Bristol House (13 page)

Annie pushed aside the papers and pulled her laptop closer. After twenty minutes she had located mailing addresses for three of the five congregations, those in Offenburg, Metz, and Breisach.

10

“You’re sure, Dr. Kendall,” Simon Cohen said, “it was a Carthusian you saw?”

“Annie, please, Rabbi. And yes, I’m sure.” Cohen was holding her sketchbook. Annie pointed to the drawing of the Bristol House monk bowing before the crucifix. “The bit of material here toward the bottom of the habit is unique to Carthusians. It’s called a band. I didn’t realize I’d noticed it until I sketched it. That sometimes happens when I draw.”

“Ah yes,” Cohen said. “I understand. Memory is one of the most unpredictable of human accomplishments.”

Well, at least that much was easy. Maggie’s scholarly rabbi hadn’t yet written her off as crazy—a nutter, as Geoff might say.

The three of them—Annie, Geoff, and Rabbi Cohen—were in his study at the front of a redbrick, single-family house in a leafy, suburban-feeling part of London called Hampstead. The room was lined with books, and there were piles of papers and folders and stacks of more books covering most surfaces. Their host must be a widower or a bachelor, Annie decided. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Maggie and her rabbi. Cohen looked a lot younger than the mid-eighties that Maggie’s story made him.

“Please understand,” he said, “I have little to offer on the question of your . . .” He hesitated. “Your sightings. Understanding mysticism, explaining it, that’s not one of my strengths. And as you can imagine, I know very little about monks. So Maggie didn’t send you to me for that. But your 1535 Jew of Holborn, and the possibility that there may be a very sophisticated code hidden in your documents—on those topics I may be of some use.”

Cohen had dark hair, no gray, and a small, carefully trimmed goatee, plus a habit of stroking it when he spoke. His knuckles, Annie noticed, were swollen and the skin reddened and rough, a contrast to the scholarly image. “These gifts from your Jew of Holborn, Annie, they are not unrelated.”

“I know. They’re all to do with ritual sacrifice, aren’t they?”

“With
korbanot.
Precisely. Moreover,
kaf, ma’akhelet, mizrak—
these are very old words. Rare even.”

“I believe
mizrak
occurs in Exodus,” Annie said. “And
ma’akhelet
in Genesis.”

“Exactly so. I am impressed,” Cohen added with a small smile. He turned to Geoff. “I’m guessing you have no idea what we’re talking about. Maggie is wonderful, but about being a Jew I don’t think she taught you much.”

“Rabbi, I don’t want to fly false colors. I have an interest in certain political aspects of this situation, and of course I’m fascinated that the monk Annie saw looked just like me, but personally—I don’t consider myself a Jew in any religious sense, and I haven’t come for spiritual instruction.”

“That’s as may be, but make no mistake, if, God forbid, there should come along more people who want to put Jews in ovens, for them you will be a Jew. You are for us as well. Your mother was a Jew because her mother was. You are therefore also a Jew. Nonobservant, yes, but still a member of the tribe.”

“Fair enough,” Geoff said. “But that’s not Annie’s concern just now.”

“I agree, it is not.” Cohen turned to Annie. “And I doubt the specifics of
korbanot
are your focus either.”

“What I’m trying to do,” she said, “is locate this Jew of Holborn, see if I can discover who he was and place him in history. At this point all we know from the documents the Shalom Foundation has collected is that he lived in 1535.”

“And do you think he has something to do with your monk?”

“I’m not sure. So far the only connection I can find is that it was in May 1535 that the first monks from the London Charterhouse were executed at Tyburn.”

“But according to Maggie, you have uncovered some drawings of the executed monks, and they don’t look like this one”—he nodded at the sketchbook—“nor like Geoffrey.”

“Not remotely.”

Cohen shook his head. “This seems then to get us nowhere. Let us leave aside your ghostly visitor and concentrate on matters I may be able to help with, your documents.” He put on a pair of glasses and turned to his computer, keying in a few commands with sure, quick strokes.

“Maggie mentioned peculiar numbers,” Annie said, “but she didn’t explain.”

