Will Adams - Newton’s Fire

‘Maybe we should each have a go,’ suggested Luke.

‘Yes. Or maybe you could allow me some silence in which to work.’

‘Fine,’ said Luke. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

The farm was a few kilometres north-west of Megiddo Junction, an old kibbutz that had died twelve years before from internal rifts and a lack of new blood. Thaddeus and his friends had bought it cheap, sold off the surplus arable land and then switched its remaining cattle facilities from dairy to beef. They’d refurbished the dormitories for their American volunteers and had added state-of-the-art farming facilities, including a laboratory for testing, treating and preserving semen samples. Then they’d set about breeding themselves a red heifer.

The yard was dark and deserted when Avram parked outside the main house. But a light came on inside even as Shlomo pulled up alongside him, and then Francis came out, dressed with unusual modesty in tattered farmhand clothes, deliberately downplaying his status here. Avram nodded at him. He beckoned for them to follow him to a cavernous barn, pungent with animal smells. Huge strip lights flashed and shuddered like a silent storm before finally coming on. Certificates, photograph albums and other documentation for the heifer lay on a pair of worktables inside the door. Another pair of tables against the end wall were arrayed with bowls, knives, vestments and everything else they’d need for the sacrifice itself. Water splashed into a ritual bath opposite the door, while the wall behind it was covered intriguingly by a vast white sheet. And, to their left, a wooden altar had been built beneath an expanse of open roof.

Yet, for all these marvels, Shlomo and his men had eyes for just one thing.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: This is the statute of the law which the Lord hath commanded: Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer, faultless, wherein there is no blemish, and upon which there never came yoke.

A red heifer, faultless, wherein there is no blemish. And there she was, caged in a steel pen in the corner of the barn, trembling a little, shying away from the sudden light and the crowd of staring men.

Purity was impossible in this world. Try as one might, one simply couldn’t avoid death and dirt and disease. Yet no observant Jew had been allowed to enter the grounds of the Temple while tainted. And certainly none would ever even contemplate intruding impure upon the Holy of Holies. That would have been a terrible sacrilege. On the other hand, Jews had still needed to visit the Temple. Before each visit, therefore, they’d cleansed themselves with ritual bathing and the anointment of ashes from a perfect red heifer.

Nine times in history such a heifer had been identified, sacrificed and burned. But then the Romans had destroyed the Temple and there’d been no more ashes. With the exact location of the Holy of Holies lost to human knowledge, few observant Jews would now dare walk upon the Temple Mount, let alone enter the Dome of the Rock, lest by accident they trespass on that most sacred space. Only by anointing themselves with the ashes of a new red heifer, therefore, could Shlomo and his men so much as venture onto the Mount. Only with a new heifer could they and their brethren bring down the Dome and build the Third Temple.

They edged tentatively towards her, almost as frightened as she was. They clustered around the small pen, leaned over the steel bars, yet not getting too close, as though scared that something cataclysmic might happen. But then one of them touched her by accident and instantly the spell was broken. Their hands were all over her, and they were babbling and laughing as they sought in vain the one white hair that might disqualify her, the one whisker.

Avram glanced at Francis. He looked serenely confident. Whatever dyes, tweezers or other tricks he’d used, they’d surely fool a dozen city boys like this. Reassured, he went to join them and share their joy as the truth dawned exultantly on them.

The heifer was real. The moment was real.

The time of the Third Temple had come.

Rachel opened the curtains a little way to allow some morning in. A cyclist wobbled by outside, and a yawning man trudged gloomily towards the river. Everything seemed so normal. She nodded at Jay’s phone. ‘You think he’d mind if we called Pelham’s sister? See how she’s getting on, if she needs any help?’

Luke shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them to be monitoring her phone. If they are, they’ll be able to trace incoming calls. They’ll be here in no time.’

She closed her eyes a moment. ‘I keep forgetting.’

Reproductions of portraits of famous people were hanging either side of the kitchen door. Rachel hadn’t noticed them in the earlier gloom, but now one caught her eye — the Kneller portrait Luke had mentioned earlier as the model for the Newton sculpture. She pointed it out to him. He grinned and murmured: ‘Jay would give his right arm to see what we’ve seen.’

Rachel nodded. Jay liked his scientists, that was for sure. And neatness, too. Each picture had its counterpart on the other side of the door: Einstein matched with Newton; Faraday with Curie; Linnaeus with Darwin; Edison with Tesla. She went to his bookshelves. They were arranged primarily by subject matter but then by size, with the largest to the left. Five whole shelves were devoted to writings by or about Newton. He also had extensive collections on alchemy, chemistry and other sciences. Luke smiled mischievously and pulled down a history of electricity, flipped to its index.

‘What are you looking for?’ she asked.

‘These Babylonian batteries of yours. I think you made them up.’ He showed the index to her. ‘See. Nothing here.’

‘That’s because they’re Baghdad batteries,’ she said, pointing out the entry to him.

‘Damn it,’ he said. He turned to the page and began to read. Then a puzzled look furrowed his brow.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

He closed the book. ‘These batteries. How would you describe what they did? At their simplest level, I mean.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not with you.’

‘They used acid to turn base metals into gold, right? Doesn’t that remind you of something?’

Now she saw it. ‘Alchemy?’ she frowned.

‘Alchemy was essentially based on texts written in and around Alexandria during the early centuries AD,’ said Luke. ‘But that doesn’t mean the idea originated there. Baghdad was one of Alexandria’s major trading partners. Is it really so far-fetched to imagine merchants gossiping about these miraculous vessels they’d seen that used acid to turn other metals into gold? And is it such a great leap to believe that Alexandrians would have coveted this know-how and sought to replicate it for themselves?’

‘They’d have done anything for it.’

‘They’d have failed, of course. But the effort was the thing. The belief that it was possible, if you just got the mix of ingredients exactly right, or if you used a particular mineral as a catalyst, or maybe if you were pure enough of heart or you waited until Saturn was in conjunction with Venus. And so they wrote down their ideas and aspirations and experiments, and that’s the stuff that your Harranian friends preserved as their sacred texts, and which eventually reached Europe.’

‘Alchemy based upon a misunderstanding of primitive electroplating?’ Rachel gave a joyful laugh. ‘What a wonderful idea.’

‘It would mean awarding Newton the coconut for his theory about electricity as the philosopher’s stone. And if it was part of what he was working on during 1693, it could even explain his breakdown too. Hallucinations, confusion and long-term cognitive damage are exactly the symptoms you’d expect from exposing yourself to a series of electrical shocks.’