Transgression

by R. S. Ingermanson

  “What are you doing?” Ari asked. “She can’t walk in her condition.”

  “I’m fine,” Rivka said.

  “Does your head hurt?” Baruch asked.

  “No, not at all.” Rivka rolled her head around in a slow circle, then shook it gently. “It feels fine. Where are we? What happened to Dr. West?”

  “He escaped,” Ari said. “You broke his weapon.” He reached out and shook her hand. “Congratulations, Rivka. You won. You’ve defeated Damien. Now we must go home. The wormhole is to shut down at once.”

  “How do you know?” Rivka said. Worry lines etched themselves across her face. “I don’t think we should go back yet.”

  “We have to!” Ari turned and raced back to the phone, which had fallen in the dirt. The connection had broken. Hastily, he punched in Dov’s number again and stepped into the wormhole. “Rivka, please come stand with me and speak to Dov.”

  * * *

  Dov

  Dov answered the phone after half a ring. It was now connected to a speaker system so that all in the room could hear both ends of the conversation. His whole body ached with anxiety.

  “Ari! Do not play any more games, please! The Haredim are very unhappy. Shabbat is approaching, and we have passed the deadline to cut off power to the device. I have given orders to open the door.”

  “No!” Rivka’s voice squawked through the phone.

  “Rivka, is that you?” Dov shouted. What was going on? “Ari said you were severely injured.” Beads of sweat slid down his face. He looked up nervously.

  The Haredim crowded round him, dark suspicion in their eyes.

  Dov had never hated anyone the way he hated these black-coated men.

  “I’m fine!” Rivka shouted.

  “Not true,” Ari’s voice cut in. “She had a serious head injury, Dov, a concussion. Apparently, the effects are wearing off, but—”

  Dov wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Ari and Rivka were making a fool of him, and the Haredim would not stand for this.

  “I’m fine!” Rivka shouted again. “And I’m not coming back yet.”

  “Yes, you are,” Ari said. “Dov, please open the door. We are coming through at once.”

  “No!” Rivka shouted. “I have to stay! Dov, can you keep the wormhole open for one more day? I just know Dr. West has another trick up his sleeve. I’ve got to stop—”

  “Open the door, Dov!” Ari said. Then the line went quiet.

  Apparently Ari had covered the mouthpiece with his hand. A black-suited Haredi dialed up the amplification on the sound system until the static roared. Dov heard the muffled sound of Ari’s voice. “Rivka, this is serious. The idiot Haredim want to shut down the wormhole right now. You are coming with me now. Is that clear?”

  Dov’s ears burned. The circle of Haredim glared at him, fury smoldering in their eyes. “Ari, Rivka, please listen! I am going to open the door and let you through, and then we will shut down the device.” Dov stepped toward the door. Nobody moved to stop him.

  As Dov passed by Dr. Hsiu, the stoop-shouldered physicist tweaked the knobs again. The power supply sparked wildly for a moment. “Now, go!” Dr. Hsiu said. “Safe for another minute, maybe. Hurry!”

  Dov leaped to the door and flung it open.

  * * *

  Ari

  Terror clawed at Ari’s heart. “Stop it, Rivka!” Ari said. “We’ve got to go now.” He pulled again on her hand.

  He heard the door to the laboratory fly open behind him.

  “I won’t go,” Rivka said. “I’ve got to stay for one more day.”

  “We don’t have another day,” Ari said. “We have one minute. They are serious, Rivka!”

  Rivka yanked her hand free from Ari and hit him in the chest. “Go! Go get your precious Nobel prize, Mr. Great Physicist! I’m staying.”

  Baruch and Hana and Miryam stepped into the wormhole. Blessed be HaShem! One of them could talk sense into Rivka. “Hana! Please speak wisdom to her. Sister Miryam! Brother Baruch! Say something.”

  “I’m not a child, Ari Kazan,” Rivka said. “This is my decision. I am staying. Now go. You have thirty seconds. Save yourself.”

