Transgression

by R. S. Ingermanson

  Ari was glad he hadn’t bothered to try.

  Rivka obviously knew this dance and also the Hebrew words. She glided lightly around the circle, her hands and feet moving in perfect unity, her face lit up with a smile.

  Where had she learned to dance like that? Ari found that he could not stop watching her. There was something strange about Rivka. No, not strange. Different. She was intelligent without being arrogant, nice-looking without being a prima donna. But there was something else, too. Ari couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  The music ended. Ari joined in the applause.

  Dov and Jessica stepped out of the circle. As Rivka followed them, one of the musicians stopped her and said something. Rivka nodded and went back into the circle.

  “Hey, Dov!” Ari said. “They’re stealing your lady.”

  Dov grinned. “She’s good, did you see it? Maybe she was a gypsy in a previous life, yes?”

  Jessica laughed.

  “Ari, you should have tried,” Dov said. “It was easy, mostly.”

  “Easy!” Jessica fanned herself. “I’m hot. I could use a beer.”

  “Me, too,” Dov said. “Hey, Ari, why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on Rivka while we go buy some drinks? Don’t let one of those musicians touch her, okay? She’s a nice girl.”

  Ari nodded. “I’ll stay.”

  A moment later, Dov and Jessica had disappeared into the human beehive of Ben Yehuda Street. The next dance was very fast and very complicated. Ari didn’t know the words or the melody. But Rivka did. She spun. She clapped. She whirled. She stomped. She sang. And all the while, her face seemed lit up with an otherworldly serenity.

  The song ended with a shout. The onlookers burst into applause.

  Ari clapped loudly.

  Rivka came out of the circle, shaking her head to the musicians’ pleas that she stay for another dance. She scanned the crowd.

  Ari waved at her.

  She glided toward him, smiling. “Where’s Dov and Jessica?”

  “They went to get some drinks,” Ari said. “Are you hot?”

  Rivka shook her head. “That was fun!”

  “Where did you learn to dance like that?” Ari said. “You’re very good.”

  “In San Diego,” Rivka said. “My…synagogue had some classes. You ought to try it sometime.”

  “Maybe I will,” Ari said. Which was crazy, of course. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, wondering what to say next. Finally, he asked, “Which synagogue do you go to in San Diego?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Beth Simcha.”

  “Is that Reform?” he asked. “Or Conservative?” She was obviously not Orthodox.

  Again, a strange little hesitation. “Actually, I don’t go there anymore since I went off to graduate school in Berkeley.”

  Ari suddenly realized that they were both speaking Hebrew. He hadn’t noticed because she was so fluent. “How long have you been here in Israel?” he asked. “You speak like a sabra.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say so,” Rivka said. “I’ve only been here three weeks, but I try to get Dov to speak Hebrew to me as much as possible. Of course, he wants to practice his English.”

  “But you’ve been speaking Hebrew a lot longer than three weeks,” Ari said.

  Rivka nodded. “I had to learn biblical Hebrew for my bat mitzvah. That’s when I discovered I had a little knack for languages. I got some tapes on modern Hebrew, and that helped with my accent.”

  “How many languages do you know?” Ari asked.

  “I forget,” Rivka said. “English, of course. And Hebrew. German in high school. Then I took Latin and koine Greek at community colleges, also while I was in high school. French in college, and a little bit of Russian. Then the weird ones—Aramaic, Ugaritic, Syriac, Ethiopic. One of these days, I’ll get around to Coptic. I’ve also picked up a little Arabic on the dig from one of the Jordanian students.”

  “That’s amazing,” Ari said. “Besides Hebrew, I know only English and Arabic and a little German. That’s enough.”

  “Maybe enough in physics,” Rivka said. “But if you study archaeology or the Ancient Near East or the classics, you’ve got to know a lot of languages. It’s not that bad, really. Ancient languages only have a few thousand words. You learn those, and a little grammar, and you’ve got it.”

  “No, thanks,” Ari said. “Mathematics—now that’s a language I can understand.”

