P. Deutermann - The Last Man

“It is not allowed,” she replied. “It is not safe . Don’t you understand? If something had happened to you they would have come after me . I will have to report this, you know. To the institute. I could lose my job. I don’t suppose that crossed your mind at all?”

“I am sorry. I think they will blame me for taking off in the night, though, not you. You can’t be everywhere, twenty-four seven. I didn’t go down anywhere dangerous, like the northern terraces. Just on the top. Remember, it’s what I came here to do.”

She rolled her eyes. “So this is what you mean by, what was your phrase, ‘going for it’? Regardless of any consequences?”

He had felt a flush of embarrassment cross his face. His fine words on the beach sounded hollow, coming back like this.

“Tell me something,” he said, scrambling for cover. “Did you never do that, when you were down here on one of the digs?”

She had tossed her head and groaned in exasperation, but then she had turned her face away, as if he’d uncovered a painful memory. “Yes,” she sighed impatiently, “but not by myself, and not without someone knowing I was up there. What you did was foolish and an affront to our hospitality.”

He had stared down at his feet. “Well, again I apologize. It’s just that there was no way I could capture the spirit of that place during the day, not with all those half-dressed girls cavorting all over the place. Kids on a lark where nearly a thousand people committed suicide. It’s what I really came here for, Judith. I’m done now. We can leave in the morning. I guess I mean today.”

She had fixed him with a steady stare. He couldn’t tell if she believed him or was still trying to pick a hole in what he was saying.

“Yes,” she said at last. “You are done here. We will leave at nine this morning, after I have had a little talk with the center manager — and, of course, after I make some phone calls to the authorities in Jerusalem.”

“I understand. I didn’t take anything, though. No souvenirs, no bits of rock, nothing. I just looked. Do you want to search my pack? My room?” She was obviously taking this personally, and he was feeling rotten about that. The look she was giving him confirmed it. She was really angry with him: She had trusted him, opened up to him, and he had gone sneaking around behind her back at night. Finally she turned away.

“Nine o’clock, Mr. Hall,” she said over her shoulder. “Be prompt, please.” Then she had stomped away, back into the tourist center, leaving him standing in the parking lot. As he watched her go, he felt the first inklings of real regret. It was more than the fact that she had trusted him. She had made the first tentative moves back toward life, something she probably needed very much to do. He might have inadvertently sabotaged that.

Now, waiting in the cafeteria, he stared up at the mountain basking indifferently in the early morning sunlight and thought about that giant cistern. Full of water! He had just assumed it would be bone dry, like the rest of them, but this one did not depend on the wadis or man-made dams. This one depended only on rain, twenty centuries of rain. He wondered again how old that water was. Once the cistern had filled, everything else would have sluiced off through the bat cave and down the hillside.

Thank God I brought the diving gear. What had been part of his cover story was now going to be the main event. If they don’t throw your ass out of the country first, he reminded himself. He kind of doubted that they would, not for just walking around. If they had caught him up there in the cistern, he might be headed for an Israeli courtroom, but sneaking out of the hostel, walking around the wilderness at night, was, as the sergeant had pointed out, more an issue of stupidity than criminal trespass.

Fortunately, he had his dive expedition reservations all set up. What he had to do now was some detailed planning and forget about the lovely Ressner. That should be easy enough, he thought, remembering her final acid look in the parking lot.

Judith called in to the institute at eight thirty, this time from inside the manager’s office, courtesy of one of the cafeteria workers. The manager did not normally come down from Jerusalem until nine. She had explained the problem to the chairman’s assistant, who promised to relay the story to Himself, as the chairman was known to his staff. Judith had the impression that the assistant was not as upset about the American’s nocturnal walkabout as she was. She hung up, thought about calling Ellerstein, but then realized he would hear about it from the chairman’s office soon enough. She went upstairs to throw her things together.

While she was packing, she remembered Colonel Skuratov. Her heart sank. The chairman and the rest of the academics might frown on what the American had done, but the security officer would be another problem. She could just see the fanatical gleam in that scary old Russian’s eye. In a way, though, his instincts had been correct: The American obviously had planned to go out at night right from the start, as the pieces of paper in the fire door lock proved. The late afternoon meal and then a “nap.” She had made a big deal out there in the parking lot about one night up on the mountain, but now she realized that he had probably been up there twice. Damn the man. Damn all Americans!

She fished around in her briefcase and found the card. International Planning Division, Ministry of the Interior. M. L. Skuratov. No Colonel. No hint of the security world. Planning indeed. Just another government phone number. She went back down to the office. She still had about ten minutes before the manager showed up.

“International Planning,” a man’s voice answered in Hebrew.

“I need to speak to Colonel Skuratov.”

“He is not available. Your name and message, please?”

She hesitated. “This is Dr. Yehudit Ressner. He will know the name.”

“Yes, Doctor? The message, please?”

“Tell him the American went out at night on his own. To the site. Probably twice. An army patrol found him this morning coming back along the Wadi Metsadá. We are leaving the site for Tel Aviv this morning.”

There was a minute of silence.

“I have it. Where can he reach you tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night?”

“Yes. He will be unavailable until then.”

“At home.” She gave him the number, dreading the fact that she wasn’t finished with the colonel. Wonderful. Damned American.

“Thank you, Doctor.” The connection was broken. She was left standing there, the phone in her hand, when the fat manager came bustling through the door and started to upbraid her about being in the office.

“Oh, sod off,” she hissed at him in Hebrew and stamped out of the office, leaving him speechless.

On Saturday morning David awoke back in his hotel room to the sounds of maid service carts rattling down the hallway. He opened one eye and looked at his watch. Well, maybe no longer morning. It was just noon. He got up and went over to the windows and pulled back the night curtain, revealing a bright, sunny day.

He frowned as he recalled the Friday morning ride back from Masada. Judith had treated him to a frosty silence for the entire trip, meeting his two weak attempts at conversation with curt, monosyllabic replies. When they arrived at the hotel she had turned in her seat. “I have called Professor Strauss with respect to your nocturnal excursions at Metsadá. Both of them, yes? The committee will meet on Sunday to discuss what actions they might take. They will also inform the Israel Antiquities Authority.”

“Beyond unauthorized walking about the site at night, what’s the charge, Officer?” he had asked, trying to keep it light.