  “Ari!” his Imma shouted from inside the laboratory. “Ari, come home!”

  Dov’s voice joined in. “Quickly, Ari. Rivka, come!”

  “Go!” Rivka said.

  Ari turned to look into the laboratory. Dov stood barely two meters away, restrained by two soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces. “Come now, Ari!”

  He took a step toward the lab. There was no point in staying. Damien’s quest had proved hopeless, just as the mathematics required. Rivka had gone crazy or something. She wasn’t going to return, and he couldn’t force her. On the other side of that door waited his family, his friends, and very likely a Nobel.

  And on this side?

  Only the woman he was unfortunate enough to love.

  Which was crazy. She did not love him, and she would not have him even if she did love him. Because of religious differences. Ridiculous religious differences.

  Ari made his decision. Quickly, he stepped onto the threshold of the doorway.

  “He’s coming!” someone shouted. “Step back and let him through!”

  Dov and the soldiers backed away from the door.

  Ari could see his Imma, hysterical, held back by his step-father and younger brother. Around them, the black-suited Haredim. Dr. Hsiu grinned at him from the console of the power supply.

  Ari leaned into the lab and grabbed the doorknob.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I will not come back without her. May the God of our fathers bless you all.”

  He stepped backward and shut the door. The last sound he heard was his Imma screaming.

  Ari turned and pushed his friends back, away from the wormhole. “Hurry!” he shouted. “Get out of the cave.”

  They fled before him. Rivka tripped and fell on the ground.

  Ari scooped her up and set her on her feet. “I love you,” he said.

  Hand in hand, they staggered toward daylight.

  * * *

  Mordecai

  Mordecai was sick to death of this godless apikoros, this Lifshutz, who thought himself more important than the Torah. And Kazan, crazy after a foolish woman.

  “Just wait another day!” Dov shouted. “Rivka is not well! She has lost her sanity.”

  But Mordecai had no more time to waste. Shabbat would soon appear—Queen Shabbat, the delight of all the week. It would be an abomination to allow the atheists to violate Shabbat.

  Mordecai signaled to his friends. Avner muscled the Chinese physicist away from the power console.

  “What are you doing?” Lifshutz shouted. “Get away from that thing!” He rushed forward.

  Arik and Shmuli stepped in front of him. Tsvi and Shaul grappled him from behind.

  Mordecai stepped to the power supply and pulled down on the red power-off switch.

  A shower of sparks flew up from the device. Something behind the door made a tremendous bang. Mad with glee, Mordecai spontaneously raised his M-16 and fired into the power supply. The shot echoed through the lab.

  Silence followed—the peace of approaching Shabbat.

  Blessed be HaShem!

  * * *

  Dov

  When the switch closed, Dov involuntarily shut his eyes. He heard a bang, followed shortly by a rifle shot. Then silence. He dared to look. The red light on the power supply had gone out.

  Cheers erupted around the room. Dr. Hsiu rushed at the man with the gun, jabbering at him furiously in Chinese. It took several minutes for the confusion to die down.

  The CNN crew made its way forward. “Mr. Lifshutz, can you tell us what this means?”

  Dov’s vision blurred with tears. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes, but he could not stop crying. He turned to face the blaze of the TV lights. “It means they’re gone,” he said. “Gone forever.”

  He stepped to the door which Ari had shut a minute earlier. B
efore anyone could stop him, he flung it open. He saw the inside of a closet. Empty.

  Dov turned back to face the camera. Bitterness slashed through his soul. “Shabbat Shalom.”

  Part IV

  Endgame

  Summer, A.D. 57

  The next morning the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. More than forty men were involved in this plot … But when the son of Paul’s sister heard of this plot, he went into the barracks and told Paul.

  Acts 23:12-16

  New International Version

  Chapter 31

  Damien

  THE ROOM STANK OF URINE and antiseptic. An IV ran from overhead into Stu’s arm. Damien stared at his brother.

