Gospel (86 page)

There on top of the Wall and the Temple Mount was the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the earliest mosques in Islam from 702, commemorating Mohammed's night journey to Heaven. And within view of both shrines in this realm of prayer, soldiers and Uzis and pillboxes and barbed wire.

(Remembrance and abomination, side by side, as it always is with Our children. Where is the Temple without the money changers? A mosque without the poison of fanaticism? A Church without hypocrisy?)

Lucy observed a young boy in the throes of his bar mitzvah, being whirled about on the shoulders of his father as the men formed a circle and danced and cried praise for another Jewish man brought into the tribe. The women in the family clapped, segregated to the side.

I am a creature, thought Lucy, unfashionable and politically incorrect as it may be in 1990, of the Eurocentric Western World, thank God. She was vaguely ill at ease with Eastern religiosity. Whether it was long-bearded Jews abasing themselves at the wall, Moslems ritually fanning the ground five times a day, or the myriad of Oriental Christian incense-sodden pieties, it was all in her final reckoning no different than Aborigines around the fire, American Natives before the totem, sun worship, stone worship, survivals of tribalism and primitivism. No, she preferred her intellectualized God of the grad-school coffee lounge, the reasonable American God of the Deists of the Enlightenment and Founding Fathers, benign and held at a safe distance just in case. I adore a private negotiable God of the heart, she realized.

They adjourned to Hurva Square for their after-dinner walk.

Hurva Square in the Jewish Quarter, narrated the rabbi, is the most successful Israeli architectural accomplishment. Bombed to ruin in the 1967 War for Jerusalem, and never much more than a slum before that, the rubble was cleared to make a plaza at once modern and respectful of the past, out of the same white stone of the ancient city. An arch, representing the dome of the great Hurva Synagogue, reminds visitors of the lively Jewish life that once was here—and is here again. O'Hanrahan observed some Israeli boys playing an impromptu game of soccer while two elder Orthodox rabbis walked through their playing field oblivious, committed to disagreement. They passed a series of columns exposed from an excavation on the edge of the square, Hadrian's Cardo, remnants of a once-grand Roman avenue.

At a café in the square, O'Hanrahan sat and, despite protests from his companions, who had had enough wine, ordered a bottle, something red from the slopes of Carmel.

The rabbi sipped and grimaced. “Yelllch. Next time get a bottle of California something-or-other. By the way, Paddy, come by the house sometime this visit and see if there's any of Shimon's books you want before I unload them all to the Christers.”

“
That
is the most unseemly alliance made this century,” O'Hanrahan declaimed. “Used to be Jews and liberals were the same thing in the U.S. but since the late '70s American Jews vote Republican, which they think serves Israel. They took Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker's money, stood on platforms with redneck Baptists who ten years ago were burning crosses in Jews' front yards. And don't think a Yalie WASP like George Bush likes Israel, because he doesn't—”

“Hey,” the rabbi shrugged, “Israel's gotta pay the bills somehow.”

O'Hanrahan: “Tell Lucy about the library, Morey, if you can bear to utter the words.”

The rabbi cleared his throat. “He acts as if I commit a crime. Rabbi Shimon Feldman, an inveterate bibliophile, left his library of thousands of volumes to the Hebrew University Capital Committee, of which I am a member. Feldman had over 5000 books of Old Testament commentaries, some, I am proud to say, the only existing English editions of the lesser medieval rabbis.”

“So,” interrupted O'Hanrahan, “guess who Morey's gonna sell it to? Guess!”

The rabbi remained calm. “I put feelers out and figured I could expect a few thousand bucks for it. Then I took out an ad in an American Baptist Conference magazine and, boom—I'm up to $45,000 for the whole library at Bob Jones University. Got a damn good offer from Oral Roberts's place too.”

The professor was disgusted. “Luce, can you imagine? Selling a first-rate library to Bob Jones? Why not a Judaica department in some small Brooklyn college?”

