Then his gaze slid to the Ark, which had yet to touch the ground. Was that impossible or just unlikely? And what did it mean? Anything?
He didn’t know. He didn’t want to think about it, either. It alarmed him. If God was real, and alive in the world, a lot of people had a whole bunch to answer for.
Orly’s mind went in a different direction: “I wonder if the poles will hold? I know they’re wrapped in gold, but they’ve been there a long time. What will Kupferman do if they don’t?”
“Stay tuned,” Eric said. “We’ll find out—after these commercial messages.” She glowered.
They found out with no commercials. The Levites ducked through the opening Yoram had cut—the opening I helped start, Eric thought in pride and fear. Kupferman stayed outside in the tunnel, praying. He was media-savvy enough not to block the TV lights shining into the ancient chamber.
The Levites were praying, too. They took the Ark seriously. Eric could see only two of them as they stooped.
“Ready?” Kupferman called.
“Yes, Reb Shlomo!” they chorused.
“Then, blessing the holy Name—lift!”
They lifted, and the Ark rose. “It doesn’t weigh any more than my little boy!” one exclaimed in wonder. He had a right to marvel. There was a lot of gold in the Ark. Eric didn’t know what it should weigh, but, even divided by eight, a lot more than a kid seemed a good bet.
He wondered whether Yoram had cut the opening wide enough to let the Ark come forth. By the Israeli archaeologist’s expression, so did he. That would go up there with the biggest anticlimaxes ever.
But he had. Out it came. The Levite bearers looked even more exalted than when they were coming down the tunnel. Eric had a hard time blaming them.
With the other archaeologists, he scrambled out of the way. A mummy coming to life in the Valley of the Kings might have been weirder, but that was movie fare. This was real, not on a screen.
Kupferman winded a shofar. The blast from the ram’s-horn trumpet filled the tunnel. Then the rabbi started dancing, as II Samuel said David did when he brought the Ark into Jerusalem. Unlike David, Kupferman was no spring chicken. Eric hoped he didn’t have a coronary and drop dead. (And a small part of him hoped Kupferman did. If anything could quash the craziness surrounding the Ark, that might.)
Regardless of Eric’s hope, Kupferman went right on dancing. He pranced along the tunnel, blowing the shofar every so often. The Levites followed with the Ark, singing a song of thanksgiving. After them came the archaeologists and media people.
The light at the end of the tunnel might have felt like a train, but it was only light. “Behold!” Kupferman shouted. “The Ark of the Covenant comes forth!” The shofar blatted again.
“Get back!” was the first thing Eric heard from outside. The first thing he saw was soldiers. They were imitating King Canute, who came from a different legend. The tide they held back consisted of everybody and his uncle.
Orthodox Jews, people who would’ve looked ordinary if they weren’t screaming, people who’d’ve looked weird in Amsterdam if they weren’t screaming, Gabriela and Brandon and other media big shots who were screaming themselves…Everybody tried to rush the Ark, its bearers, and Rabbi Kupferman—and the grubby archaeologists behind it.
Eric’s admiration for the IDF swelled over the next few minutes. Nobody got through. He didn’t think anyone got killed, either, though he couldn’t swear nobody got trampled. And, Kupferman dancing before it, the Ark started through the streets of the Old City.
Brandon had figured Shlomo Kupferman for a tough old bird. Turned out he’d had no idea. The rabbi cut capers all the way through the Old City. Maybe he’d run a marathon next.
Watching him boogie through Jerusalem wasn’t easy. Nothing was easy that day. Brandon and Gabriela and their crew had their primo location near the mouth of the tunnel. They had it—and they were stuck with it. Once the Ark passed, they couldn’t follow.
The town should have been shut down tighter than Stormy Daniels’ snatch. Much of it was. Vehicle traffic was banned. Only the helicopter overhead had a camera that showed the progress of the procession. Heyl Ha-Avir F-15s screamed above the helicopter to make sure nobody got cute. Their orders were to shoot first.
