The Body

by Richard Ben Sapir

  But when the red wine was poured, and the matzoh shown, Jim became numb to his bones.

  Sharon explained to Rani and Avrahim that Christ had come to Jerusalem for the Passover, and before he was crucified he had participated in a Seder meal. And he had taken the wine, and said this would be his blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins, and the matzoh would be his body, and that for nearly two thousand years this was the central element of Jim’s religion, and that priests of Jim’s religion would do these things as commanded, and it was called the Mass, the important ceremony of Jim’s religion.

  “How could a man forgive sins?” asked Rani, which had been a question asked two thousand years before, and Jim knew he could no longer sit at this table. He apologized and excused himself.

  He heard Sharon answer that Jim’s religion thought of Jesus as more than just the Messiah but God Himself, which was how he could forgive sins.

  “That’s the only One Who can forgive sins,” said Rani. And Jim heard that as he walked outside in the warm spring day. The tree they had planted in February was budding close to blossom in the small backyard.

  Looking down, he saw a square stone with what appeared to be spike marks on it, one of the common stones along the path. He recognized it as a Maccabean stone that had probably been unearthed here.

  He could tell a Maccabean dressing from a Herodian dressing on a stone, and knew what balking was, and strata were, and what the Second Temple period was. It was all as familiar to him now as his four years at Georgetown University.

  He knew all the things that could not for one instant quench his anguish by a drop. So he walked. Helpless, he walked, thinking he had no direction, he walked, and he found himself headed toward the Old City, with its limestone walls looking as medieval as they really were.

  And he came to the street of the prophets, Haneviim Street, and since he was there, he went to see the body. The Orthodox man was there. Mendel had assured Jim that when the body was to be moved, something would be worked out and that he was not to contact the Reb Nechtal anymore because, in the transfer of the body, muscle was going to have to be used. There were going to be no more nice negotiations through the Talmud, according to Mendel.

  The iron door over the little hole that Sharon’s group had discovered, in what should have been the end of their dig, opened with his key.

  Jim turned on the lights in the cave, folded back the tarpaulin, and lifted up the opaque plastic cover, and there he was, bones as dry as when they found him.

  He tried to pray but could not. Whenever he had any spiritual obstacle before, and of course none like this, he would ask Jesus for help. And the help was always there.

  Now he could very well be putting Jesus into his carrying case of black plastic. He knew the facts said so. It was him.

  “Who will forgive my sins?” said Jim to the bones. “Who will take them upon himself and offer them up to God?”

  And then he knew. He was alone. For the first time in his life he was alone. Sharon was waiting for him, her care was waiting for him, her rich body was waiting for him, a family was waiting for him, but now even with all those intimate people, Father James Folan was alone.

  He started to lift the body, but told himself it would be easier when he was going to move it finally. There was no point in putting it in the case now. Besides, he couldn’t. Not now. Not until he had to. Not haul him like some luggage.

  And then Jim Folan found himself with his knees on the stone floor that chisels had cut millennia ago, and his hands were in front of his face, and he was looking at the bones there on top of the case, and he clasped his hands.

  “I don’t care. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m sorry, Jesus. I’m sorry. I fornicated. I committed adultery, I don’t know how many times, with Sharon. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He said these things as he rocked like an Orthodox Jew in prayer, his hands in front of his face, his body leaning forward and then backward, his knees and toes on the rock before the case.

  He stayed there awhile with his friend who had died on the cross, and then he covered him with the opaque plastic, and put back the tarpaulin, turned out the light, and left. On top of the dig, the Orthodox guardian of the body nodded to him. He seemed younger than the ones who had stood duty during the winter. Jim nodded back.

  “Good man, good man,” said an Arab in Hebrew, grabbing Jim’s arm as he reached the sidewalk at the end of the empty lot.

  “Yes?” said Jim.

  “You are a priest, aren’t you?” said the Arab. His Hebrew stumbled with a heavy burden of some accent that seemed to smother the words themselves.

  “What makes you think so?” said Jim.

  “I know of you, good man, and I know what is in there,” said the Arab.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to put my life in your hands.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” asked Jim. The man had a week’s unshaven growth on his face, and his once-white shirt was as filthy as his suit jacket. But a filthy formal jacket was not uncommon for an Arab. They wore them like overcoats. What struck Jim was that the jacket matched the pants.

  “Because I want to save my people, and you wish to save your church.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “You have not heard rumors that the Roman Catholic Church will recognize Israel soon?”

  “This is a nation of rumors,” said Jim, who had overheard some people discussing that fact, and had wondered about it only briefly.

  “It is so,” said the Arab.

  “So. If you know so much about the Roman Catholic Church and that I am a priest, you must know priests are not consulted about such facts. So, why do you come to me?”

  “Because you yourself are the only man who can make amends for the great Jewish crime about to be committed against your church and against innocent Christian lives.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” said Jim in English and turned to walk away.

  But the man followed him, apologizing, not wishing to offend, but saying he was risking his life just to talk.”

