Earth

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All the Earth is Mine

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All the Earth is Mine

William Skyvington

GAMONE PRESS

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Typescript produced on a Macintosh using Pages.

Production GAMONE PRESS Gamone, 38680 Choranche, France e-mail sky.william@orange.fr

Š William Skyvington 2013

ISBN 978-2-919427-04-8

Special web version with front cover for ISSUU [created June 2015]

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Earth, dance at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flinty cliff into a welling spring. — Psalms 114, 7-8

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1 Origins Jake eased Haifa around the final marker buoy and pointed her towards the port of Fremantle. He made a sign to Rachel telling her to hoist the orange spinnaker with help from Aaron.

Meanwhile Leah hauled in the slack jibsheet and made a few turns on a winch to nudge the mainsail until it was rigid. The semitransparent yellowy textile hummed in the wind like the skin of a giant percussion instrument. The Rose brothers and their Kahn cousins had sailed together so often that they communicated with one another in wordless gestures. Once again, they would be finishing the regatta in first place, crossing the line nearly half a minute ahead of the second yacht, but the handicapper’s arithmetic would inevitably deprive them, as it often did, of the trophy.

Jacob Rose had just turned eighteen, and his brother Aaron was a year younger. They had taken a fleeting interest in several popular sports, from cricket and tennis through to golf and the local variety of rugby known as Australian Rules, but their favorite occupations were linked to the ocean: surfing, scuba diving and sailing. As for Leah Kahn, seventeen, and her sister Rachel, sixteen, they had been keen on basketball and hockey for several seasons, but they were now infatuated by the same ocean-based activities as their male cousins.

Haifa belonged to the boys’ father, Nahum Rose, who had called upon a talented boat-builder in Melbourne, four years ago, to copy the plans of a successful Mediterranean 42-foot ocean racer, with a carbon-fiber hull, and to fit it out with the finest hightechnology riggings. Under the guidance of an experienced yachtsman from Perth, Nahum Rose and his brother-in-law Amos 9

Kahn (father of Leah and Rachel) brought Haifa across the Great Australian Bight and around to Fremantle. Their enthusiasm for sailing did not last long, however, and the vessel was soon taken over by their adolescent children, who ended up forming an ideal crew.

✡ For several generations, members of the Rose and Kahn families had worked as diamond craftsmen and merchants in the ancient Belgian city of Antwerp, where they were prominent members of the large Jewish community. One ancestor, Jacob Rose, was a rabbi in Antwerp for over a decade between the two world wars. Later, the name of this distinguished ancestor would be given to the first child born out in the New World of Australia: the individual who was now at the helm of the Haifa.

As early as 1935, the future grandparents of Jake and his cousins were alarmed by the Hitlerian processes unleashed in Germany, which were depriving Jews of their human rights and undermining their economic power. So, they decided to sell their business and stocks in Antwerp—an operation that was still feasible and indeed lucrative at that moment—and set out on a tramp steamer to the most distant spot on earth, Australia, far away from the anti-Semitic clamor of the Old World. Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn, who were close friends ever since their college days in Brussels, had been the youthful co-owners, through inheritance, of the diamond business they had just liquidated. In leaving the Old World, they were accompanied by their wives, Anna Rose and Naomi Kahn, and three young children: Nahum Rose, Amos Kahn and his sister Rebecca (who would later become Nahum’s wife).

Why did they choose to settle in Perth, on the western seaboard of Australia, rather than in one of the larger port cities such as Melbourne or Sydney on the other side of that vast continent?

Yitzhak Rose had been given the task of organizing the departure, and he made a train trip to Rotterdam to visit a shipping agent. He was told that the Memphis Star had no precise schedule for the 10

voyage from Europe to Australia by way of the Suez Canal, because she would be taking on cargo in a couple of ports along the way and delivering the goods at Sydney. That vagueness did not bother Yitzhak, since the Roses and Kahns were in no hurry to reach a particular destination. Their sole aim was to flee from Europe with their children. The agent estimated that, if his vessel received the usual kind of cargo contracts, it would reach the west coast of Australia in about forty days. In the ears of a well-read student of the Torah such as Yitzhak Rose, that round figure of forty evoked Exodus: The Israelites ate the manna for forty years until they came to a land where they could settle. He decided spontaneously that, if a voyage of some forty days and forty nights were to bring them to a place named Perth, then they should settle there... even though he knew nothing whatsoever about this corner of the world. That was exactly what happened. On the fortieth morning after leaving Holland, the Rose and Kahn voyagers disembarked in the port of Fremantle.

A month after their arrival in Western Australia, where they were sheltered in a makeshift fashion by members of the local Jewish community, the families purchased a few acres of sloping bush land on the banks of the Swan River and arranged for the construction of a pair of large houses, almost identical in appearance, built out of the fine local timber. They called the domain Anvers: the French name of the city they had just abandoned. Before becoming involved in the diamond trade in Belgium, their ancestors had lived in the Jewish ghetto of the Marais in Paris, and their language at home had always been a mixture of French and Yiddish.

As soon as they were settled down in Australia, the heads of the two families decided unanimously, with foresight, that the most worthwhile professional avenue they might explore was mining, for they were convinced (no doubt through a flair brought about by their long contact with the diamond industry) that the riches of Western Australia were to be found in the ground. The story of the mineral wealth of the vast deserts of this sparsely-populated state had started, of course, with the gold-rush at the end of the previous 11

century. By the time the Rose/Kahn immigrants arrived on the scene, the list of precious substances that could be dug out of the sandy soil of Western Australia included not only gold and diamonds but alumina, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, zircon, rutile and ilmenite. Salt, too, could be mined there... and there were even dreams of petroleum.

In old-time mining contexts, it was a fact that the easiest and surest way of becoming rich was to provide goods and services to the diggers, rather than to take up a shovel oneself. Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn thought that this might be a lucrative strategy to adopt in the mining environment of Western Australia. They decided that two kinds of resources and services could be envisaged. On the one hand, mining companies would be needing earth-moving equipment of many varieties and sizes, ranging from heavy-duty vehicles through to tunneling devices. On the other hand, these companies would also require huge volumes of one of the most precious substances on Earth: water. So, Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn set up a small enterprise named Terra, whose address was their Anvers property on the banks of the Swan River.

For the Terra company, the Second World War in the Pacific was a godsend. The Americans had left miscellaneous military equipment—including trucks, mechanical shovels and bulldozers —all around the southern sector of the Pacific Ocean, often on deserted islands, and this material could now be purchased for almost nothing. All you needed, to bring it back to Perth, were a few boats. So, for a modest sum, the Rose/Kahn entrepreneurs purchased a fleet of a dozen dismantled US mine sweepers, which were no bigger than fishing trawlers. They assembled their tiny fleet at a rented wharf alongside the Royal Perth Yacht Club, painted them blue and gave them the names of the tribes of Israel, written in Hebrew letters... which puzzled members of the local sailing fraternity who thought these boats might be units of a mysterious Oriental navy. Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn then set out in their twelve vessels, with the aid of Chinese crewmen recruted in Broome (former pearl-divers), to gather up all kinds of priceless pieces of equipment in a methodical and patient manner.

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That is, they became scavengers, gathering up all the precious mechanical junk they could lay their hands on.

Usually, to reach the Pacific, where the equipment was to be found, they would take the northern route through Indonesian waters. Sometimes, they would venture across the treacherous waters of the Great Australian Bight. It was a miracle that no maritime catastrophe ever occurred. On the contrary, they succeeded rapidly, almost effortlessly, in conveying back to Fremantle an amazing assortment of war engines of all kinds, which were immediately stocked on a vast beach-front strip rented

by Terra. There, with the help of clever young Australian technicians, often ex-servicemen, this military stuff would be methodically examined, repaired, reassembled and reconverted into money-making devices. And much money was indeed soon being made by Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn! Within a few years of the start of their operations, the Terra firm had already earned considerable profits by renting out equipment to dig mines in the Kimberleys or to pierce artesian bores on the edge of the Gibson Desert.

By the time he had turned twenty-two, Amos, son of David and Naomi Kahn, had become the operational manager of Terra, while his young sister Rebecca was in charge of the financial and accounting aspects of the company. Nahum, the son of Yitzhak and Anna Rose, was more interested in the scientific and engineering aspects of Terra, and he had started a small research and development group that was looking into such fascinating topics as novel mining techniques and the constant search for water. But the elders, Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn, still kept a firm hold on the reins of the business and determined its long-term orientations. So, the enterprise was very much a family affair... and that aspect of Terra was accentuated even more when Nahum Rose decided to ask for the hand in marriage of the girl next door, Rebecca Kahn.

The families who had been united through friendship and their common flight from Europe were now linked through both business and marriage. A few months later, Amos Kahn married Miryam Weiner, born in Alsace, whose family—like the Roses and 13

Kahns—had entered the Jewish community of Perth before the start of World War II. Nahum Rose and Rebecca had two sons, Jacob and Aaron, while Amos Kahn and Miryam had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. And that is a summary of the genealogy of the crew of the Haifa.

✡ Although the four members of the new generation were linked by common interests, they were very different individuals, even physically, and people at the Fremantle Yacht Club were often surprised when they learned that the youthful crew of the Haifa was composed of two brothers and their cousins, two sisters.

The facial features of Jacob Rose were Mediterranean, of a Sicilian kind, which was unusual in the case of a youth whose ancestors, as far as could be ascertained, were Ashkenazim from Central Europe. A family legend pointed to the existence of a maternal ancestor of Yitzhak Rose from a Sephardic community in Spain whose members had played a primordial role in disseminating the mystical philosophy of the Kabbalah throughout the Mediterranean world, including the Holy Land, and parts of Europe. Maybe Jake’s olive complexion, straight black hair and piercing regard were associated with genes inherited from this mysterious ancestor.

Did archaic genes also play a role in determining Jake’s mental structures? Little in the youth’s approach to life seemed to be linked to the character and personality of his parents or grandparents, or to the education Jacob Rose had received in the family circle. His behavior was usually calm and kind-hearted in his attitudes towards others, but one of the most unexpected facets of his character was an intense irritation, capable of culminating in verbal violence, whenever the conversation got around to everyday Judaism. This had been the case ever since Jake’s earliest years, when he set the tone firmly by refusing to attend the Perth synagogue with his parents, to be the object of a bar mitzvah ceremony, or even to participate in family celebrations of Jewish 14

feast-days. If a psychiatrist were to examine these anti-Jewish attitudes, he would soon grasp that this negative behavior was a manifestation of a profound system of beliefs that Jacob Rose had forged for himself in the wake of what he had heard about the Shoah. Jake considered that Jewish religious traditions had been far too weak and ineffective to motivate resistance when Hitler’s henchmen descended upon European Jewry, and that this indicated terrible flaws in Judaism when envisaged as a plausible guide for life and society. Jake blamed Jewish beliefs for not being sufficiently powerful to guarantee the well-being of the believers.

In his eyes, Judaism was an obsolete lifeboat that had overturned as soon as the first waves struck it.

One might imagine that a youth who refused to trust a religious system would have an overall distaste for myths and metaphysics.

This was not the case. Jake had browsed through, not only the Torah, but rabbinic literature such as the Jerusalem Talmud, and he was fascinated by the imaginative complexity of these writings, with their sophisticated logic. But they remained for him mere legends excavated from the fuzzy past, rather than a set of plausible principles that might elucidate the sense of existence, or provide a reference for leading the Good Life (whatever that might mean). Jake could best be described by the word recently concocted by novelists and philosophers in postwar France: an existentialist who considered that the rules of life should be made up as you go along. He had often thought that the people in ghettos who saw their brethren being carted off to Poland in animal wagons should have got together and declared that, since the problems facing them appeared to be totally novel, they would need to devise a new set of rules to handle them. And that, in a way, was what the Jews finally did in 1948 (too late, alas, to confront the Nazis) when they created the modern state of Israel.

Not surprisingly, the Jewish tale that Jake admired most of all came, not from the holy books, but from the journalism of Josephus: the story of Masada. The collective suicide of the resistants in the Dead Sea fortress was grim but glorious: quite the opposite of extermination. But suicide was hardly a serious 15

solution for survival; and Jacob was convinced that the Jews would end up inventing schemes that were vastly more positive than Masada.

Although Jake had created for himself a mental system in which there was no place for the religious beliefs and traditions of his parents, it would be wrong to conclude that he was expressing a refusal of parental authority. Within the new generation composed of Jake’s brother and their two cousins, he was the only one who had decided to start a professional career within the family business, and he had set out upon university studies that would enable him to become an engineer at Terra. In the social domain of Perth dinner evenings and parties, Jake was often accompanied by one or the other of his attractive Kahn cousins, and observers concluded (rightly so) that the young bachelor’s affections were, for the moment, largely family-oriented.

Jake’s brother Aaron was a generous individual who tried constantly to influence and please people. A corollary was that he liked to be respected—if not admired—by his friends and associates. This meant that Aaron had developed a somewhat extrovert personality, which made him particularly sensitive to the quality of his relationships with those who surrounded him.

Physically, he had a lighter complexion than Jake, and brownish hair that tended to lie in thick waves. Aaron had nothing of Jake’s Sicilian looks. His facial features were more of a Central European type, and his soft but firm voice, combined with refined manners of an Old World kind, made Perth newcomers imagine that this young man had been brought up in an aristocratic European context.

Aaron smiled often, and gave the impression that he was in a constant state of joy... which was largely the case.

In the professional domain, Aaron was fascinated by the broad theme of communications, of every kind, from journalism and radio through to television and cinema. He had completed successful studies in these fields at the Curtin University, and was engaged as a freelance consultant and producer in many communications operations. In a corner of the Anvers estate, he had set up a private multimedia studio, equipped with 16

sophisticated computers and electronic devices (donated by the Terra company), where he produced video documentaries. This studio functioned too as a private radio station, called Vox, whose vocation was broadcasts from various ethnic communities in the Perth region. Aaron’s personal goals were partly political. He was motivated by the rising movement throughout Australia that hoped to transform the nation into a republic, severing its traditional ties with the British monarchy. Aaron hoped—more or less secretly— that a Western Australian electorate might provide him with a forum to promote this republican theme. He was sufficiently well known to be an ideal subject for local media, who liked to present images of Aaron Rose surrounded by young women from the upper crust of Perth society. Yachting enabled him to escape from the media environment and spend hours out on the waters off Rottnest Island, aboard the Haifa, in the sole company of Jake, Leah and Rachel. That was the peaceful context in which many of Aaron’s political dreams were forged, enriched by lengthy in-depth discussions with his brother and their cousins. In other words, Aaron’s preoccupations were very much a family affair, and this family concept encompassed both the Jewish community of this south-western corner of Australia and the technological and financial worlds in which the profitable Terra enterprise was acquiring a sound reputation and enhanced resources of both a technical and an intellectual nature.

Leah Kahn had always been fascinated by foreign languages and literature. At the University of Perth, she had completed a master’s degree in French, involving a thesis on Albert Camus. For many years, she had been a regular student in Hebrew classes conducted under the auspices of the Israelite Consistory in Perth.

So, she was now perfectly fluent in both French and Hebrew, and longed for an opportunity to test her linguistic skills in France and Israel. Her father Amos was opposed to the idea that his daughter might set foot in the Holy Land while the troubles of the intifada continued. So, Leah was planning a trip to Europe that would start in Paris and take her to the islands of Greece. From there, if the situation happened to be calm in the Holy Land, she might phone 17

her father in an attempt to persuade him to allow her to drop in on Tel Aviv.

Physically, Leah was slender and distinguished in the same style as her cousin Aaron, with green eyes, high angular cheekbones and long auburn hair. Her disposition was serene, and her serious regard seemed to convey compassion and wisdom, with a fleeting sense of joy tainted by sadness, as if her eyes reflected the accumulated melancholy of generations of her ancestors in the ghettos of Europe. Once, her lecturer in Latin at the University of Perth had found an ideal adjective to describe the facial features of Leah Kahn, whom he no doubt admired; he said that she was ‘medieval’. Most often, Leah was impeccably attired in clothes that might have concealed her sensuality, like the longsleeved blouses and flowing robes of pious Jewish mothers. But Leah’s elegant cotton shirts and finely-cut skirts had the opposite effect, by accentuating her feminine forms, making her immensely desirable in the eyes of men who sought grace and refinement. On the other hand, aboard the Haifa, wearing a brown linen smock, jeans and blue deck shoes, Leah Kahn was transformed into a saltsprayed sportswoman whose fine hands were concealed in leather mittens, and her lovely eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

On the surface, Rachel Kahn appeared to be quite a different individual to her sister. Of a pragmatic nature, she had little time for languages and literature, and lived, as she liked to put it, ‘in the here and now’... which meant above all that Rachel tended to get involved in practical human issues, including some that dealt with hardship and suffering. Having noticed that a large proportion of the prisoners in the antiquated jail in Fremantle were Aborigines, for example, Rachel made an effort to understand why this should be the case. She soon discovered that many of the alleged offenses for which these men were convicted were clearly instances of senseless acts, often aggravated by alcohol, brought about by the perpetual confusion and despair that dominated their existence.

Rachel enrolled in courses in the domain of Aboriginal studies at the same university where Jake was working in engineering, and she then made the decision to collaborate with a nearby team of 18

Benedictine monks and their associates who were experts in the field of Aboriginal welfare.

Amos Kahn once said jokingly of his second daughter that she was born a generation too late, in that Rachel would have been an ideal messenger of the hippie philosophy of peace and love back at the time of the Vietnam War. Everybody is born, of course, either a little too late for this, or a little too early for that... but Rachel herself often remarked that she would have loved to have been an old-style kibbutznik back at the time when Ben-Gurion and his people were inventing principles and lifestyles for the modern state of Israel. Besides her activities in the Aboriginal domain, Rachel had started in-depth university studies in agronomy, because she was convinced that huge areas of Western Australia could be transformed, through intelligent high-technology methods, into green oases where marvelous plants and crops could be grown, and farm animals reared. That was a common theme of discussion with the menfolk at Terra, including her cousin Jake, because they too were engaged in seeking solutions for creating pools of water in the wilderness.

If the physical features of her older sister could be described meaningfully as ‘medieval’, there was an even more mysterious adjective that could be applied to Rachel, who seemed to have stepped out of ancient tale from Judea. She was truly ‘biblical’.

Rachel usually wore sandals and old-fashioned garments, often home-made, that heightened this impression. Her black hair was an uncontrolled mass of curls, usually tied back behind her slender neck with a blue silk ribbon. When Rachel was abord the Haifa, and dressed in sailing attire, it was possible, but not easy, to see that she and Leah were sisters. The two girls spoke in a similar quiet fashion, modestly, in an unobtrusive tone, as if their words were not intended to carry much weight. But this was an illusion, for the Kahn sisters always spoke with conviction. They simply did not wish to impose their viewpoints upon others.

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Men love islands: especially small islands whose layout and frontiers with the sea can be grasped in a few global glances.

Rottnest, twenty kilometers from the mainland, was an ideal island: no more than ten kilometers long and five kilometers wide.

Jake tied up the Haifa at the Thomson Bay jetty while Aaron and the Kahn girls unloaded their bicycles, which had been stacked on the foredeck and roped to the guardrail during the short trip across from Fremantle. Wicker baskets were attached to the handlebars of each of the four bicycles to carry supplies for a picnic at the other end of the island. The cousins had got into the habit of picnicking together, whenever they sailed to a pleasant destination, and they were well organized for such outings. These outings, which concerned only the four members of the new generation (their parents having passed the stage at which they might have been interested in boats or picnics), had become part of their family traditions, their family style.

The picknickers had brought across with them, from a Fremantle grocery store, a cold chicken, two jars of asparagus, cheese, tomatoes, butter and a bottle of Margaret River claret.

Leah’s basket held a set of plastic plates, knives, forks and goblets.

They first strolled up to the island’s reputed bakery to pick up a couple of loaves of warm bread and a big warm apple pie, which Rachel placed carefully in a flat wicker container with a lid, fixed to a rack behind the seat of her bicycle. Then they peddled away from the settlement in a southerly direction along a narrow road that ran close to the shoreline, with the aim of reaching the western region of the island in an indirect leisurely fashion. Indigenous marsupials called quokkas, which look like huge rats (giving the island its name: rats’ nest in Dutch), darted around in roadside bushes, while ducks waddled through salty marshes on the edge of lagoons. They rode past the rusty remains of huge cannons, which had never been fired since the years before the Second World War when they were installed there, protecting Australia from phantom foes. At times, when the road met up with the sea, they caught glimpses of shipwrecks. Like many parts of the Western Australian coast, the island had a notorious reputation for destroying vessels 20

whose captain and crew had been caught off guard after a carefree crossing of the Indian Ocean.

Leah and Rachel had changed into T-shirts, khaki cotton shorts and black jogging shoes for the bike trip. Jake rode behind his cousins, on the opposite side of the road. He admired the athletic image of Leah and Rachel, their skin glistening with transpiration in the sunlight, as they strained in a slow cadence against the pedals. It was hardly a secret, in Jake’s circle of friends, that he was under the spell of his cousins. He regarded them as a pair of dissimilar young women, each of whom was exceptional in her own ways. This had created two trivial problems in Jake’s everyday existence. On the one hand, he had become aware that the charm of Leah and Rachel made it relatively difficult for him to appreciate most other women whom he encountered, because none of these outsiders seemed to have the mysterious intelligence and beauty of his Kahn cousins. At times, Jake imagined that the attraction exerted upon him by Leah and Rachel was a kind of power, but he realized that this foolish word might suggest that he himself was a helpless victim of seductive forces. The other problem was that Jake often considered one of his cousins, at that particular moment in time, as more fascinating than her sister, for vague reasons that he could never pin down. But his vision of the superior sister changed from Leah to Rachel and back at an almost weekly rhythm. Jake’s judgment in this affair was obviously unreliable, but this fickle aspect of his feelings reassured him, attenuating the disturbing notion that he might indeed be seriously attracted to one of his cousins.

They stopped for a picnic on a grassy ledge known as Abraham Point, on the northern coast of the extremity of the island, which looked out westwards towards distant Africa. Leah and Rachel cut the Rottnest bread into slices and made chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches. Aaron spread a linen table-cloth on the rocky ground, and opened the wine, while Jake laid out plates, cutlery and goblets. Beneath them, gulls swooped down towards a yacht moored in the bay, no doubt hoping to scavenge food from the people on board. Between the yacht and the beach, the upper 21

structure of the Gypsy, wrecked in the late 19th century, emerged from the breakers. Over the last couple of years, the Rose and Kahn scuba-divers had visited most of the dozens of shipwrecks that studded the Rottnest coast.

“That’s one of the spookiest wrecks I remember,” said Rachel.

“It’s packed with fragments of broken wood and metal that have been transformed into a wall of spikes. A diver could be impaled by a rogue breaker.”

“Yes, it’s frustrating,” agreed Aaron, “If only we could crawl inside and wander around, we might find a lot of fabulous junk in that hulk.”

“No matter what time or season you visit the Gypsy,” added Leah, “the swells and breakers are always there, in the wrong position. They’re a permanent threat. There’s never enough calm water in the vicinity of the openings to glide in safely.” Everybody seemed to agree that it would be difficult and dangerous to attempt to ease one’s way inside the wreck that lay before their eyes.

“There’s a technical problem that’s easy to understand,” explained Jake, using a favorite opening sentence that was familiar to people who knew him well. Often, when Jake announced the existence of a technical problem, said to be “easy to understand”, you could be treated to lengthy explanations involving physics, geometry, geology or other branches of science and technology.

“The boat gives the impression that it’s tightly wedged in the rocks, but this is an illusion. It still has minimal liberty enabling it to float a little, but without ever breaking away from its prison in the rocks. So, the spiky openings into the hull are displaced vertically with the tide and other movements of the sea.

Consequently, the diver remains at the mercy of breakers. The only solution would be to increase the buoyancy of the wreck, enabling it to escape at high tide.”

“You’d need an armada of buoyancy tanks to raise such a relic out of the water,” said Rachel. “There are so many rocks around the wreck that there wouldn’t be room for the tanks to float.

Besides, as soon as the old hull was subjected to a force strong 22

enough to make it rise out of the water, it would probably disintegrate into pieces.”

Many Western Australians had heard of this branch of marine technology, which could be termed “raising wrecks”, because they had followed, through the media, the recovery of the Batavia, which had been wrecked in dramatic circumstances up on the Abrolhos Islands in the seventeenth century.

“I’m not necessarily thinking in terms of traditional techniques used to refloat submerged objects,” explained Jake. “Maybe we need to adopt a totally different approach.” Since it was time for dessert, Jake decided to use the apple pie for a demonstration.

“First, we need a tool that can slice through rock as if it were a piece of cake.” Saying this, Jake used his knife to make a pair of incisions from the circumference of the pie to the center, forming a narrow wedge. “In the case of the Gypsy, this slicing tool would need to be able to cut all around the wreck, in a series of linear incisions. It would also need to cut underneath the wreck, so that it is no longer attached to the seabed.” Jake glided his knife under the wedge, demonstrating that the apple pie was not stuck to the bottom of the cardboard box from the Rottnest bakery. “Then we would need a technique that causes the hunk of matter to rise to the surface of the water and float like a raft.” Jake used the blade of his knife as a trowel, slowly raising the wedge of apple pie without dropping a crumb. Then he slid the slice onto Rachel’s plate.

“Thank you, and congratulations,” said Rachel mockingly, rolling her eyes comically as if she were in a state of admiration.

“If we could invent some kind of magic apple-pie technology for the Gypsy,” added Jake, “we could tug the floating wreck as if it were a raft, and drag it up to the beach, where it could be examined safely.”

“There’s a lot of magic in your explanations,” observed Aaron.

“Is your apple-pie theory feasible?”

“It’s not really a theory,” replied Jake. “Apple pie is a poor metaphor, which is probably misleading. The actual devices, if we 23

could invent them, might not resemble familiar implements such as knives and trowels.”

“Well, are your science-fiction devices feasible?” insisted Aaron.

“I would think so,” replied Jake in a hesitant voice, scratching his head like a pensive professor. “In the mining field, engineers have been cutting into rock for ages, in all kinds of hostile environments. As for causing a heavy object to float, remember the way they brought a Batavia gun to the surface.” Methods used to raise fragments of the famous vessel of the Dutch East India Company had not necessarily resorted to advanced technology. A fisherman succeeded in raising a huge bronze cannon by sinking water-filled 44-gallon fuel drums, lashing them to the gun, then using a hose to pump exhaust gas from a boat engine into the drums.

“Would the research investment be justified?” asked Leah, who had inherited from her father, president of Terra Corporation, the down-to-earth habit of analyzing projects from an economic viewpoint. “Maybe the poor old Gypsy should be left to rot forever in its marine graveyard.”

“Obviously, you wouldn’t implement the apple-pie approach merely to raise Rottnest wrecks,” reacted Jake laughingly. “The basic paradigm consists of finding how to make a big thing float.

We’re evoking a challenge in the ship-building domain. We’re talking too, in a way, about the grand old theme of making a mountain move, maybe by floating it on water.”

“If Mahomet is tired of going to the mountain,” mused Rachel dreamily, “then it’s time for the mountain to come to Mahomet.”

“That’s a good way of summing up the situation,” said Jacob Rose, smiling fondly at his cousin.

24

2 Discovery Over a period of three years, the four senior members of the Rose and Kahn families (grandparents of the crew of the Haifa) died peacefully in their homes at the Anvers estate on the banks of the Swan River. They departed life with a certain sense of fulfillment, leaving behind a context of harmony in which the members of the young generation might pursue new goals. Viewed retrospectively, their lives revealed an apparent order, which might even be referred to as a logic. When the Nazi plague arose in Europe and the elders decided spontaneously to leave for the Antipodes, they had been guided by an unnamable force... whose primeval source, they imagined, was Yahveh. They reached the New World with their three children at an ideal moment, with financial resources enabling them to start out a new life in comfortable conditions. Furthermore, upon arriving in Australia, Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn had been wise in deciding to work in a field that turned out to be lucrative. So, the Antipodean adventure had been a positive affair, which had now blossomed into a new generation of promising individuals: Jacob, Aaron, Leah and Rachel.

It would be wrong, though, to suggest that the departed elders had led happy lives since settling in the Antipodes. The concept of happiness had been obscured by flames, black smoke and grey dust when the Shoah descended upon the Earth of Elohim. Oldfashioned joy was annihilated forever, just as innocence had once disappeared from Eden. After the cataclysm, optimism would never be recreated. The cosmos was polluted for eternity. There might be splendid achievements, acquisition of knowledge, manifestations of wisdom, success in various fields, serenity 25

bringing warmth to the heart, contentment and pleasure... but never more would people be naive to the point of envisaging that state of existence—deep and lasting happiness—which they might have imagined once upon a time, before Hitler.

In Belgium, where the Rose and Kahn families had lived and worked, the Nazis were responsible for the disappearance of more than two-thirds of the Jewish population: some seventy thousand people. Like most remote observers of this gigantic destruction, the Rose and Kahn elders were never able to obtain clear and complete information concerning the fate of former friends and business associates in Antwerp. Had they been annihilated? Did they die of starvation or disease or fatigue? Was it possible to obtain names of those who had been identified as victims? Was it known which members of the community were able to escape by fleeing to other lands? Among the Jews located in Antwerp at the end of the Shoah, were there many survivors of the original community?

These sinister questions seemed to lie in the field of demographic statistics. In fact, they were no less easy to answer than metaphysical interrogations about the meaning of human existence. The Shoah had transformed everyday life into a single gigantic metaphysical question. If it could be supposed that there were still a point in reading the words of a German philosopher such as Martin Heidegger, then his famous formulation of the fundamental interrogation of metaphysics needed, at the very least, to be declined in a revised fashion, to take into account the recent events: Why is there being of this unthinkably horrendous kind rather than nothing at all?

The wills of the Rose and Kahn elders stated that the grandchildren should use the money they received to gain insight into the tragedy of the European Jews, and to encounter the legendary land of Israel.

Leah and Rachel decided to set sail together, as soon as possible, for an extended holiday in Europe, and maybe a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Meanwhile, Aaron Rose had started 26

to plan for himself a working visit that would enable him to meet up with representatives from various left-wing and ecologyoriented political parties in several countries, including Israel.

Only Jake would be obliged to stay at home in Western Australia, for the time being, since he was deeply involved in technological research projects both at Curtin University’s department of mining engineering and within the context of the Terra Corporation, of which he was now the manager in charge of research and development. Overseas vacations would have to be postponed until later on, for Jake had work to do.

In the middle of a cool Perth winter, Leah and Rachel boarded a Greek passenger liner, the Spirit of Athens, bound for Europe via the Suez Canal. The girls were aware that they would be moving back along the same sea lanes taken by their grandparents when they came out to Australia half a century earlier on. They realized that life on the Spirit of Athens was no doubt more animated than aboard the Memphis Star, which had only carried a handful of passengers. But the exciting theme of being transported from a familiar to an unknown world was much the same. The big difference, of course, was that the Kahn and Rose voyagers had been fleeing from hatred and suffering, whereas Leah and Rachel waved a short-term goodbye, with a mild dose of anguish in their hearts, to a homeplace of peace and love.

Between the sedate atmosphere of Fremantle and the Oriental bustle of Singapore, a few days later, the change was amazing, indeed disturbing. The girls, accustomed to sparsely-populated Western Australia, and lulled by the sleepiness of the suburbs of Perth, found it hard to imagine that the lifestyle of a port and a city could be so hectic. Like many travelers from quiet lands in such a surprising situation, Leah was confused by a dark image.

“What would happen if all these people decided to move down to Perth?”

“I guess we’d receive some kind of prior warning,” said Rachel, jokingly, “and we’d have time to pack up and camp over on Rottnest.” Serious thoughts of that kind had probably been going 27

through the minds of the Australian military engineers who once set up the huge cannons on the island.

After Singapore, the shock of Suez was greater still. The girls left the ship while it moved slowly through the canal, to go on an excursion to Cairo and the pyramids. Once ashore, they were upset by the street-merchants who gathered around the tourists, urging them to purchase stuffed leather toys, woven rugs and cartons of cigarettes. In the beginning, Leah and Rachel spoke politely to these individuals, including many ragged children, informing them that they were not interested in such goods. Seeing that words of that kind had little effect upon the street-merchants, the girls adopted the strategy of trying to ignore the presence of these individuals, and refusing to communicate with them. For refined young Australian women, accustomed to correct contacts with strangers, it was unpleasant to force oneself to adopt harsh behavior with these individuals. The very idea of looking down upon other human beings as annoying creatures, to be brushed aside as if they were nuisances, was abhorrent to the Kahn sisters, who could not help thinking of a terrible time in Europe when certain allegedly superior people decided to consider countless other human beings as worthless.

As Rachel looked out upon the colossal monuments of Gizeh, her thoughts were directed back towards one of her cousins in Australia. “If only Jake were here, he would tell us exactly how the Egyptians created all these marvels. Maybe he would even inform us that he plans to build the same kind of things in the Kimberley Desert.� Certainly, Jake would have been delighted if he had known that Rachel looked upon him as a Pharaoh.

As soon as the Spirit of Athens touched the Mediterranean, it pointed its bow in the direction of the Parthenon, and set sail towards the port of Piraeus. It was no more than two months since the Greek crew-members had left their homeland, but their excitement was such, as the ship entered the waters off Athens, that an observer might have imagined that they were returning to 28

their native land after a timeless odyssey across the oceans of the globe. Some of them were literally weeping with joy, while other started to sing and dance.

The ship remained in Piraeus for twenty-four hours, enabling passengers to be taken on a guided tour of Athens. Leah and Rachel were a little disoriented by the rapid juxtaposition, in the space of two days, of the amazing Sphinx and the marvelous Acropolis. After a plate of pâté de foie gras, they were now being offered a dish of caviar.

The Kahn girls got off the ship in Marseille and took a train up to Paris, where they found a room in a small hotel in the Latin Quarter, with windows giving out on to the cathedral of NotreDame. The following morning, they left the hotel with their luggage and found their way by taxi to an automobile agency in the southern suburbs, which Amos Kahn had contacted from Perth, on behalf of his daughters. There, they took delivery of a small green Renault automobile. They piled their luggage into the trunk and drove off, Leah at the wheel, in the direction of Belgium.

Later that day, the Kahn sisters parked their vehicle in Antwerp, and set foot on the soil of their ancestors. But Antwerp, alas, had become a bustling city of sadness, in which Leah and Rachel would not succeed in meeting any people or even identifying any addresses linked explicitly to their past.

✡ In the Department of Applied Geology at Curtin University in Perth, Jacob Rose was engaged in research that would normally culminate in a doctoral thesis. For decades, off-shore drilling had become a commonplace technology in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia for obtaining petroleum products in either a liquid or a gaseous form. Gases discharged from the seabed, as a consequence of drilling operations, were only judged to be economically valuable if their hydrocarbon content exceeded a certain threshold. Seabed gases whose petroleum level was lower than this minimum value (including the extreme case of zero 29

hydrocarbon content) were said to be residual, which simply meant that gas of this kind was a residue after the valuable product had been extracted. Since it was difficult to find gas with a relatively high petroleum content, the greater part of the gases that the seabeds might exude belonged to this residual category. Jake’s research project consisted of investigating plausible methods for using residual seabed gases (RSG, as they were called) for a worthwhile purpose: as a buoyancy agent. More precisely, would it be possible to process RSG so that it could be injected under high pressure into the micro-interstices of rock, transforming the dense matter into a substance that would float in water?

Mathematical calculations, followed by computer simulations, suggested that this science-fiction theme was indeed feasible.

Theoretically, porous rock could be transformed into matter as buoyant as driftwood. Physical experiments conducted in a sophisticated laboratory environment at Curtin University proved that such a result could be obtained by means of an unwieldy assortment of machines and complex equipment. The challenge facing Jacob Rose consisted of inventing technology that would enable engineers to use RSG as a buoyancy agent in real-life environments. Curtin University was authorized to build an experimental station at an ideal site on a secluded beach on Rottnest Island, at a place named Solomon Bay. Western Australia’s leading technological university had often collaborated with private industry. In the case of Jacob Rose’s research project, the financial burden of creating the Solomon Testbed (as it came to be called) was borne by the Terra Corporation, which thereby acquired the rights to take out patents on any practical results that might be obtained from this prototype station.

Jake was a busy man, since he performed his doctoral research at the same time as his job at Terra, which also consisted of experimental work. Amos Kahn, president of Terra, had imagined an interesting post for his promising nephew. He presented his idea to Jake’s father, Nahum, technical director of the company. Amos considered that Jake should be able to move around in the Terra context as a ‘free electron’, as he put it, instead of being pinned 30

down to a specific place in the company hierarchy. So, they had named him director of research and development, and invited him to use financial resources equivalent to fifteen percent of Terra profits to carry out work that he deemed worthwhile. Not surprisingly, the most worthwhile challenge that Jacob Rose could imagine was the development of a computer-guided laser tool for cutting through rock. It would need to be miniaturized, mobile and autonomous. The Slicer (as Jake soon nicknamed it) should be able to work entirely on its own, following programmed instructions, primarily in zones that could not be easily accessed by human workers, such as the seabed.

In the context of Terra’s widespread activities in remote Western Australian mining regions, there was a transport problem for project directors and engineers who did not reside permanently on the worksites. The company decided to invest in a small Ecureuil helicopter capable of carrying five or six people. It was decided that Jake would be one of the three Terra engineers who would be taught how to fly this aircraft. He was enchanted by this machine, which he was soon capable of manipulating expertly. The Ecureuil became Jake’s private vehicle, above all for flying out to Rottnest to work at the Solomon Testbed.

✡ In the political arena, Aaron Rose had become increasingly active within a recently-created national framework called the Green Republic Party, which advocated the establishment in Australia of a republican structure modeled on that of France, with an upper and a lower house and a president elected by universal suffrage. The adjective ‘green’ indicated that the fundamental priorities of the movement were related to environmental issues, particularly in the field of new sources of energy, and the combat against pollution. This party hoped to transform the traditional states of Australia into regions, grouping together a certain number of so-called departments (once again, in the French style), with considerable autonomy as far as local affairs were concerned, but 31

without parliaments of the present kind.

Aaron had risen rapidly in the ranks of the Western Australian branch of this party, and had been nominated as a candidate for the Fremantle electorate. Not surprisingly, the Green Republicans were still too new on the scene to influence many voters, and Aaron had scored poorly in the recent state elections. But the rising generations were attracted by this youthful and dynamic party, and their message was making an impact both on students and on young farmers.

In the lull after his election defeat, Aaron decided it was time for a holiday, which he had been planning for a long time. So, he left Perth on a Boeing bound for Paris, where he would meet up with Leah and Rachel, who had been travelling throughout Europe in their green Renault for the last six months. The first planned operation, as soon as he found his cousins, consisted of trading in their automobile on a French camping-car.

They drove to the south of France, then traveled across Italy and down the Adriatic coast to Brindisi, where they put the van on a ferry bound for Patras in Greece. They spent the warm night in sleeping-bags on the deck, and the ferry reached the Peloponnesus in the middle of the afternoon. They then drove up to the outskirts of Athens. After a pleasant evening dining in a Plaka tavern, beneath the Acropolis, they camped on the outskirts of the city.

The next morning, they bought provisions for the trip across the Mediterranean, which would take two and a days, then they put their vehicle on the ferry at Piraeus. The vessel called in at Tinos, then it reached Rhodes late in the evening. The next morning, after a brief stop at the port of Limassol in Cyprus, they set out on the final leg of the voyage across to Haifa.

“It’s weird,” mused Leah, as they watched the outline of the city rising on the horizon. “After all those years of sailing off Fremantle in our Haifa, we’re now cruising into the real place.”

“It’s not weird,” corrected Aaron, throwing his arms tenderly around the shoulders of Leah and Rachel. “It’s wonderful.”

Setting foot in the Holy Land was an emotional moment for the 32

three Jewish travelers from the Antipodes. Haifa looked much the same as any of the other half-a-dozen Mediterranean ports they had encountered over the last few days, but countless signs confirmed that they had reached the ancestral land of their people, the symbolic birthplace of all Jews. They were charmed above all to find the air filled with the soft sounds of Hebrew. For Leah, who had studied this language in a classroom back in Australia, the musicality of the Hebrew she was now hearing, out in the open air on the waterfront of Haifa, evoked a chorus of children reciting archaic nursery rhymes. The mysterious soft Semitic consonants flowed around the simple vowels, enhancing them as if they were tiny gems set in platinum. Exotic nuts enrobed in chocolate. The language had a taste of milk and honey. The Australians listened, enchanted, to the immigration and customs officials conversing among themselves in the language of the Torah. They witnessed the amusing spectacle of the complex gestures—facial expressions and hand movements—that accompanied every remark of these ordinary people who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of an ancient and extraordinary book. It was frustrating for the Australians, of course, to find themselves being addressed in English by the Israeli officials, but not even Leah would have been capable, at that moment, of communicating with these people in Hebrew. Besides, the Israelis spoke English faultlessly. So, Aaron and his cousins had to accept their status, for the moment, as tourists.

They parked the van outside the port enclosure, and set out on foot for their initial encounter with the city. The footpaths were packed with children walking home at the end of the school day. It was Friday: the end of a week. Rachel brushed past a little darkskinned girl with Ethiopian features and black hair in ringlets. She waved to her schoolmate, who might have been her twin, and cried out: “Shabat shalom, Miryam!”

Leah, turning towards her sister with a startled expression, exclaimed: 33

“That little girl gave a Sabbath farewell to her friend, who has the same name as our mother.” Rachel pictured her mother as if she had once been a schoolgirl in the Holy Land, playing on the Haifa footpath alongside these lovely black children who looked like Australian Aboriginals... but children whose ancestors were speaking Hebrew back at the time of King Solomon.

Many details in the street reinforced the trio’s awareness that they were in fact strolling, at last, upon the earth of Abraham, where the Patriarchs had once lived and loved, worshipped and worked, fought and died. The street scene reflected the agitation of women and men who were visibly engaged in last-minute shopping for Sabbath foodstuffs, before religious hibernation set in for twenty-four hours. Leah suggested that they should buy something to eat. They found a delicatessen with cold chicken, smoked fish and black bread. Aaron bought a bottle of red Carmel wine. Further along the street, they found fruit: oranges and prickly pears. Then they came upon an Arab shop with exotic cakes soaked in honey. Aaron said they should move their van, as soon as possible, into a camping spot out in the countryside, since he had heard vague accounts of a ban on driving during the Sabbath.

The sun started to sink towards the Mediterranean horizon.

Offices were now empty and shops had closed in the main streets, largely deserted. But the atmosphere around the port, where they had parked the van, started to liven up. While pious family groups scurried to Sabbath destinations, portside bars started to attract customers from the ships. Some of the bigger cafés appeared to be Arab restaurants, but conversations in Hebrew, and even Israeli songs, floated out on to the footpath. The Australians decided that there was no point in driving off into the dark unknown when so many warm lights and sounds beckoned them to stay.

Consequently, they spent their first evening in the Holy Land in a Lebanese waterfront restaurant, eating lamb couscous, drinking beer, listening to French pop songs on a jukebox, and reminiscing in English with Dutch sailors on the theme of Australian pubs.

34

✡ Amos Kahn and Nahum Rose did not really need to impress their Perth bank manager, Robert Riley, concerning the soundness of future strategies of the Terra Corporation, for all was well with the company from a financial viewpoint. But they considered that an individual such as Riley, with little awareness in advanced technology, would be an ideal listener in the case of Jake’s presentation of a progress report concerning his research. The primordial question—as Amos liked to put it—was whether or not Jake’s science-fiction schemes ‘made sense’. And bank managers were ideal judges for determining, from a layman’s viewpoint, that a project was viable.

Another good auditor, but for different reasons, was Julius Stokes, the British-born professor of geology at Curtin University who headed the academic institution within which Jake was doing his doctoral research. Like other colleagues at Curtin, the professor had the habit of giving lip service to the celebrated theme of partnerships between the university and industry, because collaboration of that kind provided the teaching institution with funds and emphasized the usefulness of universities. But theoryoriented academics such as Stokes did not necessarily like to be reminded that the institutions that employ them should produce results of a practical value. As a student, the future professor had become fascinted by geology because he felt that this discipline offered explanations of an almost metaphysical nature concerning the context in which living organisms came into existence. Today, he was a world authority concerning the amazing theory according to which self-replicating building blocks were first materialized in clay. Stokes was happy to know that most graduates became highly-paid engineers in domains such as petroleum research and metallurgical prospection, but he did not like being asked to justify the utilitarian repercussions of the educational activities of his department.

The offices of the Terra Corporation were located on the seafront to the south of Fremantle, in an old boatshed that had once 35

housed yachts competing in the America’s Cup regattas. The spacious end-section of the building, which was the place where the main yacht used to be fitted out before races, had now been transformed into a hangar for the Ecureuil helicopter. And this was where Jake would be presenting his research projects, in front of a small group of individuals comprising Amos Kahn, Jake’s father Nahum, half-a-dozen Terra engineers, a business reporter from the Perth Times and a prominent scientific journalist named Charles Edwards, accompanied by a TV cameraman, both of whom were friends and occasional collaborators of Aaron Rose.

“If only our laser Slicer had existed in Ancient Egypt,” explained Amos Kahn with a timid smile, as if he were about to tell a huge lie, “they would have been able to cut their blocks for the pyramids in an industrial fashion. And if the Egyptians also had access to Jacob’s proposed technique of using residual seabed gas as a buoyancy agent, they would have been able to build huge rafts to carry their blocks along the Nile. But the Terra Corporation does not have any Ancient Egyptians as customers. No, the people for whom we are working are the citizens of Australia. Our rich land has vast mineral resources of many kinds, and Terra’s goal is to enable Australia to get at all this wealth.”

Amos Kahn was a little like the caricatural preacher who promises eternal heavenly rewards to those who have faith in his words. But the president of the Terra Corporation was not inventing far-fetched stories to captivate and maybe seduce an audience. He himself believed truly in what he was saying. It was now up to Jacob Rose to use down-to-earth language to demonstrate that all these claims were plausible, and indeed feasible: “The technological breakthroughs we’ve made in the creation of the Slicer tool are all of a common-sense kind. Besides, I’ve often wondered why nobody got around to doing this development work earlier on. Basically, there have been two major themes behind our innovations, one of which was purely conceptual, while the other involved lots of imaginative engineering. Let me start with the conceptual stuff. In the familiar iceberg metaphor, what 36

you see is relatively small compared with the mass hidden under the water. In the case of the Slicer technology, it’s exactly the opposite. An anti-iceberg, if you like. The major machinery, including the laser-beam generators and the computers that control everything, is located above ground—or above water, in certain environments—and perfectly visible. It’s rather voluminous, too, particularly if you include the equipment that generates the necessary electric energy to operate the Slicer at remote sites. The outcome of all this visible machinery is that a pair of high-energy laser beams are directed downwards in such a way that they interact at the precise spot where the actual cutting operation is performed, in a microscopic manner, like a surgeon’s scalpel.

Underground, the device that merges the interacting laser beams and does the cutting is very small, because it has to be able to advance physically along the locus of the ablation. That brings me to the second basic dimension of the Slicer project: the miniaturization challenge. We’ve nicknamed this tiny device, which tracks the interesting laser beams, the Mole.”

“If you don’t mind me asking an impertinent question, “ said the fellow from the Perth Times, who grinned wryly as if he were about to introduce a very nasty subject, “I’m intrigued to know what part of this sophisticated development work was actually carried out here at Terra.” In saying this, the journalist made a circular movement with his hand around the bare walls of the hangar, where the only visible machine was Jake’s helicopter.

Amos Kahn intervened, to tackle this question, which was not really impertinent at all.

“The truth of the matter is that Terra has not actually manufactured any of the devices employed in the Slicer project, let alone invented or even developed them. Our role is different. You might say, in rough terms, that Terra is in the earth-moving business. It might be closer to reality if I were to speak of the rockmoving business. In any case, we’re certainly not in the electronics business. So, we’re totally incapable of building machines that emit laser beams, just as we don’t have the industrial resources for putting together a device such as our Mole. But we’re in constant 37

contact with companies and engineers who do know how to build such things. Our people at Terra are aware of the kind of electronic equipment that is getting designed and built these days. We read the trade journals and the manufacturers’ catalogues. Finally, the role of somebody like Jake consists of working in a virtual world, using his computer to assemble various components in a black-box fashion, knowing only what kind of output will be produced by each component for particular kinds of input. Once he succeeds in designing a virtual device that appears to work ideally on the computer screen, in a simulated environment, he asks specialized manufacturers to build him a real-world prototype. And that’s how we acquire the new tools that we are testing.”

Discussions on various technical aspects of the Slicer continued for half an hour before they stopped for a coffee break. Jake then tackled the second big subject of the meeting: his doctoral research at Curtin concerning the use of RSG (residual seabed gas) to induce buoyancy in layers of mineral material.

“This entire project is based upon a simple observation that even a child can understand,” explained Jake. “If you’re faced with a heavy object, and you want it to float, the only solution is to make it lighter.” His audience laughed, a little nervously. Truisms of that kind, when expressed bluntly, tend to irritate people. One has the impression that the person who made such a statement might be making fun of his listeners, or manipulating them, putting them off their guard, preparing them for falsehoods. Jake carried on. “What I mean is that you have to extract various weighty parts of the thing in question, and replace them by some lightweight substance. We’re all familiar with the classic example of a metal drum, full of water, lying on the floor of the ocean. If you stick a hose into the drum and pump in air, pushing out the water, the drum will rise to the surface.” This was not the first time that this anecdote had been borrowed to demonstrate the nature of Jake’s project, and it would probably not be the last time either. Jake invited his director of research, Professor Stokes, to describe the circumstances in which he had welcomed this project in the geology department of Curtin University.

38

“People tend to think that the only valuable stuff you can take out of the Indian Ocean,” explained the geologist, “is petroleum and fish... and a few pearls, of course.” Once again, the audience snickered timidly. Maybe the speaker was about to evoke mermaids and chests of gold... “Well, if you scratch the seabed, you’ll see bubbles of gas escaping to the surface. And if your scratching operations are performed with powerful drills of the kind used in petroleum prospection, you’ll obtain huge volumes of gas... but not necessarily the kind of gas you can use for cooking.

We refer to it as RSG: residual seabed gas. And many prospectors and researchers have wondered whether this plentiful product might have some kind of market value. Well, maybe it does, but that would mean that we would need to collect it, analyze it and clean it up. Now, that is not the approach that Jacob Rose has envisaged in the context of his doctoral research project. He’s interested in RSG only insofar as it’s a gaseous substance: that’s to say, lightweight matter. And the challenge that concerns him is the possibility of injecting this gas, under pressure, into underwater solids, such as layers of rock, in order to reduce the average density of such matter. In other words, we’re imagining a situation in which the injected RSG would bring about the ejection of loose material such as sand and other kinds of rocky grit. Consequently, by replacing this ejected matter, the RSG would lower the global weight of the structure, thereby reducing its density and elevating, at least in theory, its buoyancy. The outcome might well be that the structure, if physically detached from the seabed, would float.”

Stokes’s enunciation of the situation was relatively clear and precise, and his prudent inclusion of the word ‘might’ underlined the fact that this remained an ongoing research project, which should not yet be thought of as an operational process. The journalist Charles Edwards thought it would be interesting to shift the discussion on to a purely scientific terrain: “When you evoke the notion of seabed gases entering a submerged solid such as a rock shelf, and augmenting its capacity to float, do you see that as an event that might have occurred naturally in the geological past, or is it necessarily a process that 39

could only be carried out artificially through human intervention?”

“That’s an extremely interesting question,” replied the professor, thrilled that the discussion might shift to speculative issues. “For the moment, I would prefer to adopt an attitude that might appear evasive, but I’m merely keen to avoid any kind of unfounded guesswork. At present, Jacob’s research is still at a purely experimental level, although it’s a fact that preliminary results obtained at the Solomon Testbed on Rottnest Island are extremely promising. So, let me frame my answer in the following roundabout way. I would claim that, if Jacob Rose finally succeeds in bringing about an operational demonstration of the feasibility of the process, in an environment that is necessarily artificial, and highly computer-assisted, then this would suggest retrospectively that events of that nature could have occurred naturally in the past.

But, up until such time that we have convincing experimental from prototypes, we should refrain from trying to imagine if and how Nature might have performed similar tricks. Am I clear?”

“Without getting involved in premature speculations,” pursued Edwards, “do you have in mind any real-world places in which explanations of this kind might be envisaged?”

“Well, yes, of course,” answered Stokes, “the concept of small floating islands would fill in countless gaps in current explanations of the spread of civilization across the great oceans of the globe, particularly in the Pacific. We know that peaks have emerged from the depths as a result of tectonic movements. It’s perfectly plausible that large chunks of matter could have become dissociated from the main crust, then the massive upsurging of volcanic gases, under enormous pressure, would have played rapidly the role that we are envisaging today, in our project, for RSG. Once islands started to form and float, they would have been pushed together by currents, and maybe even propelled over large distances through the actions of tsunamis. But, if the surface of these floating land masses was sufficiently large, and covered in biological material such as forests, any humans who happened to be aboard the island—as you might say—would not even realize that they were being transported from one spot on the ocean to 40

another. Then, one day, they would notice that they could wade through the water at certain places on their coastline, and they might suddenly discover themselves in contact with a new continent.”

