by Nathan Erez
John’s life had been a remarkable one. He had fought in the Spanish Civil War, had barely escaped execution and had only survived due to the intervention of a woman named Rosa and her daughter, Maria. That enchanted summer we spent together, he taught me a few of his talents. He had the ability to move objects merely by saying so. He told me which words to say, and I followed his instructions. I believe the words were in Hebrew, Arabic, or Aramaic. However, that was not where his real ability lay. Making objects move was just a by-product of...
Here the page ended.
Elijah finished reading and closed his eyes. What conclusions could be reached from what he had read? It seemed at first, that there weren’t any. On the other hand, there was one, albeit rather far-fetched, conclusion to be found - although as an academic he tried very hard to avoid wandering off into the realm of speculation. Still, what he now realized was that if, before, he had believed that Norman’s interests evolved around ancient manuscripts, it seemed now that other matters held the man’s attention as well. Elijah took a short break and returned to work. Having, at first, thought that his working conditions were superb, now, after only four days, he was overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness. He would have preferred to work in his office at the university, where he always had the option of walking into a colleague’s office to disturb him.
He came back to the reconstructed page, which he had already cataloged in his mind as the to-do list. He crossed off the line relating to the article he had just read. Any further attempt to obtain the entire article, he felt, would be a waste of time. He looked at the other lines of the reconstructed form, about the Kim Institute, which offered scholarships, and the note to visit someone named Grady. Elijah was not sure why, but somehow he felt it was important to uncover the meaning of these lines.
He reconstructed the note in his mind and was again struck by the fact that the writer had used the Rashi script. The first printers of Hebrew books were Italians. Generally, the text of the books used a fancy square Hebrew script. In order to differentiate between the main text and the commentaries on that text, they printed the commentaries in a different and simpler script. The most popular script for these commentaries was a Spanish semi-flowing script in a southern Italian style. The most popular commentator on the Bible and the Talmud was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known universally by the acronym of his name, Rashi. His was also the first commentary printed. As this script was the archetype for future commentaries, it became known as Rashi script. Ironically, we are absolutely sure that Rashi never used such a script in his own writings, rather a flowing Ashkenazic script. It is more than likely that, had he been given a document printed in this script, Rashi would have found it difficult to read.
Reluctantly, Elijah returned to the text he was supposed to be working on for Norman. He completed his immediate task without coming to any definite conclusion. Here and there, he was unsure about certain words or letters; there were a number of possibilities, and all were legitimate. He wrote down all his uncertainties, explaining where necessary what and why his doubts were, and sent the document out. While faxing the record of the day’s work, he checked to see if Norman had replied to him about the previous day’s fax, and was disappointed that no response had been received.
The phone rang suddenly. Elijah couldn’t make up his mind whether he should answer it or not, but did pick it up in the end.
“Orna?”
“Elijah? Hi, it’s Norman.”
“Dr. Norman!” Elijah cried out, truly happy to hear Norman’s voice again.
“We read what you sent us yesterday, and we’ve decided to send you to see one of the originals. How do you feel about that?”
“Are you kidding?” replied Elijah jubilantly. “That has to be the ultimate dream of every scholar!”
“Great! We’ll pay at our standard rate for all your work, including your flying time.”
“Flying? Where to?” Elijah asked. He had been convinced that the original must be locked away in some safe within the confines of the Institute.
“The original is in Hong Kong,” Norman told him, and waited for his reaction.
Elijah was stunned. Of all the places in the world for a Hebrew manuscript to be found, why would it be Hong Kong?
“Elijah, are you still there?” he finally heard Norman asking anxiously.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about what you just said. As you can imagine, I hadn’t expected this. I’ll have to ask my wife, of course.”
“The entire trip will take you two days. Most of that time will be spent flying, and you will be spending a few hours studying the manuscript itself to better check out those letters about which you were unsure. This manuscript belongs to a Mr. Wang. In an hour or two you will receive a fax with all the details about the flights, the addresses, and your contacts.”
And indeed, before he left for home, Elijah received a fax detailing the entire trip.
At home, he was nervous. How would he break his news to Orna? What would she say? And what should he do if she vetoed the trip? Should he go anyway? And who would take care of the children while he was away? In the end, though, his problem solved itself. After they had finished eating and before he had mustered the courage to broach the subject, the phone rang.
Efrat answered the phone. “Yes, I know you asked for Dr. Shemtov, but which one? My father or my mother?”
“No, my father is not a doctor; my mother is. My father knows how to read things. He is very good at reading things. He can even read handwriting which isn’t clear. His job is to teach big children how to read.”
No one was surprised when Efrat put down the receiver and called out, “Mommy, it’s for you!”
“Yossi from the bank,” Orna repeated aloud. “Yes, I can hear you. This is Doctor Shemtov. No, you’re not the first one to be confused.”
As she listened, her face turned solemn. For an instant, Elijah was concerned, but soon he could see that Orna was smiling again. “Excellent! We’ll deal with it. We simply forgot. You’re right - in the next few days. Meanwhile, there’s no reason to do anything.”