  “I have been waiting for two days around here, trying not to be seen by the police. I am on the run. I have been waiting for you, yes, you, the one who has been coming here for months with the woman. You are the American who asked questions. Yes, you do not think you are noticed but you are. We are Arabs around here, but we have eyes. You are the one, and you can save your church. My name is Warris Abouf, and I am an officer in the KGB, despite the dirt on my clothes, and now I have put my life in your hands. Collect it if you will on King Faisal Street in the Old City. Walk from the Lion’s Gate toward the Via Dolorosa and back. I will be there. If you wish to collect my life, I will be on King Faisal Street.”

  Jim looked at the dark eyes of Warris Abouf. How did the man know so much? Why did he risk so much? Jim’s first instinct was to tell Sharon, and then possibly Mendel.

  But those were just the people who would have to turn in this man who called himself Warris Abouf. Jim felt uncertain now about what to do.

  And then suddenly it was as if the man had read Jim’s eyes, because he turned away as though he had seen that one chance of doubt, that one lure that worked.

  Warris Abouf scurried into a fruit vendor’s house and then out a side entrance, with the man yelling at him. Warris had not had a place to rest his head since he had left the cave by the Dead Sea.

  He could hardly believe he was doing this. All his grown-up life he had been so careful and calculating for his safety. Now he was risking possible prison here in Israel or death elsewhere to disobey an order that had told him to run for safety.

  The contact by telephone arrangement had even specifically ordered Warris to leave immediately. He was told not even to go near Haneviim Street again. Just go, and disclose to no one what he had previously reported to his contact. And there was even a congratulations along with it.

  No order could have been more blessedly rec
eived. Immediately Warris had headed toward the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea.

  He knew leaving was much easier than entering. All one had to do was spot some cover on the Jordanian side, and choose the most propitious time to run there. That was what he was told. The Golan, too, was not all that bad if one stayed off the main roads. It was coming in where the difficulty lay. And so he would go home, but on the way he discovered something ugly and threatening.

  He had been given a ride most generously by other Arabs, but even before this car entered the new Israeli Road in the nearby wilderness, he was asked if he was a Christian. Now, no other Arab had before asked this question and Warris became immediately suspicious. He had not spent a life reading subtle movements on blank Slavic faces to miss this sign from a brother Arab.

  “No,” he said. “I believe in Allah and that Muhammad was his Prophet.”

  “What do you think of the Zionist Vatican conspiracy?” he was asked, and said he was hearing about it for the first time. And the driver explained it in ominously anti-Christian terms, terms he had not heard since he was a little boy when he had gotten into a fight with Muslim friends because he said that the Holy Trinity was not the Father, Son, and Mary, but the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

  And they had claimed the Koran said otherwise, and they beat him up for saying the Koran lied.

  He had grown up with both stories of Muslim brotherhood for Christians and of persecution. There had been good times and bad times. Times of alliance and times of war.

  But never before had he heard such harsh terms as he was hearing now in the car. Never the blood hate, and that ominous word “traitor.”

  Perhaps it was only the talk of these few, and perhaps it was, after all, just talk.

  A leftist radio station that morning in Beirut had predicted openly that the Vatican would join the Zionist imperialist conspiracy.

  “What a foolish thing,” said Warris. “I do not believe it. Why would the Christians do such a foolish, foolish thing?” asked Warris.

  “Why did the Maronites join the Israelis? Why did the Christians inflict the Crusades and colonization? The problem with us is that we are too compassionate, too forgiving.” And everyone in the car agreed that only a knife could cut the Christian greed for Zionist gold.

  Worse still was the talk in the town from which he had chosen to walk to the Jordan. He could tell it was a Christian community because the stores were so big and modern. The talk there was of memories of the riots during the thirties, when many Christian communities had been attacked by roving Muslim bands.

  “We will be all right,” said one merchant. “But forget those in Syria and Jordan.”

  “Jordan,” said Warris, moving into the group discussing the events in a coffee shop on the main square. “But what about Hussein?”

  “Hussein? Hussein is run by his army and they are Bedouin. They were the ones who kicked out the PLO from Jordan. He just followed. This time they may well join the riots against Christians.”

  “It will be bad, then?” asked Warris.

  “I doubt if anyone in Jordan will survive,” said the man.

  “Syria will be as bad,” said another.

  “Not Syria, they have a long, long, good history with the Muslims there,” said another.

  “Which will be all the worse for it. You will see,” said the man who had predicted disaster for the Christian community in Jordan.

  Warris’ first thought was to get his family out. But to go where? Where in the Arab world would be safe after this?

  There was only one reason why the Vatican would recognize Israel at this time, reasoned Warris, and it was of course that body.

  He tried to tell himself there was nothing one man could do in a great disaster, that he was helpless. But he knew he was not. He was just the man who might be able to do something, just the man who might save his family.

  And so without even a plan he found himself headed back to Jerusalem, to save his family and their home.