✡ Aaron and his cousins drove north from Haifa to the ancient port of Akko, headquarters of Crusader knights and capital of the Latin kingdom of Palestine. The tourists travelled east to Safed, medieval source of Kabbalah mysticism, then south to the Sea of Galilee. They parked their van near the ancient synagogue at Capernaum and gazed out over the choppy waters upon which it was said that the prophet of Nazareth had once walked.

“I wonder if Jake is making progress on his project of making things rise to the surface of the waters,” mused Rachel, who had not been in contact with her cousin since the start of their travels in Israel.

They returned to the Mediterranean at Herod’s vast port of Caesarea, where Pontius Pilate had once resided. Then they drove south along the coast to Tel Aviv. After strolling for a day or so through the modern capital of the state of Israel, and basking in the sun on the beach just down from the tall buildings and busy streets, they set out towards Jerusalem, driving along the modern road that passes through the valley where Joshua once ordered the Sun to stand still.

If the highway was exciting, this is because the voyager is aware of the destination. There is little to see by the roadside apart from the burnt-out bodies of armored vehicles nestling as monuments, with descriptive labels, on rocky tree-covered slopes.

But a force on this path seems to be taking charge of the traveller and guiding the pilgrim towards the holy of holies. This is the moment, for the newcomer, at which Israel becomes far more than an abstract geographical concept. For Jews, Christians and Moslems, this is the biblical instant of homecoming, of entry into Elohim’s city bathed in the eternal blue light of the act that created 41

the Cosmos.

Aaron parked their van on the Mount of Olives, at a place bearing a sign: Moriah Observation Point. Gazing across at the golden spectacle of the Holy City, the Australians had the impression of entering a dreamworld dimension of existence.

Everything looked exactly as they had seen it in countless pictures, but they found it hard to convince themselves that this was the real scene. The Golden Gate was there, in the middle of the walls of Jerusalem. Further back, the copper-colored Dome of the Rock reflected its light in vain upon the black hood of El-Aksa. Still further back, the horizon was dominated by the blockhouse silhouette of the King David Hotel and the phallic tower of the YMCA. None of the dead in the Valley of Jehoshaphat appeared to have risen yet from their tombs, which confirmed that the Resurrection would still have to remain in its time-honored category of hypothetical future events. On the surface, everything seemed to be in order within this great sanctuary of perpetual disorder.

Leah had suggested, as they were approaching Jerusalem, that their encounter with this legendary site should be structured, meaning that they might try to avoid stereotyped tourist behavior.

She had studied the situation in guidebooks, and planned various significant operations. So, they did not dash to the Western Wall or the Dome of the Rock (there would be time for that later on), nor did they make their way to the Arab souk to bathe in Middle Eastern aromas and atmosphere. They did not even venture far inside the Old City. Instead, at the Jaffa Gate, they climbed stairs to the top of the wall and set out on a long stroll along the ramparts: some four kilometers. Walking along the top of these walls—higher in most places than the adjacent rooftops—was a good way to sense the layout of Jerusalem. The visitor sees the city from above. Strolling along the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem was a little like being flown around the shoreline of an island in a helicopter.

Towards the end of the afternoon, they found rooms in a charming little hotel in Keren Hayesod Street, with space in front 42

to park their van. When night fell, the walls of the Old City were illuminated by projectors, and the minarets and spires appeared to be on fire. Jerusalem glowed like a huge cake with candles.

Early the next morning, the trio walked to the Western Wall, where a dozen men in weird clothes were swaying forward and backward in prayer, as if their bodies were pulsating to the slow rhythms of inaudible music. Leah suggested a visit to the recentlyexcavated tunnels under the western edge of the Temple Mount.

They moved inside a vast vaulted room alongside the prayer plaza, containing a haphazard assortment of ugly furniture, where several men were studying religious books. A bearded fellow in Lubavitch attire rushed across to Aaron and asked him in American English if he wished to have the tefillin strapped to his arm and forehead for morning prayers. Aaron declined the proposal in an Aussie style: “No thanks, mate.”

“We’re standing beneath a great vault known as Wilson’s Arch, named after the 19th-century Englishman who explored it,” explained Leah, who gave the impression that she had visited this place many times, although she was merely preparing to recite information from the guide book that she had studied the previous evening. “One would imagine that this massive arch was a bridge enabling people to access the Temple Mount. In fact, the arch as we see it today is an Arab construction of the seventh-eighth century. The original arch supported the final section of an aqueduct that brought spring water from Bethlehem to the temple.”

They edged their way along the tunnel skirting Herod’s wall, which enabled them to admire a single stone that weighs some hundreds of tons. Leah pointed out that, at one point, the visitor can see that Herod no longer needed to carry on building a wall, because the bedrock rises to such a height that a northern hill could be integrated effortlessly into the Temple Mount.

“Jake would find this site fabulous,” exclaimed Rachel, who was often tempted spontaneously to look upon many places through the eyes of her cousin. “He would see it as an earthmoving museum. Maybe a laboratory.”

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“In the beginning, it may well have been Elohim’s laboratory,” mused Leah. “Many strange events took place here, even before the temple of Solomon arose. In a sense, this is center of the Earth of our ancestors. For the moment, we are crawling like moles under that center.”

Out in the open air, to the south of the Temple Mount, the Australians strolled through the Ophel excavations. They were intrigued above all by the numerous cisterns designed to hold water for the temple.

“People always speak of ritual baths,” said Aaron, “as if they cleansed themselves simply as part of an empty ceremony. But they surely had some basic necessity or purpose in mind, behind this constant obsession with purity. It would be crazy if future historians were to talk about our ‘ritual sunbathing’ on Perth beaches, as if surfing and all the other associated activities were simply mysterious elements of our religious life in Australia.”

“Well, they are. Aren’t they?” exclaimed Rachel with a laugh.

“I agree with Aaron that the silly word ‘ritual’ hides more than it reveals,” said Leah. “Bathing was transformed into a purely formal ritual when Christian started to baptize converts. But, for the people who came to the temple, the role of water must have had some profound sense. Christians would claim that they were washing their sins away, but that’s nonsense.”

The Australian tourists left the Old City, dodged between automobiles on the busy road, and strolled down through the site of the primordial Jerusalem of King David. They stopped to watch Arab children splashing in the Siloam Pool, which receives water from the nearby Gihon Spring that flows through a tunnel built by Hezekiah around 700 BC. “In ancient Jerusalem, the Gihon Spring in the City of David was the only supply of fresh water,” explained Leah. “which was a precious resource.” Knowing that both Rachel and Aaron were concerned by questions of this kind back in Australia, Leah decided to tell them the story of the construction of the tunnel, as she had read it the previous evening in her guidebook on Israel.

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Apparently, Hezekiah’s chief engineer had inscribed this story on the wall inside the tunnel. The gist of the tale was that tunneling had started simultaneously at both ends: that is, both at the Gihon Spring and at the place where the future Siloam Pool would be located. And the tunneling followed a curiously serpentine itinerary, instead of going in a straight line from the spring to the pool. According to the proud engineer, the two teams met up in the middle, pick against pick.

“Can you imagine what exactly enabled the tunnelers to meet up with such precision?” asked Leah. Members of the Rose and Kahn families liked technical puzzles of that kind. Jake, if he had been there with them at that moment, would have surely found several hypothetical explanations of this tunneling achievement.

Moreover, that was part of his job now at Terra.

“I suppose they drilled vertical holes to the surface,” suggested Aaron, “so that the progress of the two teams could be controlled.”

“No,” replied Leah. “Drills hadn’t been invented in 700 BC. Besides, they were tunneling under dozens of meters of solid rock.

The idea of constantly keeping in touch with the world above was out of the picture.”

“Did they use mathematics to calculate their positions?” asked Rachel.

“No, there weren’t any computers, either, in 700 BC. I forgot to point out that Hezekiah’s tunnel winds around underground over a distance of half a kilometer. Engineers at that time probably didn’t have surveying instruments and know enough mathematics to solve such a problem. It’s more difficult than piling up blocks to build a pyramid.” Leah decided to give them the solution to the enigma, which was in fact as simple as Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth of the Minotaur. “Nature had indicated the path to follow in the form of a trickle of water from the spring to the future pool.

The upper layers at this place are limestone, which can be slowly corroded in a microscopic fashion by surface water containing carbon dioxide. The infiltration of wetness remained at an almost horizontal level. It was prevented from descending deeper into the 45

hillside by its contact with the basic layer of hard dolomite, which is not attacked by water. So, the tunnelers at each end merely used this primordial trickle as a guide.”

“For pious observers, “ said Aron, “your explanations indicate that Yahveh helped Hezekiah’s engineers to supply water to the people of the Holy City.”

“If you speak of Nature instead of Yahveh,” concluded Rachel, “everybody would be in total agreement.”

✡ After leaving Jerusalem, they stopped at the Dead Sea and floated like awkward aquatic creatures for ten minutes or so (no longer than the time to be photographed), in constant fear of getting brine in their eyes.

Masada was a moving but troubling encounter. Leah was struck by the contrast between the majesty of Herod’s fortress and the grim circumstances of the collective suicide of the zealots when they learnt that their resistance to the Romans was doomed.

“I imagine a magnificent white stone palace under the dense blue sky, like the Acropolis in Athens,” she exclaimed, shading her eyes as she gazed out towards the Dead Sea. “People would come here to celebrate life, not to die.”

“Places are built for one purpose and then used for another,” stated Aaron. “For Jews, the symbol of Masada is the sword, not the ploughshare. The zealots thought they had God on their side, but they were the victims who ended up having to kill one another.

It was transformed into a death camp.”

“The site is fabulous,” concluded Rachel, “but the global message of this place is not clear in my mind.”

The Australians continued their route due south along the Aravah Highway to Eilat. Dismayed by the atmosphere of luxury hotels and tourist boutiques, which reminded them of the modern suburban environment of their home country, they stayed at the northern extremity of the Red Sea just long enough to dine in a 46

seafood restaurant. They then returned northwards, in the direction of Beer-Sheva. In the middle of the Negev, Aaron parked the van alongside the majestic Ramon crater.

“An Italian archeologist named Anati is convinced that the mountain on which Moses received the tablets of the law is located not far from here, inside the territory of Israel,” explained Leah.

“He points out that there have never been any serious reasons, other than traditional legends, for locating the holy mountain down in the south of the Sinai.”

They continued to the settlement of Sede Boqer, where David Ben-Gurion spent his final years. Before leaving Perth, Aaron Rose had made plans by telephone to meet up in this remote spot, on the edge of the Negev, with an old friend: an Australian named Martin Luria who worked as a research scientist at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute. And Aaron had phoned Martin from Jerusalem, to tell him they would soon be arriving in Sede Boqer.

As soon as the van drew up in front of the laboratory building, Martin Luria dashed out to meet his friends. He was a big sturdy man with thick black hair, and his sun-tanned face and arms confirmed that he spent a lot of time outdoors. Back in Perth, Martin had been a schoolmate of Jake and Aaron. As for his future wife, Sarah Stavros, she happened to be one of Rachel Kahn’s closest friends. Indeed, it was through the Rose/Kahn cousins that Martin and Sarah had been brought into contact. After completing a degree in agronomy, Martin had become involved in research aimed at improving the agricultural potential of low-quality sandy soils in Western Australia. Like Aaron Rose, Martin Luria was a keen supporter of the Green Republic Party, and he also participated frequently in Aaron’s multimedia activities. Although both Martin and Sarah were Jewish, they had never talked much about Israel. Like their Rose/Kahn friends, they did not appear to practice their religion in a profound fashion. So, it was a surprise for people in Perth when the newly-married Luria couple announced that they had decided to move to Israel. At the time, Aaron had considered this decision of Martin and Sarah as a whim, inspired by an irrational quest for their Jewish Mediterranean 47

roots. The Sephardi ancestors of Martin Luria came from the primordial ghetto in Venice, while those of Sarah Stavros had been traders attached to Salonika. Aaron and Rachel felt that the Lurias would soon be back in Australia, when the thrill of their irrational adventure subsided. But there were no signs that this was about to happen. On the contrary...

Martin took his visitors on a tour through the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute, whose vocation was research into so-called desert sciences. Several hundred Israeli and foreign researchers were working there in ecological fields such as water resource management, solar energy and desert biotechnologies. This high place of avant-garde science and technology in the middle of the Negev Desert was obsessed with the challenge of transforming the world’s drylands, in Israel and other parts of the planet, into Edenlike oases of milk and honey.

Informed by phone of the arrival of their friends, Martin’s wife Sarah arrived at the Desert Institute in her four-wheel-drive vehicle, accompanied by their young children, David and Lisa.

Sarah was a quietly-spoken woman with blue eyes, fair shoulderlength hair and the same Mediterranean facial features as her husband. Since settling in Israel, she had succeeded in transforming her former hobby, pottery, into a commercial activity, working from home and selling her production through a gallery in nearby Eilat.

Since it was midday, Martin and Sarah suggested that their visitors should drive behind them to their home in the hills, for an impromptu lunch. The Lurias resided some five kilometers from Sede Boqer in a modest dwelling on the bare rocky slopes that was obviously part of a housing project, since it was surrounded by dozens of other identical constructions. Compared with the luscious environment in which Martin and Sarah had lived back in Western Australia, over two years ago, this setting in the Negev was dull, if not oppressive. Slightly ill at ease in this drabness, as if they were visiting a military camp, Aaron and the Kahn girls mused that this regression was no doubt part of the price that had to be paid when people decide to return to the land that was given 48

to their ancestors by Yavheh.

“Inevitably, behind many arrivals in Israel, there are phantasms, which often turn out to be illusions,” explained Martin. “The idea of settling in the Holy Land starts out as an abstract notion of a romantic kind, like being invited to live in a castle that you’ve heard of in a fairy tale. I imagined places such as Jerusalem and Masada in a mythical fashion. Qumran and the Dead Sea, too. But it took no more than a day or so, following our arrival in Sede Boqer, for the realities to come to the surface.”

“Are you saying that you’ve been disappointed by Israel?” asked Aaron.

“No, ‘disappointed’ is not the right word,” replied Sarah. “If Martin or I had been disappointed with Israel, we would have simply returned to Australia, and written off our experience here as a kind of extended holiday, full of surprises of both a negative and a positive kind. It would be far more exact to say that almost nothing here corresponds to what we imagined beforehand.”

“It’s not as if we were naive or misinformed,” added Martin, “We had traveled extensively throughout Israel before starting to think about making our aliyah, as they say: our ‘ascent’ into Israel.

We seriously imagined we had sound reasons for leaving Australia and settling down here, but we simply ignored many of the anguishing and demoralizing aspects of life in Israel. On the other hand, the many profound and positive reasons why we now intend to carry on living here have little in common with the motivations that brought us to Israel two years ago.”

“That sounds complicated,” said Leah. “Give us the bad news, first. Then you can get around to the positive stuff.”

“The bad news, of course, is the suicide bombers,” replied Martin. “You end up reluctant to turn on the radio or television, because you’re expecting to hear yet another ghastly story of smoking vehicles and pieces of human bodies strewn across the streets. It’s a relatively small land—compared to Australia, say— and we would be delighted to jump into our Toyota with the kids and wander off to visit wonderful places such as the Sea of 49

Galilee, or legendary West Bank sites such as Jericho. You know how Australians are crazy about simple joys such as camping out in the bush. Or showing the kids how to catch fish in a quiet stream. Or riding bikes along tracks out in the country. Or lying in the sun on a sandy beach. Well, none of those simple joys have survived in Israel. We live perpetually in a state of apprehension.”

“A dismal aspect of life in Israel today,” explained Sarah, “is the global amalgam of the memory of the Shoah, the constant bloodshed of the Intifada and retrograde Judaism of a fanatical variety, with no workable solutions to achieve peace. We seem to be existing permanently in a no man’s land between the countless Jews who were massacred in the past, and those who are about to be assassinated tomorrow. We don’t know where we’re heading.

Meanwhile, we’re surviving in a climate of constant hatred.”

“When we were strolling around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem a few months ago,” said Martin, “an old Palestinian overheard us talking in English, and he asked us where we came from. When we said Australia, he blew into a rage about an Australian tourist who apparently set fire to the al-Aqsa mosque back in the same year that Armstrong walked on the Moon. Today, in Israel, we’re all living alongside a gigantic powder keg labeled Religion. Who’s going to light the match? A suicidal Arab from Gaza? A fanatical Jew from Mea Shearim? A crazy Christian from Australia?”

“But, in spite of these negative themes, you intend to remain in Israel,” said Leah, who was troubled by the largely pessimistic tone of the conversation. “You’re not masochists. Still, you’re not yet back alongside us in Perth. And you don’t appear to have any immediate plans for abandoning Israel.”

“You’ve just pronounced the key verb that indicates why we’re staying here,” replied Sarah. “We refuse to abandon Israel to obscure inhuman forces. We Jews are all children of Israel, which has provided us with our ancestral culture and our character. But Israel is also our child, and we have the responsibility of caring for our precious offspring.”

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“The positive aspect of our life in Israel is that we have something to fight for,” explained Martin, “and we know perfectly well what it is that we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for the survival of the ancient culture that has made us what we are. We’re fighting to protect our human and philosophical heritage.”

“How do you react to the idea that Israelis might be fighting, above all, to protect an antiquated religion?” asked Aaron.

“Shouldn’t there be a more intense effort , on the part of modern Israelis, to make it clear that the issues at stake today are political and social, in the noblest sense of these terms, and not merely a question of old religious beliefs and traditions?”

“When the Jews of the Diaspora were without a nation, a homeland,” said Sarah, “they were like a people who wished to cross the seas of the future, but had no vessel. Now that the nation exists, if the Jewish religion were to disappear, it would be a ship without sails, without sailors.”

“Judaism is our horizon,” added Martin. “Our stars in the dark night.”

✡ During the return trip up to Jerusalem, Aaron, Leah and Rachel talked a lot about their encounter with their Luria friends. It had been an intriguing experience to rediscover two old friends transposed into a vastly different setting, particularly when this setting was as stark as Sede Boqer. The first question that arose was: Did the Lurias make a good decision in moving to Israel? It was hardly correct, of course, to attempt to answer such a complex question, for a valid answer could come only from Martin and Sarah themselves. But Aaron, Leah and Rachel were convinced, without being able to render their arguments explicit, that the Lurias had taken a gigantic step in what was assuredly the right direction. In the humdrum setting of Perth, which often encourages people to sleep in the sun, Martin and Sarah had made the courageous decision to move to a hostile environment, which happened to be the land of their forefathers. And they did so 51

because they considered that Jews such as themselves had the responsibility of protecting their heritage, and participating actively in its evolution. Above all, Martin and Sarah seemed to have made their decision because they had something to give to Israel (through their professional talents), rather than moving there because they wished to receive something. It was nevertheless obvious that the Lurias had received some kind of subtle ‘message’ from the modern nation of Israel, which had established a permanent alliance between them and their adopted homeland.

A second question emerged inevitably: Should other young Australian Jews envisage the same kind of decision as Martin and Sarah? More precisely, would it be feasible for members of the new Rose/Kahn generation to think about living in Israel? Insofar as the parents of Aaron, Leah and Rachel were solidly entrenched in the Australian way of life, and immensely proud of their attachments to this land, and accustomed to its lifestyle, the idea of packing one’s bags and moving to Israel did not appear to be realistic. But each of the three travelers, whose grandparents had once survived by fleeing to the Antipodes, had been touched by this vague interrogation: Is it feasible that we might seek our roots (lost, momentarily, in Antwerp) in the Hebrew nation?

It was well that such questions might be asked, albeit rhetorically, but there was no urgency for replies.

✡ Aaron Rose was by no means a young Christian male. Leah and Rachel, even less so. Still, they found it convenient to book into the famous YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), which the citizens of Jerusalem pronounce quaintly as ‘imka’, like the name of a pagan goddess. It was a good address for several reasons. First, the hostel had a fine reputation for the quality of its accommodation. Second, it was an ideal location, within walking distance of the Old City, and they could park the van in the grounds in front of the hostel. Third, above all, the three JewishAustralian voyagers were still a little numbed—in a positive but 52

demanding sense—by their recent close contact with the profound aliyah theme, concretized by the case of Martin and Sarah Luria at Sede Boqer. So, they found it refreshing, during their final days of sightseeing in Jerusalem, to be lodged in an ecumenical environment, where people spoke a most ecumenical language: English.

After a serve-yourself breakfast in the company of blonde Swedes and dark Italians, the Australians wandered through the neighborhood associated with the English philanthropist Moses Montefiore, whose windmill remains as a symbol of 19th-century Jewish colonialism on the outskirts of the Holy City. In the charming Yemin Moshe quarter, at 23 Malki Street, a delightful stone house bore a sign For Sale.

“We could buy this place,” said Rachel, spontaneously, halfseriously, without bothering to think about the likely price of such a tiny Jerusalem real-estate gem, with a direct view onto the Suleiman walls of the Holy City. “If we had a tiny house here in Jerusalem, we could live here from time to time, and we might even end up belonging to the Holy Land.”

✡ The Australians decided to spend the morning at Bethlehem, ten kilometers to the south of Jerusalem. They strolled through the empty streets, deserted by tourists since the start of the troubles between Israelis and Palestinians, and visited the Basilica of the Nativity, with its famous low portal designed to prevent mounted Saracens from riding their horses into the sanctuary. They then sat down at a pavement table in front of a tourist giftshop for black cardamon-flavored coffee.

“We’re sitting at the geographical junction between the Torah and Christianity,” remarked Leah, referring to Bethlehem’s role as the alleged birthplace of both David and Jesus. “Today, it looks like a small modern Arab city.” At that moment, a group of young English-speaking nuns in traditional garments, probably North 53

Americans, walked alongside their table. “When people talk about the three monotheistic religions of the Holy Land, this is where the primitive melting-pot was located.”

“The coffee-pot,” said Rachel jokingly, raising her tiny cup as if she were making a toast. Curiously, Bethlehem was not a site that inspired awe of the intensity that pilgrims of all faiths experienced in Jerusalem.

On the return journey, Aaron stopped their van by the roadside to visit a small white sanctuary that is greatly revered by Jews and Moslems: the tomb of Rachel. An old Palestinian man, seated in the sun, stood up and beckoned to the visitors as they got out of their van. He concluded immediately that they were citizens of a distant land, maybe in the New World.

“You have come from far away to pay your respects to Our Mother,” he said in faultless English, with an unmistakable American accent. He had probably worked with US firms in the Middle East. “It is good that pilgrims stop here when visiting Bethlehem. If you are Catholics, you worship the Virgin who gave birth to Jesus in the same village where King David was born. But Rachel was the most glorious mother of all of us, including David and Jesus.”

“We are Jews,” replied Rachel in a quiet voice, while shaking hands with the old Palestinian, who wore a checkered kaffiyeh of the kind made famous by Yasser Arafat. “My name is Rachel.” The old man stepped back in surprise and bowed low, with his hands clasped before his face in a gesture of prayer, as if he were in the presence of a reincarnation of Jacob’s preferred cousin. Maybe he was. Stranger events than that had taken place in this legendary land that seemed to concentrate tellurian forces from all over the planet.

“Lady,” he replied solemnly, still bowed as if he did not dare to look at Rachel’s face, and using a title that was addressed to Rachel Kahn for the first time in her life, “you must be a very special person to carry such a name. Please follow me to pray together alongside the tomb of your ancestor.” The actions that 54

followed, lasting no more than a few minutes, unrolled in a surrealist fashion. Aaron and Leah were impressed, as if they were watching the blurred images of an archaic silent movie. Without a word, Rachel and the old Arab glided forward, arm in arm, until their noses were almost touching the alleged sarcophagus of the Matriarch. They remained there motionless and in silence for long moments, probably praying. Then the old man led Rachel away from the tomb, and invited her to sit down with him on the pebblestrewn ground alongside the domed sanctuary. Aaron and Leah did likewise.

“My name is Mahomet, like that of the Prophet,” he declared, with a regard of sadness, maybe despair, in his eyes. “I am an old Palestinian, born in Bethlehem. When I was young, working on the pipelines in Kuwait, people listened to me, because I was a big boss, but my words were silly orders to slaves, like your ancestors in Egypt under the pharaohs. Today I still talk but nobody listens, because they think I have nothing to say.”

“I am listening, Mahomet,” said Rachel quietly, as if she were a pupil.

“Our big family has been divided by strife and hatred for too long,” said the old man from Bethlehem. “We say we all worship the same god, but we cannot even agree on his name. For the Jews, he is Elohim, and sometimes Yahveh, but they do not like to use his name at all, so they call him Adonai. For the Christians, it is more complicated still, because they have replaced him by the Trinity, which is a notion that nobody can understand. Then they have split up into the Roman and the Orthodox churches, and later into Catholics and Protestants. For the Moslems, our god is named Allah, but the other faiths are not interested in the words of our Prophet.”

“The problems are historical and political, rather than religious,” suggested Aaron, who found it strange to be drawn into this impromptu discussion, seated on the hard earth alongside the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. “Maybe the term ‘monotheism’ is misleading, and should be abandoned, because 55

things seem to have reached a stage at which the gods are in open conflict. In the space of a decade or so, we’ve moved from stonethrowing to suicide-bombers. Maybe the Holy Land is reverting to paganism. No?” “You are right,” said Mahomet, wiping his sad eyes with a corner of his kaffiyeh. “The great experiment seems to have gone wrong.”

“What experiment are you talking of?” asked Leah. “The idea of Jews and Palestinians living together in peaceful coexistence?”

“No. The adventure of modern Israel is another tiny episode in the long history of our family,” replied the old Palestinian. “The great experiment started long ago, when the Elohim ruffled the surface of the waters, in the dreamworld time. Mysterious angels from faraway places, which we can never know, descended upon the Earth. Some of them were giants, called Nephilim. They came in strange space-vessels, described by Ezekiel. They tried to explain their great experiment to Abraham, and later to Moses, and they asked the patriarchs to collaborate with them. But it was hard for the Elohim to talk to earthlings, for they are superior beings in the universe, and we are like stupid sheep. Sometimes, the Elohim selected a lovely person like Rachel to guide the sheep. Later, they chose Jesus. Then our Prophet. But today, maybe the Elohim have lost patience with us. Maybe we are abandoned.”

“How can we know whether or not the Elohim have abandoned us forever?” asked Rachel, troubled by these unexpected words from a wise man. “Can we imagine some kind of sign, of either a positive or a negative kind?”

“Yes, dear Rachel, there will be signs, of course,” replied Mahomet. “There have always been signs. This time, they will be amazing signs. Gigantic events. They will arrive before your eyes when you are least expecting them, and you may not even notice them in the beginning, for these signs will come from within you.

But first, you must go immediately as a pilgrim to Hebron, and pray upon the tomb of Jacob.”

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✡ Hebron. The atmosphere was tense. Visitors such as Aaron and his cousins were regarded with suspicion, because the local people could not be sure what these foreigners were doing here in Hebron.

Were they really simple tourists, visiting the shrine of the Patriarchs? Or might they be emissaries from Jerusalem or maybe even Washington, on a mission of investigation, poking their selfrighteous noses into this West-Bank hotbed?

The gigantic Herodian walls surrounding the site made it look more like a citadel than a cemetry. In fact, ancient Hebron was both. Legends said that Adam himself, the first human, was born here. And this was the place where the world’s first financial transaction was enacted, by the patriarch of the Jews. The nomad Abraham, from a faraway land, signed a contract with the local people, and paid them a certain amount of money, to purchase a cave named Machpelah where he could bury decently his deceased wife Sarah.

Signboards around the site suggested that non-Moslem visitors were not welcome except on specific Jewish feast-days. So, the Australians decided that there was no point in pursuing their vague aim of praying upon the tombs of the Patriarchs. As in Bethlehem, they decided in favor of cardamon coffee at a sidewalk café. Then they returned to their van and departed from Hebron in the direction of Jerusalem.

When the stone hit the rear window of the vehicle with a loud crash, Aaron’s first thought was that he had collided with an obstacle, and he started to pull over to the edge of the road. Leah realized instantly what had happened, and she screamed out to Aaron to carry on driving, while she gazed with anxiety upon the bleeding face of Rachel, slumped unconsciously on the seat alongside her, surrounded by fragments of broken glass. Aaron started to blow the horn violently to let other drivers know that something was wrong. He slammed on the brakes to stop the van alongside an Israeli patrol vehicle parked at an intersection, 57

manned by Tsahal personnel, who understood immediately that the tourists had been hit by a stone, and that a passenger had received a nasty head wound.

Within five minutes, a military helicopter descended magically at the crossroads, which was ablaze with flashing red and blue lights. If the wise man from Bethlehem had witnessed the scene, he would have imagined the arrival of Ezekiel’s space vehicle.

Rachel, now conscious, but in a state of shock, was placed on a stretcher and lifted into the aircraft, which departed immediately.

A smiling Israeli soldier took the wheel of the camping-car, while Aaron and Leah were ushered into a military Jeep. With sirens blaring, the convoy set off at breakneck speed in the direction of Jerusalem. Within an hour, they arrived at the huge Hadassah hospital, to the west of Jerusalem, a couple of kilometers beyond Yad Vashem.

A smiling Rachel, with a bulky bandage over her left ear, was sitting up in bed, sipping coffee, and chatting in a friendly manner with two young Israeli women in uniform: one a soldier, and the other a police officer. A doctor in a green smock welcomed Aaron and Leah, and informed them that Rachel’s head wound, in spite of its stunning effect, was superficial. It was decided that she should remain under supervision at the hospital for twenty-four hours. The police officer, who introduced herself to Leah and Aaron as Anne, offered to escort them to a garage where the rear window of their vehicle would be replaced. One had the strange impression that the state of Israel was geared, in a friendly and efficient style, to assisting visitors who happened to receive an Intifada stone in their rear window.

“Phone Jake to let him know what has happened,” said Rachel.

“Tell our parents that all is well, and that we are making great discoveries in Israel.” Rachel hesitated for a moment before adding: “While I was waiting for you, I’ve been thinking that we should take a look at that house in Malki Street.”

The next afternoon, Rachel booked out of Hadassah. The police officer Anne was waiting for the three Australians at the reception 58

desk of the hospital. She was dressed in civilian clothes—a redstriped T-shirt, blue jeans and pink canvas espadrilles—which made her look like a carefree student rather than a guardian of law and order in the Holy Land.

“When I woke up this morning,” she explained, “I was thinking that it’s a pity that innocent visitors such as yourselves, from the other side of the planet, should be caught up physically in our squabbles.” She spoke English with what sounded like a French accent. (Later on, they would learn that Anne was in fact a native of Belgium.) “I’m not on duty this afternoon. So, I decided to come up here to see you before you left. Before leaving Hadassah, you might like to take a look at the Chagall Windows.” Anne led them out of the hospital hall and across to a curious flat building— a synagogue—whose concrete walls were a geometrical matrix of identical wedge-shaped openings, allowing the light to enter.

Inside, twelve huge stained-glass windows—a blaze of red, blue, green and yellow—represented the tribes of Israel. In the didactic style of an expert tourist guide, Anne explained the theme of each window.

“How does an Israeli police officer get around to an in-depth understanding of biblical art?” asked Aaron, who was visibly impressed by Anne’s skills.

“These works are more than an artistic representation of tales from the Torah, “ explained Anne, momentarily side-stepping Aaron’s question. “The great hospital is a place of pain and suffering. Death, too. But above all, it’s a place of healing and care. There’s also a maternity ward here. So, it’s a place that reflects our daily challenges in contexts of joy as well as adversity.

Marc Chagall’s images are an expression of our Jewish roots.

Inside the hospital, they symbolize our struggle to survive as a people, as a nation, as a culture.” Anne halted for a moment, and gazed silently at the golden window of the tribe of Levi, with exotic animals floating in the air around a multi-colored star of David above the tablets of Moses while awaiting their turn to be sacrificed on the altar of Yahveh. The young woman appeared to be in a state of meditation. “Back in Brussels, five years ago, 59

before my parents decided to move to Israel, I completed a degree in law. Since settling down here, and learning Hebrew, I have started studies in Israeli law at the Hebrew University, and I hope to work as a barrister one day. Meanwhile, I’ve been engaged in the police force as an alternative to doing military service in Tsahal. The police work corresponds more closely to my legal vocation.”

“And which of the twelve tribes do you belong to?” asked Leah.

“My name is Anne Levi. There are countless families of that name in Israel and throughout the Diaspora today. But, ever since my first view of Chagall’s golden window, I have imagined it as the heart of my personal Jerusalem.”

Rachel suggested that, if Anne were free, she might accompany them back to the Yemin Moshe neighborhood to see if the house was still for sale. Half an hour later, the foursome were strolling along Malki Street, bathed in late afternoon sunshine. The For Sale sign was still in place. Anne knocked on the door of an adjacent house. She showed her police identity card to the occupants: an elderly couple of retired Canadians, who were able to provide information in English. It appeared that the property belonged to a London businessman, who had once imagined vaguely that he might reside here with his small family. But their first experience of living in Jerusalem was negative, in that they yearned for the familiar cosy ambiance of Mayfair, where they lived in a luxurious apartment, surrounded by friends. So, the owner had decided that there was little point in keeping the house in Jerusalem, but he felt a pang of guilt in abandoning so rapidly his dream of settling in the Holy Land, and had not yet adopted a dynamic approach to selling his property. The Canadians said that the best idea would consist of contacting directly the owner in London, and they gave the Australians a name and a London phone number. They were also able to give the visitors a reasonably precise idea of the price in Israeli shekels. Anne explained that this was quite a big sum in Israeli terms, but hardly surprising in view of the extraordinary location of Yemin Moshe, just below the walls of the Old City.

Converted into Australian dollars, the price did not appear to be 60

outlandish when compared with the inflated property values of Perth. The façade of the house that gave out on to Malki Street was an elegant composition of blocks of white Jerusalem stone, with a large bay window and a narrow balcony at the upper level. The Canadians explained that the house, like theirs, had a big living room on the ground floor and three bedrooms on the upper floor.

Behind the house, there was a small walled-in garden.

“We must look into this affair,” concluded Rachel. “I’m convinced that an investment in a property like this would correspond to the wishes of our grandparents. Boeings have made the world a small place. It would be no more difficult to spend time here than to fly across Australia.”

“It’s a project that would depend a lot on the attitude of your parents,” added Aaron, “and mine too. Would they be enthusiastic about the idea of owning a pied-à-terre in the Holy Land?”

“We could probably persuade them to become enthusiastic about such a crazy scheme,” said Leah, laughingly. “Then there’s the interesting question of what we might actually do with ourselves in Israel, if we could in fact set up a home base here.

Would it be feasible to imagine professional activities here, which might justify such a project? Personally, I have several ideas of that kind. But everybody in the family needs to think about such things.”

Once again, it was clear that the cousins acted spontaneously in what might be termed a family-oriented fashion. They were members of the same crew, aboard a single boat, which needed to be sailed expertly in the right direction.

Aaron invited Anne Levi to join them for dinner in a restaurant.

They walked through Independence Park in the warm evening air, up to Ben Yehuda Mall, and sat down at a sidewalk table outside a pizzeria.

“For the last couple of hours,” observed Anne, “I’ve had the impression that maybe I’m a witness to a momentous decision in your lives. Do you truly imagine that you might decide to buy a property here and establish a permanent link with Jerusalem?”

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Curiously, although he was in no way the instigator of the Malki Street idea, it was Aaron who answered: “Why not? We are well entrenched in the community of Perth, and happy to have been brought up in a fine place such as Western Australian. But that doesn’t prevent us from thinking about evolving in a broader context. Our homeplace in Perth is so geographically isolated from the rest of the world that there’s no great difference, travel-wise, between looking at Indonesia or India, say, and thinking about Israel. The big difference, though, is that we do appear to have inherited a very real thing that might be referred to as Jewish culture. I often feel that we inherited it without actually being aware that anything of that kind was happening, because we were never educated in a strict religious sense. But the simple experience of spending s hort time here in Israel brings all that stuff to the surface, where it becomes explicit.

And we suddenly realize with force that we are Jewish. It’s rather weird. I’m not even sure that my explanations are meaningful.”

“You don’t have to explain anything, or make excuses,” said Anne, with a tender smile in the direction of Aaron. “That’s exactly what happened to my parents, and then to me too. Our Jewishness is a seed that remains dormant inside us, maybe for several generations in the Diaspora. Then, one day, you happen to set foot on the earth of the Patriarchs, and this contact awakens the seed, like a mysterious catalyst, and causes it to emerge and grow into a plant, a flower, a tree.”

“Anne, maybe my question is stupid, but what does it mean to you to find yourself living in Israel today?” asked Rachel. “Is it a purely romantic notion? Or a daring challenge? Or an outcome of fate? Or does it make sense at a down-to-earth level?”

“Well, it did in fact start out for me as a rather romantic idea,” replied Anne. “You know, the kibbutzim folklore, and all that stuff.

Visions of sturdy pioneers growing fruit in the deserts, brave soldiers defending us from our enemies, and the Creator himself looking down upon his chosen people with a fatherly smile, and making sure that everything would work out well. I even came 62

here with a Belgian boyfriend, who was no less enthusiastic than I was. He was far more romantic than me, because he even developed a typical ‘born again’ attitude towards religion, and started to behave as a devout Jew... which shocked me, to put it bluntly, because I felt he was losing touch with reality. And he seemed to be forgetting that our major challenge here is learning how to deal, not with the Creator, but with our Arab neighbors.”

“How do you see the global situation these days?” asked Leah.

“Is there any kind of hopeful solution on the horizon?”

“There are two ways of looking at Israel,” explained Anne, “although only the second way is valid. The first way consists of imagining our nation and our people as if they were a big cocoon, separated from the rest of the universe. From that purely virtual viewpoint, there’s no doubt that Israel is indeed the greatest entity that has ever existed on the surface of the planet. After all, we wrote the Bible. Didn’t we? We have God on our side. Don’t we?

Seriously, from an isolated cocoon point of view, we are truly an interesting society, with a profound culture and great hopes for the future. But the problem is that we are surrounded by neighbors who hate us, for historical reasons, or maybe for no reason at all. If only the state of Israel could be magically transported to some other spot on the globe, where we would have nice neighbors, this would be an earthly paradise.”

“What does your boyfriend do?” enquired Aaron, who did not appear to realize that he might have been asking an impertinent question.

“He couldn’t keep up the moral pressure, particularly when he started to see many of our friends getting wiped out in military operations. He ended up having a nervous breakdown, and promptly decided to return to Brussels. So, he disappeared from my life, a year ago, just as suddenly as if he had been killed by a sniper.”

“But you’ve decided to carry on here?” asked Aaron, who seemed to have developed a sudden interest in Anne’s personal life. Rachel glanced at Leah with a smile of sisterly complicity.

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They sensed that their cousin was attracted to this new friend.

“Of course. I’m far too involved now, both emotionally and intellectually, to ever think about abandoning the Holy Land.

Besides, my mother and father have settled in Israel. So, I’m here for good, for the better or for the worse.” Anne laughed like a carefree schoolgirl, and started to recite the celebrated pledge of Psalm 137:5. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!” Having said this, she clapped joyfully her outstretched right palm against the hand of Aaron, like a ball-game player after a happy strike.

Much later, Aaron Rose liked to tell people that it was at that precise instant in Jerusalem, within the half-second space of an unexpected hand-to-hand contact, that he became suddenly and permanently enchanted by a lovely Israeli police officer named Anne Levi.

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3 Ascension The research projects of Jacob Rose had advanced to the stage at which a practical trial was feasible, and it was decided that the wreck of the Gypsy off Rottnest Island would be an ideal target for such an experiment. The choice of this site was not surprising, since Jake’s primordial visions of his future research had arisen here, on a sunny picnic afternoon, in the company of Aaron, Leah and Rachel. At that time, he had likened the challenge of raising a wreck such as the Gypsy to taking up a slice of apple pie on a trowel. Since then, the metaphors had been replaced, first by computer simulations, then by experimental technology. Many prototype devices had been brought over from the mainland to the Solomon Testbed on the southern shoreline of the island, where they had been subjected to exhaustive tests, and it had been a simple matter to move this equipment, little by little, to the Gypsy wreck, on the north-western edge of Rottnest, for the first major trial. Meanwhile, the Rottnest Island Board had authorized Curtin University to install a security fence around the entire zone, to keep out intruders. This barrier, erected by the Terra Corporation, extended into the shallow water beyond the actual wreck.

Furthermore, three caretakers had been hired to look after the site on a full-time basis, around the clock, seven days a week. They resided in a comfortable mobile home erected on the beach, alongside a big hangar that housed computers and the machinery.

As for Jake, he had living quarters and an office at one end of this hangar, and he now spent most of his time here.

For the forthcoming trial, Jake’s technological toolkit comprised two quite different but complementary devices, both of which could now be thought of as operational, even though they 65

had never yet been used conjointly on a large-scale application. On the one hand, there was the laser-based Slicer system, designed to cut through subterranean rock according to a precise program which guided in real time the tiny mobile scalpel, referred to as the Mole, through a remote communications link. On the other hand, there was the considerably more complex system that consisted of injecting RSG (residual seabed gas) into subaquatic masses in order to augment their buoyancy. The two processes were intended to function as a tandem: the Slicer would liberate rocks by cutting all around them, as if they were future construction stones in a conventional quarry, while the RSG system would then cause the blocks to rise from the seabed and float like cumbersome rafts on the surface of the water.

âœĄ When Leah, Rachel and Aaron returned to Western Australia after their time in Europe and Israel, many major decisions were made within the Rose and Kahn families. This happened spontaneously, to a certain extent, but these decisions had been shaped by circumstances of two different but complementary kinds: first, the evolution of Jake’s research; and second, the experiences of Aaron and the Kahn cousins during their voyage.

Moreover, these changes in family affairs could be looked upon as a natural evolution that was encouraged wholeheartedly by the parents: Nahum Rose and Rebecca, and Amos Kahn and Miryam.

Finally, in all cases where evolutions concerned directly the Terra Corporation, they appeared to be approved and indeed encouraged by the individuals who were already engaged professionally in that context. So, it could be said that the global situation of the Rose and Kahn families was moving forward, like the Cosmos of Yahveh, in a positive sense. The affairs of the families were becoming more complex.

Three basic forces played a role in motivating the changes.

First, there was the undeniable observation that Jake’s research was, not only promising, but possibly revolutionary, and that the 66

possible consequences and ramifications of this work needed to be managed with foresight. Second, it was becoming clearer and clearer that Terra could and should devote more efforts and imagination to the challenge of finding both water and new sources of energy. To a certain extent, this observation was complementary to Jake’s research. In everyday language, it might be said that the two challenges ‘went together’, since Jake’s process was dependent upon a massive supply of energy, and this technology could well be applied in remote regions where considerable quantities of fresh water would be needed. Last but not least, a major upheaval in the future-oriented thinking of the Rose and Kahn families was brought about by their decision to purchase jointly the house in Jerusalem, enabling members of the families to become involved (in ways that they had not yet clarified) in the existence and challenges of their legendary tribal motherland. In this general domain, the links between Aaron Rose and the Israeli police officer named Anne Levi appeared to be evolving rapidly and profoundly, as a consequence of the exchange of countless phone calls and letters. A pleasant corollary of this blossoming relationship was Aaron’s decision to put Anne in contact with Martin and Sarah Luria down in Sede Boqer. Anne drove down to their place for a two-day hiking excursion into the Negev. That was the official pretext for the encounter but, in fact, Anne was keen on acquiring inside information from friends, as it were, concerning the charming Australian man who had fallen unexpectedly into her life as an indirect consequence of a stone thrown by a child in Hebron. And Sarah and Martin were no less curious to meet up with this young fellow-Israeli from Belgium who had succeeded in winning instantaneously the heart of their bachelor friend from the Antipodes.

Within the Terra Corporation, Jake was joined at one fell swoop, not only by his brother, but by their cousins Leah and Rachel too. It goes without saying that, in the case of such independently-minded individuals, these appointments had nothing to do with any kind of disguised nepotism on the part of Amos Kahn and Nahum Rose. Each new job corresponded to a function 67

that needed to be fulfilled urgently, associated with an application of the principle of the ‘right man (or woman) in the right place’.

In the new structure, Aaron Rose was appointed as the marketing manager of the Terra Corporation, which was a post that had never existed up until then, for the simple reason that the company had always been contacted by its future clients, and did not have to go out prospecting for business. With the promise of the revolutionary technology being developed by Jake, this situation could change radically, and the company had every reason to adjust itself to new situations of this nature. Besides, the development work itself necessitated contacts with industrial partners of many kinds, and it was decided that Aaron would be the ideal individual to handle all this work. In the context of the forthcoming Gypsy operation, even though it was simply a trial, Aaron was faced with the challenge of explaining clearly to the media and other interested observers exactly what was taking place, and for what reasons, with what goals in mind.

In the professional zone around and between Jake and Aaron, there was room for an individual who would handle communications, maybe with organizations and enterprises outside Australia (in Israel, for example). It was decided that Leah Kahn would be an expert in this role, not only through her language skills, but because she had a personality that inspired confidence, enhanced by refined feminine charm that might be termed sophistication.

The youngest member of the family, Rachel Kahn, received what might be thought of as the biggest job of all. She was named manager of a new division of Terra, to be called Aqua faced with the exciting challenge of developing patents (acquired several years ago by her father) concerning the use of solar energy to process seawater by means of genetically-modified seaweeds.

These changes within the family business were not, of course, made in a casual fashion. Often, large investments were at stake, not to mention the careers and job security of many employees. So, each evolving situation was scrutinized at length by Amos Kahn 68

and Nahum Rose before decisions were made. They were assisted in this activity by a key personality at Terra: the director of finance, Patrick Grady. Within a company whose founders were Jewish, the presence of this brilliant young economist of Irish Catholic origins might have surprised certain observers. In reality, as friends of the family knew, Patrick Grady’s role at Terra was in perfect harmony with the broad-minded worldly wisdom of Nahum and Amos, which reflected in turn the fundamental charity that characterized the patriarchs, Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn. It was charity of a profound Jewish kind, based upon the principle of loving one’s neighbor and respecting his right to partake of the joys of Yahveh’s magnificent Cosmos, in which there should be no place for pettiness and bigotry, let alone hatred.

Patrick Grady had grown up in the mining town of Kalgoorlie, where his Tipperary ancestors had been gold-miners, before turning to the more lucrative business of banking. An interest in finance continued to exist among the male descendants of the family, as if it were an inherited trait. In fact, what was actually inherited by the Grady boys was a suitcase full of mysterious pieces of paper known as mining shares. It was decided that the eldest son, before starting to work in the Kalgoorlie bank, like his departed grandfather and his father, would spend some time at the university in Perth in order to learn what to do with the suitcase full of paper. This was an excellent initiative on the part of the father, who had a solid experience in opening savings-back accounts and organizing sales of land and beasts around Kalgoorlie, but did not really know anything about the stock market. In this way, Charles Grady (Patrick’s father) learned how to make his shares multiply, and he became one of the richest citizens of Kalgoorlie, and a pillar of the Roman Catholic church in Perth. Patrick followed in his father’s footsteps by studying investment banking, first at the Curtin Business School in Perth and later at Harvard. When he returned to Western Australia, Patrick looked around for a challenging job in a dynamic and promising company in the mining domain, and that is how he became the chief financial officer of Terra. Patrick maintained the 69

strong Catholic traditions of his ancestors, attending mass at Perth Cathedral every Sunday morning. The question of religion often arose in his conversations with Amos Kahn. Basically, Patrick had a profound respect for Judaism, which he imagined as an ancestral and almost complementary form of Christianity. Just as you might become wealthy and Catholic if you were born in a particular environment (like that of Patrick Grady), you could be born Jewish in another environment, or maybe even poor. Patrick once confided to Amos Kahn that his fascination for his ancestral religion was such that, as an adolescent, he had imagined that he might become a priest. But that would have been an impossible mission for Patrick Grady, since he was strongly attracted to beautiful and intelligent women. And the most beautiful and intelligent female creature he had ever encountered was a splendid young Jewish woman named Leah Kahn.

âœĄ The Gypsy was a 500-ton three-masted bark built in Liverpool in 1875 for a German owner. She left London in 1886, with a crew of twelve, for her second voyage out to the Antipodes, carrying an assortment of cargo including agricultural machines (harrows, plows and harvesters), furniture, earthenware, drapery, cooking utensils, building materials, French wine, Irish whiskey, medicines and ammunition for the local garnison. The captain was perfectly familiar with the entry to Fremantle. Sailing against an easterly wind on a smooth sea, he approached Rottnest late in the evening, in total darkness, and decided to lie at anchor in a sheltered northwest corner of the island until daybreak. In inexplicable circumstances, a few hours later, the captain drove his vessel up onto a well-known reef located just a hundred or so yards away from the isthmus called Narrow Neck. When news reached nearby Fremantle that a vessel was stranded on the rocks at Rottnest, boats were dispatched to the scene immediately to attempt to salvage the cargo, but heavy seas that blew up during the morning made their task imposible. No lives were lost, because the crew 70

were close enough to the shore to wade up to the beach, but all the perishables in the cargo were lost within a few hours, and the heavy goods were scattered around the rocks when the vessel broke apart. Later salvage attempts, in calm weather, were rendered dangerous by the presence of the ammunition, which was capable of exploding due to the slightest friction. A century later (at about the time that the Rose and Kahn adolescents encountered the Gypsy), there was still a lot of live ammunition hidden away in corners of the wreckage, unbeknown to them. And this was one of the reasons why the Australian military authorities were immensely pleased that Jacob Rose was undertaking a mysterious operation aimed at raising this wreck and dragging it up onto the shore. Furthermore, on the eve of the date announced for the operation, Jake and his associates were amused to discover a gunboat of the Royal Australian Navy taking up a position to the north of the wreck, as if it intended to prevent scavengers from getting away with specimens of antiquated ammunition that should have been delivered to their colleagues a century earlier.

As things turned out, the next morning, the presence of this military vessel was reassuring. It might be said that Leah and Aaron, responsible for the public-relations aspect of the proposed raising of the Gypsy, had been excessively efficient, for an armada of boats of all kinds and sizes had assembled out beyond the wreck, and navy personnel from the gunboat were scampering around in a Zodiac trying to keep all these onlookers under control. Fortunately, the security fence all around the site prevented people from coming close enough to interfere with the operations. Still, the navy folk reasoned no doubt that, if the Gypsy happened to blow up like a bomb (a most unlikely event), killing innocent onlookers, their admiral would surely be angry with his sailors for not protecting the nation. On the beach, too, there were hordes of visitors, many of whom had come across on ferries from Freemantle to witness the promised happenings, and their excitement evoked the ambiance of the recent America’s Cup regattas.

With Jake’s approval, Aaron and Leah had organized the event 71

as a show, and made sure that the media were informed in advance on everything that would be taking place. Aaron had arranged with his Green Republican friends to produce a documentary film of the forthcoming events, and he himself was carrying a video camera with him as he darted around from one group of people to another.

All the images being shot were projected in real time onto a giant screen fixed to the cliff at one end of the beach, so that every aspect of the show could be followed in detail. Thsese same images were being relayed by a local television channel, which meant that people on boats out on the water beyond the wreck, if they had a TV receiver aboard, could also see what was happening.

On the beachfront, special visitors were invited to take their place in an enclosure alongside the main hangar, where they were served a splendid breakfast of coffee, cakes and tropical fruit. This was the observation point for the parents: Nahum Rose, Amos Kahn and their wives. They were accompanied by Jake’s professor from Curtin University, Julius Stokes, and various distinguished citizens of Perth. Aaron’s radio station, Vox, was operating from a studio set up behind the caretakers’ mobile home, and the hostess of the broadcast would be Rachel Kahn, who had made plans to interview an assortment of scientists, industrialists and politicians.

A public-address system would enable everybody in the vicinity, including onlookers out on boats, to follow the broadcasts. A large tent alongside the Vox radio studio served as a press center distributing, not only technical documentation on the project, but sandwiches, beer and whiskey. Up on top of the low flat hill where Jake usually landed his Ecureuil, it was now accompanied by another dozen helicopters, belonging to media people and mining groups. Other aircraft—including police and navy helicopters— were hovering in the vicinity of the wreck.

Jake beckoned to Rachel to join him. He was wearing a white safety helmet and protective garments bearing a big red letter T, for Terra. And he wore green rubber fishermen’s boots, culminating at waist level, enabling him to wade in the water. A walkie-talkie in his right hand, surmounted by a slender antenna, could be mistaken for a sword. Rachel found that her cousin 72

looked like a crusader knight about to slay a dragon. But he was a little apprehensive, and confided in his cousin: “There are so many people waiting for something spectacular to happen. I should have made it clear that there’s really very little to see. If everything goes as planned, the wreck will simply pop up quietly to the surface of the sea. Then we’ll tow it towards the beach. And the show will be over.”

