Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“Days of charity are over,” Vered snapped. “A new kind of Jew lives in Israel.”

And Paul Zodman was about to meet one of them. As he sat down to dinner he saw before him a tureen of soup, some chunky meat, some butter … He looked aghast at the combination of meat and butter and called for a waiter. He happened to get Schwartz, the kibbutz secretary.

“Is this butter?” Zodman asked.

With a bold forefinger Schwartz took a dab of the butter, tasted it, wiped his finger on his T-shirt, and asked, “What else?”

“Isn’t this kibbutz kosher?”

Schwartz looked at Zodman, then at Cullinane. In an American accent he asked, “He some kind of a nut or something?” He stopped a waiter and took from him a pitcher of cream. “Cream for your coffee,” he said contemptuously.

Zodman ignored the gesture, but when Schwartz had moved along to another table he said quietly, “Don’t you find it extraordinary that this place is not kosher?”

“Are you kosher at home?” Vered asked unsympathetically.

“No, but I …”

“Expect Israel to be,” she finished sardonically.

Still Zodman refused to grow angry. “I should think that a kibbutz, where young people are growing up …” He shrugged his shoulders.

Eliav offered concessions. “Our ships, airplanes, hotels … they’re all kosher. Doesn’t that reassure you?”

Zodman did not reply, for he was truly disturbed by his discovery of a kibbutz that had no synagogue and a mess hall that was not kosher; it was Tabari, an Arab Muslim, who brought him consolation.

“Paul, when you see your forest tomorrow!”

“His what?” Vered asked.

“His forest. I checked it this afternoon and it looks fine. After we see it, why don’t we go on to Zefat? It’ll be Shabbat and we can attend the Vodzher Rebbe’s synagogue.”

“Good idea,” Eliav agreed. “Mr. Zodman, there you’ll see the Israel you’re searching for.”

But Zodman did not respond to the offer and that night the group went to bed irritated and apprehensive. Zodman felt that he was wasting his money on a Jewish state that ignored synagogues and ritual; Cullinane suspected that he might have lost his chief financial supporter; Eliav felt that as an agent of the Israeli government he should have been able to keep Zodman happy; and Vered remembered the American as an irritating fool, condescending in his attitude toward her country. She wished that he would leave so that the experts could get back to their jobs. Only Tabari was satisfied with that first day and at midnight he came to Cullinane’s tent, wakened the American and Eliav, and offered them bottles of cold beer.

“We’re in real trouble,” he said blithely. “But there’s a way out. My Uncle Mahmoud knew more about digs than any man in Palestine; and he had one basic rule. The man who is putting up the money has got to be kept happy. Mahmoud always kept one major find buried under sand so that when a visitor of importance arrived …” He leaned back. “By tomorrow night we are going to have in Paul J. Zodman one of the world’s happiest millionaires, because you should see what my boys dug up this morning! It’s hiding out there now, with two guards watching it. Lie down! Lie down!” He rose and barred the exit. “Tomorrow morning, just as we drive off to the forest, Raanan from Budapest is going to come running up to my car, shouting, ‘Effendi! Effendi!’”

“Effendi?” Eliav growled. “He doesn’t even know the word.”

“And at the Paul J. Zodman Memorial Forest, I have a surprise for all of you, and when we get back from the Vodzher Rebbe’s we’ll have the biggest surprise of all … Let me say this, John, if you want more money from Zodman ask for it tomorrow night. You’ll get it.”

As Tabari had predicted, early next morning when the cars were about to drive off, bowlegged Raanan hurried up, crying, “Effendi! Effendi! At Trench A!” and all piled out to see what the picks had uncovered.

Cullinane gasped. It was a fragment of Greek statuary, a rhythmic marble hand so delicately poised as to make the heart pause in admiration. The hand grasped a strigil, the blade now broken but perfect in its relationship to the hand, and the two items—barely the fiftieth part of a complete statue—indicated what the whole must have been, just as the statue, if it were ever found, would epitomize the long struggle which stubborn Jews had conducted to protect their austere monotheism against the allurements of Greece. The statue of the Greek athlete had no doubt once adorned a gymnasium at Makor, the pagan center from which Greek officials had tried to impress their will on subject Jews, and as Cullinane sketched the find he could hear the sophisticated philosophers from Athens arguing with the awkward Jews; he could hear the tempting rationalizations of those who followed Zeus and Aphrodite as they clashed against the immovable monotheism of the Jews; and he could visualize the struggle in which Hellenism, one of the most spontaneous civilizations in history, had tried to smother Judaism, one of the most rigid. How provocative it was to discover that the contest had reached even to Makor and had finally died away to the symbol of one athlete’s hand grasping one broken strigil.

“You go on to Zefat,” Cullinane called up from the trench. “I’ll work here.”

“John,” Tabari shouted, “you’re needed!” And Cullinane was brought back to the present. He was needed, and the rest of the statue, if it lay buried in the tell, could wait.

On one of the hills between Akko and Zefat, grateful Jews in 1949 had planted a small forest in memory of Orde Wingate, the understanding Englishman who had once served in Palestine and died in Burma. The trees had flourished and now showed substantial trunks and broad-spreading crowns. As the two cars pulled to a halt, the sign that proved this to be the Orde Wingate Forest was hidden, and a newer one—well scuffed—was in its place. The four archaeologists, somewhat ashamed of themselves, climbed down and tried to control their smiles as Zodman descended to inspect his forest. He stood for some minutes in the roadway, looking; then without speaking he moved in among the trees, feeling their stout trunks and looking up at their piney needles. Some resin attached to his fingers and he tasted it. He kicked at the earth and saw how a humus had begun to form, a mulch that would hold water and prevent the floods that used to ravage this area. He turned to look back at the people he was employing to dig at Makor, but his throat was too choked with emotion for him to speak, so he resumed his contemplation of the trees.

At this point Tabari had arranged for a troupe of children to come running through the forest—none had been there for months and their childish voices began to echo among the trees. Zodman turned with surprise as they ran past, and he caught a little girl, red-cheeked and pudgy. She knew no English and he no Hebrew, but they looked at each other for a moment; then she struggled to pull away, but Tabari had coached her and now, over Zodman’s shoulder, the Arab made a sign and the child kissed the American. Zodman drew the little girl to him and bowed his head. He let her go and she ran after the others to where a car would return them to their village. After a prolonged and painful interval he came back to the cars and said haltingly, “My relatives in Germany included many children …” He wiped his eyes. “It’s a good thing to have children running free in a forest.” He sat in the car and for the rest of the trip said nothing, but Eliav found Tabari and whispered, “You take that damned sign down!” The Arab refused, pointing out, “He’ll go back to it again and again.”

They drove to Zefat, an exquisite town hanging in the hills, and as time for morning worship approached, Eliav explained, “At the Vodzher synagogue no place is provided for women, so it would be best for Vered to wait in the car. Cullinane and Tabari aren’t Jews, but I’ve brought yarmulkes for them, and they’ll be welcomed. I’ve a cap for you, too, Mr. Zodman.”