Damascus Gate (68 page)

"Are you Jewish, Mr. Lucas?"

Lucas began to stammer. "B-by background," he succeeded in saying. "Partly. But I wasn't raised in the Jewish faith."

"I see," she said, and gave him a reassuring smile. Then her face darkened with grief. Years overtook it.

"We thought with him here ... he might be less tempted. To extreme behavior."

Wrong, Lucas thought. Not tempted to extreme behavior here? Here, in the center of the world, where earth touches heaven? Where the destiny of man was written, where words of fire were made flesh, where prophecy uttered in remote millennia determined the morning? In the place whence all we knew of God absconded, promised return, pretended return, promised messengers, whispered messages? Where the invisible wrote fate on stone? Eternally messages, promises. Next year. In the beginning.

Where what was above met what was below, where that which was before met that which was to come. The garden of marble fountains where death, madness, heresy and salvation were all to be found. Less tempted to extreme behavior here?

"Of course," he said.

O
N A NIGHT
soon after his talk with Mrs. Melker, Lucas held his promised meeting with Basil Thomas. This time they did not patronize Fink's, Lucas's and Thomas's favorite spot in town. Instead, they met at a hole-in-the-wall café along Hebron Road, between the Egged depot and the Ramat Rahel kibbutz. It was too warm even for Thomas to wear his leather coat, and he seemed very nervous.

"I have been asked to tell you," Thomas said, as though reciting from memory, "that if you do not act indiscreetly, interesting information may emerge over time. I have been asked to say that it will be information you may use in a book-length project. I have been asked also to say that it is suggested you make plans to leave the country for a considerable period. You will be advised when a return visit is advisable, if your research requires one."

"Am I correct in assuming," Lucas asked, "that the source of your information is no longer the organization whose proposition you offered me before?"

Thomas looked at him dully. Though he wore only a white sport shirt, the big man was perspiring heavily. Then he nodded in the affirmative. Perhaps, Lucas thought, he was wearing a wire. Lucas found the idea of such elaborate, high-tech precautions unlikely, but the notion was daunting. Moreover, Thomas was damp enough to electrocute himself.

"Am I also correct," Lucas asked, "in thinking that the members of that organization..."

Thomas began to shake his head frantically, indicating the inadvisability of such a question.

"That that organization no longer exists?"

Basil Thomas then assumed an attitude of extreme frustration, the frustration of a dealer in information, a dealer-connoisseur, attempting to keep his disclosures within the limit of instructions. He made a slightly equivocal gesture with his hands and then said, "Yes."

"Have there been arrests?"

Basil Thomas nodded slowly.

"Will the arrests be announced?"

Thomas then relaxed and wiped his brow and looked at his watch.

"So late," he said. "Forgive me." He stood up and walked out of the café, saying nothing about being paid for his tale-bearing, only leaving Lucas to pay the check.

 

The next afternoon, when Lucas had packed everyone's belongings at the bungalow in Ein Kerem, he held a brief afternoon's entertainment for Ernest Gross and Dr. Obermann. He served vodka, mineral water and lemonade, along with crackers and small wedges of wrapped French cheese.

"Did you have your meeting with Thomas?" Ernest asked him.

"I did," Lucas said. "He doesn't seem to be speaking for the underground any longer. He's speaking for elements inside the government."

Ernest looked troubled.

"And are we still in business?" Obermann asked.

"Apparently," Lucas told him, "we're still in business. Whoever they are, they seem to want to use us as a conduit."

"As a control," Ernest Gross said. "Like releasing water from a reservoir into a wadi. Shaping the narrative."

"I admit it's a little humiliating," Lucas said. "But it's all we have. Also, they want me out of the country for now."

"Presumably you have enough to keep you busy," Obermann said. He brightened immediately. "Look what I have here. Pictures from the excavation." He went into his briefcase and removed a box of slides and a hand projector. "Just take a look."

"How did you get them?" Ernest asked.

"Aha!" said Dr. Obermann, blooming with self-satisfaction. "Aha!"

"Never mind aha," Lucas said. "How did you?"