“Don’t worry, Jake,” said Rachel, jokingly. “If anybody complains, we’ll give them free tickets to the dolphin show over in Marine Land.”

Out on the water, two big flat barges were tied up alongside the wreck. One housed machines that looked like compressors of the kind you see on construction sites. The other barge carried a huge blue cylinder, marked RSG in big yellow letters, tied down on its side by means of steel cables, with an array of tubes dipping down from it into the water below the wreck. An observer might imagine the old Gypsy (more precisely, what was left of her) as a sleeping patient strapped to the table of an operating theater, awaiting the surgeon. Shortly before ten o’clock, spectators might have noticed that Jake, the surgeon, was climbing out of a Zodiac and clambering up onto the first barge. His image, holding a microphone in front of him, then appeared on the giant screen. At three minutes to ten, precisely, he broadcast a message announcing that operations were about to start: “The countdown stands at minus three minutes,” he stated. At that instant, a big ticking clock dial appeared on the screen. “When the process is put into operation, you won’t see any movement whatsoever in the vicinity of the wreck, apart from the vibrations of the machinery pumping buoyancy gas into the ablations created by the Slicer. Maybe, if we were to look closely into the water, we might see tiny bubbles rising along the line of the ablation. You won’t hear any noise either, because the miniature subaquatic Mole device burns through the rock in a totally silent manner.

Now, I’m going to be busy. So, please let me hand over to Leah Kahn, communications attaché at the Terra Corporation, who is 73

going to tell you everything that’s happening.”

The face of Leah then appeared on the screen. In one hand, she held a binder of notes from which she started to read.

“The process, once it starts, will continue in a totally automatic fashion, under the control of computers, for at least twenty minutes. Then, if all goes well, the first and only indication that the process has worked successfully will be the sudden appearance of the wreck floating on the water. These processes have been tested on countless occasions in laboratory conditions. So, there should not be any surprises. But the Western Australian Security Commission has asked me to inform you that, if ever the slightest problem were to arise, a siren would sound. And individuals who happened to be close to the scene of operations should withdraw as rapidly as possible.”

As the countdown approached zero, the screen showed Jake moving towards the compressor machinery, where he started to examine data on computer screens. The wreck was ready to be released from the rocky prison in which it had been rotting for over a century. The patient was awaiting the first incision of the laser scalpel. A dormant dragon, watching the approach of Saint Jake. At countdown zero, everything and everybody seemed to have become motionless, except for three helicopters that hovered over the wreck like noisy vultures. In the immediate vicinity of the barges, where Jake in his crusader outfit was the only human being in view, everything seemed to be happening as described. That is, nothing seemed to be happening.

Then, all of a sudden, some twenty seconds into the countdown, strange events started to occur. Along one edge of the wreck site, a line of vertical jets of water appeared, as if a fountain had just been turned on in the grounds of a castle. The jets behaved erratically, subsiding and then erupting under pressure like water from a hose with air bubbles. Some eruptions were accompanied by noises: loud bangs like rifle shots. And some of the water jets were much bigger than the others, as if a big rock had been thrown into the water at that point. Within another ten seconds, it was clear to 74

observers that these bursts of water were caused by something under the water alongside the wreck, for they increased in intensity and erupted in a solid line, with staccato bangs. Then the bursts were accompanied by deflagrations of red sparks and smoke. On the giant screen screen, there was a closeup view of Jake jumping into a Zodiac, which sped away from the site. A siren then started to wail, while the explosive bursts increased in violence and now formed a rectangular perimeter all around the Gypsy. One had the impression that depth-charges had been dropped all around the wreck. The helicopters glided away from the site, as did many of the boats of onlookers. Panic had broken out within the ranks of onlookers on the beach, in that people feared that the wreck was about to explode. In fact, the wreck itself was incapable of exploding, because it was composed essentially of soggy wood and rusty iron. But the rubber tubes transporting gas from the blue cylinder on the barge were now ablaze, and people imagined that it might explode like a bomb. By now, there was so much smoke around the site of the wreck that nothing could be distinguished.

The siren continued to wail, and a stench of burning gunpowder reached the beach, which was now totally deserted. Everybody had scrambled up the hills to places that appeared to be safe, while all the pleasure craft had moved rapidly out to sea. Consequently, if the Gypsy now exploded, it would not be likely to harm anybody, because there was no longer anybody nearby to be harmed. But the onlookers remained tense, preparing for the expected explosion of the big blue RSG cylinder. But this did not happen. In fact, this could not happen (as Jake and the Terra engineers knew perfectly well), because this particular stock of RSG, obtained out on an exploratory drilling site in the Indian ocean, was perfectly satisfactory for its role as a buoyancy agent in Jake’s process, but it did not contain a sufficient degree of inflammable components to boil water for a pot of tea. But most onlookers did not know this, and they therefore prepared themselves for a reenactment of Pearl Harbor or the Normandy landing, whichever way you preferred to look at the situation. While the wailing siren still gave people the impression that they should normally be diving into air-raid 75

shelters, whose whereabouts were unknown, some of the more anguished souls even imagined that a mushroom-shaped cloud might be about to form over Rottnest.

Then, just as readily as these unexpected events had started to occur, they stopped. No more spurts of water. No more deflagrations. No more bangs. No more smoky explosions.

Onlookers had their eyes fixed upon the deserted scene of the wreck. It was still being filmed by a video camera fixed to one of the barges, which meant that onlookers not too far away from the giant screen could obtain a closeup view of what was happening there. These privileged viewers had the joy of witnessing an amazing happening. A kind of little miracle. The waters parted above the wreck, and the superstructure of the ancient Gypsy suddenly popped up into the smoky air, and bobbed around as if the captain were changing the position of the sails and preparing to tack to another course. But, on closer inspection, the video images revealed that the Gypsy was not floating on the conventional hull of a bark, but on a cumbersome rectangular block of greyish matter that looked and acted like a huge wooden raft. At that instant, somebody succeeded in shouting into a microphone. It was the excited voice of Jacob Rose, screaming with joy: “The Gypsy is floating!”

In the Vox radio studio, where she had been taking shelter and trying to understand what was happening, Rachel decided that the crowd might appreciate some music while people recovered from the anguish of fearing that they might be blown up. Besides, they needed time to realize that Jake’s trial, in spite of the unexpected explosions, was in fact a gigantic success, because the outcome of the operations was that the Gypsy had been liberated from its rocky grave. So, Rachel grabbed a disk at random, which happened to be Eric Clapton singing Sweet Chariot, put it in the audio player and turned up the volume. In doing so, Rachel could hardly imagine that, for years to come, this music would be used as a theme song to celebrate every new success of Jake’s process.

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Looked out over Jordan What did I see?

Coming for to carry me home A band of angels Looking after me Coming for to carry me home Swing low, sweet chariot...

Sensing that the danger had passed, people who had sought protection on the slopes of Abraham Point started streaming back down to the beach. Was their apparent happiness brought about by the success of Jacob Rose’s operations, or did it merely reflect their relief at not having been annihilated in a terrible explosion?

The answer to that question was of no particular importance, since the only thing that counted now was that a festival of joy had erupted spontaneously on the beachfront. The strains of Sweet Chariot blared out over the water. People danced, often in the shallow water. Boats blew their horns, and many people came ashore in dinghies to join in the festivities. Jake took a microphone in the Vox studio and announced that free liquor was being served in the areas that had been reserved for media people and special visitors, and that a giant barbecue would get under way shortly. In this excited atmosphere, everybody was mirthful without really knowing why. But that—as the saying goes—was neither here nor there.

In military jargon, the meeting that took place later that day, on the beach at Rottnest, was referred to as a debriefing. And it was indeed a very military affair, because Jake and his Terra colleagues were joined spontaneously by several intrigued specialists in explosives from both the Royal Australian Army and the Royal Australian Navy. In fact, one did not need to be a weapons specialist to understand that, if you are using laser beams with enough energy to melt rocks, then they are capable of producing fireworks from any stocks of old ammunition that might happen to lie in their path. Representatives of the armed forces might conclude that the moral of this observation is that all ammunition 77

should be removed from wrecks before they are raised. On the other hand, if the organizers of such events wish to produce a show that makes a lasting impact upon the onlookers, then it is preferable to forget about this precautionary cleanup.

✡ Within a few days, the floating wreck of the Gypsy—now a fat raft some 60 meters in length and 25 meters wide—was towed slowly to the beach below Abraham Point, so that it could be inspected by experts of several kinds, including marine archeologists, local boatbuilders and geologists. The inevitable question on the lips of everyone was: What caused it to suddenly float? And many observers asked complementary questions: How long is it likely to carry on floating in this mysterious fashion?

What is the exact nature of this structure that looks and acts like a big rough raft? Is there something underneath it, keeping it afloat?

Is it likely to break up into pieces, letting the wreck slip back into the sea? What were the real underlying reasons for carrying out this project? Is there a future to this method for salvaging wrecks?

Et cetera...

In everyday circumstances, Jacob Rose was a quietly-spoken young man who did not go out of his way to impose his opinions upon people, or even to communicate light-heartedly with others when he did not have anything important to say. So, he found it natural and easy to avoid proposing answers to any of these questions. He would simply smile and say something such as: It’s simply a matter of basic technology... In that way, he was not telling people lies. More precisely, he was not telling people anything at all. This did not imply, however, that there were any great secrets surrounding Jake’s work. On the contrary, you could find a precise in-depth presentation of all the theory behind his research in the technical documentation that had been given out to media people on the morning of the raising of the Gypsy. The situation was not unlike that (in a totally different domain) of nuclear weapons. Everybody knew the basic recipe for building an 78

atomic bomb. But, to actually do so, prospective bomb-builders needed a lot more than this theoretical information. Among other things, they would need a vague commodity termed ‘know-how’, which could only be acquired through experiments and experience.

They would also need many kinds of resources: materials and socalled hardware and software. And the most essential ingredient of all was the profound desire—a question of willpower— to carry out the job from A to Z. Consequently, although there were no longer any real secrets, one might say that adequate real-world answers to the global challenge remained, as it were, a virtual secret.

✡ Aaron Rose and Rachel Kahn left Perth together on a flight to Israel. They had a common goal of taking official possession of the house in Malki Street, but their plans, from that point on, were rather different. Rachel had appointments, organized by Martin Luria, to inspect several desalination plants, and talk with specialists in this domain. As for Aaron, his primary goal was to meet up with Anne Levi. But he also had a rendezvous with Israeli individuals who had contacted Terra Corporation in Perth following an article they had seen in a magazine about Jake’s raising of the Gypsy.

In Jerusalem, it was an extraordinary pleasure and privilege for Rachel and Aaron to be able to reside in their own dwelling: a family home in the Holy City! They were aware, of course, that only a minority of well-off foreign Jews could afford such a luxury, but the acquisition of the house in Yemin Moshe never appeared to any of its joint owners—the members of the Rose and Kahn families—as an excessive extravagance. On the contrary, the younger generation had the impression that they were merely depositing the wealth of their departed grandparents and, in doing so, investing in a splendid way of celebrating their memory.

All the formalities concerning the purchase of the house had been handled from Perth in a surprisingly efficient manner, under 79

the guidance of the Israeli embassy in Canberra and an international bank in Tel Aviv. Under the auspices of the Israelite Consistory in Perth, each of the eight members of the Rose and Kahn families-—the parents as well as the younger generation— had collaborated in the creation of a dossier for the Israeli authorities, establishing their Jewish identity, so that they could move freely in and out of the country.

On their first day in Israel, Aaron and Rachel drove to Tel Aviv with Anne Levi, in a rented van, to purchase basic furniture and kitchen equipment for the house, which was totally empty. Niceties such as carpets and curtains would be for later on; even tables and chairs were not yet strictly necessary. For the moment, they contented themselves with purchasing two single beds, the necessary mattresses and bedding, and half-a-dozen wooden stools. They spent the afternoon in various offices in the New City, getting the house supplied with electricity and water. Their final act of the working day consisted of buying a TV set, since Anne persuaded them that television was an ideal means of acquiring rapidly the rudiments of Hebrew.

✡ Early the next morning, Rachel rented a small four-wheel-drive vehicle and set off towards the Negev, to meet up with Martin and Sarah Luria. Aaron and Anne would therefore be left on their own —like a proverbial pair of turtle doves—in Jerusalem. When the fire of love is ignited between two individuals who have spent no more than a few hours together, who hardly know each other, and who live on opposite sides of the planet Earth, a lot of catching-up remains to be done. At that point in time, of course, nobody—not even Aaron or Anne—could guess whether Yahveh, or any other force in the Cosmos, had willed effectively that these two individuals should come together.

After a leisurely drive, including a halt for a falafel and cardamon coffee at Be’er Sheva, Rachel reached the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute in the beginning of the afternoon. Martin phoned 80

his wife so that she would come up to the laboratory to see Rachel, who did not plan to stay overnight. A lot of things had happened since their previous encounter here, and Rachel was faced with the task of providing a full account of the news.

“I imagine it’s strange for Aaron’s parents to learn that their son has fallen in love with an Israeli policewoman from Belgium,” remarked Sarah, “but Anne is a charming and intelligent young woman. As soon as she arrived here, I had the impression that we had known one another for ages.”

“I often say that the stone that hit me in Hebron had fallout,” joked Rachel. “Not only Aaron’s encounter with Anne, but also the idea of buying the house. When I was recovering my senses at Hadassah, images of Malki Street flashed into my mind and seemed to chase away the nasty memories of the blow.”

Rachel then summarized the initial phases of Jake’s research, and the new structures of the family business, including the creation of Aqua and the decision to give her the top job. Finally, Rachel related in detail the dramatic story of the raising of the Gypsy, with its happy ending.

“Concerning the industrial contacts I’ve organized for you over the next few days,” said Martin, “you’ll decide for yourself to what extent they might be worthwhile for Aqua. Israeli scientists are tremendously interested in your desalination process based upon the use of genetically-modified seaweeds. Nobody here had ever imagined such an approach, basically because there’s very little seaweed of any kind whatsoever in this corner of the world. So, if you were interested in marketing your patents and your development work, you would have to import the whole works into Israel, including specimens of your seaweed. In any case, I’m convinced that the profit-making potential for your technology in Israel could be enormous.”

✡ In deep conversations with Anne Levi, Aaron Rose was brought 81

face-to-face with a subject that, if not actually taboo back in Australia, was something that the Jewish community of Perth rarely contemplated seriously: namely, the theme of aliyah, literally the ‘ascension’ into the modern state of Israel of Jews from the Diaspora, including Australia. Behind this reticence, there was the habit of Australians considering their land as an earthly paradise whose attractive way of life must never be brought into question. The origins of this attitude were ancient (by Australian standards) and subtle. At the outset, the southern continent was hell for convicts from the British Isles. Later, the land became a last resort for hordes of people driven out of Ireland by famine.

Consequently, settling in Australia was not something that immigrants generally boasted about, because they had been brought there by negative forces of one kind or another. Then, overnight, the system of values was inverted, and Australians decided spontaneously, unanimously and firmly that they should be very proud to belong to this exceptional young nation. After World War II, the massive influx of workers and their families referred to as ‘New Australians’ accentuated the axiom that settling in this country was a privilege, and it was politically incorrect to ever suggest that there might be any more desirable place on Earth than Australia. So, few Australian Jews ever dreamed of abandoning Australia for Israel.

“Deciding to move here should not be based upon questions such as: Would I be better off in Israel than in my native country?” explained Anne. “Ideally, we should set aside egoisim and selfinterest when we contemplate the possibility of aliyah. We come here, not because of our personal desires, but because of Israel. We come to Israel because of an archaic principle: the concept of our Jewish identity and culture.”

“I think I know exactly what you mean,” commented Aaron, “but I still feel that the ideal situation consists of coming here after having realized that we do in fact appreciate the life style and values of this nation. For me, Anne, you have never been a mere concept. Among countless other things, my vision of Israel includes a wonderful individual named Anne Levi. For me, Israel 82

is you, Anne. You are Israel.”

“The first time I started to envisage seriously the idea that you might settle in Israel,” said Anne, “was when I learnt that you were involved in a political movement out in your homeland. And not a typical political party aimed at squaring the circle: raising the standard of living while lowering taxes. Your Green Republicans have a new vision of your land, a new way of imagining Australian society. They are revolutionaries, prepared for upheavals. They dare to imagine that the nation might sever its links with the Old Country. In Freudian terms, that means they’re intent upon killing their father. If I understand you, though, there’s so much complacency in Australia that few of your compatriots appreciate the necessity of an act such as that. It’s still too early. People are not yet fully determined to become adults. Most Australians are still teenagers, prepared to carry on living with their parents. They don’t mind getting on roused on, periodically, if they come home late, if their father or mother sees them flirting with a person of the opposite sex. But we Jews started to become adults long ago. If you like, we finally turned twenty-one at Auschwitz. Our parents don’t rouse on us any more because they’re no longer there. We didn’t even have to decide to leave the family home; we got kicked out, left to die in the gutter. As political activists, we didn’t even need to draw up a document, like Mao’s little Red Book, stating our revendications and our plans for the future. Our political platform is summed up in a single word: Israel. And our political philosophy was written down ages ago, in a book that has become a best-seller.”

“I am not alone in this affair,” replied Aaron. “There’s my brother Jacob. And our cousins, Leah and Rachel. And our parents, above all. When I discovered the enthusiasm generated in our family circle as a consequence of the relatively simple project of purchasing a house in Jerusalem, I realized that we might all be just a stone’s throw away from aliyah, even though we never talked about such a possibility up until now.”

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✡ Rachel remembered her first encounter with Eilat. Aaron had said it reminded him of an Australian seaside city. He was probably thinking of Surfers Paradise over on the coast of Queensland, because no seafront in Western Australia had yet been transformed into a strip of luxury hotels, restaurants, tourist boutiques and night clubs. This time, Rachel was here on business.

The elegantly-attired dark-skinned forty-year-old man seated opposite her, Avram Moreno, was the founder of an Israeli company named Siloam, with headquarters in Eilat. Their preoccupation was desalination, water purification and distribution, and their major station was located just behind Eilat, on the edge of a sea-water lagoon that had previously been used as a salt pond. A second Siloam desalination plant had been installed at Ashkelon, on the Mediterranean, to the north of Gaza.

“Let me get straight to the point, Miss Kahn,” he said. “We’ve studied papers describing the patents acquired by your holding company, Terra, and we’re aware of the exciting development work being carried out by your recently-founded Aqua division.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this approach to desalination, using genetically-modified seawood and solar energy, looks extremely promising in an Australian context. I have two direct questions. First, are you aware of any technical obstacles that might prevent this approach from being feasible in Israel? For example, to bring up the most obvious doubt, is it possible that your seaweed would simply refuse to thrive in our waters of the Northern Hemisphere? If there were no such hitches, would Aqua be prepared to envisage the idea of collaborating with Siloam in the creation of a processing plant here in Israel?” As they say in colloquial Australian parlance, this fellow certainly wasted no time beating about the bush. Here he was finishing his very first statement, without having heard a single word from Rachel, and he was alread talking about their setting up a joint industrial venture in the Holy Land. Rachel was thrilled, because she was not a mere dreamer. She felt the adrenalin rising in her lovely limbs.

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“When my father Amos Kahn acquired the patents of the seaweed system, a decade ago, he immediately started to imagine the likely repercussions of such a process within an international context, because he realized there were countless spots on the globe where people needed fresh water. So, as soon as seaweed testing operations got under way, my father did something that was truly remarkable. Up in a secluded coastal place near Geraldton, four hundred kilometers to the north of Perth, he built a big hangar and divided up the interior into autonomous compartments. Using solar energy, he installed devices of various kinds, a little like air conditioners, which were capable of maintaining constant levels of temperature and humidity in the various compartments. He shipped in sealed barrels of ordinary sea water and muddy sand from many places throughout the world... including the edge of the Red Sea, of course, and all around the Mediterranean. He poured this stuff into open tanks inside the various compartments, which were carefully referenced. In this way, he was able to recreate, inside each compartment, a microcosm that reproduced the natural biological state of the sea at each site. Whenever his desalination engineers developed an improved strain of seaweed, my father would place a specimen in each tank, to see how it would react to the various marine environments. In fact, each tank is like a big high-tech aquarium, in which every aspect of the water and the seaweed can be measured and controlled.”

“What an ingenious experimental setup,” exclaimed Avram Moreno. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of such a setup.”

“Well, my father had to keep these things somewhat secret,” explained Rachel, “because what he was doing was not exactly legal, for two reasons. First, there’s the very idea of modifying seaweed genetically. There are many notorious cases of seaweed getting out of hand, as it were. I’ve heard that this has happened in France, on the northern coast of Brittany. And genetic engineering has a bad reputation, largely undeserved, in many countries. So, you can imagine the stink that ecologists would have blown up if they had learned that my father was genetically modifying seaweed. Then there’s the affair of importing foreign organisms 85

into Australia, particularly the naturally-occurring microorganisms you find in muddy sea water. In Australia, experts have always been paranoid about our exotic ecosystem, quite unlike that of other places in the world. So, ecology activists would have convinced that Dad was growing monsters in his seaweed tanks.”

“And do you any idea of how your seaweed might behave in our Israeli waters?”

“This is hot off the press,” said Rachel, placing two sheets of paper on the table in front of Moreno. “One of our computers printed out this data the day before I left Perth. One sheet shows reactions to a simulation of the marine environment at Eilat, the other near Tel Aviv. It’s not surprising that the results are so encouraging, because your waters are warmer than ours, and they have a superior level of micro-organisms. As you can see, we reckon that a desalination plant using the seaweed system at Eilat would be globably twenty percent more efficient than our pilot plant near Perth, and a plant near Tel Aviv would be fifteen percent more efficient than ours.”

“So, when do we start?”’ asked Avram Moreno, with a big smile.

✡ Aaron Rose’s rendezvous with Israelis attracted by a magazine account of the raising of the Gypsy was scheduled to take place at an address in Jerusalem that had intrigued him back in Australia, because it contained the name of a famous American family, Rockefeller. Aaron had no idea of the subject of the meeting, but he imagined that it was surely some kind of industrial or financial affair. So, he was a little surprised when Anne Levi informed him that the building in which he would be meeting up with a certain Dan Shal was in fact an archaeological museum (founded long ago with money from the philanthropist Rockfeller). Things became a little clearer when Aaron saw the title of the wing in the museum where Dan Shal’s office was located: Israel Antiquities Authority.

And clearer still when he read the title on the door of the office: 86

Director of Underwater Archaeology. So, the Israelis probably had an archaic Gypsy somewhere off their coastline, and they wanted to refloat it.

Dan Shal was a stern-faced man in his fifties whose rugged features gave the impression that he might have been a soldier or, more likely, a sailor. This guess was confirmed, a minute or so later, when Aaron noticed a photo of a smiling Dan Shal in navy uniform aboard an unmarked vessel that could well be one of the notorious French missile boats from Cherbourg. Another photo showed him taking off frogman’s attire, with a giant Roman amphora on the deck alongside him.

“One of the archaeologists in my service read about your operations out in Australia that succeeded in raising the wreck of a small ship,” explained Shal, who spoke slowly, clearly enunciating each word. “I asked him to get in contact with you immediately.

Although we have little precise knowledge of the technical specifications of your methodology, I want to make it clear that the Israel Antiquities Authority is extremely fascinated by your work, and we would like to know more about it.”

Aaron admired the word ‘methodology’. Its clinical flavor amused him when he recollected the exploding ammunition and turmoil at Rottnest.

“Maybe you could ask me questions concerning the particular aspects of our methodology that interest you,” suggested Aaron, “and I shall do my best to answer them.”

“Exactly,” said Shal. “That’s the best approach, because there are so many aspects of your technology that intrigue me that I don’t quite know where to start. To start the ball rolling, maybe you might tell me whether your methodology could in fact be transported to Israel and exploited here.”

“Affirmative,” replied Aaron, who imagined himself being questioned by his superior. “The actual machinery is easy to reproduce. All the computer stuff is perfectly transportable, of course. You’ve seen that an essential ingredient in the process is what we call RSG: residual seabed gases. This is simply a gaseous 87

by-product of drilling operations, but its exact chemical composition is not a critical factor, within certain rather wide limits. Our process starts by mixing these gases with an assortment of ordinary solid and liquid substances to produce an emulsion, which is subsequently injected under high pressure into the ablations made with the laser Slicer. As a result of this injection process, the emulsion soodifies into a lightweight buoyant substance that we often refer to loosely as ‘foam’. And this is what causes the raft to rise and float.”

“Does that mean that we would need to carry out drilling operations in the seabed to obtain the required gases?” asked Shal.

“That’s a good question,” replied Aaron. “It’s true that, out in Western Australia, we tend to gloss over this aspect of our process, because we’re surrounded by oil rigs, and we can obtain any desired volume of RSG simply by dropping in on friends with a big cylinder. The exact quantity required depends, to a certain extent, on the particular chemical composition of the gases, and above all on the dimensions of the future raft, as well as the nature of the rock. So, it’s hard to say beforehand exactly how much foam you’ll need to produce. Ideally, you might persuade a friendly Arab neighbor to supply you with a few cylinders of such gases.” Aaron smiled when making this suggestion, whereas Dan Shal laughed outrightly. “Otherwise, you could always set up your own rig out on the water somewhere, but that’s a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

“OK, I think I see what you’re saying, “ said Shal. “Now tell me, please, are there physical limits to the dimensions of the final floating block, the raft?”

“Since the Gypsy project, among ourselves, we’ve got around to using the term ‘chariot’ to designate the final raft, at the moment it is liberated and rises to the surface of the water. To answer your question: No, there are no theoretical limits to the surface area of the chariot. Naturally, we need to program the slicing operations so that the chariot is as thin as possible, as a function of its geological nature, its mechanical rigidity and the mass of the stuff it has to 88

support. Obviously, if you wanted to float a chariot carrying a medieval fortress, you would need to make it rather thick and rigid, and that would mean the injection of a greater quantity of foam. We make a computer model of the potential chariot, and then we play around with all the variables to obtain the optimal specifications.”

“I think it’s time for me to tell you what we have in mind,” said Shal. “That will enable you to put things into their proper perspective, and you’ll be able to let me know whether we’re communicating on the same wavelength.”

“Fine, Sir,” said Aaron, in the style of an obedient midshipman.

“So, what’s the challenge that faces you?”

“The archaeological site on the Mediterranean seafront that concerns us is Caesarea,” replied Dan Shal. He stood up, drew the curtains shut and turned on a slide projector. A map of the coastline of Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa appeared on a screen at one end of the office. The seaport of Caesarea was located in the upper half of the coastline, to the north of the modern beach resort of Netanya. “This fabulous port city, Caesarea Maritima, whose harbor was big enough to shelter an entire fleet of Roman vessels, was built by Herod the Great and named in honor of his chief, the emperor Caesar Augustus. Extensive excavations have been carried out here in recent years, by Israeli and American archaeologists. They have restored a splendid Roman theater.”

Shal showed a slide of this structure. “One of the most famous finds at Caesarea was a column inscribed with the name of Pontius Pilate, who apparently resided in the city. OK?” Aaron nodded his head, indicating that the presentation, up to this point, was within his grasp. In fact, he was wondering silently what kind of wrecked ships one might be expected to raise in such a place. But Aaron was on the wrong track, as Dan Shal would now point out.

“There have been underwater findings of various kinds, including a Roman boat,” continued Shal, “and all these artefacts have been brought up onto dry land. But a hypothetical salvage 89

operation that interests us enormously concerns a construction whose remains still lie more or less above the surface of the sea.

We call it Herod’s Promontory Palace, because it occupies a rocky spit that extends out into the water. The former palace was built around a vast indoor pool, whose dimensions were almost those of modern Olympic swimming pools. Today, the superstructure of the Promontory Palace has disappeared into the sea, but the splendid pool is still there, as you can see from this recent photo.” Shal projected an image showing tourists strolling around what appeared to be a rock pool. “For centuries, the sea has washed over this pool. But in Herod’s days, the superstructure of the palace protected the indoor pool from the waves of the Mediterranean, and the pool was actually filled with fresh water from nearby springs.”

“If I understand correctly,” said Aaron, “it’s the pool, surrounded by the traces of Herod’s palace, that you would like to salvage. Is that so?”

“Exactly. We would like to protect them, so that they don’t simply disappear into the sea. For ages, certain obervers have been suggesting that a reinforced concrete breakwater should be built all around the promontory, to halt the destruction of the wind and waves. But a protective barrier of that kind would be disastrous as far as the harmony of the ancient site is concerned. Maybe the idea of protecting this promontory has obsessed us to a point at which we no longer think clearly. Maybe we’re starting to witness visions, and believe in miracles. Be that as it may, when we read the article about your project in Australia, we immediately asked ourselves: Could the little that remains of Herod’s Promontory Palace be transformed into a gigantic artificial raft—a chariot, as you say—which could then be towed a little way along the coast to a safe spot, and finally edged into a man-made haven of the kind that marine engineers would call a dry dock, where the treasure could be protected constantly? The vestiges would still be located on the edge of the Mediterranean, and visitors could imagine the splendor of the original palace, sprayed incessantly by the sea. But the structure would no longer be at the mercy of the random 90

elements. Does it make sense, what I’m saying?” For a moment, the distinguished member of the Israel Antiquities Authority looked like a shy schoolboy, asking his teacher if he had done his homework satisfactorily.

“It’s quite possible that you’ll be surprised, Sir, by what I’m about to say,” warned Aaron, in a slightly theatrical fashion, as if he were truly taking pleasure in this interesting encounter concerning an exceptional challenge. “I have the impression that you’ve presented the situation in an understandable manner. In other words, I believe that your enunciation of the problem is perfectly clear. So, that enables me to imagine possible solutions based upon an intelligent application of our methodology. In a nutshell, Sir, I would say that it’s a piece of apple pie!” In his enthusiasm, Aaron did not seem to notice that he was mixing up his metaphors, but that was of no importance. Clearly, the message had been transmitted to Dan Shal in an affirmative fashion. The Australians would indeed be able to take over where Herod had left off. His palace at Caesarea would end up floating!

✡ A few days later, Rachel was back in Jerusalem and reunited with her cousin at 23 Malki Street. They would be staying in Israel as carefree tourists for another week or so. So, they decided to phone home to Australia—to Jake, in fact—to give out a positive progress report concerning their encounters in Israel over the last few days. But Aaron started the ball rolling with news of another kind: “Jake, please tell Mum and Dad that Anne and I have decided to get married next year. Between now and then, she’ll go out to Perth to meet up with everybody. After that, I’ll have to make up my mind about what kind of a professional existence I could lead in Israel. In the immediate future, we have a breath-taking request from the State of Israel to apply the chariot process in an archaeological domain... but it’s such a huge affair that I prefer to wait until I’m back in Perth before giving you the details.”

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Rachel supplied news of a similar kind: “Jake, Israeli reactions to our desalination process are overwhelming, but I prefer to wait until I’m back in Perth before going into details. But you can tell my father already that he should get ready to ship a lot of seaweed to Israel. In any case, I have the impression that the marvelous house in Jerusalem is going to be seeing more and more of us in the near future.”

“I’ve also got some good news for you,” exclaimed Jake, “but it might have been better to wait until you’re back home before letting you know. Your sister is engaged to get married to Patrick Grady.”

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4 Moving For a family-run company such as Terra with limited resources, each of the two affairs in Israel—the Chariot Process (as it was now commonly called) in Caesarea and the Aqua/Siloam partnership in Eilat—was a huge project, and it would certainly take a lot of juggling to be able to tackle them concurrently. But everybody agreed that the way in which these propositions had suddenly appeared on the horizon was frankly miraculous, and that every effort should be made to get involved in both affairs simultaneously. Clearly, they were complementary projects, which should be associated as far as possible. On the one hand, the Caesarea affair would be a high-prestige operation enabling Terra to enter literally the history books of the Holy Land. If the company could perform this operation successfully, Terra would become, as it were, a household word in international archaeological circles. On the other hand, a successful collaboration with Siloam would be of immense commercial importance from the start, because fresh water was a product that could be sold easily and profitably in Israel and elsewhere.

Twenty-four hours after the return of Aaron and Rachel, a family reunion was organized at the Anvers estate to evaluate the two challenges and set up initial strategies for action. Patrick Grady was invited along to this meeting for two reasons: first, major financial plans would need to be drawn up in view of the two Israeli affairs; and second, Patrick would soon be a fullfledged member of the family. Amos Kahn was the first person to take the floor. He spoke, not only as a co-founder and director of Terra, but as one of the patriarchs of the family.

“I intend to call a spade a spade,” he warned solemnly, but the 93

impish smile accompanying this statement suggested that the words of Amos Kahn, however direct they might appear, would not be harsh. “We must get around to talking of matters that will need to be brought up sooner or later. In general, there’s the whole question of our new and unexpected relationships with entities in the state of Israel: in one case, the distinguished government agency in charge of archaeology; in the other, a dynamic company interested in water resources. These opportunities, which might be referred to as potentialities for the moment, must be evaluated frankly. They are hypotheses that might be associated with your purchase of a residence in Jerusalem. But the decision to buy this house was made prior to our being made aware of the technological projects. So, we should not necessarily associate all these events and possibilities. Finally, there’s the background question of the extent to which some of us might wish to actually settle in Israel as permanent citizens. I think that’s a rough agenda of subjects we might discuss. Each one of us is expected now to reveal exactly what he or she thinks of these issues.”

Jacob Rose, inventor of the Chariot Process, happened to be the only one of the four members of the younger generation who had not yet set foot in Israel. He felt it would be a good idea to state his case clearly from the outset: “As you all know, I have been so preoccupied by the research and development leading to the Chariot Process that I haven’t had an opportunity to think much about Israel, although it’s fact that I’ve been thrilled to spend hours talking with Rachel, in particular, about that fabulous land.” Rachel Kahn stared downwards at her arms, folded on her breast, hoping that the others would not notice the blush that had invaded her lovely face. As for Jake, he was unaware that his words had produced such an effect, and he pursued his explanations. “I’ve often been intrigued by cases of advanced technology in Israel, in many quite different domains, and I’ve wondered at times if there might be research and development in the fields that interest me. I would never have dreamt of the possibility of collaborating with the Antiquities Authority on a celebrated archaeological site such as Caesarea.

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Now that this opportunity exists, I am determined to accept their invitation, on behalf of Terra. It goes without saying that this would mean my moving to Israel for an indefinite period. So, it’s up to Terra management to determine whether this is feasible and desirable.”

Amos Kahn glanced at Nahum Rose and smiled warmly, as if to exclaim: “Doesn’t he express himself elegantly, your elder son!”

Aaron Rose was invited to take the floor: “I would be thrilled if my brother were to start working in Israel, because I would hope to collaborate with him. You’re all aware that my personal attachment to Israel had attained a certain degree of importance even before we ever imagined the opportunity of the project with the Antiquities Authority. Besides me, up until now, only my cousins Leah and Rachel have met up with the source of my attachment to Israel: a wonderful woman named Anne Levi, who will be coming out here to Perth in the near future to meet up with everybody. I hardly need to add that, to my way of thinking, the feelers put out towards Terra by the archaeologists and the Siloam company are fabulous opportunities, and that we should strive to succeed in both domains.”

It was now the turn of Rachel Kahn to express herself. Her role in the likely dealings with Israel was central since she was in charge of Aqua, the water-processing branch of Terra whose seaweed-based approach to desalination interested greatly the Siloam company in Eilat. Rachel was also the prime mover in the decision to purchase the house in Jersualem.

“I leave it up to others—Jake in particular—to examine and evaluate the complex challenge and possible consequences of implementing the Chariot Process at a prestigious archaeological site in the Holy Land. I limit my remarks to the two other major aspects of the situation. First, there is the question that concerns me above all as a member of the family business: namely, the possibility of exporting our desalination technology to a land such as Israel. From every point of view, this opportunity makes good business sense. So, there is every reason for pushing ahead with 95

this collaboration with all our energy. That, in any case, is what I intend to do personally. Finally, there is the underlying theme of moving to the Holy Land, either for a limited stay or—why not?— in a permanent fashion. As far as we Australian-born members of the family are concerned, there is no sense of urgency in the idea of establishing real links with Israel. But we are moved by a primordial spirit. We are attracted through archaic genetic forces to the homeland of the Jews, and we are helpless to resist that attraction, even if we wished to do so. There is a tellurian force that links us eternally to the land that Yahveh assigned to Abraham and his descendants. Long before any government authorities might give us passports, we were biological citizens of the state of Israel. On the other hand, this does not mean that every Jew in the universe must scaper away to Israel as soon as possible. It does not even mean that every individual who is theoretically capable of settling in Israel should do so. It merely means that many of us will in fact be attracted to Israel, and that this attraction, if and when it becomes overwhelmingly strong and constant, cannot be neglected.”

Rachel’s words left no doubts in the minds of the people who heard her declaration. Clearly, she intended to settle down in the Holy Land. Leah Kahn now stood up to speak: “I have had the privilege of seeing Jake develop his fascinating research from scratch, and the climax of this experience was, of course, the raising of the Gypsy at Rottnest. Meanwhile, I had an opportunity of visiting Israel with my sister and Aaron. And these days I have been following with excitement the news concerning the big challenges that have arisen for us in that extraordinary land. Insofar as my sister and our cousins will be spending most of their time in Israel from now on, I think it is all the more important that one of us should remain here in Perth, alongside my parents, and the Rose parents. This decision is natural in that my future husband will be extremely busy from this point on in his management of the complex financial situations that will inevitably be brought about by these major new activities. And I will have a basic role to play as a kind of constant liaison between 96

the familiar Terra environment here in Western Australia and the new contexts in Israel.”

As she sat down down, Leah was lightly applauded by the others, as if she had just expressed a laudable attitude of selfabnegation. This may have been true, from a certain viewpoint, but Leah was perfectly happy to think that she would now be standing guard, as it were, over the heart of the family affairs, assisted by Patrick, who now seemed destined to play an increasingly important role in the management of Terra. Leah’s future husband was then invited to say a few words.

“As Leah has just said, the task that faces Terra management is to ensure that the overall stability of the company, particularly from a financial viewpoint, provides an ideal base for the largescale operations to be conducted in the near future in Israel. In the beginning, there will be certain investments. These will result in substantial accrued revenues, which we will have to manage skillfully, since this new turnover will be generated abroad, involving currency transfers. There’ll be a lot of work for all of us, but I feel that everybody is going to have a lot of fun.” In any case, Patrick’s last remark generated a relaxed atmosphere enabling Amos Kahn to close the meeting on an optimistic note, in an almost carefree mood.

It was indeed true that Terra management (that is, essentially, Amos Kahn, Nahum Rose and Patrick Grady) was not faced with any difficult problems or choices as a consequence of the Israeli opportunities. In the case of the Caesarea operations, initial expenses would be underwritten by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the material costs of the project would be covered by a grant from the US university in charge of excavations. The salaries of Jake and his technical assistants would be paid by an association that disposed of funds from philanthropists. As far as Aqua/Siloam joint projects were concerned, the situation was even clearer, because Terra intended to simply invoice its services on the same basis as if they were operating in Australia. So, there need be no anxiety whatsoever related to risks of a financial kind.

The only unknown quantity in these challenges was the extent to 97

which Terra might acquire international fame and prestige through their work in Israel.

✡ The schedule for operations in Israel would consist of first dispatching seaweed specimens, on a cargo ship, to Avram Moreno at the Siloam base in Eilat. With this in mind, Jake and Rachel decided to sail up from Fremantle to Geraldton on the Haifa to check the packing of the precious plants housed in Amos Kahn’s secret hangar. It was quite a long voyage—a round trip of some 450 nautical miles—but the cousins intended to take their time, looking upon this sailing trip up to Geraldton and back as a vacation: the calm before the storm of their ‘ascension’ to Israel.

They felt they needed this time together, in a familiar environement, in solitude out on the water, to finalize their plans for the forthcoming challenges.

The hangar at Geraldton was located on a block of scrub land near the beach, just a few hundred meters from the deep-water port. Alongside the hangar, surrounded by a high security fence, an aging desalination pilot plant was exploited regularly to measure the qualities of new strains of seaweed, and to test improvements in the process. For several months now, a freshly-painted blue and green sign indicated that these installations belonged to the Aqua division of the Terra Corporation, but there were few passers-by to read it. As soon as Jake and Rachel drew in to the wharf below the hangar, Benny Segal strolled down to meet his colleagues. He was a native of Sydney, with a master’s degree in molecular biology, who had been hired by Amos Kahn four years ago to handle the experimentation in desalination aimed at implementing the patents involving genetically-modified seaweeds. To a very large extent, the present feasibility of the process was entirely due to the efforts and imagination of Benny, and he would have normally been the logical choice as manager of Aqua: the position now occupied by Rachel. Benny Segal was an exceptionally brilliant researcher, but he suffered from acute timidity and a lack of self-confidence that 98

caused him to stutter in the presence of strangers and people who seemed to dominate him. In front of both Aaron Rose and Patrick Grady, for example, Benny could hardly pronounce a single phrase correctly, and this was the case in spite of all the efforts made by Aaron and Patrick in a vain attempt to win his confidence. What was it in the behavior of both Rachel and Jake that neutralized Benny’s shyness and speech defect, as if by magic? Rachel herself once dared to put this interesting question to Benny Segal himself, in a blunt fashion. His reply was as eloquent as it was mysterious: “When I first met up with you and Jake, I had the impression that I had always known you, even before we arrived on Earth.

Back in the Dream Time of the Aborigines. And you knew me in the same way. So, I have nothing to hide from you. I can tell you everything.” And that is exactly what Benny Segal would do, in the case of the astounding biological breakthroughs he had been able to make during his solitary existence in Geraldton, where he worked ceaselessly in the style of an alchemist at the pilot station and in the hangar. Over a period of two years, through countless conversations and private lessons, both in Perth and in Geraldton, Benny Segal succeeded in transferring to Rachel Kahn the quasitotality of his know-how in the field of genetically-modified seaweeds and their potential as desalination catalysts. At first, Rachel saw this as a game that she took pleasure in playing, since she knew that Benny was communicating with her—indeed, confiding in her—in ways that were not imaginable in the case of most people with whom he had to deal. But, as the substance of these communications became more dense, and their scope deepened, Rachel realized with amusement that she was in fact becoming an expert, like Benny, in seaweed-based desalination.

And that is why Amos Kahn, learning this, decided to ask his younger daughter to take on a management job at Terra’s newlynamed Aqua division.

Benny was proud to show Rachel and Jake his preparation of the stuff to be placed in a cargo container and shipped from Geraldton to Eilat. The most complicated elements were the ten stainless-steel barrels—similar in appearance to those used to hold 99

lager—for the transport of the seaweed specimens. Amos and Benny had started to design such an object nearly a year ago, long before the question of Israel arose, because they knew that it might be necessary, one day, to ship seaweed to a remote spot on the globe. Each barrel incorporated an autonomous oxygen supply, housed in a steel cylinder. The precious life-sustaining gas had to eek slowly into the water in which the seaweed bathed, on a bed of muddy sand, and this oxygen flow was controlled by an electronic device powered by a battery. Now, one of the main reasons for Rachel and Jake’s visit to Geraldton was to help Benny to fill the barrels with seaweed, fix them securely inside the container, and trigger each oxygenation system. So, they promptly got to work on this task, which was soon completed.

Benny’s suggestions for filling up the container with things that might prove useful in Israel reminded Rachel of a mother packing her child’s suitcase for a holiday at the home of a little-known family in a remote place, maybe a backward village where commodities such as soap and toothpaste, not to mention modern objects such as pencils and paper, might not yet have been invented, and where the weather was so unknown that the child would leave carrying clothes ranging from a woolen scarf to a swimming costume, with a straw hat to avoid sunstroke, and boots in case it snowed. For example, Rachel was not totally convinced that a couple of electric ventilators (whose plugs would need to be changed) should be stacked into the container, to keep her cool in sunny Israel, or that half-a-dozen sacks of grass seed should be placed between the seaweed barrels, so that Rachel might get around to growing a lawn in front of her office in a small Israeli factory building, on the outskirts of Eilat, that Avram Moreno had rented on behalf of Aqua. On the other hand, Rachel and Jake were confident that Benny Segal would not have omitted the slightest item of information for the successful installation of the seaweed desalination process, once all the necessary hardware had been acquired and assembled.

“Benny, are you sure that you don’t want to go across with us to Israel, if only for a month or so?” asked Rachel with a smile, 100

repeating a suggestion that she had already made on numerous occasions. “Maybe the process will refuse to work unless the seaweed feels your presence.”

“Well, you’d better just use all the information I’ve tried to give you to teach that darned seaweed to get along without me,” said Benny laughingly. “If our seaweed doesn’t appreciate being with you on the shore of the Red Sea, Rachel, then it doesn’t deserve the privilege of creating fresh water in the Holy Land.”

Jake said to himself that, for an individual who was normally afflicted by problems of self-expression, Benny Segal was assuredly “desalinated” in a spectacular fashion, as it were, by the catalysis brought about by a certain Rachel Kahn. But Jake, too, could be activated just as strikingly by that same magic catalyst.

✡ As Jake and Rachel sailed back down the coast of Western Australia towards their home berth of Fremantle, after an efficient two-day stay at Geraldton, a spirited discussion concerning the forthcoming Caesarea project was taking place, in a conference room at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, in front of an audience of about a hundred experts from numerous fields. At the outset, Dan Shal simply wished to inform his colleagues at the Antiquities Authority about the reasons why his department of marine archaeology would soon be signing a major contract with an Australian company for a project of an almost unheard-of kind.

Leaked information concerning this affair aroused so much interest among archaeologists that Shal finally decided to allow people from outside his division to sit in on the discussion.

If Jake had known that such a presentation of his process would be taking place in the holy-of-holies of Israeli archaeology, at the headquarters of the Antiquities Authority, he would certainly have expressed a desire to be there. But there were several reasons why that was not the case. The meeting was a strictly Israeli event, conducted in Hebrew (with simultaneous translation into English, nevertheless), intended to provide people with a preliminary 101

description of the Terra process. So, the presence of the inventor of the process would have been premature, because people did not yet have a sufficient grasp of the technology in question to be able to ask meaningful questions about it. There would be time for that later on. Besides, people needed to have an opportunity, at this early stage, of expressing their doubts, indeed their disbelief, concerning such a process, and it was easier to do this if the inventor himself was absent. Dan Shal was acting with psychological perspicacity in inviting along outsiders to such an inevitably fuzzy presentation of the facts, because he would then be able to supply his future Australian partners with a summary of all the negative observations he collected, enabling them to prepare themselves for such criticism and attacks. In any case, the main reason why Jacob Rose was not invited along to this meeting was the fact that he was located at that time in a remote corner of the globe, sailing along the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean in the company of a charming young lady who happened to be, not only the chief of the Aqua division of the Terra Corporation, but also his tender cousin.

By way of an introduction, Dan Shal explained that there had been a famous precedent in Egypt, in the 1960s, involving the displacement of a gigantic ancient construction: the elevation of a pair of Egyptian temples at Abu Simbel comprising gigantic statues of Ramses II and Nefertari. To avoid their being covered by the rising waters of Lake Nasser due to the building of the Aswan Dam, Unesco funding made it possible to saw the sandstone constructions into blocks, drag them to a dry place sixty meters up the slopes and reassemble them in such a way that the statues looked as if they had been there always.

“There are fundamental difference between the Egyptian project and the Australian approach,” explained Dan Shal, while starting to display a colored image of the raising of the Gypsy on a screen in the conference room. “Instead of calling upon conventional machines to drag the sawn-up blocks of stone from one place to another, the Australians exploit the powers of Nature to transform the artefact into a gigantic raft, which simply floats to the new 102

place where you want it to be located. Consequently, there is no apparent display of force, of any gigantic struggle between the objects to be moved and the machines that are intended to move them. We are light years away from the image of hordes of slaves tugging on ropes to drag huge blocks up a slope to build a pyramid. The Chariot Process is designed to work softly and silently, with neither noise, smoke nor fire... although accidents can change this ideal situation, as the Australians discovered during their initial trial of a prototype system.” At that instant, Shal showed an image of the Gypsy site erupting in explosions when the laser Slicer ignited ammunition remaining in the wreck.

“I’m curious to know why this thing is referred to as a chariot,” said Ari Hillel, president of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “It dosn’t have any wheels, although it might possibly be drawn by sea-horses.” The grey-haired scholar seemed to be proud of his observation and his humorous image.

“That’s a good question, and there’s an interesting answer,” replied Shal, who was happy to have this opportunity of stating in public that his superior could ask a good question. “In fact, it’s a two-part answer. While the process was being developed, its inventor—the young Australian mining engineer Jacob Rose— never got around to naming his invention, since he was more interested in getting it to work than in giving it a fancy name.” Dan Shal then displayed an image of onlookers dancing on the beach at Rottnest while the silhouette of the floating Gypsy emerged in the misty background. “Press accounts of this inaugural raising of a wreck say that the onlookers dance with joy to the blaring music of a well-known Negro spiritual, Sweet Chariot. And since then, media people have been using this song as theme music whenever they talk about the event and the technology that was invented in Western Australia for this kind of application. But I received a quite different explanation in a recent letter from Amos Kahn, the president of the Terra company with whom we’ll be collaborating for the Caesarea operation. He explains that it’s a reference to the celestial chariot in the vision of Ezekiel.” Shal put on glasses and started reading from a sheet of paper he held out in front of him: 103

In my vision I saw a storm-wind coming from the north, a vast cloud with flashes of fire and brilliant light about it; and within was a radiance like brass, glowing in the heart of the flames.

In the fire was the likeness of four living creatures in human form.

Each had four faces and each four wings...

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw wheels on the ground, one beside each of the four.

The wheels sparkled like topaz, and they were all alike: in form and working they were like a wheel inside a wheel, and when they moved in any of the four directions they never swerved from their course.

I saw that they had rims, and the rims were covered with eyes all around.

When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose; they moved in whichever direction the spirit went; and the wheels rose together with them, for the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.

“As I said,” observed Ari Hillel, who seemed disappointed to realize that he would surely never be driven through the narrow streets of the Holy City in the vehicle of Jacob Rose, “we shall have to conclude that the wheels of the Australian chariot are imaginary.”

“Think of them as virtual,” corrected Dan Shal, “conceived by computers, and made of foam rather than bronze. The chariot of Jacob Rose is a machine of the spirit, which makes the rocks rise in the water.”

The Torah had often been a rich source book for scholars from all over the planet who excavated in the Holy Land under the auspices of the Antiquities Authority. So, Amos Kahn’s letter suggesting that the Terra Corporation might be implementing in Israel a latter-day variation on Ezekiel’s vision was indeed an inspired promotional image, which was generally well accepted by the audience for its poetic content. But these experts in archaeology were still eager to hear more down-to-earth facts and 104

explanations about this concept and this technological process, made in the Antipodes, which caused rock to rise to the surface of the sea and drift like wood.

A youthful and elegant American woman named Barbara Weizmann, professor of Roman history at the University of Cincinnati, but more like a business woman than an academic, was invited to step up to the lectern to address the audience. Since her department was in charge of the major series of excavations that had been under way now for almost a decade at Caesarea, she could be considered as one of the key individuals who would be guiding, if not actually directing, Jacob Rose and his small team of charioteers.

“If it were possible to move the vestiges of Herod’s Promontory Palace to a safe dry place,” she stated, “that would be a miracle for all of us who are enchanted by Caesarea. In any case, if this miracle doesn’t take place soon, the remaining traces of the building will disappear into the Mediterranean. So, the challenge is big and urgent. And the Australian process could well be a godsend.” Barbara Weizmann then went on to indicate an optimal schedule for the various stages of the operations. It goes without saying that, if Jacob Rose—stretched out beside Rachel on the deck of the Haifa—could have known that his future work schedule was being examined at that instant by dozens of distinguished archaeologists assembled in Jerusalem, he might have been a little surprised, if not alarmed.

Dan Shal and Ari Hillel then sat down on either side of Barbara Weizmann, forming a panel faced with the task of answering questions from the audience on all aspects of the Caesarea Chariot mission.

“There’s one aspect of this project that puzzles me from the beginning,” stated a young bearded man wearing a kippah, who identified himself as a research student in biblical archaeology from the Hebrew University. “Here we are in an ancient land where specialists from many countries have conducted excavations for a long time, and particularly since the creation of the modern 105

state in 1948. And we have taken advantage, on countless occasions, of the technological resources and know-how of Americans and Canadians, as well as English and Germans. How come that we find ourselves obliged today, faced with a difficult challenge in the case of one of most illustrious archaeological sites, to call upon the services of unknown individuals from a young nation on the other side of the planet who would appear to have no obvious credentials in conventional digs, and no basic knowledge of the ancient world?”

