‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I think one’s got to accept that the Slavonic version is derived from an early edition of Josephus written in Aramaic for the Jews in Babylon. There are passages which don’t exist in the Greek version but which are unmistakably by Josephus. It’s also clear how such an Aramaic edition should end up in Vilnius. I don’t know whether you want to go into details …’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, really, it boils down to the links between Babylon and the Byzantine Empire, and the Byzantine Empire and Russia. It’s more than likely that if such an edition of Josephus did exist, then it would have ended up in Constantinople and been known there to scholars of the Orthodox Church. The most plausible theory is that it was translated into Old Russian in the fifteenth century by members of a Judaizing sect of the Russian Orthodox Church which, when finally suppressed by the Tsar, took refuge in Catholic Lithuania.’
‘Might they have inserted the references to Jesus and John the Baptist?’
‘It’s conceivable, certainly. But it’s hard to think of a motive.’
‘To prove that they existed?’
‘Of course. That’s the obvious motive. But before the late eighteenth century no one doubted that they existed, so why should some medieval forger go to all that trouble?’
‘So you think that the additions were definitely written by Josephus?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the Vilnius Codex?’
‘That’s more complicated. It existed up to the First World War, but it was one among dozens of manuscripts scattered around in different places. They certainly knew that there was a Slavonic version as far back as 1893, but this guy Alexander Berendts who was piecing it together died in 1912. Then came the war. The Germans invaded Lithuania; the Russians retreated, taking the Vilnius Codex with them. It was thought to have been given to the State Archives in St Petersburg and destroyed in the fire there in 1917. That’s why the publication of Berendts’ work by Konrad Glass in 1920 did not include it. But given the chaos existing in Russia in 1917 it is quite plausible to suggest that the Codex was left in the monastery for safe-keeping.’
‘So you think it’s genuine, too?’
‘It’s impossible to be certain, but, if it stands up to carbon-dating, then I’d say that, on balance, yes, it’s the real thing.’
He rang off, elated by a most extraordinary sense of relief. Only a forged Codex could justify doubting the integrity of Dagan. If the Codex was genuine, then the find was genuine, and Jesus of Nazareth had not risen from the dead. He was not, then, a superhuman being embodying the way, the truth or the light but a Middle Eastern sage with a number of interesting ideas which had been and always would be interpreted in a number of different ways.
Or rejected altogether … As Henry stepped back from the abyss of Christian belief he felt a sudden surge of physical well-being, like a man who wakes up to find himself cured of a debilitating disease. Life – life on the earth and in the air – appeared once again as something of extraordinary beauty. Why had he faltered? Was there not art to entertain him, women to love him, men to esteem him and continents to be explored? What dreadful doubt had tempted him to accept the morbid philosophy of the crucified Jew? He was not a god but a man – a beast at the pinnacle of evolution – and he would live his life to the full until he returned like Jesus of Nazareth to the dust from which he came.
The telephone rang again. It was the Lithuanian, Sostakas. ‘Mr Nash?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I have been talking to my friends in Vilnius. They have news of your friend, Miss Vesoulis.’
‘Yes.’
‘She is, almost certainly, what we suspect. She was given the job at the State Library without proper qualifications.’
‘Is it known why?’
‘She had powerful friends.’
‘In the Party?’
‘Even more powerful.’
‘In the KGB?’
‘That’s what they think.’
‘And she was the one who discovered the Codex?’
‘One month or so after she was appointed, the monks handed over their archives. There were many documents, and Miss Vesoulis was given the job of sorting them out. Very soon, she found the Codex, translated it, and published her findings.’
‘It sounds as if she knew it was there.’
‘Not only that. My friends tell me that it was most unusual for someone so young to have a paper published in the Soviet Archaeological Review; and even more unusual for a paper to be published so soon after being submitted.’
‘So there are signs of a helping hand.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do they know whose?’
‘It is suspected. A man named Gedda. A Jew.’
‘Ah.’
‘He is her lover.’
‘And what else besides?’
‘He is a Soviet expert on Middle Eastern Affairs.’
‘An academic?’
‘At one time. But now a diplomat of some kind. You should ask our friend Meredith. He knows, I am sure, about Gedda.’
Henry telephoned Meredith. ‘I’ve been talking to your Lithuanian friend,’ he said.
‘Did he help?’
‘He’s found a link between Miss Vesoulis and a man called Gedda.’
‘Gedda. Yes. I should have thought of him.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A diplomat, so called. He was here in the embassy back in the Seventies. We threw him out.’
‘For spying?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now?’
‘At one point he was in Damascus as part of the Military Mission.’
‘Would he have had contacts with the Israelis?’
‘Not in Damascus. There aren’t any. But he would have had links with Syrian Intelligence, and access to their agents in Israel.’
‘So he could have had the Codex forged?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And planted the skeleton in the cistern?’
‘Not without help from the Israelis.’
