‘The history of this city is amazing,’ Allegra said. ‘I can hardly believe I’m walking around here.’
‘One of the great cities of the world,’ David agreed. ‘The only city in the world where the three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam meet.’
Jerusalem. It was one of the great sticking points of the Middle East but one of the keys to any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem. Sacred to the Jews, the place where King David had thrown the Jebusites out of an otherwise inconsequential city a thousand years before Christ, declaring it to be the Jewish capital. Sacred to the Christians, the place where their Saviour had been crucified and buried. Sacred to the Muslims, the place where Muhammad had ascended to heaven from Haram al-Sharif, the Dome of the Rock.
Three great religions, all competing fiercely with one another, all with the same God, Allegra mused, as they made their way back to Onslow.
The Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, was to the west of the Old City and not far from the National Library and the Knesset. It had been built in 1965, specifically to house the Dead Sea Scrolls that were held by the Israeli Government. The building had a unique appearance influenced by the scrolls themselves. The roof was a white dome in the shape of one of the lids of the jars in which the scrolls had been found. At the entrance, a black granite wall had been erected, the contrast of black and white a reference to the War Scroll and its description of a forty-year titanic struggle between good and evil that civilisation had yet to witness – a struggle between ‘the Sons of Light’ and ‘the Sons of Darkness’. A struggle that would herald the return of the Messiah.
David bounded into the entrance vestibule with Allegra at his side.
‘Good evening, Yitzhak,’ he said, addressing the man at the security desk and flashing one of several ID cards he kept on a chain around his neck.
‘Go on through, Dr Kaufmann, Professor Kaufmann is about to begin. Welcome to Israel, Dr Bassetti.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, a little surprised that the guard knew who she was.
‘Do you know everyone in Israel by their first name,’ she demanded when they were through the magnetometer.
‘Only the important ones. The security guards and the typing pool,’ David said with a laugh, and led her into a long, subtly lit passage way.
‘This is a reconstruction of the caves. They depict the Essene community and the area around Qumran where the scrolls were discovered. They were a very advanced civilisation,’ he said, pointing to the orrery, a bronze model of the solar system. In the middle, a large bronze ball spinning on top of an iron rod represented the sun. Around it, the planets of the solar system were depicted by smaller bronze balls that were spinning and moving around the larger sun in elliptical orbits.
‘There are ten planets in this model,’ Allegra observed. ‘A very recent discovery.’
‘Interesting, isn’t it.’
In 1999 two teams of scientists – one at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and one at the Open University in the United Kingdom – reported that the orbits of the most distant comets in the icy wastes of the solar system were inexplicably clumping together into highly elliptical orbits, suggesting the influence of an unknown planet. Both teams had put the possible tenth planet at three trillion miles out.
‘If this model was to scale,’ David continued, ‘and our farthest known planet Pluto was placed a metre from the sun, the tenth planet would need to be positioned a kilometre away.’
‘Which explains why none of our telescopes have been able to pick it up,’ Allegra reflected. ‘The Essenes couldn’t have known that?’
‘No, although I think there is probably more to that community than we first thought. The model is based on a diagram that was unearthed from the Qumran library. They certainly had a strong interest in astronomy,’ David said, indicating an ancient telescope in the display case.
‘I thought the telescope wasn’t invented until the seventeenth century?’
‘Galileo,’ David agreed, ‘but archaeologists have long been puzzled by crystal lenses that pre-date even this one. One is in the British Museum and was found in a tomb in Egypt and the other is dated at 7 BC from Assyria. Both were mechanically ground to a complex mathematical formula. There is a theory that the Essenes discovered the telescope well before Galileo. The second Essene model is more interesting still,’ he said, moving past the orrery and the telescope.
‘It looks like a DNA helix,’ Allegra said, her thoughts going back to the theories of Francis Crick and Antonio Rosselli.
‘It is. That model is also based on a diagram found in the Qumran library. The Romans may have destroyed one of the most advanced civilisations of the ancient world when they sacked Qumran, but we’ll see the ruins tomorrow morning. By the way, is nine too early?’
‘Ish?’ Allegra asked.
‘Definitely “ish”,’ David answered. He could hardly believe he’d known Allegra for only a couple of days. She was definitely someone quite special and he felt his heart skip a beat. His instinct was to move closer to her, but instead he took a breath and moved quickly towards the entrance of the main room. Allegra, surprised by David’s slight change of mood, followed him.
They emerged from the passageway into a huge chamber. The dome was bathed in a stunning green and soft orange light and beneath it a large circular podium dominated the room with what looked to Allegra like one end of a huge rolling pin protruding through the centre. As they entered, a tall, distinguished looking man detached himself from the group of senators.
‘Almost on time, Dr Kaufmann, you can’t be feeling well.’ Yossi Kaufmann winked at Allegra and held out his hand. ‘You must be Allegra. Welcome to Israel. You have my sympathies for whatever you might experience at the hands of David and Onslow,’ Yossi said with a smile that reminded Allegra of David; the same confidence, the same laughter lines around the eyes. Like father like son.
‘David has been most kind, Professor Kaufmann. It’s an honour to meet you.’
‘Please, call me Yossi because I intend to call you Allegra. Now, if it’s OK by Dr Kaufmann here,’ he said putting his arm around David, ‘I will introduce you to our American friends and we’ll start. But first, there are a couple of people here. Tom Schweiker from CCN, who I think you’ve met already?’
‘Good to see you again, Allegra.’
‘Bishop Patrick O’Hara,’ Yossi continued, ‘who is insisting that we all go back to his place after this for a drink, which I can warn you from personal experience can be a hazardous undertaking.’
‘Patrick,’ Allegra said. ‘I’ve heard so much about you from Giovanni, I feel I know you already.’ Patrick was just as Giovanni described him: thinning grey hair, twinkling green eyes, a cheerful face, his large Bishop’s sash encompassing a body that reflected a love of people, food and whiskey. Allegra reflected on Giovanni’s assessment that Patrick O’Hara also possessed one of the great intellects of Catholicism; a man who was prepared to question and debate.