“Please allow me to make a slight correction, Sir,” said Barbara Weizmann, smiling. “You refer to Australia as a young nation, and that is quite correct. But it is, in fact, one of the most ancient land masses in the world, and they have specimens, in one place or another in that huge continent, of every imaginable kind of geological context... except for active volcanoes, because those of Australia were extinguished long ago, and they have totally disappeared, leaving no traces. Western Australia is also one of the most prolific mining environments on the planet, and the Europeans who settled in that corner of the world were digging holes in the earth’s crust to find precious metals and gems as early as the middle of the ninbeteenth century. So, Australians know how to wield mattocks and spades, as it were, even if they don’t necessarily have an expert awareness of biblical archaeology. Now, as far as Caesarea is concerned, we have as many great minds as we need, capable of building theories about what exactly might have taken place there, and when. But what we need most, for the moment, are people who can come along to Caesarea with their high-tech mattocks and spades, and their magic wheel-barrows that seem to be able to move across the surface of the sea, and gently move Herod’s construction to a better abode. So, when Dan Shal told me that the Antiquities Authority had heard of these Antipodeans who knew how to make rocks float, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. And I certainly didn’t asky Dan to ask the Australians to sit for a university exam in archaeology or ancient history. Worse still, I’m told that they don’t even speak Hebrew... but there are reassuring rumors that they indeed be Jewish.” It 106

might be said that Professor Weizmann, in defusing the student’s loaded question, was calling an archaeological spade a spade.

“In concrete terms, what do you intend to do with the Promontory Palace,” asked a woman who worked as a curator in a Tel Aviv museum, “if and when it actually starts to float on the edge of the Mediterranean?”

“Caesarea is a big place,” replied Ari Hillel, who was obviously happy to have an opportunity of intervening usefully in the discussion. “When Dan Shal evoked the idea that the ancient vestiges could in fact be transported magically to another spot, I immediately started to examine the identity of the neighboring sites, to see if somebody might be able to suggest an ideal final destination for the Promontory Palace. At the outset, we were a little worried about the cultural risk of placing the construction in an anachronic environment. For example, we were not keen on placing the Herodian remains in a situation where they might appear to belong to a Crusader complex. Now, this narrowed down considerably the possible destinations, because there so much of what we see at Caesarea today is in fact far more recent than the Promontory Palace. But, the more we thought about it, the more we realised that all of Israel today is a kind of global anacronism as far as historical juxtapositions are concerned. Just look at the Temple Mount, for example, whose most spectacular constructions have nothing to do with Herod’s sanctuary. So, with the approval of Professor Weizmann and her distinguished colleagues, we finally agreed upon a compromise solution that doesn’t appear to shock anybody. Above all, it will be a most spectacular setting. If everything goes as planned, Herod’s floating palace will be nudged northwards—maybe pushed or pulled by tugboats—over a distance of about a kilometer, to a beach to the north of Caesarea’s harbor, at roughly the spot where the primitive place known as Strato’s Tower was located, well before Herod’s time. I am referring to an empty zone close to the terminus of the Roman aqueduct that used to bring fresh water to Caesarea. You are all familiar, of course, with the impressive remains of that aqueduct, which is the first ancient artefact at Caesarea encountered by 107

tourists driving down from Haifa. But there are no other archaeological vestiges in this vicinity. So, we are free to call upon the resources of the Haifa Port Authority, who are going to dredge just off the beach and excavate a big rectangular gap in the shoreline, which will then be lined with concrete and rocks to form what might look like a dry dock, except that it will be permanently filled with water, holding the floating palace. Ultimately, to seal off and protect the precious contents of the dock, we could imagine the construction of a big underwater doorway, which could be raised hydraulically during periods of violent weather.”

“Although it’s a little premature to talk about such things at this early stage,” explained Barbara Weizmann, “several tentative projects are already emerging about what we might do with the vestiges once they’re safe inside the dock. Basically, we would like to provide visitors with a good idea of what the palace probably looked like when Herod used it as his luxurious seaside residence.

The huge indoor pool will be repaired, to render it water-tight, and no doubt filled once again with fresh water, as at the time of Herod.” At that point in the explanations, Dan Shal interrupted the professor, and said: “I can even let you into a secret: a kind of scoop, which you are free to leak out to Israeli media if you happen to have any journalist friends. You won’t be surprised to hear me say that, over the last month or so, we have all been in constant contact, by telephone and by the transmission of documents, with the proprietors of the Chariot Process in Perth, the Terra Corporation.

In particular, I have had in-depth conversations with the inventor of the technology, Jacob Rose, and with his uncle, Amos Kahn, who’s the president of Terra. Let me just point out that these two gentlemen, neither of whom has ever set foot in Israel, are tremendously excited about the Caesarea project. On the one hand, they seem to be thrilled about the possibility of suddenly becoming active partners in Holy Land archaeology. On the other hand, insofar as the Terra Corporation is a money-making business, operating exclusively within Australia up until now, they are highly interested in the possibility of getting involved in profitable 108

engineering ventures here in the Middle East, in their traditional domain of competence: petroleum exploration. For some time now, they have been concerned by adjacent challenges such as obtaining fresh water in the desert lands of Australia where they operate.

And in this field, too, a division of Terra has apparently developed an extraordinary process that transforms sea water into fresh water, using special seaweed developed in their secret laboratories. Well, Amos Kahn informed me on the phone the other day that Terra intends to import its water-production equipment into Israel. To cut a long story short, if everything turns out as planned at Ceasarea, and Herod’s palace finally gets restored in a safe spot, in its dock near the terminus of the Roman aqueduct, Amos Kahn has promised me that his engineers will fill the pool of Herod’s Promontory Palace with fresh water. His daughter Rachel will be settling shortly in Israel, and she will be personally in charge of this project of turning Herod’s rock into a pool of water.”

Out on the Indian Ocean, Haifa was gliding southwards towards the home port of Fremantle, with Rachel at the helm. She could not have imagined, of course, that her name was being pronounced at that instant in an august setting at the headquarters of the Israel Antiquities Authority, within the Rockefeller Museum, below the eastern walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

While they were tying up Haifa at Fremantle Yacht Club, Jake sensed that his cousin was in a contemplative mood, because she was strangely silent, maybe sad. In fact, Rachel was simply nostalgic: “I have a feeling that we might be stepping off Haifa for the final time,” she whispered, poised on the prow and gazing out in the direction of Rottnest Island. “It’s an entire phase of our adolescent existence that’s ending with this voyage. I hope that Leah and Patrick will take good care of our little yacht.”

“We’ll be sailing on other boats,” said Jake, as if to reassure her.

“We’ll be stepping onto greater vessels.” But Jacob Rose was a prophet, and Rachel Kahn could not yet understood his words.

109

✡ When Patrick Grady finally dared to ask his fiancée whether or not she would be offended by the idea of a Roman Catholic marriage, Leah laughed: “What you’re really asking me, dear Patrick, is whether I would be prepared to give up my religious heritage of Judaism and become a Christian. No?” “Well, yes, I guess you could put it that way,” replied Patrick shyly, as if her were making a lewd suggestion.

“You’re aware of my attitude towards these matters,” said Leah.

“So, you shouldn’t be worried that I won’t do things in a way that pleases you, that you see fit. But I’ll act within the limits of my culture, my personal sensitivity and my profound convictions. I’ve always been fascinated by the man that we Jews know as Yeshua.

You might say that I admire him because of his global message of love and, above all, through the extraordinary wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount. So, it’s relatively easy for me to say that I believe in Jesus as a man. Now, I’m not sure that such a belief makes me an authentic Christian. In any case, I can never cease to be a Jew, because that’s a genetic heritage that we obtained through being descendants of Abraham. But I’m perfectly willing to become an official Christian to the extent that is required for baptism followed by our marrige in a church.”

That was all that Patrick had in mind, all that he asked for. But he was determined to give his future wife every possible opportunity of appreciating the fundamental spirit and atmosphere of Christianity, and Leah was invited to do this in a style that might be described—were it not that such an adjective is rather unchristian—as luxurious. Patrick booked Leah in for a five-day retreat at the beautiful old Benedictine monastery of New Norcia, out in the bush beyond Perth. Here, Leah received daily catechism instruction from the abbot himself, Dom Roberto Bellini. But, when the aging Italian-born biblical scholar learnt that Leah Kahn was relatively proficient in Hebrew, the master/pupil relationship 110

was inverted, and their discussions moved to topics such as the mystery of the four consonants in the name of Yahveh, and the terms used by devout Jews to evoke the supreme entity of the Torah.

Later, when Leah found herself face-to-face with Father O’Hagan at the diocesan offices in Perth, to talk about her forthcoming baptism, she felt it her duty to mention that, while she looked forward sincerely to her initiation into the Roman Catholic community, she would never understand why the Church in the Old World had stood by during the Hitlerian epoch and allowed the Jews to suffer pain and extermination. Curiously, Father O’Hagan asked to be forgiven for these sins of omission, but Leah promptly informed the priest that she was hardly in a position to offer any such absolution on behalf of her people. So, the matter was dropped there and then. And, three days later, Leah Kahn became a Christian.

✡ Jake was woken up well after midnight by a friendly phone call from Barbara Weizmann (who had apparently forgotten that most Western Australians are in bed when folk in Israel are finishing their evening meal) letting him know that spacious quarters had been found for him on the seafront in Caesarea, and that the rent, for the duration of the mission (some six months, from the beginning of the installation phase up to the final Chariot event), would be paid by a Cincinnati philanthropist. The place in question, located inside the Sedot Yam kibbutz, used to be the workshop and residence of a boat-builder who repaired fishing vessels. The living-quarters could house comfortably the three technicians who would be working with Jake on the project, and they would be welcome to dine at the kibbutz. As far as the workshop was concerned, it would be ideal—from the point of view of its size and location—for stocking and verifying the electronic equipment that would be brought across to Israel from Fremantle. Finally, Barbara Weizmann explained with excitement 111

that dredging plans had been completed for the future dry dock designed to house Herod’s Promontory Palace in its new setting, and that an operational schedule for this work would be established as soon as Jake himself arrived In Israel.

✡ A few days later, Benny Segal phoned Rachel Kahn to inform her that the seaweed container had left Geraldton that morning on a ship that would arrive at Eilat about a month later after halts in Singapore and Bombay. Rachel immediately phoned Avram Moreno, at the Siloam office in Eilat, to give him this news. If all went well, Rachel herself would be in Israel to take delivery of the precious container.

Moreno, in turn, had interesting news for Rachel: “Over the last few days, I’ve been organizing your future office in Eilat. As soon as it became empty, I brought in painters to give it a fresh coat of white from one end to the other. And they’re now replacing the air conditioners, which are a must here in hot Eilat. I suppose that Fremantle is the same kind of place. We’re on the edge of the warm waters of a gulf that leads down to the Red Sea, and all around us there are deserts.”

“I’d never thought of this before, “laughed Rachel, “but we really must get around to a twin-city project for Fremantle and Eilat.”

“As I pointed out rapidly the last time I phoned, your office building is located in a south-western corner of Eilat known as the Amidar Quarter, alongside the road that separates the city from the sea. This road is in fact a continuation of the great Arava Highway, which runs down into Eilat between the city, on the western side, and the airport and Jordan to the east. After skirting around Eilat, and running past your future office in the Amidar Quarter, this road leads down towards Egypt, which is no more than ten kilometers away. Now, you know that I’ve been looking into the question of the right place to set up our future Aqua/Siloam pilot plant. Well, I 112

think I’ve found an ideal location, at the end of that road. Just before it reaches the Taba border checkpoint, there’s a touristic zone named Coral Beach, which is known for its underwater observatory and dolphin park. After that, there’s an empty stretch of the seafront, a little over a kilometer long, that terminates at the Egyptian border. Well, I’ve heard that this area is for sale, for an exceptionally low price. It would be a fabulous site for the pilot plant, at the extreme southern tip of the state of Israel.”

At the end of her phone conversation with Avram Moreno, Rachel called in on Jake, to give him the information. Together, they took out a detailed map of the Negev and the Eilat region, and pored over the proposed location for the Aqua/Siloam desalination plant.

“This is the first time I’ve ever looked closely at a map of that region around Eilat,” admitted Jake. “It’s amazing to realize that Israel’s seafront on the Gulf of Aqaba is terribly narrow.”

“I noticed that Israelis like to call it the Gulf of Eilat,” said Rachel. “Yes, I remember Avram telling me that the seafront at the southern tip of Israel is no more than a dozen kilometers in length.

Alongside Eilat, to the east, there’s Jordan, surrounded by the huge peninsula of Arabia. That’s where Siloam’s present desalination plant is located, on the edge of an artificial lagoon linked to the sea by a canal a few hundred yards long, running alongside the Israelo-Jordanian border. Down at the other end of the seafront road, where Avram has found a site for our future station, it’s the start of Egypt. I still tend to think of the Negev as a vast wilderness, but it’s nothing alongside the Sinai. Poor little Israel is a wedge jammed in between Egypt and Arabia, holding them apart. If you knocked out the wedge, there’d be a new canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.” “If Moreno has found us this land for such a reasonable price,” concluded Jake, “it’s probably because nobody in their right mind would think of setting up an industrial plant at such a spot, with hostile Arabs all around you.”

“That could be the case, but I don’t know whether we should 113

think of that as a major obstacle. Maybe I should phone Martin Luria and ask him what he thinks of Moreno’s idea,” suggested Rachel. “He would be able to tell us whether or not it’s suicidal.”

“On the other hand,” said Jake, “we don’t really have much choice. If you want to build a desalination plant in Israel that uses water from the Red Sea, then you’ve got install it somewhere along that twelve-kilometer seafront between Egypt and Arabia. It probably doesn’t make much difference, from a security viewpoint, whether you’re rubbing shoulders with one or other of the two neighbors. But I guess I’m trying to be optimistic.” Jake grinned cynically. Meanwhile, Rachel was already dialling the number of Martin Luria’s laboratory at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute in Sede Boqer. She switched on the loud-speaker of the telephone so that Jake could listen to Martin, whose reaction was surprisingly reassuring: “Believe me, Rachel,” he explained, “it’s the safest spot in Israel, for the simple reason that it’s a highly strategic zone, and Tsahal has more resources deployed around those twelve kilometers of beaches than anywhere else in the entire land. People tend to forget that there’s a very real defense entity called the Israeli Navy, not to mention our Air Force. And, when you’ve got such a short seafront to protect, that leads to a gigantic case of what the military folk call ‘overkill potential’. So, reassure Jake and Aaron that you’re taking no outstanding risks whatsoever in operating from a site alongside the Taba Checkpoint. On the contrary...”

Martin nevertheless concluded by saying that he would gladly get in contact with Avram Moreno, and go down to Eilat to meet him and visit the proposed site, as soon as possible, to make sure that it was a sound affair. Jake and Rachel were overjoyed to hear Martin making this suggestion in a spontaneous manner, because they had never wished to ask him directly to become involved in their preoccupations, even though there were many aspects of their Israeli projects for which they would have liked to receive advice from their Australian friend. They were aware that a reputed researcher such as Luria coull be an invaluable asset within their 114

ranks, and Jake had already planned to raise the question, as soon as he arrived in Israel, of the possibility that Martin might collaborate with them as a consultant.

✡ Caesarea and Eilat were a pretext for some corporative springcleaning in Western Australia. More precisely, the projects that loomed on the horizon in Israel persuaded Amos Kahn to ask Patrick Grady and Jake to help him tidy up a number of aspects of the Terra context that had been in suspense for some time. A major task, long overdue, would consist of getting rid of the antique equipment that had been accumulating at various Terra sites since the early days of the company. First on this agenda was the ancient fleet of small US boats assembled by the Rose/Kahn founders not long after their arrival in Western Australia, and used to recuperate all kinds of military hardware abandoned around the Pacific in the aftermath of World War II. These vessels had been wisely taken out of the water, at a secluded beach up on Dirk Hartog Island, where they were propped up by a system of welded steel frames, and protected from the elements by solidly-built individual hangars made out of sheets of corrugated galvanized iron. From time to time, a Terra employee would drop in at the island for a day or so, to examine the state of the vessels and carry out any necessary repairs to the hangars. Consequently, although they were quite old, these twelve boats were still—at least in theory— perfectly operational. When Amos Kahn made it known among the crayfish specialists of the Abrolhos Islands that these vessels were up for sale, they were purchased by enthusiastic fishermen within a month or so, for a remarkably good price: far more, in any case, than what it had cost Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn to acquire these ships. Apparently, the purchaser had only to install a new diesel engine to trasnform such a vessel into an ideal craft for ploughing through rough seas to pick up crayfish pots.

The funds resulting from this sale were devoted immediately, under Jake’s insistance, to the purchase of a splendid sixty-foot 115

deep-sea trawler, built five years ago at the Fremantle dockyards for an over-optimistic shrimp merchant who went bankrupt because he operated systematically in the wrong waters. Named Black Swan, this vessel was in perfect shape, since her owner had never been fortunate enough to have an opportunity of subjecting the trawler to the wear and tear of harsh seasons of shrimping.

Jake, of course, was not interested in catching seafood. He intended to travel to Israel in this vessel, and to use it there both as a floating home and as a supply ship for his forthcoming operations. Prior to purchasing the trawler, Jake asked the owner to move the vessel to the Fremantle dockyards so that it could be inspected with a view to being fitted out with living quarters for six people. Jake also wanted to install a steel deck over the hold where nets full of shrimp were meant to be dragged into the vessel, enabling him to envisage folding the blades of his Ecureuil, hoisting the helicopter aboard and tying it down securely, under tarpaulins, for the trip to Israel. There would also be room underneath the tail section of the helicopter to stack a small Zodiac on the deck. In this way, the Black Swan would be an ideal mother ship for future operations at Caesarea. Fortunately, it would be possible to have these transformations carried out in a remarkably short period of time, meaning that Jake would be able to envisage their departure within about two months.

✡ Patrick Grady and Leah Kahn were married religiously in Saint Patrick’s Basilica in Fremantle, which was known above all as the church in which the fishing fleet was blessed every year. Jacob Rose, feeling a little lost in such a Roman Catholic sanctuary, hoped nevertheless that a little bit of the heavenly aura of this Christian blessing might rub off, as it were, onto the former fishing boat named the Black Swan, which would soon be setting forth on a grand voyage. After the church ceremony, a sumptuous wedding reception was organized by Leah’s parents at the Fremantle Yacht Club. Since the club was in fact located in a corner of the shipyard, 116

the guests were invited to stroll down to the place where the Black Swan was suspended on dry land beneath a tall yellow crane, its weight supported by a series of wide straps whose extremities were attached to a huge steel frame. Scraps of plate steel were posed against the deck house, and the vessel looked a little like a patient in convalescence following a surgical intervention.

“Jake, do you know what the Black Swan reminds me of?” asked Rachel, attired in a long flowing gown of silky pastel-blue cloth, with a long white ribbon holding back her hair. Jake thought that his lovely cousin might have stepped out of a Botticelli painting. “She looks like the Gypsy on the operating table at Rottnest, when she was waiting to be cut out of the rock.”

“I’m a ship’s surgeon,” retorted Jake, laughingly. “But I operate, not aboard ships, but on ships.”

“Maybe you’re a gynecologist,” surmised Rachel. “Patients come along to you, not to be healed, but simply to give birth.”

“Giving birth is never simple, my dear Rachel” said Jake. “It is the most complex process in the Cosmos.”

✡ Besides Jake, Aaron and Rachel, three other individuals would be sailing with them to Israel aboard the Black Swan, and they would then participate actively in both the Caesarea and the Siloam/Aqua projects. All three were young second-generation Terra employees (sons of men who worked for the company), with excellent work records in their respective domains, and they shared above all a desire to participate in the exotic adventure that Amos Kahn and Jacob Rose proposed to them. In other words, they had in fact been selected (by Amos, primarily) as the kinds of individuals who would be dependable and efficient in the challenges that lay ahead. They were unmarried, born in Australia but of Mediterranean backgrounds, and each of them could be qualified as a highly-experienced jack-of-all-trades. This was not unusual at Terra, where employees were often called upon to solve 117

unexpected problems in harsh working environments where machines could break down and technical obstacles could arise.

Often, a man who was a specialist in one or more domains might have to find practical solutions to challenges that were not theoretically within his area of competency.

George Thiatikos was a son of immigrants from Crete who had arrived in New South Wales during the boom period when socalled “New Australians” were being intrduced massively into the country to work on the huge water and hydro-electric power project in the Snowy Mountains. George’s father, Yannis, had become a skilled bulldozer-driver when he accepted a highly-paid job with Terra, on the other side of the continent, up in the Kimberleys. His son George, by the age of twenty, knew how to operate any of the equipment rented out by Terra, from trucks through to bulldozers and giant hydraulic shovels. He also became proficient in the manipulation of explosives. When Yannis retired from Terra, he used his savings to purchase a small fishing boat.

George, whenever he had any free time, accompanied his father out to sea, and soon became a competent seaman. Aboard the Black Swan, George Thiatikos would be the skipper, faced with the responsibility of navigating across the Indian Ocean, up into the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, out into the Mediterranean and around to Jaffa, where they would be moored while making plans with the authorities in Jerusalem concerning their arrival at Caesarea.

The second Terra man was Robert Meguid, of Lebanese origins, who had worked as an electronics and computing specialist. His father, Moussa, had been a draughtsman with the company. At home, Moussa’s family had always continued to speak Arabic, which meant that Robert was perfectly bilingual. From the moment he learned that he would be a member of the team for Israel Robert had started to learn some Hebrew, with the help of his computer. For a fluent Arabic-speaker, accustomed to Semitic sounds and right-to-left writing, the challenge of the Hebrew language was not in fact enormous. Within the team concerned by the Chariot Process, Robert Meguid’s technical prowess was 118

almost on a par with that of Jake, since he had participated in every phase of the research since the beginning. To a large extent, he could be considered as the principal developer behind the laser technology of the Slicer, and he had also written all the computer software that controlled the injection of seabed gas into the ablations and the subsequent production of the all-important solidfoam buoyancy substance that caused rock to float. Not only was Robert Meguid a computer wizard; he was also a master of Mediterranean cooking, of a Lebanese rather than a Jewish kind.

Finally, the third member of Terra team who would be traveling to Israel aboard the Black Swan was a geologist and chemical engineer, Enzo Florini, whose parents came from the Aosta region of the Italian Alps. Within the unrefined context of rural Western Australia—which descended to a frankly Philistine level once you moved out into the more primitive regions of the bush and desert, where most of Terra’s activities were conducted—Enzo was the closest approximation imaginable to a Renaissance man. Due largely to his mother, who was a student of sacred art before she married, Enzo had been brought up in an atmosphere of literature, religion and philosophy, music and respect of Old-World culture.

He was even capable of reading the works of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, included in his father’s personal library brought out from Italy, in their original medieval Latin. Within the team that had made the Chariot Process a technological reality, Enzo Florini was the veritable alchemist who had confirmed Jake’s basic objectives by finding the exact magic dosage of geological and chemical ingredients for the creation of buoyancy foam.

During the lengthy experimental phases conducted by Jake on Rottnest Island under the supervision of Professor Julius Stokes, prior to the actual prototype project that succeeded in raising the Gypsy, Robert Meguid formed a remarkable tandem with Enzo Florini. Their research and development activities advanced in a complementary fashion, in the sense that Enzo’s creative flair enabled him to imagine such-and-such a novel solution, as if he were concocting a magic elixir, whereas Robert’s more formal approach then made it possible to fine-tune Enzo’s ad hoc 119

suggestions, and finally formalize them totally in the form of computer software.

Throughout the final weeks preceding the departure of the Black Swan from Fremantle, telephone communications between Perth and Israel rose to a peak as Jake, Rachel and their colleagues handled practical questions of all kinds. But it was Amos Kahn who was expected to find a miraculous solution to a problem that looked as if it could jeopardize the entire Caesarea project. A fundamental resource in the Chariot Process was RSG: the gases that were mixed with various chemical substances and then injected under pressure into the ablations made by the Slicer, finally forming a foam-textured solid that lowered the global density of the rock and caused it to rise to the surface of the water and float. Now, while such gases were readily obtainable in the seabed in abundant quantities, generally as a residue from petroleum-drilling operations, their composition was critical in the sense that Jake’s process would succeed perfectly if an optimal dosage of RSG could be obtained, as determined by computerized controls, whereas the process might not work at all if the required kinds of gases were not exploited. In a geograpgical zone where there was extensive off-shore drilling, it was a simple matter to hunt around until an oil-rig revealed the presence of exactly the right kind of RSG. Once such a source of gas was located, the operation that consisted of capturing sufficient quantities of RSG in a big tank, installed on a barge, was both straightforward and rapid, and the barge could then be towed to the place where the Chariot Process would be brought into action, as had been the case off Rottnest Island.

In the case of Israel, alas, the RSG situation appeared to be discouraging, if not totally negative, for the country had no offshore rigs whatsoever. Besides, Dan Shal had informed Jake that he could see no way of persuading an Arab neighbor of the Holy Land to allow his services to fossick around at the foot of one of their rigs with the intention of analyzing and eventually capturing a stock of suitable RSG. In other words, Shal was incapable of finding, or even imagining, a supplier of this obligatory 120

ingredient... unless, of course, they were to tug barges of RSG all the way from rigs in the North Sea. For a moment, Jake even wondered if he might not be obliged to take supplies of RSG from his familiar sites in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia, where he had obtained it for his experiments and then the Gypsy project.

That idea sounded very much like the cliché of carrying coals to Newcastle, since Israel was indeed located alongside the petroleum-rich Middle East. But, if their Arab neighbors were not prepared to let the Israelis scrape up the residual gas crumbs from the floor of their drilling platforms, then little could be done by Jake to change the situation. Fortunately, Amos Kahn was able to find a perfect solution to this problem, transforming it magically into a non-problem...

Three or four years earlier, the kingdom of Morocco had indicated its desire to establish partnerships with petroleumexploration corporations interested in starting operations in the virgin Atlantic seabed off the north-western coast, in the vicinity of Rabat and Kenitra. For a long time, it was known that there were commercially viable oil resources in these waters off Morocco, but territorial disputes with Spain had squashed efforts to get a major exploration project under way. As soon as these matters were clarified by an international tribunal, Morocco’s offer was immediately taken up, among others, by a British-Australian oilexploration company named West Fusion, with corporate headquarters located in Gibraltar. In Western Australia, where this company had been operating successfully for many years, close relationships had grown up between Terra and West Fusion, because most of the heavy equipment used by West Fusion had been supplied by Terra. Besides, West Fusion’s Australian chief executive, Jim Brennan, and his wife Betty, had become close personal friends of David Rose, Amos Kahn and their respective wives, because all these folk had developed the habit of playing golf together at the splendid Joondalup country club outside Perth.

Knowing that Jim Brennan’s mother company was operating several offshore platforms in Moroccan waters, Amos Kahn asked his friend if Jake might be able to obtain supplies of RSG from 121

West Fusion for his project in Israel. Within twenty-four hours, Brennan came back to Terra with exactly the answer that Jake needed: “Our technical chief at the Gibraltar office is an AngloMoroccan engineer named Hakim Bensala. When I gave him a brief description of Jacob Rose’s achievements, and told him about the project in Israel, Hakim was eager to hear more about it all. In theory, there should be no problem at all in obtaining RSG supplies from their platforms near Rabat, as long as the operations are conducted with the necessary discretion. When I told him that your Terra people would be reaching the Mediterranean in their own trawler yacht, flying an Australian ensign, Hakim said that a perfect solution would consist of using this vessel to tow a small barge to transport your gas. Everybody in the region knows that West Fusion is under joint British and Australian ownership. After collecting the gas out at an offshore platform, the vessel could stop over at our technical facilities on the waterfront at Tangier, or maybe even drop in at our offices in Gibraltar. Then the vessel could head off across the Mediterranean with the barge carrying the gas. Nobody would suspect that they might be heading to Israel to deliver the product.”

✡ The departure of the Black Swan from Fremantle took place in an ambiance that might have evoked a scientific expedition of a past epoch, except that no sailing ship that once left the Old World for the Antipodes ever transported a helicopter tied down under tarpaulins onto the deck. In many ways, it was the proverbial world upside down. In former ages, adventurers and refugees had left the Old World and settled as pioneers in the New. Here, these roles were being reversed. Jacob Rose and his crew were setting sail to encounter the hemisphere of their ancestors, the land of their forefathers. Their elders had left in search of better tomorrows; today, the younger generation was setting out to establish profound links with yesterday.

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5 Installation Petroleum drums holding an abundant stock of fuel for the Black Swan had been stacked on the small rear deck of the vessel, where they could be accessed easily. Normally, the boat would have been capable of traversing the Indian Ocean in a direct line from Fremantle to Aden, but George Thiatikos advised Jake to break the voyage into two legs, with a halt in Sri Lanka. This increased the overall distance, but it would be unwise to take risks with a vessel whose behavior was not yet totally familiar. It turned out that the fuel consumption of the Black Swan was in perfect conformity with George’s previsions, and they merely topped off the vessel’s main tank in the port of Colombo.

The voyage was uneventful but pleasant. There was little rough weather to strain the stainless steel cables that tied down the Ecureuil, the Zodiac and the fuel drums. On the other hand, out of the six individuals on board, only George and Jake reached the end of the voyage without a minor bout of seasickness, brought on by the combined effects of the incessant gentle swaying of the trawler, the monotonous throbbing of the engine, and the diesel fumes that would hang over the vessel whenever the warm sea air was still, which was generally the case.

As the vessel rounded the tip of Arabia and nosed into the Red Sea, the Black Swan was greeted by clouds of flying fish, while dozens of dolphins formed an elegant escort on both sides of the prow.

“The presence of these animals is a sign of good fortune,” announced George Thiatikos. “They know we have come on a mission of good will.”

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“They are probably simply taking their first closeup look at a boat full of Australians,” said Aaron. “Maybe they heard the voice of Enzo, and they’re wondering who could be making such exotic sounds.” Aaron’s joke was appreciated by everybody, since it was a fact that Enzo Florini had the habit of exploding into Italian operatic airs from time to time. On such occasions, his handling of a libretto would be excellent from a purely linguistic viewpoint, but he sung the Italian words with a comical Australian accent.

“If these dolphins have swum down from the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal,” said George, “they would only understand Greek. Ancient Greek, of course. Homer and that kind of stuff. Maybe a bit of Aristotle, too.”

“Nonsense,” said Robert Meguid. “Everybody knows that dolpins in this corner of the world communicate in Arab. They can understand the Koran just like you and I read the morning newspapers in Fremantle.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Rachel. “Don’t you think they might use Hebrew?”

Since there was no way of knowing the language of the dolphins, the crew members turned to other questions of a similar vein.

“If you put a flock of flying fish in a tree,” mused Jake, “would they flutter back down to the sea?”

“No,” replied Rachel, “they would build a nest and lay eggs.”

Maybe too much water, like too much solitude, was not good for the brain. Clearly, it was high time that the voyage ended and that the mariners returned to civilization.

✡ As the Black Swan was tying up at the marina in Eilat, Anne Levi jumped aboard and threw her arms around Aaron. Then she kissed Rachel, who promptly introduced her to Jake. Meanwhile, Martin and Sarah Luria had climbed aboard, followed by Avram 124

Moreno. Finally, Aaron introduced the Israelis to the three crew members of the Black Swan: George Thiatikos, Robert Meguid and Enzo Florini. Immigration and customs formalities took no more than ten minutes, because the authorities were aware of the special status of the visitors, considered formally as “guests of the Israel Antiquities Authority”. The group of ten then strolled into the nearby gardens of the Red Sea Hotel, where Avram had organized a welcome luncheon. They had much to talk about, many plans to finalize, projects to inaugurate.

✡ Throughout the months during which Jake and Rachel, out in Australia, had been planning the Terra operations in Israel and their forthcoming arrival in the Holy Land, they often realized that remoteness was a negative factor, and that everything would have been simpler—in any case, less stressful—if they could have had continuous person-to-person contacts with their Israeli counterparts, instead of being obliged to deal with people who often remained mere names. The next best thing to direct contacts was, of course, the possibility of calling upon friends as intermediaries. This was exactly the role that the Lurias and Anne Levi had been called upon to play from time to time, in various subtle ways. Each of these three friends had their own specific potential for intervening.

Martin Luria had the advantage of being an Australian-born scientific researcher, much like Jacob Rose. So, he could be expected to understand technical problems and challenges, and evaluate strategies. But he had a full-time job in Sede Boqer at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute, and only had rare opportunities to visit places such as Eilat and Jerusalem. Sarah Luria, on the other hand, had lots of free time, but she had to ask friends to look after her children, David and Lisa, whenever she intended to be absent from Sede Boqer. She had done this several months ago, at Jake’s request, for a period of two days, enabling her to drive up to Caesarea to put together an in-depth photographic reportage on 125

every imaginable aspect of the site, including the layout of the maritime facilities (for mooring the Black Swan) and the location and state of the living quarters at the Sedot Yam kibbutz that would be put at the disposition of the Australian team during the entire Chariot project at Caesarea. These photos, accompanied by detailed written comments from Sarah Luria, had been immensely useful for Jake during his planning, since they enabled him to imagine himself already at the site.

As for Anne Levi, whom Jake had never known personally up until his arrival in Eilat, she had got around to playing a remarkable behind-the-scenes role in the Jerusalem context, and she transmitted regularly her findings to Jake in the form of typed documents. She was, after all, a reservist member of the Israeli Defense Forces, wearing provisionally (for reasons that concerned nobody, not even Anne herself) the uniform of a Jerusalem police officer. She was also a graduate in Israeli law from the Hebrew University, getting ready to start work as an international barrister as soon as Tsahal liberated her. It went without saying (without saying out loud, that is) that Anne Levi was in an ideal position to obtain significant information, in a discreet manner, about individuals residing in the Holy Land, both Israelis and foreigners.

This information might range from mundane character appraisals, to ascertain somebody’s reliability, or to determine his or her position on the political scale (particularly with respect to the everpresent issues concerning relationships between Jews and Arabs), through to more subtle aspects of people’s conditions and activities, such as their financial resources the sources of their income and the identity of their friends and associates.

When she was wearing civilian clothes (usually jeans and a Tshirt), Anne’s youthful carefree appearance, enhanced by her flowing auburn hair, tied back with a ribbon, and her slender violinist’s hands (for she was indeed an amateur musician), dispelled any impression that she might be capable of poking her nose into matters that did not concern her. Like the majority of young Israeli professionals who operated in the murky zones labelled Intifada (whence her sudden appearance on the scene 126

when Rachel had been struck by a stone in Hebron), Anne Levi gave strangers the impression that she was merely a nice young woman, friendly and innocent, if not naive, who would be incapable of annoying anybody by asking unbecoming questions.

Happily, once she was reassured by the individuals with whom she was in contact, Anne was capable of switching back smoothly— that is, intelligently and elegantly, with tact—from her professional role to her authentic personal disposition. During their last encounter in Israel, she had amused Aaron, who appreciated intrigues of all kinds, by telling him retrospectively the true reasons why she had returned to the Hadassah hospital, the day after Rachel‘s treatment for a head wound inflicted by a Palestinian stone: “It was absolutely obligatory for me to know why three apparently normal Australian tourists would be driving around in Hebron, and getting a stone thrown at their vehicle. It wasn’t even me, personally, who decided to return to Hadassah the next afternoon and show you the Chagall windows. Those were military orders from my superior. Even my acceptance of your kind offer to visit the house for sale in Yemin Moshe was not totally disinterested, because I didn’t yet understand what was attracting you to Israel. It was only when you invited me to dinner at the pizzeria in Ben Yehuda Mall, my dearest Aaron, that I finally took off my soldier’s cap, because I had completed the task assigned to me by my superior, and became your genuine everyday Anne Levi.

And the rest, as they say in the movies, is now ancient history...”

Anne had reviewed—for Terra in general, and for her still unknown future brother-in-law, Jacob Rose, in particular—the various key figures involved in the Caesarea project, so that the Australians would have a better idea of the individuals with whom they were dealing. First on the list, of course, was Dan Shal, Director of Underwater Archaeology within the prestigious context of the Israel Antiquities Authority, whose office at the Rockefeller Museum was the place where Aaron Rose had once heard, for the first time, of Herod’s Promontory Palace at Caesarea. Anne’s analysis of Dan Shal was a little disturbing, to say the least: 127

“In Israeli thinking, if you’re looking for the right man to appoint as chief to handle a domain that’s full of crooks, the ideal solution is to hire a crook. And Dan Shal is that kind of chief. I’m not suggesting that he doesn’t know anything about history and archaeology. On the contrary, he has an expert’s knowledge of the value on the international market of every artefact that comes to the surface of our waters from one end of Israel to the other. And he runs that business like a corporate manager. Now, don’t get me wrong. Dan Shal is a conscientious Israeli citizen, respected throughout academic circles preoccupied with uncovering the history of the Holy Land. He does indeed make sure that every unique masterpiece discovered in our waters finds its way into our public research institutes and museums. But, for every such unique masterpiece, there might be three or four tidbits, of secondary value, that end up in the hands of New York dealers or private collectors. And Dan Shal collects a commission on most of these transactions. Consequently, he’s an exceptionally wealthy gentleman, which allows him to spend a lot of time in his Manhattan penthouse, where he meets up regularly with the cream of US and Canadian lovers of ancient art. When he was appointed to his post at the Antiquities Authority, by a former prime minister, Shal was a retired commander in the Israeli Navy. In fact, he was also a former combat frogman, and that is how he first came in contact with the universe of marine archaeology, through scuba diving, like yourselves.” Anne Levi had heard all about the marine pastimes of the Rose and Kahn cousins in Western Australia.

“Although he’s over fifty, he’s in perfect physical condition.

Whenever he’s near the sea, which is most of the time, he swims a kilometer every morning. He owns a large yacht, named Masada, moored at Haifa. Once you’re installed at Caesarea, you can expect to be invited out for exciting diving excursions with Israel’s number-one underwater man. You’ll see, too, that Shal is generally surrounded by some of Israel’s number-one glamor women.”

Anne’s report on the female American academic in charge of excavations at Caesarea was somewhat less spectacular: “Barbara Weizmann is an intelligent and vivacious person, who 128

is greatly admired by her colleagues here in Israel. I am incapable of saying anything whatsoever about her academic credentials, apart from the fact that she is young to be holding a professorship in a major US university. Her chair at Cincinnati is referred to as Roman history, but she is actually one of the world’s leading specialists in the narrow domain that stretches from the Herodian epoch to the Jewish revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The only comment I have to make about Professor Weizmann concerns a minor detail: namely, the convenient and generous accommodation solution she found for your team on the edge of the Sedot Yam kibbutz, alongside the Promontory Palace at Caesarea. You’ve probably discovered already, through the excellent photos taken by Sarah Luria, that it’s a delightful setting, and the residence is luxurious. And you’re being invited to stay at this place on a no-strings-attached basis, practically for as long as you like. You’ve heard that the residence belongs to an Ohio philanthropist. That is exact. He’s an antiques dealer named Rudi Kaplan with boutiques in New York, London, Rome, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Now, Barbara Weizmann is theoretically the wife of a physicist on the staff of her university. But she has been the mistress of Rudi Kaplan for several years. So, don’t be too suprised if you bump into the professor and the philanthropist, together, at Sedot Yam. This shouldn’t bother you. The residence is spacious. Besides, Rudi Kaplan seems to be a really nice guy.”

Anne Levi’s talent at summarizing situations and describing individuals went beyond what one might normally expect from a police officer. But Anne could be described more truthfully as a future barrister. In the context of her assessments, she finally reached the top man at the Antiquities Authority: sixty-five-yearold Ari Hillel.

“Normally, Hillel has moved beyond the point at which he might or might not be concerned by the nature of ruins that researchers are digging up in Israel. His position at the Antiquities Authority is largely honorific, but he deserved his appointment in the sense that he used to be a highly competent archaeologist whose major work was conducted in the Negev. He also worked a 129

lot in the Sinai during the time it was occupied by Israel. His speciality has always been the pursuit of hypotheses concerning the historicity of the wanderings of Moses and his people. But something seems to have snapped in Hillel’s mind, not long ago, as far as archaeology is concerned. Nowadays, at least since being placed at the head of the Antiquities Authority, he is solely preoccupied by political matters. Concerning the Palestinian problem, he suddenly became the most hawkish of hawks. He is now using the entire weight of his prestigious position to advance the idea that Israel must inevitably sever its ties, not only with the Palestinians, but with all our Arab neighbors, in a totally unilateral fashion, using any means whatsoever, without bothering about the possibility that anybody might get hurt in the process. Many of Hillel’s critics claim that the distinguished gentleman is prematurely senile, in that he talks as if one could wave a magic wand that would immediately solve the Arab problem once and for all. These critics might accept that kind of wishy-washy talk if it came from a conventional right-wing extremist, but they get upset because the man who is saying these things is supposed to be a renowned archaeologist, accustomed to behaving empirically and reasoning logically. The truth of the matter is that certain individuals in power are perfectly happy to hear a man such as Ari Hillel taking advantage of his job as chief of the Antiquities Authority to express far-fetched ideas that an ordinary politician would not dare to proclaim.”

✡ In the middle of the afternoon, the group set out in three vehicles to visit the site between Coral Beach and Taba where Aqua, under the guidance of Avram Moreno’s Siloam firm, would soon be installing a seaweed-based desalination plant. Beyond the tourist complex at Coral Beach, the landscape was lunar and uninhabited. Further along the road, on the other side of the high wire-mesh fence that represented the Egyptian border, the silhouette of the luxury hotel at Taba emerged from behind a grove of palm trees. This establishment had been at the center of two 130

dramatic events: first, a lengthy ownership conflict between Israel and Egypt, and more recently a major terrorist attack.

Within a few minutes of their arrival at the desolate site, the visitors were greeted by two Tsahal vehicles, which parked at a distance of a hundred meters, with the barrels of their bonnetmounted guns pointing in the direction of the group. Avram Moreno and Anne Levi strolled up slowly towards the closest vehicles, with outstreched arms, to reassure the soldiers that nobody was getting ready to prepare a terrorist attack, and that everything was in order (beseder, as people have the habit of saying constantly in Hebrew). The six young occupants of the military vehicles strolled over immediately to chat with the visitors in excellent English. It was an uncommon event to meet up with Australians on the edge of the Sinai.

“When we get around to coming here frequently,” suggested Rachel, “maybe we could agree upon some kind of signal to let Tsahal know it’s us, so that we don’t have guns pointing at us every time we arrive here. Maybe we could flash our automobile headlights in a prearranged signal.”

“No, that wouldn’t be possible,” replied the senior soldier.

“Standard signals of that kind can never be used, because it would be so simple for others to learn them and trick us. No, the only solution is to face up to our vehicles, as you’ve just done, and explain calmly who you are. If it’s us, we’ll welcome you as soon as we recognize you.”

“And if it’s not you?” asked Rachel.

“Well, naturally, if you had the misfortune to arrive here when a vehicle with terrorists tried to give you the impression they were Tsahal,” replied the soldier, “they would simply blow the hell out of you before you realized what was happening. Here in Israel, there are no half-measures.”

On the way back to Eilat, Avram Moreno stopped to show Rachel the Coral Beach Hotel, where he had made arrangements for her accommodation.

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“This is a good place, with a fine restaurant and a swimming pool,” he explained. “And the beach is just down on the other side of the road. I think you’ll find it’s more fun living in a holiday hotel like this, at least at the beginning, rather than looking for a flat in Eilat. Besides, the tourist trade has dropped considerably because of the terrorist scare, and the hotel will give you VIP treatment.”

They then visited Rachel’s future office in the Amidar Quarter, to the south of Eilat. The small building was rather dull when seen from the outside, but comfortable and spacious inside. Avram had already equipped the premises with a few basic necessities: an office table and chairs, a few lamps and a metal filing cabinet. The telephone, too, was installed.

“Your seaweed stocks are thriving over at our Siloam site alongside the salt ponds,” explained Avram. “While we’re waiting for construction to start on the Taba station, there’s room in our warehouse for your Aqua equipment. This Amidar office will be a personal base for you, where you can keep in contact with Terra headquarters in Australia and handle your Aqua accounting. As I made clear to your father, I intend to take care of all the down-toearth tasks concerned with supervising the Taba project.”

“I’ll be spending much of my time up at our house in Yemin Moshe,” said Rachel, “and merely dropping down here to Eilat for short visits, from time to time, to see how work is advancing on the Taba site. So, my office here in Eilat will be largely symbolic.

The nerve center of Aqua activities in Israel is likely to be Malki Street in Jerusalem.” Rachel lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she were revealing a secret. “In fact, the real operational headquarters of Terra in this part of the world will probably be Jacob Rose’s cabin aboard the Black Swan. With Meguid’s help, Jake has equipped it with computers and satellite-based communications devices that give the impression you could launch a spaceship from that control room.”

“Why not?” mused Moreno.

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âœĄ It was decided that Aaron would disembark in Eilat from the Black Swan and travel back up to Jerusalem with Anne in her car.

Rachel was impatient to rediscover the house in Malki Street, and she thought about accompanying Anne and Aaron, but she finally decided to stay aboard the Black Swan for the final leg through the Suez Canal and around to the port of Jaffa. Rachel made this decision, without saying so openly, for a single simple reason. She wanted to be alongside her cousin Jacob Rose when he set foot in Jaffa, to accompany him on the magical journey of initiation along the ancient road from the Mediterranean through the hills to the Holy City. Rachel herself was intrigued by the intensity and urgency of this unexpected desire to be with Jake at the moment he discovered the vision of the Temple Mount. The idea of wanting to be alongside a dear friend at the instant of his first encounter with Jerusalem appeared to Rachel, a little confusingly, as a profound expression of tenderness, a wish to share a meaningful moment.

Indeed, the idea crossed Rachel’s mind that this desire might be truly a sign of love between a woman and a man, but she did not dare to pursue that theme of reflection.

At Jaffa, George Thiatikos made arrangements with the port authorities to leave the Black Swan moored in a protected zone where nobody would be tempted to fly away with the helicopter (if ever such a robbery could be physically executed, since the aircraft was tied down firmly with its blades folded). Then Rachel rented a van capable of seating comfortably six people, which brought back memories of the French camping-car that had once enabled Leah, Aaron and herself to roam around Israel. Then they set out, with Enzo Florini at the wheel, along the highway to Jerusalem.

For Rachel, the ritual halt on the Mount of Olives was an even more intense experience than the first time, probably because she sensed the vibrations brought about by the presence of Jake alongside her. The three crewmen of the Black Swan were busy taking photos, which was as good a reaction as any to the 133

breathtaking splendor of the scene, which sometimes gave the disturbing impression that the observer was merely standing in front of a vast fresco on the walls of an ethereal palace. Jake put his right arm around Rachel’s shoulders, in silence, then stroked her hair. Words arose slowly.

“We have reached Yahveh’s house,” he murmured. “Shall we go in?”

I rejoiced when they said to me, Let us go into the house of Yahveh.

Now we are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.

— Psalms 122

“Yes,” said Rachel. “Our house awaits us.”

The doors of the stone cottage in Malki Street were wide open, and Aaron and Anne were waiting to welcome everybody. The windows, too, had been opened, in the vain hope that a breeze might freshen the rooms. The noon sunshine was baking the slopes of Yemin Moshe, creating a shimmery glare above the walls of the Old City on the other side of the valley, and the summer temperature was high. It would have been more logical to close the house completely, to keep out the hot air, but today could only be an open day at 23 Malki Street. A day of aliyah. Of ascension.

Jacob Rose in Jerusalem.

✡ Jake asked Rachel to accompany him to the Rockefeller Museum because they were, in a sense, dual representatives of Terra, even though Jake’s cousin did not play, for the moment, any precise role in the Caesarea project. Aaron went with them, of course, since he had established the first direct contact with the Antiquities Authority. Anne Levi accompanied them, too, for there was still the possibility of minor language problems for the Australians in this foreign land. Besides, Jake was reassured by the idea that Anne would sit in on important meetings of this kind, 134

since her analytical policewoman’s outlook inspired confidence.

So, it was a sizable delegation that entered the office of Israel’s Director of Underwater Archaeology.

“I have the impression that Caesarea is getting ready for your arrival in a state of joy and excitement,” said a smiling Dan Shal, whose sun-tanned features suggested that he had not been spending his time recently poring over ancient texts in an archeaological museum. “I have a little sailing-boat, and I decided to go up there with a few friends, a week ago, out of curiosity, to have a last look at the site before you move in. You know what I mean: the calm before the storm. Do you realize that, if all goes as planned, Caesarea will never be the same again as a result of your intervention? That’s a big responsibility, Jacob. You are about to leave your mark on Israel.”

“I am aware of that honor, Sir,” replied Jake calmly. “But men of all kinds have been leaving their mark on the Holy Land, for the better or for the worse, for the last three millenia, if we start counting with David. I feel that we are an archaic dynasty of builders, standing patiently in a long line, awaiting our turn to act, waiting for the foreman to cry out: Next man! Then I’ll scramble up onto the building-site, dragging my tools behind me. And all the other fellows behind me in the line will be able to move one step forward.”

“I see that you are a pragmatic visionary, Jacob,” said Dan Shal.

“You are conscious of the weight of the past, but you do not allow it to weigh you down personally, by providing an absurd pretext for taking yourself too seriously. Believe me, Jacob: I happen to have much the same kind of relativistic outlook on our profession.”

“I try to carry out my work in a serious professional manner,” summarized Jake, “but I’ve never been a particularly pompous personage.”

“That’s great,” exclaimed Shal, visibly pleased with the casual tone of their encounter. “I’m sure we’ll get on very well together.

Now, let’s look at various practical details. First, you might be 135

happy, if not amused, to hear that the distinguished American professor, Barbara Weizmann, actually decided to set up a temporary camp in your future residence at the Sedot Yam kibbutz, next to Caesarea, a fortnight ago, to make sure personally that everything will be absolutely perfect for you as soon as you arrive.

I have even heard that the Ohio philanthropist who owns the place dropped in personally, not long ago, and Professor Weizmann actually insisted that he should arrange for a lot of improvements of all kinds, to give the residence five-star standing.”

“It’s an enormous privilege for my cousin and his team to have a professor of history and an Ohio millionaire taking care of their living conditions,” said Rachel laughingly, winking at Jake. “I plan to drop in there from time to time to see how they’re getting along, and maybe do some house-cleaning.”

“We should be tying up at Caesarea in three days’ time,” explained Jake. “Professor Weizmann told me on the phone that she intends to be there to meet us. So, that’s perfect. We should be able to start work rapidly. In the immediate future, I need to take our crates of electronic equipment from out of the belly of the Black Swan, if you see what I mean, and make sure that it’s all in working order.”

“I hadn’t mentioned this in our phone conversations, Jake,” explained Shal, “but there’s a way in which we might be able to help you, at a practical level. You see, I happen to have fairly close links to the Israeli Navy. At the present moment, we don’t have any conflicts under way. All’s quiet on the western front! So, if you needed any kind of logistic support, either small craft or men, we should be able to supply it.”

“Hey, Dan, that’s a fantastic offer,” exclaimed Jake. Suddenly he realized that he might be going a little too far in addressing a senior Israeli civil as Dan, and he corrected himself: “Sorry, Sir, I shouldn’t be calling you by your first name. That’s my Aussie culture getting the better of me.”

“No problem, Jake,” replied Shal, laughing. “We Israelis tend to behave a bit like Aussies. We’re not particularly formal. Certainly 136

not in politics. Not even in the military domain. So, you just carry on calling me Dan. That’s an order, mate!” The Australians laughed. Visibly, that last word suggested that Shal had done some homework about Down Under language prior to this meeting.

“As I was about to say,” continued Jake, “your offer of logistic assistance takes a huge load off my mind. A lot of hardware— mainly compressors, tubing and such stuff—will be arriving by cargo in Haifa within the next few weeks. It would be great if you could get your navy personnel to bring it down to the site at Caesarea. Then there’s a second problem that you might be able to solve. In the near future, as I told you on the phone, we plan to take the Black Swan across the Mediterranean and out through the Straits of Gibraltar to an offshore platform in Moroccan waters, out from Rabat, where the Anglo-Australian West Fusion company has generously offered us as much seabed gas as we can carry away with us. You could help me immensely by asking the Israeli Navy to find us a light barge capable of transporting a gas cylinder of a capacity, say, of fifty cubic meters. We would need a powerful pump, too, able to be operated from the deck of the barge. And the necessary cables, of course, for towing the barge.”

“Where do you want this barge and its equipment delivered?” asked Shal.

“Ideally, I’d like to meet up with your navy vessel at a touristic place such as the Balearic Islands,” explained Jake. “The Black Swan would take the barge in tow, leaving your vessel to wander around in the Mediterranean for a day or so while we fetch the gas from the West Fusion people out in the Atlantic. Then we would tow the barge back to Gibraltar, where your Israeli Navy vessel could take control of it once again, to bring it back to Caesarea.

Does that sound feasible?”

“No problem whatsoever,” replied Shal. “Just let me know as soon as you’ve decided upon a precise date for the trip.”

“Can I make just one more request?” asked Jake, who did not consider it necessary to wait for an answer. “I’d like you to bring a small marine crane up alongside the Black Swan, when we arrive 137

in Caesarea, to lift my helicopter off the deck and take it up onto the beach.”

“Better than the beach, Jake, I’ll ask our fellows to carefully place your helicopter on the flat stone platform that was once the site of Herod’s Promontory Palace. Our archaeologists will then be able to imagine what the ancient world might have looked like if only Herod had a helicopter. But don’t forget to fly off before the platform starts to float away.”

