The painting depicted events from Exodus; it showed a bearded man in a white robe and ceremonial headdress sacrificing a young lamb on a magnificent golden altar. Aaron was momentarily transfixed by the blood gushing forth from the animal’s slit neck.
“Your great ancestor Aaron was a very blessed man. You know him from the Torah, yes?”
Knowing his Saturday discussions with Father had paid off, he said in a proud tone, “The first high priest of the Hebrews, the kohen gadol . . . from the tribe of Levi.”
Grandfather paced over to admire the painting, hands behind his back. “That’s right. And Aaron had a very special brother whom his parents had given away to protect him.”
“Moshe,” Aaron confidently replied. Moses.
Pride showed in Grandfather’s eyes as he nodded and encouraged the boy to elaborate.
“In Egypt”—Aaron’s voice trembled slightly—“Pharaoh had commanded the killing of all newborn Israelite males. So Moses’s mother placed him in a basket and floated him down the river Nile. Moses was found by Pharaoh’s daughter when she went to bathe in the river. She adopted him.”
“And raised him in Pharaoh’s court,” Grandfather added. “Very good. As you know, Moses and Aaron were later reunited. Almost thirty-three hundred years ago, God sent Moses to free his brother, his family, and his people from bondage. The Israelites escaped the Egyptian army”—he pointed to the painting showing Moses with his sacred staff set low to release the seas onto the soldiers and chariots—“and fought for forty years to conquer the tribal lands promised to them by God. Moses was the first true messiah. The founder of a new nation. Legacy meant everything to Moses.”
“And we’re his family?”
“Thirty-three centuries later, Levite blood flows in my veins, your father’s veins . . .”
“And mine?”
“That’s right.”
Aaron was speechless.
“Your legacy, Aaron, is a priestly legacy we desperately need to preserve.” He held up his left hand, clenched it into a fist, and shook it to emphasize the importance of his message. “But our bloodline hasn’t remained pure, as God intended. Centuries have corrupted us.”
“The Diaspora?”
Grandfather nodded. “And other things too,” he said in a low tone, and paused. “Some of our ancestors have not been mindful of God’s plan. But one day, very soon, I am certain, we will make the bloodline pure again. And when that happens, a new covenant will be made between God and our people. After much tragedy . . .” He stammered as he thought mournfully about his over one million brethren who’d suffered—most fatally—alongside him in Auschwitz. “Israel is struggling to be a nation once more—to reclaim its lost lands. The tribes are still scattered. Much turmoil remains . . . an unclear future that only God knows.”
Only days earlier, Aaron’s father had told him that Israel’s air force had bombed Egyptian airfields to preempt a strike. Now Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian troops were amassing around Israel’s borders. Father had not stopped praying since it all began.
“A nation, I’m afraid, that still does not abide by God’s covenant,” the old man lamented, casting his eyes to the floor. “Only when the bloodline is restored can the covenant be restored. Then Israel will truly rise up like a phoenix.”
“But how will it be restored?”
Grandfather smiled once more. “You’re not ready for that yet, my ambitious grandson. But soon, when the time is right, you’ll learn the secrets entrusted to my father, me, my son”—reaching out, he gently pressed two fingers over the boy’s pounding heart—“and you. In the meantime, there is much you will need to learn,” he said, sweeping his hand across the brimming bookcases. “You will come here with your father every Saturday following service. From now on, it will be the three of us.”
Aaron grinned.
“Three generations,” he said, patting the boy’s cheek. A thought suddenly came to him. “Ah,” he said, holding up a finger. “Which means there is something I must give to you.”
Aaron watched as Grandfather paced to the scroll cabinet, slid open its smallest drawer, and rummaged through the contents. Finding what he was looking for, he held it tight in his hand, closed the drawer, and made his way back.
As he stared at the old man’s closed fist, Aaron’s face glowed with anticipation.
“For many, many centuries, our family has used a symbol to represent our ancestors. See here . . .”
Grandfather turned over his hand and opened his fingers to reveal a round object resembling a silver dollar. When Aaron pressed closer to examine its details, he realized it wasn’t a coin at all.
“Tell me what you see on this talisman.”
It was the strangest symbol. Certainly nothing that looked Judaic. In fact, the occultist images seemed to go against Jewish teachings concerning iconography. “A fish . . . wrapped around”—his brow crinkled—“a fork?”
“Yes, but not a fish, a dolphin. And not exactly a fork, but a trident.” Seeing the boy’s muddled expression, he sternly said, “You are never to speak about anything that you are taught in this room unless it is to someone who possesses this same talisman. And you must promise that you will never show this to anyone else. Not even your best friend in the yeshiva. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Grandfather.”
“Yasher koach.” And the boy would certainly need strong will, thought Grandfather. The world was fast changing. Snatching the boy’s left hand, he placed the talisman in Aaron’s palm and wrapped the boy’s fingers around it. “Protect this.” He clasped both hands around Aaron’s fist.
The cold metal disk pressed hard into Aaron’s sweaty palm, sending a shiver up his arm.
“Because from this moment forward,” Grandfather warned him, “you will dedicate your life to preserving everything this symbol stands for.”
1
******
Rome, Italy Present Day
A flock of pigeons took flight as Father James Martin moved swiftly around Caligula’s obelisk, which rose up from the center of Piazza San Pietro like a colossal dagger against the steel-gray sky. Its mid-September shadow would normally have let him know that it was just past five o’clock. But for the third consecutive day, the sun remained hidden behind a shroud of lifeless clouds. Glancing over at St. Peter’s Basilica, he saw the faithful pilgrims queued for the last tour. Even a typhoon couldn’t scare them away, he thought.
He pulled his raincoat tighter to fight off a damp chill. He’d need to move quickly to beat the imminent downpour.
Near the end of Via della Conciliazione, he heard a voice calling to him over the sounds of the traffic.
“Padre Martin?”
Stopping, Martin turned. A man waved to him, splashing through the shallow puddles in quick strides. Of medium height and build, he was ordinary looking—clean-shaven with dark hair and unreadable dark eyes. “Si?” Martin replied.