"My comrade in the reserves is with the Israel Museum," Obermann said. "My comrade and patient. While they're sorting it out, they're having some archeologists have a look at Sabazios's chamber. Everyone's in uniform, and the Golani are posted all around, so it just looks like part of the investigation. I got these copies from him."

Lucas held the hand projector so that he and Ernest could both view the slides. They showed a series of frescoes on the walls at the top of the chamber that Lucas had been too preoccupied to notice that night. There were also several slides of the statue of Sabazios and of a disembodied hand, its fingers raised in a gesture of benediction. Obermann stood behind his friends and offered commentary.

"The hand is the palm of the lord Sabazios, and the Jewish syn-cretists knew him as Theos Hypostasis, or the Almighty, or Sabazios Sabaoth. In his mystery cult, he was united with Zeus and Persephone, or with Hermes Trismegistus and Isis. Alone, he was the Lord of Hosts."

Fascinated, Lucas fed the slides into the viewer.

"At the ceremonies in his honor, bread and wine were consumed. The blessing symbolized the Trinity and became the
Benedicta Latina.
His cult was absorbed either into Gnosticism or into Christianity. Essenes, Theraputae, Sabazians, they were all there at the beginning. He's wearing a Phrygian cap, by the way, because he was once a Phrygian god, and Jews from Phrygia and Armenia probably brought him to Jerusalem."

One of the frescoes showed a charioteer driving a quadriga across the sky. A second chariot followed, that one full of symbols of the
merkabah
of Ezekiel.

"Can this have been part of the Temple?" Lucas asked.

"It would have been a very secret, unofficial part," Obermann said. "But, as in the Bible, people were always grafting their own favorite cults onto the body of the national religion.
Hammot,
the questionable shrines were called. The whole series of rooms leading to the chamber was a classic labyrinth. You could get well and truly lost in it."

"How appropriate," Lucas said, changing slides.

"It looks like something from the early Christian era," Obermann said. "So it was probably built before 70
C.E.
by Gnostic
minim.
"

"Interesting," Lucas said, "about the bread and wine."

"Suggests something, no?" Obermann asked. "Of course, it's possible it was built in the ruins during the Sassanid occupation, but that's less likely."

The next group of slides portrayed things astronomical.

Obermann reached around Lucas's head to point with his finger. "The sun," he told them, "the greater light. Around it, the constellations of the zodiac with their Hebrew names. Around them
tekuphot,
human figures representing the seasons of the year. Also the Dioscuri. There's a synagogue in Chorazin with the same figures."

The next picture looked to Lucas like a communion feast.

"Is this...?"

"It's a communion feast," Obermann said. "Hermes Trismegistus is there. Also Alcestis and the archangel Gabriel."

"Unbelievable," Lucas said.

"Something for everyone," said Obermann.

"And who were the people who worshiped here?" Lucas asked. "Were they Jews?"

"Some yes, some no. Gentiles in search of monotheism, Jews trying to ease the austerity of the
mitzvot.
Or, if you like, attempting to universalize the Law."

"The dream," Lucas said.

"The New Age dreamers of their time," said Obermann. "People who had lost their confidence, who needed to be saved. And in their labyrinths," he said with a flourish, "Christianity was born."

Lucas saw him as practicing for the television special.

"The believers," he went on, "probably became Christians or Gnostics or both."

"Whose idea was it to plant the fake bomb there?" Ernest asked.

"It's the ideal place," Obermann said. "As a protest against
hammot,
against idolatry. Against religious tourism, you might say. And I'm sure the structural dynamics were favorable. The question is, who found it? The Temple builders and their underground? Or the ones who beat them to it?"

"Did you see the paper?" Ernest Gross asked. "The cabinet change? Zhidov out, Lind back in?"

"I did," said Lucas. "Do you think that's all it was about? That whole con game? Complete with fake explosion?"

"Not entirely," Ernest said. "I think there was probably a real bomb plot—maybe a couple of bomb plots—that was penetrated by Shabak or some ad hoc outfit. Maybe they suddenly couldn't keep track, the way they lost control of Hamas.

"They must have thought unless they preempted it and brought in the major players, a bomb would really go off. So they had to do what they do with the Arabs. Fight fire with fire. And Lind, who is a master operator, could conceivably have used it to his advantage. We'll probably never know. But maybe," Ernest said to Lucas, "someday you'll get to meet Avram Lind."