  Almost ten years exactly, since the day Stu had broken his neck. Damien had just come home from his graduation from Michigan State. The funny thing was, college graduate or not, whenever he came to see Stu, he reverted to talking like a junior high school kid. Stu hadn’t done a lick of schoolwork since his accident, and somehow, Damien was afraid to act too smart around his brother.

  “So you made it,” Stu said. “Congratulations, kid. Now what?”

  Damien shrugged. “Ain’t much you can do with a bachelor’s degree in physics. I’m going to graduate school.”

  “Great,” Stu said without enthusiasm. His voice sounded hollow. “Do me a favor, kid, okay?”

  “Sure,” Damien said. “Just name it, I’ll do it.”

  “Anything?” Stu said. “Close the door and promise me you’ll do anything I ask.”

  That shouldn’t be hard. There wasn’t much Stu could want, anyway. Damien nudged the door shut with his foot. “Okay, yeah,” he said. “Anything.”

  “Get me out of here,” Stu said.

  Damien looked around the room of the nursing home. “You mean, like in a wheelchair or something? You want to go outside for a while?”

  “No, I mean like off me,” Stu said.

  Damien sucked in his breath. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” Stu’s voice turned hard and cold. “Kid, this place is a hole. I ain’t nothing but a lump of meat, and I can’t stand it no more. Get me out.”

  “You’re talking about murder,” Damien said. “I could get in a lot of trouble.” It was a lousy excuse, but the best he could think of.

  “Kid, you promised. Carry through.” Stu’s chin jutted at him.

  “Why do you need me?” Damien said. “You got control of your own life. Nobody’s making you eat.”

  “Think again, braino,” Stu said. “See that IV in my arm? It ain’t there to improve my looks. I quit eating six weeks ago. Fat lot of good it did me. They got the technology to make me eat, whether I want to or not.”

  Damien stood silent, wondering what to do. A promise to kill someone wasn’t really a promise, was it?

  “It’s Dullsville here,” Stu said. “I ain’t got squat to do.”

  “You could watch TV.”

  Stu laughed harshly. “You know what’s on TV? Probably not—you’re too busy studying. I’ll tell you. On daytime TV, you got your idiot talk shows and your soaps. On the weekends, you got sports. Evenings, you got action shows. So you get a chance to watch morons blab, or you get to watch people getting married and divorced, or playing games, or going to war, or shooting up the bad guys. Guess what, kid? I ain’t never going to marry nobody. I ain’t never going to play baseball or football. I ain’t never going to war. Nothing, kid. All I get to do is watch. I hate it.”

  Damien shivered. What a life.

  “Know what the problem is?” Stu said. “America’s too civilized, that’s what. In the bad old days, someone got hurt and what did the people do? Stuck ’em out on the mountain to freeze to death or get ate by wolves. Nowadays, we’re too goody-goody for that. We got the technology. We got to keep those vegetables alive. Run food in their veins, pipe dreams in their rooms. Not that we got enough technology to do anything practical, like fix their spinal cords. Sorrrrrrry, that would be too much trouble. We got just enough technology to maximize the misery.” Stu shook his head in fury. “I hate this country.”

  Damien sighed. And decided.

  “Okay, Stu, I’ll do what I can. I got an idea. They give you anything to make you sleep?”

  “Like sleeping pills? They stick something in my IV to put me out at night.”

  “I’ll find out what they use,” Damien said. “I got a couple friends in med school. They can get me a bunch of stuff like that.”

  Stu’s face relaxed. “Thanks, kid.”

  “The other thing is, we need to figure out how I can get in here at night, when nobody’s looking,” Damien said. “You’re my brother and all, and I promised, but I don’t want to go to jail over this.”

  “We’re on the ground floor,” Stu said. “I’ll have the orderly leave the window open every night.”

  Damien hesitated. “Um…when you want to do it?”

  “How soon can you get the med?”

  “Couple of weeks,” Damien said.

  “Fine, then. Two weeks from tonight.”

  “Hey, Stu?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you do the same for me?”

  Stu snorted. “Kid, I’d have left you underwater. You didn’t do me no favors by hauling me out, you know.”