Despite the top cover, Brandon wondered what would happen if someone smuggled in a drone carrying a bomb or a missile. Those things were hard to spot, and to dodge. Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Rahman would have testified to that. The Palestinians were screaming about the leader of the Waqf, but nobody in the West listened to them these days.
Everyone in town should have been ordered to stay indoors, too. That would have been smart. It would also have been impossible. Jews, Christians, even Muslims—everybody wanted to see the fabulous relic.
What had to be a quarter of the IDF made sure the people who wanted to see the Ark didn’t trample the people carrying it. Some had nightsticks. They swung them without hesitation. The rest carried assault rifles with fixed bayonets. They made sure nobody messed with the troops with the nightsticks.
“Just as well we’re not along, I guess,” Brandon said. “Looking at the monitors is scary enough.”
“No kidding,” Gabriela agreed. One screen showed a bespectacled, scholarly looking Orthodox man up against the soldiers. His eyes were wide, his mouth open and panting. He looked more like a guy getting a blow job than one having a religious experience. The girl next to him was shrieking and shaking as if she were on the point of coming, too.
Danny—the redheaded, freckled Jewish cameraman—said, “How much you think the Ark weighs?”
“Beats me, but that’s a lot of gold,” Brandon said. Beside him, Gabriela nodded.
“Yeah.” Danny nodded, too. “How come those guys carrying it aren’t falling over?”
Sometimes the most obvious questions had the least obvious answers. “Don’t know,” Brandon said. “But now that you mention it, how come the poles aren’t breaking, too? They’re old as anything.”
“They said it was floating above the ground,” Gabriela said. “The photos showed it before they brought it out.”
That showed nobody paid much attention to things that went against what everyone knew. And everyone knew nothing floated that way. If you saw it, you didn’t want to believe it. Maybe you were nuts, maybe it was a special effect…or maybe the world was a weirder place than you’d thought.
“The old-time Jews could do shit science can’t do now?” No, Brandon didn’t want to believe it, even if a similar idea had crossed his mind before. “Tell me another one. If they could manage that, how come everybody’s been kicking ’em around for God knows how many thousand years?”
“Beats me,” Danny said. “I’m just a camera jock, but I’ve got eyes. No way that little gang of guys could lug so much gold. No way the poles’d put up with it, either.”
“Maybe we should get a physicist,” Brandon said. “Or a sci-fi writer. Or a physicist who is a sci-fi writer.” There were such beasts. Talk about bizarre…
“It’s going to the Shrine of the Book now, isn’t it?” Gabriela asked.
Brandon nodded. “That’s right. Along with the Dead Sea Scrolls and everything.”
“The Ark makes the Scrolls seem new,” she said.
“I guess it does.” Brandon hadn’t looked at it that way. “From what the Israelis say, they’ll keep it there till they rebuild the Temple.”
“I still think they have to be crazy to try that,” Gabriela said. “What the Arabs will do—”
“We could get ahead of the curve, like,” Brandon broke in. “We could go into the West Bank and talk to some Palestinians—”
He got interrupted in turn, by Saul Buchbinder. “You could do that,” the producer said. “Not me. I’d be as welcome as a Jew on the West Bank.”
“I don’t want to do it that much,” Brandon said.
“No drama in it. I want to open up the Ark and see what’s inside.”
“Are you nuts?” That wasn’t Gabriela—it was Danny. “The old rabbi and that Levite both told you the Ark’ll kill you if you mess with it.”
“Yeah, right,” Brandon said. “This religious crap is dripping out of my ears. C’mon—that’s the real story.” He pointed to the monitor. The Ark was passing from the Old City to the New, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. “What’s in there? Does it hold Moses’ tablets?”
“I thought you didn’t care about the religious crap,” Danny jabbed, grinning.
“For me? No way,” Brandon said. “But for ratings? Fuckin’ A.”
“It would make good television, but we’ll never get access,” Gabriela said. “The Israelis’ll keep the Ark buttoned up so tight…”
“You already interviewed Kupferman. Now he’s Religious Affairs Minister. You should talk to him again, Gabriela.” Brandon said it grudgingly, but he did say it. He added, “What’s the worst that can happen? He can tell you no. How are we worse off?”
