Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

Roselli was still standing there, looking like a red-bearded Jew with his skullcap. Daoud itched to approach him, confront him. Wondered what he'd do if the monk entered the building.

And what else was going on inside there, besides chanting? A helpless Arab girl chained in some dungeon? Another innocent victim, prepared for ritual slaughter?

Despite the warmth of the night, he shuddered, felt under his robes for the reassuring weight of his Beretta. And waited.

Another man came to the door. Rabbi-type. Tall, fortyish, long dark beard. In shirtsleeves and trousers, those strange white fringes hanging over his waistband.

He shook Roselli's hand too.

Congratulating him?

For what?

Roselli and the rabbi left the yeshiva and began walking straight toward the parked cars, straight toward Daoud.

He ducked lower. They passed him, turned right, and walked, side by side, southward through the Zion Gate and out to Mount Zion-Al Sion, the portion of Ai Quds traditionally allocated to the Jews. They named their movement after if, glorified it by calling it a mountain, but it was no more, really, than a dusty mound.

He got up and trailed them, watched them pass the Tourist Agency office and David's Tomb, climb down the dirt drive that led to the Hativat Yerushalayim highway.

The road was deserted. Roselli and the rabbi crossed and climbed over the stone ridge that bordered the highway.

And disappeared.

Down into the dark hillside, Daoud knew. The rocky slope that overlooked the Valley of Hinnom. To the left was Silwan; only a few lights were burning in the village.

Daoud crossed the highway.

Where had they gone? What awaited them on the hillside, another murder cave?

He stepped over the ridge, careful to tread silently in the dry brush. And saw them immediately. Sitting just a few meters away, under the feathery umbrella of a windswept acacia.

Sitting and talking. He could hear the hum of their voices but was unable to make out their words.

Carefully, he stepped closer, trod on a dry twig, saw them raise their heads, heard the rabbi say, in English: "Just a mouse."

Holding his breath, he took another step forward, then another. Toward another tree, a stunted pine. Getting just close enough to discern their speech. Slowly, he sat, leaned against the trunk of the pine, pulled the Beretta out from under his habit, and rested it in his lap.

"Well, Joseph," the rabbi was saying, "I've refused you three times, so I suppose I must listen to you now."

"Thank you, Rabbi Buchwald."

"No need to thank me, it's my duty. However, it's also my duty to remind you what an enormous step you're taking. The consequences."

"I'm aware of that, Rabbi."

"Are you?"

"Yes. I can't tell you how many times I've set out to see you, froze in my tracks and turned back. For the last two months I've done nothing but think about this, meditating and praying. I know it's what I want to do-what I have to do."

'The life changes you'll impose upon yourself will be agonizing, Joseph. For all practical purposes your past will be erased. You'll be an orphan."

"I know that."

"Your mother-are you willing to consider her as dead?"

Pause.

"Yes."

"You're sure of that?"

'"Even if I weren't, Rabbi, she's sure to cut me off. The end result will be the same."

"What of Father Bernardo? You've spoken of him fondly. Can you cut him off just like that?"

"I'm not saying it will be easy, but yes."

"You'll most certainly be excommunicated."

Another pause.

"That's not relevant. Anymore."

Daoud heard the rabbi sigh. The two men sat in silence for several moments, Roselli motionless, Buchwald swaying slightly, the tips of his woolly beard highlighted by starglow.

"Joseph," he said finally, "I have little to offer you. My job is bringing lapsed Jews back into the fold-that's what I'm set up for, not conversion. At best there'll be room and board for you-very basic room and board, a cell."

"I'm used to that, Rabbi."

Buchwald chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure you are. But in addition to the isolation, there'll be hostility. And I won't be there to cushion you, even if I wanted to-which I don't. In fact, my explicit order will be that you stay away from the others."

Roselli didn't respond.

The rabbi coughed. "Even if my attitude were different, you'd be an outcast. No one will trust you."