Before the departure of his visitors, Dan Shal made a point of leading them down a long carpeted hallway to the vast office of Ari Hillel.

“I have heard so much about your fabulous chariot of fire,” exclaimed the president of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “with its virtual creatures that swim through the waves like giant sea monsters. I am sure that Herod would have been happy to know that his palace will be transformed into a floating island by engineers from a great island on the other side of the planet.”

Jake thanked the president warmly for that résumé of the situation and his kind remarks. Obviously, Jacob Rose could gain nothing by attempting to correct or attenuate the excessive exotism of the gentleman’s appreciations. Visions are visions, and should be respected.

✡ Rachel remained in Jerusalem with Aaron and Anne while Jake drove back to Jaffa with the three members of the Terra team and prepared to take the Black Swan up along the coast to Caesarea: a distance of no more than fifty kilometers. Late in the sunny afternoon, they eased the vessel alongside a wharf at Sedot Yam, where they were greeted by an attractive woman wearing a khaki cotton coat and trousers, with her long hair flowing out from under a wide-brimmed straw hat. She was accompanied by a middleaged man in sunglasses, attired in an elegant navy-blue linen suit with a white shirt and a pastel-green silk kerchief at the neck. He, 138

too, was wearing a straw hat, but its brim was narrower, like that of a boater.

“I’m delighted to welcome you to Caesarea,” exclaimed Barbara Weizmann, shaking hands with each of the four men.

“This is Rudi Kaplan, who asks you to make yourselves at home in his residence for as long as you like.”

The professor and her friend took the four Australians on a leisurely global tour, first of the beachfront residence, then of the Herodian site, and finally of the entire Caesarea archaeological domain. Jake was pleasantly surprised to realize that Sarah Luria’s photographic reportage had in fact supplied him with a correct and precise idea of the layout of the site, to such an extent that he had an eerie déjà vu impression of many places.

“I am housed in another wing of the kibbutz,” said Barbara Weizmann. “So, we’re likely to run into one another from time to time. In the beginning, I don’t intend to start talking to you about Caesarea or Herod or anything at all. I think it’s vital for all of you to simply wander around here without a guide, soaking up the primordial atmosphere of the place and capturing the archaic vibrations in an intuitive fashion. So, I won’t say anything at all.

I’ll leave it up to yourselves to create your own picture of what Caesarea is all about, and what we should do here. What you might be able to do here. As soon as you feel that the time is ripe to start asking me questions, I’ll be delighted to try to answer them. But it’s highly possible that you yourselves will end up formulating, not only the right questions, but the answers too.”

Jacob Rose was genuinely impressed by the subtle intelligence of this lady, who had already succeeded in making him feel at home, not only in Rudi Kaplan’s splendid residence, but even on Herod’s foam-swept promontory, which retained the desolate nobility of the abode of an ancient monarch who had disappeared back in the days before modern history, back before helicopters.

Jake was happy to realize that he himself was greatly moved by these ruins that he would soon be moving.

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✡ During the weeks that followed, Jacob Rose did exactly as the American professor had advised. He would spend hours simply sitting in silence on the edge of the stone platform, and contemplating the site, while striving to form a mental picture of what might happen there once they had prepared the patient for the planned surgery.

Often, Jake recalled that, during the raising of the Gypsy at Rottnest, one of the unexpected aspects of the operation had been the sounds. Normally, he had imagined that the noise output of the process would be almost zero. Over a period of many months, when his equipment was undergoing tests on the island, Jake had accustomed himself to the low background purring from the compressors that pumped a cocktail of seabed gases and assorted chemicals into the ablations to create the solid foam that would finally cause the rocky mass to rise. Australian Navy specialists who had closely inspected the wreck of the Gypsy prior to Jake’s experiment had warned him that there could be relatively harmless explosions of military ammunition if the laser beams of the Slicer were to heat up and eventually ignite the soggy gunpowder in the shells that were scattered all around inside the wreck. And this is what indeed did happen, creating both a din and a fireworks show.

But Jake had been more intrigued by the dull sounds of subterranean implosions brought about by the phenomenal energy released when a large mass of rock slid invisibly, as a consequence of a cut, over a distance that might have been no more than a few centimeters. An erupting volcano is undeniably spectacular, like a fireworks display, because of the colorful and noisy projections and the moving streams of fiery lava, but geologists know that catastrophes such as earthquakes and tidal waves are generally brought about by the discreet displacements, often over small distances, of colossal but invisible layers of the earth’s crust, as described by the science of tectonics.

Jake tried to imagine what kind of frightening noise might be 140

emitted by the stones of Herod’s palace if they were disturbed, awakened from their millenary sleep. He imagined the monumental slab of Caesarea floating in the air, like the suspended rocky globe surmounted by the somber turrets of a castle in René Magritte’s Château des Pyrénées. Suddenly, like a giant bow whose cord has been drawn too tightly, the slab might snap with an explosive staccato, like the crack of a giant cannon of the Great War, and the broken fragments would crash to the surface of the water, then descend once more to their familiar seabed, provoking a tsunami that would drown the intrepid observers. There were visions, mused Jake, that were better left invisible.

✡ It was not so long ago that Aaron Rose had left Fremantle for Israel on the Black Swan, but he decided that he should now make a return trip to Australia and back, accompanied by Anne Levi, to introduce his future wife to his parents, and to show Anne the land in which he had grown up. The moment for this rapid voyage was optimal for several reasons. Although plans for the Caesarea project were being respected scrupulously, and Jake was optimistic about everything, not much was actually happening yet at the site.

In any case, the services of Aaron were not required explicitly for the moment. So, his departure for a short time would not affect the evolution of Terra’s project. Rachel, too, had no need for assistance at the present moment, since Avram Moreno was still busy organizing the earth-moving operations designed to prepare the Taba site for the future Aqua plant. Finally, the basic reason behind the timing of this excursion to the other side of the planet concerned Anne herself, who was being released by Tsahal, and getting ready to start work as a barrister in Tel Aviv.

Leah had written to Jake and Aaron informing them that their parents were a little bewildered to suddenly find themelves without sons, although they approved entirely of the decision to move to Israel. So, the forthcoming encounter with Anne Levi might be a soothing balm. But Aaron realized that this might not be the case at 141

all, since his parents’ meeting with Anne could merely accentuate their distress at the thought that Aaron’s future wife and children would never be settled permanently near the Anvers estate on the banks of the Swan.

The departure of Aaron and Anne meant that Rachel suddenly found herself all alone in the great stone city of Jerusalem, where her knowledge of Hebrew was not yet sufficient to enable her to feel at ease in the strange other-worldly atmosphere, where few people seemed to be ordinary humans in the same sense that she had once looked upon the citizens of Perth, say, as ordinary folk.

Human beings in the Holy City gave the impression, for one reason or another, that they were extraordinary individuals. Many were visibly pious, whereas others seemed to want to replace piety by politics, as if these were two different ways of looking at the same things. Inevitably, everybody you encountered in Jerusalem seemed to have a specific mission, a vocation, a cause or, in any case, a precise formal reason for leading a certain type of existence, for doing things in a particular rigid way, for not doing other things... One despaired, in Jerusalem, of ever meeting up with simple straightforward folk who just happened to be living there, who just happened to be living. Stop.

Jake had realized since the beginning of the Israeli projects that he would soon need a motor vehicle. He finally decided to purchase a four-wheel drive Toyota, which would enable him to drive comfortably on rocky sands of the kind that existed in many parts of Israel. This vehicle made it easy, too, for Jake to call in frequently on Rachel in Yemin Moshe. She was delighted, of course, to have her solitude interrupted by the arrival of her adored cousin. Together, they would spend hours wandering on foot through every corner of Jerusalem, both in the Old City and the New, not only in strictly Jewish places (such as Mea Shearim, whose quaintly-dressed Orthodox residents seemed to emerge from an old album of sepia-toned photos), but also in Moslem areas (such as the north-east corner of the Old City, fanning out from the busy Damascus Gate) and specifically Christian quarters (such as the Holy Sepulcher and Mount Zion).

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For Jake, these walks were more than mere sightseeing excursions. In accordance with Barbara Weizmann’s advice about “soaking up the primordial atmosphere of the place and capturing the archaic vibrations in an intuitive fashion”, Jake wanted to be impregnated, as far as possible, by the spirit of the great builder Herod. So, he sought out the ancient king’s works, and tried to understand what might have motivated their design and their construction principles. Jake had returned to the state of an engineering student, seeking to learn by examining the achievements of an elder. He was fascinated above all by the Western Wall Tunnels, which Rachel had visited on her first trip to Israel, with Leah and Aaron. Now she was able to lead Jake there in the style of an experienced guide.

For visitors such as Jacob Rose, arriving here for the first time, it was not however easy to understand the sense of the site and the origins of what they were seeing. It was strange that gigantic blocks of stone used by Herod as the base of the supporting wall of the Temple Mount should be located underground and only accessible through a narrow tunnel. Visitors wondered naively how and why the builders placed these blocks at such an unlikely place.

The answer, of course, was that the entire supporting wall—over 450 meters long—was in the open air at the time of Herod. In the course of the two millenia since then, constructions of all kinds were placed against the wall, and these were transformed by time into debris that accumulated at the base of the wall, finally hiding from view the massive Herodian blocks (called ashlars by archaeologists). The destiny of the wall evolved dramatically on “the seventh day”, immediately after the astounding victory of Moshe Dayan’s troops in the conflict known as the Six-Day War in June 1967. To create today’s vast plaza in front of what visitors once called the Wailing Wall (known since 1967 as the Western Wall, since Jews of the Diaspora had no further cause for wailing), bulldozers razed an entire ramshackle Moslem neighborhood in the hours that followed the arrival of Israelis in the Old City.

Removing the totality of Arab buildings hiding the wall was unthinkable (probably not for everybody). So, a decision was made 143

by Israeli archaeologists, almost immediately, to start tunneling in that area with a view to unearthing the secrets of Herod’s earthmoving operations, which had almost doubled the area of the platform upon which the original temple of Solomon had once stood.

“Archaeological operations ignite passions,” said Rachel philosophically. “Researchers wanting to learn more about the past find themselves opposed to believers who prefer to leave things undisturbed. This exploratory tunnel has caused bloodshed because Arabs think that Jewish archaeologists might be eroding the base of the sacred mount where their mosques stand.”

“The gigantic blocks in this wall are a Jewish version of the Egyptian pyramids,” concluded Jake. “It’s normal that they arouse the same kind of mystery. And, wherever there’s mystery, there can be conflict and bloodshed. People resort to violence when they can no longer rely upon calm logic to understand what they see around them.”

“Do you ever fear that your forthcoming operations at Caesarea might cause trouble?” asked Rachel. “Are you likely to find enemies?”

“Of course,” replied Jake. “There are probably all kinds of people who will get upset, for many reasons, by the idea that we might be touching a place that should be left in peace. But there’s little I can do about that. If Herod’s palace becomes a floating raft, as I hope, maybe our enemies will fire rockets at it, trying to sink it. But they’re not likely to succeed.”

Jake and Rachel emerged from the tunnel under the Western Wall and strolled up onto the Temple Mount. They took off their shoes and entered the Dome of the Rock. For long minutes they stood in silence, holding hands, a barefoot Adam alongside his barefoot Eve, contemplating es-Sakhra, “the Rock” in Arabic, where Abraham once got ready to sacrifice his son.

“This mountain, Moriah, has been thought of as profoundly Jewish since the beginning of time,” mused Rachel, “but everything about the site evokes Islam today. Solomon’s Holy of 144

Holies is supposed to be somewhere quite near the spot where we are standing. Maybe we are committing the unspeakable crime of actually trespassing at this very moment in the Holy of Holies. But there are no longer any Jewish references whatsoever at this place.

At the alleged heart of Judaism, there is a terrible absence, symbolized by that hole in the Rock.”

“Here in Jerusalem, at the source of the three great monotheistic religions, there are other amazing absences,” added Jake. “Look at the Christians. They celebrate an absence: the empty tomb. As for the Moslems, the absence that characterizes their mosques is the most alarming of all. They have banned all images of human beings, and replaced them by geometrical forms, as if mankind were to be considered as a line of algebra.”

“They invented the number zero,” affirmed Rachel, with a sigh.

“So they say,” added Jake.

✡ Back at the Sedot Yam residence alongside Herod’s Promontory Palace, Jake decided it was time to analyze the subject of Herod with Barbara Weizman. But, instead of sitting down there and then to talk about the monarch, Jake suggested that the professor might join him in the Ecureuil for a bird’s-eye view of two of Herod’s fabulous fortresses in the wilderness: Herodium, near Bethlehem, and Masada. Barbara Weizmann was thrilled by this proposal, since she had never before had an opportunity of seeing these sites from the air. Rachel had returned to Caesarea with Jake. So, she accompanied her cousin and the professor in the helicopter excursion to the south.

“What you see here,” explained Barbara Weizmann, as they circled around the extraordinary fortified palace of Herodion, at the summit of a mountain, “is a combined symbol of Herodion paranoia and megalomania. The fortress was an observation post enabling the tyrant to spy over his subjects, to make sure that they weren’t organizing a revolt against him. Herod also intended that 145

this splendid desert palace might be his personal mausoleum. But no traces of the deceased monarch have ever been found, there or elsewhere.”

“It would have been the tomb of Judean antiquity’s greatest builder,” concluded Rachel. “So, that’s another astonishing absence.”

Further to the south, alongside the vast shimmering expanse of the Dead Sea, the doomed citadel of Masada was a magnificent spectacle when seen from the air, through the eyes of a desert eagle, as it were. It was unjust though (if such a thing as justice existed in the context of ancient ruins) that one of the most striking elements in the panorama was the huge Roman ramp that enabled the invaders to overrun the fortress.

“This citadel was not only luxurious,” explained Barbara Weizmann, speaking into a microphone mouthpiece that enabled her words to be heard, above the noise of the helicopter, through the headphones of Jake and Rachel. “Theoretically, it was designed to be autonomous and invulnerable. A sophisticated system of drains and cisterns enabled the inhabitants to stock winter rains, so that they had a constant water supply. Their vast storehouses held food and other supplies. An elaborate Roman-style public bathroom was decorated sumptuously with frescos.”

“What did the people think of Herod?” asked Rachel, sensing that it was unlikely that a ruler accustomed to such a lavish style of living could be loved by his subjects.

“He was generally hated,” replied the professor, “and feared, too, for his secret police permeated every corner of Judean society, and opponents disappeared quietly from the face of the earth in one of Herod’s fortresses. This power-hungry tyrant—half Jew, half gentile—lived in constant fear of an insurrection. At certain moments of his life, he was clinically insane, and murdered several of his wives, children and relatives. Back in Caesarea, when you transform the Promontory Palace into a floating vessel, there will be countless terrified phantoms aboard, among the crew and passengers.”

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“I suppose that the same could be said today for the entire ship of Israel,” mused Jake, heading the helicopter back up towards Caesarea. “George Thiatikos, the skipper of our Black Swan, told me there’s an old saying among Greek sailors: The ship itself is never fundamentally bad. But the people who sail on it might be evil.”

✡ In Western Australia, Aaron had the unexpected and weird sensation of suddenly finding himself a stranger in his own homeland. Nothing had really changed there since his departure aboard the Black Swan, a few months previously, and he was genuinely thrilled to take Anne on sightseeing excursions to all the familiar places of his childhood and adolescence: the elegant streets and parks of Perth, on the banks of the glorious Swan, the beaches, the port of Fremantle, Rottnest... Anne herself was immensely joyous in this sunny carefree environment, devoid of the huge problems that wracked the modern State of Israel. As for the members of the family, the Rose and Kahn parents, they were profoundly delighted to meet up with lovely Anne Levi, who seemed to be transforming Aaron (who had already been a young man of many qualities) into a more mature and concerned individual. But Aaron himself had the strange feeling (in fact, a mundane and undeniable impression) that Western Australia was definitely not a place where significant things were happening.

And he longed to be back in Israel, with Anne, to assist Jake and Rachel in facing the exciting challenges that had become part of their destiny. So, in stepping onto an airliner for the return trip to Tel Aviv, Aaron felt that he was finally bidding farewell to his youth.

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6 Associates Jake and Rachel drove down to Eilat in the Toyota to inspect the state of the construction site of the future desalination plant at Taba. At the Aqua office in the Amidar Quarter of Eilat, Rachel spent ten minutes installing a Macintosh computer she had bought a few days earlier in Jerusalem. Avram Moreno arrived at the office just as Rachel was logging in to the Internet for the first time. The service was of good quality in this corner of the world, and Rachel was delighted to know that, from now on, she would be able to communicate electronically, not only with Jake up in Caesarea, but with her family and Terra colleagues back in Australia.

“If you buy a Hebrew keyboard,” advised Avram, “you’ll find that it’s an excellent tool for learning the language. The oldfashioned Hebrew schools are going out of business now that newcomers to Israel have discovered that it’s far more efficient to study the language at home with a computer.”

“I already have a Hebrew keyboard on my personal machine back in Yemin Moshe,” said Rachel. “I also purchased a set of videos. So, the learning process has started.”

They drove to the Taba site. As usual, Tsahal personnel halted the vehicle at gunpoint and ordered the occupants to identify themselves.

“You don’t know how lucky you are in placing your building site here,” joked one of the soldiers. “Elsewhere in Israel, Palestinian kids would be sneaking in and stealing bricks and cement, maybe even your earth-moving equipment and all kinds of stuff. In building here at the Egyptian border, alongside the Taba 148

checkpoint, you can be reassured that your site will be protected twenty-four hours a day by the Israel Defense Forces.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” said Rachel jokingly, “but we didn’t really make the decision for that reason. We do appreciate your protection, though. We need to have access to the sea. When the plant is completed, our primary resource will be sea water. The shoreline is not very long here at the tail end of Israel, and we were lucky to be able to acquire a property for our future desalination plant.”

The construction work was still in its initial stages. A security fence was being installed around the perimeter of the site by a team of six Palestinian workers who were using a small forklift to unload steel tubes and wire netting from a truck.

“They’re working quickly to finish a fenced zone to stock the building material for tomorrow’s operations,” explained Avram.

He turned to Rachel. “Please tell your father and your friendly colleague named Benny Segal that Terra’s plans for the plant are quite clear and easy to follow. Siloam has placed orders in France for all the required hardware, which will be shipped from Marseille to Eilat over the next few months. If everything goes as planned, we should be able to drink a glass of Aqua-fresh water from the Red Sea in less than a year.”

They drove back to the Siloam office in Eilat where Jake asked Avram Moreno to listen, for the first time, to a summary of what was happening in Caesarea, and about to happen.

“In the Siloam’s partnership with Terra, your specific domain is desalination,” stated Jake. “I think of you as one of the family.

Besides, Rachel and I have now joined up with your family here in Israel. In telling you what we plan to do in Caesarea, I’m merely giving you a summary of family affairs. We’re starting something big. It’s important that a partner such as yourself should know what’s under way. Activities that appear to be mere business today could be transformed into challenges of a more profound nature.

So, you must be made aware of what we’re doing.”

There was an aura of mystery in Jake’s justifications, as if he 149

might be leaving certain things unsaid. Maybe this was simply because he did not know yet how to say them. In any case, the idea of approaching everyday matters of business and technology as though they were a branch of metaphysics was an attitude that did not shock the Jewish mind (if such an abstract entity could be said to exist). On the contrary.

âœĄ Aaron and Anne were in no hurry to get married. For the moment, they intended to live together in Tel Aviv, where they had work to do. Anne had joined the prestigious law partnership of Laban Associates, which specialized in the complicated zone of real-estate disputes that had arisen in the aftermath of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on the west bank of the Jordan, in the historical lands of Judea and Samaria. Inevitably, the justice of the victors prevailed, and the only Arabs who succeeded in bringing their affairs before an Israeli tribunal were citizens who had once been prominent through their possessions or political connections. So, Laban staff dealt with Arabs whom even Israeli administrators would not normally encounter.

The Laban office was located near the beachfront of Tel Aviv.

After much searching, Anne and Aaron found a flat to rent on the edge of Jaffa, with a splendid view over the port. The place reminded Aaron of Fremantle, back in Western Australia.

Following Rachel’s advice, Aaron had purchased a computer, which enabled him to communicate instantly with Australia.

During the many years that he had been a republican militant, while operating a small private radio station and multimedia studio, Aaron Rose had acquired journalistic skills. He had also established contacts, often developing into personal friendships, with various Western Australian politicians and professional journalists. From his new vantage point in Israel, it was a simple task for Aaron to use the Internet to get back in contact with some of these individuals, to tell them briefly how his existence had changed, and to suggest above all that he might be able to work for 150

Australian media as a correspondent in Israel. This offer was accepted by the Perth Times and a news magazine, the Western Weekly. Charles Edwards, the scientific journalist who had once attended the inaugural press conference organized by the Terra Corporation on the subject of Jacob Rose’s research, advised his old friend to look around for interesting multimedia subjects in Israel with a view to producing video clips that Edwards would be prepared to use in his local television show. Consequently, Aaron Rose had no difficulty in finding ways of earning his living in the Holy Land. To talk about his projects, Aaron convened a reunion at Malki Street with Jake and Rachel, who immediately recognized the potential of Aaron’s working from Israel for Australian media.

“I must buy a Sony camera,” said Aaron. “The cutting and editing can be done on my computer, and I can use the Internet to send finished products back to Perth.”

“You should start to study Hebrew,” stated Rachel. “Even if you manage to interview Israelis in English, you’ll still need Hebrew to make initial contacts with people such as secretaries. Professional people in this country find it natural to express themselves in their native Hebrew. In a journalistic context, you’ll end up having to interview people in Hebrew. Then you can dub the edited results in English for Aussie viewers.”

“Anne is helping me to get started in Hebrew,” said Aaron.

“It’s time I made a move in that direction,” said Jake. “I don’t really need Hebrew to communicate with people at Caesarea, but I end up with an inferiority complex when I see an American such as Barbara Weizmann moving back and forth fluently between English and Hebrew. If she can do it, why can’t I?” “While you’re at it,” laughed Rachel, “you might ask this distinguished female to teach you all about Terra Sancta archaeology.” An observer might have detected a waft of trivial jealousy in the tone with which Rachel referred to this lady, whom Jake admired greatly, as a distinguished female.

“Who knows?” replied Jake, smiling fondly at his adorable cousin, who immediately blushed in her usual way. “Give me time.

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But let’s get back on track. It goes without saying that I would be enormously grateful if you could handle the media coverage of the Caesarea operations. By that, I mean both Perth-oriented reporting and—Why not?—even Israeli and international handling of the event.”

“If I can put in a word at this point,” added Rachel, “it also goes without saying that people would be thrilled, both here and back in Australia, if you could give some media coverage to what Aqua and Siloam are starting down at Taba. But don’t forget to yell out your identity to the Tsahal guys before you point a camera at them, otherwise they’re capable of shooting you.”

“Seriously,” remarked Aaron, “do you remember that fabulous clip of a TV cameraman who died while he was filming the guy who was firing at him?”

“Aaron, we have several great resources that could help you in your reporting work,” added Jake. “First, there’s the Black Swan, which happens to be equipped already with sophisticated computing and communications equipment, under the control of a technical specialist: Robert Meguid. Incidentally, don’t forget that Robert is perfectly fluent in Arabic, if ever you needed to interview Palestinians. Then, there’s the helicopter, which is constantly available if you wanted to reach a remote place rapidly. To move around in Israel with media equipment, there’s nothing better than a four-wheel drive vehicle like my Toyota. Once your media team is considered as an official entity in the context of our Caesarea project, you could purchase the vehicle on an associated Terra budget.”

“That sounds great, Jake,” said Aaron, who was pleased to discover the generous manner in which his brother was reacting to his own professional ambitions. “We’ve got the means to become a powerful team.”

“I like the idea of finding a name for the team,” added Jake.

“It’s a deformation from my scientific culture, where everything carries a name right from the start.”

“It’s actually a Jewish habit,” added Rachel. “Giving names to 152

entities is a primordial Hebrew procedure. Bob Dylan says it better than in the Torah: Man gave names to all the animals, in the beginning, long time ago. The only name that can’t be specified exactly is that of Yahveh, for the simple reason that Elohim gave us the four consonants, but not the vowels. Nobody seems to know with any degree of confidence what these four mysterious consonants could possibly signify. So, pragmatic pious Jews get around the problem by simply referring to the Creator as the Name: ha Shem. But I’m getting carried away. Why did you bring up the question of names, Jake?”

“If somebody were to ask Aaron for what multimedia outfit he works,” explained Jake, “he would need at least a name. Maybe an address, too.”

“The address has existed ever since we set foot in the Holy City,” said Rachel. “23 Malki Street, Yemin Moshe. And the name?”

“I humbly suggest that we call ourselves—not too seriously, of course—the Tribe,” replied Jake, speaking slowly and smiling, as if he were schoolteacher in front of children with the right to be startled, but not shocked. “It’s a term that has always amused me, intrigued me. Besides, I think it’s a great name for a modern multimedia outfit. Like most Aussie kids, I had always imagined that this word was reserved for Aborigines. White Australians belonged to families, whereas Aborigines were members of tribes.

Maybe you remember that subtle joke in a Crocodile Dundee film when the hero runs into a Negro policeman in New York and asks him: ‘What tribe are you from, mate?’ In our Philistine imagination, we imagine that every black-skinned person surely belongs to a tribe, and this concept evokes a primitive setting for savages. So, when I first heard our grandparents explaining that their converted navy mine sweepers were named after the twelve tribes of Israel, I remember asking: ‘Were the patriarchs black?’

And that was a pretext for Grandma Kahn, who obviously didn’t understand the sense of my childish question, to tell me the story of the queen of Sheba, the ebony beauty from Ethiopa who became 153

Solomon’s bride. The other day, when Rachel led me up onto the roof of the Holy Sepulcher where Ethiopian monks are huddled in their makeshift rooftop monastery, where there’s no room to swing a lion, I was tempted to stroll over to a jet-black guy who was pounding away on an African drum and ask him: ‘What tribe are you from, mate?’ But I never joked about this word after Grandma told me proudly that the Kahns were descendants of the tribe of priests. Her explanations came back to me the other day in Tel Aviv when I got into a fascinating conversation with Anne, all about her ancestors in Belgium. They sounded very much the same kind of pious Jews as our own ancestors, speaking a mixture of Yiddish and French or Flemish. But Anne made it clear that they belonged to a different tribe, the Levites, who lived alongside the Kahns or the Cohens or whatever you like to call them, and accompanied them professionally within the Temple, but without actually joining up with them as blood brothers. I was tempted to ask Anne if her eventual marriage with my brother might possibly be the first union in Jewish tribal history between a Kahn and a Levi, but I was afraid that your lovely Anne might think I was asking a serious question. So, what do you think about calling our tiny multimedia team the Tribe?”

“It’s a great idea,” replied Aaron.

“Perfect,” said Rachel.

So, the Tribe was begotten at that instant and in those circumstances at Malki Street. Rachel opened a bottle of red Carmel wine to celebrate the event. Meanwhile, Jake took advantage of the presence of his brother and cousin to give them a résumé of the evolution of Chariot preparations.

Jacob summoned his sons. ‘Come near,’ he said, ‘and I shall tell you what is to happen to you in days to come.’

— Genesis 49

✡ In the vicinity of the sea-swept stone slab of Herod’s site at 154

Caesarea, there were signs that something was going to happen, but ordinary observers would have found it difficult to guess the nature of the event. Passers-by could now read a big sign, in Hebrew and English, fixed to the security fence that sealed off the zone where work was being carried out. The sign stated that a major maritime transformation would soon be applied to Herod’s Promontory Palace, but it did not indicate the nature of the transformation. People seeing Jake’s aircraft parked in the middle of a maze of tubes and compressor equipment might have gathered that the site might soon be the Mediterranean port of attachment for some kind of luxury floating hotel, named Herod’s Palace, with a helicopter shuttle service for clients. These days, in the new world of ancient Israel, anything was possible.

Today, the weather was perfect, and a big table had been set up on trestles alongside the helicopter. Professor Weizmann had suggested that, in view of the number of people Jake had invited along to this meeting (twelve, in fact), they could have used the dining room of the Sedot Yam kibbutz, or even the stage of the splendid Roman amphitheater, just above the promontory. But Jake preferred to assemble his guests on the stone slab itself, even if this meant that they might be sprayed by sea water from time to time.

It was time to introduce some authentic Chariot maritime atmosphere into the proceedings.

Jake was seated at the head of the table, alongside a big blackboard that had been regularly blown over by the wind before Aaron weighted it down with a few rocks laid upon the feet of its supporting trestle. Within the group of twelve invited to take part in the meeting, every individual had a precise functional role to play in the forthcoming events at Caesarea. Other people were concerned in one way or another by the Chariot project that would be moving Herod’s ruins, but the individuals gathered here today could be thought of as major actors in the planned operations: the prime movers.

Ari Hillel was seated just to the right of Jake, in the place of honor. Without the approval of the president of the Israel Antiquities Authority, there would never have been any Chariot 155

project at Caesarea. He held the purse strings of the organization over which he presided, and he could exploit administrative procedures to veto a project, no matter how much others advocated it. The real funding of archaeological projects came from various external sources, but a minimum investment was required from within the Rockefeller Museum, simply to transform a proposed theme into an official project. It was indeed an open secret that Ari Hillel used this prerogative at times to postpone indefinitely certain Islamic excavations that did not meet with his profound approval, even though the necessary funding had been advanced, and researchers were on hand to carry out the work. Jake had thought it wise to invite Ari Hillel to this progress meeting on the Caesarea project because of advice from Martin Luria, whose opinions concerning Hillel corroborated the data obtained earlier on, in her policewoman’s style, by Anne Levi.

“Hillel is a well-known figure in Negev circles,” explained Martin, “because most of his archaeological work was conducted there. He has many friends among the Israeli scientists at the BenGurion Desert Institute, and they all paint the same picture of a brilliant man who can pull strings at many levels of Israeli society, particularly in the general political arena. Most people like to be respected, and have people think they’re wise and good. Well, Hillel is just the opposite. He seems to get a weird kick out of knowing that people think of him as a silly old fellow. At times, he deliberately acts like a clown, then he uses this façade to scrutinize those around him, to see how they react. He’s not tremendously concerned by the conservation of Herod’s ruins, but he has a profound respect for biblical history and Israel’s heritage of Hebrew culture and wisdom.”

“In concrete terms, Martin, tell me what I might gain by handling Hillel with care, or what I could lose by disregarding him,” asked Jake, talking like a businessman. “After all, it’s a fact that the only words I’ve ever heard from him were nonsense.”

“Hillel knows perfectly well who you are, Jake,” replied Martin. “For him, you’re an Australian scientist who happens to be a member of a prosperous Jewish family with achievements in 156

mining technology. He knows that you’re not an archaeologist or a religious crank, and he sees that as a positive aspect of your situation. Many Negev people think of Ari Hillel as the same kind of individual as David Ben-Gurion. The Old Man—as they used to call affectionately—was a great pioneer of the kibbutzim generation, with a vision of Israel. His critics said he was senile when he advocated that the walls of the Old City be razed so that it would merge into the new Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion was joking when he said that, but he kept a straight face. Hillel behaves at times in the same erratic style. He’s an archaeological pioneer, with a vision of an eternal Israel. Well, Hillel apparently sees you too as a young Jewish pioneer from the Antipodes, with technological promises that could give rise to a new vision. I don’t know his underlying political motivations, but I believe you should consider Ari Hillel as a precious friend. I agree, though, that the precise nature of that friendship remains obscure.”

Jake had invited Martin Luria himself to the Caesarea meeting.

For the moment, Martin was still engaged on a long-term research project in desert agronomy at the institute in Sede Boqer, and he had no intention of abandoning that work. Jake did not yet have a firm professional offer to make to Martin. But Jake had recently made it clear to Martin that, if all went well, he hoped to entice him to Terra at some time in the near future.

Obviously, Dan Shal and Barbara Weizmann were attending the meeting on Herod’s stone slab. Less obvious was the invitation extended by Jake to Barbara’s friend, the Ohio millionaire Rudi Kaplan. The explanation was simple. Jake and Rudi happened to get on very well together, as if they were old friends, in spite of their differences in age, background, culture and professions.

Thrown suddenly and unexpectedly into the complex world of biblical archaeology, not to mention Israeli society, Jake often felt out of place. Rudi Kaplan’s presence constantly reassured him, in that this man with relatively little culture and intellectual baggage seemed to be gliding through life smoothly and joyfully, while making so much money through trading in antiques that he ended up giving it away, literally, which entitled him to be called a 157

philanthropist. Before making any kind of decision, or transmitting any ideas to Barbara, Jake appreciated Rudi’s common-sense appraisal. If Rudi told him that some particular aspect of a situation appeared to be either right or wrong, good or bad, then Jake would act instantly on the basis of that evaluation before pursuing the matter with anybody else. In other words, Rudi Kaplan had become Jake’s sounding board in Caesarea.

Jake admired Barbara Weizmann greatly, particularly at an intellectual level, while finding her a little aloof in a way that made him timid. This minor relational obstacle was probably due to an anomaly in Jake’s outlook on certain people. He had become so captivated by science that he found it difficult to relate to brilliant individuals who, like Barbara Weizmann, seemed happy to relegate logic, rational thinking and scientific rigor to a secondary status. Whenever such a rejection of the scientific approach caused the individual in question to be at a disadvantage, cast in the role of an ill-informed if not ignorant observer, Jake was not particularly concerned. He was troubled, on the contrary, whenever the individual who rejected the scientific approach appeared to get along perfectly well, as if he or she had no need for science. In such cases, it was Jake who no longer understood what was happening around him, and this could bring about timidity in his attitude to such people who—in Jake’s eyes—acted as if they believed, rightly or wrongly, in magic. And Professor Weizmann, from this viewpoint, was a believer in magic.

This ambiguity in Jake’s relationships with others, based upon their attitude towards scientific explanations, pervaded the most essential domain of all: that of the credibility of the theories upon which Jake’s Chariot Process was founded. The process worked, undeniably, because people saw with their very eyes that the Gypsy was floating, just as a Christian legend suggests that the apostle Thomas was invited to touch the wounds made by the nails that had fixed Jesus to a cross. But why had the Gypsy floated, instead of staying fixed to the seabed prison where it had merged into the rock since the year 1886?

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In many ways, things had not evolved greatly since the first day that astounded onlookers saw that an iron ship could float.

Unfortunately, this amazing event has not been recorded precisely in marine prehistory, but we can reconstruct safely the kinds of reactions that prevailed. A minority of scientifically-minded observers would have no doubt listened attentively to arithmetic explanations based upon the simple principle enunciated by a Sicilian islander named Archimedes over two centuries before iron nails were planted in the palms of a man in Jerusalem named Jesus. Any object placed in a liquid, no matter what the object is made of, will descend until it has displaced a volume of liquid whose weight is identical to that of the object itself. At that point, the object will cease to descend in the liquid. If the weight of the object happens to be greater than that of the same volume of liquid, then the object will sink rapidly to the bottom of the liquid into which it was plunged. If not, the verb ‘float’ enters the situation. Moreover, an observer faced with a floating object is even offered a perfect method for obtaining the exact weight of the floating object. All we need to do is to put aside a quantity of liquid whose volume is identical to the part of the object hidden beneath the surface of the liquid. If this liquid is then weighed (on a chemical balance, for example), the answer gives us exactly the weight of the floating object. Even the weight of an ocean liner could be obtained by means of this elementary method, at least in theory. You would simply fill a dry dock with water, up to the brim, and then use giant cranes to gently lower the ocean liner into the dock, causing water to spill over the edges. When the ocean liner is finally floating calmly in the dock, with the surrounding water once again reaching the brim of the container, the spilt water could be weighed to obtain the weight of the vessel. Now, many people would react by saying that an easier way of obtaining the weight of an ocean liner would consist of simply adding up the weights of all the elements used in the construction of the vessel.

They are perfectly right, of course, and such a reaction would not have offended Jacob Rose in any way whatsoever. After all, he himself was a professional engineer, not a dreamer who imagines using giant cranes to lower a liner into a dock. (In fact, he could 159

also be, at times, a dreamer of that kind.) No, the people who troubled Jake were those who failed to understand why the science-fiction scenario of lowering a giant ship into a pool of water could have any practical consequences whatsoever.

The Chariot Process was neither more nor less than an engineered application of the principle of Archimedes. In this brief definition, of course, the all-important adjective ‘engineered’ hides the reality of the situation, including the reasons why Archimedes could not have relied solely upon the principle he had discovered to raise, say, an ancient wreck off the coast of his native Syracuse.

His joyful cry of Eureka over spilt bath water did not give rise immediately to ramifications of an engineering kind. Humanity would have to wait for lasers and computers and the imagination of pioneers such as Jake (to borrow the image forged by Ari Hillel) before such miracles could be enacted.

Blasé citizens were apt to consider revolutionary technological breakthroughs, almost overnight, as ordinary phenomena meriting neither awe nor explanations. This is what Jake meant whenever he declared—as he often did—that countless people are totally prepared to believe in magic. All it takes is a demonstration of a magic event. People no longer wonder why such an event has occurred, or what kind of sophisticated research and development had to be carried out in order to make it occur. The mere fact that something can be demonstrated proves that the ‘something’ in question is no longer a challenge, no longer a mystery. So, why waste time asking questions about how or why it occurred? The birth of a baby is an archaic phenomenon of this kind. More recently, there have been many cases of amazing technology achievements that entered rapidly the hall of fame whose entrance might be thought of as carrying a sign: Everyday Magic. Steel ships float, giant airplanes fly, individuals on opposite sides of the globe chat in real time over computer networks, human beings walk on the Moon, robot vehicles roll over the surface of other planets...

Concerning Barbara Weizmann’s attitude towards the planned 160

transformation of Herod’s stone slab into a floating raft, Jake was troubled to see that the professor seemed to be convinced that she had been brought into contact with a superior antipodean being, named Jacob Rose, who had been initiated into the secret methods and occult formulae that enabled this wizard to perform extraordinary feats, which were beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. Jake would have been happier if Barbara Weizmann’s discourse had consisted simply of saying: “If only I had studied technology instead of archaeology, maybe I would be able to understand the mechanisms of your Chariot Process.” But she would never speak like this. The ancient peoples who preoccupied and fascinated the professor believed in gods. So did Barbara Weizmann herself, in an updated fashion. And Jacob Rose, whether he liked it or not, was a kind of latter-day god.

✡ The time was drawing near for a round trip to an offshore oilexploration platform in the Atlantic off Morocco, to take delivery of the seabed gases required for the Chariot operations at Caesarea.

This excursion had been imagined since the outset as a secondary affair, little more complicated than driving along to a supermarket to get a bag of charcoal for the barbecue. The situation was somewhat unusual, though, in that the customer was the state of Israel and that the supplier of the product happened to be an Islamic kingdom. But this unlikely encounter should not give rise to problems if the transaction were to be handled discreetly and diplomatically, with no blowing of trumpets or waving of flags.

If Jake had accepted gladly Dan Shal’s offer of logistic assistance for this operation from the Israeli Navy, that was for obvious practical reasons. Jake needed to borrow a big steel cylinder to contain the gas, a pump and tubes to get the gas into the cylinder, a barge to carry the cylinder and pumping equipment, and a vessel that was sufficiently powerful to tug these items effortlessly and safely from the western end of the Mediterranean to Israel. There was nothing exorbitant in Jake’s request, and Dan 161

Shal was able to provide these resources with no trouble.

The navy vessel assigned to the mission was a small Saar missile boat of an obsolete generation, which no longer carried any arms, merely electronic equipment. Dan Shal happened to be a close friend of the commander, Ehud Sharir. The latter was fascinated by everything he had heard about Jacob Rose and the Caesarea project, and felt it an honor to participate in the preparations.

Jake had suggested to Shal that, when his navy friends succeeded in finding a barge and its contents, the missile boat could tow it to Spain’s Balearic Islands. Meanwhile, the Black Swan would have set sail from Caesarea, and it could meet up with the navy vessel in a port such as Ibiza. On the leg down to Gibraltar, George Thiatikos would have an opportunity of seeing how his trawler reacted to a barge in tow, which should not normally give rise to problems. It was planned that the Black Swan would then call in at Gibraltar to meet up with Hakim Bensala, the Anglo-Moroccan chief of the regional West Fusion office, located on the Rock. Hakim would board the Black Swan to guide George Thiatikos out through the Strait and down to the platform. When the gas cylinder was filled, the trawler would head back to the West Fusion technical base at Tangier, where Hakim Bensala would leave the vessel. Then the Black Swan would meet up again with the Israelis in the open sea due south of Malaga, where Ehud Sharir would take up the cable linked to the barge with the gas cylinder, and tow it back to Caesarea. The reason for these operations was to avoid incidents that might arise if an Israeli missile boat were seen moving in the vicinity of an oil platform in Moroccan waters. Otherwise, Sharir’s vessel could have gone directly to the platform and picked up the gas, with no need for the Black Swan as an intermediary.

As the planned date for collecting the Moroccan gas approached, Jake was amused to discover that several unexpected voyagers wished to participate in the excursion. First, Dan Shal had made it clear to Jake that he intended to accompany his friend 162

Ehud Sharir to the western end of the Mediterranean aboard the missile boat, more or less as a pleasure outing. As for Barbara Weizmann, she had asked Jake explicitly for permission to be accepted as a passenger aboard the Black Swan, because she was fascinated by every aspect of the forthcoming project. She had been thrilled to learn that her technological divinity named Jacob Rose would be travelling to a distant Arabian kingdom to bring back mysterious substances obtained from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, which would play an essential role in causing Herod’s palace to float. Even Ari Hillel made it known to Jake, in a personal phone call from his office at the Rockefeller Museum, that he would be overjoyed to accompany the latter-day Argonauts on their mission to the Atlantic, “to capture the vital gases that cause rocks to rise to the surface of the waters”. A few days before the departure of the Black Swan, Jake imagined a solution that would satisfy the wishes of these three concerned individuals. He decided to make the round trip to Morocco in the helicopter, taking Shal, Weizmann and Hillel with him as passengers.

In their everyday contacts in Israel, Jake and his associates had refrained from stating publicly that the gas they needed for the Caesarea project would be obtained at an offshore platform in Moroccan waters. It was Avram Moreno who had advised Jake not to talk openly about this arrangement with Morocco, since one never knew what ill-intentioned observers might try to deduce from it. On the other hand, the affair was not the object of any paranoid pact of secrecy, since nobody believed that a friendly transaction arranged in Australia between the companies West Fusion and Terra, involving the transfer of fifty cubic meters of economically worthless gas, could possibly give rise to an international misunderstanding. Well, a week before the departure date for Morocco, Jake was dismayed to discover that there had apparently been an informatiion leak. It was Anne Levi who phoned Jake from her new office at Laban Associates in Tel Aviv to inform him that one of her former Tsahal colleagues had just told her that Israeli intelligence authorities were perfectly aware that Anne’s Australian friends named Rose would be acquiring a 163

supply of gas from a Moroccan source, under the auspices of the Israeli Navy, at a precise date in the near future. They even knew that Jake would be accompanied on that excursion by Hillel, Shal and Weizmann. There was nothing alarming, of course, in the fact that Israeli intelligence had been made aware of this operation, and knew the identity of the individuals involved in it. But Jake realized that this probably meant that people from one end of the Mediterranean to the other would now know that he was out on a gas-gathering mission. And he was not mistaken in drawing that conclusion, as revealed, a few minutes later on, by an unexpected phone call from an unknown Moroccan man. The fact that Jake received the call in the control room of the Black Swan proved that the caller was well informed.

“Hello, Mr Rose, my name is Sidi Yussan. I am phoning from the Ministry of Scientific Affairs in Rabat. You have probably never heard of me. I am the Moroccan Minister of Scientific Affairs. Would you please allow me to make a request, Mr Rose?”

“Certainly,” replied Jake, hesitatingly, because he could not imagine why an individual claiming to be a Moroccan minister would be contacting him.

“We have heard about your Terra technology was used in your home country to refloat a wrecked ship,” said Yussan, who spoke excellent English with an accent that suggested he had been educated in the United Kingdom. “We have learnt that you are preparing an archaeological event in Caesarea, employing your socalled Chariot Process. Besides, we are happy to know that your West Fusion associates will be contributing Moroccan offshore gas resources to this project.” Jake was surprised, if not annoyed, to discover that a major information leak had obviously occurred, reaching the Ministry of Scientific Affairs in Morocco, but he saw no point in expressing his astonishment.

“I’m happy to see that you’re well-informed on current Terra activities,” he replied, while waiting for the minister to get to the point of his phone call.

“My ministry is highly interested, for reasons that are too 164

complex to explain on the phone, by the potential of your technology. So, I was wondering if you would be prepared, during your forthcoming visit to our offshore platform, to go out of your way to meet up with me on the mainland, in Rabat. Would that be possible?”

“Certainly, Sir,” replied Jake, without wondering why he should or should not accept such an invitation. They agreed that the meeting would take place in Rabat, after the Black Swan had taken delivery of the gas at the offshore platform. Jake informed Sidi Yussan that he would be accompanied by his brother Aaron Rose and their cousin Rachel Kahn.

“I shall be thrilled to meet up with Miss Kahn,” said Yussan.

“You will not be surprised to hear me say that we are intrigued too, as a desert land, by the Aqua desalination process. And I look forward to hearing more about it.”

✡ The first unit of the Moroccan excursion to leave Israel was the Black Swan, since it was the slower of the two vessels. George Thiatikos, at the helm, was excited to realize that, during this voyage, the Australian trawler would be skirting closely the southern coast of Crete, his ancestral homeland. Enzo Florini, too, was looking forward to observing both Sicily and Sardinia: the closest images he would obtain of his parents’ native Italy. Robert Meguid would be handling navigational tasks that were normally performed by Jacob Rose. Both Aaron and Rachel, aboard the Black Swan, looked upon this voyage primarily as a pleasure trip.

However they would be doing a little work as Tribe reporters, since it had been decided that interesting phases of the Moroccan excursion should be filmed with a recently-purchased Sony camera. A short reportage on the trip would be sent out to Australia, to give the family and colleagues an idea of what they were doing. These elements would be incorporated, above all, into a later production: an in-depth documentary on every aspect of the Caesarea project 165

Commander Ehud Sharir and his crew of twenty-five men edged their Saar missile boat out of the navy port at Haifa, tugging a barge carrying an empty gas container. They set sail towards the western Mediterranean some six hours after the Black Swan, at a time that would normally allow them to overtake the trawler just before the two vessels reached the Balearic Islands.

The last to leave Israel on the Moroccan excursion was Jake, in his Ecureuil, with three distinguished passengers: Ari Hillel, Dan Shal and Barbara Weizmann. His flight plan consisted of refueling in Sicily, at Palermo, and then flying to the Balearic Islands to meet up with the Black Swan.

A few hours later, as he brought the helicopter down on the beach at Ibiza, Jake was reassured to glimpse the Israeli missile boat at anchor about a mile from the shore, with the barge and gas cylinder alongside. While the Black Swan was tied up at the wharf, Dan Shal climbed aboard and put through a call to Ehud Sharir on the missile boat to make sure that everything was in order, and he was happy to hear that there had been no problems during the crossing. The plan now consisted of taking the Black Swan out alongside the navy boat, picking up the barge cable and securing it to the stern of the trawler. Aaron and Enzo handled this task, while Jake brought his helicopter overhead and hovered there, with a bird’s-eye view of the situation, to see if any problems arose. Dan Shal used the Ecureuil’s radio to communicate in Hebrew with Ehud Sharir on the missile boat, while Jake talked to George Thiatikos on the Black Swan. As soon as the barge was attached to the trawler, George blew a few blasts on his foghorn, to let the navy boat know that the operation was terminated. The Israelis responded similarly, and headed off slowly towards the south. Jake flew down over the navy vessel and circled it, enabling Dan Shal to wave to the commander and his crew, assembled on the stern deck. It was planned that the rendezvous for the return trip would take place two days later, in the open sea to the south of Malaga.

Soon after, Jake brought his Ecureuil down onto Gibraltar’s helicopter platform, to the north of the Rock, where a sandy 166

isthmus linked the colony with Spain. Accompanied by his Israeli guests and Barbara Weizmann, Jake then made his way down to the quayside building that housed the office of West Fusion, where Hakim Bensala greeted his visitors with open arms.

“Can you imagine what the customs officer must have thought when he found an Australian helicopter landing on the Rock with a couple of Israeli passengers?” asked Hakim with an amused expression.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Hakim,” replied Jake, “I had a feeling that I didn’t really need to tell him we had an appointment with the local chief of West Fusion. I think he was expecting us.”

Jake glanced at Hakim with a smile of understanding, if not complicity. There was no point in searching any further for the likely source of leaked information.

“Of course, Jake,” said Hakim, becoming serious. “The Mediterranean is a small world, and Gibraltar sees itself as a sentinel, paying attention to everybody who comes in, and everybody who goes out. Besides, they’re in a permanent state of harrassment because of Spain behind their back, trying politely but diabolically to push Gibraltar into the sea, and the uncomfortable presence of an Arab kingdom on the other side of the Strait.

They’re wary of everybody, and they tend to get upset easily, in a typically British fashion. So, I thought it would be preferable to let them know explicitly that you were calling in here. The helicopter is a commonplace vehicle for folk in this part of the world. But, if I hadn’t informed them that your little air/sea armada included an Australian trawler, the Gibraltar authorities might have been tempted to call in a gunboat and European Union fishing inspectors to figure out what was happening.”

Jake found it strange but amusing that he should be strolling past the quaint façades of this antiquated outpost of the British Empire with a Moroccan engineer and an American archaeologist to one side of him and two Israeli civil servants on the other side.

It was an incongruous situation that caused him to wonder by what mysterious chain of events he had been brought to this particular 167

point in space and time. He looked down silently at the sunscorched pavement in front of him and smiled, laughing inwardly as if he had just remembered a funny story. Jake had in fact found an obvious answer to his metaphysical self-interrogation. The force that had brought him to this location in space-time was none other than Jacob Rose himself at the controls of his helicopter. It was like the source of the information leak: there was no point in searching any further.

George Thiatikos met up with no unexpected problems in tugging the barge to Gibraltar. Before edging in to the wharf, George maneuvered the trawler in such a way that the barge drifted calmly around to the starboard side of the Black Swan. Aaron, Enzo and Robert then fixed it there firmly while George tied up the trawler. Aaron jumped onto the wharf and started filming.

Everybody then assembled on the terrace of a nearby pub on Main Street, the Angry Monk, with a splendid view out over the port, which reminded Rachel and her Rose cousins of Fremantle.

Hakim Bensala, a handsome young man with a friendly extrovert personality, was thrilled to find himself surrounded by no less than nine visitors, all of whom happened to be seeing the Rock for the first time: Jake, Aaron, Rachel, Ari Hillel, Dan Shal, Barbara Weizmann, George Thiatikos, Robert Meguid and Enzo Florini.

Hakim, who had been managing the Gibraltar office of West Fusion for the last two years, could have started to tell his guests about the subtle charms of living in this exotic Old-World sentry box, looking out over the strategic water lanes that separated the Atlantic Ocean from an archaic sea whose name suggested that all the Earth turned around it. Aaron dodged around with his camera, asking random questions to people in the group, and recording their reactions. As for Hakim Bensala, instead of talking about Gibraltar, he surprised several members of the group, including Jake, by bringing up a totally different subject, which normally did not appear to concern him.

“Now that I have the famous Jacob Rose sitting down here in front of me,” said Hakim, “I’m keen to ask you a question concerning the process that you have invented, which you are 168

about to apply in the Holy Land. My question is simple, maybe superfluous. Are you taking steps to control media reactions generated by your work?” A puzzled frown appeared on Jake’s face, since he could not understand why this question interested Hakim Bensala.

“It’s funny that you should mention this aspect of things,” replied Jake, “because we only recently decided—Aaron, Rachel and me—that it would be a good idea to create a solid framework in which we can operate at a media level. We even have a name for this framework, even though it remains rather informal for the moment. We refer to ourselves as the Tribe? Aaron has had a lot of professional experience in this field back in Australia, where he ran his own private radio and video studio. In the immediate future, he plans to set up a multimedia studio in our house in Jerusalem to that the Tribe can send back documentaries to Australia. Naturally, Aaron and Rachel will be producing an in-depth coverage of the forthcoming events at Caesarea, for potential TV customers everywhere. That explains, incidentally, why Aaron is running around here with a video camera, because the story of getting gas from Morocco will be an element of the Caesarea story. But why do you ask?”

“Maybe it’s because my eye is attracted by your name, and the name of Terra,” replied Hakim, “but I’ve had the impression recently that there are all kinds of references to you and your projects in the media.”

“What you say surprises me,” said Jake. “It’s true, through, that we haven’t been keeping up with the media since settling down in Israel. To tell you the truth, I’m ashamed to say that I’m not particularly aware of what’s going on in the outside world. But I’m nevertheless surprised that anybody could be talking about us here.”