‘Dagan?’
‘Yes. Unless Dagan himself has been duped.’
‘So we need to find a link between Gedda and either Dagan or some other Israeli.’
‘Yes. And since Gedda himself won’t have gone to Israel, it’s a matter of finding an Israeli who was in Moscow some months before the Codex was found. Or, if not Moscow, Damascus.’
‘You said there were no Israelis in Damascus.’
‘None by choice. But the Syrians took prisoners during the war in Lebanon. Get one of your researchers to go back over copies of the Israeli papers, or just the Jerusalem Post, to see if someone, say a student of Dagan’s, was taken prisoner in the Lebanon and later exchanged.’
Henry sighed. ‘It all seems far-fetched.’
‘More far-fetched than finding the body of Christ?’
‘Perhaps not, except … it must be somewhere.’
‘What?’
‘The skeleton of Jesus.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he can’t have risen from the dead.’
‘Nothing is impossible for God.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘If there is a God, it’s only common sense.’
‘And is there a God?’
‘That’s a very deep question, Henry. We must talk about it some other time.’
Eighteen
Anna was awoken at dawn by the cry of a mullah from a nearby mosque calling the faithful to prayer. She moved in the bed and sensed that she was naked. All at once she remembered everything that had happened the day before. She remembered it vividly, yet she knew that dreams can leave a strong residue of feeling and was therefore afraid to open her eyes for fear of finding herself in her parents’ flat in Rehavya. But there were no mosques in Rehavya, and she could still hear the mullah. She could also sense the even breathing of a body
beside her, and slowly moved a leg across the mattress until it came up against Andrew’s side.
She barely touched it: she did not want to wake him until she had put her thoughts and feelings in some order. It was not easy. Usually, when she first awoke, she went through a self-analysis which could be reduced to one question: am I happy or sad? Sometimes the answer was happy; more often it was sad; but today there were so many different factors to consider – so many undigested experiences – that she could not at first decide. She thought of Henry in London, then of her mother and her tacit admission that Anna had indeed been less loved than Jake; and finally, of course, there was Andrew – his unspoken declaration and then the sudden metamorphosis from friend to lover.
The speed with which it had happened had confused her then, and it continued to confuse her now. She could not decide, in thinking about the night before, quite who had seduced whom. Certainly, it could hardly be said that she had had designs on him, since she had never thought of him as anything more than a friend; yet, when it had become clear that he loved and wanted her, her body had reacted even before her mind. Was this what was meant by falling in love?
If so, it was not at all how she had imagined it. She had always envisaged an older man – suave and masterful – who would bear down on her with glowing eyes and bend her to his will. Andrew, however, had made no demands; he had simply proceeded as if their making love was the natural and obvious thing to do. Clearly, he had never done it before, but he was neither awkward nor inept, hesitant nor apologetic. Nor did he act the part of the virile lover, as so many previous boyfriends had done, by tearing off her clothes and throwing themselves at her body. Instead, he had been gentle, thoughtful and above all astonished, as if the sight and feel of her body was yet more beautiful than he had imagined.
Her first thought, when it was done, was how unlike his brother Andrew was. The memory of Henry, however, had at once provoked both anxiety and shame as if, retroactively, she had been unfaithful to Andrew. She was afraid of what he would think if he ever found out that Henry had been her lover, or quite how recently she had been in his brother’s bed.
The same thoughts came back to torment her now. If she did not tell him, would he not find out from Henry? If she did tell him, would he not be disgusted that she had transferred herself so easily from one brother to the other? Would he not, in any case, come to despise her for the speed with which she had let herself be seduced? Yet she had not been seduced. They had known each other too long; they were too good friends; it had been as if the house were already built, and all that remained was to go through the door. But would he think of it in the same way?
She waited for him to wake, listening to his quiet breathing. The sun shone in through the curtains. She could not see a clock, but guessed that it must be already eight or nine in the morning. Her thoughts returned again to her father, her mother and Jake, but now they seemed like beings in a different world. How could she have cared whether or not they loved her as a child, when her childhood was over and a new life with a new love had begun? How could she have ever thought that she had loved Henry, with his cold manipulation of both her body and her soul? And the beefy boys – the soldiers and the students? How could she ever have allowed them to defile what had been made so precious by Andrew’s caresses?
He stirred, turned, awoke. He sat up abruptly, looked at the window, rubbed his face, then turned to look at her and smiled. ‘Benedicamus Domino,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s what they say in the monastery to wake you up in the morning.’
‘Benedicamus Domino?’
‘Deo Gratias. That’s what you answer.’ He kissed her, then took hold of the sheet beneath her chin and gently pulled it down to her stomach. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘when at times as a monk I did let my thoughts stray a little down forbidden paths, they never went further than imagining how wonderful it would be to lay one’s head on a girl’s bosom.’
She looked down over her chin. ‘I’m afraid they don’t make much of a cushion.’