  “Sorry,” Damien said.

  “Well, now’s your chance to make it right.”

  Damien swallowed hard. “Right.”

  * * *

  Ari

  “Brother Baruch, I want you to teach me to be a scribe,” Ari said as they returned from prayers the next morning.

  Baruch turned to look at him. “So you have given up hope of returning to your own country and your own time?”

  Ari sighed deeply. “It is not possible.” He had explained as much of the wormhole as he could to Baruch.

  “With HaShem, all things are possible.”

  “Very well. It is not likely. I cannot continue to impose on you for all my needs. I want to learn a skill for which I can earn money.”

  “It is not easy to read and write,” Baruch said.

  “I can already read and write,” Ari said. “But I cannot form the letters with a reed pen the way you do. Please teach me.”

  “It may not be possible.”

  “With HaShem, all things are possible.”

  They turned the last corner on the way home. A wealthy woman stood in the doorway of Baruch’s house. She wore a dashing outfit of some kind of finely woven red cloth. A gorgeous veil completely covered her face and hair.

  Ari’s mouth fell open. “Brother Baruch, do you have a rich girlfriend?”

  “Please explain. What is a girlfriend?”

  Ari sighed. “Never mind. I don’t have one either.”

  They reached the door and stopped awkwardly. Ari didn’t want to talk to a strange woman, and Baruch clearly wouldn’t either.

  The woman flipped her veil away from her face.

  Rivka! Somehow she was the last person he had expected to be wearing such a gaudy outfit. A mix of emotions shot through him. For her, he had decided to live out the rest of his life in this century. For her, he would learn the art of the scribe. For her, he would do almost anything—except convert to her religion. “Rivka, where did you get that outlandish costume?”

  Rivka smiled. “Do you like it? We couldn’t get my clothes clean, so I had to take a little charity. One of Sister Miryam’s friends is rather wealthy. You should see what she gave Hana!”

  “I fear to imagine it,” Ari said.

  “Brother Ari, I have a question for Brother Baruch,” Rivka said. They had reverted to Jerusalem customs, with both Baruch and Rivka communicating through Ari.

  “I will be happy to answer Sister Rivka’s question,” said Baruch.

  “This man Saul has a nephew who lives in Jerusalem,” Rivka began.

  Baruch’s mouth fell open. “And how do you know that?” Immediately, he caught h
is error. “Brother Ari, ask Sister Rivka how she knows this thing. I only learned it myself last Shabbat.”

  Now Rivka looked surprised. “What? Brother Ari, ask him if he knows this nephew.”

  “I studied with him in the school of Yohanan ben Zakkai,” Baruch said. “I knew him for six years and never suspected that he was the nephew of Renegade Saul until I saw them together at the house of Brother Yaakov. How does Sister Rivka know of him?”

  “He is famous in our country and our time,” Rivka said.

  “Gamaliel the dreamer is famous?” Baruch said. “Nonsense! He will never be a great Torah scholar.”

  “Perhaps not, but I must find him, Brother Ari,” Rivka said. “Ask where—”

  “I do not know where he lives,” Baruch said, “but he works in the shop of Yohanan ben Zakkai.”

  Ari broke in. “Rivka, why do you need to know all this?”

  Rivka switched to English. “This nephew is going to save Paul’s life today.”

  “So?” Ari said.

  “So I would bet you money Dr. West is going to try to stop him.”

  “Damien no longer has a gun, and he is in no shape to stop anybody,” Ari said. “What is this thing you have for Damien, anyway? The game is over. You won. Let go of it, please. We need to start thinking about how we will survive in this century.”

  “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” Rivka said. “Paul will get safely out of town tonight. He’s leaving from the Antonia around 9 P.M.—if this Gamaliel does his job. I’m going to make sure he does.”

  “Promise me you will not go near Damien,” Ari said. “Even with one arm disabled, he could break you in two.”

  “I’ve got this new disguise; even you didn’t recognize me,” Rivka said. “He won’t notice me and—”