  “That’s what my father says,” said Rivka. “He’s an applied mathematician at AT&T. He wanted me to go into computers.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Ari asked.

  “Sometimes I wish I had,” Rivka said. “It pays a lot better than archaeology, and you don’t have to swing a pick in the hot sun.”

  “What’s wrong with a little exercise?” Ari asked. “I happen to like digging.”

  “Really?” Rivka studied him, her eyebrows high.

  “Yes, really,” Ari said. “There’s a place southwest of Jerusalem where you can go and plant trees. It’s a tourist trap, but I have an arrangement with one of the managers. I like to go there when I get stuck with my equations, and he lets me plant trees until I find a solution.”

  “Oh, I wish I could do that,” Rivka said. “When I go back home, I would love to leave behind some trees that I had planted.”

  “It’s hard work, planting trees,” Ari said.

  “So is digging up old ruins,” Rivka said. “I’m tough. Will you take me tree-planting sometime?”

  Ari swallowed. Had he heard right? Had she just asked him for a…whatever? “Sure,” he heard himself saying. “When would you want to do that?”

  “I’m free tomorrow morning,” Rivka said. “Dov and Jessica and I are going to some museums in the afternoon.”

  Ari felt his head buzzing with a strange mixture of fear and warmth and excitement. He clenched his fists tightly to maintain control. Stay calm, Ari, you fool. Stay calm. “Very good, then.”

  “There they are!” Jessica’s voice, shrill, piercing.

  Ari turned and saw Dov and Jessica pressing through the crowd toward them. “You would like a Maccabee, yes?” Dov held up a can of beer.

  Ari suddenly felt thirsty. He took a can and popped the tab.

  Dov pressed one into Rivka’s hands. “And now where shall we go?” He punched Ari’s arm. “I see you eyeing that bookstore! Not tonight.”

  “Oh, couldn’t we just step in for a minute?” Rivka said. “I hate going past a bookstore without peeking inside.”

  Jessica took a long pull from her beer. “I’m game.”

  Dov shrugged. “If the ladies insist. But just a few minutes, yes? There is an art gallery up the street—very, very excellent—not to be missed.”

  The four headed toward the bookstore. Ari felt as if his head had detached from his shoulders and was now gliding several meters above his body. A warm glow of well-being had settled over him—a glow not due to the Maccabee.

  On its heels came fear.

  Don’t ruin things, Ari. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t make a fool of yourself.

  He would, sooner or later. He always did.

  It was as certain as any law of physics.

  Chapter 3

  Rivka

  “RIVKA, DO NOT MOVE.” ARI’S voice sounded calm and quiet. “There is a hornet resting on your back.”

  Rivka froze where she stood, bent over a hole. Ari had gone to get another tree. Now she could hear him padding up behind her, moving slowly. It was a breezy summer day, rich with the scent of moist earth and Jerusalem pine. Something tickled her nose. The pollen here must be similar to San Diego. Her allergies had been acting up all morning.

  “You’d better hurry, Ari, I’m going to—”

  A sneeze shuddered through Rivka’s body. An angry buzzing filled her ears. She dropped to the ground, dreading the sudden, sharp sting.

  Instead, she heard a string of angry Hebrew words, followed by the sound of swishing air.

  Sh
e spun around.

  Ari frantically batted at a hornet buzzing around his head. The insect zigged left, then right, then left again, darting around behind him. He swatted awkwardly at the back of his shoulder, then yelped.

  “Oh!” Rivka said. “Did he get you?”

  Ari’s face had gone very pale. He brushed something off the back of his shirt. “I told you not to move,” he said, his voice tight.

  “I’m sorry,” Rivka said. “It was my allergies.”

  Ari gave her a hard look. “I have an allergy, too—specifically to hornets.”

  Rivka gasped. “Do we need to get you to a hospital?”

  He shook his head and zipped open his neon-blue backpack lying on the ground. “There isn’t time. I could only survive about fifteen minutes without epinephrine.” He yanked out a small packet and ripped it open. Inside lay a syringe with a small quantity of liquid inside. He took the syringe, placed the needle on the vein at his left elbow, and pressed it in.

