Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (13 page)

To that, she said nothing, hoping he wouldn't
pursue the subject.

"You probably need a shower," he finally
said.

"Yes," she replied, moved by his patience
under what must be enormous stress.

"Can I return later and take you to
dinner?"

"I'm surprised you're not busy every
evening."

"It's a long story."

This perked her curiosity as she opened the
passenger door to get out. "I can probably guess."

"I doubt it," he replied, turning to look
through the windshield and failing to satisfy her curiosity.

She glanced down the street, not surprised to
see a man seated in a Subaru sedan. Rather than close the door to
the SUV, she leaned over and pointed to the Subaru. "Another one of
your people spying on me?"

"Wrong. I don't have personnel for this kind
of work," he replied. "But Major Zabronski does."

"Did your people enter my apartment? I know
the place has been searched. I'd be fuming mad if I knew what was
taken."

"There are several investigations going on
simultaneously. If I were you, I'd regard that guy watching you as
protection."

"From what?" she snapped.

"Whoever is looking for Matternly."

By the time Gabby entered her apartment, a
black mood had replaced the initial shock of finding the Ziploc
bag. Tim had spoken in his e-mail about the discovery of a
lifetime. Now it was clear he had been at Cave XII and probably
stolen state property. Did it matter, she asked herself, that he
had devoted himself to Essene scholarship and that no other
academic was more worthy to study new documents from this period?
She was well acquainted with his contempt for Itamar's agency,
which consistently restricted archeology in the Holy Land to
appease the Orthodox political parties in Israel's chronically
unstable coalition government. Scholars often became possessive of
the material they studied, sometimes stepping over a delicate line
between what is legal and illegal. Still, she had always known Tim
to be a man obsessed with doing the right thing and couldn't
imagine what had possessed him to make an exception at Cave XII.
Whatever it was, she was certain he never intended to profit
financially from this windfall.

For more than a half-hour, she sat on her
bed, staring into space, numbed by a flow of conflicting thoughts.
On an impulse, she decided to take a second look through the
apartment. During her first search, it had not occurred to her to
check the bedroom closet for the World War II rifle Tim had stashed
behind a laundry basket. It was unlike him to own a firearm because
during his years in the ministry, he had been a strong advocate of
gun control. Often he had said to her that his view remained
unchanged about guns in the States. But Israel was another animal.
Only a fool would ignore the reality of acute terrorism. Just as
the state must protect its citizens, so must an individual protect
himself and his family.

The rifle was missing!

Until then, she had hoped that Tim would
eventually turn up with an explanation no one had thought of
before. But now, she knew this to be fantasy. The truth was, Tim
wasn't missing and never was. He was now a fugitive from the law.
And an armed one at that!

She wished she had not made a date with
Itamar. The timing couldn't have been worse. Naturally, she could
call and plead that she was not feeling well. Or invent another
lame excuse. But while in one respect she didn't want to see him,
in another she did. At Qumran, she had shared with him an
extraordinary experience when their bodies had touched at the very
moment they were making contact with a previous generation. However
moody and strong-willed he appeared, what she saw in Itamar she
liked. Still, his position as director of the Antiquities Authority
complicated any thought of real friendship.

The restaurant Itamar chose was hidden on an alley
running off ha-Emek Street, the second floor of which provided a
panoramic view of the Roman and Ottoman granite walls encasing
Jerusalem's Old City. The municipality had illuminated the wall
with bright floodlights and decorated the tower of Zion with blue
bunting. Multicolored flags on the parapets fluttered in a mild
wind. Two waiters with shaven scalps in tight-fitting black silk
T-shirts, looking as if they had just worked out in a gym, provided
menus and a wine list.

Gabby watched Itamar study the offerings with
the intensity she imagined him to examine an ancient potshard. In
his stressful capacity as director of the Antiquities Agency, she
had found his conversations to jump nervously from one subject to
another, but in the relaxed, quiet atmosphere of the restaurant, he
stayed on subject. After she had selected a brace of pigeon, cooked
with garlic Arab style, and her favorite, green salad with tomatoes
and cucumbers, he ordered a compatible Italian Chianti.

