The Kabbalist (35 page)

Y
eshayahu Orlev
prepared a light dinner, and they sat together to eat. When they were done, he
put the dishes in the kitchen sink and took his son to his room. Naphtali sat on
his favorite couch, and the professor switched on the TV and sat at his side.

Naphtali loved watching
nature documentaries.

After a while, Orlev
stood up and walked to the living room. Naphtali did not even notice. Orlev
sank into his couch and closed his eyes, lost in thought.

He hoped things would
settle down now, at least for a while. He believed he had handled Aryeh quite
well. His thoughts wandered to Luria and Jeanne. Was he right to share his
revelations with them, even if masked as a hypothesis? He was grateful to them.
They helped him, and he felt they earned the right to be told at least part, if
not the whole truth. Besides, he had been carrying this burden with him for too
long now, and needed to share it with somebody.

But was it wise? Won’t
they suspect he knew more than he shared with them? He saw a glimmer of
suspicion in Luria’s eyes. That young man was sharp. Besides, he saw how much
distress his story caused Jeanne. Was it really necessary? In his advanced age,
he should have known better. He should have known that true believers cannot
accept a direct attack on their faith. Even Jonathan could not, and he was a first-rate
scholar.

He sighed.

After more than fifty
years of dealing with religion and faith, he thought he intimately knew their
vast, magical power. But did he really? After all, a man must
believe
in
order to appreciate this power, and he, Yeshayahu Orlev, was never truly a
believer. Jonathan Bennet was one, and it prevented him from drawing obvious
conclusions from facts. Whenever they collided with his belief system, he just
could not go the extra mile.

Jonathan Bennet… just
thinking of him made his stomach turn. The memories of their last encounter
were coming back to him now. They persisted haunting him ever since that day.

*    *    *

He wanted so much to
restore their relationship and return to those happy days… how glad he was when
Jonathan finally broke the painful, years-long silence and called him up to
suggest they sort things out between them. He was elated… ashamed that it was
not he who had taken this step first, but still happy. And then, the fool that
he was, he spoiled it all by overdoing it.

What folly…

He wanted to share
everything with Jonathan. He wanted to tell him the secret which had been
burdening him for the last four years, nearly driving him insane. He struggled
with the thought but finally decided to do it. He sampled a few of the glass
encased pages from his safe and photocopied them. These scrolls were just a few
pages each... but what insights and implications... He was sure Jonathan would
be thrilled.

But he was so wrong…

The meeting started
perfectly. Jonathan was delighted to see Naphtali. Then, they asked again for
each other’s forgiveness and embraced. The conversation turned to happy
memories they both shared… even disputed academic subjects were now mentioned
casually and with a smile. Everything felt so right... And then, he decided
that the time was ripe, retrieved the envelope from his briefcase and passed it
silently to Jonathan.

Jonathan was puzzled.
He opened the envelope, pulled out a page and looked at it. At first, he was
confused, failing to comprehend what he was looking at. He pulled out another
page and reviewed it. Then, all of a sudden, he turned very pale. He froze for
a while, then raised his eyes and stared at him. Orlev knew he would never
forget the look he saw in Bennet's eyes.

“Where did you get
this?” asked Bennet hoarsely, his voice breaking up. “What have you done,
Yeshayahu?”

He felt deeply
embarrassed. “Don’t you see what this is, Jonathan?” he pleaded. “We are now
closer than ever to find out the truth. This will solve our disputes once and
for all. You see, we were both right in a way…”

But Jonathan was deeply
upset and raised his voice. “You must be insane, Yeshayahu, if you think that an
academic research, however important, justifies this...” He held the two pages
in his hand and waved them furiously. “These papers are soiled with blood,” he
shouted. “What have you done? What have you done to Father Fernando?”

He tried to calm him
down. “Please, Jonathan. Whatever happened was an accident, a mishap… but these
documents never belonged to Father Fernando in the first place. You will
understand after you read…”

But Jonathan lost
control. Orlev never saw him like that and never imagined he could act this
way. He waved his hands and yelled like a lunatic. He blamed him, Orlev, of
being an egomaniac, a murderer…

From the corner of his eye,
Orlev noticed Naphtali shifting uneasily in his chair. Naphtali could not
tolerate shouting. Orlev feared that if this went on, Naphtali would feel
threatened and blow up. He could not afford that.

But Jonathan would not
calm down.

He stepped forward and
approached his former student and colleague. “That’s enough, Jonathan, now
listen to me…” But Jonathan did not stop. He was hysterical. Orlev raised his
hand and slapped his face, but Jonathan did not regain his senses. He slapped
him again… and again…

*    *    *

What on earth happened
afterwards? Who entered the scene after he had left with Naphtali?

But enough of that! He
forced himself to shake off those nightmarish visions. His eyes remained
closed.

What will he do now?