“They are scattered throughout. In parentheses, as if they were simply giving in numeric symbols a value spelled out in words. Sometimes, however, numbers appear in one string—the words or the symbols—that do not occur or are different in the English translation.”

Geoff stood up and went to stand behind Cohen, so he could see the screen. “A code,” he said.

“We think so, yes.”

“I take it,” Annie said, “by ‘we’ you mean you and Maggie.”

“Indeed.” The rabbi smiled. “Maybe we are simply having a second childhood. A pair of has-beens remembering when they were hot-blooded young geniuses pursuing evil.” The words were accompanied by a derisive laugh. “Only I don’t think so. Because it seems . . .” He entered a few more keystrokes. The screen was filled with obscure numbers and signs and symbols.

Annie leaned forward. “Kabbalah,” she said. A few of the teachers at the Davis School had been taking lessons. Some of the students as well. Kabbalah was right up there with Wicca in the New Age spiritual hit parade.

“Yes,” the rabbi said, “but remember, mysticism isn’t my line. I can’t explain the ins and outs of kabbalah. The numerology that accompanies it, however—that’s something else.” He hit a couple of keys, and the kabbalah site disappeared and was replaced with an e-mail from Maggie. Annie couldn’t read it from where she sat, but she saw it included strings of numbers.

“Some years after we all left Bletchley,” Cohen said, “in the fifties, I was living with my family deciding about whether to become a rabbi, and I got a letter from what I thought was the Foreign Office requesting I come to Whitehall for a meeting. It was not the sort of summons you could refuse. Turned out someone from Special Branch wanted to see me. I had already declined an invitation to become a career spook, but they had a code they couldn’t break, and they thought maybe I could. Maggie was in London then, performing in a gentlemen’s club.”

Annie heard the sound of a small snort. Apparently Cohen did as well. He did not turn around. “Your mother, Geoffrey, was playing piano in an entirely respectable place. And in case you do not know, she was beautiful. And marvelous. Anyway, we got together over this code.”

“Did you break it?” Annie asked.

“Yes, though I was not always sure we should have done. Britain was no longer administering the Palestinian Mandate, and in large measure their former enemy the Irgun—today we would call them terrorists—had been absorbed into the Mossad. But back then Whitehall still thought it ruled the world, and certain elements of the old guard were never going to side with Jews. Maggie and I had no doubt that whatever information we gave them would be used to play off the Arabs against the Israelis, and not to the advantage of the latter.”

He removed his glasses and held them up to the light, wiping them carefully and with concentration. Neither Annie nor Geoff spoke. Cohen replaced the glasses and went on. “In the end we were English Jews. England, not Israel, was and is our country.” He waved a dismissive hand. “An old argument. We broke Mossad’s code for our Whitehall masters, exactly as we’d been asked to do. It was, as it happened, based on the numerology of kabbalah, which is one of the reasons it was so very difficult. As soon as she saw your papers, Maggie remembered the lessons we’d learned back then, and thought maybe your documents contained a similar code. Now”—he tapped a few more numbers into the computer—“I think I am sure.”

Annie realized her hands were clenched into fists. “What does it say?”

Cohen guffawed. “I have no idea. Neither, I assure you, does Maggie. It takes a great deal of time and effort, almost mind-boggling persistence, to break a sophisticated code. At Bletchley we had the first practical computer, the Colossus. It filled a room. This”—he nodded at his desktop PC—“is a true miracle. So it’s easier. But easy? Never. For now, we’re saying only that we think the Shalom documents contain a code, and it is somewhat reminiscent of a code we worked on before. So we’re willing to try and break it. But there’s one thing I should tell you. I don’t—”

A soft knock, then the door of the study opened. A woman in a nurse’s uniform poked her head into the room. “It’s three, Rabbi Cohen. I have to leave. She’s sleeping, but . . .”

“Yes, of course. Just a moment more.”

The nurse withdrew and closed the door. Cohen stood up. “I must go. My wife can’t be alone. Alzheimer’s.” He rushed on, not giving them a chance to speak. “You have my card, and we will surely be in touch. Only I must tell you, Annie, that I have grave doubts about Mr. Weinraub’s judgment. If I should find anything here that indicates—”

“What? What do you think you’ll find?”

