Gospel (91 page)

O'Hanrahan wearily expected an SS connection brewing, from the Templars to the Matthiasine Sisters to the Masons to the SS. But he was wrong.

Herr Kellner said, “The usual wartime rapine and plunder went on. Not from British soldiers or Americans, no, but from the town. Very typical of a war-oppressed rabble. Jewelry stores, clothing stores, all looted and pillaged, and someone, some ignoramus found the treasury in the Matthiaskirche. It was not difficult with the Allied occupation to sell these jewel-encrusted relics, the Matthias scroll. I thought at first we had again the Templars to blame for the theft!”

“Does every bizarre thing in Europe have to do with the Templars?”

“That BBC reporter's book says it's the Priory of Zion, Umberto Eco suspects it's the Templars and Rosicrucians. Any Protestant can tell you it's the Jesuits, any Italian can tell you it's P4 and—what's the new one?—Gladio? Any European can tell you world conspiracies are plotted by a handful of crypto-Nazis who have engineered the EEC and 1992, the Germans' most diabolical plot so far. Any South American, the CIA. In Germany we used to say the Jews were behind all conspiracies, so you can gauge the danger in believing these things too much. However, it must be said that I do believe the Masons are currently involved.”

“The Masons? In America,
mein Herr,
Masons are like the Lion's Club and Kiwanis and Rotary Club—do you know of these organizations?”

“Ooh, I think those are very dangerous too, but living in the Rhineland I am used to conspiracies. I would hate to think of a world without them!”

“You were saying about the Masons?”

“Yes, an American Mason bought the antiquities illegally from the thief who raided the church. For shame, an officer! He sensed the scroll case was ancient and hoped somehow his find might be the centerpiece of some Mason ritual. This major was from Detroit and that's where the Matthias scroll stayed for a few months.”

“Detroit?” asked O'Hanrahan, incredulous.

“He sold it to a very rich man who ascertained its value, a Chester Merriwether II. A rival of my mother's! Throughout my dear mother's life, she was plagued by this American collector with too damn much money, as I am plagued by Mr. Getty in my own time…” Here Herr Kellner laughed repeatedly. “Ah, but fate intervenes. Herr Merriwether was old, and his own son Charles takes over this multinational company, leaving his aging father to his art collection. Before Chester's death the son, a mere twenty-five years old and a thorough boor—but
Gott sei Dank
—sells off everything, including the
Gospel of Matthias
papyrus. It is purchased in 1948 by the National Museum of Egypt, for they believe it is a document of their culture. In that time, a Jewish fellow … ah, the name eludes me…”

O'Hanrahan: “Rabbi Jacob Rosen, I believe.”

“Ah yes. This rabbi views this document through some Palestinian agent and asserts it involves the Jewish historian Josephus and offers a great sum to purchase it. And bribes are applied, of course. In 1949, the gospel finds its way to Hebrew University, and then Mr. Rosen falls down a flight of stairs the very day the scroll disappears.”

O'Hanrahan sipped his wine. “And so that brings us to now, Herr Kellner. You would like to engage me to help you get this scroll back in your possession.”

“But I think only of the public. Look at the tourist business the Dead Sea Scrolls do at the Jerusalem Museum, at the '67
Exposition du Montréal.
I envision such a grand exhibit in Trier for St. Matthias. And after the work is translated I think many American tour groups will add Trier to their itineraries. What one of your Southern Baptists would not want to see the writings of a real disciple, the words of one who looked into the eyes of Jesus, hm? The oldest Christian document in existence! Two hundred years before the Codex Sinaiticus! Scholars would pay fortunes to see this thing. Ah, think of the renaissance Trier could undergo!”

“And I suppose your wine sales would go up, Herr Kellner.”

“Indeed, but my family has expanded beyond wine, my friend. Hotels, restaurants, spas. I own everything but the Youth Hostel, but I am working on that.” He momentarily looked tragic, contemplating the Youth Hostel, an unowned property. “Do not mistake me! I wish for you to translate this thing and help publicize my scroll. I can assure you Trier is a marvelous place to work—the food, the wine, the weather, ah, not so nice this time in the spring, much rain, but better than Chicago in the winter,
ja?
This afternoon perhaps? You go where the scroll is hidden, ask to see it, put it up the sleeve of the coat, and present it to me and I shall give you a discreet sum of…” He had a pained look. “The vulgarity of speaking of money betroubles me. A million deutsche mark for your efforts, hm?”

