Dimiter

“More painful. It feels like forgiveness.”

  CHAPTER 10

  And so Shore comes to Israel, mysteriously dies, and you’re telling us he wasn’t on a mission? Always traveling, researching, giving speeches: he’s your perfect secret errand and delivery boy. Come on, we know that. My question is, what was he delivering here?”

  They were in the office of Moshe Zui, the forty-three-year-old lawyer-investigator with the Israeli internal security agency, Shin Bet. Its fifty-two office complex was blandly hidden behind a single fortified entry door on the second floor of a Tel Aviv building housing fast food-shops and a variety of stores that offered everything from eyeglass repair to women’s clothing. A plaque on the agency’s door bore the anonymous legend BEST PRODUCTS.

  “Come on, come on,” Zui prodded. “We know you tore ass to his hospital room. Own up! We’re all friends here, not so? What’s the problem?”

  Zui was speaking to William Sandalls, a high-ranking agent of the CIA with the cover of American embassy “attaché,” who now sat in a chair in front of Zui’s desk. An ex-Army full colonel with years of duty in Japan, Sandalls was tall and slightly chubby, favored blue-tinted seersucker suits, and had crew-cut blondish hair, a freckled face, and a little snub nose that helped to give him the look of boyish innocence he was constantly trying to project, although the mischievous twinkle in his eyes always fought it. He held his hands out to Zui, palms up.

  “Listen, what can I say?”

  “Quite a lot. But you won’t.”

  Zui turned his head to meet the gaze of another Shin Bet agent in the room, Lod Evert. He was standing with his back against a wall with folded arms. Zui lifted his eyebrows at him. Evert nodded and Zui turned his attention back to Sandalls. “So okay, we do know what he was up to,” he admitted. “He was carrying information so explosive you couldn’t risk it being intercepted, or maybe being compromised by a mole, and so Shore had to carry it in his head and was supposed to transmit it to your ambassador in person.”

  “Oh, so you know that. Big surprise.”

  “We try. Now what was it Shore was going to tell him? Some attack about to come? Some information that could topple the State? Our prime minister, Golda Meir, dyes her hair?”

  “Look, whatever it was, no one knew it but Shore. Not even us.”

  “What color she dyes it?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  Zui turned an expressionless stare to Lod, then looked back at Sandalls, and with his fingertips slowly pushed an open tin of Swiss chocolates toward him. “Here, take three or four of these back to the Embassy with you—even eat them on the way if you like—and then come back here.”

  Sandalls reached into the box.

  “Come back?”

  “Yes, right away. We’ve injected the chocolates with truth serum.”

  Sandalls drew back his hand.

  “This is not the way of Zen,” he told Zui.

  “Too bad.”

  But not as bad as it could be.

  Not yet.

  CHAPTER 11

  With most of his Sunday still before him, Meral boarded a noisy old bus to Ramallah where, at a Catholic cemetery far from the tumult of the suqs, he placed flowers on the graves of his parents, his wife, and his son. Earlier a drizzle of rain had fallen, further moistening the grass and the tombstones and the air of a place still so damp with the memory of loss that the earth seemed even stiller than the hearts beneath it. Do they know that I am here now? Meral wondered. He didn’t know. He knew only that he had to come. Afterward he walked to a leprosarium to visit its head, Sister Elena Karina, who once taught him in a Catholic grade school here. They had tea and remembrances. Many silences. And that was all right.

  “You’ve kept the faith, Peter?”

  “Yes. What else is there?”

  He knew that would please her.

  Just before leaving, Meral asked about the leper who’d regained her sight. “Oh, Reema,” said the nun with a tilt of her head. There was a touch of sadness in her eyes, as well as something else that Meral couldn’t quite place, though he was sure he had seen it before. Quite recently. But he couldn’t remember where.

  “Why, she died a few days ago, Peter.”

  “Oh, really? How sad.”

  “No, it wasn’t. She was happy.”

