The crevice was a horizontal gap in the ancient masonry where stones of uneven size had been used to build the wall. It was about four feet long and only just wide enough for a man to insert his fist.
‘It was June, 1963. I was assigned to this section with two other workers,’ Hillel said. ‘We were dying in the heat, tired and thirsty, while our foreman, a man called Samir, gulped water from his canteen and shouted at us whenever we stopped. I remember how much I hated him.’ Hillel scraped a small handful of sand and stones from the crevice and let it slip through his fingers.
‘Each man had his own piece of wall to work on. Mine was almost buried. I was digging away sand and stone with my bare hands when I found the hole and, deep inside it, something wrapped in a bundle of cloth. We had orders to report any find immediately to the foremen. I turned towards Samir and was about to call him when I saw that he was swallowing more water from his canteen, drinking like a hog so that it was pouring from his mouth and splashing on the ground. I was so thirsty, and so angry, that I did not call him. Instead, I pulled out the bundle and, careful to let nobody see me, I unwrapped it.’
‘And it was a sword,’ Ben said.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Hillel stood up and dusted the sand off his hands. ‘Yes. A very beautiful sword. Its handle was made of bronze that shone like gold in the sun, the blade shaped like this, and so long.’ He traced a curved line through the air, then spaced his palms a distance apart. Ben saw that his measurement estimate from Fabrice Lalique’s sketch had been more or less right, about three and a half feet overall.
‘I could see it was very, very old,’ Hillel went on, ‘and that it must have been hidden here for longer than time itself. I knew nothing of history, but this was surely an object of great value. Again I turned to Samir, but he was now standing talking to another foreman, sharing a joke and smoking cigarettes. I looked at Samir’s fat belly, and thought of my poor crippled father at home, and my mother working like a slave in the factory.’
‘You decided to keep it for yourself,’ Jude said.
‘When times are hard and you have a family to care for, you are sometimes forced to do things that you may know are wrong,’ Hillel said. ‘Yes, I wrapped the sword back in its bundle and replaced it where I had found it. For the rest of the day I was terrified that another worker would find it. But they did not, and as the day came to an end I managed to bring it onto the lorry that was taking the workers back to Jerusalem. There were so many of us that the foremen did not take notice of what one boy was doing.
‘Returning to the city, I went straight to Ali the pawnbroker on Jaffa Road. He examined the sword and asked me where I had found it. I told him some lie that I do not remember now. We haggled over its value, and then Ali told me I was a son of a baboon and tossed me a handful of coins, enough to feed my family for a week and buy medicine to ease the pain in my father’s legs. I remember how proud I was, for a long time afterwards. Samir and the other foremen never knew my secret.’
‘So you no longer had the sword,’ Ben said, trying to understand.
‘No, I never saw it again. My life went on. I grew up and became a taxi driver in Jerusalem. My father died, and soon afterwards my poor mother too. I married Ayala. One by one, my brothers and sisters all went their own ways. Many years went by and my family grew. I worked hard to ensure that they never had to suffer the poverty I had known in my childhood. Eighteen hours a day. Everybody in Jerusalem knew me. When I was not driving around the city, I was learning to speak English so that I could talk to the rich foreigners who got in my taxi. I dreamed of having a business of my own, that I could pass on to my children. But my dream never happened.’ Hillel paused, gazing across the desert as he replayed his life’s events inside his head.
Ben was growing impatient with the story and could sense Jude’s increasing restlessness, too. ‘Is any of this heading our way, Hillel?’
‘I am sorry. Let me go on. Then, one day two and a half years ago, a rich American appeared at my taxi company offices. He said he wanted to book Hillel Zada to be his driver for the day. Just me, nobody else, and he was offering to pay double the normal rate. So we got in the car. I asked him where he wanted to go. He said nowhere. He just wanted to talk to me about a sword.’
‘It was Wesley Holland?’
Hillel nodded. ‘Of course, I had not forgotten the sword, and at first I was worried that I was to be punished for the crime of my youth. I thought perhaps this American was a detective who had tracked me down. But I was wrong.’
‘How did Holland find you?’
‘Ali the pawnbroker. More than ninety years old, and still carrying on his trade, that jackal.’ Hillel smiled. ‘As Mr Holland explained to me, Ali had sold the sword many years earlier to a man named Fekkesh, for fifty times what he had paid me. Fekkesh kept it for thirty years before he also sold it on. It finally found its way to Saudi Arabia, where it belonged to a prince. It was there, three years ago, that Mr Holland saw it and told the prince he wished to buy it. He has many swords. There are men who collect them.’
‘I know,’ Ben said.
Hillel raised his eyebrows. ‘I did not know. I thought it strange. But who am I to question what men do?’
‘Go on.’
‘Mr Holland took the sword back to America. He was very fascinated with it and wanted to trace it back to where it had come from. A man like him, with the money and power to do anything he desires, was soon able to follow the trail back from Saudi Arabia to Fekkesh, then to old Ali, and finally to me. As I told you, everyone in Jerusalem knows Hillel Zada. And in this city people are quick to give information when a man like Wesley Holland is offering cash.’
‘What did he want from you?’
‘He told me he had spent much time studying the sword and speaking about it with other experts. He was eager to know where I had found it, so I brought him here to Masada. He was very excited when I showed him this spot and described how I came across the sword. He asked me if I knew how valuable it was, or if I knew anything of its history. I said I did not. That was when he told me that I had done a wonderful thing in finding it, and that he wished to reward me for my deed.’ Hillel couldn’t repress a broad grin. ‘Before I knew what was happening, Mr Holland took me to a bank and opened an account for me containing three million dollars.’
‘Three million!’ Jude burst out.
‘Just a reward? Nothing else?’ Ben said, mystified that one sword could be worth so much, even to a man for whom three million was pocket change.
‘He wished only to thank me for finding the sword,’ Hillel said. ‘I went home to Ayala. I said “Wife, we are rich. Quit your job. We are leaving this apartment”. And so we did.’
He shrugged. ‘We were not rich enough to go and live in the very exclusive quarters like Yemin Moshe, but thanks to Mr Holland’s generosity we are very comfortable. And now I have my dream, my own business that I can pass to my sons when I am gone. Four of them work there already. We will soon be opening another, in King George Street. Then perhaps London. Or New York,’ he added excitedly, running away with himself.
‘Where does my dad come in?’ Jude asked. ‘And Fabrice Lalique?’
Hillel suddenly looked grave. ‘About a year after Mr Holland’s visit, he contacted me again to say that he wanted to bring two other men to view the spot where I had found the sword. He introduced them as Reverend Arundel and Father Lalique from England and France. They were very kind, very decent men.’
‘How did they become involved?’ Ben asked.
Hillel shook his head. ‘That I cannot say. Their business was with Mr Holland, and they told me little. They apologised for being secretive, but Simeon told me that one day, when their research was over and the truth about the sword was proved, I would be the first to know before they revealed