Gospel (30 page)

“Or it could be like the Stele of Tyre,” said O'Hanrahan, suggesting one of his fears. “I spent 1964 messing around with that thing. Where one culture has taken someone else's alphabet, Morey, and used it for their own phonetics.”

“Nu, Master of the Universe, not that.”

Similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was no apparent punctuation except for the colons between word units—where sentences ended or began was anybody's guess. The text was organized in seven dense blocks down the scrollpage, or seven chapters as O'Hanrahan speculated. Most distressing, the last of the seven blocks showed the print running off the edge, as if the scroll had been torn before the writing had concluded.

O'Hanrahan stared glumly at the seventh text block. “It looks like a knife or something was used to break off this bit. As opposed to natural deterioration, I mean.”

Rabbi Rosen, explained Rabbi Hersch, forty years ago began to decipher the scroll at Hebrew University, and he had told his colleagues that the last segment was loose and he had removed it hoping to carefully sew it back later.

“When Rosen died,” said O'Hanrahan, finishing the tale for Lucy's benefit, “the scroll disappeared and so did the detached last chapter. Let's hope there's not a surprise ending,” he added, irritated the whole thing wasn't in one piece.

Rabbi Hersch: “Jacob Rosen
did
say the last chapter particularly was a bombshell, but he never told me what was in it. I'm not sure he lived long enough to translate that far. Who knows? Maybe,” he wondered, turning to Father Creech, “this German guy you bought it from is holding the last chapter hoping you'll pay through the nose for it.”

Quite likely, thought O'Hanrahan. Once the Dead Sea Scrolls were confirmed in their importance the Bedouin traders parceled out the remaining fragments of papyri in exceedingly expensive doses, splitting and subdividing them for maximum profit. Perversely, as the Dead Sea Scrolls were translated the few remaining fragments were hoarded by academics in the same fashion, who hoped to increase their own importance by denying the public their scholarship. People are rotten, O'Hanrahan reminded himself.

“Well, let's get to the photo studio,” said the rabbi.

The three pilgrims and the watchful Father O'Reilly went down to the concrete pier at a little after 10:30
A.M.
The return crossing was calmer, or perhaps it didn't seem so choppy with the sun out. Mary McCall was telephoned and she drove to Ballycastle to pick them up.

Lucy went straight back to the McCalls', the professor and Rabbi Hersch with Father O'Reilly were dropped at the Crown.

“It's getting to be a resort around these parts, it is,” said Jack the innkeeper and publican, explaining there was only one more available lodging remaining for this O'Reilly fellow, and that was the one of three rooms upstairs beside Rabbi Hersch and O'Hanrahan. “I do believe,” he added, “we're becoming a tourist attraction. Americans everywhere.”

Father O'Reilly, who did not register as a priest, merely put his small bag in his room and then ensconced himself in the most comfortable chair in O'Hanrahan's chamber.

O'Hanrahan opened his big suitcase and brought out a small camera. The rabbi shifted lamps and opened curtains to increase the light inside the room for a better picture. Every time O'Hanrahan and Mordechai Hersch made eye contact, they communicated a telepathic: what do we have to do to get rid of this guy? Until the chance came along, the professor spread out the scroll on a clean white linen sheet.

“We really need the tripod for it to be in focus,” said Rabbi Hersch. “You, Paddy, with the shakes, forget it.”

“I don't have the shakes—”

There was a knock at the door: “It's me.”

“Go away,” hummed the rabbi.

“If it's Lucy, in particular, go away,” added O'Hanrahan.

“Ha ha. Open the door and I won't bother you anymore today.” Having made her peace with her exclusion from this project, Lucy had decided to spend the day with David, whose company she preferred to the curmudgeons' anyway.

O'Hanrahan opened the door to his bedroom: “I asked the management to send up an Oriental girl skilled in all the erotic arts of the East. And look what I get.”

“Will the East Side of Chicago do?” She inched herself into the room, sidestepping O'Hanrahan. She noticed Father O'Reilly wordlessly observing the makeshift photography arrangements. O'Hanrahan, his face turned away from the Ignatian father, rolled his eyes in frustration for Lucy's benefit.

“Father O'Reilly,” offered Lucy, “do you want to have lunch or something? This can't be very interesting for you.”

