The City of Lost Secrets: A Mara Beltane Mystery (9 page)

This trip was different. There was no need to hurry. Although I lived with a constant sense of urgency, I allowed myself time to research, as long as it took. And to do that, I had to completely immerse myself in the culture of Jerusalem.

It helped that I was seeing the same faces every day--hotel staff, bartenders, restaurant wait staff, market vendors. They smiled and waved at me, and sometimes called my name as I passed. I was starting to know my way around, and could find places without the aid of a map. This knowledge allowed me to walk the streets of Old City and New City with confidence, as if I was a local, like I fit in, like I belonged.

So even if the book didn’t pan out or it wound up being a failure, I would consider the trip a success because I felt I at least had conquered a foreign city all by myself. I had that to be proud of.

I turned onto Tiferet Yisrael Street, one of the busiest streets in the Jewish Quarter. It connects the tree-shaded Hurva Square with the stairs that descend to the Western Wall. Once past the Hurva Square and near the end of the street I would find the café where Professor Nevon had instructed me to meet him for lunch.

The café was small and simple, with a few tables outside for alfresco dining, a popular pastime in Jerusalem. I had passed the café several times during my walks through the Old City and thought nothing of it. But it must have some significance if he requested this specific site for us to meet.

The professor was sitting at a table outside the café, sipping a beer and reading a newspaper. He was wearing khaki pants with a brown belt, and a light green button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I felt slightly underdressed in my tan slacks, red short-sleeved shirt and hiking boots. He looked up as I approached, folded his paper and rose to greet me.

“Out walking again?” he asked, extending his hand.

I was surprised that he remembered this little detail of our conversation the previous day in which I told him walking was my favorite way to get to know a city. I smiled and shook his hand and replied that his city was very walkable. 

We both sat and a waitress came over and handed each of us a menu. She said something to me in Hebrew, and I looked at Dr. Nevon, wide-eyed and embarrassed. He said something to her, and she rested her gaze on me and smiled.

“Would you like something to drink?” she said in perfect English.

The menu was mostly in Hebrew, but I was able to decipher the word Coke among the choices of available beverages. “Coke, please,” I said.

“I recommend a falafel,” the professor said to me. “They’re very good here.”

“Okay, Coke and a falafel,” I told the waitress, and the professor ordered a falafel for himself.

“So, Mara, how long have you been in Jerusalem?” he asked once the waitress had taken her leave. He rested his arms on the table and interlocked his hands.

“A few days,” I said, folding my own arms in my lap. It was a warm day, and the walk to the café had left my arms and back slightly moist with sweat. I didn’t want to lean on the plastic table cloth for fear that I might stick. 

“And how are you finding it so far?”

“It’s a beautiful city,” I said. “I hope to make the most of my time here.”

“And you’re here to learn about the Talpiot tomb? Write a novel about it?”

“Yes.”

“There is so much to tell,” the professor said. “Where shall I start?”

I reached in my bag and pulled out my notebook and a pen, asking the professor if he minded if I record our conversation on paper. He shook his head and smiled. Flipping to a fresh page, I wrote the date at the top:

May 25, 2009.

When I glanced up from my notepad he was looking at me in that curious way of his, his eyebrows raised and mouth set, the way I had seen him address his students. He was waiting for me to tell him where to begin.

“Well, Dr. Nevon, I--”

“Please, call me Uri,” the professor interjected.

“Okay,” I said, deciding how to be as honest as possible with Uri. I wanted to start the conversation with the truth. He seemed to be, after all, my ticket into the Talpiot tomb. I would have to give him full disclosure.

The waitress appeared and placed a glass of Coke in front of me, the straw already inserted. I thanked her and she walked away saying a brisk “your welcome.”

“First,” I said, “I must admit the documentary I mentioned to you in class yesterday is what brought me here. It’s what inspired the idea for the novel I want to write.”

“I see,” Uri said. Then he smiled. “It suggests there’s a Jesus family tree. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “So can we begin by talking about Mary Magdalene?”