"That's understandable," said Roselli. "Given the realities of history."

"Then there's the matter of your fallen status, Joseph. As a monk, you've acquired prestige, the image of a learned man. Among us, your learning will be worthless-worse than nothing. You'll start out at the lowest level. Kindergarten children will have things to teach you."

"None of that is important, Rabbi. I know what I have to do. I felt it the moment I set foot on holy ground, feel more strongly about it than ever before. The core is Jewish. All the rest is extraneous."

Buchwald snorted. "Pretty talk-the core, faith, all that intellectual stuff. Now throw it all out-forget about it. You want to be a Jew. Concentrate on what you do. Action talks, Joseph. The rest is…" The rabbi threw up his hands.

"Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

"Just like that, eh? Simon says."

Roselli was silent.

"All right, all right," said Rabbi Buchwald. "You want to be a Jew, I'll give you a chance. But your sincerity will be tested at every step." More chuckling. "Compared to what I have in store for you, the monastery will seem like a vacation."

"I'm ready."

"Or think you are." The rabbi stood. Roselli did likewise.

"One more thing," said the monk.

"What is it?"

"I've been questioned about the Butcher murders. The first girl who was killed lived at Saint Saviour's for a while. I'm the one who found her wandering, tired and hungry, near the monastery and persuaded Father Bernardo to take her in. A police inspector interrogated me about it, then came around after the second murder to talk again. I can't be sure, but he may consider me a suspect."

"Why would that be, Joseph?"

"I honestly don't know. I get nervous talking to the police -I guess it comes from the old protest march days. I was arrested a couple of times. The police were nastier than they had to be. I don't like them; it probably shows."

"Confession is for Catholics," said Buchwald. "Why are you telling me about this?"

"I didn't want you, or the yeshiva, to be embarrassed if they come looking for me again."

"Have you done anything that would embarrass us?"

"God forbid," said Roselli, voice cracking. "Taking her in is the extent of my involvement."

'Then don't worry about it," said the rabbi. "Come, it's late. I have things to do yet."

He began walking. Roselli followed. They passed meters from Daoud's tree. He held his breath until they neared the highway, then got up and followed.

"When will you be moving in?" asked Buchwald.

"I thought Monday-that would give me enough time to tie up loose ends."

"Tie all you want. Just let me know in time to prepare my boys for our new student."

"I will, Rabbi."

They climbed to the edge of the highway, stepped over the ridge, and waited as a solitary delivery truck roared by.

Daoud, crouching nearby, could see their lips moving, but the truck blocked out any sound. They crossed the highway and began the gentle climb up Mount Zion.

Daoud followed at a safe pace, straining his ears.

"I've had nightmares about Fatma-the first victim," Roselli was saying. "Wondering if there's something I could have done to save her."

Rabbi Buchwald put his hand on the monk's shoulder and patted it. "You have excellent capacity for suffering, Yosef Roselli. We may make a Jew of you yet."

Daoud trailed them to the door of the yeshiva, where Roselli thanked the rabbi and headed back north, alone. A quick-change under the big tree preceded his reemergence as a monk.

Hypocrite, thought Daoud, fingering his own habit. He was angry at all the foolish talk of cores and faith, the idea of someone tossing away the Christ like yesterday's papers. He vowed to stay on Roselli's rear for as long as it took, hoping to unearth other secrets, additional trapdoors in the monk's screwed-up head.

When Roselli reached the Jewish Quarter parking lot, he stopped, climbed the stairs to the top of the city wall, and strolled along the battlement until coming to a stop under a crenel. The pair of border guards stood nearby. Two Druze, he could see, with big mustaches, binoculars, and rifles.

The guards looked Roselli over and approached him. He nodded at them, smiled; the three of them chatted. Then the Druze walked away and resumed their patrol. When the monk was alone, he hoisted himself up into the crenel, folding himself inside the notch, knees drawn up close to his body, chin resting in his hands.

