P. Deutermann - The Last Man

David had been very glad he had hired the car and driver, because when they got to his hotel, she had suggested they go to dinner at a small place near her apartment in Jerusalem. He was more than amenable. He dropped off his diving gear, showered, and changed clothes, and then they went up to Jerusalem. When they got to her apartment, he quietly told Ari to pick him up at midnight. She changed, and they went out to a nearby restaurant and came back to her apartment a little after ten o’clock. She broke out a bottle of wine, and they sat out on the tiny balcony overlooking the garden enclosure. For a little while they simply sat there, not talking. David felt unusually comfortable doing just that, except for the residual horror at what had happened earlier in the day. He’d been squeezing it out of his mind all day.

“You were pleased with the restaurant?” she asked. He could see her face in the soft night light. Her dark eyes were luminous and concerned.

“Absolutely,” he said. “With one major exception, the whole day was delightful. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I haven’t done so many different things for… for a very long time.”

He heard the hesitation and realized that she was still on pretty shaky emotional ground even spending time with him. The tragedy in the harbor hadn’t helped. While he had been opening the bottle of wine and looking for glasses, she had touched up her makeup and refreshed her perfume. He was edified that she bothered, and very pleased to see that those dark shadows under her eyes had diminished, but knew better than to make any physical moves, much as he wanted to. He did not want to admit to her how badly the incident at the harbor had scared him. More than that, however, he was grappling with an overwhelming urge to tell her what he’d found on the mountain.

“It will come,” he said quietly, not looking directly at her. A man’s voice rose in argument somewhere below them, answered quickly by a woman’s angry retort.

“Ah, marital bliss,” he said with a smile, and she laughed. They went silent again as the argument got louder; then a door was slammed and the drama ended. They’d had the TV on earlier to see if there was news of the incident. The broadcast was, of course, in Hebrew, but Judith said they were calling it a spear-fishing accident. The TV was muted now, but light from the screen was flickering against the windows.

“I have a confession to make,” she said. He turned his head to look at her.

“I have not made love with a man since Dov died. When I was with you, today, at Caesarea, I suddenly wanted to. Make love, I mean. My body ambushed me, I think.” She stopped then, and he saw that she thought she had embarrassed herself.

“But?” he asked gently.

“But,” she repeated, “my thinking mind was shocked. I felt so very guilty, as if my body had betrayed me into thinking impure thoughts.”

He smiled at her in the darkness. “I have to say that those are not necessarily bad thoughts.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said all in a rush, her hand at her mouth. “I mean, it wasn’t — I didn’t mean that you—”

He put up his hand. “I know, Judith. This isn’t about me. I find you extremely attractive. I think you know that. And of course, I would like to make love with you. What man wouldn’t? But I would be astonished if you just hopped into bed with anyone right now, me or anyone else.”

She sipped some wine, unable to meet his eyes. “This is so embarrassing,” she said. “I can’t believe I said that.”

“Look,” he said, “we’re grown-ups, right? We’re not two college kids trying to figure out who makes the first move. I like you. I like being with you. You’re easy on the eyes, and you’re smarter than I am. For me that’s a very appealing combination. I’m satisfied to spend time with you and let whatever will happen just happen. So you relax, okay? Be yourself. I’ll be myself. For right now, that’s good enough.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you, Mr. Hall.”

“Thank you, David.”

“Yes, okay. David.”

Then he asked her what lay ahead in her career at the university, and she began to talk again. It gave him time to quell his own tumbling thoughts. Leading her on like this, he was beginning to feel like a true jerk. He had meant it when he said he would like to make love, but he knew that as long as he was lying to her about what he was really up to, that wasn’t going to happen, no matter what she did. He was using her and on another level, abusing her growing trust. He had to think of a way to break this off. No, you need her for the endgame, he reminded himself. Now someone had threatened to kill him, and he didn’t dare tell anyone. He was beginning to think that he had vastly overestimated his James Bond skills. Shit!

You have to tell her, the voice in his head declared. You have to.

“Where did you go, Mr. David Hall?”

Startled, he looked over at her. He hadn’t realized she’d stopped talking. “Is there any more wine?” he asked, stalling for time.

“Certainly,” she said, giving him a perplexed look before getting up to fetch another bottle. She came back, refilled his glass, and sat back down. Given that he was about to come clean, he wondered if they should move inside to the living room to spare the neighbors some reciprocal noise.

“Now I have a confession to make,” he said finally. He was glad that it was fully dark now. He didn’t want her to see his embarrassment.

“Oh, dear, now what?” she asked with a wan smile.

He drank some more wine. “I’ll tell you on one condition,” he said. “You say nothing until I’m finished. Then if you want to yell at me, you can.”

“Why on earth would I want to — oh, no, not the Metsadá business again?”

He held up his hand. “Hear me out. Please.”

Her smile faded. His heart sank. Oh, well, he thought, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“It begins with Adrian, the woman who started all this, who fired up my desire to come here, to go to Metsadá. You remember the story I told at the first meeting? About her theories concerning the Zealots?”

She nodded.

“That wasn’t quite true,” he said. He sipped some more wine while trying to assemble his thoughts. Incongruously, a bird began warbling its song from one of the trees below.

“That the Kanna’im had escaped the mountain?” she asked. “Regrouped somewhere else?”

“Yes. Her theory was actually this: They chose suicide not to spite the Romans but to keep a secret. To protect something hidden there.”

She sighed. “Oh, Mr. Hall,” she said. “You are telling me you’re just another treasure hunter after all?”

He couldn’t think of anything to say.

She put down her own wineglass. “This is not exactly an original theory, you know,” she said. “People have been looking up on that mountain for years. Decades, even. Archaeologists looking for evidence of nine hundred sixty skeletons somewhere. Treasure hunters looking for the gold described in the Scrolls. The results are always the same: There’s nothing there. Nothing but the mountain and the myth.”

He lost his nerve. She was too much the skeptic about the entire story. Hell with it, he decided. He was in too deep now to turn back. He’d make the dive. If there was nothing in the cistern, then there was no point in making a fool of himself now by telling her about the cistern in the first place, or how he’d found it.

“Mr. Hall?”

“Sorry. It just seemed so plausible.”

“Is that the reason you went up there at night? You were looking for treasure?”