“Of course.” He took a swig of beer and sat back in his chair.

“If I’m not mistaken, there was an ossuary found in the Talpiot tomb that supposedly had an inscription with her name on it.”

“Ah, yes,” Uri said, taking another sip of beer. “Mariamne e Mara. Perhaps the most controversial of the ossuaries.”

“That was the inscription on the bone box, right?”

“Yes. Mariamne is a Greek form of Mary, and Mara is an Aramaic word meaning
master
.” Uri sat forward and leaned across the table. “Did your parents know that when they named you?”

“I—-I don’t know,” I said, suddenly recalling the origin of the word Mara. How strange that my parents would be familiar with Aramaic, a dead language. Perhaps they had simply heard the name somewhere and liked it enough to give it to their only child. 

“Well, in any case,” Uri continued, “the fact remains that if this is indeed the ossuary of Mary Magdalene, and we are to believe the inscription reads
Mary the master
then we must accept that the inscription was written in two different languages--Greek and Aramaic.”

“Is that possible?” I asked, writing in my notebook.

“It’s very rare. None of the other ossuaries found in antiquity--about 2,000—-either mix languages or give a title to a person, such as
master
. Therefore, we must present another possibility.”

“Which is?” I asked, taking a long sip from the straw and continuing to take notes as Uri spoke.

“That the inscription is written in a single language, in this case Greek, a common language at the time and the more common way to inscribe bone boxes. If you then translate the bone box inscription into strictly Greek, it becomes
Mariamne and Mara
. Mariamene again being a form of Mary, and Mara, in this case, being a form of Martha.”

As I scribbled these revelations furiously, the weight of his last statement sank in.

“So you’re saying there could have been
two
women buried in the same bone box?” I asked, my pen stopping mid-stroke.

“It’s possible,” Uri said. “We know that the first name—-Mariamne--was written in formal Greek script. It’s possible that the second name, Mara, translated as Martha, was written in a different cursive Greek script--not Aramaic. This could suggest that the bones of a second woman were added later to the ossuary, and a different scribe wrote the name of the second woman on the box.”

“So the box contains the bones of two women, interred at separate times,” I summarized.

“That’s one theory.” Uri took another sip of beer and I took another long sip of my Coke, thirsty from the heat.

“Was it common to have multiple people buried in the same ossuary?” I asked.

“There are reports of family tombs with ossuaries containing up to six people each. In Judaism, you can be buried with whomever you slept with in the same bed. A husband and wife being the most obvious example. But also siblings or family members who grew up together. Or a mother who shared her bed with her young children.”

The waitress brought our falafels and I waited for her to turn away before continuing.

“If you take the two-women-in-one-ossuary theory into account, then the house of cards falls apart,” I said. “The ossuary can’t possibly be that of Mary Magdalene, and therefore the Talpiot tomb can’t be the tomb of Jesus Christ.”

Uri took a bite of falafel and chased it with a sip of beer. “Unless,” he said, “you consider that Jewish law didn’t allow unrelated women to be buried together. Mariamne and Mara, therefore, could have been sisters. Who’s to say Mariamne didn’t refer to Mary Magdalene, and that she had a sister, Mara? If that’s the case, then it makes sense that they were both buried with Jesus. Because Mariamne—-or Mary Magdalene—-was married to him!”

My head was spinning from the combination of heat and complicated conversation. I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my right temple.

“Okay, so it seems to me that the validity of the Talpiot tomb rests with the Mariamne e Mara ossuary,” I said. “If you remove it from the equation, what you’re left with is a tomb filled with ossuaries belonging to a typical extended Jewish family whose names were very common for the period.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Uri said. He held up the index finger on his right hand, an indication that he was about to make another argument. “But to say that the names were common is a shallow argument. It’s the cluster of names--Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and so on—-that is uncommon and rare.”

Without realizing it, I had finished my entire falafel and all but a few sips of Coke. Both my head and my stomach were full. Uri’s plate was empty as well, and he’d just taken his last swig of beer. He placed the glass on the table, leaned back in his chair and waited for another question. I only had one left in me.

