Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

She wished she hadn’t come. Uri on his own would have been spared this performance. But he wasn’t fazed. She saw him lean forward, like an interviewer.

‘Akiva. What I want to know is what specifically my father had on his mind in the last days of his life.’

‘And for this you came all this way? This you couldn’t work out by yourself? What he had on his mind ? Isn’t that just so obvious a child in kindergarten could give you the answer?’ He turned away from Uri, again. ‘Tell me, Miss Costello-Uri says you’re Irish. I have no idea whether you’re a Protestant or a Catholic, but tell me this: when the IRA were planting bombs every five minutes, did the Protestants say, “OK, here, take Belfast. Split it down the middle and we’ll have whichever bits you don’t want. Oh, and while we’re at it, all the millions of Catholic Irish who left on boats for the last one hundred and fifty years-all of them can come back and live here, in our little bit of Protestant Northern Ireland.” Tell me honestly, did you ever hear a Protestant in Northern Ireland say such a thing? Did you?’

‘Akiva, I’m here to talk about my father-’

‘Because that is what our beloved Prime Minister and our so-called government, may God rain justice down upon them, are doing here. The same thing! Let every Palestinian whose great-uncle once pissed in a pot in Jaffa come here and claim a mansion in Tel Aviv. And sure, let’s split Jerusalem in two. Do you know how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran? Tell me, do you?’

Uri was staring at the ceiling, struggling to hide his frustration. Maggie spoke instead. ‘Really, we’re not here-’

‘Zero.’ He made the shape with his thumb and forefinger. ‘A big fat zero. We pray for a return to Jerusalem three times a day for two thousand years; we build our synagogues facing east so that we can face Jerusalem, no matter if we’re in New Jersey or Dublin; we ask Ha’shem, the Almighty, to make our tongues cleave to the roofs of our mouths and for our right hand to lose its cunning if we should forget thee O Jerusalem-and yet we have to give it up! We have to surrender a city to these Arabs who don’t even mention it-not a mention-in their so-called holy book!’ His face flushed, he now leaned forward, jabbing a finger at Maggie.

‘So yes, I know what Shimon Guttman had on his mind. The suicide of the Jewish people! Do you hear me? The self-destruction of the Jewish people. That is what he wanted to prevent.’

Uri raised a palm in request, like a pupil asking a teacher for permission to speak. Maggie could see he was suppressing his own views. Whether that was because he was too drained to summon the energy for a fight, or because he had made the smart decision that there was nothing to be gained from a political row, she couldn’t tell. But she was grateful for Uri’s instinct. They needed Shapira to be helpful, otherwise their trip would be wasted.

‘He told my mother he had seen something specific,’ Uri began, the picture of politeness and filial duty. ‘Something that would change everything. Do you know what that was?’

Shapira turned towards Uri and softened his voice. ‘Your father and I talked all the time these last weeks. He and I-’

‘I’m talking about the last three or four days. That’s when he saw whatever it was-’

‘He could be quite a private man, Uri. If he didn’t want to share with you what he had seen, maybe there was a reason for that.’

‘What kind of reason?’

‘How do the Psalms put it? “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Compassion for his children, protecting his children. It’s the same thing.’

‘You think he was protecting me?’

‘He was a devoted father, Uri.’

‘But what about my mother? He tried to protect her too. And look what happened to her.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t pass on whatever information he had to her, Uri? Can you be certain of that?’

Uri reluctantly shook his head, as if he had been caught out.

Maggie realized that it was possible that Mrs Guttman had found out something last night, just hours before her death. Maybe she had tried to make a call. Perhaps that way she had alerted her killers. Or maybe, despite Uri’s protestations, she had seen something which had so appalled her, filled her with such despair, that she had taken her own life.

‘You see, my dear Uri, the Master of the Universe has a plan for the Jewish people. He doesn’t allow us to see it, of course. He gives us a glimpse, here and there, in the texts, in the sources. It’s only a glimpse. But he performs miracles, Uri. Your own faith probably teaches you that, too, Miss Costello. Miracles. And the history of the Jewish people is a story of miracles.

‘We suffer the greatest tragedy in human history. The Holocaust. And how long do we have to wait before redemption? Three years! That’s all! The Nazis fall in 1945 and in forty-eight we have a state of our own. After two thousand years of exile and wandering, we return to our ancient land. The land which God promised to Abraham nearly four thousand years ago. What do you call that, Miss Costello, if not a bona fide, copper-bottomed, fourteen-days-at-home-or-your-money-back miracle? Our darkest hour, followed by the moment of greatest light!

‘Same in sixty-seven. The Arabs surround us, all of them sharpening their knives to slit our throats, to push the Jews into the sea. And what happens? Israel destroys their air forces in a matter of hours and their armies in days! Six days. “And God saw every thing that he had made and, behold, it was very good.” And on the seventh day he rested.

‘Well, would you bet against the Almighty redeeming us once more? Yes, things are dark now, no denying it. Your government in Washington, Miss Costello, plans on robbing the Jewish people of its birthright, telling us to give up land we were promised by God. And collaborating with you is a man who we once trusted, a traitor who is ready to betray his people so that he can parade before the anti-Semites in Europe as the good Jew, the nice Jew, the dove with a Nobel Prize clasped in his beak, while the bad Jews are left to be murdered in their beds by the Arabs.

‘It all seems to be over, it’s our darkest hour all over again, when look! A hero of the Jewish people, Shimon Guttman, intervenes to stay the hand of the traitor and lo, Guttman the hero is slain. And now the people of Israel begin to understand. They now see the threat that faces them: a government that is willing to shoot its own citizens. Even, and for this please forgive me, Uri, to kill the wife of the hero!

‘This is the way the Almighty works. He gives us signs, clues if you will. Because he wants us to see what’s going on. He took your mother so that we would be under no illusions. It’s a message to us, Uri. Your parents and the tragedy that has befallen them is a message. It’s telling us to say no to this huge American trick. To say no to mass Jewish suicide.’

All of this came at such a speed, and at such loud, full-throated volume, there was no choice but to wait for it to stop. This Shapira was a practised speaker, that much was clear, who had mastered the technique of the seamless segue from one sentence to the next, brooking no interruption. Maggie had been in the meeting when the US team famously sat listening to the Syrian President talk for an unbroken six hours, deploying the exact same trick. The only suitable response was stamina and patience. You just had to wait till your foe, or partner, it made no difference, had talked himself out. That moment seemed to have arrived.

‘Mr Shapira,’ Maggie began, leaping in ahead of Uri. ‘That’s all really helpful. Would I be summarizing your views accurately if I were to say that you suspect the hand of the Israeli authorities themselves in the deaths of Uri’s parents?’