“I don’t know. I simply wish to be clear. It is possible, my dear, that our interests may diverge. You are looking for an historical truth. I have no interest in suppressing such truths, whatever they may be. But if Weinraub and the
meshuggeners
around him, many of whom intend—unilaterally, with no prior agreement—to rebuild the Temple on a site that millions of Arabs consider holy to Islam were to get their way . . . in my view such a scheme would destabilize the Middle East and truly threaten the existence of Israel. I cannot speak for your mother”—a nod to Geoff—“but this time my conscience may point me unequivocally in a direction that puts British government interests above those of fellow Jews whose wisdom I strongly question. Which, my dear, will put you in direct conflict with the people who are paying you to seek facts that to them may not be merely academic.”

Annie hesitated.

“I understand conflicts of interest, my dear. As I explained.” Cohen went to the door of his office but didn’t immediately open it. “Moreover, these documents belong to you. If you choose to close the matter right now, that is that, so far as I’m concerned. Do you wish me to continue?”

Annie held her breath for a few seconds. She looked at Geoff. He was watching her. Measuring her, she thought. Simon Cohen as well. She exhaled. “Between my professional concerns and blowing up the Middle East—no contest, Rabbi. And no real conflict of interest. Please continue.”

Cohen beamed, but it was Geoff’s barely perceptible nod of approval that warmed her.

***

That evening, when she was cleaning up after a late supper—over the soft sound of the radio telling her that the Vatican insisted the pope would resume his duties shortly—Annie heard the singing.

“
Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
”

She had sworn she wouldn’t open the door between the kitchen and the back hall, but she could not help herself. She peered into the dimness. The door to the little room was closed and there was nothing to see, but the singing was louder. “
Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae . . .
”

Louder still as she walked down the passageway. “
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.
”

Annie stopped a few inches from the bedroom door. The sound was all around her. “
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
”

The flat had been chilly when she came home. She’d pulled on a thick sweatshirt. But standing in front of the door that led to some vision or place or thing beyond her imagining, it was not just warm but oppressively hot.

She stretched out her hand and turned the knob.

The door opened to complete quiet and the familiar, ordinary furniture. If anything, the little room was colder than the hall. The veil of sweat she had generated a few seconds earlier cooled to a shiver-making slick. “Who are you?” She whispered the words at first, then shouted them. “Who are you, and what do you want with me? If you’ve got some kind of message, just tell me.”

The silence mocked her. Annie pressed her forehead to the wall and punched it repeatedly in frustration.

Dom Justin

From the Waiting Place

Danger! Beware you are in danger!

I call out to the woman, but I cannot make her hear me. I understand it is frequently thus, that breaking through is very difficult, usually impossible. Go on with your story, I am told. A way to reach her may present itself . . .

On one night soon after the martyrdom of the Venerable Father and the visit of my master to the Jew’s cottage, and though I saw no speckled quail’s egg, I determined to go to the house of the Jew of Holborn.

In truth I went because my dreams were tormented by the Jew’s daughter. I woke each morning drowning in her smell, my carnal nature evident in my twisted habit and sodden bedclothes. Though I took the discipline every day, using the knotted cord on my bare shoulders until I drew blood, it did not calm my lust. But though I admit now that I went merely to have a sight of Rebecca, I insisted to myself that my excuse for leaving the monastery that night was that I had a real and important errand to perform. So on the night of which I speak, I did as was my custom when summoned by the speckled egg. I slipped from my cell and out the tradesman’s gate as soon as evening fell.

The walk to the Jew’s was uneventful, and I spent the time thinking on the events that had brought both him and me to this place.

When first I met him, I did not know the goldsmith was descended from Christ killers; he was to me only Giacomo the Lombard. Thomas Cromwell sent me many times to the smith’s workshop on errands to do with the seals of office the man beat out on his anvil, and never did I bring back intelligence that would reveal him as anything but a good Christian. In truth, I told my master as little as I could about the Lombard’s household, because by then I had seen Rebecca.

She was not quite eleven, but her beauty already showed in budding breasts and narrow waist and hips that seemed more round and appealing each time we met. These four years later her body was more luscious still, her black hair longer and more lustrous. As for her eyes, they remained the intense blue of the sea.