He stayed that way, cradled in stone, staring out at the darkness, silent and motionless until daybreak. Unmindful of Daoud, hidden behind the Border Patrolmen's van, watching Roselli tirelessly while breathing in the stinking vapors from a leaky petrol tank.

Friday morning, no new body. Daniel had spent much of the night talking to Mark Wilbur and directing surveillance of Scopus and other forested areas. He left the interrogation at four A.M., convinced the reporter was intellectually dishonest but no murderer, went home for three hours of sleep, and was back at Headquarters by eight.

As he walked down the corridor to his office, he observed someone in the vicinity of his door. The man turned and began walking toward him and he saw that it was Laufei.

The deputy commander strode quickly, looked purposeful and grim. Swinging his arms as if marching in a military parade.

Dress-down time; the fallout from Wilbur's arrest.

They'd locked the reporter in a solitary holding cell, using the mischief he'd provoked at Beit Gvura to invoke the security clause and withhold counsel. Slowed the paperwork by having Avi Cohen handle it-for all Daniel knew the poor kid was still breaking his teeth on the forms. But by now, someone was bound to have found out; the wire service attorneys were probably pouring on the threats, the brass catching them and passing them down the line.

Laufer was three meters away. Daniel looked him in the eye, readied himself for the assault.

To his surprise, the D.C. merely said "Good morning, Sharavi," and walked on.

When he got to the office, he saw the reason why.

A man was sitting opposite his desk, slumped low in the chair, chin on knuckles, dozing. A half-consumed cigar lay smoldering in the ashtray, letting off wisps of strong, bitter smoke.

The man's chest heaved; his face rolled. A familiar, ruddy face above a corpulent, short-limbed body that filled the chair, ample thighs stuffed into trousers like sausages in casing, spilling over the seat. The cleft chin capped by a tiny white goatee.

Daniel knew the man was seventy-five but he looked ten years younger-good skin tone and an incongruously boyish thatch of yellow-gray hair. The collar points of an open-necked white shirt spread over the lapels of a rumpled gunmetal-gray sport coat, revealing a semicircle of hairless pink flesh.

The tightly packed trousers were dove-gray and in need of pressing; the shoes below them, inexpensive ripple-soled walkers. A maroon silk handkerchief flourished from the breast pocket of the sport coat-a dandyish touch at odds with the rest of the ensemble. Another incongruity, but the man was known for surprises.

Daniel closed the door. The corpulent man continued to sleep-a familiar pose. Newspaper photographers delighted in catching him napping at official functions-slumping, dead to the world, next to some stiff-backed visiting dignitary.

Narcolepsy, his detractors suggested; the man was braindamaged, not fit for his job. Others suggested it was an affection. Part of the stylized image he'd wrought for himself over twenty years.

Daniel edged past the pudgy gray knees, went behind his desk, and sat down.

As Shmeltzer had promised, a file labeled TOUR data was right there in front of him. He picked it up. The sleeping man opened pale-gray eyes, grunted, and stared at him.

Daniel put the tour file aside. "Good morning, Mr. Mayor."

"Good morning, Pakad Sharavi. We've met-the Concert Hall dedication. You had a mustache then."

"Yes." Three years ago-Daniel barely remembered it. He had served on the security detail, hadn't exchanged a word with the man.

Having done away with pleasantries, the mayor sat up and frowned.

"I've been waiting for you for an hour," he said, totally alert. Before Daniel could reply, he went on: "These murders, all this nonsense about butchers and sacrifices and revenge, it's creating problems for me. Already the tourist figures have dropped. What are you doing about it?"

Daniel began summarizing the investigation.

"I know all that," the mayor interrupted. "I meant what's new."

"Nothing."

The mayor picked up the now-cold cigar, lit it, and inhaled.

"An honest man-Diogenes would be happy. Meanwhile, the city is threatening to boil over. The last thing we need is a tourist slump on top of the recession. That note, with the Bible passages-any validity to it?"