Leon Uris (51 page)

I could see that my reasoning had struck its mark. ‘You may be right,’ he said.

My heart was pounding as I reached into my robes and withdrew one of the objects Nada and I had found in the cliffs above our cave. It was a metal stick about a foot long with twin ibex heads carved at the top. Ibrahim unwrapped the paper and wrapped it again.

‘What about the other things?’ he asked.

‘It would be better if we held the rest back,’ I said.

‘You are thinking, Ishmael.’

‘When you bargain, no matter what he offers, walk out,’ I instructed.

‘You are telling
me
how to bargain!’ he roared.

‘Of course not. I am but a humble child. Only consider this. Listen to his offer and let him know that you have more similar objects.’

‘That was exactly my plan,’ Ibrahim said and crossed the street by himself, bidding me to wait.

Haj Ibrahim went up a staircase of crumbling plaster to the second floor hall. There were four offices, belonging to Jericho’s only doctor, only lawyer, and a freight forwarder of crops from the West bank to Jordan. The fourth office bore the name of Dr. Nuri Mudhil. Ibrahim knocked and entered.

The room was large and haphazardly strewn with books and papers. Long benches lined two walls, where objects were brushed and cleaned. On one of the benches, several broken potsherds were in the process of being restored into a large bowl. Another held drawings and measurements of several antiquities. The walls were covered with certificates and documents and photographs depicting a warped little man at a dig site or at a banquet or at a university speech. Haj Ibrahim could not read the documents, but he looked closely at the photographs. In nearly all of them, Nuri Mudhil was among Westerners, many of whom appeared to be Jews. How clever of Ishmael, he thought, to have deduced that this man might possibly have an ongoing business with the Jews.

The door of a small inner office opened. Dr. Nuri Mudhil had a badly twisted leg, supported by a crutch under his left armpit. His right arm was withered.

‘Warm greetings on this blessed day,’ Dr. Mudhil said. ‘And now, with the grace and beneficence of the merciful Allah, who is indeed Almighty Jehovah, the one and only unseen God, and truly the only God of the seven heavens above this, our own swimming planet with all of its very own multitudinous and colorful fauna and flora within it, and all the other visibly heavenly constellations above and around our earth.’

‘Allah is the greatest. All gratitude, thanks, and praise to Him. I am blessed this day to have been guided to your office with its infinite marvels,’ Haj Ibrahim responded.

‘Is there anything about my humble workroom that entices the eye of so noble a character as you?’

‘All here shows a man gifted with great and unusual skills, upon whom great blessings have been bestowed, so everything is the same as anything.’

‘Your eye, I see, is keen and your tongue that of a man who has learned many surahs of the Koran by memory,’ the archaeologist went on.

‘The Koran, its most holy words, and its glorified message,’ Ibrahim said. ‘This blessed book has never failed to move me to tears and fear of the almighty Allah.’

‘Yes,’ Nuri Mudhil continued, ‘it is indeed a tremendous and mighty miracle for all righteous people living upon this planet.’

At that moment, the coffee vendor, never far away, entered with a tray bearing a coffee finjan, cups, and a plate of sticky sweets.

‘Your blessed name, sir?’

‘I am Ibrahim, temporarily dwelling among the miserable at Aqbat Jabar.’

‘How may I be of service to you?’

‘In my wanderings, since the exile, I have come upon a few items which may be of some interest.’

‘I am honored by your visit, Ibrahim,’ Nuri Mudhil said, ushering Ibrahim into his inner office, limping behind his desk, and bidding the guest to be seated. They sipped on their coffee and engaged in cigarettes. Ibrahim noticed that the packet was not a Palestinian brand and the tobacco was of excellent Syrian quality.

When all forms of greetings had exhausted them- selves, Ibrahim unwrapped the object and placed it before the archaeologist. Nuri Mudhil’s eyes narrowed and his face bore an expression of curiosity. He turned on a bright lamp on his desk and examined the piece with a magnifying glass and emitted a long ‘Hmmmmmm.’

‘It is necessary for me to make a few inquiries,’ Dr. Mudhil said.

‘Then you are interested?’

‘Yes, of course. Tell me, Ibrahim, did you buy this object or did you find it?’

Ibrahim weighed the question. It seemed innocent enough. ‘It was found,’ he answered.