“In the beginning, as you may know, various British weeklies printed short accounts of your project in Australia,” explained Hakim. “Things might have stopped there except that an English journalist named Avery Simpson, with a passion for science-fiction 169

stuff, got carried away with your technology, which he is now presenting in a futuristic style, as if it could be adapted to solve all kinds of problems in an almost magical manner.”

“What did you say his name was?”asked Aaron. “Avery Simpson? I’ve never heard of him. Do you know who he writes for?”

“I’m not sure he’s a very serious writer,” said Hakim, “but his articles appear in the magazine section of big English-language weekend newspapers. So, he has a very large public. Anyway, he must have heard that your technology can make rocks float as if they were driftwood. He describes your refloating of the wreck at Rottnest with a wealth of details, either real or imaginary. And he has even included an artist’s impression of Herod’s palace, enclosed in imaginary walls like a medieval fortress, being towed along a desert coastline by an armada of tugboats, towards what seems to be the silhouette of Jerusalem coming up over the horizon, as if the Holy City were located on the seafront.”

“Archaeology has always given rise to mystery and fantasy,” said Barbara Weizmann. “Look at the way that people see the pyramids. It’s true that there are still puzzles that remain to be solved, but the general public likes to read more mystery into the situation than there really is. In the Holy Land, the situation is worse still. If an archaeologist is tempted to use biblical texts as a guidebook for his diggings and interpretations, then he ceases to practise authentic archaeology. He is merely working to substantiate legends.” If the American professor had particular colleagues in mind when she said this, she could not possibly be thinking of Israeli administrators such as Hillel and Shal.

Fortunately, in the Holy Land, archaeology had always been looked upon as a complex craft, if not a science, and never as a branch of religion. This did not mean, though, that archaeologists could dig up whatever they liked, and wherever they chose to do so. On the contrary, scholars could not start their digs in many corners of the land without first seeking formal approval (which could be impossible to obtain in certain cases) from Jewish or Moslem religious authorities. “Naturally, when you enhance the 170

mysteries of archaeology with science fiction or speculative technology, the mixture is particularly sexy, if you see what I mean.” Everybody laughed at the professor’s choice of an adjective to designate the modern aura attached to digging up the past.

“You know that the word ‘rock’ rings a bell here in Gibraltar,” said Hakim Bensala, keen to provide his listeners with news about a technological myth that seemed to be coming into existence on the shores of the Mediterranean. “We tend to think of ourselves as living on a rock. Well, Avery Simpson has made a fabulous journalistic cocktail based upon the fanciful future use of your technology in Gibraltar. In a nutshell, he suggested that maybe we’re just a few steps away from using the Terra Chariot process to transform the Rock of Gibraltar into a floating raft. And many of his readers are convinced that he’s talking of a perfectly feasible project.” Barbara Weizmann and Ari Hillel sniggered. They were not the kind of individuals who would seek facts on science and technology—or on anything else, for that matter—in the magazine section of weekend newspapers.

“Well, he is, in fact,” exclaimed Jake, causing the sniggering to be replaced by stunned silence. “Theoretically, the same technology that we’ll be applying at Caesarea, to transform Herod’s palace into a raft, could be used to float the Rock of Gibraltar. We would merely have to multiply all the required ressources by the necessary factor, based upon parameters such as the estimated global weight of Gibraltar, and the thickness and geological nature of the crust upon which the site is located. The idea is perfectly feasible, but it could be risky, and there’s no obvious justification, either economic or otherwise, for conceiving of such a project. So, while I’m surprised that a journalist should have launched such a speculative idea without first coming along to talk with us at Terra, I would be reacting shamefully—and people could accuse me of jealous vanity—if I now tried to make out that the man is a fool. Maybe he’s a visionary.”

“He probably didn’t feel like coming along to talk to you about his daydreaming because he was afraid that a serious engineer 171

mght look upon him as a crazy clown,” remarked Rachel.

“Clowns are never really crazy,” added Aaron. “They use their art to give the impression that they are out of touch with reality, but this is merely make-believe. The line between Chaplin and Einstein is thin. Maybe the distinction between science fiction and engineering reality can be just as fuzzy. But I would have expected, for simple reasons of journalistic deontology and good manners, that somebody like this Simpson fellow should have at least contacted us before concocting stories about how Terra might or might not float the Rock of Gibraltar.”

Jake would have liked to know what his Israeli clients thought about popular images that might be associated with the Caesarea project, but he did not think it would be diplomatic to ask them outrightly. Did Hillel, Shal and their colleagues know that, even as far afield as Gibraltar and Morrocco, the general public was already receiving fragments of fanciful images of what Jake might be about to do in the Holy Land? If they were aware of this media interest, did it annoy or disturb them? Without realizing that Jake would have liked to obtain answers to these specific questions, Ari Hillel was visibly impatient to join in the discussion.

“Our Hebrew god Yahveh laid down a strict code of behavior,” explained Hillel, “and terrible punishment could be meted out to those who dared to defy him. The most notorious case was the series of plagues inflicted upon Pharaoh when he refused to acknowledge Yahveh and let the Israelites go. Later, in the context of the Greek god Zeus, this spirit of harsh punishment reaches a crescendo after Prometheus steals the fire from heaven. In fact, Prometheus was a wise and prudent man, and he had taken calculated risks, in the style of a modern engineer, when he gave mankind the fabulous resource of divine fire. But his half-brother Epimetheus was a fool, who was enraptured by the beauty of the robot Pandora, built for Zeus by Hephaestus, the engineer of the gods. When Pandora came down from the heavens and settled on earth, she opened her box, letting loose evils far more terrible for mankind than the plagues of Yahveh in Egypt. Curiously, even though many Jews have made a name for themselves in the 172

modern domains of science and technology, there is no biblical model of a daring engineer of the Promethean kind. Ever since hearing of the fascinating technology you invented, Jacob, which enables rocks to float on the surface of the sea, I tend to see you as a latter-day Prometheus. But we must remain vigilant to make sure that there is no Epimetheus waiting to betray you. Maybe the idea of enabling the Rock of Gibraltar to float away on the waves might be like opening Pandora’s box.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Jake, laughing. “In any case, I promise you that I don’t intend to touch Gibraltar, no matter what our friend Avery Simpson might have said on this subject.”

“And I promise you I won’t fall in love with a divine witch,” said Aaron, jokingly, “and upset the engineering achievements of my brilliant brother.”

The group made their way back to the Black Swan. The trip out to the platform and back would take forty-eight hours, which included the time it would take to pump the seabed gas into the cylinder in the barge. There was an exchange of passengers between the helicopter and the trawler. It had been decided that the three guests—Hillel, Shal and Weizmann—would travel aboard the Black Swan, which would be piloted to the platfrom by Hakim Bensala, whereas Aaron Rose and Rachel Kahn would henceforth join Jake in the Ecureuil. Barbara and the Israelis would be able to enjoy the sea trip to the Rock of Gibraltar and through the Strait, and then see the offshore platform at close hand during the gas pumping operations. Besides, they would have sleeping and eating quarters aboard the trawler.

Jake had told neither Hillel, Shal, Weizmann nor even Bensala that, as soon as the pumping was finished, he planned to fly off with Rachel and Aaron to a mysterious meeting in Rabat with a Moroccan minister. It was not unthinkable that some or all of the people aboard the Black Swan were already aware of Jake’s rendezvous in Rabat. But he had decided that there was no point in alluding openly to this affair.

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✡ For a few billion years, up until industry sprouted in the twentieth century of what Christians call the Christian Era, the planet Earth was no doubt an attractive entity to behold, although this beauty may not have been noticeable to most of the eyes around to behold it, many of which belonged to creatures that would be described today as primitive. Then, in the space of a century, industrial pockmarks—often called mines or factories— started to blemish the surface of a small surface of the globe referred to as civilized. When the eyes of Barbara Weizmann encountered the West Fusion offshore oil-exploration platform, her first impression was that this uglifying process was no doubt starting all over again in the oceans. One had the impression that the gaunt structure had beeen assembled rapidly out of scrap metal, in onditions that did not welcome any aesthetic considerations whatsoever. In any case, few visitors would be likely to be wandering around in these waters. So, why worry about the aesthetic side of things? That was the kind of thinking that produced dismal industrial belts around former towns that are now cities. In the early days, industry was set up out in the country, in sites that interested nobody.

Jake hovered above the Black Swan, drifting alongside the platform, while Aaron communicated by radio with Hakim.

Meanwhile, Rachel had taken over Aaron’s camera and was perched on the edge of the helicopter’s open doorway, filming the action down on the water. Two Moroccan technicians from the platform had already joined up with the barge in a rubber dinghy and were dragging out the flexible pipes in order to connect them to a delivery nozzle at the base of the platform. This operation was performed rapidly, and Hakim clambered aboard the barge, now tied to the starboard side of the Black Swan, to put the pump into action. George Thiatikos would merely have to nudge the trawler’s throttle from time to time to make sure that the vessel remained more or less stationary while the pumping continued. Meanwhile, Jake could observe that the operation was well under way. So, he 174

circled the platform a few times, bidding everybody farewell, and the Ecureuil headed off in the direction of the Moroccan coast. As far as the passengers aboard the Black Swan were concerned, the Rose brothers and Rachel were going to spend the next twentyfour hours as tourists in Casablanca. In fact, Jake had made arrangements through the Internet to land at the international airport in Rabat. From there, they took a taxi to the building of the Moroccan Ministry of Scientific Affairs. They were immediately ushered into the luxurious office of Sidi Yussan, where an employee in a white military uniform offered them glasses of tea from a pot with mint leaves. He also placed an assortment of cakes and fruit on a low table in front of them.

Sidi Yussan was a balding man in his sixties, dressed immaculately in a light-gray linen suit with a pink-striped shirt and a red silk necktie. He had the quietly-spoken manners of a diplomat who was more concerned with hearing what others had to express than in saying anything himself. An eavesdropper might have imagined that the minister had invited the three Australians to his office in Rabat merely to confirm that their Mediterranean excursion was unfolding in pleasant conditions and that the trawler had not got lost at sea on its way to the platform. Apart from that, the diplomatic gentleman stated that it was a great pity that the Australians could not spend more time in Morocco, which offered so many attractions to visitors. Serious matters soon rose to the surface, however, like Jacob Rose’s rocks.

“Moroccan engineers have studied with great interest your ingenious inventions, Mr Rose. We are impressed and immensely interested by the dual nature of your technology. On the one hand, there is your laser-based Slicer instrument, capable of cutting through rock at any desired angle, even horizontally, if I understand correctly.” Sidi Yussan waited for a reaction from Jake concerning that last speculation.

“The actual cutting head of the Slicer has been miniaturized to the greatest possible extent,” explained Jake. “We refer to this primordial part of the tool as the Mole, since I have always imagined it as a device that could actually function autonomously, 175

uniquely under computer control, in a subterranean environment of minimal dimensions. To use a silly image, we should be able to place the Slicer hardware alongside the Sphinx, and program the Mole so that it starts to cut away systematically at the entire rocky base of the statue. A few hours later, engineers would be able to hover above the site in an imaginary giant helicopter and attach cables to the Sphinx, enabling it to be carted away by air to another remote location. In other words, the role of the Slicer in this science-fiction affair would consist of creating a clean and precise horizontal ablation between the visible part of the Sphinx iceberg and its subterranean stone base. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Mr Rose. Then there is the second enormous dimension of your technology: the ingenious processing, of both a geochemical and physical nature, in the vicinity of the Slicerproduced ablation, which is designed to increase the buoyancy of the detached mass of rock, enabling it to float.”

“For non-technical observers,” explained Jake, “this would appear to be the heart of the process, the essential breakthrough from a research and development viewpoint. In fact, the laser slicing and the gas-injection operations designed to augment the buoyancy go hand in hand. Besides, they must be performed concurrently to obtain the desired global outcome of making the rock float. But, in the eyes of the general public, the Chariot Process—as we now call it—is based upon the use of a pressurized canister with some kind of magic cream that turns into foam and makes things float. In some ways, that image is convenient, if not valid. But, in most ways, it’s misleading, since there is no magic ingredient in my process. It’s merely a rather ordinary application of several universally-accepted principles of science and technology, with a huge nudge from computing. More than my meager personal contributios, consisting mainly of a dose of imagination and computerized simulation associated with tons of testing, the primary factor in the successful development of Terra’s technology was the splending working environment created for us by our ancestors from the Old World, who were chased out to the 176

wilderness of Western Australia by the rise of fascism. Our grandparents and parents played a primordial role—without ever realizing it explicitly—in the creation of the Chariot Process.”

“It is moving to hear a talented engineer referring to himself as an instrument of the will and actions of his forbears,” observed Sidi Yussan, gazing seriously, solemnly, into the eyes of Jacob Rose. “It is plausible that they too would have looked upon themselves as mere instruments wielded by great invisible forces.”

The conversation was interrupted by a few seconds of silence, during which nobody seemed to know how this theme of reflection should evolve. Happily, the minister returned to matters of a more down-to-earth nature, in a literal sense. “In the case of Morocco, we have no wrecks to refloat, nor do we have anything like the ancient biblical sites of the Holy Land. Many sites of historical interest have no doubt disappeared under the sands of the Saraha, where it would be unthinkable to search for them. The challenges facing our nation today that could surely take advantage of your Terra technology belong to the commonplace domain of public works. But I should probably replace the adjective ‘commonplace’ by something such as ‘pharaonic’, even though I am talking of challenges that would appear to be feasible through your technology. I am thinking of projects that would compare, say, with the digging of the Suez Canal.” Yussan stopped at that point and waited for some kind of reaction from Jacob Rose.

“Normally, you’re knocking at the right door, Mr Yussan,” said Jake. “Terra is not really in the wreck-raising or archaeology business. We perform tasks of that kind in an experimental fashion, primarily to test new methods that we’ve been developing. But our basic business remains earth-moving. So, please tell me more about the kinds of challenges you have in mind.”

“You won’t be surprised to hear me say that Morocco’s development strategies are determined by our financial possibilities,” replied Yussan. “It was relatively easy for somebody with a big project to behave like Pharaoh when he had slaves working for him, which was essentially the case for Ferdinand de Lesseps in the middle of the 19th century. In modern Morocco, we 177

have neither slaves nor unlimited financial resources. Our economy is still based upon traditional agriculture, and we have been trying to develop tourism for some time. And, as you know perfectly well, we are hoping that Morocco might soon join the exclusive club of major oil-producing nations, but that is still very much a dream of the future. At first sight, your Chariot Process appears to be a method of making rocks float, and so it is. In the two projects that we have heard about, at Rottnest Island last year, and soon in Caesarea, the enormous interest of your technology comes from the precious elements that are supported by the rock you are floating. In Australia, it was an old shipwreck. In Israel, it will be the vestiges of a great palace two thousand years old. But it appears to us that your techology could be used to move rocks that carry nothing in particular, merely to get them out of the way. In other words, the Chariot Process could be used as a fabulous way of building a canal with no need for human slaves. Am I reasoning correctly?”

“Of course,” replied Jake. “I’ve always seen things in that sense. But the media people have never been excited about such an approach. They prefer the idea of moving illustrious rocks such as the site of Herod’s palace at Caesarea, or maybe even the Rock of Gibraltar.”

“Yes, I suppose that your colleague Hakim Bensala told you about that story by an English journalist,” remarked Yussan. Jake had the confirmation that Hakim was indeed the person who had masterminded this encounter.

“So, you know Hakim?” asked Jake. At the moment he asked this question, he realized that it was idiotic. How could a political figure such as Sidi Yussan not know the local chief of the international oil-exploration company that was working off the coast of their native land?

“Of course. That’s how I got in contact with you,” replied Yussan. “Didn’t Hakim tell you so? It’s true that he’s a diplomatic young man, and also a talented engineer. I appreciate greatly his advice. In fact, he was the first person to draw my attention to 178

Terra technology. He had heard, too, that your company is producing new technology in the domain of desalination, which is a subject that interests us enormously, as you can well imagine.”

“Getting back to your idea of using the Chariot Process simply to move or remove rock,” continued Jake, “that is precisely why Terra decided to finance this research and development. The technology could be applied to all kinds of seafront situations, such as building a marina, or digging a canal that starts at the edge of the ocean. In all these contexts, the rock would be cut away by the Slicer, then it would be physically extracted by simply applying the Chariot technology and floating it away to another place. In certain cases, this might mean using the extracted rock in another location, maybe as elements in a newly-constructed seawall. Are you thinking of this kind of project?”

“We have in mind the creation of a canal, which would run right across the northern tip of Morocco from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic,” explained Sidi Yussan. “Is it imaginable that Terra technology might be used to build such a major waterway?”

“Certainly, it’s imaginable,” replied Jake. “But, before providing you with a credible reply, we need time to complete the Caesarea project, which will advance our experimental knowledge of the process. Let me talk about this contact, too, with my father and uncle in Australia.”

Aaron addressed Sidi Yussan: “Our encounter with you at this time and place could well be a historic moment,” he said softly, a little timidly, pointing his Sony camera in the direction of the minister. “I would be grateful if you were to repeat the words you have just expressed, so that I can record them for posterity... and send them back to Terra headquarters in Australia, above all, through the Internet.” Sidi Yussan complied, in the impeccable style of a diplomat.

After leaving the ministry, the Australians booked into a small hotel in the modern part of the city. They had no time for touristic activities. Besides, they wanted to talk together about the astonishing proposition made by Sidi Yussan. That evening, they 179

dined in a couscous restaurant in the medina.

“Clearly, in the immediate future, we’re unable to examine this affair in detail,” concluded Jake. “We’ve got our hands full for some time to come. We must do everything to make sure that Caesarea is a success, to enhance the image of Terra in this part of the world. Besides, there’s the future Aqua plant at Taba that must be followed closely. So, Uncle Amos and Patrick Grady will have to examine the Moroccan proposition, analyze the data from both a technical and a financial viewpoint, and decide upon an optimal strategy.”

“My father will be thrilled by this news,” exclaimed Rachel.

“You’ve often heard him saying that Terra should use this powerful technology to perform more significant operations than raising wrecks or ancient ruins. The theme of a second Suez Canal at the western end of the Mediterranean will delight him... even though I must admit that it’s not yet clear in my mind what Morocco has to gain by building such a waterway.”

“The ten minutes we filmed with Yussan wlll provide Terra people at home with a starting point,” said Aaron. “As you say, it’s up to them to study this unexpected proposition and decide how to handle this exciting affair.”

The following morning, the Australians left Rabat in the helicopter and flew to Tangier. From the airfield, they found their way on foot to the technical base of the West Fusion company where they would wait, as planned, for the arrival of the Black Swan. A Moroccan worker opened the gate to let them into the compound, located on the edge of the water. The base was composed essentially of a warehouse in one corner of a big yard in which sections of platforms and pieces of drilling equipment were laid out in rows on the sandy soil. The yard sloped down to a wharf where a powerful launch, with West Fusion markings, was berthed. This vessel enabled employees to travel to and from the platforms. Hakim Bensala also used this launch as a water taxi, driven by a company employee, to make the short trip between the technical base in Tangier and the West Fusion office in Gibraltar.

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The Black Swan soon appeared on the horizon, towing the barge with its gas cylinder. George Thiatikos edged his vessels alongside the wharf, nose to nose with the West Fusion motor launch. Hakim Bensala jumped ashore and informed Jake that the gas-pumping operations out at the platform had been performed without a hitch.

Next, Barbara Weizmann started to describe with enthusiasm the events of the preceding twenty-four hours, like an excited child returning home after a vacation out in the country.

“The sea was exceptionally calm all the time,” she said. “So, George was able to tie up the boat at the base of the platform.

Guided by Hakim, we climbed up a few flights of steel steps to reach the zone where the workers have their living quarters.” A disturbing vision entered Jake’s imagination: that of a distinguished Israeli, Ari Hillel, a little too old to be dragging himself up steel stairs on an oil-exploration platform, slipping and falling into the Atlantic Ocean, and then having to be winched aboard a Red Crescent helicopter and taken to a Moroccan hospital. That vision reminded Jake that the group should not linger too long at the West Fusion base in Tangier, because the officers on a patrol boat might conceivably decide to investigate the presence in Moroccan waters of a vessel bearing an Australian enseign. Hakim had assured Jake that this was most unlikely. In any case, if ever such an operation were to occur, Hakim claimed that he would be able to handle the situation. Barbara continued her description of their visit to the platform: “We were invited into their kitchen where Hakim served us tea and biscuits. The rig was rocking gently to the waves, and everything was vibrating because of the constant movement of the drill. In the background, the huge diesel engine driving the drill made such a din that we couldn’t really communicate with one another.”

“It was a thrilling atmosphere,” added Ari Hillel. “I was constantly aware that, while we were sitting there sipping tea, the vibrating machines were pumping up the precious gas, from the depths of the ocean, which would be used as fuel for the Caesarea project. At times I had the strange impression that we were out in the middle of the ocean, on the bridge of one of Jake’s gigantic 181

floating chariots, ploughing through the waves. As in a dream, I saw myself seated there at the captain’s table. And the commander of the vessel seemed to be none other than King Herod himself.”

Jake was impatient to obtain from Hakim Bensala as much background information as possible concerning the proposition outlined by Sidi Yussan in Rabat, but there was no point in discussing such matters in front of Barbara Weizmann and the two Israelis. It had therefore been decided that, as soon as Jake and his guests left the West Fusion base to walk to the helicopter for the return flight to Caesarea, Aaron and Rachel would film an interview with Hakim on this subject.

After thanking Hakim Bensala warmly for providing the Caesarea project with the required gas resources, and for taking care of them out on the platform, Barbara Weizmann and the Israelis bid him farewell. Then they left on foot with Jake. At the gateway into the zone where the helicopter was parked, the police officers did not seem to notice that the owner of the aircraft registered in Australia had gone out through the gate, a couple of hours earlier, accompanied by a male and a female, and that he was now returning with different passengers: two males a female.

There was nothing gravely illegal in the temporary presence of these foreigners on Moroccan soil. Besides, no immigration authorities had asked any member of Jake’s team to show his or her papers, neither at the helicopter base nor in the vicinity of the West Fusion wharf. The primary preoccupation of the police in that northern sector of the country consisted of ensuring that no Mafialike organizations were using Morocco as a base for the illegal transportation of Africans into Europe. From this viewpoint, it was unlikely, of course, that an Australian trawler and helicopter might be involved in such activities.

For the filmed interview, it was decided that Hakim Bensala should sit on the guardrail of the aft deck of the West Fusion launch, with the busy waters of the Strait of Gibraltar in the background, in a marine setting evoking the relevant theme of a waterway—maybe a new waterway—between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Aaron handled the Sony camera, leaving Rachel to 182

ask questions. The three members of the crew of the Black Swan— George Thiatikos, Enzo Florini and Robert Meguid—were seated around Hakim on the splendid teak deck of the West Fusion launch, “to add a homely touch to the reportage” (as Aaron put it) in the eyes of Terra viewers back in Australia. The presence of familiar faces—as in a typical Cousteau documentary—might attenuate the impression that this was an interrogation of an unknown foreigner, on a technology-fiction theme, carried out in an exotic setting that would mean little to most Australian viewers.

“The members of the Terra team were surprised to receive an invitation to a meeting in Rabat with Sidi Yussan, Minister of Scientific Affairs in the government of the Kingdom of Morocco,” said Rachel, intent upon producing an interview that would be clear and informative, if not didactic. “Our surprise was accentuated when we discovered, as the meeting evolved, that this former diplomat had a down-to-earth knowledge of Terra technology, combined with imaginative awareness of the potential of the Chariot Process. And Sidi Yussan astounded us when he evoked the idea of the construction of a canal, across the northern tip of Morocco, between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. Hakim Bensala, you are a Moroccan-born engineer, member of the West Fusion exploration company, operating at presence in an Atlantic offshore zone to the west of Casablanca.

And you have a professional acquaintance with Terra. What do you think of this unexpected proposition made by Morocco?”

“The status of the northern tip of Morocco has always been weird, if not alarming, for historical and geopolitical reasons,” explained Hakim Bensala, measuring his words and speaking slowly, in the style of a lecturer about to start a course in political science. “It would be absurd to attempt to compare the Kingdom of Morocco with the modern State of Israel, but we have one underlying thing in common. For the last few decades, both countries have been kegs of gunpowder, capable of exploding if people started to play around with matches. We are all aware of the multiple causes behind the present explosive fragility of the Hebrew state. That land and its peoples, both Jews and Arabs, are 183

what French diplomats would call a carrefour: a central point of intersection, or junction, between multiple geopolitical entities.

Morocco, too, is a carrefour, but for reasons that are rather different to those of Israel. It is a Moslem kingdom on the doorstep of Europe. Like Gibraltar, Morocco stands guard over the entry into the Mediterranean, but the sentinel is an entire nation, not just an elegant little rock in the middle of nowhere. Clearly, all our thinking about enhancing the role of Morocco in the modern world must start with that awareness of our status as a carrefour, which is the geopolitical leitmotif of the destiny of our nation.”

“Are you saying that the idea of carrying out a gigantic construction project such as the waterway from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean would be aimed at developing the notion of Morocco as a rendezvous for world shipping?” asked Rachel, frowning in a way that suggested her doubts on the question.

“Would the project involve the construction of ports and terminals at either end of the future canal?”

“Certainly,” replied Hakim in a self-assured style, giving the impression that he had inside information on the canal, which was probably the case. “The canal project can be considered as a theme for attracting shipping of all kinds, not only into Moroccan waters, but inside Morocco. At the eastern extremity of the future canal, beyond the Spanish enclave of Melilla, a vast Mediterranean port would be set up, which could operate as a terminal for goods of all kind to and from Algeria as well as Morocco. The canal would skirt the edge of the Rif mountain chain, and emerge into the Atlantic just below the lovely old seaside village of Asilah, at the site of a future great Atlantic port for tankers.”

“Goodbye to Andalusian charm,” exclaimed Enzo Florini ironically. Up until then, although Aaron had invited the Australians to join in the conversation, they had refrained from doing so, mainly because they had no more than a vague idea of the subject of the filmed interview. But their cursory contact with Gibraltar and Tangier was sufficient to make them wary of the environmental consequences of transforming such charming 184

seaside places into petroleum terminals.

“No, the presence of a canal could in fact make the environmental situation perfectly controllable,” replied Hakim. He surprised Aaron and Rachel by the extent to which he seemed to have a ready-made answer to any objection that might be raised.

“The stream of water running through the canal from the Mediterranean to the Atlanctic could serve as a barrier between the domains on the opposite banks. It would be a dynamic floodgate separating the traditional touristic facilities on the northern bank and future industrial installations to the south. Morocco has become a touristic land, and we must protect our fabulous heritage from that point of view. But we must also make plans for a future that might revolve around our becoming an oil producer..”

“Suppose there were two ways for ships to get in and out of the Mediterranean,” proposed Rachel, striving to turn the conversation into a didactic presentation of the situation. “Why would a typical vessel choose one rather than the other?”

“We must not think in terms of so-called typical vessels, because they probably do not exist,” replied Hakim, laughingly.

“Every ship is a special case. A typical vessel would in fact be a phantom, like the Flying Dutchman. A better way of putting things would consist of noting that many ships have potential business of one kind or another to carry out with commercial or industrial partners somewhere in North Africa in general, or in Morocco in particular. Those vessels would surely find it more profitable to travel through the Sharifian kingdom rather than skirting around the northern tip of the land by means of the Strait of Gibraltar. The future waterway would be a means of opening up the entire northern zone of Morocco, which has suffered greatly from its recent colonialist history. Even today, it is morally intolerable for our kingdom to support the presence of two foreign enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, on our northern coastline.”

“Would the canal function simultaneously in both directions?” asked George Thiatikos, who looked upon the little he had heard of the project through the eyes of a skipper.

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“Better than that,” replied Hakim, beaming with joy like a schoolboy who has just been awarded top marks in his class. “Our sandy land is cheap, and we’ve got lots to give away. So, our planners have always imagined that a new waterway through north-eastern Morocco, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, should be exceptionally wide... with respect to an old-fashioned canal such as Suez, say. There must be room for huge vessels to pass in both directions, naturally, but there should also be generous facilities making it possible for vessels to tie up on either bank, all the way along the canal, either to handle cargo or to carry out repairs in various dockyards built into the waterway. For example, it should be cheap and easy for tankers to get washed out in ideal circumstances. There should also be vast storage facilities for containers, both full and empty. Pleasure boats of all kinds, too, should be offered luxurious facilities for handling passengers on the edge of the Sahara, as it were. More than a mere canal, in the traditional sense, our future waterway should be thought of as a vast marine-land with facilities of every imaginable kind stretching from one great ocean to the other. Another way of putting it is to describe our project as an inland port. In fact, I believe that the planners around Sidi Yussan have already adopted a delightful codename for this vast affair: they refer to it as Port Sahara.”

“From a political viewpoint, would the waterway have any kind of strategic role to play?” asked Aaron, poking out his head for a few moments from behind the lens of his Sony camera.

“There’s no point in making solemn public declarations about this aspect of the situation,” replied Hakim, “but everybody knows that Morocco has been involved, in recent years, in armed conflicts with the Polisario concerning our claims to the Western Sahara.

One never knows what might blow up, in the way of conflictual situations, if we were to start pulling in big money through oil.

Anything could happen. Ever since the evolution of modern shipping, both commercial and naval, countless observers have had nightmare visions of a blockade imposed upon the Strait of Gibraltar. While we don’t actually make plans for the future development of our kingdom based upon such a horror scenario, 186

we would in fact feel more comfortable if we knew that we have our own private sea-lanes, as it were, for getting in and out of the Mediterranean. But what I’ve just said probably reflects a mere psychological feeling rather than a serious strategic outlook.”

“In the eyes of your fellow Moroccans, and yourself,” asked Rachel, “would this future canal be some kind of symbol?”

“Let me answer you in a roundabout fashion, “ exclaimed Hakim, taking off his dark sunglasses and gazing out over the waters as if he were trying to glimpse the distant silhouettes of Andalusia on the edge of the Gulf of Cadix. “In this part of the continent, which was a Berber kingdom back in the days when Jesus of Nazareth was preaching at the other end of the Mediterranean, we’ve been living for a long time with another terrible symbol. We are aware today that a terrible force has been devouring North Africa since the beginning of time. This force is more powerful and devastating than the earthquake of Agadir. But it exerts its effects so slowly that, for human observers, this diabolical force remains a pure symbol. A symbol of disappearance, of destruction. I am referring, of course, to the phenomena of plate tectonics. North Africa is disappearing slowly but inevitably under the Eurasian plate. Year in, year out, we lose a centimeter of our coastline. Since the time of Jesus, a good meter of our ancient Berber kingdom has disappeared into the Strait of Gibraltar, which will finally cease to exist. There’ll be a direct road from Barcelona down to Casablanca.”

“Not totally uninterrupted,” murmured Aaron, still filming.

“Drivers will be inclined to slow down a little, to admire the scenery, as they move over a fabulous tall bridge across Port Sahara.” Then he switched off his camera without even giving Hakim Bensala an opportunity to say explicitly whether he looked upon the future waterway across Morocco as a symbol. People knew already Hakim’s answer to that interesting question.

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7 Water At Caesarea, final preparations for the floating of Herod’s Promontory Palace were proceeding ideally, and no major problems remained to be solved. Aaron Rose, director of Tribe operations, had devised a coherent strategy for media coverage of the event. With Anne’s help, he had contacted people at the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to describe the Caesarea project and provide them with technical information about the Chariot Process.

The IBA people were eager to present the subject on television through a background documentary followed by live coverage of the event at Caesarea. Aaron would have the option of producing English-language versions of all interviews whenever this was feasible, and he would be able to use such material freely in Team productions. So, he would be able to count upon the technical resources of national Israeli TV while retaining the exclusive production rights to all English-language interviews. Meanwhile, Aaron had invested in a four-wheel drive Toyota—identical to that of Jake except for the color (Jake’s Toyota was white, whereas Aaron’s was blue)—enabling him to move around comfortably with his Sony camera and lighting equipment in the baggage compartment.

People concerned by the project started to refer to the planned date of the actual floating of Herod’s stone slab as C-day, where the letter C stood for Caesarea. At a general reunion of all the major participants in Jerusalem, they agreed that C-day could be scheduled during the week following Yom Kippur. After much discussion, it was decided that an ideal date would be the eve of the autumn festival of rejoicing, Sukkot. If all went well, the remains of Herod’s palace would be transformed into a novel kind 188

of Jewish entity: a floating tabernacle.

✡ Three weeks before C-day, a group of seven Australian visitors disembarked from a Qantas Boeing at Lod airport, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The four senior members of the group—Nahum Rose and his wife Rebecca, and Amos Kahn and his wife Miryam— were setting foot for the first time in their ancestral Jewish homeland, but the concept of any alleged homeland other than Western Australia did not concern them greatly. They were interested in the modern state of Israel for two mundane and interrelated reasons. First, their children were obviously intrigued by the Jewish nation, because three of them were actually living there. Second, their family company, Terra, was now engaged in a couple of major operations in Israel. So, the Rose/Kahn seniors could not fail to be concerned by this country, to a certain extent, without being moved excessively at an emotional level by the romantic theme of an encounter with the land of the Torah.

The most excited members of the group arriving at Lod were Leah and her husband. This was Patrick Grady’s first visit to the land of Jesus. Besides the thrill of meeting up with Rachel, Jake, Aaron and Anne, the Grady couple envisaged the month they would be spending in Israel as a professional excursion: a business trip, as it were. Their stay would be broken up into two distinct phases, centered around each of the Terra activities: first, the Aqua/ Siloam affair down on the Red Sea, which was scheduled to go into operation in a week’s time, and second, the Caesarea event, culminating in C-day. Concerning the Aqua phase of their preoccupations, they had brought with them Benny Segal, the shy but talented engineer from Geraldton who mastered every molecular detail of the desalination process using seaweed. In fact, it was Rachel who had succeeded, through a long series of Internet communications, in convincing Benny that he should accompany her family members to Israel, because she considered that his evaluation of the newly-constructed plant on the beach at Taba 189

would reassure Avram Moreno and herself before they flicked the switch that would set it into action. For Benny, who had always adored Rachel as if she were his lovely big sister, or maybe his mother, it had become more and more difficult to resist her solicitations, although he was anguished by the idea of abandoning temporarily his hermitic existence in the remote rural environment of Geraldton, where he felt protected from vague forces that he could never define, and being obliged to discover the totally unknown new world of Israel. Since he had no close personal attachments or responsibilities apart from his professional preoccupations at Terra in Western Australia, Benny was incapable of stating clearly why he had doubts about leaving Geraldton. He finally succumbed to Rachel’s persuasion, and accepted the proposition of a prolonged stay in Eilat, at least up until the Aqua desalination plant was functioning perfectly.

There was no sense in having an excessive welcoming group at the airport, since it was preferable to have adequate passenger space in vehicles to convey the visitors comfortably back to Jerusalem. So, only Jake and Aaron were there, each with his Toyota. The Rose and Kahn seniors spread themselves out on the rear seats of Jake’s white vehicle, while the Grady couple and Benny Segal stepped into Aaron’s blue Toyota. Once again, there was a mundane reenactment of the legendary drive along the highway from Tel Aviv to the Holy City: a ritual ascension that was no less charged with emotions today than when Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still or, more recently, when the Haganah was gunning its way towards Judea.

Late that summer afternoon, in the rooms and garden of the Malki Street villa in the Holy City, there was a happy reunion of individuals in Israel belonging to what might be called the Terra family. Jake’s colleagues from the Black Swan were present in Malki Street, taking time off from the preparations in Caesarea: George Thiatikos, Robert Meguid and Enzo Florini. In this unexpected setting, looking out over the golden splendor of Jerusalem, these offspring of so-called ‘New Australians’ were actually meeting up personally, for the first time, with their official 190

employers at the top of the Terra hierarchy: Amos Kahn and Nahum Rose. Two cherished friends of the Rose/Kahn families were also present: Martin Luria and his wife Sarah, who had succeeded in finding a friend to look after their children at Sede Boqer during their 24-hour round trip to Jerusalem. In the midst of this friendly assembly, Benny Segal would have no doubt preferred to slide timidly into a remote corner of the villa, were it not for the efforts of Rachel, who was making an effort to smooth out the contact between Benny and Avram Moreno, who was accompanied by his lovely wife Isha, a painter.

Rebecca Rose, mother of two sons who were primary Terra actors in Israel, chose to make a somewhat solemn declaration: “At the airport, an hour or so ago, it was strange to find myself being welcomed to Israel by Jacob and Aaron. I’ve never known whether or not I’m a typical so-called Jewish mother, because I don’t really know what that expression is meant to convey. Maybe my husband or my brother Amos might understand that notion of a Jewish mother better than I do. Maybe my nieces Leah and Rachel might know what it means.” Rebecca halted her improvised speech, searching for the next words. The steamy summer silence was broken only by a distant siren of a police car, which was a pretext for Anne Levi to nudge her fiancé with a smiling thumbsup gesture: a trivial reminder that her former colleagues were constantly at work in the Holy City. Rebecca found simple words to conclud her tiny speech: “In any case, at Lod this afternoon, for the first time in my life, I suddenly felt the massive force of what it means to be a Jewish mother.”

“This is going to be a terribly busy month for everybody, and I’d like to give you a rundown of plans and schedules,” said Jake, assuming the role of a master of ceremonies. “This month will be marked by two major milestones. First, there’s the inauguration of the Aqua plant down on the Red Sea. Rachel and Avram will tell you everything you need to know about that splendid affair.

Second, of course, there’s our fabulous Chariot project at Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast. Between these two basic rendezvous, there’ll be ample time for tourism, assisted by my 191

cousin Leah, who knows much more about Israel than I do. We’ve rented a minibus and an Israeli driver for the entire month. So, you’ll be able to go wherever you like, under Leah’s guidance.”

Hearing this, the visitors at Malki Street broke into applause. For some of them, the prospect of travelling around in the Holy Land was an even more exciting promise than witnessing the technological prowess of Terra. Jacob Rose, the expert organizer, continued his explanations: “Beyond Taba and Caesarea, there’s a third event on the agenda. Aaron will tell you what it’s all about.”

“Anne and I have made a last-minute decision to get married while you’re all here in Israel,” explained Aaron. “The wedding invitation remains vague... which explains why we haven’t told anybody—apart from my brother Jake—about our plans. We would like to hold our wedding reception in a mythical place, an ancient palace, maybe even a floating palace. If all goes well, after a simple ceremony at a Caesarea synagogue, we would like to welcome you to a reception on a floating stone raft: Herod’s Promontory Palace.”

✡ The next morning, the primary item on the touristic agenda was Christian Jerusalem. While it might be said that the individual most concerned by this aspect of the past was Patrick Grady, the group of sightseers included everybody in the Rose/Kahn family.

They strolled down along the narrow Via Dolorosa, crammed with groups of chanting pilgrims from every corner of Christendom.

The guide Leah signaled to her followers that they should leave the busy thoroughfare and assemble in front of a nondescript stone column at the entrance to a strangely quiet courtyard, where the only human presence was the somber silhouette of an aged and emaciated dark-skinned long-haired monk in black robes, tottering alongside a bare stone wall.

“We are standing now at the alleged Ninth Station of the Cross, marked today by this pillar set in the wall of a church built by an ancient Christian sect from Egypt called the Copts,” explained 192

Leah, who was displaying knowledge gleaned from a guidebook she held in her left hand. “At this spot, Jesus was about to enter the terrible area on the edge of the city named Golgotha, ‘place of the skull’, where he would be nailed to a cross, beside two other condemned men, and left to die in agony. Later, his body would be taken down and carried to a nearby garden where a disciple named Joseph of Arimathaea owned a tomb hewn in stone, which he made available for the body of the crucified preacher from Nazareth. You’ve all heard of those celebrated events, and you’ve no doubt formed a mental picture of the place where they occurred. How do we imagine Golgotha?”

“I’ve always imagined it as a hill,” replied Patrick Grady, shading his closed eyes with his hand while conjuring up a vision of the crucifixion of Jesus. “Jesus had to struggle up a narrow path, with the cross on his shoulder, to reach the place of execution.

Then I see the three crosses planted on a rocky slope, standing out as silhouettes against the surrounding wilderness. As for the empty tomb, I have a vision of a kind of rocky cave in a corner of a flat field filled with dusty vegetation; maybe olive trees or grape vines.”

Patrick Grady’s mental image of Golgotha corresponded to the typical pictorial vision shared by countless generations of Christians, and Leah’s reading of the guidebook had already made it known to her that most visitors, encountering the supposed real place, are surprised, if not shocked, because today’s site known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher simply does not correspond to what most people are expecting.

“In fact, we won’t discover anything at all that looks like what most Christian might imagine,” warned Leah, bidding the group to follow her down steps to the busy courtyard of the Crusader basilica erected over the alleged site of Golgotha. “In spite of endless historical and archaeological research, much of which has been carried out since the state of Israel took possession of the Old City during the Six-Day War in June 1967, scholars do not yet know with certainty today that this is indeed the authentic site of the crucifixion of Jesus. Many say it is, while others say it isn’t.

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Let’s suppose that it is the real place. If that were the case, then we have to conclude that the legendary hill of Golgotha was a mere hillock no more than a dozen meters in height, every square centimeter of which is in fact concealed by the rather unimpressive building that we see here. So, let’s go in.” Leah beckoned to her group to follow her through the doorway. Inside the vast basilica, the level of the main floor (identical to that of the outside courtyard) is located more than halfway up the hillock. So, they were faced with a minor ascension of some five meters up a small flight of stone steps to reach the supposed location of the three crosses, marked by a silver torus embedded in the floor with a black disk to the right and another to the left. Rachel knelt down and lowered her right hand into the deep cavity at the center of the torus, where the cross of Jesus had once been planted. She moved her arm around the silver rim of the hole, enabling her outstretched fingers to caress the cold bare stone inside the summit of Golgotha.

“I have the impression of a kind of electric charge tingling in my fingertips,” she whispered, while inviting the others to perform the same experiment. Nobody accepted her proposal. It was a little like being invited to reach down into a dark crevasse in a tomb to see if you can touch any bones.

“It’s certainly a weird atmosphere,” said Patrick, who stood still, with his arms folded on his chest, visibly trying to grasp the scene. “We’ve always imagined that the Lord was crucified out in the open, under a blazing sun, on the parched rocky slopes of a hill on the edge of the desert. Here, I find myself being asked to believe that Jesus was executed in a kitsch corner of a Greek Orthodox church, where the only light comes from candles. Even the smell of the place is totally wrong. We imagined naively a hot breeze blowing sandy dust into our eyes and nostrils, and the nauseating odor of human sweat and blood. Here, it’s infuriating to discover merely the sweet overpowering aroma of Oriental incense. The silver around the hole is wrong, too. If ever there was a small cavity on the planet Earth that should not be encased in precious metal, it’s that hole here, where they planted the cross.”

An observer might have concluded that Patrick Grady was not 194

only shocked by this encounter with Golgotha; he was infuriated.

Leah led the group down from the ornate Golgotha platform, and they strolled a few dozen meters to a spacious open area at the far end of the basilica. In the center of a black and white pavement composed of big square slabs of marble, the richly decorated façade of a massive cube-shaped stone structure, over two stories high, with a single great porch, was bathed in the light of huge candles. At first sight, one had the impression that a zealous ecclesiastical architect had decided, for some unknown reason, to build an entire small church inside the existing basilica, like a luxurious dolls’ house that was so big that it occupied a good part of a little girl’s bedroom.

“That is the tomb of Jesus,” said Leah curtly and dryly, as if she were pointing out in a deliberately emotionless style the spot where a bomb had exploded or some such catastrophe had occurred. “The guidebook tells us that, at the heart of that ornate mass of stone and marble, there is evidence of an archaic cave with a tomb hewn in the rock. The Emperor Constantine was so thrilled when he came upon this tomb, almost three centuries after the Crucifixion, that he excavated all around and below it, transforming it into an isolated island of stone at the peak of a rocky pinnacle. Builders started immediately to fill in the empty space around the tomb, culminating in the elaborate Crusader edifice that we see today.” Once again, Patrick Grady was furious.

“The fundamental theme of Christianity has always been the fact that the tomb was empty,” he declared, raising his voice and gesticulating in an uncommon manner as if he were a preacher. “If ever there were a tomb on the planet Earth that should not be glorified in any way, it’s the empty tomb of Jesus. Its very emptiness leads us away from the tomb, into other realms of existence, of a spiritual nature. This absurd celebration of the tomb, culminating in its rich decoration, as if it were the restingplace of an admired princess or a movie star, is the work of vulgar undertakers and cemetery stone-engravers who haven’t grasped the fundamental message of Christianity. The tomb is perfectly uninteresting, and should be left to turn back into dust; because 195

there’s nothing in it!”

Leah decided to take the group behind the scenes, into the bowels of the basilica, where many aspects of the Golgotha scene, as we know it today, had their origin. They walked down a long curved flight of steps that ended in a vast hall. In the chilly gloom of the undecorated chamber, an observant visitor sensed immediately that this was surely part of an ancient quarry.

“This subterranean chamber is located at the original ground level of Golgotha as it existed back at the time of Jesus,” explained Leah, consulting her guidebook from time to time, and praying that the quiet austerity of the place would help to dispel the agitation of her husband. “In other words, we are standing at the foot of the hillock of Golgotha, which was a stone quarry before it became a place for the public execution of particularly notorious lawbreakers. This Armenian chapel honors the Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena, who played a major role in unearthing traces of the historical Jesus in Jerusalem.”

Leah finally led the group down a further short flight of steps, ending in an ancient underground cellar.

“Helena acted at times like a magician when in discovering miraculously so many long-lost items related to the crucifixion of Jesus,” continued Leah. “She succeeded in finding fragments of the actual cross of Jesus, the crosses of the two thieves, the crown of thorns, nails, et cetera. Since the whereabouts of these items had remained unknown for nearly three centuries, many observers were dubious about the authenticity of Helena’s discoveries. Words have played a trick on the poor lady, because this cellar where Helena claimed to have found many of these fragments has been named the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross. In fact, as Latinists would understand immediately, the old verb ‘invent’ used to be a synonym for ‘find’. Nothing to do with making up stories about miraculous discoveries.”

“Earlier on, Rachel said that her fingers seemed to be capturing some kind of radiation from inside the hole, up at the top of the stairs, where the cross is supposed to have been fixed,” said 196

Patrick. “Using a similar metaphor, I’m obliged to say that, unfortunately, this entire basilica started to send me negative vibrations as soon as I walked through the door. There’s something that just doesn’t seem to add up correctly in this place. So many aspects of this gaudy place seem to be disjointed or overweight, and this erodes their credibility. I don’t know whether or not Helena’s so-called ‘inventions’ were authentic or not, but I’m disappointed to have to admit that nothing in this kitsch setting resonates with my conception of the crucifixion of Jesus.”

Jake had not spoken a word since entering the basilica, but he chose this moment to step into the conversation with the observations of an engineer: “Judging from what Leah has been telling us, enhanced by what I’ve actually seen, I can’t help feeling that everything here is perfectly genuine, in an objective historical sense, right down to the empty tomb and the celebration of that phenomenon as a miracle. The trouble is that, ever since the amazing but perfectly plausible findings of Constantine’s mother, so many wellintentioned builders have been practising what I would refer to as excess engineering. By that, I mean that they’ve got carried away by their intentions of improving the site, and they’ve inadvertently achieved the exact opposite: they’ve finally deteriorated the little that remained of the site of the crucifixion. That idea struck me as soon as it started to dawn on me that we had stepped onto Golgotha over halfway up the original hillock. When you encounter that kind of phenomenon, you know that you’re in a place that has been worked over by a zealous engineer: the kind of guy who’ll install a cable-car system up to the top of a tiny rise, on the silly assumption that the public will be better off because they can ascend to this height without spending energy. The underlying them of excess engineering is to do whatever is doable, for the simple reason that it’s doable, even though there might be no sound reason for doing it.”

“It’s a fact that there are peculiarities in the layout of this place that offended my sense of logic,” said Leah. “The most blatant 197

example is the notion of a stroll of less than fifty meters over the flat floor of a church to move from the scene of the crucifixion to the site of the tomb. A newcomer can’t help feeling that the basilica looks as if it were built first and that the crucifixion artefacts were inserted later on. In our imagination, Joseph of Arimathaea took the body of Jesus at the foot of the cross and carried it over a short distance to a setting that was significantly different to the place of the execution. Maybe the cave tomb was simply around the corner from the crucifixion spot, but the two settings were quite different. Instead of the rocky slopes of Golgotha, we enter a quiet garden, maybe an orchard. The distinction between the two settings is heightened by the fact that two fundamental individuals only appear on the scene at the second setting: Mary of Magdala and the Virgin Mary.”

“Here again, we see the adverse effects of excess engineering,” explained Jake. “In his eagerness to isolate the precious tomb from its rugged surroundings, Constantine cut away everything that he thought of as extraneous, and ended up with what Leah referred to as an isolated chunk of stone at the peak of a pinnacle. Even though the crucifixion site and the tomb were separated by a short distance, as the crow flies, maybe the rugged nature of the abandoned quarry meant that it was not possible, from one spot, to view the other. At that point, a bright exponent of excess engineering, employed by the emperor, noticed that the crucifixion site and the tomb were practically at the same altitude, give or take a few meters, and that it would be a simple matter to remove extraneous rocks in order to create a straight line of sight between the two spots. A little bit of landfill would suffice to create the situation that we encounter today: the possibility of strolling in a short straight line from the crucifixion site to the tomb.”

“Basically, what you’re saying,” concluded Aaron, “is that builders, in trying to make things better, often make them worse, because their alleged improvements distort the primitive features of a site that once enhanced its natural look, and hence its credibility.”

“Jake, I’m intrigued by your remark about the profound sense 198

of the empty tomb,” said Patrick, wondering vaguely whether his wife’s cousin might not be ready, like Leah, to convert to Christianity. “What exactly were you trying to say?”

“I’m simply stating that, to me, it appears perfectly plausible that the historical figure named Jesus was indeed executed by being nailed to a cross planted in a hole at the top of this old stone quarry on the edge of the city, and that a wealthy sympathizer from Arimathaea carried the body around the rocky slopes to a secluded spot nearby where he happened to have built a tomb in a conveniently-located cave. Who knows? Maybe Joseph had paid for the construction of this tomb quite some time earlier on, when Golgotha was still an operational stone quarry, before it was transformed into a place of execution. After all, what better place and time to call upon skilled tradesmen to build a tomb than close to a stone quarry on the edge of the city that is about to shut down.”

“And the empty tomb?” insisted Patrick. “Is it normal that the Crusaders have transformed it into this monstruous stone and marble mausoleum that we see here today, far more flamboyant than even the place of the cross?”

“Nothing in this affair is normal,” replied Jake. “The cross has become the universal symbol of Christianity in spite of the fact that it is impossible to find anything of a splendid or miraculous nature in a vulgar instrument of torture. The empty tomb, on the other hand, is both a truly miraculous phenomenon and a fabulous symbol, because it amazes us by violating everything we’ve ever experienced or deduced about the precarity of our human existence. Nobody is really deeply surprised or upset when they learn that evil forces have led to the the execution of a good and innocent, and that this execution was performed by means of a primitive and painful instrument, far more terrible—if such tools of death can be compared—than a lethal gas chamber. Humanity has grown accustomed to the cruel torture and senseless assassination of innocent victims. So, the cross is no longer a particularly effective symbol of anythinng exceptional. But an empty tomb, on the contrary, is the most spectacular symbol that 199

has ever been imagined, because it runs our conception of existence upside-down. So, it’s a concept that deserves to be celebrated more than any other symbol that has ever appeared on Earth.”

“And do you believe in fact that the tomb was truly empty?” asked Leah, who had always had great respect for her cousin’s philosophical musings of all kinds.

“I’m convinced that it was empty, “ replied Jake, unhesitatingly, “otherwise the event of Jesus would never have stirred up so much excitement and devotion, which have never receded. Besides, since stepping into this basilica less than an hour ago, I’ve formed the opinion that the historical empty tomb could well be the one down at the other end of the building, which we can visit so easily today thanks to unfortunate feats of excess engineering that could lead a believer to lose faith.”

“Have you imagined reasons why the tomb would have been empty?” asked Patrick.

“The essence of emptiness is that there is literally nothing to think about,” replied Jake, in a style that might be thought of, wrongly, as empty rhetoric. “If the tomb were truly empty, as I am prepared to believes, then our awareness and acceptance of that simple but amazing fact relieves us of the necessity of trying to exploit our tiny minds to pursue the matter any further. At that level, the basic tenet of Christianity is no different to our Yahveh, whom we are incapable of describing. It might be said that Yahveh too is amazing emptiness, like the tomb of Jesus. But even saying something silly like that is excessive.”

The discussion continued as the group moved from the church into the sunlight of the courtyard. It was impossible to know to what extent the Rose/Kahn seniors, not to mention Benny Segal, were appreciating this improvised introduction to Holy City tourism, but they gave the impression of being enthralled.