When it arrived, he poured for her and
swirled the ruby-colored wine to enhance its bouquet. With his own
glass cupped in two hands, he said, "So, Gabrielle, tell me more
about your doctoral work. I recalled skimming an article you wrote
in
Archeology Journal
last year and two
days ago went back to read it. About how prophets in the bible
prepared themselves to become spokesmen for God."

That such an important scholar, the director
of the Antiquities Authority, would take time to read an article
she believed more flawed than its reviewers, startled her. "I'd do
a better job today," she said.

"It's not exactly my field, but I'm curious
what inspired you to come up with that hypothesis."

"It started when, as a rabbi, I suffered from
the imposter syndrome. How could I purport to be an interpreter of
God's will when I suspected major flaws in the mechanism by which
He's supposed to communicate with His creatures?"

Itamar's eyes focused on her with devoted
concentration, entreating her to continue.

"We don't understand how God, who is
spiritual and non-corporeal, can talk with humans, who are just the
opposite."

"Sounds like heresy to me, Rabbi," he
interrupted. "So where do you go with this?"

Before she could answer, a waiter arrived
with bread and dipping condiments rich in olive oil. Itamar
refilled Gabby's wine glass.

She had hoped to move him from the subject,
but before she could, he said, "You mentioned in your article a
school for prophets. That's a revolutionary notion if I ever heard
one."

"I don't think that people who claim to talk
for God come out of the blue. If you study the lives of the Hebrew
prophets, they seemed to have begun training for their missions
early in life, like a student who attends an undergraduate academy,
then goes on to a graduate school. In the Book of Samuel, prophets
roam in clans and work in professional guilds. Guild members
weren't born prophets. And prophecy didn't come to them like a
thunderbolt in the night. Each prepared himself for a career
interpreting God's will. Not all prophets studied the same
curriculum but all had mentors who taught them their trade, so to
speak. I'm working on this theme in my thesis."

Itamar eased back in his chair and smiled
with satisfaction. "It's hard to imagine that your rabbinical
colleagues, to say nothing of countless mullahs and priests, will
be thrilled with the idea."

That's their problem, not mine," she giggled,
succumbing to the effects of the alcohol. "I may not be popular in
conventional circles, but I'm having a damn good time."

"And so am I," he said. "Listening to you, I
hear your passion, and I admire people with passion for their
work."

The conversation about prophets trailed off
when the main course arrived. As they began eating, she observed
how well he handled the cutlery and said, "South African table
manners, I presume. Your mother must have trained you before coming
to Israel."

"We don't lose our identities here, you
know."

"Why did you make
aliyah
?" Gabby asked a question that she had found to
provide insight into Israelis born in the Diaspora.
Tzabras,
native born Israelis, accepted Israel as
their birthright and were, in that respect, less interesting than
those who made an active choice to immigrate.

"I had to," he said with a trace of remorse
in his voice.

"Did you leave your family in Africa?"
"Only
what was left of it. My sister had already moved to San Francisco
and my eldest brother to Melbourne."
"Is Arad your family name?"
"I
grew up as Stephen Kornfeld and changed it to Itamar a year after
making
aliyah
."

Gabby leaned forward, eager to ask more, but
feared invading his privacy. Curiosity won the brief struggle.

"Why did you leave?"

Itamar absentmindedly stopped chewing and
placed his fork on the edge of his plate as if to indicate that it
was a long story. "When I was a kid, my father was in the clothing
business in Joburg and operated a series of small shops located in
the tribal areas of the Eastern Cape, catering exclusively to
natives. He employed more than sixty indigenous people, mostly
Xhosas. When I wasn't in school, I would travel around the
countryside helping him. I loved the local languages and learned to
speak reasonably good Tsi-Xhosa and a bit less fluently, Zulu."