‘I will not question you about the exact location of your find, but eventually the location and your history of finding it will relate directly to its worth.’

Aha, he is trapping me, Ibrahim thought. ‘It was discovered in this general area,’ Ibrahim said.

‘Was this all that was found?’

‘No, there were a number of pieces.’

‘A dozen?’

‘Mumkin, mumkin.’

Dr. Mudhil set the object and his magnifying glass down. ‘Shall we take off our robes of politeness and save ourselves weeks of needless conversation and wrangling?’

‘By all means,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Coming to the point is always first in my mind.’

‘You are Haj Ibrahim al Soukori al Wahhabi, are you not?’

‘Your words have penetrated through many layers of caution. I am Haj Ibrahim. How did you know?’

‘Your exploits at Qumran did not go unnoticed in certain circles, just as your entrance into Jericho did not go unnoticed. Am I to deduce that this was found in the caves behind Qumran?’

Ibrahim did not answer.

‘Haj Ibrahim,’ Nuri Mudhil began with monumental patience in his voice, ‘you are a great man of many seasons, but in matters of antiquities you are a child. The dealers are notorious thieves. I will tell you straight off, without nonsense, you have something very unusual and perhaps quite valuable.’

Ibrahim’s defenses were shattered by the man’s candor. Could it be that he is not trying to cheat me?

‘I do not wish to boost myself higher than the king’s camel, but I have a reputation as an honest man. I did not acquire the respect I have earned by cheating the Bedouin. Indeed, my eminent friend, your own uncle, the great Sheik Walid Azziz, Allah bless his name, has often sat in the very chair you occupy.’

‘May God forgive me for questioning the word of a man of your stature, but does not Walid Azziz, may Allah guide his way, use a dealer in Beersheba for the tribe’s finds?’

‘A dealer, yes. There are dealers in Beersheba, in Gaza, in East Jerusalem. But I am the only qualified Arab professor of archaeology in all of Palestine. Walid Azziz sells to his dealer in Beersheba the ordinary discoveries in clay. He knows as well as the next man the value of a pot or an oil lamp. However! When Walid Azziz finds that rare piece in ivory or metal or fine glass or an old piece of Bedouin jewelry, he comes to me. You see, I am qualified and so I can go directly to a number of buyers who trust me completely.’

Mudhil opened his desk drawer, took out and unwrapped four small clay scarabs, and set them before Ibrahim. ‘From the Ta’amira Bedouin. Magnificent, aren’t they? The same men tried to penetrate your fortress in the Qumran wadis and were almost killed by you for their efforts.’

Haj Ibrahim picked up one of the scarabs and examined it. ‘What would this fetch?’

‘A hundred, a hundred and fifty.’

‘So much? You are to be envied for the prominence of your clients,’ Ibrahim said.

The archaeologist wrapped three of the scarabs carefully. As Ibrahim handed him the last one, it crumpled to dust in his hands.

‘Pity ... pity,’ Mudhil said. ‘Do not worry. Such is the tender way of antiquities. Fortunately, the men who brought me these have seen objects blow to dust in their very hands. No one must weep.’

Ibrahim gaped, tried to apologize, but Mudhil shrugged it off. ‘Do you feel you have a buyer for this?’ Ibrahim said, pointing to his mysterious metal piece.

‘I have buyers, provided it is what it appears to be.’

‘And just what does it appear to be?’

‘We call it a standard. A decorative piece—probably a pole of wood was set into the hollow end. What is unusual is that it is not indigenous to this area. I do not recall that anything like this has ever been found in Palestine. This is generally likened to the area of Iran, maybe Iraq. In order to sell it, you must be willing to verify that it and the other objects you found were found around Qumran.’

Haj Ibrahim realized that he was indeed a child in a cutthroat game. He seemed to have little choice but to go along with the professor.

‘I must have this for a few weeks,’ Mudhil said.

‘But ... but why?’

‘To authenticate it.’

‘But you are a professor. Surely you know what it is.’

‘I know what it seems to be. Archaeology deals us more mysteries than the Koran. We must test it to determine its exact age and origin.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘What appears to be dead metal is, in fact, filled with all kinds of living organisms. They are road maps. We can tell its age within a few hundred years. If this is what it seems to be, it could be over six thousand years old. What puzzles me initially is, where did it come from? It is of copper, so we must determine the amount of arsenic and other properties. That will give us the clue of which mine the ore came from.’