He summoned the energy to say he was fine just where he was.

Lucy then tried to project interest and professionalism: “So what are you photographing now, sir?” she asked the rabbi.

He mumbled distractedly, “Family vacation pictures I'm taking. This is Yellowstone.”

Lucy absently wandered over to O'Hanrahan's little hotel-room desk and saw a variety of tomes laid out for study: a bibliography of what texts are in what world libraries, textbooks on African script, a book on Ge'ez and Nubian Christian dialects, Ethiopian etymologies, there was one in an Arabic title she couldn't make out …

“Excuse me,”
hissed Rabbi Hersch.

Lucy realized her standing by the desk cast a shadow across the scroll. “Oops, sorry.” You would have thought he might have been a bit kinder after their midnight rendezvous of the night before, she thought.

“Why don't you go play with David today?” suggested O'Hanrahan.

She noticed he had a bathroom glass in his hand, filled with ice and a trace of remaining whiskey. “It's what I had in mind,” she said. “Why don't you publish some of the pictures and see who might know something useful?”

The rabbi, for the first time in front of Lucy, laughed a sustained laugh; O'Hanrahan chuckled as well. “Are you that naive, Miss Dan-tan? You think we academics are one happy family, sharing our discoveries?”

“Okay, okay. Dumb question.” She felt herself blush at her own lack of sense. She casually asked, “I don't suppose you'd let me have a copy of these photos—”

All three men in the room simultaneously: “No!”

She smiled anyway. “Never can tell. I might get lucky. Solve the whole puzzle. Someone let
you,
Dr. O'Hanrahan, view the Dead Sea Scrolls, remember, in 1948.”

O'Hanrahan scooted her toward the door. “I'd love to let you help us but, alas, I would ruin your progress on that
seminal
thesis of yours on Corinthian script differences in Fourth-Century
B.C.
Greek. Would I do that to future generations of scholars?”

Lucy was shuffled to the hallway. “You think I should change topics, Dr. O'Hanrahan? I mean, if you would recommend another topic, I'd—”

“Yes, and if you take a flight from Belfast today you might get back in time to file for a topic change within 24 hours. Bye-bye now.”

The door was slammed shut with a flick of O'Hanrahan's wrist, but he was not without a parting smile.

It was a sunny, white-light morning in Ballymacross and most homes were perfectly still, the fishermen or commuters to other villages having long departed. There was a trace of turf smoke from the chimney pots, a lingering medicinal smell that caught the nostrils. Lucy walked back to the McCalls' from the Crown, up the sloping hill past the identical white and pink painted homes, some brick, with differently colored doors for variety. She trudged upward feeling the warmth of the sun as well as the fresh sting of the sea breeze. Above her another band of sea gulls whooped and floated stationary against the wind, looking curiously at Lucy, as if they too shared the Irish fascination with the newly arrived.

“Come in, come in,” enthused Mrs. McCall, her eyes full of welcome. “'Course, wouldn't ye know, David's not risen yet, and here it is noon, Lord help us. Life of leisure, you students have! Ah, but I bet you're a girl who gets up early, right and proper.”

“No,” laughed Lucy, as she was shown into the parlor. “I'm just as bad, I'm afraid. Sleeping late whenever I can, like David.”

(Lucy, you haven't missed a lecture in years at Chicago.)

“Daaaaavid!” his mother called out. “Outa yer bed, boy. Quit faffing about, company's here!”

“Uh, you don't have to wake him on my account—”

“David! Lucy's here!” Lucy heard stirrings as Mrs. McCall turned back to Lucy. “We spoil him, we do. He'll be off to Africa soon enough, I suppose, so we figure it'll do no harm to cosset him now.”

“When does he leave for the mission, Mrs. McCall?”

“Oh, I'm sure I'd tell ye the wrong thing. You'd better ask David, and make sure ye get his address and write to him, if you would. His father is not a writing man, and my poor efforts are just that.”

David in an R.E.M. T-shirt and boxer shorts, his red hair all scattered, loped into the room: “Morning, morning.”