“A million,” O'Hanrahan repeated.

“This academic discovery will bring you fame, Herr Professor. But think of your former colleagues who worked upon the Dead Sea Scrolls. Did they make much money from their venture? Nor will you make much money from this without me. Oh yes, at most, fifty thousands dollar in book sales perhaps, but you are a young man! Not yet seventy! What will comfort you during the twenty years or so to come, eh?”

That's a lot of bread, thought O'Hanrahan.

(
Man does not live by bread alone,
Patrick.)

O'Hanrahan looked up to see Herr Kellner standing.

“I send for you a case of our finest Piesporter to the King David,” he announced. “Enjoy, enjoy! Much more where that was made,
ja?
And I will be in touch, as you say. I know you have a big problem to lie to your friends here, this rabbi fellow at Hebrew University. But perhaps you can give him some of your money. I leave it for you two to arrange. As for me, I am haunted by those coins in the El-Khodz Hotel. I feigned uninterest but now I must go and buy them before anyone else—Mr. Waswasah's price was ludicrously low…”

“Perhaps they are not real,” O'Hanrahan tactfully suggested.

“I know numismatics almost as well as I know ancient texts,
mein Professor.
” He touched a fingertip to his tongue. “They have a certain taste. Ha-ha ha-ha, I put my tongue to one when you and the proprietor talked and I assure you it is authentic!
Auf Wiedersehen.
” Thomas Matthias Kellner turned on his heels jauntily, and was gone.

(Well, Patrick?)

“I'd like a half a million dollars,” O'Hanrahan said out loud to himself.

*   *   *

Lucy and the rabbi walked along his residential street in his quietly busy neighborhood on the edge of Mahane Yehuda.

“I didn't think you liked me very much,” Lucy said. “You seemed to always want me to go home—”

“Nothing personal,” he said, again shrugging. “Every time Paddy takes on a partner, disaster follows. However, Paddy needs someone to watch after him and you'll do.” He nudged her. “Here's our street.”

Lucy felt that giddiness at going somewhere foreign and cherishing an authentic experience, ascending to a higher tourist heaven than the tour bus droves. The rabbi knew his neighborhood well, apparently, waving to a hefty woman and exchanging greetings, waving to a shopkeeper and exchanging blessings. A Hasidic man with a wild topiary fur hat passed and they
shalom
ed and exchanged a few remarks in Yiddish.

“You know everyone,” noted Lucy as they approached his door.

Rabbi Hersch dug deep in his pockets, fishing with change and keys and other impedimenta. “You want change you get keys, you want keys you get change,” he mumbled. “Here,” he said, asking Lucy to hold seventeen shekels in coins. “This jacket, for years, for years has a hole in it.”

“I can sew,” Lucy volunteered.

“Can you? Oh good girl,” he allowed. “A town full of tailors,” he said, finding his keys at last and opening his door, “and I can't find the time to go to one.”

Lucy entered the rabbi's three-room flat, a large living room and library that extended to a dining table, a kitchen beyond that that opened on a back garden, and a bedroom off to the side. It was orderly around the shelves and the desk but each arm of his sofa was inhabited by opened, parted books. A small stack with bookmarks at half a dozen places occupied the most comfortable-looking chair. Decorations were simple. Eastern patterned rugs lay over the sofa, on the floor, a rug hung on the wall, there was a menorah on the bookshelf and a row of old black and white photographs of relatives, looking out from that lost
shtetl
world of longbeards and babushkas early in the 20th Century.

“Books everywhere,” he grumbled, removing the pagoda of parted texts, seven books high, from the armchair. “You can go here,” he told them, moving them to the sofa. “The cleaning lady has been in, Fatima.”

“An Arab woman?”

“Yep.”

“You're not worried she'll plant a bomb?”

He looked at her like she had no hope of understanding life in Israel. But then his face became more patient. “No, I'm not worried,” he said simply. “Here's the damn sandalwood…” The rabbi took a woven plate-sized basket full of aromatic leaves, rose petals, sandalwood, and cinnamon. “She leaves this stuff here every Monday,” he said, walking it to his kitchen trash can. “I was going to tell her to stop bringing this stuff because I go away for a week and the place smells like a spice shop and I sneeze for hours.” He dumped it in the trash. “But she goes to the market in East Jerusalem and mixes this stuff herself so I give it a day and throw it out once she's gone.”

