The Jerusalem Diamond (33 page)

Isaac thought he exaggerated but recognized that violence was in the air. With the advent of Easter, a fervor shook the populace. Local priests preached the murderous intent of those who had killed Jesus. Everywhere, people could be seen wearing medals and scapulars bearing the innocent likeness of the martyred baby of Trent, whose death was
mourned as if it had happened the day before instead of a century ago, and Jews drew dark looks when they ventured beyond the
Gietto.
There was a clamorous demand that every Jew in Venice should be compelled to attend conversionist sermons, as Jews were in other city-states
.

The Doge issued a proclamation
.

Measures have been taken to ensure that non-Christians will not mar the major solemnity of the Catholic year. The gates of the
Gietto
shall be closed, locked and guarded from sunrise on Holy Thursday to the afternoon of the following Saturday, at nones. During that time, all windows of the
Gietto
which give outwards shall be sealed, and no Jew shall be allowed to be seen abroad during the season of the Passion, under the most severe penalty of the law.

A troop would be garrisoned in the outbuildings at the Treviso farm. Isaac hated to have guards living so near, always underfoot. A week before their arrival he dug up the little membrane bag he had buried near the animal pens. He wanted no soldier, intent on trouting in one of the limestone brooks, to unearth his yellow diamond while grubbing for worms
.

The day after the mitre and the diamond called Alexander's Eye were delivered to him, he called Elijah into the workroom and locked the door. He took out both diamonds and set them side by side on his worktable, and smiled at his son's eyes
.

“
Two?” Elijah said
.

“
This one is mine. It will be yours some day. And your brothers' and sisters
'.”

“
The land it could buy!” Elijah touched the precious lump that was his inheritance. “They are nearly of a size
.”

“
Yet one is far more valuable. Which
?”

Isaac had schooled the boy in gems as in
Gemara,
from the time he was little. Elijah sat on the floor next to his father's chair and put on the loupe. “Theirs,” he said presently, disappointed. “But for a blackness in the culet, a perfect fancy. The best you have ever shown me
.”

“
You've learned well. You must learn more. Everything I have to teach
.”

Elijah said nothing
.

“
From now on,” Isaac said gently, “you shall work the land less and study gems. You have little time for the land
.”

The boy placed his head on Isaac's lap, surprising him. “The land is what I want,” he said, his voice muffled and desperate against his father's thigh
.

Isaac touched the rough mane. “You must learn to make better use of your comb. “He stroked his son's head. “They have countless numbers who work the land. They have little knowledge of gems. The knowledge is our only power. Your only protection.” He lifted Elijah's face and showed him the Vatican's diamond. “This was cut by your kinsman, Julius Vidal. A master
.”

“
Where does he live
?”

“
Long since dead. Three generations before I was born.” He told how Vidal had fled Ghent after the Inquisition's terror had reached there, and had come to Venice to find refuge in the
Gietto. “
He taught the art of diamond cutting to your great-great-grandfather
.”

“
Which of our kin are his issue
?”

Isaac shook his head. “None. There was a plague in the city. For some reason, only those in the
Gietto
were fully spared. Resentful persons flung things over the wall. Bundles of clothing befouled by plague pustules. Hundreds died in the crowded
Gietto,
including Vidal, his wife and their children
.”

“
Bastards!
”

He put his arms around his son and held him. The boy's shoulders were going to be broader than his own. The wet face against his cheek was a shock
.

“
Why won't they leave us alone?” Elijah cried
.

“
They tell themselves it is because Jesus no longer lives
.”

“
I didn't kill him!
”

“
I know. Neither did I,” he said roughly
.

That year, the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan fell early on the Christian calendar, and Passover came a full month before Easter. On the day before the holiday the farm was painstakingly clean, the
Pesach
dishes and cutlery had replaced those used the rest of the time, and unleavened bread from the
Gietto
bakeshop lay in the kitchen stacked
and covered by clean linens, awaiting sundown and the
seder.
From the ovens drifted the aromas of puddings and fowl and a Paschal lamb roasting in spices and herbs. All day Jews had been coming with casks and bottles in which to carry away the fine Passover wine the Vitallos had pressed from their grapes the previous autumn
.

It was Ash Wednesday. The men of the guard took turns going to the church in the village for their blessings. Isaac and Elijah fussed over the drawing board, while the first flies of the season greeted the spring warmth with fierce buzzing. He was making preliminary sketches, planning details of the setting. Inserting the diamond into the mitre wouldn't be difficult, but he was working methodically, exerting every care
.

Elijah, bored, fidgeted and gazed through the windows at the greening hills. “If the vines aren't pruned soon, it will be too late
.”

“
Go
,”
Isaac growled
.

The boy paused long enough to get the hooked pruning knife, which he kept as sharp as a razor, and then ran for the vineyard
.

In a little while, Isaac sighed and put down his charcoal. It was too fine a day to remain indoors. Outside, the sun was warm and a breeze carried the smell of the sea. He walked on a small hill behind the farmhouse, from which he was fond of surveying his domain. In the farmyard, his younger children helped their mother sell the wine. The guards lounged about, sampling the vintage, and Isaac smiled to see that his wife kept a sharp eye on them; Fioretta, his oldest girl, showed signs of budding
.