Mrs. McCall was incredulous he would show himself “in his pants” to company—no shred of decency anymore, it's what it proved. David demanded that his mother should fetch everyone some tea and before turning back to his bedroom, he tarried at the parlor to chat:

“Don't know why she's got so prim,” he whispered, before yawning a cavernous yawn. “I'm not quite at meself yet. These are my best boxers—aye, with the shamrocks here, a real piece of Irish lore, this is—”

WHAPPPP! His mother unannounced gave him a slap on the bottom. “Get some clothes on yeself before I…”

“Lucy hasn't said she minded. I spied her lookin' at me, I did.”

Mrs. McCall's eyes went huge: “I—just you—you're not so big I can't give ye a good joining yet!” After he went to find some clothes, Mary McCall confided, “It's Dublin thatsa done this to him. I raised him to have some cooth, I did. Send 'em off to university and ye see what happens.”

There fell a rare quiet in the house.

“Tea's ready,” said Mrs. McCall, returning presently to the parlor. “Had your breakfast yet, love? We got some pairtch on.”

Pairtch? A fish? Oh:
porridge.

“No ma'am, but thank you though.”

Lucy craned to the edge of the sofa to look at some of the McCalls' children's photos. David as a kid looked about the same—more freckles, the red hair more fiery, but the same self-possession was already there. She imagined the circumstances: all of them surprised by a sunny day in the yard, David acting like a wise guy for his father, cocking a nine-year-old adult expression. The rectangular photo behind its glass had yellowed and the sky was now green, but David was David.

“Here's your tea,” said Mrs. McCall, putting it down before her. “Now make David take ye to the Giant's Causeway. You'll want to be a-seeing that.”

David bounded into the parlor, in a Trinity College sweatshirt and a pair of tired, farm-worked jeans, his hair still in all directions.

“Well, ye won't be setting out with your hair like a rat's nest no way,” said his mother, looking as if she had discovered him in the gutter. “You're a tramp is what ye are.”

“I thought I'd take Lucy up to the standing stone.”

Mrs. McCall didn't approve. “You'll be up to your eyeballs in glar'n muck, if you set out up there. Mind you put on your boots; there's an extry pair in the shaid.”

Lucy wondered why boots would be put in the shade.
Shed,
Lucy realized a moment later.

David borrowed his cousin Bruce's mini, since Mrs. McCall kept the family car for O'Hanrahan's chores, and drove Lucy around the sights of County Antrim. This land was a million miles from barbed wire and urban graffiti wars—not a blemish or a clue on the rolling green countryside. Lucy saw white cliffs like she had seen in pictures of Dover. Rookeries of seabirds. The Giant's Causeway of O'Hanrahan's tales with a long stop in the gift shop for another supply of postcards. Then they stopped by the Bushmills Distillery for a factory tour and a free sample that warmed Lucy internally. She picked up a bottle of the triple-distilled for her dad. Where whiskey was concerned he could forgive its Protestant origins.

“I bet Patrick would drink this place dry,” David said. “It'd be their last tour, what do you bet? Let's pick him up a bottle of Black Bush, hm?”

That might ingratiate her further, so Lucy agreed.

“So it's all worked out all right?” asked David, as they concluded their tour amid a room of casks and bottles.

“Yep, they got what they came for,” said Lucy, not really concentrating. “They're shutting me out, of course, so I guess I came up here for nothing.”

“How can ye say that? We got to meet, didn't we?”

Lucy felt herself color and walk ahead of him so this schoolgirl behavior wasn't detectable. Lucy lectured herself for not at least uttering something appreciative and reciprocal. I'm a wimp, she conceded.

Back in Ballymacross, David went to prepare for the muddy slog up to the standing stone, and Lucy was dropped off at the Crown Inn, whose pub was closed through the afternoon. She entered a side door for the overnight guests and climbed the stairway to O'Hanrahan's room.

“It's me,” she confessed, after knocking.

O'Hanrahan parted the door a millimeter and then spied the whiskey bottle. “Ah, you've been to the sacred fount, I see.”

“For you,” she said, holding it out.

Unable to be ungracious, O'Hanrahan let her in.

Lucy saw the room was back to normal and that Rabbi Hersch sat before a stack of slides and prints. She asked, “Where's the gospel?”

“Down in the pub safe,” said the rabbi, holding up a slide to the light. “O'Reilly had the innkeeper put it in the vault, so we couldn't very well march down and demand that Jack hand it over to us. But we're working on options.”