“Jake, everybody agrees that something went wrong here as far as construction work inside the basilica is concerned,” said Rachel.

“The errors occurred somewhere along the line between Helena 200

and the Crusaders. You tell us it’s the fault of excess engineering.

Once again, I like the typical style of your explanations. You invent ways of expressing ideas that would otherwise float in my own mind as indescribable vague stuff, incapable of escaping as words. But there’s a question that has been bothering me for the last thirty minutes. In the case of our Terra projects such as the Chariot Process in Caesarea and the Aqua plant at Taba, are you absolutely certain that we might not be getting involved in excess engineering?”

“One can never be certain,” replied Jake stoically, “but I believe we’re heading in the right direction as far as both projects are concerned. In any case, the consequences of excess engineering are not necessarily catastrophic, as long as we realize that work may have gone too far, and refuse to get led astray by this excess.

Nothing alarms me today in the fact that we can move quickly and directly in a straight line from the symbolic silver torus of Golgotha to the flamboyant empty tomb.”

✡ George Thiatikos, Robert Meguid and Enzo Florini returned to Caesarea, because there was still a lot of last-minute work to do before C-day, a little more than fortnight off in the future. The Australian visitors converged upon Eilat by three separate itineraries. The minibus, driven by a friendly young Israeli woman named Lydie Schiff, left Malki Street with the Rose/Kahn seniors for a leisurely drive southwards along the shore of the Dead Sea. They spent the first afternoon visiting Masada, then spent the night at a luxury hotel alongside the beach in En Boqeq. The following morning, after a ritual bath in the Dead Sea, they traveled to Eilat.

Meanwhile, Aaron left Jerusalem in his blue Toyota with Leah and Patrick with the intention of spending the day at Qumran, where the celebrated Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. As for Jake in his white Toyota, carrying Rachel and Benny, their immediate aim was to call in at nearby Bethlehem, where Rachel had a special mission to perform. She wanted to see if she could find the old Palestinian 201

named Mahomet whom she had encountered on her first visit to Bethlehem, the day on which she had been hit in the head by a stone thrown at their automobile by a boy in Hebron.

Jake parked alongside the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, second wife of Jacob. A few dozen Palestinians, seated on benches in the vicinity of the big white monument, were reading newspapers, smoking hookah pipes, chatting or simply drowsing in the sun. On the other side of the tomb, Mahomet was sitting on his own, on a rusty iron chair, in exactly the same place where Rachel had seen him during her previous visit. The old man seemed to be meditating, or maybe simply sleeping. But he recognized Rachel instantly as soon as she walked towards him, and he stood up and clapped his hands in joy as if he were welcoming the return of a daughter who had strayed away from her home.

“So, you have come back to pay your respects to Our Mother,” said Mahomet, reaching out to clutch Rachel’s right hand between his rough brown palms. “Go and pray for a while. I will wait for you.” Rachel was a little confused about how she should react to this order, because she was not in the habit of praying at sacred sites, but she promptly did as told. More precisely, she led Jake and Benny underneath the canopy that sheltered the tomb and summarized the situation in whispers: “Jake, I’m convinced that this old Palestinian is a kind of prophet. In spite of our totally different backgrounds, I was convinced from the moment I first met him that we seem to have some kind of unspoken contact, as if we had always known each other. Do you think it would be foolish of me, or politically incorrect, to invite him down to Taba next week for the inauguration of the Aqua plant?”

“Not at all, Rachel,” exclaimed Jake. “If you are sensitive to the words of this man, then you must welcome him into your universe so that you can listen to everything he has to tell you. You will need wise friends who can understand you.” They returned to Mahomet, who shook hands with Jake and Benny. Then he sat down on the rocky ground, which seemed to be his preferred 202

position for communicating with people. Mahomet’s smiling face was illuminated as if he were in a state of bliss.

“I told you to go to Hebron to pray upon the tomb of our Jacob,” said Mahomet. “But, as soon as you left me, I knew I had given you bad advice. I could not understand why my advice was bad, but I knew it was. I could not sleep for many nights because I felt I had brought harm to you, and that I would never see you again. So, I am very happy today.”

“If I am back here this morning, that proves that your words did not bring me harm,” said Rachel. “They have brought me back to the Holy Land, with my cousin Jacob, where we have much work to do. And I would be happy if we could take you down to a place near Aqaba, next week, to see the start of our work. We are going to change sea water into a fountain where people can drink and wash themselves.”

Little effort was required to persuade Mahomet to accept the proposal of being picked up by Jake, the following week, and driven down to the Red Sea for the inauguration of the desalination plant. He was visibly thrilled by this unexpected invitation. Rachel had the impression that Mahomet imagined her Aqua plant as a variation on the industrial environments in which he had once worked in Kuwait. The only difference was that the liquid flowing through the pipes would be water rather than oil.

After leaving Mahomet, Jake drove westwards to the Mediterranean coast at Ashkelon, where they were to meet up with Avram Moreno for a visit of the local Siloam plant, which supplied fresh water to several coastal settlements. Avram and his wife had left Jerusalem after the welcoming festivities at Malki Street and driven directly to Ashkelon, where Isha had left her husband (to be picked up by Jake a day later) and continued her journey to the south. It had already been decided that, if the Aqua pilot plant at Taba functioned successfully, the following step would consist of building of a big station on a seafront property just to the north of Gaza, because the demands for fresh water in this region were enormous.

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Benny Segal was fascinated by this first Old-World contact with a fully-operational desalination plant, for the only installations he had known up until now, back in Western Australia, were experimental stations such as Terra’s plant on the seafront at Geraldton.

“Avram, I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth, or offend you,” remarked Benny warily, after an in-depth examination of the Siloam station, “but I’m sure you’ll find that the new plant you’ve built with Rachel will be like driving a Rolls-Royce compared to...” “... this old buggy!” exclaimed Avram laughingly. “I’m already convinced of that, Benny. Preliminary tests reveal that your seaweed-based process augments the global gain, as a function of production costs, by a factor of over ten. So, I have no doubts whatsoever about the wisdom of the collaboration between Siloam and Terra. I’ve often told Rachel that our Aqua plant could well become a showpiece in desalination throughout the entire Middle East region, not to mention the Mediterranean coast of Africa. It’s largely a matter of becoming well-known, of making a name for ourselves.”

“That’s a basic goal for Terra in this part of the world,” added Jake. “”And that’s where Caesarea, like Aqua, can be thought of as pieces on a very big board.”

While the Australians were inspecting the Siloam plant at Ashkelon, Aaron, Leah and Patrick were investigating the mysteries of Qumran: an ancient settlement due east of Jerusalem in the middle of the region where the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls came to light following the chance discovery of fragments by a Bedouin shepherd boy who, in 1947, scrambled into a cave in the cliffs in pursuit of a stray goat.

“After a kind of blackout that lasted for two millenia, it’s amazing to realize that the modern state of Israel came into being at about the same time that the Dead Sea Scrolls resurfaced,” explained Leah. “Maybe I should put it the other way round, although there are no obvious links between the two happenings.

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The Scrolls emerged miraculously at a moment in history when most Jews had only one thought in mind: defending their fledgling nation against the combined Arab forces that were already trying to destroy it.”

“When you use the term ‘miraculously’, are you suggesting that pious Jews actually envisaged the finding of the Scrolls as a divinely-ordained event, in the same way that Christians look upon the phenomenon of Jesus walking on the waters of the Sea of Galilee, or the multiplication of the bread and fishes?” asked Patrick.

“Well, yes and no,” replied Leah. “In the Old Testament, which Jews call the Torah, there are many apparent miracles, such as the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, or the stories of the lions that did not kill Daniel, or Jonah merging from a whale. So, why not include in Jewish beliefs a tale of God rewarding the pioneers who created the modern Jewish nation by causing the ancient documents to reappear? It’s certainly a temptation to imagine that Jews have always had ‘God on their side’, as it were, to use the words of Bob Dylan. But most present-day Jewish intellectuals are reluctant to accept the concept of miracles, for two obvious reasons. On the one hand, this would mean that Creation as described in Genesis must be considered as a potentially imperfect operation, since God is capable of intervening at a later moment in time to modify or indeed correct such and such a detail of Creation. Above all, the theoretical possibility of divine intervention raises a troubling interrogation of a quite down-toearth nature. If God can be implored to work miracles, then why was there no divine intervention to halt the Holocaust?”

The Australians wandered through a maze of crumbling stone walls, spread out over a plateau about the size of a couple of football fields. Many of the former walls had now been worn down by the desert winds and rains until they were now mere ridges barely protruding above the sand, like the walls of a child’s sandcastle on a beach over which a wave has washed. Who were the children who had built this great sandcastle alongside the 205

virtual estuary where a desert wadi, normally dry, would flow into the Dead Sea whenever sudden rains in the vicinity of Jerusalem transformed it into a so-called flash flood? That question had given rise to various hypotheses, none of which had yet been totally clarified. The layout of the settlement remained perfectly clear, and an observer could appreciate the dimensions and orientations of the various buildings and the paths that linked them. Seen from an adjacent ridge, the ruins of the Qumran settlement looked like the footprint of a gigantic bird—perhaps a pterodactyl—that had paused there for an instant of prehistoric time before flying back into mythology. In the same way that experts can deduce the nature of a beast merely by examining its footprints, archaeologists were able to learn much about the inhabitants of the Qumran settlement by poring over the ruins. But many mysteries remained unsolved.

Long before she ever imagined coming into personal contact with the Holy Land, Leah had been intrigued—like countless amateurs of biblical history—by the incredible tale of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and she had now done enough reading in this domain to grasp the subject and its intricacies in an in-depth manner.

“Suppose that a corpse has been found in the middle of the woods, and the authorities think it’s a murder,” suggested Leah.

“Now, imagine a recently-abandoned log cabin not far away from the spot where the body was discovered. Naturally, the detectives are likely to examine the hypothesis that the individual or individuals who were living in the cabin might have had something to do with the murder. Maybe the corpse is that of a person who lived in the cabin. Maybe somebody from the cabin committed the crime. Or maybe the cabin has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. That’s the kind of situation we’re faced with concerning possible links between the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the presence of the settlement at Qumran.”

“If I understand correctly,” remarked Aaron, smiling at his cousin, “you’re suggesting that the adjective ‘dead’ in the name of the documents puts them in the role of the corpse. And Qumran is the log cabin.”

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“Exactly,” replied Leah. “And the detectives working on this case are some of the finest Christian and Jewish scholars from all over the planet, including even an Australian professor of Semitic studies, who happens to be the champion of the controversial theory about a total absence of causal links between the cabin and the corpse. The conventional theory—which dates from the excavations carried out in the 1950s by Father Roland de Vaux of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem—is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were penned here at Qumran by members of a strange Jewish sect called the Essenes, whose ascetic lifestyle is described in detail in certain nonbiblical parchments. In other words, as in a Christian monastery, the scrolls were in fact the library of the religious community of Essenes. According to this widely-accepted theory, the scrolls would have been written over a period of some three centuries, from 250 BC up until the destruction of Qumran by the Roman army in 68 AD, when they were preparing their assault on Jerusalem.”

“The period of three centuries you’ve indicated precedes and fully includes the time between the birth of Jesus and his crucifixion,” remarked Patrick. “Have researchers and scholars established any firm links between the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essene community at Qumran and the early days of Christianity?

Are there any references to Jesus?”

“Much has been said about supposed relationships between Qumran and Christianity, but the truth of the matter is that the scrolls contain no explicit references to Jesus or to his followers,” replied Leah, “and nothing suggests that early Christianity was influenced by the philosophy of the Essenes. While the scrolls include at least a small piece of nearly every book in the Hebrew Bible, no fragment of any book from the New Testament was found. Besides, in the Torah and the New Testament, the term ‘Essene’ is not mentioned anywhere. So, initial excitement about the possibility of revelations in the scrolls that would upset Christians was unfounded.”

“In that case, can we conclude that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a storm in a teacup as far as Christians are 207

concerned?” asked Patrick, who was determined to grasp the true significance of these documents in the context of his personal faith.

“There used to be a rumor about a Vatican conspiracy to hinder the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls because of the vast damage they could cause in the Christian world,” explained Leah. “That was nonsense, for the simple reason that the scrolls—as I said—do not refer to Jesus or Christianity in any way whatsoever. As for referring to them today as a storm in a teacup... No, they were the most important and thrilling discovery of ancient documents in the entire twentieth century, and they are of immense interest in the domain of Judaism during the three centuries that preceded the destruction of the Temple. But, for a confirmed believer in Christ, the Dead Sea Scrolls neither add nor subtract an iota.”

✡ Whenever she dropped down to Eilat to inspect progress on the Aqua installation, Rachel had got into the habit of staying at the Coral Beach Hotel, which was located alongside the seafront road between her office in the Amidar Quarter of Eilat and the future plant at Taba. She liked the casual atmosphere of the place, run by a middle-aged couple from France named Jacques and Esther Simon. Their son Edouard was the chef at the hotel restaurant, and Rachel appreciated his fine cooking, which were not necessarily of a traditional kosher kind. Besides, French and English were spoken in the hotel. So, it was normal for Rachel to book her Australian visitors into this hotel.

The Rose/Kahn seniors had arrived here a day or so in advance of the others, and the driver of their minibus had taken them to various touristic attractions in Eilat and the surrounding region. As soon as Avram Moreno arrived on the scene, Amos Kahn and Benny Segal had a lot of work to do, because they were faced with the task of working through a lengthy checklist of all the technical verifications that would have to be performed during the four or five days before the inauguration, to make sure that the plant could be made operational and that it would perform precisely as 208

planned.

As soon as Rachel arrived in Eilat and made sure that everybody was well settled in their rooms at the Coral Beach Hotel, she asked Jake to drive her down to her office. There was an unexpected message on her Macintosh from the Moroccan minister Sidi Yussan. Although the e-mail was sent to Rachel’s mailbox, it was in fact addressed to her father: Dear Amos Kahn, I’ll be looking forward to meeting up with you in Israel, as you suggested. My helicopter will be touching down on the Egyptian side of the Taba checkpoint at ten o’clock next Sunday morning, and I plan to stay, if possible, up until at least the end of the Aqua inauguration. Hakim Bensala will be accompanying me, along with my English secretary. I’ve warned my department that I may be on extended leave for a week, and my cabinet chief is prepared to take care of everyday matters. So, if you can take care of me during the Caesarea event, I will be extremely grateful. I’ll be looking forward to meeting up with you and talking of our future projects.

Best wishes, Sidi Yussan

“Isn’t that just typical of my father,” exclaimed Rachel. “Here he is setting foot in Israel for the first time ever, and he’s already inviting a Moroccan politician into the country for business discussions, wthout even knowing whether the state of Israel would be prepared to issue a visa for such a visitor.”

“Well, he does remain the boss of Terra, as well as owning half the company,” said Jake. “So I suppose he has the right to make unilateral decisions of that kind in a spontaneous way, even if they surprise us.”

Back at the hotel, Rachel transmitted the message to her father, along with a question: “Are you sure you won’t be running into problems by arranging to meet up with a Moroccan minister in Israel, to talk business?”

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“No, Nahum’s daughter-in-law assured me that there won’t be any problems,” replied Amos. “She’s taking care of all formalities.”

“Dad’s daughter-in-law?” exclaimed Jake with astonishment, taking a few moments to realize that his uncle was referring to Aaron’s fiancée. “Are you saying that Anne Levi has been helping you to organize Yussan’s visit?”

“When she was out in Western Australia last year with Aaron, Anne and I had several interesting conversations about various aspects of Israeli society and administration,” explained Amos.

“She doesn’t have any practical business experience, of course, but she has an in-depth knowledge of Israeli law and administration, and her military service as a policewoman has given her a pragmatic sense of how to handle various situations.”

“Is Aaron aware that you called upon Anne to assist you?” asked Jake. Normally, he would have put this question directly to his brother, but Aaron was at that moment down on the beach with Leah, Patrick and Benny.

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Amos. “When I made a preliminary phone call to Anne from Perth, to obtain her advice about the best way of meeting up with Yussan, she told me to leave the matter with her, and not to talk about it with any other person before we obtained a clear green light. Obviously, the e-mail you’ve just shown me is that green light. Clearly, Anne’s behindthe-scenes actions have been fruitful, otherwise Sidi Yussan wouldn’t have contacted us in this way. So, I guess it would be a good idea if I were now to tell your brother about my request to Anne.”

Ever since they were children, Jacob Rose and his cousin Rachel Kahn had confided totally in each other about every imaginable aspect of their life. Between them, there was a relationship of empathy and intimacy, and the notion of one partner in a couple concealing information from the other was something they did not understand spontaneously. But they were prepared to admit that Israel was a far more complex place than 210

the everyday environment of their childhood and adolescence in Australia. So, while they were a little surprised that Amos Kahn and Anne Levi could make arrangements for an operation without mentioning it to Aaron Rose, they were not really shocked by this behavior.

✡ Everything in the Aqua plant had been checked and doublechecked by Avram, Benny and Amos, while Rachel looked over their shoulders with the aim of building up her knowledge of the system. From a technical viewpoint, on the eve of the inauguration, the three desalination experts—Amos Kahn, Benny Segal and Avram Moreno—had reached a consensus: The Aqua station was ready to go into operation!

Early the next morning, Aaron and Anne drove from Tel Aviv to Bethlehem. Mahomet, seated alongside the tomb of Rachel, was a little surprised to find that the person at the wheel of the blue Toyota was not Jacob Rose but rather the man he had met a couple of years ago, when he first encountered Rachel. Anne explained rapidly in Hebrew that Jake and Rachel were already down on the coast, preparing the event to which they had invited him. Mahomet smiled understandingly, as if to concede that it were normal that his hosts should be busy getting ready to receive him. The other day, before leaving Mahomet, Rachel had informed him that he would be staying overnight as their guest in a hotel on the edge of the water. The old man, attired in an immaculate white djellaba, wore heavy brown leather sandals, and his long hair and white beard were partly covered by his red checkered kaffiyeh. He carried his personal effects in a square of thick brown cotton cloth, folded and knotted to form a triangular bag.

Meanwhile, Jake—who had spent the previous few days up at Caesarea, inspecting the state of final preparations for the Chariot Process—left for Taba in his Ecureuil, taking Robert Meguid with him as a potential assistant. Amos and Rachel would be reassured to know that Robert was on hand to deal with any last-minute 211

technical problems of a computing or electronics kind that might arise in the sophisticated Aqua system. Besides, Jake also imagined that Robert might be able to explain in Arabic to their guest Mahomet the gist of what was taking place. Finally, it would be good to be accompanied by a friend of Arabic culture, capable of playing a consultant’s role or even acting as an interpreter if necessary, in the context of the discussions that would be taking place between Terra and Sidi Yussan, which would surely be complicated and subtle.

Avram and Rachel had made arrangements with Jacques and Esther Simon, of the Coral Beach Hotel, to install tables and chairs beneath a big blue marquee in the sandy grounds of the Aqua plant and to provide food and drinks for the guests, who included toplevel officials from government agencies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv concerned with natural resources, urban planning, energy and environmental issues. Many elected representatives of the Eilat city and region were present, along with local businessmen, industrial chiefs and many leading figures from the domain of tourism. Martin Luria and Sarah were there, accompanied by several prominent research scientists and technologists in agricultural and biological fields. All in all, the crowd who had assembled there for the inauguration of the Aqua desalination plant constituted a good cross-section of Israelis concerned, in one way or another, by the fundamental role of water resources in the nation’s economic and social development. Quite a few Israeli journalists were also present.

Most of the guests were aware of the fact that the desalination plant, whose stainless steel tubes gleamed in the sunlight, was based upon a revolutionary technology invented in Australia.

Many knew too that a far bigger and totally different project, of an almost science-fiction nature, would be performed by the same Australian firm, in a week’s time, in Caesarea. On a dozen of the badges created by Rachel on her computer, with the help from Avram for the Hebrew, there were tiny Australian flags indicating the nationality of the bearer. Groups formed around some of the Australians, as intrigued Israelis tried to learn more about the 212

origin and principles of the two amazing technologies.

Aaron Rose introduced a suave man of about forty to Amos Kahn: “This is David Laban, founder of the legal firm that employs Anne in Tel Aviv. I’ve told him all about Terra and our projects in Israel, and he is keen to talk with you.”

“You may not be aware of a famous precedent in this land of technological assistance from Australia,” explained David Laban.

“It concerned water, too. Back in the pioneering days of the early twentieth century, certain coastal zones of Palestine were unusable for agriculture because of stagnant swamps that could not be dried up successfully. When the kibbutzniks tried to drain these swamplands, they would fill up again with water as soon as it rained on the hills. After years of vain attempts to find a solution, somebody had the bright idea of simply growing Australian eucalyptus trees in these swamp zones. These trees are apparently capable of soaking up swamp water and using the moisture to promote the growth of saplings, which in turn behave in the same way, giving rise to a drying-up process whose rate increases exponentially. So, thanks to Aussie gum trees, the coastal swamps were dried up rapidly and transformed into orange orchards.”

“Well, it’s great to hear that somebody has something nice to say about our eucalyptus trees,” exclaimed Amos jokingly. “They come in for a lot of harsh critisicm back home. Some of them can be pretty to look at, when they’re growing alongside billabongs or rivers. But in dry regions, they consume precious moisture that could be used to grow grass to feed sheep and cattle. Besides, when a eucalyptus tree gets touched by a wildfire, its oil fuels the blaze, and countless houses in the bush have been destroyed because they were surrounded by eucalyptus trees.”

“I would like to talk to you about something more consequential than gum trees,”said David Laban, with an apologetic smile. “Knowing that Terra is now engaged in major projects in Israel, I simply wished to invite you to examine the possible advantages of calling upon our legal experts in order to...”

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The details of Laban’s offer would remain unknown for the moment, because his explanations were interrupted by the noise of a small convoy of heavy vehicles grinding to a halt on the road outside the Aqua compound, in the middle of the scores of parked automobiles belonging to guests at the inauguration. Anne Levi came running up to Amos Kahn and her boss.

“Sorry to interrupt you, David, but Tsahal is ready to escort Amos and the Rose brothers to the Taba checkpoint.” Anne’s explanations were promptly drowned by the staccato din of a large Moroccan military helicopter that circled the Aqua compound a couple of times before darting towards the Taba checkpoint, a few hundred meters further down the road, and landing on the Egyptian side. Some guests screamed, imagining that they were about to come under rocket fire. But there was no conflict under way, simply the friendly visit of a foreign minister interested in the possibility of using Terra engineering to modify his country... in ways that nobody could yet imagine.

Jake and Aaron appeared to be even more astonished than Amos to find themselves being driven along this short stretch of road in a spacious armored Tsahal vehicle with a pair of armed jeeps leading the way and another pair behind them. As Jake emerged from the armored car on the Israeli side of the checkpoint, he recognized Sidi Yussan and Hakim Bensala stepping down out of their helicopter, followed by a young lady who was no doubt the minister’s secretary. Egyptian personnel at the checkpoint stood to attention and saluted the trio as they moved rapidly through the open gate. On the Israeli side, the personnel behaved similarly. The Tsahal officer at the head of the small convoy spoke to Amos Kahn in a casual manner: “My mission consists of escorting you and your visitors back to the Aqua compound. At that point, I’ll leave two plainclothes men at your inauguration, to protect your visitors in as discreet a manner as possible.” Jake and Aaron winked at one another with an ironic grin when they heard the word ‘discreet’, coming after the rumbling commotion of the convoy and the roar of the helicopter that interrupted the gathering. “Your visitors have VIP 214

visas, and they are free to move around in Israel like ordinary tourists. My fellows can accompany them, if they so desire, but you can terminate their services at any moment.” The visitors climbed up into the armored vehicle and sat alongside the Australians. A minute later, the convoy was back at the Aqua compound, where everybody alighted.

“Have a nice stay in Israel,” said the Tsahal officer as he drove off. By this time, many of the Aqua guests were out on the roadside, keen to know the identity of the people who had just got off the military helicopter at the Taba checkpoint. But the names of Sidi Yussan and Hakim Bensala meant nothing to anybody. Jake and Aaron led the Moroccan group to a table at the ocean end of the marquee where they sat down with Amos and Nahum. They were soon joined by Rachel, Patrick and Leah.

Unexpected friendships blossomed on that sunny morning at Taba. Miryam Kahn, the mother of Leah and Rachel, was fascinated by Mahomet, from the first instant of their encounter.

Back in Australia, it was difficult to imagine the existence of an individual such as Mahomet, whose simple wisdom and introspective talents had no doubt been forged by scores of sociocultural influences specific to his birthplace in the vicinity of Rachel’s tomb. For reasons that are possibly far removed from the realm of everyday contacts between human beings, Mahomet had been struck by the vision of Rachel as soon as he saw her, and it was he who had beckoned to her, wishing to strike up a conversation. Likewise, Rachel had felt drawn to this old man about whom she still knew little or nothing, apart from the fact that he spoke good English because he had once worked for American oil companies in Kuwait. As for Rachel’s mother, it may have been the preexisting bonds between Mahomet and her daughter that formed a basis for her own strong attraction.

“Unlike her father, our daughter knows little about technology,” explained Miryam Kahn. This résumé of her daughter’s relationships with technology was inexact, because Rachel had once studied agronomy at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, and she had always been obsessed by the idea that it might 215

be possible, through sophisticated systems, to rear all kinds of animals and plant orchards in the dry outback of her native land.

“I’m a little worried when I see my Rachel here in a remote corner of the Holy Land, as the boss of an industrial plant designed to produce fresh water from the sea. Do you think she’ll be capable of handling this job?”

“Rachel is not working in technology,” stated Mahomet, gazing out over the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba. “Technologists build artificial things, like towns and factories, that fall down. Rachel will build rivers. She is water.”

Miryam tried to imagine what might be concealed behind the strange but beautifully simple words of the old man, talking about her daughter.

“Rachel is profoundly attached to her cousin Jacob, and influenced by him,” explained Miryam, who was aware of this amorous relationship that had existed for as long as she could remember. Then she realized that Mahomet might not be familiar with Jake. “Do you know the man I mean?”

“Yes, of course. Jacob will build Israel,” affirmed Mahomet.

“He is earth.” The old prophet had no apparent intention of developing the enigmatic prediction he had just expressed, which Miryam was prepared to accept in a vague sense, without really understanding what Mahomet might mean.

Elsewhere in the Aqua compound, Benny Segal, while awaiting with some anxiety the instant at which the new desalination station would be set in action, appeared to be in an exceptional state of euphoria. It was a little like the fragile calm that appears in situations where individual responsibilities subside and people say with fatalistic relief: All we can do from this point on is to pray...

Since it was unlikely that prayers would be needed to make the Aqua plant operate perfectly, Benny was free to float around in the festive atmosphere of a beach on the Red Sea, unbound by constraints of a professional or social kind. Rachel—who had been casting a casual eye on her fragile friend from time to time, just to make sure that he showed no signs of feeling out of place in this 216

environment, so unlike that of Geraldton in Western Australia— was delighted to observe that Benny had apparently struck up a friendship with Edouard Simon, the chef from the Coral Beach Hotel who was presiding over the serving of drinks and appetizers to the Aqua guests. Benny had donned a long black apron, like those worn by the garçons in old French cafés, and he was lending a hand to Edouard. Benny approached Aaron and Anne: “What can I bring you to drink? Whiskey, beer, fruit juice, mineral water? Whatever you like. It’s on the house!” Benny, usually withdrawn, was visibly in a jovial mood.

Aaron glanced across at Leah with a puzled expression. As soon as Benny dashed off to fetch their drinks, he exclaimed: “Did you hear that? It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Benny pronounce a few phrases without stuttering. The air of Israel has performed a mini-miracle upon him!” If Aaron had been a little more perspicacious, he might have observed that the air of Israel had little to do with Benny’s evolution. It was rather his recent encounter with the handsome young Frenchman Edouard Simon that had disrupted Benny’s existence in a highly positive fashion.

Benny was under the charm of the chef, who was delighted to meet up with a gentle engineer from the Antipodes. Their mutual fascination went well beyond both gastronomy and desalination. In simple words as ancient as the Bible, it could be said that they had fallen in love with each other. Only Rachel understood this, with an immense joy, because she understood everything. And she too loved Benny, in a motherly way.

✡ The scenario of pushing a multimedia button to set the Aqua station in motion was the work of Aaron Rose. Besides, on behalf of Tribe productions, he was busy filming all that was happening.

At three o’clock precisely, Rachel pushed this virtual button. A trickle of fresh water started to flow instantly, by magic, into a huge stone basin erected between the station and the marquee where the guests were gathered. Within two minutes, the trickle 217

was transformed into a strong jet, and certain guests dashed across to the basin to scoop up the water in their hands and taste it.

Naturally, it had the taste of the purest of pure waters, for it was simply the sea minus the salt. Amos Kahn spoke to the guests: “At the beginning, as we all know, the world was water. Along with the heavens and the earth.” Visibly, the president of Terra was tremendously moved. And why should he not be moved? Amos Kahn had just demonstrated through Terra technology, imported into the Holy Land from the Antipodes, how imaginative thinking combined with lengthy experimentation was capable of working wonders. “Genesis states that the spirit of Elohim hovered over the surface of the water. Today, we witness a spring of water flowing from the Aqua station. And the spirit of Elohim is surely hovering over this fresh water.”

Rav Mordechai, a youthful and friendly religious dignitary from Eilat, took the microphone. Meanwhile, fresh water from the Aqua station emerged like a torrent, overflowing the stone basin and trickling back down towards the salty sea. Respecting his hosts, Mordechai used English for his introduction: “We drink fresh water, use it for our everyday cooking, and wash our bodies and our clothes with it. But let us also recall that a primary and sacred function of fresh water is purification. The manager of Aqua, our lovely friend Rachel Kahn from the Antipodes, has asked me to dedicate this water, flowing from the new station, to the purification of minds so that there might be more love and less hatred in the world.” Mordechai then chanted a Hebrew prayer incorporating the text of a great prophet from the Torah: I shall open rivers on the arid heights, and wells in the valleys; I shall turn the desert into pools and dry land into springs of water.

— Isaiah 41, 18

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Individuals who had been present at the raising of the Gypsy considered that Aqua inauguration festivities would not be complete without music. Aaron had taken steps to make sure that sounds they all loved would flow across the sands of Taba at the same time as fresh water from the new desalination plant. Today, it was Bob Marley’s reggae: By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down And there we wept when we remembered Zion...

Rachel sat down alongside Jake and wept with joy, for she remembered Rottnest. She recalled all that had happened in their lives since then. And was still happening.

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8 Earth The Aqua inauguration, like the seaweed-based desalination process itself, was a total success, much appreciated by the multitude of guests who had been present at Taba. It was decided that, for the time being, Benny Segal would continue to reside at the Coral Beach Hotel, and he would also exploit the facilities of the office in the Amidar Quarter of Eilat as the virtual manager of the new installation. This arrangement suited Avram Moreno, reassured at the level of his expansion projects by the presence of a talented Terra engineer. Rachel, too, was happy to envisage the possibility of spending more time both in her Jerusalem home and at Caesarea, alongside Jake. As for Benny, he was excited above all by the opportunity of delving into the secrets of French cooking with his friend Edouard Simon. Between the molecular biology determining the genetic transformation of seaweed, on the one hand, and the delicate chemistry involved in the preparation of a perfect sauce bĂŠchamel, on the other, certain similar principles might be found, if you were determined to search for them. But Benny and Edouard were seeking together a simpler thing: the possibility of not remaining alone in the universe.

Immediately after the inauguration, Jake took off for Caesarea in his Ecureuil with Sidi Yussan, Hakim Bensala and the secretary Jane Watson as passengers. He had e-mailed George Thiatikos to inform him that he was returning with three visitors from Morocco whom he would like to lodge for a week aboard the Black Swan, which was as comfortable a spot as any. Jake had sent another email to Barbara Weizmann and Rudi Kaplan to inform them that he was returning to launch the countdown for the Chariot Process, which would be taking place the following week. He also asked 220

them to prepare a corner of the Sedot Yam kibbutz to receive the Rose/Kahn seniors, who were to be driven up to Caesarea in their rented van, with an overnight pause for sightseeing at Jaffa where they planned to dine out with Anne Levi’s employer David Laban.

The distinguished solicitor wished to talk calmly with Amos and Nahum (which had not been possible at the Aqua inauguration) about the idea of handling their future administrative formalities in Israel.

Anne Levi had taken a fortnight’s leave in order to be able to organize her forthcoming wedding. Aaron, needless to say, would be so busy with the media coverage of the Chariot Process that his participation in the wedding (intended to be an informal event for close family guests only) was limited up until now, and would no doubt remain so, to a two-word entry in his agenda for the day in question: Getting married! It had already been agreed at Taba that Edouard Simon would abandon exceptionally his parents’ hotel for a few days, towards the end of the week, and drive up to Caesarea in the Coral Beach Hotel van, accompanied by Benny Segal, with catering equipment and cooking supplies. He had accepted the assignment of handling food and drinks for two quite different social functions that would be taking place at Caesarea within a time span of some twenty-four hours: the reception of guests invited along to the moving of Herod’s Promontory Palace, followed by the marriage of Aaron Rose and Anne Levi. The wellequipped Sedot Yam kitchen would be placed at his disposal, along with personnel from the kibbutz. Anne had already decided upon the menu for the wedding dinner: basically, lamb to be roasted on a spit on the beach in the traditional Arab méchoui fashion. Edouard Simon had been able to place an order for foodstuffs and beverages to be delivered in Caesarea by the same Tel Aviv firm that supplied his parents’ hotel.

As for Patrick and Leah, they borrowed Jake’s Toyota with the aim of visiting Christian sites in Bethlehem, Nazareth and the region around the Sea of Galilee, where they had planned an encounter with Australian friends from the Catholic parish of Fremantle who were visiting the Holy Land as tourists.

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✡ The week between the Aqua inauguration and the Caesarea operations was an ideal time slot for the Moroccan delegation to explain in detail their intentions to Amos Kahn and Nahum Rose.

A few months earlier on, as soon as Aaron Rose’s documentary film on the Rabat encounter had reached the Terra headquarters in Fremantle, this news of the possibility of a gigantic earth-moving project in Morocco caused great excitement at the level of the corporation’s management and senior engineers. In-depth communications were set in motion immediately, through the Internet, to determine whether the Moroccan government was indeed in a position to muster up the huge funds that would be required. Patrick Grady had produced provisional charts of the approximate investments involved, and these had been sent immediately to Sidi Yussan (with copies for Hakim Bensala in Gibraltar), who called upon the services of his colleague Moussa Idris, Minister of Finance, to obtain a clear statement of the context. Amos Kahn had requested the opinion of Hakim Bensala concerning this information, since the regional manager of West Fusion was perfectly up-to-date on the current economic situation of Morocco. Hakim’s conclusions left no doubts whatsoever on the financial soundness of the data provided by Sidi Yussan and Moussa Idris. Out in Fremantle, this confidence had been shared immediately by Patrick Grady, who had beome the individual who was best capable of confirming the kinds of business deals that Terra should accept, and those that it would be preferable to reject.

As Patrick said to Amos Kahn and Nahum Rose: “It’s perfectly reassuring. Terra should not hesitate in getting involved in this project. If their report had included references to all kinds of mysterious banks and private financial backers, Terra would have been obliged to pursue its evaluation of the context.

But this is not the case. It’s clear to me, and to Hakim Bensala too, that Yussan’s schemes are totally backed by the Moroccan government. We don’t need any further guarantees. We’re not going to ask an ancient Arab kingdom to show us its credentials.”

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Consequently, the face-to-face encounters in Israel between Sidi Yussan and the Terra executives unfolded in an atmosphere of mutual confidence and serenity. Naturally, Amos Kahn did not intend to talk about down-to-earth matters such as drawing up detailed contracts, because there would be time to handle tasks of that kind when the future partners were back in their offices, surrounded by specialists in international business law and finance.

For the moment, apart from the fundamental necessity of getting to know one another personally, the Terra people and their Moroccan guests were obsessed, if not anguished, by a single question: Would the demonstration of the Chariot Process at Caesarea be a success? That did not prevent Amos and Nahum from providing their visitors with fragments of background information of which even the pioneer researcher Jacob Rose was not necessarily aware.

“Jake has been so preoccupied with getting this Caesarea project under way, and doing everything in his power to make it work,” explained Amos, “that we didn’t think it a good idea to burden him with news about our ongoing Terra research and development back home in Australia, especially since he was already going out of his way to assist my daughter Rachel in the construction of the desalination plant that we saw down on the Red Sea. Jake’s imaginative ideas that culminated in the Slicer and Chariot Process were developed initially within the geology department at Curtin University in Perth, under the supervision of Professor Julius Stokes. Terra has always had a fine relationship with academia. This has nothing to do with philanthropy. It’s simply a matter of considering the university as a place where bright people are regularly testing bright ideas. When Jake left Australia for Israel, we carried on our collaboration with researchers in Stokes’s department at Curtin, with the aim of enhancing our existing patents. Already, I’m happy to announce that tomorrow’s Slicer technology will be more fantastic than ever.”

“In what way?” enquired Sidi Yussan. It was Jake’s father who replied: “Stokes and his research students refer to the breakthrough as 223

multiprogrammed moles. As you know, we’ve been using the mole metaphor to designate the laser cutting head of the Slicer system.

The Mole is a tiny mobile device that moves along a preprogrammed itinerary to produce a specific ablation in the stone. For the moment, we can exploit several Slicer systems simultaneously, but each one functions autonomously, with a single Mole doing the cutting. In the near future, we should be able to use Slicer systems capable of managing simultaneously a large set of Moles, all of which are operating automatically in coordination. So, to cut out the rock for a canal, we could theoretically start out with two Slicer systems: one at the eastern end of the future canal, and the other at the west. Once they were carefully programmed and set into action, their multiple Moles would eat away at the rock in a concerted fashion, with little or no human intervention. All we would need to do is to apply Chariot Process technology to float away the blocks of rock as they are ablated from the mass.”

“You make it sound as if digging a canal is as easy as calling upon an army of robots to wage a war,” remarked Jane Watson.

The young auburn-haired English woman, who spent her time manipulating a tiny apparatus to record every word spoken by or to her employer, was clearly more than a mere secretary with respect to the Moroccan minister of Scientific Affairs, for she contributed frequently her comments, which Sidi Yussan seemed to appreciate.

One had the impression that she was an educated person, for her remarks often made allusion to themes that would ot normally concern a young lady trained solely in secretarial duties. In fact, neither the minister nor his secretary thought it necessary to inform outsiders that Jane had obtained a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University in California, where she had encountered Sidi Yussan who was at that time a visiting professor, reputed for his work in numerical algorithms. The Moroccan scientist had a wife and three children, but this did not prevent Jane and him from becoming friends, then lovers. The English girl’s strong-willed personality and intelligence, combined with her grey eyes and milk-white complexion, captivated a man such as Yussan, 224

accustomed to the submissive Berber character of his sultry darkskinned wife. Back in Morocco, Yussan rose rapidly in the scientific ranks of his nation, and he was soon in a position to offer Jane a comfortable and rewarding job as a technical attaché, which enabled her to act as a consultant to Yussan in almost every decision he made. And, for the girl from Liverpool, it was exciting to be able to lead the life of a high-tech princess.

“Yes, but it’s nicer than waging a war,” replied Amos Kahn, “because there’s no blood, not even noise or dust. It’s like waving a wand and invoking the word that makes things happen as if by magic.”

“And what’s the magic word?” asked Jane, laughingly. “If you don’t mind my being curious...”

“Ah, there’s no great secret about the word,” replied Amos, in a serious tone of voice. “We simply don’t know how to pronounce it.” Both Jane Watson and Sidi Yussan were sufficiently instructed in monotheistic culture, without practising any kind of traditional religion, to realize instantly that the Jewish industrial leader from Australia seemed to be suggesting that Yahveh himself might be a member of the board of directors of the Terra Corporation. If so, they thought, that was reassuring news concerning their gigantic project in Morocco.

✡ C-day arrived. The final countdown had started at Caesarea at eight o’clock in the morning, and it would culminate normally at four o’clock in the afternoon, when a battery of four Slicer systems were to be set in action, followed shortly after by the start of the gas injection operations. From that time on, if everything went as planned, the ablation of the rocky mass and its transformation into a floating raft should take just over an hour.

By midday, the global scene on the edge of the Mediterranean at Caesarea was a little like the imminent departure of an ocean liner from a busy terminal. Scores of invited guests were already 225

pouring into the fenced-off compound surrounding the zone of operations, and many people were picknicking on the nearby beach. Three tugboats were at anchor about a hundred meters from the promontory. One had the impression that these vessels were attached to the shore by thick steel cables. In fact, these were tow lines that the tugboats would use, as soon as the sandstone landmass was transformed into a raft, to drag it a short distance away from the shore.

The television people had installed their cameras at the top of the recently-restored circular grandstand of the Roman theater, located midway between the Sedot Yam kibbutz and the promontory ruins. Aaron Rose had decided that the ancient theater would make an excellent media center. Many journalists, foreign as well as Israeli, were lounging on the stone steps in the morning sunshine and preparing themselves for the events of the afternoon.

In general, this preparation consisted primarily of studying the thick nicely-illustrated press dossier that Rachel and Aaron had created, with assistance from Avram Moreno for the Hebrew version, to explain the physical and technological principles upon which the Chariot Process was based. The dossier also included an up-to-date account of the Aqua desalination station at Taba, as well as extensive background information concerning the conventional activities of the Terra Corporation in Australia.

An official sheltered platform with chairs and tables for distinguished guests had been erected just above the Promontory Palace. Ari Hillel was already seated here with his wife, both of them sipping whiskey and conversing on political themes with the mayor of Caesarea and his municipal colleagues. Patrick Grady and Leah (who had no precise tasks to perform apart from chatting with guests) sat down at Hillel’s table. Later on in the afternoon, when the events of the Chariot Process were closer to their climax, Hillel would be joined by two high-ranking members of the government of Israel: Ezer Bar-Lev, minister of Tourism, and Shlomo Paran, minister of Research and Development.

In another corner of the platform, the three members of the Moroccan delegation were seated at a table with the four Rose/ 226

Kahn seniors. Anne Levi was there too, abandoned for the moment by the man who would normally become her legal husband at some time within the next twenty-four hours, because Aaron was busy organizing the media aspects of the event. Anne and Jane Watson got on very well together, because they were both about the same age, of similar friendly but strong-willed personalities, and they had both spent their childhood and adolescence in rather dreary European cities: Anne in Brussels, and Jane in Liverpool.

They both found it extremely exciting to be seated here on the edge of the sunny Mediterranean, waiting for a hunk of rock to be transformd magically into a floating island. Old Mahomet of Bethlehem had been brought up to Caesarea by Aaron, the previous day, and he too was seated at the Moroccan table, alongside Hakim Bensala, with whom he was able to converse more or less fluently in a common form of Arabic. He spoke to Anne, Jane and the Rose/Kahn seniors in the excellent English, with an American accent, that he had learned long ago when working in Kuwait: “On the edge of the Arabian ocean, Rachel turned the sea into water that people can drink,” affirmed Mahomet, whose summaries of situations could be excessive at times. “Rachel has told us that today, on this other great ocean, her cousin Jacob will make the earth float. They have great power in their hands, which has been given to them by Allah.”

The Black Swan was bobbing around just a little to the north of the three tugboats. The bridge of the trawler, under the constant command of George Thiatikos, was the control center of today’s deployment of the Chariot Process. Consequently, the only other people aboard the Black Swan were those who were directly in charge of the technical aspects of the operations being carried out: Jacob Rose and his immediate associates Robert Meguid and Enzo Florini. Jake had also invited Rachel Kahn onto the bridge, to stand alongside him throughout the operations. She would not need to communicate with Jake by spoken words. As in the past when they sailed together off Fremantle aboard the Haifa, wordless gestures would suffice. At times, Rachel and Jake felt that even 227

gestures were superfluous, in that each of them seemed to be directly aware, at every instant, of the kind of thoughts that were going through the mind of the other.

Further out beyond the Black Swan and the tugboats, hordes of small craft carried onlookers who had no doubt heard of the Caesarea project through articles in Israeli newspapers and magazines, or news items on TV. Rubber dinghies of the Israeli Navy darted around to prevent private boats from moving too close to the site of operations. Just behind the Black Swan, an impressive vessel named Masada lay at anchor. Astride the bowsprit of his luxury yacht, and wearing an audio communications headset with binoculars raised to his eyes, Dan Shal was guiding the movements of the navy dinghies in the style of an admiral of the fleet. During planning sessions, the exfrogman who was now Director of Underwater Archaeology within the Israel Antiquities Authority had informed Jacob Rose that he would be both competent and delighted to handle the underwater verifications of the state of what might be termed the hull of the Herodian ruins, transformed into a floating raft.

Consequently, Shal had decided to sail his Masada from her home port of Haifa with competent Israeli Navy personnel aboard: a pair of frogwomen, highly experienced in the art of diving down under archaic vessels.

A giant screen alongside the promontory displayed images from cameras at dozens of locations, including the bridge of the Black Swan. This was in fact a live broadcast being produced by Aaron Rose, making use of video sources distributed by the studio of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA). Most of the time, comments in Hebrew were supplied by roving IBA journalists, one of whom was leaning out of a helicopter hovering over the Herodian ruins, while another was standing precariously in the nose of a Zodiac dinghy. Aaron’s face appeared in closeup on the screen. The master of media ceremonies was using practically the same script that had been employed at Rottnest: “The countdown stands at minus three minutes,” he stated. At 228

that instant, a big ticking clock dial appeared on the screen. “When the process is put into operation, you won’t see any movement whatsoever in the vicinity of the stone platform, apart from the vibrations of the machinery pumping buoyancy gas into the ablations created by the Slicer systems. Maybe, if a camera were to zoom down towards the surface of the water on the seaward edge of the platform, you might see tiny bubbles rising along the line of the ablation. You won’t hear any noise either, because the miniature Mole devices burn through the rock in a totally silent manner.”

At hour zero of the countdown, nothing happened. At least nothing of a visible nature. And this nothingness endured. The calm face of Jacob Rose filled the giant screen: “Our instruments indicate that everything is taking place perfectly, as planned. For the moment, there are few visible signs: merely small movements in the surrounding water. But we have feedback indicating that many things are happening in an invisible fashion.” Jake then grinned, as if an amusing idea had suddenly entered his mind. “The Chariot Process involves such colossal quantities of matter and energy that observers might feel cheated to find that it’s not particularly spectacular. If Herod had been sleeping in the royal bedroom of his palace, we probably wouldn’t even wake him up!” A ripple of laughter in the crowd showed that people appreciated Jake’s subdued sense of humor. A few wags whistled and shouted, as if they were trying to wake up the sleeping monarch.

For three quarters of an hour, the scene was dominated by an anguishing immobility, as if something might have gone wrong, causing the Chariot Process to halt. Fortunately, Jake finally filled in the vacuum by a few rapid explanations of a technical kind: “Our major challenge is to respect constantly the global horizontality of the future raft. If the slightest lack of equilibrium were to appear at some point in the slab, this could cause distortion and mechanical stresses that might provoke a disastrous rupture.

So, our computers are constantly monitoring captors that tell us 229

how the slab is reacting. As soon as they detect the slightest sign of disequilibrium, the computers modify instantly the Slicer operations and gas injection to bring the global situation back into a homogeneous state. It’s a little like a balancing act on a tightrope, except that the acrobat in our case is a mass of countless tons of rock.” While introducing this metaphor, Jacob Rose could be seen on the big screen miming a tightrope walker holding a long pole in his outstretched hands. “On the other hand, when I say countless, this is not quite the right word, because the computers are constantly using the feedback data supplied by the captors in a ceaseless effort to calculate a more and more precise estimate of the actual weight of the future raft, which is varying all the time because of the gas that is being injected into the interstices of the rock where it coagulates into a foamy emulsion.” This was yet another formulation of the basic principles of the Chariot Process, as they could be found in the press dossier and numerous media reports. Jake’s present explanations had the merit of being expressed in real time, while the actual events were taking place.

Five minutes later, an expression of happy relief on Jake’s face, followed immediately by an image of Rachel clapping her hands in joy, informed the onlookers that a significant milestone in the operations had been reached.

“We now have confirmation that the waters of the Mediterranean are actually seeping under Herod’s Promontory Palace, causing it to rise imperceptibly. The main computer indicates that the slab has in fact risen over four millimeters during the last three minutes. Consequently, the Slicers are being gradually phased out of action, because they have little more cutting to do, while the rate of gas injection is being increased enormously in order to augment the buoyancy of the slab.” The crowd on the shoreline clapped excitedly, even though there were still no visible signs of the reasons for their applause.

Suddenly, a loud gasp of amazement emerged from the crowd, in unison, as if their emotions had been expressed by a single person. All around the perimeter of the slab, the water was in a 230

state of turmoil. Observers had the impression that swells were rushing in from the ocean and hitting the promontory as breakers.

A series of siren blasts came from the three tugboats, and the cables linking them to the slab snapped up out of the water and tautened. The first striking visual sign that the Chariot Process had succeeded and that the slab had indeed been transformed into a floating raft was the emergence of a shelf of newly-cut yellow rock about fifty meters in length, rising twenty centimeters above the surface of the sea and bobbing gently up and down in the water.

The first time this shelf appeared from out of the sea, in front of the startled observers, it was just a stone’s throw from the shoreline. Then the tugboats moved the raft slowly seawards, while the people on shore erupted in awe and joy. The moment for celebrations had arrived. For music, too. The ritual music of Rottnest. Eric Clapton’s voice rang out over the Mediterranean: A band of angels Looking after me Coming for to carry me home Swing low, sweet chariot...

Meanwhile, Jake and his assistants jumped aboard a Zodiac and rushed towards the raft, which was now held in a fixed position by the tugboats about a hundred meters from the beach. They scrambled up onto the floating slab, to inspect the surface, to make sure that no cracks had appeared. Everything was perfect. Jake was overjoyed to discover that the floor of the former palace had remained perfectly horizontal, which indicated that the programming of the Slicer systems had been faultless. He had often warned Dan Shal and Barbara Weizmann that minor coordination discrepancies in the Slicer functions and the gas injection could lead to the creation of a raft with a slightly sloped deck, which would have been a disappointment. Clearly, this accident had been avoided. Jake then jumped back down into the dinghy and circled slowly around the rectangular perimeter of the raft, which was roughly a hundred meters in length, with a rounded prow. He was happy to discover that the ablations were remarkably 231

smooth and clean, as if the hull of the newly-launched vessel had been sculpted by a skilled stone mason.

Dan Shal arrived alongside the raft with his frogwomen, who promptly disappeared beneath the raft. Dan clambered aboard Herod’s floating palace, with Jake, to carry out detailed technical inspections. Aaron arrived in a dinghy, bringing Rachel with him.

She rushed up to Jake, threw her arms around him and kissed him tenderly, to the joy of numerous photographers and cameramen who were moving around the edge of the raft in their small craft. It was impossible to stop some of them from clambering up onto the slab, in order to have a firsthand experience of being aboard a vessel whose deck had been constructed some two millenia back in time.

The frogwomen soon reappeared, and Dan Shal dragged them up onto the raft.

“Over the entire lower surface of the block, everything is uniformly flat and regular. It has a hard grainy texture like a newly-plastered wall that has been left in a rough state instead of being smoothed out. When you run your bare fingers over the surface, it’s like touching the pocked hull of an old wreck covered in tiny shells.”

“Look at this fabulous sight,” said Jake, taking Rachel’s hand and leading her over to the edge of Herod’s swimming pool—forty meters long, twenty meters wide and a couple of meters in depth— which occupied a good part of the stern of the raft. “That’s the same warm water I saw in the pool this morning when I was making my final inspection of the site. Yesterday’s rough sea filled the pool with clean water. And the most amazing thing is that not a drop of it seems to have leaked since the start of the Chariot Process. Herod could take a dip there now, and he wouldn’t even realize he was out at sea.”

“Come on in, Herod,” said Rachel, beckoning to Jake in what might be described as a most seductive gesture. Rachel, as usual, was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. She shook off her sandals, then bent down in front of her cousin to unlace his shoes.

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Jake removed his cell phone from a shirt pocket and gave it to Aaron for safekeeping. Then he took Rachel’s hand and they jumped fully-clothed into Herod’s pool.

✡ In the late afternoon, when the crowds of onlookers and the media people had left Caesarea, a reception for guests was organized on the water’s edge above the place where Herod’s palace had existed up until a few hours earlier. The official host was Amos Kahn, president of the Terra Corporation, and the star of the reception was, of course, Jacob Rose.

Ari Hillel introduced Amos Kahn and Jacob Rose to the Israeli ministers Ezer Bar-Lev and Shlomo Paran. Amos then whispered to Rachel that she should fetch the three members of the Moroccan group, who were busy discussing technical aspects of the day’s operations with Robert Meguid. As soon as they joined up with Amos, he decided in his typically spontaneous style to introduce Sidi Yussan to the Israelis.