  Once back in Jerusalem, Meral visited Fuad’s, his favorite coffee shop, on Christian Quarter Street, where in mild weather he would sit outside across from the massive and only entry door to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. A late fourth-century block-stone structure, it was built above the site of the crucifixion and the burial tomb of Christ. Every morning at precisely half past four and again every night at sundown, a ritual unlocking of the door was played out by two members of different Muslim families, the Joudehs and the Nusseibehs. The Joudehs had been appointed by Saladin to be “keepers of the key,” and later the Nusseibehs to be their “helpers.” At appointed times of morning and night, a Nusseibeh would carry the ten-inch key to a Joudeh, who would then climb a ladder and either unlock or lock the door.

  Meral sometimes would be present at the closings, and then often the Nusseibeh or the Joudeh, or both, would come over to his table and join him for a coffee. They basked in his presence. Meral the Good. The Protector. He could not tell them that their visits were an interruption, for he came there not for coffee but to stare at the site of Christ’s Tomb while he checked off facts about the resurrection as if conducting the most methodical of police investigations. It didn’t matter that the process never turned up fresh insights, never spawned a new theory or unearthed new facts. All he wanted was the comfort of the old ones: the credible restraint of the gospel accounts, so minimally narrated and so utterly lacking in drama and fanfare that they seemed to presume that the facts were not only well known but also believed and not in need of any effort at salesmanship; that the appearances were never at night, but in full daylight; and that the notion of a resurrected Messiah—much less a Messiah who had disastrously failed—was a novelty, if not totally unheard of, in the Jewish traditions of that time. Meral sipped at his coffee and stared at the church, again running through his favorite imagined interrogation: “Now, Saint Paul, would you tell us again what you said to that crowd that was gathered by the hillside?” “Oh, well, I told them some 500 people saw the risen Christ all at one time, and that most of those who saw him were still alive.” “Were any of the ones who saw him present in the crowd that day while you were preaching?” “I don’t know. Maybe so, maybe not. Pretty likely that some were, though. Most believers were teenagers. Avid. They would come. And if not, they’d surely soon enough hear all about it.” “You weren’t worried that they’d stone you for lying?” “No one did.”

  “Your mind is elsewhere, brother Meral.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “What you are thinking, does it give you so much pain?”

  “No, my brother. What it gives me is comfort and hope.”

  “God be with you, then. We’ll leave you with your thoughts.”

  Dinner at the hostel that night excelled: veal Francaise with scalloped potatoes and peas. But no priests were at Meral’s table and the dining room was quieter than usual, barely half full. Later, Meral caught a bus into West Jerusalem where a cinema was playing the American western, Shane, with both Hebrew and Arabic subtitles. Meral liked it because of the sacrifice at the end. He thought it somehow spoke to him of transcendence, although in what way he was unable to define. Nor was he certain that such sacrifice occurred in real life: that what looked at first glance to be a reflection of C.S. Lewis’s “love that made the worlds” was instead, when one scratched at the surface of things, not so selfless as one had supposed. Perhaps there were such things, but he knew of them in books and in the news and in movies but not in real life. His life. All he knew was that the need to encounter such a case was a cold dark fire in his soul that burned without light or heat and yet could no more be extinguished than the lights in the sky that were the stars.


  “Shane, come back!”

  The cry struck at his heart.

  Once back at the hostel, Meral read for relaxation—another Hercule Poirot—and at last bedded down a few minutes after ten. At 11:32, an urgent telephone call came into Reception, someone from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher vehemently demanding to speak to Meral. This time Patience pounded loudly on his door. The dead body of a man in a suit and tie and with a face that was disfigured by the scarring of burns had been found lying peacefully resting on his back atop the burial slab in the Tomb of Christ. No cause of death was immediately apparent and no suicide note had been found, nor any identifying document except for the international driver’s license discovered in the dead man’s wallet and an empty but postmarked envelope found in a pocket of the dead man’s jacket. The name on the letter and the name on the driver’s license were the same.

  It was Joseph Temescu.

  CHAPTER 12

  Led there by the envelope addressed to Temescu, Sergeant Meral and Corporal Issa Zananiri entered an apartment in Jerusalem Hills that the dead man had rented weeks prior to his death. The apartment was dreary and sparsely furnished and, after walking through it for a quick inspection, the policemen undertook a long and thorough search of every closet, every cabinet and drawer. Many items of great interest were found, a few of less, and all were placed into evidence bags. But instead of bringing clarity and answers, they were destined to confound the normal mind with their strangeness. Among them were an eyeliner pencil, rouge, and a silvery tin of Clown White face paint. There were also three orange-colored vinyl juggling balls.