"I can't wait," Lucas said.

"The problem is," said Ernest, "the Palestinians will be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there really was a bomb. The way they dozed it, it
looks
like a bloody bomb. Presently people will start remembering an explosion they never heard."

"I remember an explosion," Lucas said.

"Was there one?" Ernest asked.

"No," said Lucas. "I don't think so."

"Exactly," Ernest said. "Presently the Europeans will all be sure we did it. With the help of the CIA. The French. The Scandinavians."

"But you didn't," said Lucas. "Obermann and I will say that."

"Good luck," Ernest said. "A couple of Jews."

Dr. Obermann put his slides away.

"You know," he told Lucas, "I met Mrs. Melker the other day."

"I thought she'd look you up. Any change in Razz's condition?"

Obermann shook his head. "But what a beautiful woman," he said. "I'd love to see more of her. Perhaps I will."

Lucas and Ernest looked at each other.

"Sure, Obermann," Lucas said. "Put the moves on her. You're an Israeli—you've got to go for it. Forget the fact that her only son's in a coma. That her husband is a former American ambassador and a congressman. Make her trip to the Holy Land a memorable one. You asshole!"

Ernest stood up to go. "You know," he said, "I understand them. I do. I can sympathize with them."

It was Lucas and Obermann's turn to exchange looks.

"With whom, Ernest?" Lucas asked.

"With the people who want to build the Temple. Because they want the Land to stand for more than just all-night falafel stands in Tel Aviv. I didn't come all the way from Durban for that. I want it to mean something too."

"But it does," Obermann said. "It will."

He looked at Lucas again and began to speak. But then, as though he had been reminded of something, he went back to packing his slides.

S
ONIA HAD BEEN
lying on her sofa watching a tennis match on television when Lucas arrived at her apartment in Rehavia. A bowl of fruit was set beside the couch. Her hands were bandaged and she had a gauze dressing over one ear. She was wearing a kerchief to cover the places where her hair was gone.

"They're all first-degree burns," she said. "So I'm coping."

"First degree?" Lucas said. "That sounds bad."

"Actually it's good. Superficial. From the flash. Third degree is bad." She looked at herself in a wall mirror. "Even though I look like a crispy critter." She gave the smile that always quickened his heart a little. "Thanks for coming to the hospital with me. And for waiting around."

"Hey," Lucas said. "Least I could do."

"How's Razz?"

"No better."

"Any hope, do they say?"

"I don't think they know. I don't think he's brain dead. Just comatose. So I guess there's always hope. You know, I met his mother the other day. She might be calling you while she's here."

"What's she like?"

"She's lovely," Lucas said. "Beautiful. Heartbroken. Gets to you."

"I'm sure," Sonia said. "Do you have any more of a line on what happened?"

"A lot we'll probably never know," Lucas said. He gave her a rundown on what he knew about the things that they had seen and been part of. He told her what he knew about the scattered disciples. The Rose had taken a leave home to Canada. Sister John was in Holland.

"I think a lot about Nuala," Sonia said. "Nuala and Rashid. Could have been me, you know."

"I guess so," Lucas said. "One of the last casualties of the Cold War."

"But they'll never name a street after them," Sonia said. "Or a dorm at Lumumba University. I don't even think they call it Lumumba University anymore."

"We'll remember," Lucas said. "Of course, she could be a terrible pain in the ass."

"That was her job, Chris. Bugging complacent bourgeois types like you."

"She was good at it."

They sat in silence while the tennis match ran with the sound off.

"I have to leave the country for a while," he said. "How about coming with me?"

"Oh, gee," she said. His heart sank then because he could see she was about to keep it light, could see how it would end with them. Nothing, though, could keep him from trying for her. He'd beg, if that would help. But he knew that nothing would. "Where would we go?"

"I thought we might get a place on the Upper West Side. Around Columbia, maybe. You know, I grew up there."

"Yes, I know," she said. "Wouldn't that be nice."

Because he had nothing to lose, he told her everything he had hoped for, dreamed about.