There were high white clouds, and a sense of awakening life wherever he looked. The ground was damp, but he sat and watched his son pruning on the far slope
.

Two small boys scampered over the crest of a hill. They ran straight for the vineyard
.

They were followed quickly by an elderly man, running full tilt after them. Why was the old man chasing them? And why did he carry a scythe, when it was months to haying
?

Isaac could see the boys clearly, even to the smudges of ash on their foreheads. They ran straight to his son and appeared to be trying to pummel him. Elijah held them off easily, waiting for the old man to arrive
.

Over the hill streamed men of all ages
.

“
No!” Isaac shouted
.

In the farmyard, Fioretta dropped a bottle of wine. The soldiers grabbed for their weapons
.

Isaac was running
.

He saw the old man reach Elijah. The scythe blade flashed, brighter than the sun on the sea. Elijah made no attempt to use the pruning knife. When the scythe glinted again, its glitter was the color of ruby, the most terrible facet of them all
.

Elijah was buried on the third day of Passover in the cemetery on the Lido. Guards were provided by the Doge, who came to the farmhouse a few days later
.

“
It is not that you were not warned, Vitallo
.”

Isaac looked at him
.

“
Still, most unfortunate, of course … The man who cut you on the shoulder, the one they wounded. He died, you know
.”

Isaac nodded
.

The Doge shrugged. “An old peasant.” He looked uncomfortable; he was accustomed to ashes on Christian foreheads once a year; plainly, ashes on the heads of Jews in sackcloth seemed an example of their barbarism. “Will this delay things
?”

“
Thirty days, Your Grace
.”

“
… Must it be that long
?”

“
Yes, Your Grace
.”

“
Then I shall want the work done as soon as the thirty days are up, you understand
?”

As soon as the Doge had left the house, Isaac sat on the floor and began to pray
.

The wound in his shoulder was painful but he had the use of his arm. On the morning of the thirtieth day he put away the sackcloth and trimmed his beard. He locked the door of the workroom and placed the mitre on the table. Then he sat for a long time with his hand on the empty chair, looking through the window at the hill
.

Finally, he took the stone and set it into the Mitre of Gregory
.

Two days later they were moved out of the house. They could not take all the things they had accumulated during their years in Treviso. A horse
pulled a wagon containing the belongings they took with them and they followed it past the vineyard in which the Doge's peasants were already working
.

The new hat was the finest he had been able to buy. Perhaps it was his imagination, but when they reached the city it seemed to him that the horse and the wagon, and he and his wife, and Fioretta, Falcone, Meshullam, Leone and little Haya-Rachel dissolved into the air, and all the gatekeeper saw was the yellow of the hat as they moved over the little bridge and through the gate of the
Gietto.

Part IV
FINDING

20

GEMATRIA

“Two million three?” Saul Netscher's dismay came through despite the tinny quality of the poor connection.

“Our friend probably wouldn't sell even if we could pay. I believe he wants something else. Maybe a pardon from Egypt. Perhaps even a job in their government.”

“Do you know this?”

“ … It's what I'd want in his shoes.”

“He's not you. Keep trying, Harry. Offer him anything reasonable. Maybe he'd like to be mayor of New York.”

Harry smiled. “I don't think so. He's a very intelligent man,” he said. “Is my son there?”

Six thousand miles away, Netscher sighed. “Hold the line.”

“Hello, Dad?”

“Jeff. How's the boy?”

“Working's better than camp.”

“How's Saul treating you?”

“Fine.” His son's voice became guarded. “You were right.”

“ … When I said he'd work your ass off?”

“Yeah.”

They both laughed.

“Well, you sound good. Just remember industrial diamonds and gemstones are different businesses.”

“When will you be back?”

He hesitated. “It won't be long.” Tamar was watching him. “Give my best to your mother, son.”

“Okay, Dad. 'Bye.”

“Be good, Jeffie.”

When he hung up they sat and looked at one another. It had been almost eleven
A.M.
in New York, but here it was not yet four. They had been driven to Jerusalem in the dark, sleepy and depressed.

“When you talked to him your face changed. And your voice became warmer.”

He grunted. The analysis made him uncomfortable.

“Do you think you could find Mehdi's house again?” she asked.

He looked at her sharply. “Why?”

“No reason.”

“Even if your friends could grab it, I wouldn't help. I'm not a fence.”

“We went to Entebbe to rescue Jews, we don't invade to grab a diamond. It simply occurred to me that I couldn't find the house if I wanted to.”

“Neither could I.” Not from the road. He could find it from the beach. When they had allowed him outside to run on the beach, he had known Mehdi would leave the villa right after they did.

“I talked with the Arab girl while I waited in his house.”

“Oh?”

“She said you chased her away.”

“How old is she?”

“Fifteen.”

“She looks younger.”

Tamar came to where he was sitting. “You are a nice man.”

“Because I don't fuck children?”

“Because you are a nice man.”

“Thank you.” It pleased him to hear her say it.

“You will be going home.”

“In a few days. After I make very certain there's no hope of buying it.”

She took his face in her hands. “I'll stop working for Ze'ev. Let us be nice to one another, Harry Hopeman. So that when you leave, two dear friends shall say goodbye.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “Yes.”

She kissed him. Presently he undressed his dear friend and took her sleepily to bed.