  And a circus clown’s frizzy, curly red wig.

  CHAPTER 13

  INTERVIEW OF SERGEANT MAJOR PETER V. MERAL

  21 MARCH, 1974 AT ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE H.Q., TEL AVIV

  Present: Charles Bell and William Sandalls, American Embassy; Moshe Zui, Israeli Intelligence. I.I. stenographer: Deborah Peltz.

  ZUI: Good morning, Sergeant Meral. Nice meeting you. Sorry we’re all late. Good, I see you’ve had some coffee.

  MERAL: Yes, a bit.

  ZUI: I’ve heard some wonderful things about you.

  MERAL: I’m quite sure they’re undeserved.

  ZUI: You know Bill Sandalls?

  MERAL: I don’t think so. You’re with whom?

  SANDALLS: We’re American Embassy attachés.

  ZUI: He tells me that, too. It’s total bullshit. He’s CIA. So’s his buddy, over there, Charlie Bell. They think it’s funny. Look at them snickering over there like two kids with a closet full of secret decoder rings.

  SANDALLS: Nice meeting you, Sergeant.

  BELL: Good morning.

  MERAL: Yes, good morning to you both.

  ZUI: Some more coffee, Sergeant?

  MERAL: No thank you.

  ZUI: The girl who usually makes it is out sick today.

  MERAL: That’s a pity.

  ZUI: I know what you mean. Now, again, I want to emphasize this isn’t a grilling. But our American friends here have asked to hear a number of things from you directly and be able to question you about them. Okay?

  MERAL: Yes, gladly. But why?

  ZUI: They don’t trust us.

  SANDALLS: Oh, come on, Zui! We just need to be absolutely sure.

  MERAL: About what?

  ZUI: Well, your report about the body in the Tomb has raised an issue that you couldn’t have been expected to be aware of, so they’d just like you to lay it all out again for us again. As you talk, something new might occur to you that you might have overlooked in your report, or that you just didn’t think was relevant but which could be explosively so to us. So alright, now, that’s clear?

  MERAL: Yes, it’s clear. But can you tell me what you mean by that last thing you mentioned? You said “explosively relevant.”

  ZUI: Oh, well, perhaps I’ve overblown it a bit. So no more coffee, now? You’re sure?

  MERAL: I’d stake my life on it.

  ZUI: Fully understood. So now we’ve read your report on this Remle Street incident, and we think that was covered rather well. Very well. So let’s go right to the body in the tomb that at first was identified as Joseph Temescu.

  MERAL: At first?

  ZUI: Things change. So you’re awakened because of a call from the church that came straight to your hostel, and not to the station or to paramedics. That right?

  MERAL: No, they did call the paramedics. They called them next. But, yes, they did call me first. Wajih. Wajih Nusseibeh of the family with the key.

  SANDALLS: What key?

  MERAL: The key they use to lock and unlock the church.

  SANDALLS: He’s the one who found the body. Am I right? Wajid?

  MERAL: Wajih. No, it was actually one of the Greeks, the Greek Orthodox monks. Beginning at midnight, there are services all through the night until dawn. The Catholics—Franciscans—they start it all off with a Latin Mass. The Latins, the Armenians, the Copts, the Greek Orthodox: they all share in making sure all the lamps and the candles in the Tomb are lit and that there’s no debris. And so it was now the Greeks’ turn and this monk went in to check about a quarter to twelve because after the Mass the Franciscans were to make a procession into the Tomb and—

  SANDALLS: Awfully tight for that, isn’t it? Excuse me. Fits ten, twelve people, maybe? Max?

  MERAL: They seem to manage. They enter and exit single file.

  ZUI: But are you sure it was the monk and not someone else? I’ve got your report right here and I seem to recall—Oh, no, sorry. My mistake. It was a monk. Anastasios Scorpus. Go ahead, Sergeant. Sorry for the interruption.

