The Body by Sapir Richard Ben

Author:Sapir, Richard Ben [Sapir, Richard Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure, Historical, Suspense, thriller, Mystery
ISBN: 9781504021616
Goodreads: 26120416
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery Thriller
Published: 1983-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

13

“Why Have You Forsaken Me?”

Winter was upon Jerusalem, and the rains were cold. Jim bought himself a warm coat for $75 American. He missed Thanksgiving, and football, the other Jesuits and Boston College, Boston, and the officiousness of Father Wingren. He also missed phoning an aunt once a week in Portland, and performing the personal sacraments for the family, such as baptism, weddings, and funerals.

An uncle had died, and he was not there. His little cousin, Mary Elizabeth Coffey, was going to marry a boy from Georgia, and he would not be there.

Pots of chemicals to absorb moisture out of the air were placed in the cave until the plastic cases were ready. These would be opaque, airtight, and crushproof. One would conform to the bones, and the other to the disk. They would have to withstand a truck falling on them, at least. Jim had told the manufacturer the cost did not matter.

He had rented a secure laboratory just outside of Rehovot for the bones. Sharon had supervised the construction of the temperature and humidity controls. Jim had taken care of the more mundane dangers, such as breaking and entering, with locks and alarms.

The clay wall covering the niche had been sprayed so it would not crumble, and then cut with diamond-edged saws into squares. Each square was photographed, and then removed to Hebrew University, where Sharon was given a laboratory. Jim had a key to the lab.

Making sure every square matched every picture, they reconstructed the clay, which conformed to the arch of the niche. Jim felt when the entire clay covering was removed that the bones of the little man looked somehow naked, and that it was wrong to look at him, so helpless with that disk lying over his spine.

It was as though the clay wall over the niche had been his one blanket of respect and now he was an object again. Several times Jim had prayed for him, asking that, if he were not in heaven already, he be accepted through the blood of Him who had died the same way.

Jim offered up his own loneliness for him.

Rumors kept coming back that he was working on some bodies. These were usually from people in the halls of Hebrew University. There he met Brother Maurice, the Dominican from Isaiah House, strolling with some students, chatting in Hebrew, and he could see how Sharon would not know Father Lavelle was a priest. One couldn’t tell, if one didn’t know, that Brother Maurice wasn’t just another teacher of Hebrew literature.

He was also a citizen of Israel.

Both Jim and Sharon disassembled the wall again on a long metal table, and then hammer blow by hammer blow shattered it, looking for objects in the clay. They found none. They even shattered the little bits, until they had a pile of powder. If they wanted, they could have added water to it and made clay again. They poured it into a plastic bag and labeled it “Niche covering.” A small

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