Orna came back to the table, clearly pleased, as she explained what she had heard.
“At first I was concerned, because the bank generally calls us only when our overdraft is getting out of control. For the first time since we’ve been married, this call was the exact opposite. Yossi from the bank noticed that a couple of days ago a sizeable sum of money was deposited in our account by the Luzzato Institute and listed as ‘salary’, and he wanted to know what to do with it. It seems, Elijah, that you were actually telling the truth two days ago. Who would have imagined - an expert in languages earning that kind of money?”
“So, are you ready to take a vacation?”
“Yes, Elijah, I’d like that very much. Here in Jerusalem all we get to breathe is the holy air of the Holy Land. I’d like something more prosaic for a change.”
“That’s just what I wanted to discuss with you,” said Elijah, grabbing the bull by the horns. “Some of that money is supposed to cover a trip I need to take on behalf of the Institute. It’s just a short trip to Hong Kong, to check something out.”
“What do you mean, ‘to check something out’? You’re hardly anyone’s idea of a sleuth. How insidious can a manuscript be? Or is it just that you’ve managed to nab a free trip? As far as I’m concerned, you can fly to the moon if it’s part of your job description.”
Elijah felt instant relief. What it all boiled down to was money.
According to the faxed itinerary, the flight would leave Israel Saturday night and arrive in Hong Kong at lunchtime on Sunday. His airline ticket would be waiting for him at Ben Gurion International Airport. In Hong Kong, someone would pick him up and drive him to the New City Hotel, where a room had been reserved for him for two nights. A sentence in the fax, which had been underlined twice for emphasis, stated that everything had been paid for and that he had no need to pay for anything.
Only when h
e reached the airport, where his airline ticket was indeed waiting for him, did he realize that he was traveling first class. Elijah had flown many times, but this was the first time he was going first class, and he had no idea what to expect. When the flight was called, the flight attendant at the door chided him gently for having waited in the regular departure lounge rather than the VIP lounge. He felt strange entering the first class compartment. The flight attendants all smiled and went out of their way to be helpful. His seat was more like a royal throne than an airplane seat. Next to the seat was a whole array of buttons, with which he could order delicious meals, the latest movies that had not yet been shown in Israel and all kinds of tools and accessories to help him sleep. After finally falling asleep, he awoke shortly before the plane started its descent to Hong Kong airport.
The airport was by far the largest one he had ever seen. He sailed through passport control expecting someone to be waiting for him, but there was no one. Following the signs, he started wheeling his suitcase toward the train that would take him to the city center, where his hotel was located. Suddenly he noticed a taxi driver who seemed very agitated. The man was going from one westerner to another with a crudely hand-lettered sign, and kept receiving negative responses. Elijah glanced at the sign and saw that it was for “Professor Simtov”. In a brilliant flash of intuition and using all his language and anthropological skills, he assumed that the man was looking for him. He beckoned to the taxi driver, who ran over, holding a copy of the fax that Elijah had received. Elijah nodded, and the relief on the man’s face was palpable. He looked like he had finally reached the Promised Land.
The trip took about forty-five minutes and they finally arrived at a very elegant hotel in the center of Hong Kong.
Elijah’s joy knew no bounds when an immaculately dressed man came over and introduced himself as Mr. Lee, assistant manager of the hotel, and insisted on giving Elijah his business card with his personal, hand-written, cell phone number.
“Feel free to call me at any time and about any matter,” the assistant manager assured him in English with such a strong Chinese accent as to render it nearly incomprehensible.
As they moved toward the elevators, Elijah saw a woman who looked like a nurse, with an open case that looked as if it contained first-aid equipment. The woman suddenly stopped and stared intently at the woven carpet, like an eagle picking out a wounded dove as its prey. Elijah followed her gaze, and saw a stain on the floor. The woman, who was evidently a maid, came over with a cleaning cloth, and soon the stain was a thing of the past. Elijah noticed that the maid then continued around the lobby, cleaning and removing other stains.
Elijah entered the gold-colored elevator and pressed the floor number - 31. In his room, he was greeted with a large complimentary basket full of fruit and chocolates. Next to it was a short printed note in English, along with a business card. Glancing at the business card, he saw that it was from the same Mr. Lee, again with a handwritten note to the effect that if he needed or wanted anything, all he had to do was call.
His window faced the bay separating Hong Kong from Kowloon. The skyline was filled with one skyscraper after another, reminding him of New York. He tried to open the window to get a better view, but soon realized that the window was not meant to open. A wave of claustrophobia hit him, and he decided to go outside.
Outside, there was a large square, with a statue of an illustrious-looking man in its center. Under the statue was the inscription, “Sir Thomas Jackson”. Elijah assumed that Jackson must have been the admiral or general who had liberated Hong Kong from the Chinese, but then, when he read the full inscription, he realized that he had been an English banker who had been the head of the Bank of Hong Kong. Couldn’t they find some author, poet, or at least a general to whom to dedicate this monument? How grandiose to erect a statue to a banker, when, in Israel, there isn’t even a simple one to commemorate General Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem!
