They came out of the passage into a large, cavernous chamber formed by the span of an enormous arch, one end of which was embedded in the Western Wall. Dagan stopped. ‘That’s Wilson’s Arch,’ he said, ‘named after your fellow countryman’ – he inclined his head towards Andrew – ‘who discovered it in 1868. The pillar is Herodian, but the arch itself was almost certainly demolished during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, and rebuilt by the Umayyads in the seventh or eighth century. Now, if you will follow me …’

  He led them down a flight of steps towards the Western Wall where half-a-dozen Hasidim were praying, and a group of Israeli schoolchildren were being lectured by their teacher. ‘This is Warren’s Shaft,’ he said, ‘dug by another Englishman, Captain Warren, which established that we are now standing at least four metres above the level of the Herodian pavement …’

  Andrew had seen this before – so, too, had Cardinal Memel – and he could not tell whether Dagan did not realize this, or whether he was merely playing at taking an American colleague on a guided tour. Dutifully, Andrew peered down the shaft, and then followed the group towards the iron gate at the entrance to the tunnel.

  Here Dagan stopped while Jake unlocked it. ‘As you can imagine,’ he said, ‘the whole question of excavating around the Temple Mount is very delicate because we now pass under the Muslim quarter of the city. For that reason, this tunnel was not dug by the Department of Antiquities, but by the Department of Religious Affairs. Nevertheless, what has been uncovered is interesting, as you will see if you follow me.’