Lucy felt the need to clarify. “I don't think everyone is Israel is rude and unfriendly, just … everyone I've met so far.”

The rabbi chuckled. “Would it shock your Midwestern heart to learn there are people in the world who don't live for
nice?
Polite yes, serviceable and competent—I'll take that. Ten hours of small talk over bobkes, no thank you.
Nice,
little girl, means nothing. I'd rather have someone call me a kike to my face than Oh hello, Mr. Rabbi, how do you do, Mr. Rabbi, good day, Mr. Rabbi, then the knife in the back. I get you some coffee?”

“No, I overdosed on tea this morning. No thanks.”

He was checking his cabinets. “No coffee actually, so it's just as well. Old Jew wine I got. Maneschewitz grape? It's probably turned to vinegar up there. I give it to Paddy. It's an armed camp here,” he remarked, changing subjects without warning. “It's not everywhere you can hear machine-gun fire at night and turn over and go back to sleep.
Nice
won't work here, not with our history … which if those idiotic old terrorists who run this country have their way will end soon.”

“You don't like Shamir?”

“Too old. Too old like I am too old, too intransigent. Jews are the best diplomats in the world, right? Disraeli, Kissinger—but for Israel we get Moe and Joe up there, not willing to talk to anyone who has ever talked to anyone who knows anyone that was a terrorist. This is Shamir talking! Blows up the King David Hotel, fifty British dead, a member of Irgun and he won't talk to terrorists. Mind you,” he added, “the Palestinians have killed more of themselves than the Israeli Army has. And now, with Yasser Arafat taking time off from playing kissyface with the pope to play kissyface with Saddam Hussein, who's gonna talk now?”

The rabbi sighed wearily, stroking his beard.

“Bulldoze Palestinian homes,” he began, “put 'em in camps, invade Lebanon, spy on the U.S., shoot a bunch of rock-throwing boys on prime-time TV, sell arms to Iran, put homesteaders in the Christian Quarter, alienate the U.S. and American Jews, develop friends like Mengistu and Pik Botha—what have we done right under these clowns? Meanwhile inflation through the goddam roof, the economy in shambles, we got hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming in like it's Ellis Island and we're made of money. As a product of a 4000-year-old culture, let me say
oy vey.
”

“Well, it must be a little comforting to see how solidly the U.S. is behind Israel.”

“Hey, I'm counting the days. You guys can't run your damn government on trillions of dollars, so when you go into a depression, that $3 billion to Israel will go pronto. You got a nation of
schvarzes
who love their welfare and have decided they'd get more if Israel didn't get any. Every time a black politician gets up it's anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, Hymietown, right? Jews who, for Christ's sake, went down there to Mississippi and Alabama and got their heads beat in for blacks to vote in the '60s. Talk about ingratitude, eh?”

“It doesn't help calling them
schvarzes.
”

“What?” he asked, shrugging.

“It's a Jewish way of saying ‘nigger.'”

The rabbi contemplated this. “No it's not. Okay, I won't use it anymore. Least around you.”

“I think their resentment has to do with their image in Hollywood, which Jews controlled, and the record business, which the Jews still run, and you see, Israel sells all the weapons to South Africa—”

“Jesus H. Christ! Do you understand anti-Semitism, little girl? It always has a reason, an excellent, impeccable reason that sounds wholly rational—Jewish conspiracy of financiers, Jews and the Masons, they kill Jews because of plots to bring in Communism, the Soviets kill Jews because of plots to get rid of Communism … First comes the hate, then the rationalization.” He changed subjects again: “How's the transliteration going?”

“I've gotten the second chapter of the gospel converted to Roman letters, but it's all nonsense so far.” She sighed. “The gospel
can
be deciphered, can't it? You guys keep talking about Meroitic, and I looked it up, and the encyclopedia says it's a lost language.”

The rabbi rubbed his eyes. “Heard of the Indus Valley Script? Every year someone's cracked it, publishes a paper, throws a party, and every year that someone is wrong. Etruscan. We got, what? Ten thousand words of the thing and we still can't manage their grammar. You better believe there are lost languages.” The rabbi opened a small satchel and took out the existing books and began to insert others from another stack, while lecturing: