The Jerusalem Diamond (7 page)

Eventually he read passages which he recognized at once as the reason for Akiva's generosity in arranging for him to examine the material:

In the burial place where Judah was punished for seizing spoils, buried at eight and one-half cubits, a glistering stone
[something untranslatable]
pitchers of silver and garments of the Sons of Aaron
.

And again, three paragraphs later:

In the burial place where Judah was punished for seizing spoils, buried at twenty-one cubits, three hundred talents of gold, six sacrificial vessels and garments of the Sons of Aaron
.

They went over Harry's notes together, then at his request Bronstein translated in their entirety the two passages that were especially interesting. Max's translation did not differ from his own.

“The Sons of Aaron obviously are the High Priests.”

“Harry, I can't discuss interpretations. I can translate for you, but that's as far as I'm allowed to go.”

“
Allowed
?”

“Allowed is the wrong word—”

“Odd that an expert in linguistics should have trouble finding the right word.”

They were glaring at one another. “We can't do a lot of talking if David is to continue to work over there with the fullest cooperation.”

Harry forced himself to smile. “Relax, Max.”

“They are after your business services, I suppose.”

“How do you know they don't want me to write a history?”

“When diamond
mevinim
are mentioned, lo, the name of Harry Hopeman leads the rest.”

“And when historians are mentioned? Come on, Maxie. When my name comes up over a drink at the American Academy meeting, how do they rate me?”

Bronstein raised his right hand and waggled it very slowly at the wrist. “So-so.”

“Bullshit.”

Max laughed. “How nice to be so secure in two worlds. How many times have you published this year?”

“Seven.”

“I have worked like hell to publish three papers,” Bronstein said slowly.

“Your kind of work takes a long time.”

Bronstein shrugged. “I manage to read some of your things. Painstaking. Solid. No shortcuts. I have wanted to ask you for years—how do you do so much?”

He had learned to hate the question. “I enjoy working. That sounds very dull, doesn't it?”

“You were never dull, Harry.”

He attempted to explain. “My work gives me the same stimulus others seem to get from tennis or … blue movies.”

Bronstein nodded. “I sometimes get that kind of charge from work. But there is never enough time, the world intrudes. Children. Women. Doesn't your wife like tennis or blue movies?”

“Perhaps now she does.”

“Ah.” Bronstein looked away. “So you have become unencumbered,” he said lightly, attempting to pass it off.

Harry gathered his things. “Do you know what it is they want me to do?”

Bronstein shook his head. “Please don't tell me,” he said.

He had been invited to the Bronstein home to meet Max's wife and children, but he had begged off. As Cincinnati dropped away beneath the plane and he caught a glimpse of the rail yards and the serpentine river, he realized he had not even told Max his father was dead.

He turned on the overhead lamp and studied his notes.

The Sons of Aaron could only refer to the High Priests.

The burial place? It would not have been a cemetery. In that era, most bodies were laid to rest in caves or rock-cut sepulchres. He gave some thought to the priestly garments. The mitre, the ephod and the
breastplate studded with the stones of the tribes had been sufficiently unique and revered to qualify for
genizah
.

The place where Judah was punished for seizing spoils? It eluded him.

He dwelt upon the message of the scroll in the twilight place between sleep and wakefulness, dreamily imagining the ancient beleaguered city, its holy men feverishly working to hide away the religious and temporal treasures of their world.

Sidney waited with the car in New York and when they reached the house, Harry went directly to the workroom, to the biblical concordances and the commentaries.

Eventually he found it in the seventh chapter of the Book of Joshua.

“ …
The burial place where Judah was punished for seizing spoils
…”

Achan was the son of Carmi, who was the son of Zabki, who was the son of Zerah. All of them were of the tribe of Judah. While a soldier of the army with which Joshua conquered Jericho, Achan had disobeyed the Lord's command against looting, taking from the defeated a Babylonian garment and a wedge of gold. When his sin was discovered, it was blamed for a subsequent lost battle, and Achan and his family were put to death.

To perpetuate the example set by the executions, the site of their stoning, a small valley ringed by cave-pocked hills, had been named the Vale of Achor.

When Harry found it on the biblical map, he saw that it was just south of Jericho, in the West Bank.

6

MAZEL UN BROCHA!

Two nights in a row he dreamed of his father. Awake, he had lapses in which he forgot Alfred was dead. He kept wanting to call him on the phone.

He didn't have enough to do. The woman in Detroit called him twice about the 38-carat blue-white, but she was just teasing herself; she wouldn't call a third time. He searched for a stone sufficiently grandiose for the actor, but it was going to be difficult. Sometimes one had to wait for something suitable to be placed on the market.

For the first time he was unable to begin researching a new writing project. It was almost a relief when one of the editors of
The Slavik Review
called to discuss a minor deletion in the manuscript about the Russian jewels. The man praised it warmly. “You should consider going to Peking and doing a paper on the Imperial gem collections.”

Harry was momentarily intrigued. It was only a matter of time before a Western scholar would do a definitive history of the Chinese imperial collections. It could result in a landmark book.

“The jewels go all the way back to the tenth century, the Sung
dynasty,” the editor said. “
Chinese Culture
or one of the other journals could request that the Chinese government allow you to work in the Palace Museum.”

“ … It's not the same as doing something that touches the beginnings of your own culture, is it?” Harry said.

A little later, he took Akiva's business card from his wallet. He tore it in half and threw it away.

“Your Eminence?”

“
Buon giorno
, Mr. Hopeman.”

“Cardinal Pesenti, I cannot represent you in recovering the diamond of which you spoke last week.”

“
Io bisogno di te
,” the Cardinal murmured. “I need you, Mr. Hopeman.”

“Nevertheless,” he said awkwardly. “I am sorry, Your Eminence.”

“Tell me, Mr. Hopeman,” Cardinal Pesenti said at last, “is it a matter of a fee? I am certain …”

“No, no. It is not the fee.”

“Will you represent someone else in this matter?”

“ … I have not decided to represent anyone.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Hopeman,” said Bernardino Cardinal Pesenti.

Harry's telephone was making empty buzzing noises. He replaced it in the receiver.

The garage in West Nyack delivered the Lamborghini. He took it on the road and felt the frustration of driving, in a 55-mile-an-hour world, a machine with a 12-cylinder engine capable of thrusting it at 155 miles an hour. The body paint was chocolate, the leather, cream. A week after he had bought it, he heard Ruth Lawrenson telling Sidney he had paid more for the car than they would have paid for a house. Now he was several years past his motor madness. The only car he still yearned for was an SJ Duesenberg, and there was little likelihood he would own one; only thirty-eight had been manufactured between 1932 and 1935. Despite the period, they were better than anything made today and because they had sold to people like Gable, Cooper, Farouk, Alphonso of Spain and Nicolas of Roumania, they were relatively
easy to trace. Only thirty cars survived anywhere in the world. The price of any of them would have allowed the Lawrensons to buy three houses, but nobody sold an SJ Duesenberg. That was why he wanted one, he recognized his hunger precisely. It was the same greed for the unattainable that fed the diamond business.

He didn't really know where he was going until he was on the New England Thruway and almost in Connecticut. Jeff's school had a nice campus, lots of fieldstone and lawn and weathered brick. Trees several centuries old conveyed subtly what the tuition bought along with education. His son's room smelled of stale sweat socks and was empty, but from the room next door a beanpole of a boy peered at him through milk-glass spectacles. “Hopeman?” he said. “He's at baseball practice.”

Harry thanked him and returned to the car and drove down the road until he could hear voices and the sound of batting. But he stopped the car short of the field. He had said goodbye to Jeff immediately after the funeral. The boy had been happy to return to school; his unexpected presence would be an intrusion now. And what could he say to his son after hello—the lesson in the
sedra
, the Torah portion for today, is that sorrow is terrible but fear is worse?

He turned the car around and drove back the way he had come.

When he got home, he made himself a drink, loaded the record player with Bessie Smith, tried to read a book, but lay on the couch in the dusking room suddenly aching to see himself reflected in the mirror of another human being. He wanted sex. Not a guilt trip with Della, just inconsequential animal fucking with someone who didn't matter. He thought of a name and spent several minutes with the telephone directory. Then he picked up the phone and dialed the woman's number.

It rang four times and a male voice said hello and like the unfunny joke Harry hung up and stood there trying to decide between the book, the records and the bottle. Then he bent to the wastebasket and picked up the card he had torn. The number was easily legible when he held the two halves together and he took the telephone again and dialed. A female voice answered immediately, giving the phone number in lieu of greeting. It was a brisk, friendly voice, only slightly harried, like the
voices on the switchboards of any number of corporations in Manhattan.

“I want Mr. Akiva,” he said.

When he got to the place in midtown Manhattan where they had agreed to meet, he saw why the Israeli had chosen a kosher restaurant. Akiva was seated at a table with someone who looked like a drab old elf.

Saul Netscher.

“Why the hell is he here?”

“He asked me,” Netscher said mildly in his sandpaper voice.

Short, stocky and white-haired, he wore a tie that didn't match his rumpled brown suit. He was as careless about his appearance as his friend, Alfred, had been careful. “You need this, Saul? Are you looking for another coronary?”

“That was four years ago. Harry, don't be stupid.”

“You have delusions of youth. You're a crazy old bastard, you should be locked up!”

“Calm yourself. My God,” Akiva said.

The waiter came and Harry ordered glumly, chopped liver and a salad. Akiva, who perhaps didn't know about kosher restaurants in America, chose a rib steak, and Netscher ordered the boiled beef and a bottle of slivovitz.

“He'll be here in New York. He'll be in absolutely no danger. For that matter, neither will you, in all likelihood. You'll go into Israel. If the diamond is what they say it is, you'll buy it. And you'll bring it right out.”

“I don't want him involved. Why can't you understand that?”

“Harry, I don't like the disrespect. You talk as if I'm not here.”

Harry ignored him. “And don't tell me there's no risk. You've already told me there's risk.”

Akiva sighed. “All right, let's talk about the risk,” he said. “There are guerrillas in our neighborhood of the world who would like to get the diamond and use it as a symbol of Arabism. There are undoubtedly others who would enjoy getting the stone for the money it would bring. But security in Israel is good, we can offer you a certain amount of protection against them. You will be more vulnerable against the sellers.
They will give you the diamond only after it has been paid for in America. Until the deal is consummated, you will be there as a hostage.”

“A hostage,” Harry said.

“Yes. If you try to take their diamond without payment, they will kill you.”

“I've managed to do a great deal of diamond business without this … stupidity. We'll just have to arrange a more routine transaction.”

Akiva shrugged. “This is how they want it.”

“Fuck the way they want it!”

“Listen, Harry. It's all right,” Netscher said suddenly. “They threaten to murder you if you are a crook. But my dear Harry, you are not a crook.”