‘I love my children,’ she says and shifts onto her side, cheek on hands. ‘In case you were wondering. I love them more than anything or anyone I can think of.’
The next morning they feel claustrophobic, as if neither has slept off the closeness of the night before. In his morning break, Cassius Gallio collects the paper cups and the empty pretzel packet, decides to stretch his legs. He takes an innocent stroll, not far, to a rubbish bin and then round the corner to the International School. If the world is about to end, as James keeps promising his callers, Gallio would like to see his daughter one more time.
He loiters in the gateway of the school, and predicts the immediate future. If he hangs around long enough they’ll call the police, so he changes the future by pushing the button on the intercom.
‘I’d like to speak to one of your students, Alma Marcella Gallio.’
If the world has until lunchtime, that’s what Cassius Gallio chooses to do.
‘She’s in school. In school hours. Are you her parent?’
‘I have a message for Alma from Baruch.’ The ruse works, as Gallio gambled it would. He hears the hesitation at Baruch’s name. They’ll see what they can do, and Gallio’s absent father’s heart gives an unexpected flutter. He’ll ask about Alma’s leg. How’s the leg? Maybe not. He’ll skip the small talk, tell her that whether or not the world ends at lunchtime a happy life is possible if she’s prepared to renounce ambition. Don’t waste the time that remains, he’ll tell her, don’t chase empty shadows.
The gate swings open, and Alma limps forward followed by a teacher, who will not be leaving a schoolgirl unattended with a strange man at the school gates. Good. This is exactly the kind of sheltered environment Gallio wants his alimony to pay for.
‘Thanks for coming out.’
She doesn’t recognise him. Why should she? The family was broken up by Jesus when Alma was a baby, and Gallio doesn’t know the stories her mother tells to explain how and why that happened. Instead of a genuine emotion, he feels he ought to feel more than he does.
‘You had a message?’
The teacher wants to be somewhere else, but she can’t shake off her habit of encouragement, even with grown men.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gallio says. ‘Yes, I do.’
He is aware of staring, of seeing a new human being who is neither himself nor her mother, and of not being able to get his message across. One day I’ll die, he’d like to say, though obviously that’s not the place to start. What he means is Alma should spend his military pension on a sunny villa in a civilised territory where people are safe and well. Take love where you find it, he wants to tell her, because if not for that what can life be for? Succeed where I have failed.
Alma smiles and the miserable look doesn’t run in the family. She wants to put him at his ease, whoever he may be, but he’s not a competent dad full of wise advice. The teacher looks at her watch.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gallio manages.
‘Why not?’
A reasonable question, and if he answered he’d sound like a dad: because in the long or short time that remains to us there will be good moments as well as bad. Gallio doesn’t know if this is true, but it seems the end of the world makes him hope for the best. He says: ‘The message. I’ve forgotten to give you the message.’
The teacher has to prompt him. ‘It’s from Baruch. We need to be getting back into lessons.’
Alma’s face changes. The miserable look does run in the family after all. ‘Is he angry? Again?’
‘He’s not angry. He’ll be a few minutes late.’
‘But it’s not his day,’ she says. ‘He hasn’t fetched me for weeks.’
‘Well that’s what he said.’
Gallio is saved by his phone. As it rings he makes a show of fumbling it out of his pocket, and then he’s walking away, pointing at the phone and at his ear to explain what he’s doing. He waves and answers at the same time, making his escape, a solid lump of emotion in his chest. He doesn’t know what the emotion is, but to feel it coming is feeling enough, and he regrets calling his daughter out of school. He doesn’t know what he was thinking.
The call is from Claudia: ‘For once. You have your phone turned on and you answered it.’
‘What happened? Is James on the move?’
‘Not James. Paul. We forgot he’s a trained operative. He picked up on Baruch and recognised him from the old days. He sent his bodyguard over for a chat. Paul wants our protection.’
They schedule a meeting for 15.45 in the Israel Museum. Claudia stays in the van, eyes on James, while Cassius Gallio dresses up. Unlike the disciples, Paul likes to mix with men in suits, and in the designated room — Feasts and Miracles — Gallio greets Paul with a handshake. The file says he was once a tentmaker, but not recently, and Gallio holds Paul’s soft preacher’s hand for longer than he should.
‘You already know Baruch,’ Gallio says. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘Not here,’ Paul says.
He’s a professional. Never talk in a room where the opposition arranged the meet. Paul turns and sets a discreet browsing pace from Dawn of Civilisation through to Land of Canaan. Despite the air conditioning Israel is heavy with history, and remnants of the old days always break through into now. Brand new building, ancient objects.
Whether Paul turns left or right, walks straight on or doubles back, the bodyguard stands close enough to make a difference, and Paul is complicated in ways that Gallio admires. He doesn’t have the simplicity of the disciples, and has been surprised by Jesus, blinded by him. Paul has experienced the hurt that Jesus can cause, and he and Gallio have this knowledge in common. Paul surely has his reasons for employing a bodyguard.
‘First of all,’ Paul says. ‘I had nothing to do with the murders of Jude, Thomas or Philip. I have solid alibis and witnesses.’
He chooses to talk while walking, into Illuminating the Script and out through Costume and Jewellery. Baruch sometimes gets ahead of him, walks backwards, fails to blink his Old Testament eyes. Baruch’s mind is stuck on a single thought, and out it comes in The Cycle of the Jewish Year. ‘I remember when you were Saul. You killed Stephen in the street.’
‘I changed my name, like Peter did. Simon to Peter. Saul to Paul. Saul is long dead.’
‘You kill him too?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Nothing changes, then.’
Gallio registers the intensity between Baruch and Paul, neither man prepared to compromise on their version of the past. He searches for common ground. ‘No one else needs to die,’ he says. ‘The situation is bad enough already.’
‘Seven disciples left.’ Baruch wants only to provoke. ‘One suicide, four murders, those poor defenceless believers, all gone under.’
‘Which is why we need to talk,’ Paul says.
‘Barbarous deaths,’ Baruch says, ‘in outlandish places. Not pleasant at all.’
‘I need protecting from these assassins.’
‘You have a bodyguard.’
‘One man is not enough.’
‘You have your god.’
‘Philip had god on his side,’ Paul says. ‘I’m sure of that. He also had a skewer through the back of his legs.’
Paul decides they’ve walked enough, and in Modern Art he takes a rest on a leather bench facing Salvador Dali’s ‘Immaculate Conception’. He is as inattentive to surrealism as to seventeenth-century bridal caskets, and acts in all these galleries as if he is the dominant attraction. Gallio sits down next to him. He places a foot on his knee and holds his bony ankle. Straightens out his black sock. He’s about to speak but again Baruch is quicker.