  MERAL: Quite alright. So now the monk saw the body and he gave a great shout, I was told—he couldn’t tell if it was dead, or alive and about to jump up at him like in some horror film—and he ran from the Tomb still shouting and woke up Wajih, and when Wajih came and saw that the man was dead, that’s when he called me at the Casa Nova.

  ZUI: [Turns to look at the Americans] Yes, they trust you.

  SANDALLS: Quit utzing.

  ZUI: Couldn’t help it. Go ahead, Sergeant Meral. He called you, you said. What happened next?

  MERAL: Can we go back to something?

  ZUI: What?

  MERAL: Well, your mention of a change in Temescu’s identity. I can’t get it out of my mind.

  ZUI: I understand, but there’s no need for you to know. At least not at this time. Please go on. Wajih called you. And then what?

  MERAL: I called the station and requested forensics and then I rushed to the church. It took me only six minutes, it’s so close to where I live, the Casa Nova. They were expecting me and had already unlocked the door. Inside there was bedlam. Monks and priests of every sect with their hands in the air, full of questions, full of fright and confusion: Did the body on the slab have some meaning? Should they remove it or continue with their services while leaving the dead man resting on the slab? A Russian Copt had thrown a white sheet over the body while the head Armenian thought that the dead man might be an “incorruptible” and that maybe they could keep him as a permanent exhibit. This last almost started a brawl. And then the Greeks, the Greek Orthodox, they started talking loudly about the possibility that somehow the body was a sign from God that members of the sect about to use and enter the Tomb were intending to commit some abomination. As I said, it was madness. Only the dead man seemed to be calm. In fact I’d say he looked serene. He was all dressed up in a suit and tie with a pink and white flower in his jacket lapel as if laid out for viewing in a mortuary by his family and closest friends. He had his arms folded and crossed on his chest like in some photos that I’ve seen of dead saints. Do you mind my asking, by the way, what killed him?

  ZUI: We haven’t quite nailed it, Sergeant. There’s a second autopsy underway. The first one found a terminal cancer. The incurable one. Pancreatic.

  MERAL: That’s what killed him?

  ZUI: We’re looking at something else.

  MERAL: Then he was murd
ered?

  ZUI: Suicide or murder, it could go either way. Let’s go on now, Sergeant. Let’s pick up. You found something on the body that led you to a furnished apartment that Temescu had rented in Jerusalem Hills for some—what?—some three weeks or so?

  MERAL: Thereabouts.

  SANDALLS: You went in there alone, Sergeant?

  MERAL: No. I had Corporal Zananiri with me.

  SANDALLS: So there’s a witness.

  MERAL: A witness? A witness to what?

  ZUI: To the fact that you found what you say you found there. Sandalls thinks we sit around here all day munching matzohs and dreaming up schemes to salt evidence just to make him and Bell even crazier than they already are.

  SANDALLS: Moshe, I wouldn’t put it past you.

  ZUI: Sergeant Meral? You’ll continue with your witnessed story?

  MERAL: The concierge let us into the apartment. It was small: two rooms, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. Very dreary. It had some old rental furniture in it. Anyway, we made a thorough search. There was hardly any clothing, just a jacket, a shirt, and a pair of trousers hanging in a closet. No labels. They’d all been cut. Things were covered with dust. But as you know we did find a few items of interest. The passports and the I.D. card, mainly.

  ZUI: And the juggling balls and circus clown items.

  MERAL: They’re of interest?

  BELL: [To Sandalls] That’s our boy, alright!

  MERAL: I feel that I’m missing something.

  ZUI: No. Let’s move on.

  MERAL: Yes, of course. So we went about knocking on doors and asking questions about him. About Temescu. There were just a few apartments. It’s a four-story building Some of the occupants weren’t at home and those who were could tell me little, almost nothing in fact. They all said that except for one time when he first moved in they never saw him; never heard him, in fact: No sound of water running ever. No radio. No footsteps. Nothing. But then a woman on the second floor in the apartment across the hall from Temescu’s, a pretty young house wife, she came home as we were just about to leave and she told us that she’d heard someone going into Temescu’s apartment on the morning of the day Temescu’s body was found in the church. He stayed only a few minutes, she said, during which she thought she heard a closet door being opened and then afterward a drawer sliding open. And then a few seconds later she heard it being pushed shut. Then she heard him leaving.