  Rivka’s knees felt weak. “I…I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Ari pulled out his wallet and selected a credit card. “Take this and try to scrape out the stinger.” He pulled up his shirt, exposing his lean brown back, and pointed at an angry red welt.

  Rivka peered at it and placed the card on his skin.

  “Apply a steady and even pressure,” he said.

  She scraped the card over the welt several times.

  “There,” he said. “You’ve got it.” He seemed to relax as he turned and took the card. “American Express.” He held it up next to his face and smiled. “Don’t leave home without it, correct?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Rivka said again. She felt terrible. Why had she gone and sneezed at just the wrong time?

  “Please, it is nothing,” Ari said. “It wasn’t your fault. I am stung frequently. They seem to like my smell.”

  Rivka attempted a smile. “Are you…going to be okay? Do you want to leave now?”

  Ari shrugged his shirt back on. “We still have this tree to plant, correct? I’ll be fine, but I will permit you to do the hard work on this one.”

  Rivka picked up the tree and promptly sneezed twice. “There’s something in the air here.” She lugged the tree to the hole they had dug, lowered it in, and pushed dirt around its base with her shoes. “Perfect,” she said.

  “Someday, there will be a forest around Jerusalem, as in days of old,” Ari said. “You must come back then and admire it.”

  “I’d love that,” Rivka said. She leaned on her shovel for a moment, happy and tired. They had been working for a couple of hours, and she had lost track of how many trees they had planted.

  “Hello, sir, ma’am, excuse me!” It was a young voice.

  Rivka turned around.

  A small Palestinian boy stood there holding a Polaroid camera. He pressed the button, and the tired motor ground out a white print.

  “Sir, how are you and your wife today?” the boy asked. “It is wonderful day for planting, yes? Very, very good day.” He held up the print and grinned broadly, revealing teeth much too big for his small face.

  Rivka guessed he couldn’t be more than six years old.

  “It is a beautiful tree you have planted,” the boy said. He looked again at the print, and his smile widened as the image formed. “And a most lovely lady to help you plant it, sir.” He held the print toward Ari. “A bargain for you, sir. Almost free! Ten dollar!” He took Ari’s hand and put the picture in his open palm.

  “Little boy,” Rivka said, “you shouldn’t have wasted your film on us. We don’t want your picture.”

  Ari was looking at the picture with an odd expression on his face. He pulled out his wallet.

  “Ari!” Rivka said. “This is silly. It’s a scam. That’s not worth ten dollars. Didn’t you see the movie Terminator? You remember the ending—”

  Ari pulled out two shekel coins and handed them to the boy. “We will go now, Rivka.”

  The boy stared at the coins. “You did not hear me, sir? Ten dollar! It is a very good price, my friends. Almost free!”

  Ari gathered the two shovels and took them back to the man supervising the planting.

  “Okay, sir, you win!” shouted the boy. “Five dollar! It is like nothing, yes?”

  Ari headed toward his Volkswagen. Rivka followed him.

  “Two dollar, sir!” the boy screeched behind them. “Like stealing, for only two dollar!”

  Ari unlocked the door and Rivka jumped inside. He shut the door and went around to his own side.

  “One dollar,” the boy shouted behind them. “You win, my friend! One dollar!”

  Ari started the car and backed up out of the lot.

  Rivka turned to stare at him, a hard, cold knot forming in her stomach. “How can you cheat a little boy like that?” she asked.

  “Look behind us,” Ari said.

  Rivka looked back. The boy was running toward a Palestinian man, waving the coins aloft. The man wore a smile.

  “He cheated me,” Ari said, grinning. “But only a little.”

  They drove with the windows open because the car had no air-conditioning. The noise made it almost impossible to talk.

  Rivka sat back and enjoyed the scenery. Ari was a very nice guy, much like Dov, only less exuberant. He didn’t seem to be full of his own brilliance, like plenty of academics she knew. And while he pretended to be a gruff, tough sabra, under that exterior lay a gentle spirit. Which came as no surprise. Sabra was the English version of the Hebrew word tsavar, the native desert cactus—tough on the outside, tender on the inside.

