P. Deutermann - The Last Man

Judith Ressner sat at her cluttered desk, quietly fuming. She thought she had been fairly civil, considering the imposition this idiot American was causing. Well, not idiot, perhaps, but certainly inconsiderate. As for his girlfriend’s stupid theory? Well. Insult to injury. If Hall had learned anything at all about Roman siege warfare, he should know that no Jew would have escaped the final morning on the mountain, not after pinning the Tenth Legion for two and a half dusty years down on the Dead Sea, Lake Asphaltites to the ancients, and certainly not after the colossal bloodletting in Jerusalem. The besieged ones at Masada had only to look across the Dead Sea at the moldering knob that had been the fortress of Machaerus, still aswarm with wheeling cones of vultures, to know what was coming.

Machaerus, another of King Herod’s bolt-holes, had actually surrendered. The Romans, unimpressed, summarily put thousands to the sword, making them kneel in yoked ranks on the hot sand while two centurions came behind, one to place a knee in the victim’s back while grabbing a handful of hair, the other to slice open the prisoner’s throat. Four-footed scavengers came from miles around to fight carrion birds for the bloody bones, not to mention the plain fact that, had Jewish warriors escaped in any numbers, they would have immediately formed factions and turned to fighting each other, making them easy prey for the inevitable Roman mopping-up operation. This American had no concept of the ruthless Roman Empire. He should study what happened to Carthage: Once the Romans finally took the city, they dismantled it, stone by stone, and then forced the remaining inhabitants to sow bags of salt across the entire area so that nothing could ever grow there again. To this day, nothing did.

She felt her pulse pounding in her temples and spun her chair around to look out the window into the courtyard, where the gray-greenery of a dozen ancient olive trees softened all those hard, modern angles of the academic buildings. Thirty-eight years old and already worried about high blood pressure. Five years now since Dov had been killed in the accident at Dimona. Five years of emotional and intellectual stasis. Five long years.

A knock on the door produced Professor Ellerstein, shambling as usual, his shirt decorated with a few stray bread crumbs from lunch and his hands already fumbling around with that wretched pipe.

“Do not ignite that abomination in here, Yossi,” she warned, speaking in Hebrew.

“I know, I know, no smoking, anywhere, forever. Although I have this wonderful new Dutch tobacco—”

She silenced him with a glare. He regretfully stowed the pipe in his front pants pocket before dropping into the single visitor’s chair. He looked around her cramped office, littered with papers and books. An oversized computer screen presided over the clutter on her desk.

“So, Yehudit,” he began. “Fire away.” He hunched himself down in the chair as if preparing to absorb a verbal fusillade.

She did not disappoint him. “What the hell is this, this charade, Yossi? And why me? This man is no more than a tourist, of zero academic consequence, and three days at Metsadá I do not need just now, thank you very much. Especially as a babysitter to some American with idiotic theories about the Kanna’im.”

“As you say, Yehudit,” Ellerstein replied. “It is not a serious matter. Still, the IAA has—”

“Sod the IAA. I googled this man’s name. He caused an uproar in his profession when he disclosed what his own company was doing. Then he sues them and is awarded a fat settlement? And now we’re accommodating him because his girlfriend left him? Come on, Yossi.”

“I owed a favor,” Ellerstein said. “To an American professor, George Hanson. He asked me to intercede with IAA and the university, and I did. This whole thing is harmless. I never expected Strauss to require a minder. Your involvement is my fault, not Mr. Hall’s.”

Judith gave him a long, hostile look. “You’re not telling me everything,” she said.

Ellerstein squirmed in his chair. “That is always possible.”

“Well?”

Ellerstein shrugged. “That’s a pointless question, Yehudit, as you well know.”

“The ministry.”

Ellerstein shrugged again and reached for his pipe.

Her mouth snapped shut. She had her answer. The university was being played. The government was behind this situation.

“Why, pray God, am I stuck with this babysitting mission?” she asked. “Strauss would not explain himself.”

Ellerstein stopped shifting around in his chair and fixed her with an intent look. Suddenly gone was the shambling, absentminded professor. In his place sat a man with the grim visage of a judge. “Because it is time for you to end this self-destructive, self-serving so-called life you have been leading since Dov died. For one thing.”

She felt a rush of fury. “How dare you,” she hissed, but he silenced her with an abrupt gesture.

“Self-indulgent, self-centered, self-fixated, self, self, self ! Dov is dead, Yehudit. You are not. You have been widowing now for what, five years? Believe it or not, your colleagues are worried about you. You fit the profile of someone suffering from clinical depression, and yet no one can get near you, talk to you, or help you.”

“Rubbish,” she spat. “Besides, if I wish to grieve, that’s my business.”

“Not when your work is not as good as it could be, even if no one here is willing to tell you that to your face.”

“What?”

“Because if anyone presumed to try, you would wrap your widow’s cape around you and stiffen your spine. From what I hear, Yehudit, you are becoming a royal pain in the academic ass.”

“From what you hear? ‘Not as good’ ? My work is sub standard ? This is the first I’ve heard about it.” Even as she said it, she could hear the note of shrill hysteria in her voice.

“My point, exactly,” Ellerstein said.

She looked away from him, back out at the olive grove. No comfort there now; suddenly they were just trees. “So maybe I should just leave academia to fend for itself, then?” she asked. “It’s not as if I had to work, especially for the fabulous salary.”

“Then why do you work, Yehudit?”

“Because — because—”

“Because being a full-time academic fills your days, doesn’t it, which means you only have to contend with the nights. If you quit, you get both the days and the nights to wrestle with, and still all alone, yes? No. You need to stop with the Lazarus routine and come back to life, Yehudit Ressner.”

She twisted all the way around in her chair, turning her back on him. Damn his eyes. God damn them all. Damn Dov for leaving her alone like this. She wanted to scream at him, scream at them all. What did all these men know of the hole in her heart? Dov had been perfect for her — loving, bright, principled. The litany of if-onlys began to parade through her head, and she fought back tears. I will not cry, she thought, gritting her teeth.

Ellerstein was speaking again, his voice more gentle now. “Yehudit. We’ve known each other for a long time. This is friendly fire.”

“I wish Dov had never become involved with you and that — that damned group.”

“But he did. He believed as we did. He was a man of principle.”

She sniffed but said nothing.

Ellerstein leaned forward. “Take this little side trip, Yehudit. Go with the American — he’s inconsequential. He wants to see Metsadá, spend some time up there on the mountain, and think about things. Possibly even honor his missing lover. You should do the same. Let him poke around in the stones; you go find yourself a window in the battlements and examine your life, Yehudit. The Judaean desert has always been a good place for that.”