  It was the one thing he would risk his life for. But as he traveled, his fine mind began placing people and things, and courses of action began appearing.

  The most dangerous man for him was Abu Silwan, but if he could show Abu Silwan that the struggle was being helped by Warris disobeying the order then Silwan, a man most aware of traitorous currents, would be on his side. Silwan, most of all, would understand.

  It took no genius to realize that the key to all this was the body, and if there was that Jewish guardian sitting by the hole, then the body was still there.

  And if it were still there, it could be removed, and, just possibly, the disaster for his family and his home could be averted.

  He did not know how he would remove the body as he worked his way back to Jerusalem, but he thought if he could enlist the help of the Vatican’s man, then removing the body might not be impossible.

  He had to at least try. He would see this man, look into his eyes, and if this man could be turned, Warris Abouf would do it because he knew people.

  If nothing worked … Still, Warris had to try, because if nothing worked, there would be no home for him and his family anyway.

  All of these things he continued to think about even after he had met the Vatican’s man and made his way circuitously to King Faisal Street, making sure to wander through the Arab quarter randomly as a precaution that he was not being followed.

  Finally, he entered the rock-paved way of King Faisal Street, and stood under a stone arch, waiting. Warris watched workmen install a large pipe for sewage removal. Several times he thought he saw what had to be Israeli police, but then, down the street, in that heavy, leaden pace, came the priest. It had worked. He was here. And if he was here, the battle was three quarters won.

  As he talked, Warris watched the man’s eyes. The eyes would tell everything. The eyes said whether the man believed or distrusted. Immediately Warris saw in the blue eyes of the priest that he resented talk of grand conspiracies, so Warris carefully moved away from that.

  “I was just talking in broad senses. Of course, people do what they must, no?”

  “I don’t even know if I should be here,” said the priest.

  “You are only doing what you can do. That is all we can do. I am not asking you to betray your church. I am asking you to listen. If that is a betrayal, turn me in now. I will wait here.”

  “No, you won’t,” said the priest.

  The man did not like exaggerations. He did not like fawning and was repelled by it. He liked his truth hard, and he liked specifics.

  Warris explained his reasoning. For twenty minutes, under an examination sharper than that of Vakunin, Warris explained that the body itself had to be the price for recognition.

  Omitting any words such as extortion, Warris established that the body was the price for recognition. Then he went into detail about the harmful effects to the Christian community if recognition occurred.

  “It will not hurt Americans. It never hurts the strong. But it will hurt the weak. I am Arab. I know my kind.”

  “So, why are you doing this? I thought you worked for the KGB.”

  “Shhh. Shhh. Please, please. Not out loud again.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  And Warris explained about his family in Amman, and almost as though in a grand confession, Warris exposed his longing to be home.

  He had never known a home except with his family in Amman. He had never known anyone to whom he should show such loyalty. And almost by accident he struck the one chord to play.

  “I owe it to them not to fail them. Perhaps I won’t succeed because it might be beyond me. But, I must try,” said Warris, and seeing the response in the eyes about failing a duty possibly being beyond one’s control, Warris worked on that in all its variations until the man said:

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “I do not know either. Maybe we will fail,” said Warris. He had him. He knew it.

  “Let’s just hear
what you would suggest. I am not making any sort of commitment. I just want to hear.”

  And Warris outlined several plans. And to each the man said, “No.”

  “I’m thirsty,” said the man, and they both went to a nearby store to buy grapefruit juice and soda water. “My name is James Folan.”

  “And do you have a plan, Father Folan?”

  “I do.”

  “And what is it?”

  “I just don’t know if I should do it. I just don’t know, Warris Abouf.”

  “Are you afraid it will fail?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you do agree that the body should be taken out of politics, out of barter, yes?”

  Jim swallowed. His mouth was dry. “Yes. Yes. I do.” He drank down two bottles of the pale drink, and then said, “O God, help me. Will you ever help me?”

  The plan was to meet at the Kibbutz Kfar Gzion on the Sea of Galilee in two days. Midnight. Could Warris get there?

  “Yes. Yes. Of course.”

  “From there, we cross at the Golan, which is nearby.”

  “You will have the body?”

  “And other evidence. Yes, in Syria we go directly to the papal nuncio.”

  “Absolutely. I am for that too. I am Melchite Catholic. If it is stolen, then, of course, the Israelis cannot trade it for recognition.”

  “All right then, that is it.”

  “And if you are not there?” said Warris.

  “If I am not there, I am not there. But I will be there. Look for a yellow Volkswagen, very beat up.”

  “One last warning. Be quite careful of whomever you are close to,” said Warris.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That person will be the Israeli agent,” said Warris, and suddenly he saw a fury in those blue eyes that could burn down a city with rage.

  “You don’t know that. What is that shit?”

  “In truth, I would like to tell you I had made a mistake, because you are most angry now, Father Folan. But you must be aware of this. This is how they all operate. They get someone to be close to you to watch you. Not just the Jews.”