"A polyglot, along with your archeological
skills, I see," Gabby said. "It must have made you quite
valuable."

"On the contrary. It was my downfall. When I
was drafted into the army, I didn't want to serve in a stupid,
ill-conceived border war in Angola. I made the mistake of letting
my officers in the army know that I spoke Tsi-Xhosa and Zulu,
hoping for a job as an interpreter. They transferred me to an
intelligence company, which wasn't bad for the first few months.
But I was later put into a special unit whose job was to stir up
tribal conflict between Xhosa and Zulu. The government's policy was
to divide and rule by keeping the tribes fighting each other, so
they wouldn't band together to overthrow white rule. We did what
you Americans call 'dirty tricks' to convert simple folks who were
originally suspicious of each other into outright enemies."

Gabby hid her dismay by saying, "I can't
imagine you enjoyed that."

"I hated it. So I leaked information about my
unit to a Jewish classmate who worked with the Liberal Party in
Johannesburg. This information got into the papers and my friend,
Yacob, was imprisoned. His girlfriend told me she didn't know what
Yacob revealed when interrogated, but if my name came up, I was
certain to be arrested. I deserted the army, using my contacts in
Dad's clothing business to make my way to Mozambique, and from
there to Nairobi, where I went to the Israel embassy.
Aliyah
wasn't a choice. It was a necessity."

"And your parents in Johannesburg?"

"They came here later, but were too old to
adjust, so they immigrated to Perth, Australia, where good friends
owned a small restaurant and offered them partnership in the
business. My father died four years ago. My mother's still in
Perth." 
Gabby canted her head in a gesture of understanding, for
the first time issuing a smile that was almost flirtatious. "You
seem quite comfortable here. Had I not gone into the rabbinate, I
might have been happy to make
aliyah.
But
by the time it started to make sense, it was too late. There's no
way for a female rabbi to make a living in this country."

"You can get a job teaching. With your
education, the field's open."

"How about becoming an antiquities
investigator?" she asked playfully.

"It works for me. I stopped trying to become
a famous archeologist and now protect the artifacts others
discover. At one time, I wanted nothing more than to be part of an
exploratory team, but I've made peace with an administrative role.
The downside is that nobody likes a policeman. In the trade, I'm
more feared than respected."

She didn't feel like commenting on that
observation, so asked, "And your family? Do they get as thrilled by
the past as you?"

Itamar's eyes abruptly dropped.

When he failed to answer, she said, "I'm
sorry for probing. It's none of my business."

"That's not true," he said, lifting his eyes
and snapping with a tone bordering on hostility. "Everything that
happens in this country is everybody else's business. We're all
caged here because our ancestors once lived on the same real
estate. Immigrants with little hope of living normally in the
Diaspora, survivors from the Holocaust, victims of the Arabs. The
past has ensnared all of us."

"This is the first resentment I've heard from
you."

"Sorry. Every morning when I look into the
mirror shaving, I pledge not to become embittered. That would only
compound one tragedy with another."

"How wise," she commented.

"Not wise, just practical. My wife, Becky,
and my daughter, Gila, were guests at a Bar Mitzvah celebration at
the Palace Hotel at Netanya. I was on business in Paris. Terrorists
from Tulkarem blew themselves up in the middle of the dance floor.
Gila was killed instantly. Becky died in the hospital a day after I
rushed home to her bedside."

This disclosure sent a chill of remorse
through Gabby. She said what sounded to her to be feeble. "I'm so,
so very sorry."

"Don't be. We can't afford to feel sorry for
ourselves. We're just disgusted. In South Africa, I learned that in
such conflicts, everybody loses. No winners. Not a single one.
Perhaps that's why I treasure the past. It's my refuge."

Gabby did something that astonished her. She
reached across the table and patted her hand on top of his to make
physical contact. "Mine, too, Itamar," she said. "Sometimes I think
that those of us who can't stomach the present live in the
past."