As they argued, Lucy contented herself with the parade of Israelis in the square, who ranged from secular and stylish to Ultra-Orthodox and severe. Two earnest Hasidic fellows were stopping American male tourists and asking them if they had a minute, and if they paused, they were asked if they were Jewish; if not, they welcomed them to Israel perfunctorily. If so, they were invited to a service and were immediately engaged in debate: Why wasn't a kipot on their head? Where had they been attending prayers? What were they doing for the Sabbath? Why hadn't they sought to study Talmud, Mishnah, the Pirke Avoth—why this decadence in America? And God help them if the innocents turned out to be Reformed Jews. Lucy thought: the rite of Judaism is argument.

“So these guys in suits come in and sit me down,” the rabbi was saying. “And they ask me what I'm going to ask you: have you ever heard of the phrase ‘Flight of the Griffin'?”

O'Hanrahan: “‘Flight of the Griffin'?”

“Just what I said. I asked why these Israeli government hacks wanted to know, and they said they couldn't tell me, just had I heard of that phrase. Weird stuff.”

O'Hanrahan shared his own brush with mysterious authorities. “We got a strange visit this morning, too. A Clem Underwood representing the State Department in Greece. He helped get me off the hook after my trouble in Mt. Athos.”

“What did he want?”

O'Hanrahan looked heavenward. “Who knows? I thought it was odd that some functionary from the Thessalonika consulate took a trip to Israel to ask about my health. So I went by way of the phone center and called Athens and asked to speak to personnel, pretended I wanted to send a letter of thanks … and what do you know? No one named Underwood works for the Greek embassy.”

Lucy sat up in her chair.

All these fellow travelers irked Rabbi Hersch to impatience: “Can Father Vico be bought? I was thinking of bribing the guy to hand over the
Gospel of Matthias.
How long before someone else steals it?”

O'Hanrahan drained his glass of wine. O'Hanrahan wouldn't have admitted it if his life depended on it, but he preferred to have the scroll right where it was. In a place in which
he,
Patrick O'Hanrahan, was the go-between. Once Hebrew University gets it again, who's to say what will happen? It may be assigned to other scholars. Mordechai Hersch may call in a group of translators to help out, including Father Beaufoix. Rabbi Hersch was thoroughly unconcerned with who got the credit and glory; he just wanted it done so his Josephus book could be completed. O'Hanrahan clapped his hands as if to sidetrack this development. “Tell us a story, Rabbi.”

Lucy, enjoying the cheap sweet red wine, feeling drunk and at ease on Mount Zion, put her legs up in her chair and got comfortable.

“All right,” he said. “But I expect your interpretation, little girl. This is a tale of Elimelech of Lizhensk, who died in 1786, a disciple of none other than the Dov Baer of Mezritch.”

This meant nothing to Lucy but she smiled familiarly.

“It was the Feast of Weeks and everyone was warm inside, all the students and rabbis, eating, and rejoicing and drinking, and the Hasidim were no strangers to drink, I can tell you.

“Elimelech is thinking, ‘Ah, what a wonderful feast, what happiness,' until a brash pupil stood and said, ‘Oh Rabbi, this is almost perfect. If only we had the Wine of Life that they drink in Paradise.'

“And Rabbi Elimelech considered this and said, all right kid, I will send you on an errand to fetch the Wine of Life. Get two buckets and a pole and balance the buckets at the ends of the pole and go down to the cemetery on this stormy night. Go into the very center of the graveyard and say, ‘Salutations, spirits, Elimelech has sent me for the Wine of Life.' Now the spirits will help you and fill your buckets, though it may be invisible. In any event, you turn around and come back and be careful not to spill a drop. So the young man does as he's told, goes to the middle of the cemetery.

“And the wind blows and he feels a chill up his spine. He hears the voices of the long-dead moaning, moaning, saying, ‘Give us a drop of the wine, we are so thirsty…' So he begins to run! Trying to keep the buckets steady he feels the hands of the spirits upon him, he feels his heart being touched by icy fingers, and all around him the wind carries moans of the dead to his ears! He trips and falls and breaks the pole and stumbles over the buckets, hurting himself. In terror, he runs through the door of the feast and slams it behind him.

“And the Rabbi Elimelech looks up and tells the young man, ‘Fool, sit down.'”

That was it.

Lucy took a deep breath and ventured:

“It means … I think Rabbi Elimelech sent his student to the cemetery for the Wine of Life knowing he would get spooked and terrify himself with the idea of ghosts and graves and death in the dark. And thereby the student learned that graves and darkness and death await everyone … and that coming back to the table, into the warmth and light, with the food and drink and fellowship of men who love God, that
that
was the greatest pleasure, the Wine of Life that they drink in Paradise.”