  Jessica seemed to like him a lot. She had talked of little else last night at the hostel. Rivka hoped that Ari liked Jessica. Maybe Dov’s little matchmaking scheme might actually lead to something. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

  Twenty minutes later, they arrived on the campus of the Hebrew University. Ari stopped in the parking lot of the physics department, next to Dov’s VW.

  “It appears that our friends are already here,” he said. “Shall we go up to my office?”

  Rivka nodded. “You can show me your time machine.”

  Ari snorted and spent the next five minutes explaining why she should call it a “timelike self-intersecting loop.”

  Ari’s office was empty. “They must have gone to Damien’s laboratory,” he said.

  When they entered the lab on the third floor, Rivka spotted Dov and Jessica at the far end of the large room. Beside them stood a late-fortyish man with a thick head of blond hair, a linebacker’s shoulders, and an enormous smile. The three stood around a personal computer. Dov wore a virtual reality headset and clutched a joystick.

  “Hello, Damien,” Ari said. “Shalom, Dov, Jessica. I have brought your hardworking colleague back from the future forest of Jerusalem.” He turned to Rivka. “Rivka, this is Professor Damien West, from Northwestern University in your America. Damien, this is Rivka Meyers, studying archaeology at Berkeley.”

  Rivka smiled and shook his hand. “You must be the brains behind the infamous timelike self-intersecting loop.”

  Dr. West burst into laughter. “Ari, have you been propagandizing again? Just call the beast a time machine, will you? How else are we going to get the National Enquirer interested?”

  Dov yanked the virtual reality headset off his head. “Most awesome, this software. Where can I get it?”

  Dr. West jerked his thumb toward the door. “The guys in the next lab are collaborating on this with the archaeology department. It’s still in beta, but they ought to be willing to let you play with a copy. They’re going to call it Avatar when they go commercial.”

  “Avatar?” Rivka said. “As in the incarnation of a Hindu god?”

  “That’s one definition,” Dr. West said. “But avatar is a buzzword among computer geeks for any type of role-playing character, especially in virtual-reality games like this one. Do you want to try it?”

  Rivka looked at her watch. “Oh my gosh! I didn’t realize we were so late. Dov
, have you and Jessica been waiting long?”

  “Only an hour,” Dov said. “But Professor West gave us a most entertaining lecture on his time machine. Furthermore, we had also the Avatar game to amuse us. Rivka, you really must try it. You can walk through the Second Temple, speak with the people, observe the sacrifices, hear the music, everything except smell the incense! Really very good.”

  “Some other time,” Rivka said. “If we’re going to see the Burnt House and the Wohl Archaeological Museum and the Gihon Spring, we’ll need to hurry.”

  “Access to the spring is closed today,” Dov said. “There was a small incident in the Arab Quarter this morning.” He shrugged. “Maybe next weekend, yes?”

  “Yes,” Rivka said. “You promised a guided tour yesterday, and I’m going to get it!”

  “And you can see the lab, too,” Ari said. “If Damien ever gets our machine to work, maybe Dov can show you the original Temple Mount.”

  “Sounds like a deal to me,” Rivka said. A number of blue metallic boxes against the wall caught her eye. She wandered over and bent down to inspect one.

  A powerful hand clamped on her shoulder. “Miss Meyers, that capacitor stores enough charge to reshuffle your deck permanently.”

  Rivka stood up slowly.

  Dr. West took his hand off her shoulder. “Of course, it has a grounding plate, but did you check for it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not quite sure what that would look like.”

  “Safety first, Miss Meyers! It only takes one accident to screw up your whole life.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “In my lab, I want you to think. And when you do, think safety.”

  Jessica had picked up a brick-shaped object from the table with both hands. “Good grief! What’s in this thing? It must weigh fifty pounds!”

  “It’s a lead brick. For shielding.” Dr. West shook his head as he crossed over to her. “I’ll take that, Miss Weinberg. If you dropped it on your foot, you’d scream like a burning cat.” He took the brick in one hand and idly did a few curls, as if it were a dumbbell.