“You’re pushing it,” Danny warned.
He played into Brandon’s hands by putting Gabriela’s back up. “We’re supposed to push it,” she said sharply. “That’s our job. And if anybody gets a look inside the Ark, it’ll be me.” She jabbed a thumb at her own chest. “Hear that? Me!”
Brandon held his face straight. No, bitch, he thought. Me.
* * *
—
Eric looked around as he traded Old City for New. “This is a different world,” he said.
“Sure,” Orly answered. “We didn’t worry about pissing anybody off when we built here, so we did it right.”
“Mostly, anyhow,” Yoram said. “Toes we didn’t want to step on here, too. Maybe we’ll fix some more things now that the rules have changed.”
Eric looked around to see what Munir would think of that. He didn’t spot him. Somehow or other, the Arab Israeli had dropped out of the procession. The Ark wasn’t his talisman. Maybe—probably—he’d had enough Jewish celebration to last him forever and a day, no matter how secular he felt he was.
Now that we’ve quit caring about what anyone else thinks, Eric thought Yoram’s words meant. He didn’t want to argue with Louvish. Being part of the team that found the Ark would make him someone to reckon with at every archaeological conference. It might even land him a tenure-track job. But he wasn’t comfortable with any group remaking Jerusalem to its heart’s desire. To many Muslims, though not all, anything before Muhammad’s lifetime was the Jahiliyah, the Time of Ignorance, and not worth taking seriously or preserving. The Israelis looked back further, but they also had their own agenda.
He looked over his shoulder, past the wall, past the Jaffa Gate—through which the procession had come—to the Temple Mount. The Dome of the Rock still shone there. For how much longer? Would the Israelis disassemble it, the way the Egyptians took apart their temples when waters rose behind the Aswan Dam? Would they rebuild it somewhere else? Would they do the same with the nearby mosque?
Al-Aqsa was a Johnny-come-lately—it dated only from the late eighth century. He supposed he should be thankful the Israelis reckoned it worth preserving.
Then his eyes went to Rabbi Kupferman, who was still kicking up his heels ahead of the Ark. Whatever Kupferman put in his coffee this morning, Eric wished he’d got some, too. From one side of Jerusalem to the other wasn’t a long walk—two miles as the crow flew: a little longer by the roads they used—but he’d been cooped up underground for days. He was old enough to feel it.
He walked past another TV camera peering out past the Israeli soldiers protecting the route. Those pictures were going worldwide. What would people think of the archaeologists trailing the dancing rabbi and the Ark? Probably that, with the exception of Orly, they made a piss-poor end for the parade. Broad-brimmed hats, wrinkled shirts, jeans or khaki shorts with too many pockets didn’t measure up.
Well, too bad.
They went west and north along Ha-Emek to Gershon Agron, then south and west along Gershon Agron, past the Muslim cemetery and Mamila Pool (a scandal to the Orthodox because both sexes swam together) on the right, then past Independence Park.
Shrieking people packed the graveyard, the park, the streets. The din was astonishing. It crashed through Eric’s ears and took up residence in the middle of his brain. He would be a little deaf tomorrow, the way he would have after a rock concert. No Marshall stacks here—this was raw lung power.
The ecstatic Jews, Christians, and maybe Muslims, too, drowned out the helicopter circling overhead, and helicopters were loud. They even drowned out the fighters flying top cover, and fighters were loud.
Somehow, the soldiers kept the mob from rushing the Ark. Eric had always known the Israeli Defense Force was one of the top militaries around. If it weren’t, Israel would have gone down the drain long since. He’d never admired the conscripts more than today. They did what they had to do, and didn’t shoot anybody. If that wasn’t a miracle…
Eric shivered. He was watching a miracle. He was walking right behind one. What else was it? That handful of Levites had no business lifting the Ark, let alone easily carrying it on poles brittle with the age of millennia. Steroid-soaked weightlifters should have had trouble raising it.