He felt empathy with the
late Father Fernando Diaz. He could now appreciate the frustration of knowing
without being able to share the knowledge with anybody. He could never publish
without having to explain how he had gotten hold of the evidence… Well, that
will probably have to wait for his will. As an academic, it was a hard thought
to digest, but he had accepted it by now. If he needed a demonstration of how
bad it could get if he ventured to share this knowledge, Jonathan gave it to
him.

Suddenly, he heard a
noise and jumped to his feet; something was definitely moving outside. With his
heart beating fast, he approached the window and stared out into the moonlit
garden.

It was just an alley cat.

He took a deep breath
and felt relieved. He must control himself. He was becoming too nervous… but
who could blame him? He felt intimidated. It was becoming dangerous. He was now
acutely aware of the fact that somebody out there was looking for the scrolls
and was ready to kill for them. And this somebody now had a taste of them. The
photocopies… he could not forgive himself. How could he have left them there?

It was Naphtali… the
child was hysterical, and he could think of nothing else besides getting his
son away, before he caused more harm. He remembered very well the previous time
when Naphtali had lost control. That dark night in January 2006 was still
haunting him.

*    *    *

That night, he gave
Naphtali a sedative to put him to sleep for the few hours he needed to get away
for the meeting with Illuz. He must have miscalculated the dosage, because Naphtali
woke up at 3 AM. Orlev gave him another pill, yet Naphtali would not go to
sleep again. Left with no choice, he took Naphtali with him.
Bad idea
. He
should never have done it, but what else could he have done?

While he was driving to
the rendezvous place in the woods, the child took an uneasy nap in his seat.
The weather was terrible, with thunderstorms and pouring rain. When they got
there, Illuz’s car was already waiting. Orlev put on a plastic rainproof coat
and got out. So did Illuz and the two of them stood facing each other in the
pouring rain. The cars’ headlights gave the scene a nightmarish look.

Illuz looked at the old
man facing him and smelled his weakness. He grinned maliciously and started
talking. He was rude and used ugly language. He wanted money on the spot and
complained that he had been tricked. He grumbled that the job was much more
complicated than he had been told, and that he expected to be compensated.

Orlev never met such
people before and did not know how to handle him. He explained that he had no
cash with him, that he was only a messenger and besides, he said, that was not
the agreement… Illuz just stood there in the rain, laughing his evil laugh and
waving the plastic bag as if it was full of rags. He said that the ‘merchandise’
must have been worth much more than what he was getting. He then put the bag on
the ground and showed Orlev one of the rectangular glass casings he had inside.
He threatened that if Orlev did not pay him something immediately, he would
break it into little pieces to convince the old man that he was serious.

Orlev was so shaken by
the thought that the invaluable documents might be damaged, that he
instinctively jumped towards Illuz and caught his hand. The man shook him off
like a fly and Orlev fell into the mud. Illuz then raised his leg and kicked
him. He felt a sharp pang in his ribs. Then another kick…

And then it happened.

The car door opened,
and Naphtali stormed out of it.

Illuz turned around.

Orlev, lying on his
back in the mud, saw Illuz’s eyes widen with horror. The giant child charged at
him like a crazed bull, seizing Illuz by the neck and lifting him up in the
air. The helpless Illuz tried to hit him with his fists and kick him, but that
did not do him much good. Naphtali shook him back and forth by the neck, until
the man ceased to resist and became limp and immobile.

Naphtali kept shaking
him senselessly like a rag doll. In the dim yellow light, it felt like a scene
from Dante’s hell. It was eternity before Orlev could find his voice again. He
tried to get up and felt a sharp pain in his ribs. “Naphtali, enough, stop it…”

But Naphtali did not
hear him. He kept shaking his now slack rag doll back and forth, making strange
sounds. Eventually, Orlev managed to stand up. “That’s enough Naphtali, stop
it…”

The child turned
towards him. He was all wet with the rain, but Orlev saw tears in his eyes.
Naphtali was crying. He then spread his arms, and the lifeless Illuz dropped to
the muddy ground. “Daddy… daddy… hug…”

Orlev straightened up
painfully and hugged his son. “It is all right, Naphtali,” he said in a broken
voice. “Daddy is fine… everything is fine.”

His son started weeping
loudly, and it took some time for Orlev to calm him down, walk him to the car
and get him into his seat. He returned to the place where Illuz was lying
motionless. Trying to avoid looking at him, he picked up the thick, heavy
plastic bag that was lying in the mud. He carried it to his car, his heart
beating wildly. Now there was only one thing on his mind.

Nobody must know what
happened here tonight.

*    *    *

He should not have taken
Naphtali with him that night. Naphtali is an innocent child… He is unaware of
his enormous strength. Naphtali can be very dangerous, but nobody must know
that. And in any case, it was not Naphtali who killed Jonathan.