Ibrahim blinked in wonderment. More important than its worth was that it surely seemed that Nuri Mudhil’s buyers were Jews. No Arab he had heard of would invest in antiquities. Ishmael had made a magnificent calculation.

‘If I give you this for a week, then I am naked,’ Ibrahim said.

‘You say you have a dozen more of these. It is an absolute guarantee that any buyer will surely want them all. Mohammed could not ask for greater protection.’

Ibrahim’s plan to outfox the archaeologist vanished. Plot and counterplot swirled through his mind. What if Mudhil told him the entire cache was forgeries and worthless? How could he know? Would it not be better to go directly to a dealer in East Jerusalem and take his chances? But wait! Mudhil had admitted it may be valuable.

‘You may have it for a week, of course. No problem,’ Ibrahim said.

‘You have made a prudent decision,’ Nuri Mudhil answered. He stood up, leaned on his crutch, and without the winding down of a long farewell, ushered Ibrahim to the door.

‘I must rush off to Jerusalem,’ Mudhil said. ‘This is very exciting.’

S
EVERAL WEEKS PASSED WITH
no word from Nuri Mudhil. My father, who could recite endless parables regarding patience, saw his own become shredded. His fear of a conspiracy grew. He began to expect a raid by the Jordanians, who would find and steal the nine other artifacts from our hovel. I was instructed to take them out of the house and hide them with our arms cache. When Father finally received a note asking to see the archaeologist, he went into Jericho filled with apprehension.

‘Ah, come in, Haj Ibrahim! May Allah bless this meeting!’

‘May Allah, our divine light, bless all your days, Professor. Your sudden note caught me unawares. I did not expect to hear from you so soon.’

The copper standard lay on Mudhil’s desk as the two men hemmed and hawed through two cups of coffee, weaving toward the point. Haj Ibrahim was fine-tuned to Mudhil’s every word to catch an inference, a hidden meaning, unspoken words between spoken words, unspoken lines between spoken lines. At the same time, he held his own qualms in check and showed nothing outwardly but patience and respect.

Mudhil lifted the twin-headed ibex artifact. ‘This has created a lot of excitement. However, it begs more questions than it answers.’

‘Questions that I am certain are not beyond the range of so eminent a personage as yourself and your colleagues,
whoever they may be.
’

‘In order to answer the questions, we must have your full and unqualified cooperation,’ the archaeologist said. ‘The mysteries are deep enough as it is. We need all the supporting facts we can gather.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Is there a potential buyer in the winds?’

‘An excellent buyer.’

‘Aha, then Allah has blessed this day.’

Mudhil help up a finger of caution. ‘Provided you are willing to allow such a buyer to examine the entire treasure trove.’

‘All the pieces?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose you want me to turn them over to you.’

‘As you may have supposed, the buyer is not in Jericho and it would be difficult for him to come here. Even if he could come, the very tests for analysis could not be carried out in Jericho.’ While Ibrahim pondered, Mudhil held the standard up again. ‘We can assume now that this comes from a very, very early period. It is an enormously sophisticated piece of work, particularly for its time. Look at these twists in the handle, the hollow inside, the ibex heads ... art for all ages. Would it not have to have been made by a very highly advanced people? We simply have little or next to no record of such people in Palestine during the Chalcolithic Age.’

‘Forgive me, I do not comprehend the time of which you speak.’

‘It was the age that followed the Neolithic or New Stone Age. Let us call it a copper age, an era of a thousand years between the stone and bronze ages. Curiously enough, we have dug up a number of objects of the stone ages, skulls, arrowheads, a rare agricultural settlement but nothing of the age which followed it. And look here what we are dealing with, exquisite artisanship, six to seven thousand years ago. Why, the copper mines at Timna weren’t opened until three thousand years after this was made. Who were these people? How did they get to Palestine? Only through examination of the entire cache can we expect some kind of clues.’

‘And as to their value as well?’

Nuri Mudhil had the distressing habit of looking directly into the eyes of his listener when he spoke importantly. So intense were they, Haj Ibrahim had difficulty looking back squarely. ‘As a museum piece, this is priceless. It is also worthless.’

‘That is a riddle too difficult for me to follow.’