“Do you believe the Talpiot tomb is the final resting place of Jesus Christ?”

Uri smiled. “What do you think of this café?” he asked.

“It’s very nice,” I said, confused about the shift in conversation. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

“I’m glad you like it. It’s one of my favorite places, but not for the food.” Uri motioned to his left, to a hill that rose to the east of Old City. He was pointing to the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives had been used as a burial ground since the third millennium B.C. More importantly, this area of Jerusalem was associated with the last days of Jesus. It was the area I was headed to on the day I met Lev, but I never made it.

“That is where my people are buried,” Uri said, continuing to point. “They have been resting there for centuries. And it’s the place where I, too, will be buried one day.”

As I stared up at the mountain, dotted with churches and Jewish graves, I marveled at how spectacular the Old City, and New City beyond, must look from up there. 

“I never tire of this view,” Uri said. “Mara, have you visited the Mount of Olives yet?”

I returned my gaze to Uri. As I stared at his profile and admired his handsome features, I realized the professor was not going to answer my question. He wasn’t ready to reveal himself.

“No, I haven’t,” I said. “But I’ve been meaning to…”

“Excellent,” he said, looking me deep in the eyes. “You must allow me to take you there.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We stood atop the Mount of Olives, the walls of the Old City down to our right, and the Valley of Jehoshaphat below us. Rows of sand-colored stone tombs spread out in front of us, numbering in the thousands, evidence that millennia of Jews believed this to be the place where the dead would be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. Christians and Muslims hold this same belief, so the valley is dotted with the cemeteries of three major faiths.

Yesterday I sat at the outdoor café with Uri, looking up at the Mount of Olives from within the walls of the Old City and wondered how spectacular the view must be from up there. Now I knew. From atop the Mount of Olives, just outside the Mosque of the Ascension where I stood with Uri at my side, I could see it all: the whole Kidron Valley, or Valley of Jehoshaphat; Mount Zion across the valley, the hill synonymous with biblical times and the final days of Jesus; and the Dome of the Rock off in the distance, its gold dome a shining beacon proclaiming the glory of Jerusalem.

Uri broke the silence that had existed between us for several minutes as I took in the vastness and grandeur of Jerusalem.

“Would you believe that after the birth of Israel—-a time that was supposed to be happy and prosperous—-the Palestinians desecrated our sacred sites and destroyed much of Jerusalem,” he said. He pointed down to the Jewish cemeteries below us in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. “During the years of Palestinian occupation, many tombstones just like those were used as paving stones for roads. Many of the cemeteries were converted into parking lots.”

“How awful,” I said.

“The birth of Israel was a violent one,” he continued. “Especially in Jerusalem.” Uri turned to me. “Jerusalem has always been the heart of the conflict. If you are to know Jerusalem, this is the first thing you must understand.” 

“Do you remember much of the conflict?” I asked, trying to discern how old Uri was.

“My parents lived during the British Mandate, a time of relative peace in Israel and in Jerusalem. There was not a lot of violence, but not much happened in the way of making Israel its own governing state. After the birth of Israel, my family survived many years of war and occupation by various Arab nations wanting to proclaim Jerusalem as their own. Many friends and family members were forced from their land; some were killed. Still others emigrated to America.”

“Did your parents stay?” I asked.

“They refused to leave. Jerusalem was their home. They are resting now, down there,” Uri said, pointing to the dozens of rows of tombs below us.

Uri paused, his eyes again scanning the landscape.

“By the time I was born the War of 1967 had just ended and Israel had regained control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

“Things didn’t stay peaceful for long, though…” I said.

“No, they did not,” Uri said. “Israel would not give up any land it had captured during the War of 1967 in exchange for peace talks. In fact, Israel tried to expand its territorial reach even further by building settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River--land the Palestinians claim is theirs.”

“Settlements are still being built today,” I added. “This is illegal, if I’m not mistaken.”