Who did then?

Whoever they were, they
now had the photocopies of a few pages from both scripts. They could well be on
his trail right now. He smiled a bitter smile. They will not find the scrolls
with him. He had deposited them in a bank safe a few days after Jonathan’s
death, and destroyed Father Diaz’s notebook. The scrolls will be dealt with in
his will, not before that. Whatever happens to him, the scrolls must return to
where they belong. He sighed. He wanted so much to share the secret with
Jonathan… but Jonathan is gone now… like Ruth…

The only two people he
ever cared for were now gone. He was alone in the world… Well, not completely
alone. He smiled. There is, of course, Naphtali, his little child. And in this sense,
they were both still with him… Ruth and Jonathan.

He sighed again.

They thought I did not
know. They thought I was naive…

Well, I
am
naive, but I am not a fool. These kids thought the truth would hurt me. They
were the fools. Why should I have cared? This brilliant, outstanding woman was
mine, even if only for a few months, and she gave me the most wonderful gift I
could imagine - the love child of the two souls I loved most… I knew she could
never love me like she loved him. Can anybody blame her for that?

She was a beautiful
young woman and I… well, I am who I am. And in her way, she loved me too. True,
a different kind of love… but a love between a student and teacher is,
nevertheless, love. Could I have asked for more?

They thought I had no
idea… that I did not know… and now I miss them both… but they left me a
present, something to remember them by…

Two big tears rolled
down his cheeks.

“Daddy…”

He raised his eyes.

“Daddy sad… hug.”

A little child was
standing at the door. That was all he was and that was what Yeshayahu Orlev
saw. A little child… his little child… his little child with the golden heart…

He smiled lovingly.

“Everything is all right,
Naphtali,” he said. “Daddy is not sad. Daddy is just tired, that is all.”

He stood up and held out
his arms.

“T
he Kabbalist” is a
novel, a work of imagination. Yet I tried to describe the historical events,
which serve as the story’s background, as accurately as I could.

As a writer, I
naturally took certain liberties in describing some characters and events, and
I feel it is important for the reader to be able to separate fact from fiction
and opinion.

Generally, all the
descriptions of historical events and historical figures in the book are based
on historical sources. This is true for the Napoleonic expedition to the Middle
East in 1798-99, and for the fall of Acre in 1291. The history of Kabbalah and
the controversies surrounding the origins of
‘Sefer Yetzira’
and the
‘Book
of Zohar’
are reviewed quite accurately, and so are, in general, the story
of Shimon Bar Yochai and the events and atmosphere in Judea of the first and
second century AD.

The Templars Philippe
de Charney, Louis de Clairvaux and Mark de Tramelay are fictional yet probable
characters of their time. All the rest are based on historical figures.

As for the famed
Templar secret found in the ruins of the Temple - it is hard to believe that
any item could have survived the total destruction of the Temple and its
vicinity, inflicted by Titus in 70 AD and pursued by Hadrian in 130 AD, as well
as the construction of the Mosques there by Caliph Umar in 637. On the other
hand, it is indeed difficult to explain the meteoric rise of the Templars from
naught to Empire.

The de Charneys: The
only historical figure in the de Charney family is Geoffroi de Charney. Roland
and Pascal, as well as Pascal’s friends, Bernard and Gaston, and Bernard’s
father, Henry, are fictional yet probable characters. Most other 18
^th
century characters mentioned throughout the book are real historical figures.

The story of the Bakri
family in Algiers is historically accurate, but the Safedi branch of the
family, including Rivka, is fictional.

While the contemporary
Carmelite characters in this book are fictional, the general story of the
Carmelites is historically accurate. The Stella Maris Monastery still stands in
Haifa, and it did serve as Napoleon’s rear hospital in 1799.

The descriptions of
Kabbalistic rituals and Kabbalah theory presented here are based on credible sources
and publications. However, as there are rival schools of thought within practically
every doctrine, I expect different people may present it in different ways. The
supposed link between Kabbalah and Christianity is a topic which has been
raised and debated by scholars, while the link between Jesus and
‘Sefer Yetzira’
is pure speculation.

As for the story of
Jesus and early Christianity: The historical facts are there, and the lately
discovered data mentioned in the book is real. The story of the two scrolls and
the plan devised by Jesus and Judas are purely speculative.

One thing I learned in the
process of writing this book is that it is not too difficult to come up with a
conspiracy theory and substantiate it. It is probably as easy as defending an
old and improbable established myth.

The lesson I take from
this, and which I hope to share with you, dear reader, is
that
we should always use
common sense and good judgment when examining a new and thrilling conspiracy
theory, as well as when examining an old and established dogma.

Both can be incredibly
enlightening, terribly misleading or even both simultaneously - it is up to us
always to keep an open, inquisitive and critical mind.

Y.K.

2013