He continued his walk and came to an old church, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, which had been built in the 1840s. Almost all the other buildings in the area had been torn down to make room for skyscrapers, which had sprouted up all over the place in recent years. Not far from the church, he was delighted to find the Ohel Sarah synagogue. It, like the church, looked old. Elijah thought of going in, but was dissuaded from doing so by the fact that it was locked.
Finally, he entered a large shopping mall near the hotel. One of the stores there had all types of unusual electronic devices. He noticed that he was the only westerner there and his presence had evidently caused a stir. There were microphones that could pick up a conversation from afar, miniature cameras that could be attached to a flowerpot or picture, invisible ink for marking one’s property, fingerprinting kits, cameras disguised as pens, and many other such esoteric devices. Suddenly, he saw the Chinese or Korean man whom he had seen at the Luzatto Institute, standing near one of the cameras! He wanted to call out to the man, but the shock of seeing him there had left him momentarily breathless. Besides, he had no idea what the man’s name was. Pushing his way through the crowd, Elijah saw that the man had made for the door and, before Elijah could reach him, had disappeared. The crowds were so dense that Elijah found it difficult to make out the direction the man had taken. Eventually, he saw him darting out in front, and Elijah ran after him, shouting, “Hey! Luzatto! Wait a second!” The man appeared to slow down for a while, but he did not even look back and continued to walk quickly as if nothing had happened.
“Damn it! All these Chinese look alike! I bet it wasn’t him at all,” Elijah muttered, as he tried to catch his breath. He must have been experiencing an adrenaline rush, causing him to imagine finding someone familiar so far from home among so many million people in Hong Kong.
Disappointed, Elijah returned to the store with the cameras. He decided he deserved to reward himself after the wild goose chase and started to check out a camera that had caught his attention. It looked like a simple flashlight, and indeed it did cast a light, similar to any other flashlight. There was one difference, though: when you pressed a button on the side, it took a digital photo of whatever the flashlight was shining on. Then, by attaching it to a computer’s USB port, the photo could be downloaded to a computer.
“Would this be used for photographing documents?” he asked the salesman.
“Oh, yes! For documents. Especially at night when you don’t have much time. Just for that.” While the salesman’s English was halting, he did manage to make his point clear.
Elijah was curious why the salesman had made a point of talking about taking photographs at night, but listening to how the salesman struggled with English, he decided to forgo any further questions. Credit cards speak all languages, and he charged the camera to his account. Only after he had bought the camera did he notice that the store was called “Spy Master”.
A man who came running after him out of the store and said, “Hey, Mister, if you need anything, I can help you. Hwa-Sung, specialist in private investigations. I have to warn you that Europeans who conduct their own private investigations in Hong Kong are making a big mistake. They sometimes even endanger their lives.” He took out a business card and handed it to Elijah.
Elijah laughed and told the man he was a university professor and had no need for any such services.
“I’m sorry,” said Sung, “I thought you were a colleague. I thought you must be a private investigator, and I was surprised that you would be working in Hong Kong on your own. Everyone knows that the Chinese organized crime syndicates in Hong Kong are very powerful, and have strong ties to the government.”
Amused by this encounter, Elijah returned to the hotel and waited for his contact to take him to the place where the document was kept.
The phone rang at 7:30 p.m. Elijah picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear a female voice with a reasonable English accent.
“Prof. Shemtov?” the voice asked hesitantly.
“Yes, how can I help you?” Eli
jah asked.
“I believe that I am to drive you. Can you make your way to the hotel’s rear entrance?”
He agreed, and set out immediately.
Outside the door, a young Chinese woman waited impatiently. Like most westerners, Elijah was unable to estimate the ages of Chinese women. She looked to be somewhere between twenty and thirty, but he was not willing to state so unequivocally.
“Prof. Shemtov? I’m Wang Mei-Ling,” the woman introduced herself. “I am to take you to my grandfather, Mr. Wang.”
They walked to her car, which he saw was parked quite a distance away. It seemed to him that Mei-Ling was checking to see if anyone was following them. He was perturbed. As they drove, Mei-Ling seemed to be very preoccupied and uncommunicative, and Elijah grew increasingly concerned. They started driving uphill.
After a while, in an attempt to obtain at least a minimal amount of information, Elijah asked, “What does your grandfather do?”
“You don’t know?” Mei-Ling said, very surprised. “He’s an antiques dealer.”
“Oh, I knew that, of course,” lied Elijah, “but how does one get rich doing that?”
Mei-Ling laughed. “His grandfather bequeathed him a fortune, but please don’t discuss money with him. He is very sensitive and does not want to attract attention to himself. It was only with great reluctance that he agreed to buy his home on Victoria Peak. In Hong Kong, the higher up a building is, the more expensive it is.”
They came to an eight-story building. At the entrance stood a doorman, who greeted Mei-Ling effusively. The apartment itself was on the eighth floor. Mr. Wang, dressed in a traditional Chinese robe, opened the door himself and welcomed them in. He bowed down deeply and Elijah, confused, did the same.