‘They’re fine,’ he said, smiling, resting his head gently between her small breasts. ‘Do you think,’ he asked, ‘that we could get breakfast brought up to the room?’
‘Sure.’
‘I also used to dream of that – breakfast in bed on the first morning of one’s honeymoon.’
‘Is this our honeymoon?’
‘Isn’t it?’ He sat up and looked into her eyes. ‘Aren’t we married, really, after last night?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’
‘And want to be.’
‘I do.’
‘So do I, I guess.’
He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Then I pronounce us man and wife.’
They both wanted to leave Jerusalem and go back to London but their tickets could not be changed without paying a great deal more money. They moved to a cheaper hotel in West Jerusalem. Andrew insisted that Anna tell her parents where she had gone, but he did not himself tell Prior Manfred. ‘There’s nothing much I can do until I get back to England,’ he told her. ‘Then I’ll go and see Father Godfrey and formally resign from the order.’
The hotel was small and smelly, and their room intolerably stuffy, but the joy they both felt in one another’s company made them oblivious to any discomfort. Privacy was all that they required. Already familiar as friends, their chief preoccupation was with the pleasure they could exchange with their bodies. They lived off felafels, coffee and Coca-Cola and often ate and drank in bed.
On the Sunday they took a bus to Jericho. Because of the intifada, there were fewer tourists than usual and Andrew became afraid that perhaps Anna was in some danger; but since he himself was so patently European, and Anna leaned on his arm, the Arabs they met were friendly – the shopkeepers too friendly, badgering them to buy their postcards, carpets and Bedouin bracelets before the strike closed their shops at midday.
Before the Arab restaurants closed, they ate at a table shaded by a vine. In the great heat of the afternoon, they went to visit the ruins of the neolithic city uncovered by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s. There, for a moment, their conversation became that of two archaeologists, but as they walked back into the centre of Jericho to take the bus back into Jerusalem, they returned to the inanities of lovers.
Anna was sick in the night. Andrew, sympathetic to her suffering, rose early to bring her mineral water and a glass of sweet tea.
‘I already feel much better,’ said Anna, sitting up in bed and propping her slight body against the wall.
‘Good.’
‘It must have been the salad at Jericho.’
‘Of course.’
‘Or a bug.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you feel OK?’
‘Me? Yes. Fine.’
She frowned. ‘You look kind of funny.’
‘How?’
‘Well, the expression on your face.’
He gave up trying to hide his smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sitting down on the bed and taking hold of her hand. ‘It’s just that I know that sickness in the morning sometimes means that a woman is pregnant.’
‘Not in my case.’
He blushed. ‘It’s quite likely, isn’t it, after what we’ve done?’
‘Not unless …’ She stopped and looked away.
‘What?’
She turned to him again. ‘It isn’t very likely.’
He stood and walked towards the window. ‘It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if our first child was conceived here in Jerusalem?’
‘I guess it would.’
‘God knows where we will live. Perhaps Henry will lend me some money for a deposit on a flat, and then I can get a mortgage on my salary from Huntingdon.’
She looked at him from under her brow. ‘You were serious, weren’t you, about getting married?’
He turned to her, beaming. ‘We can’t get married. We are married.’
She looked away, avoiding his eyes.
He smiled, mistaking the reason for her confusion. ‘I promise you, that’s theologically sound. The church only blesses a marriage. The state only registers it. A marriage itself is made between two people who commit themselves to one another for ever.’
‘And you really feel committed to me for ever?’
‘For more than for ever – for eternity.’ He came back to the bed. ‘I always thought it was a little unromantic of Our Lord to say that there was no marrying in Heaven and now, well, now I feel I am entitled to believe that there is.’
‘But what happens if I don’t make it to Heaven?’
‘Oh, you will. St Paul said that Christian wives could save their pagan husbands, so it must work the other way around.’
She looked down at the bedclothes. ‘Listen …’ she began.
‘To what?’
‘To me.’
He looked into her eyes with a mock-serious expression. ‘I am listening.’
‘We’ve known each other for a long time.’
‘Yes.’
‘And in some ways we know each other very well.’
‘Yes.’
‘But there are things about me that you don’t know.’
‘I’ll have time enough to find out.’
‘But when you find out, you may not like it.’
He smiled. ‘I can’t imagine disliking anything about you.’
‘But you know, for example, that I’ve had other boyfriends.’
He blushed. ‘Yes. In the past. Of course.’
‘In the recent past …’
‘I don’t really need to know.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I love you now,’ she said, ‘and I want to love you always, and I think I can and I will love you always, but I’m afraid that in a month or a year you might find out something about me that will give you a reason to leave me.’
‘I’ll never leave you,’ he said.
Tears had come into her eyes. ‘I’ve always been left before.’
‘I wouldn’t leave you, ever, and I couldn’t, now that there’s a baby.’