But it hadn’t been on the ground, had it? It had floated above it. Or maybe it sat on the ground while nothing was going on and gave a discreet hop into the air just before he and Yoram got the first looks at it.
Which was more impossible? Eric had no idea. The world had gone loopy, and he didn’t know how to cope.
Beside him, Orly walked along, smiling, looking like someone who enjoyed what was happening. Maybe she did; she lived in the moment. Or maybe she was better at acting than Eric.
And what about Yoram? He deserved all the credit in the world. He’d thought the Ark lay behind that wall, and he’d proved right. His name would go into the textbooks and popular histories along with Schliemann’s and Howard Carter’s.
So why didn’t he look happier? He wore the expression of a man who’d hooked Leviathan on a line meant for bluegill. Nobody in his right mind would have imagined any archaeological discovery could touch off…this.
Eric saw staring faces pressed against every window of the Sheraton Plaza just west of Independence Park. The tourists and businessmen staying there picked the right place. Would some maniac break a window and fire an RPG at the Ark? How well had Israeli security checked who got access to the hotel?
Well enough, because nobody did anything but stare.
They came to an intersection with five arms like a starfish, and went on west on Ramban. More faces gaped down from the Prima Kings Hotel. When Eric first got to Jerusalem, he thought Ramban was named for Maimonides. But Maimonides was the Rambam: the abbreviation for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. The Ramban—Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman—lived later, and was a lesser scholar. (Ben Maimon Street, which was named for Maimonides, ran parallel to Ramban, one block south.)
“I think we’re gonna do this!” Eric bawled into Orly’s ear.
“What?” she said. He could read her lips, but he couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t have heard him, either.
Once they crossed into Sacher Park, they left the New City’s hubbub behind—and got new hubbub, with swarms trampling the grass. But nobody trampled the IDF troops, who linked arms and held back the crowd.
To the left was the Valley of the Cross—what would Jesus have made of this? To the right stood the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament building. It reminded Eric of the Forum in Inglewood, except it was square, not round.
Left of that, a little farther on, stood the Israel Museum and, separate from the main building, the Heikhal Ha-Sefer, the Shrine of the Book. The museum had taken a shell hit during the Six-Day War, but hadn’t lost any exhibits.
The Shrine
of the Book had a white, pointed dome in the center of the roof that called up the shape of the lids on the jars in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The rest of the square roof was black granite, symbolizing the struggle of the sons of light against the sons of darkness. That struck Eric as a Zoroastrian concept for a Jewish museum. But what better for the Shrine of the Book than black and white together?
They went inside. The Isaiah Scroll, the most important Dead Sea Scroll, held pride of place under the center of the dome. Its case could sink into the ground if war came, a sensible precaution here.
Kupferman left off impersonating John Travolta in front of the broad stairway that led to the Isaiah Scroll’s case. He gestured to the Levites, who set the Ark on the ground: or rather, those few inches above the ground. The Ark floated here, too.
Not even breathing hard—what was he made of?—Kupferman said, “Here, O Lord, we leave Thy precious Ark until we place it in the Holy of Holies in Thy restored Temple. May that day come soon.”
“Omayn!” the Levites chorused. So did some archaeologists. No one scowled at Eric for keeping quiet, nor was he the only one who did. Everybody who’d been in the tunnel knew how everybody else felt, and why.
No one seemed surprised Munir al-Nuwayhi hadn’t come all the way, either. Israeli Jews often claimed to understand Israeli Arabs, as Southern whites in the States often claimed to understand Southern blacks. Maybe they were right, maybe…not so much.
No matter how you felt about the Third Temple, there was the Ark, shining under rings of fluorescent light set into the inside of the dome. Eric had lived with it under the Temple Mount. He’d walked behind it through Jerusalem. It still drew the gaze like a magnet.
“We made it!” he said to Orly.
Her eyes shone. “Yeah!”
* * *
—
Shlomo Kupferman had a fancy office at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. He didn’t use it. He had another fancy office above the Reconstruction Alliance Museum. He didn’t use that one, either. He met Gabriela in a cramped cubby at his synagogue.
Alpha and Omega Page 16