The rabbi bowed. “And is it not true?”

It was a mistake but the rabbi ordered a final carafe of wine.

The effect of the inoculations and too much wine had Lucy reeling. She propped herself against a stone wall of the café and had to be retrieved by the older men. “Take me home,” she insisted, still managing a smile.

“Taxi!” called O'Hanrahan, laughing at his own joke, for no cars could drive into Hurva Square, or any of the narrow alleyways of the Old City. It would mean an arduous, uphill walk up those damn steps of David Street again. In the process of walking, the balance of power shifted and it was O'Hanrahan who proved too wiped out to walk a straight line.

“How'd he get insensate, for Christ's sake…” said Rabbi Hersch, struggling to support O'Hanrahan between himself and Lucy.

“He was so energetic a minute ago,” Lucy said, taking the professor's other arm, aiming him down the closed market-street.

The Old City, once night fell, reverted back to the sleepiest of villages; bedtime was early since many of the populace got up at dawn to tend their stalls in the market or for the dawn services. It was deserted and a little scary.

“Is this the Via Dolorosa?” asked O'Hanrahan, recognizing a landmark.

Rabbi Hersch: “Just put one foot, then the next foot—”

O'Hanrahan broke free from his captors: “Our Lady of the Spasm!”

Rabbi Hersch: “We're almost up the hill now, that's it, that's it…”

“The Stations of the Drunk! Whoooops…”

(O'Hanrahan Falls for the Hundredth Time.)

That tumble seemed to wake him up. “Just a minute, guys,” he said, upright again and swerving to a nearby alley. “Station Thirteen,” he announced. “The Urination.”

Lucy stood apart from this spectacle and, shaking her head, propped herself woozily against a wall.

O'Hanrahan: “The ostension of the relics!”

When a taxi appeared at the taxi-rank within the Jaffa Gate, Rabbi Hersch and Lucy deposited O'Hanrahan into the back of the station wagon, where he slumped over the whole of the seat. Lucy and the rabbi scooted into the front seat, uncomfortably intimate. As the elderly driver continually mumbled an ignored moral lecture in Yiddish, Lucy found herself virtually on Rabbi Hersch's lap.

“This can't go on,” said the rabbi calmly.

“I know,” she said. “But we got a lot done today. Really.”

“A team of scholars would do better,” he answered her. “We need half a dozen people I could name to fly in and brainstorm and figure this mess out.”

Lucy shared O'Hanrahan's sense of loss at the prospect of renowned scholars descending on
their
project.

The rabbi said nothing until they arrived at the driveway before the King David Hotel lobby. O'Hanrahan came to and straightened his disarranged silver hair, his rumpled jacket. “Well,” he said, tasting one too many cigars in his raw throat, “if you'll excuse me.”

Lucy and the rabbi watched him trip on the curb and recover before falling. A bagman asked if he wished to be accompanied to his room, and O'Hanrahan waved him away. As soon as he disappeared inside the lobby, Rabbi Hersch said coldly, “I think, little girl, it's time to get Paddy back to Chicago before he self-destructs.”

And her along with him, Lucy reasoned. “He's not
that
bad.”

“Not that bad? The way you were describing him in Cyprus and Rhodes didn't sound so good. And tonight!”

“Rabbi, sir,
you
ordered the last bottle of wine. I don't think it's fair to keep filling his glass and have a good time and then at the end of the evening say, well, that's it, Dr. O'Hanrahan can't behave himself, let's send him home.”

“You know what I'm taking about, don't pretend you don't.” The cab driver asked if his presence was required any longer and the rabbi motioned him to hold on. Was he being paid for it, he asked. Yes yes, you'll get your money, the rabbi shot back. “Look,” Rabbi Hersch continued, “I had hoped your presence would help Paddy reform just a little, but I know this guy. In a week he'll be back to his old antics and he'll walk all over the likes of you. He ought to go home, where if he gets sick he can be taken care of—”

“What home?” Lucy asked, as the rabbi seated himself again in the taxi. “He sold it, remember?”

“Maybe if
you
should go home, he'll follow you.”