“Please allow me to present to you a distinguished scientist, Dr Sidi Yussan, who is a minister in the Moroccan government. As you know, Morocco provided us with the gas that played a central role in this afternoon’s successful operations. The minister is accompanied by his scientific attachée, Dr Jane Watson, and a prominent Moroccan petroleum engineer, Hakim Bensala, regional manager of the West Fusion company, one of Terra’s major partners.” Amos may have forgotten that Ari Hillel already knew Hakim Bensala perfectly well, since they had met up in the course of the excursion to the offshore platform to pick up the gas. In any case, while everybody was shaking hands, Amos made a carefullycalculated information leak that would be transmitted to news agencies by Aaron, an hour later, through the Internet. “The success of this afternoon’s spectacular operations must not make us forget that Terra is basically an earth-moving enterprise that therefore makes its money by moving earth. I say this because Dr Yussan happens to represent Terra’s next major client: the kingdom 233

of Morocco. They are about to sign a contract with Terra for the construction of a great waterway across the northern tip of their land, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.”

The Israeli ministers were fascinated to be hearing this intriguing news in the presence of both concerned parties: the Moroccan customer and the Australian contractor. Jake, too, was amused to hear Amos making major announcements in such an unexpected setting about forthcoming activities of their company.

It had always been a characteristic of the president of Terra to surprise his collaborators. This was not because Amos Kahn took any particular pleasure in startling people, but simply because he liked to make decisions in a spontaneous fashion. Then, as soon as a firm decision had been made, Amos would make it public at the first opportunity. In other words, the president’s current announcements probably evoked decisions that he had made spontaneously during the two hours that had elapsed since the floating of Herod’s palace.

“Now that the Caesarea project is drawing to an end, as far as Terra is concerned,” continued Amos, “we have to start making indepth plans for the future. Our Aqua desalination operations are soon going to be extended to sites on the Mediterranean coast down near Gaza. Consequently, it would appear logical for Terra to consider Israel as our home base in this part of the world, especially since we’ve installed considerable resources here for the Caesarea project. It goes without saying that I would be immensely happy if my nephew Jacob were to remain here in Israel, in close association with my daughter Rachel, to organize our future operations.”

Another spontaneous decision had been made less than an hour earlier, and it was being announced by word of mouth to various individuals who were now celebrating the success of the Chariot Process at Caesarea. The following morning, after the marriage of Anne Levi and Aaron Rose at a private ceremony in a local synagogue, their parents would be receiving guests for a wedding luncheon in an exotic place, which had only recently come into existence: Herod’s Floating Palace, anchored at present two 234

hundred meters out from the beach.

âœĄ The following day, at dawn, there was much activity within the zone comprising the Sedot Yam kibbutz, the floating rock and the short stretch of land and water between them. In military terms, one might describe this activity as logistics, since it consisted of organizing transportation facilities over the water and then erecting structures and guardrails on the raft allowing people to congregate comfortably and to move around safely. A primary goal of these logistic operations was to convey supplies to the raft so that, later on, people would be able to eat, drink and be merry there. A secondary goal, of course, would be to transport people to the raft and back without their getting wet. It was appropriate that a military term such as ‘logistics’ might be applied to these operations since they were in fact being carried out with technical assistance from men, women and rubber dinghies of the Israeli Navy.

The decision of Aaron and Anne to schedule their marriage immediately after the Caesarea operations (which came shortly after the Aqua inauguration) was excellent in most ways, above all because it enabled the Rose/Kahn seniors attend the ceremony before returning home to Australia. However, there were obvious drawbacks to this plan. Above all, it meant that the exact location of the wedding reception could not be ascertained until the last minute, for much would depend upon whether or not the Chariot Process was successful. Nobody had thought it appropriate to bring up explicitly a negative hypothesis, but Anne and Aaron were aware that, if the slab of Herodian stone refused to budge, or if it floated for a while before disappearing beneath the surface of the Mediterranean, then their plans for a reception on the rock would need to be modified or scrapped. Indeed, the very theme of wedding jubilation might have to be attenuated.

With their characteristic thoughtfulness and attention to details, Leah and Rachel had therefore organized a strategy. With the 235

approval of Anne, Aaron and their respective parents (who would be paying the expenses of the event), the Kahn sisters had created, a week earlier, a small wedding committee that would operate quietly in the wings of the Chariot Process super-show. To be a useful member of this committee, one would need to be free of duties in the context of C-day. This ruled out, not only Aaron and Rachel, but also Anne, since she would be playing a rôle in receiving C-day guests such as the Israeli ministers Ezer Bar-Lev and Shlomo Paran. Obviously, an ideal candidate would also need to be fluent in Hebrew and familiar with Jewish feast-day traditions, for the marriage would be taking place on the first day of the great autumn festival of Sukkot. This narrowed down the choice to two women, who were immensely happy to be chosen to handle this task: Sarah, wife of Martin Luria, and Isha, wife of Avram Moreno. Jake and Aaron also asked Barbara Weizmann and her friend Rudi Kaplan if they would be prepared to transmit a diplomatic message to their associate Dan Shal, suggesting that certain resources and equipment of the Israeli Navy, present for Cday, might remain at Caesarea for an extra day, if possible, to be employed in preparing for the wedding reception. Dan Shal agreed wholeheartedly to this suggestion, since he hoped that C-day might be the prelude to a huge festival of ingathering (to borrow the religious term that is often applied to Sukkot) for everybody concerned with the project. This included above all, not only the future bride and groom, but Aaron’s parents. So, the facilities of the Israeli Navy (primarily their rubber dinghies) were on the alert, ready to be brought into action to assist in the logistics of the celebrations of the marriage of Anne Levi and Aaron Rose.

The previous afternoon, Martin and Sarah Luria, accompanied by their children David (five) and Lisa (three), had witnessed the floating of Herod’s ruins. Isha Moreno, too, had spent the day at Caesarea, where her husband had ample opportunities to talk with pride to journalists about the revolutionary Australian seawood system underlying the success of the recently-inaugurated Aqua plant at Taba, which had already received much attention in the Israeli press.

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As soon as Sarah, Isha and Leah were assured that the Chariot Process was a success, when they saw the raft being tugged away from the shore, they had moved into action to trigger the final preparations for a wedding reception on the rock the following day. Their initial task had consisted of contacting Dan Shal— overcome by excitement upon realizing that Jake’s operations had succeeded—to remind him that his navy personnel should be prepared to start their logistics operations at dawn the next day.

At ten o’clock in the morning, in the sandy courtyard of a local synagogue, the families and friends of Anne and Aaron started to throng around a chuppah: the pale blue canopy under which the religious betrothal would be performed. By this time, not far away from the synagogue, but two hundred meters out on the Mediterranean, Herod’s Floating Palace started to look a little like a vacation club. All around the perimeter of the raft, the navy personnel had erected a steel guardrail with wire netting to prevent people from slipping into the water. At various places on the guardrails, they had fixed groups of wooden poles on which tarpaulins were suspended. Steel rods were hammered into crevasses in the stone platform, and then linked by thick wire to the wooden poles. Hessian was draped around the poles and rods to create six spacious huts with reeds and palm branches as roofs.

A low guardrail was installed around Herod’s pool. Finally, planks were laid on trestles to form long tables, and the navy dinghies brought over piles of folding chairs rented out from a catering firm. Meanwhile, on the beach, Benny Segal and Mahomet were supervising the slow roasting of three lambs, while Edouard Simon and a team of assistants were preparing foodstuffs in the big kitchen of the Sedot Yam kibbutz.

Sidi Yussan, Jane Watson and Hakim Bensala were happy to remain an extra day in Caesarea as guests at the wedding reception, and Jake had offered to fly them back down to Taba in the Ecureuil at the end of the day.

At the synagogue, the solemn moment had come for Aaron Rose to break a fine glass, symbolizing the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman legions of Titus in the year 70 of the 237

Common Era. The words of the celebrated pledge of Psalm 137:5 brought tears of joy to the eyes of both Anne and Aaron. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!” Once upon a time, on the morning of their first afternoon together in the Holy City, Anne had recited those words in front of Aaron. Today, of course, neither Anne nor Aaron was likely to forget Jerusalem.

On the beach, Sarah Luria and Isha Moreno organized the guests into small groups, ready to be whisked by navy dinghies across the narrow stretch of water to Herod’s Floating Palace. In fact, the total number of wedding guests was relatively small,less than a hundred, for the simple reason that no conventional invitations had ever been sent out. Because of the uncertainty hovering over the events of C-day, the time and place of the reception, if not the marriage itself, had only been confirmed the previous afternoon. Consequently, all the guests had been invited, from that moment on, by word of mouth.

When everybody had arrived on the raft, the festivities started with a short welcome by Rebecca, the groom’s mother: “Back at the time when ferocious subhumans in Germany were setting out to slaughter our people, Aaron’s grandparents left Antwerp and sailed to Australia. Nahum, Amos and I were too young to remember much about that long voyage on a tramp steamer. My husband’s father, Yitzhak Rose, liked to remind us that the tramp steamer on which we arrived in Australia was named the Memphis Star, and that the voyage had taken exactly forty days. Yitzhak took pleasure in playing with symbols and, when he transformed magically the days into years, he ended up with the time it took for the Israelites to reach the Promised Land.

So, in the eyes of Yitzhak Rose and his friend David Kahn, and their wives Anna and Naomi, Australia would be their Promised Land. And it was. But, in the beginning, we were strangers in that new land, which often appeared to our parents as mysterious and unfriendly. Today, of course, Australia is our home. Meanwhile, my sons have come here to Israel, where they in turn might have thought of themselves as strangers in a new land. But today’s 238

happenings prove that they are not total strangers in the Holy Land.”

An unusual aspect of the assembly was the absence of children, apart from David and Lisa Luria. This, too, was a consequence of the impromptu way in which the marriage had been organized.

Most of the guests were distinguished Israelis from the spheres of archaeology or politics who had come to Caesarea to observe the Chariot Process, and who had decided spontaneously to accept Anne and Aaron’s unscheduled invitation to return the following day, to start the Sukkot season by this wedding celebration of an exotic kind. Some of these individuals returned with their partners, but none of them brought children. Even Jake, not usually concerned by such things, had noticed this anomaly.

“We won’t be asking you to dive into the Mediterranean to rescue kids who’ve slipped off the ruins,” said Jake to Dan Shal, alluding to the presence alongside Shal of his two young frogwomen companions, now attired in elegant costumes with wide-brimmed hats. “ Hey Dan, while I think of it, now that we might have a little more time for recreation, maybe you could take Rachel and me to some interesting diving spots around Israel. It seems like ages that we haven’t got back into our scuba gear.” The Israeli Minister of Tourism, overhearing Jake’s remark, joined in the conversation: “How about the idea of hoisting a few giant sails here on the rock?” he asked flippantly. “Herod’s palace could then be used as a pleasure craft, a base for scuba excursions.” When the minister saw that his joke had fallen flat, he tried to make amends by asking a serious question: “What in fact is the next step as far as the raft is concerned?” Ari Hillel chose to reply in a mildly sarcastic fashion, which was not likely to offend his friend Ezer Bar-Lev: “If the Minister of Tourism were to spend a little more time in the great historical site of Caesarea, instead of idling around in superficial pleasure spots such as Netanya, he would have seen that, during the months while Jacob Rose was preparing his magic process, Professor Barbara Weizmann was supervising the 239

construction of a superb mini-marina, a kilometer further up the coast, where the ruins will be berthed permanently for safekeeping and study.”

“Mister Minister, it’s funny that you should mention sails,” said Jake, returning to the theme of Ezer Bar-Lev’s whimsical remark.

“In Australia, our first project consisted of raising the wreck of a big century-old sailing ship. When the Chariot Process transformed it into a floating object, with more or less the size and form of the original Gypsy, I often had visions of the rocky raft rigged out as a three-masted bark ploughing through the waters off Fremantle. Instead of that, I hear that it’s still tied up today to a Rottnest wharf as a tourist attraction.”

“This is the first time I’ve expressed this complaint outspokenly,” said Rachel in a serious tone of voice. Listeners, including Jacob Rose, prepared themselves for a negative surprise, maybe an insider revelation. “The only aspect of Jake’s fabulous operations that annoyed me, in both cases, was the noise.” Rachel grimaced when she pronounced this word, as if it brought back painful memories. “For a nearby observer, the Chariot Process is an almost silent affair. You’re out on the water—like Jake and me yesterday afternoon, on the Black Swan—and you hear no more than gentle swishy sounds like leaves rustling in a breeze, or sails breathing in a light wind. Something seems to be happening under the surface of the water, but you don’t understand what it is. So, you strain your eyes and ears to find signs of the events taking place. But there’s nothing but the quiet murmurs of the water, for ages. In the background, there’s a faint hum of machines, but this equipment is quite some distance away, and those noises don’t interfere with the sounds coming up out of the sea. It’s so quiet that maybe nothing at all is taking place in the water. You end up thinking that maybe you’re hallucinating. You’re imagining some kind of Loch Ness monster. Then, all of a sudden, it appears. Not a monster, simply a huge slab of rock, like a whale or a submarine surfacing. But by that time, unfortunately, the magic silence has been transformed into cacaphony. At Rottnest, it was the noise of the old ammunitiion heated up and ignited by the Slicer beam.

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Then the tugboats and the applause of the crowd and the blaring music. Here at Caesarea yesterday, there was no exploding ammunition, but the noise erupted all the same. It would be marvelous if the giant chariot were to rise to the surface in silence, and then be whisked away quietly, out over the waters, by the wind.” Jake and the others listened in silence to Rachel’s poetic evocations.

The silence was broken by the strident sounds of gypsy violins and an electric jazz guitar, which provided an almost unrecognizable Israeli rendering of the Sweet Chariot melody. It had been Rudi Kaplan’s idea to hire this local group, as part of his personal wedding gift for Anne and Aaron. The other elements of that gift were a precious Byzantine silver necklace with an emerald for Anne, and a set of five ancient Roman coins from Caesarea for Aaron.

A navy dinghy carrying Edouard Simon, Benny Segal and Mahomet drew up alongside the raft. Rachel was hilarious when she discovered that the three men were attired for the occasion in sumptuous robes that made them look like the Magi—Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar—bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Bethlehem. Today, they brought to Herod’s Floating Palace, aboard a second dinghy, the three roasted lambs.

By this time the guests were all seated in the various Sukkot booths around the rim of the raft, and the red Carmel wine was starting to flow. Adolescent girls from Caesarea, dressed in blue uniforms, served out food under the supervision of Edouard Simon, while the other two Magi were busy cutting up the lambs, and keeping the meat warm by placing it, in metal dishes, inside a makeshift wood-fired oven alongside the swimming pool. In the eyes of Rachel, after Mahomet’s twenty-four unexpected hours of excitement and activity, he appeared ten years younger than when she had first met up with him, sitting in the dust on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Obeying instructions from Edouard and Benny, and giving his own orders to the maids in blue on how the roast lamb should be laid out in the plates, Mahomet saw himself transported back magically to the days when he was a ‘big boss’ (as he once 241

put it) in Kuwait, where he had been the chief cook in the huge canteen for foreign longshoremen in the agitated port of Mina elAhmadi. The gypsy orchestra continued to play loudly, but their music was whisked away by a stiff Mediterranean breeze.

Isha Moreno and Sarah Luria had made a rapid attempt to assign guests to tables in a way that might correspond vaguely to their supposed affinities, but pure chance finally played a greater rôle in bringing people together to form interesting encounters on the floating rock of Caesarea. Pure chance, perhaps, or maybe rather the devious intentions of Yahveh, unknown to ordinary mortals, even to those who prayed constantly in the countless synagogues, churches and mosques of the Holy Land.

Amos Kahn and his nephew Aaron Rose found themselves seated opposite Ari Hillel and Shlomo Paran, who was eager to pose a fundamental question to the president of the Terra Corporation: “As far as your desalination activities are concerned, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the pilot plant down at Taba could rapidly become a model for extensive development of a highly profitable kind. In the case of your Chariot Process, do you envisage an economic potential of a similar order, or is it rather basic research of a spectacular nature?”

“You can well imagine, Sir, that a man in my position has been obliged to ask questions of that kind constantly,” replied Amos.

“It’s true that the two relatively spectacular projects we’ve performed up until now should best be thought of as experimental affairs of a marketing kind, to earn a reputation for Terra, to let the world in general know what we can do. I wouldn’t even be offended if people were to refer to this Caesarea operation as a kind of complex publicity stunt. That’s probably a fair enough description for a big project that was never intended to solve any fundamental problems facing Israel, just as we didn’t get involved in this affair with the aim of making profits. But I’ve always believed, ever since my nephew first explained to me his brilliant ideas in this field, that we have here the premises of a fabulous 242

futuristic tool that could be wielded with imagination to achieve colossal results.”

“That message appears to have got through to your friends from Morocco, if I understand correctly,” remarked he minister. Behind his polite curiosity, Shlomo Paran was in fact disturbed by the idea that an Arab neighbor might already be more aware of the potential of this technology than he was. “Mister Kahn, please let me ask you a very direct question. As an observer from the Diaspora, who happens to own these fabulous engineering tools that you demonstrated in such an unbelievable fashion yesterday, do you feel that the state of Israel should investigate the possibility of using them in, let’s say, a serious manner?”

“That depends on what you might have in mind when you say ‘a serious manner’,” replied Amos Kahn. “For an engineering firm such as Terra, every operation we are called upon to perform is carried out in a serious manner, otherwise we might foul up our projects, earn a bad reputation, and finally go broke. But I have the impression that the adjective ‘serious’ in your question might be meaning something else.” The president of the Israel Antiquities Authority stepped in to rephrase the question of the Minister of Research and Development: “Do you imagine concrete ways in which the state of Israel might use your Chariot Process, not merely to move ancient ruins, but to perform great acts that would have social and even political consequences?” Clearly, for Ari Hillel, antiquities were one thing, but the future of the Jewish nation was a bigger and more profound challenge.

“Yes, I do in fact have visions of our tools being used, one day, in a context that might be designated as global engineering,” replied the president of Terra, “but it is a little too early yet to evoke such challenges in a down-to-earth fashion. As the old saying goes, a lot of water will have to flow under our bridges before we get around to tackling such things.”

In another booth on the raft, George Thiatikos found himself seated in front of the Luria family. Back in Australia, George had 243

known of the existence of Sarah’s family. At the start of the atrocious civil war in Greece, the Stavros brothers had moved their import/export business from Salonika to Fremantle, where they traded in electronic consumer goods from Asia, exchanging them lucratively for West Australia dairy products, shipped out in refrigerated compartments on small cargo vessels. Today, back on the edge of the Mediterranean, in Herod’s Floating Palace, Sarah Luria and George Thiatikos had an opportunity of conversing in Greek.

“In Salonika, my ancestors were looked upon as outsiders because they were Jewish,” explained Sarah. “Both sides in the civil war seemed to look upon the Stavros family with suspicion.

Out in Australia, the friendly atmosphere in which I grew up was an earthly paradise for my parents and Dad’s brothers. They had never imagined that such a degree of freedom and simple happiness could exist anywhere on the planet. I had never thought of leaving Australia prior to meeting up and falling love with Martin, who talked day and night about Israel. Today, I’m immensely happy to be settled here and participating in the development of this exciting nation. But it’s true that I often dream of the simpliucity of life back in Australia, and I become nostalgic most of all when I look at our children and imagine how happy they would have been if we had stayed in our beautiful home out in the country beyond Perth.”

Further along, the Moroccan group and David Laban were engaged in discussions about international banking. Amos Kahn had ultimately decided that it would be an excellent idea to entrust the creation of a financial infrastructure for the Moroccan project to the legal firm in Tel Aviv that employed the young woman who was henceforth the wife of Aaron Rose.

In an isolated booth at the seaward end of the raft, Patrick Grady and Leah had asked Jake and Rachel to sit down opposite them in order to listen to some intriguing news.

“A few days ago, when we borrowed your Toyota to do some sightseeing in the Christian places up north, you may recall that we 244

had a rendezvous with a couple from Fremantle,” explained Leah.

“Darcy O’Meara and his wife Cindy. You don’t know them. We only met up with them recently at a parish function in Fremantle, when we discovered that we would all be visiting the Holy Land at about the same time. So, we agreed to meet up on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, at Capernaum.”

“To understand the rest of the story,” said Patrick, “you have to realize that Darcy and Cindy had heard all about Terra. They’d actually been among the crowd of spectators out on Rottnest Island for the raising of the Gypsy, and this event apparently stirred their imagination enormously. Naturally, they were fascinated to learn that you’d obtained a contract with the state of Israel to carry out the Caesarea project. They would have certainly loved to be here yesterday, but the timing of their vacation wouldn’t allow that, since they had to return to Australia a few days ago, straight after our rendezvous.”

“I’ll try to get to the point of our tale as rapidly as possible,” said Leah, who gave the impression that she was not quite sure of the best way of presenting their news. “Darcy and Cindy introduced us to a community of Christian pilgrims who reside regularly at Capernaum, in a kind of private camping environment.

Some of them come from the USA or Canada, and they all speak English, but there were quite a few Israelis among them. We soon learnt that they refer to themselves as Messianists. Like countless Christians over the centuries, they don’t exclude the possibility of a second coming, if you see what I mean.”

“Saying that they don’t exclude the return of a Messiah is an understatement, I think,” added Patrick, with a grin. “They appear to see this as a likelihood in the near future, when the planet has got so messed up—so they say—that only God can save humanity.

In any case, some of these people act at times as if they were actually preparing themselves for the coming of the Messiah.”

“Are they a sect?” asked Rachel, with a worried expression on her face.

“That was the first idea that occurred to me,” answered Leah, 245

“as soon as we met up with the chief of the group: a charismatic young guy from Los Angeles named Peter Eisenstein. His piercing dark eyes and thick black beard make him look as if he might be playing the rôle of Moses or John the Baptist in a Hollywood production. Darcy and Cindy told us he was a wealthy fellow, as his parents owned a gambling palace in Las Vegas. So, we were a little wary of this charming Peter. In fact, our doubts were unfounded. When we got to know one another, Peter turned out to be the same sort of bright straight fellow that you might encounter at the head of a Rotary club in an Aussie township.”

“The mere fact that he’s a nice guy doesn’t prove they’re not a sect,” interrupted Jake. “Apart from waiting around until the Messiah happens to alight on the planet Earth, does their community have any particular common theme?”

“Yes, when Darcy and Cindy told Peter Eisenstein I was a Jewish convert to the Catholic church, I soon discovered their common theme,” replied Leah. “Peter and many of his Messianist companions are Jews who have decided to join the church of Rome. Often they refer to themselves as Hebrew Christians. They insist explicitly upon their intrinsic Jewishness, and seem to think it would be normal if all Jews were to act as they have done. But their words and behavior never suggest that they’re actively engaged in proselytism. The Messianists refer to Jesus as Yeshua, and their biblical hero is the apostle Paul, whom they see as the archetypical Hebrew Christian.”

“We also learned that Peter’s small community at Capernaum is simply a cell in a vast Messianist network that extends throughout the Diaspora,” explained Patrick. “They see the Holy Land as their ancestral homeplace, in exactly the same way as most Jews. And they’re determined that their religious movement should be present in modern Israel to the same extent as ordinary Judaism and conventional Christianity. In fact, the Messianists think of their movement—rightly or wrongly—as a purer expression of primordial Christianity than the Roman or Orthodox churches.”

“The Messianists in Capernaum gave us the impression that 246

they wish to make their mark upon the Holy Land,” explained Leah. “They have enormous faith in the second coming of Yeshua, but it’s hard to say whether they really envisage a heavenly being descending through the clouds one sunny afternoon. I have a feeling it’s rather some kind of symbolic thing: a virtuality that has crystallized in their collective mind in such a way, and for so long, that they end up thinking that the second coming of the Messiah could become a real event. In any case, their enthusiasm for the spiritual values of Hebrew Christianity is pushing them towards extreme scenarios.”

“Such as...?” asked Jake.

“For reasons you’ll soon understand, Peter Eisenstein asked us to evoke our conversations only in the case of the total success of the Chariot Process at Caesarea,” explained Patrick. “That is now the case. So, we are in a position to transmit Peter’s message, which is rather a request. Maybe Leah can do so better than me.

We need to evoke miraculous happenings without expecting you to agree that such events might have actually taken place as stated.”

Patrick Grady behaved like an inexpert and embarrassed salesman who did not truly believe in the merits of the product he was trying to sell.

“The Sea of Galilee is not really a sea, but merely a small lake, two dozen kilometers long and a dozen wide,” said Leah. “Modern Israelis avoid that trivial anomaly by using its ancient name, Kinneret, which may refer to its shape, like that of a lute. This socalled sea has always been a highly symbolic place for Christians.

After learning of the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus settled at Capernaum. On the shores of the sea, Jesus met the fishermen who would become his greatest followers. Nearby, he preached the Sermon on the Mount, whose simple but revolutionary terms would influence much of western society and human thinking for the next two millenia.”

“I’m aware of most of these happenings,” said Jake, mildly irritated by the fact that his cousin Leah might think it necessary to broaden his culture in this domain.

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“Peter Eisenstein has focussed his attention upon miracles at the Sea of Galilee,” said Leah, unperturbed by the fact that Jake was impatient to get down to facts. “First, Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed the crowds who had flocked to discover the Jewish healer and preacher. Then, before the startled eyes of the fishermen, who were battling against strong winds in the middle of the night, Jesus made a ghostly appearance, walking on the waters of the lake.”

“I’m beginning to see,” said Jake flippantly. He did not really see much at all yet. “Would your friend Peter Eisenstein like me to reenact this miracle?”

“Well, yes and no,” intervened Patrick, who felt it was time to leave the domain of the New Testament and get back to business and technology. “Peter has indeed evoked the idea of a hypothetical project that would be of a purely promotional kind for Terra, like the Chariot Process at Caesarea, but with a gigantic difference. Few people were aware that Herod had built himself a luxury palace on the promontory at Caesarea, but the whole universe has heard of Jesus walking on water.”

“What exactly would he like us to do?” asked Jake, genuinely perplexed. “You know perfectly well that the Chariot Process doesn’t really enable anybody to walk on water.”

“The Messianists have recently purchased from the aging Greek Orthodox church, for peanuts, a chunk of highly significant real estate at Capernaum,” explained Patrick. “It lies just to the north of the Franciscan site with the celebrated ruins of a synagogue in which Jesus may have preached, and the traces of a place they call Saint Peter’s House. The property is roughly twice the area of the Caesarea slab, and it lies on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. Peter Eisenstein is asking Terra to float this block of land on the Sea of Galilee.”

“Can he pay?” asked Jake.

“After making his request, Peter Eisenstein insisted upon showing me financial data, downloaded onto his computer, concerning the financial resources both of his parents and of the 248

global Messianist community that he presides,” explained Patrick.

“There’s no doubt whatsoever that they have the financial resources to pay us. All you have to decide, Jake, is whether Terra should get involved in an affair of this nature.” Jake turned to his favorite cousin: “What do think, Rachel?”

“The Holy Land is the homeplace of monotheism,” replied Rachel calmly, as if she had prepared a lecture on this subject.

“There are three worldwide communities who believe in this unique entity referred to as Yahveh, God, Allah, et cetera. Jews, Christians and Moslems. At one extremity, Terra has earned a fine reputation with the Jews through the success of the Caesarea affair.

The Moslems have given us the green light in Morocco.

Personally, I’m convinced that serious promotion of our technological prowess within a Hebrew Christian context could be immensely beneficial for the global image of Terra.”

No more needed to be said. The Capernaum project was born at that instant. Terra would walk on water.

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9 Violence The day after the departure for Australia of Leah, Patrick and the Rose/Kahn seniors, severe violence erupted once again, both at the northern Gaza checkpoint and in the West Bank city of Nablus.

In the first case, a Palestinian youth had darted through the border passage on a motorcycle at the same moment that an Israeli vehicle carrying fuel was entering, and he had exploded a bomb concealed under his pillion seat, killing seven individuals including the perpetrator and injuring scores of others. In the second case, clashes occurred when Israeli soldiers entered Nablus with the intention of arresting a known terrorist. At one stage, the soldiers fired over the heads of Palestinian adolescents throwing stones at them, but a sniper in an adjacent building shot and killed a Tsahal man, whereupon helicopters were brought in to evacuate the Israelis and their dead comrade.

Ever since the electoral victory of Islamic factions whose policy included the will to destroy Israel, the global situation had become inextricable for the Hebrew nation. The peace plans concocted by former leaders had all been trashed. From now on, Israelis had no clear vision of what the future might bring them: maybe permanent instability, due to the constant threat of terrorist acts; maybe outright warfare. Those who believed in the modern state of Israel and its undeniable military strength continued to hope that their elected representatives might have sufficient wisdom and power to avoid a catastrophe and, if possible, to defeat the enemies once and for all. Those who preferred to believe in Yahveh simply prayed, but they mouthed their prayers while thinking of dead soldiers and the bomb-charred remains of innocent victims scattered on the roads and footpaths of the Holy Land. Often they prayed while 250

thinking of revenge, for it was not easy to act serenely with such memories in mind.

Whenever the age-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians resurfaced once again in the form of paroxysms of violence, Israelis generally reacted by two complementary sentiments. On the one hand, many of them experienced an immense sadness that such a glorious challenge as the creation of the modern state and people of Israel should be constantly marred by expressions of blind hatred. Israelis often expressed their sadness and frustration in a tersely flippant but eloquent manner: Israel would be a fabulous land if only we could change our neighbors! Changing one’s neighbors meant, of course, not so much modifying their behavior, which was surely a vain hope, but rather replacing them magically by more friendly folk. Since this was unthinkable, the next best strategy would consist of erecting an impenetrable barrier between Israel and her violent neighbors, so that terrorists would be physically incapable of entering the Hebrew territory. But it would be no easy task to construct a Great Wall, like that of China, from one end of the Holy Land to the other. Already, in various high-risk zones, segments of such a wall existed. But protective walls had ceased to be taken seriously long ago, when the French imagined naively that their Maginot Line might stop Hitler. And many Israelis considered it regrettable that their land should exhibit an artifact that reminded people of the infamous barriers of ghettos, not to mention the notorious wall of Berlin.

âœĄ During the preparation of the operations at Caesarea, while Jake and his colleagues continued to use the Black Swan as their operational headquarters, they had become accustomed to thinking of the Sedot Yam kibbutz as their home base. Consequently, Jake was delighted when Rudi Kaplan and Barbara Weizmann invited him to continue to use the Sedot Yam facilities for as long as he wished. He was grateful to dispose of storage space for the bulky 251

equipment that had been used for the Chariot Process, and pleased above all to have a quiet place in which he might cogitate about plans for the future. For the helicopter, too, the former vegetable garden between the kibbutz buildings and the wharf formed a perfect landing platform. Jake informed Rudi and Barbara that he would like to pay them a regular rent for the use of these convenient facilities, but they insisted upon the fact that their Australian friends would remain there as their guests.

As for Aaron and Anne, the newlyweds had not envisaged anything in the way of a honeymoon. There were two reasons for this absence of plans. On the one hand, the underlying uncertainty of the success of the operations at Caesarea had discouraged them, right up until the last minute, from announcing that they would be going ahead with their marriage. On the other hand, Aaron had realized all along that, if the Caesarea operations were indeed successful, he would need to start work immediately, while the events were still fresh in his mind, on the editing of the resulting stock of multimedia material: the rushes, as filmmakers used to say. Furthermore, during the exciting week that had started with the Aqua inauguration at Taba and terminated with the wedding celebrations in Herod’s Floating Palace, much extra work of an unexpected kind had been deposited on the desks of both the husband and his wife. Aaron intended to drive up to Capernaum, as soon as possible, to produce a multimedia coverage of the context in which a man named Peter had submitted to Jake—through Patrick Grady and Leah as intermediaries—a weird project that appeared to have something to do with the notion of walking on water. As for Anne, it was normal that David Laban should ask her to start work immediately on the legal and financial aspects of a huge and complex future affair—whose curious code name was Port Sahara—involving the Australian-based Terra Corporation (whose president happened to be her husband’s uncle) and the ancient kingdom of Morocco.

✡ 252

In Jerusalem, Rachel had invited the Luria family to spend a couple of carefree days at the house in Yemin Moshe before returning to their work and home in Sede Boqer. On the first day, Rachel proposed to take David and Lisa on a bus excursion to the Dead Sea, leaving Martin and Sarah to stroll around the Holy City as if they were honeymooners.

This was the first time that the Luria children had bathed in the brine of the Dead Sea. Rachel showed them how to float on their backs, and warned them to be careful not to allow a drop of the burning liquid to touch their eyes. They covered themselves in mud packs—Rachel as well as the children—and then rolled in the warm sand, which gave them rough black skins like the hides of wild aquatic creatures that had emerged from the archaic lake to soak in energy from the sun. They bathed again in the brine to wash off the mud, and finally showered with fresh water.

At that moment, in the New City, Martin and Sarah were strolling through the Mahaneh Yehuda market. As they emerged onto Jaffa Road, they heard shouting, and a young man came running in their direction. He seemed to be twirling a bag around his head. Martin, intrigued to discover that the man with the bag was doing the shouting, sensed that the situation was abnormal, possibly alarming, and he cried out to Sarah to run back with him into the covered market. But Martin’s cries were drowned by screams of terror, followed by a deafening bang accompanied by a cloud of black smoke. Martin found himself sprawled out on the footpath, surrounded by piles of oranges and vegetables that had fallen from stalls. He was shocked by the detonation, and his hearing was affected, but he realized rapidly that he had not been wounded by the blast. For Sarah, lying motionless on the footpath in a pool of blood, a few meters from Martin, the situation was infinitely worse. When Martin crawled towards his wife and stared down at the place where Sarah’s lovely face should be, he saw a formless mass of bloody pulp.

In the bus that was bringing Rachel and the Luria children back to Jerusalem, a radio informed passengers that a terrorist act had just taken place in the New City. Although she was still not yet 253

sufficiently fluent in Hebrew to understand news broadcasts, Rachel sensed immediately that something terrible had happened.

Instead of seeing whether other passengers might be able to tell her the bad news in English, Rachel preferred to plunge into a state of meditation, since she seemed to realize already, through some kind of inexplicable telepathy, that she might soon need to find words enabling her to make a stupendous declaration to David and Lisa.

At Malki Street, Aaron and Anne were already waiting for the return of Rachel and the children. They had driven to Jerusalem from Jaffa as soon as the police had phoned their flat to inform them of the death of Sarah, using a number found in a booklet in her shoulder bag. As for Martin, he had been taken to the Hadassah hospital and placed under sedatives, for he was suffering severely from shock, and it was possible that his auditive faculties had been damaged.

By this time, the Luria children were beginning to understand that a terrible event had occurred. Rachel suddenly remembered that David and Lisa had spent their early childhood in a splendid bush settting in Australia, on the outskirts of Perth. “This afternoon, your mother went walking all alone in the hills, among the gum trees. She got lost in the bush. Your father is still walking along the creek banks and searching for her, but he cannot find her. He will soon return home, but your mother is lost forever.�

For a few minutes, David and Lisa remained in stunned silence.

They knew that Rachel was telling them a fairy tale, but they had no reason to blame her for that. Suddenly, the children realized with horror that Rachel’s fairy tale had an unspeakably unhappy ending. In unison, David and Lisa shattered the silence by long screams of terror that spread out across the slopes of Yemin Moshe until they touched the walls of the Old City, now bathed in the light of the setting sun. Rachel understood that the terrrorists sought to encourage absurdly such screams of innocent victims, for that was what terrorism was all about. She wondered above all, in sadness bordering on despair (for Sarah Stavros had been the 254

closest friend of Rachel Kahn, once upon a time, back in Perth) if the alleged privilege of living in the Holy Land merited such a high price.

✡ Visitors who encounter Jerusalem for the first time often feel that the surroundings of the city form an immense cemetery. The slopes are a tapestry of tombs, as far as the eye can see. This macabre phenomenon has a simple explanation. There has always been a rumor that the Last Judgment would take place here. So, people from everywhere came to Jerusalem to die, as an eleventhcentury Persian observer put it, with the obscure intention of avoiding the inconvenience of posthumous underground traveling.

Many of the mourners gathered around Sarah’s coffin had seen her at Caesarea a few days earlier, alongside Isha Moreno, assigning guests to the various navy dinghies that would take them out to Herod’s Floating Palace for the wedding banquet.

Since arriving in Israel, Sarah Luria had become a successful potter, who sold her wares through a gallery in Eilat. Recently, she had given a trial piece to Rachel. It was a fat jar with small symmetrical handles and a lid, coated in a patchy transparent bluegrey glaze.

“I’m terribly proud of this object,” Sarah had told her friend, “but it developed a fine crack during the firing, which makes it unsuitable for the gallery. Zen Buddhists have always considered that no piece of fine pottery is ideal unless it contains a tiny imperfection, but I can’t really use that argument with customers of the gallery. Furthermore, I don’t really know what utilitarian purpose I had in mind when I created this shape. It was a kind of experiment, and I didn’t really know what I was trying to do.

Sometimes I think it looks like the kind of recipient used to hold ashes after a cremation.” Sarah laughed at the idea of offering her best friend a cracked funeral urn. But Rachel scolded her for having such a silly idea: 255

“Nonsense, it’s a beautiful pot. I can already imagine it filled to the brim with dried herbs for my cooking.”

Before leaving with Jake for Sarah’s burial, Rachel placed the pot in a cloth bag that she carried over her shoulder. The bag also contained an English-language Bible.

At the end of the burial service, Rachel asked permission from Martin Luria and the officiating rabbi to offer her departed friend a short reading: For everything its season, and for every activity under heaven its time: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time for mourning and a time for dancing; a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them; a time to embrace and a time to abstain from embracing; a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to discard; a time to tear and a time to mend; a time for silence and a time for speech; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

— Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8

Rachel then took the blue earthenware pot out of her bag, leaned down alongside the new grave, picked up a large stone and started to break the pot into pieces. The onlookers were surprised and a little intrigued to discover that, before shattering the jar, Rachel had not wished to empty it of its contents: stalks of fragrant thyme, which now lay scattered among the ceramic fragments.

When the jar and its lid were finally reduced to pieces, Rachel picked them up, one by one, slowly and solemnly, and placed them around the edge of Sarah’s grave.

256

The following day, Jake had little trouble in persuading Martin to abandon immediately his work at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute in Sede Boqer, and to start a new and totally different career as a member of Terra. Martin, David and Lisa therefore moved into lodgings at the Sedot Yam kibbutz. While it would be stupid to imagine that this solution would attenuate the intense pain felt by Sarah’s husband and their children, it did have the avantage of dragging them away from the environment of Sede Boqer, impregnated forever with the memory of Sarah. To place Martin in a context that would probably be unlike any of the settings that he and Sarah had encountered elsewhere in the Holy Land, Jake had the excellent idea of suggesting that Martin might get involved, as an assistant organizer, in the curious Terra project that would soon be brewing at Capernaum.

✡ During the months that followed the tragedy at the Mahaneh Yehuda market in Jerusalem, other terrorist acts were perpetrated throughout Israel by suicidal Palestinian insurgents, all of whom succeeded in entering Israel with their explosives by crossing the border stealthily from Gaza. Most often, they found relatively weak sections in the fencing, in places they could approach at night with few risks of being detected, and they would cut through the heavy wire with battery-powered cutting devices.

Following deadly operations carried out by suicide bombers in Beer-Sheva and Ashkelon, Jacob Rose received a phone call from a secretary at the Knesset inviting him to a meeting with Shlomo Paran, Minister of Research and Development, who had been a spectator at the Caesarea operations.

“Jacob, before asking you to come along to meet me here, I’ve already had discussions on the subject with the Prime Minister himself and senior members of Tsahal,” explained Paran, without indicating yet what he meant by ‘the subject’. “Since they are aware that you and I have met up already at Caesarea, in joyous circumstances that were marred a few days later by the death of 257

your friend Sarah, the Prime Minister suggested that I should start the ball rolling by telling you what we have in mind. Besides, the Prime Minister’s English is rather atrocious. So, you might consider me today as his interpreter. Let me get to the subject immediately. We are contemplating the construction of an enormous moat all around Gaza. Do you see what I mean?”

“I imagine that you’re referring to the defensive ditches around medieval fortresses,” said Jake, “which were generally filled with water.”

“Exactly,” said Paran, “except that our Gaza moat would be very long, very wide and very deep. A kind of huge canal that could be patrolled, day and night, by Tsahal speedboats. For the moment, we’re not even sure that we should bother putting a bridge across the moat. As you know, since the spate of terrorist attacks, our contacts with Gaza have dwindled to almost zero.”

“I think I can guess why you summoned me here,” said Jake.

“You’re probably wondering whether Terra might be in a position to tackle this project using our Chariot Process. Have I guessed correctly?”

“Exactly,” replied Paran, who seemed to like this way of saying yes. “We’re fully aware that your corporation is getting ready to start a gigantic project of this kind for the kingdom of Morocco.

So, we naturally wondered whether you would have the necessary resources to perform a similar kind of task in Israel.”

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do that,” said Jake. “Basically, it’s a matter of reproducing our tools and electronic equipment as many times as are necessary, so that we can carry out the cutting and rock disposal operations in parallel at man different locations. That’s the challenge we already have to face in Morocco. Then there’s the question of skilled manpower.

For Morocco, Terra is currently recruiting and training scores of new people out in Australia. My former professor at Curtin University, Julius Stokes, has been helping me immensely in this domain by putting Terra in contact with the best postgraduates he can find. But there are limits to the quantity of people he can find.

258

So, maybe we should look into the possibility of recruiting Israelis for the Gaza project.”

“The Prime Minister told me to ask you how we should go about things at a practical level,” said Shlomo Paran. “I’m referring to all the financial aspects of such an affair.”

“No problems whatsoever,” said Jake, who might have been talking about selling an automobile rather than building a canal.

“You simply phone up my sister-in-law Anne at the offices of the Laban law firm in Tel Aviv. She knows all about Terra: what we can do, and when, and how much it’ll cost you. And she’ll be thrilled, I’m sure, to have an opportunity of drawing up contracts in Hebrew rather than Arabic.”

“Please tell me, Jacob,” asked Paran, “how your strange project planned for Capernaum is evolving. You’re probably aware that the popular media in Israel are already talking a lot about what’s going to happen there. There are interviews everywhere with the Messianist leader, Peter Eisenstein, even on national television. He always refers to you as if you were some kind of prophet from the Antipodes. He’s making you into quite a celebrity, and building up your reputation as a cross between a genius and a magician. Soon you’ll have people coming up to you and asking to be healed, or placing fish and loaves of bread in front of you.” Proud of his joke, Shlomo Paran burst out laughing.

“Yes, I’m aware of all that superficial stuff,” sighed Jake. “I’m a little surprised when I find intelligent friends such as Barbara Weizmann and even Ari Hillel referring to me as if I were a wizard. But that’s their problem, if you see what I mean, not mine.

I’m simply a reasonably well-trained engineer. I was fortunate in graduating from a marvelous university, named Curtin, and I was equally fortunate in obtaining a research and development post in my family’s company. That’s all there is to my success story, if you can call it that. But the silly hype concerning my alleged wizardry doesn’t really worry me personally. It rolls off me—particularly when it’s in Hebrew—like water off the proverbial duck’s back. In any case, I look upon the Capernaum project as a fascinating 259

challenge. They want to make their future raft totally maneuverable, so that it can be moved about safely and rapidly on the lake. My colleagues back in Australia are exploring all kinds of energy hypotheses, to see if we can do better than using conventional diesel engines. I even heard of somebody wanting to know the dimensions of the Capernaum site, to see if there would be room there to install a small nuclear reactor, like in an atomic submarine. I told him that I wasn’t sure how the Israeli government would react if we told them we were going to set up a nuclear reactor on the Sea of Galilee.” This time it was Jake who laughed at his own joke... which may not have been a joke at all.

“This reputation that you judge to be mystification has a positive side,” concluded Paran. “If we need to sift through our universities to find brilliant people to work with you, our task will be simplified if our candidates have heard of your work and see you already as some kind of mythical figure.”

“Maybe,” said Jake dryly. He took no pleasure whatsoever in the idea of his being considered as some kind of youth hero: a civil engineering version of Bob Dylan, with a computer instead of a guitar. “But let me ask you a question that interests us from technical viewpoint. You’re probably aware that, in the case of the huge Moroccan project, we’ll be able to start the excavation work simultaneously at both extremities of the future waterway, using identical equipment and techniques. And the two teams will finally meet up at the center of the canal... like Hezekiah’s tunnelers who linked the Gihon Spring to the Siloam Pool in Jerusalem.” It was Rachel—having heard this tale from her sister during their first visit to the Holy City—who had taken Jake to the place in question, knowing full well that he would be fascinated by this amazing engineering story. “If we could not work in parallel from both ends, it goes without saying that the global project in Morocco would take twice as long. My question is simple: Will your proposed Gaza moat be a single-ended or a double-ended canal? Answer number one means that its construction would take far more time than if the answer were number two.”

“Excellent question, Jake,” said Paran, as if he were suddenly 260

inversing the rôles, and teaching the teacher. “We now enter into an immensely confidential domain, as if you were being introduced into the mot secret zones of Israeli politics and strategic thinking. We hope, and we believe, that it will be answer number two.”

“So, you think that Egypt might allow us to envisage a section of the moat alongside its border with Gaza?”

“Exactly,” replied Paran. “You’re probably aware that the state of Israel has had fine contacts with our Egyptian neighbor ever since the days of Anouar el-Sadate. If we were to attempt to enforce a physical blockage of Palestinian infiltration into Israel without taking into account the border between Gaza and Egypt, we would be reenacting stupidly the drama of France’s idiotic Maginot Line. Instead of crossing the moat between Gaza and Israel, terrorists would simply move around the end of our moat, and take the slightly longer route to Israel that goes through Egypt.

Happily, Egypt understands our fears, and seems determined to help us.”

“To call a spade a spade,” asked Jake, “Egypt might let you extend your moat through their territory, along the border with Gaza. Have I correctly interpreted your description of the situation?”

“Exactly,” said Paran. “There’s a ninety-nine-percent chance that you’ll be able to start digging the Gaza moat from both ends.

But we must refrain, for a while, from thinking of this hypothesis as a reality. In any case, the Prime Minister of Israel will inform you, as soon as possible, of the conclusions of this affair.”

“Fine,” said Jake. “This incertitude won’t prevent Terra from proposing two potential schedules: one in which the moat will terminate at the intersection of Israel and Gaza with Egypt, and another in which Gaza will be totally isolated by means of a seato-sea moat around the entire territory.”

“For Israel, Jake,” explained Paran, “the notion of isolation is primordial. On the checkboard of the world, we have always been an isolated nation. To protect ourselves, today, from aggressive 261

neighbors who are intent upon destroying us, we must use isolation as an arm. It’s them who must be isolated. Put out of harm’s way, as the saying goes. In other words, Gaza must be hermetically isolated from Israel.”

While conversing spontaneously in this fashion about the necessity of isolating Gaza, neither Jacob Rose nor Shlomo Paran were sufficiently versed in etymology to realize that the verb isolate was derived in fact from the Latin term insulatus, meaning ‘made into an island’. But Jake must have sensed that a concept of this kind was at stake.

“Mister Minister, I don’t want to get involved with you in technicalities concerning the Chariot Process,” said Jake,”but you probably know already that our so-called Slicer laser device is capable of creating two kinds of ablations. Lateral ablations separate a mass from its surrounding environment, whereas horizontal ablations separate it from the underlying crust of the planet. In the case of the Caesarea project, both kinds of ablations had to be performed in parallel so that the Chariot Process could give rise to an artificial island. In the case of our Moroccan project, on the other hand, the emphasis is on lateral ablations, which enable us to excavate a canal. For an engineer such as myself, in charge of the parameters of the Chariot Process, the difference between the lateral and parallel modes of the Slicer amounts to nothing more than entering a modified value into a computer.”

“And what does this difference mean in own-to-earth terms?” asked Paran, who was not at all certain that he was capable of following Jake’s train of thought.

“Mister Minister, it’s the difference between simply isolating a territory by putting an artificial moat around it,” replied Jake, “and the infinitely more spectacular idea of transforming that isolated territory into a floating island.”

“You’re telling me that the Gaza Strip could be transformed into a floating island?” asked the minister, with an expression of amazement on his face. Jake nodded in agreement.

262

10 Preliminaries After many months of planning, the challenging Terra projects in Israel and Morocco were ready to be set in motion. For the moment, it was merely a matter of dealing with preliminary logistics, but everything appeared to be working out in an ideal manner, as if these matters were being organized under the divine auspices of Yahveh himself, maker of all things. The major difference was that Yahveh did not have brilliant individuals equipped with computers to help him, whereas the Terra Corporation did. So, they seemed to make fewer errors. Terra’s planned operations, based upon the purety of computerized mathematics, steered clear of obvious errors in creation such as warfare, disease, natural catastrophes, hatred and absurd pain.

Terra, from its ivory observation tower, acted as if the planet Earth were a taste of Heaven, which they could manipulate freely and joyfully. As if, in a nutshell, all the Earth belonged to Terra.

Jake’s first major organizational act had consisted of flying to Gibraltar in his helicopter, accompanied by his sister-in-law Anne (who was henceforth employing Levi-Rose as a surname) and Robert Meguid, for commercial discussions with Hakim Bensala.

A contract was drawn up between West Fusion and Terra whereby the former would supply the latter regularly with massive supplies of seabed gas for the various projects based upon the Chariot Process. This gas would be shipped to the relevant sites by vessels hired by West Fusion. That company would also handle the hiring of trucks to transport cylinders of gas when the final destination was inland, as at Capernaum. For Jake, it was a relief to delegate these logistic aspects of his projects to a competent subcontractor such as West Fusion. Jake’s contacts with Hakim Bensala had been 263

facilitated greatly by preliminary discussions out in Australia between Amos Kahn and West Fusion’s Australian chief executive, Jim Brennan. In the case of the Port Sahara project, contacts were simplified for Terra by the fact that Hakim himself was Moroccan, and that he had now established an excellent relationship with Sidi Yussan and other leading figures on the political scene.

Jake had decided right from the start that he himself would not have time to supervise constantly any one of the Terra projects that had now come into existence. For the Port Sahara affair, it had been decided that the ideal operational manager would be Robert Meguid, which was why he was accompanying Jake on this visit to Gibraltar. Later, Hakim would assist Robert concerning his arrival and installation in Morocco, where he would be using the Tangier waterfront facilities of West Fusion as his initial base.

Another essential phase in Terra’s evolution in Israel was the link that Jake succeeded in establishing with the prestigious Technion on Mount Carmel in Haifa. Initial contacts were made under the auspices of Shlomo Paran, Minister of Research and Development, who provided the administrators of the great university of technology with an eloquent description of Terra’s future rôle in Israel. Jake’s primary contact at the Technion was the distinguished geophysicist Zvi Hanak, who had already heard of Terra’s work at Caesarea, and was immediately curious to learn more about the technical aspects of the Chariot Process. There were three major consequences of Jake’s talks with members of the Technion. First, the university would endeavor to find a handful of postgraduates who would be interested in joining the ranks of Terra in Israel. Second, Zvi Hanak would put Jake in direct contact with high-tech firms in Israel that would be perfectly capable of using Terra’s blueprints to manufacture the huge quantity of equipment that would be required for the future projects. Finally, the most promising aspect of Jake’s relationship with the Technion was the institute’s decision to get involved in basic research in the domains that had given rise to the Chariot Process. An exciting research challenge, suggested by Jake and immediately accepted by Zvi Hanak, was the idea of fossicking in 264

sites close to Israel with the goal of finding suitable seabed gas for the Chariot Process, instead of continuing to depend upon Morocco’s platforms in the Atlantic. First on the list of places to be explored was the Dead Sea. The Technion inaugurated rapidly a research unit for this task, headed by a young female geologist named Mihal Ben-Dor. George Thiatikos and Jake took the Black Swan down the coast to the port of Ashkelon, where they met up with Rachel who had driven there in Jake’s Toyota. It had been decided that George would become the operational manager of the Gaza project, for which precise schedules had now been drawn up. Moored in Ashkelon, the Black Swan would also be an ideal home base for Rachel, who was already assisting Avram Moreno in the supervision of the construction of their second Aqua station. The site at which the desalination plant was being constructed happened to lie just a kilometer to the north of the planned location of the future estuary of the huge protective moat that would be running inland, one day, along the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. Normally, unless any last-minute problems were created by the Egyptians, Terra would start excavating the moat simultaneously at both extremities. So, it was convenient for George Thiatikos to dispose of the trawler so that he could move up and down the coast of Gaza to supervise the evolution of the Chariot Process at both the Israeli and the Egyptian ends of the future canal.

For both the Port Sahara and Gaza Moat projects, excavation sites had to be designed as mobile installations, since the locations where Terra was working would be advancing inland at a steady slow rate, which Jake had once likened humorously to ‘the speed of a galloping tortoise’. Considerable investments were therefore necessary to purchase and fit out convoys of trucks and caravans to transport the equipment and to house the Terra staff alongside the spots where excavations were being conducted. In this domain, Jake was fortunately able to count upon advice from experienced colleagues back in Australia, where lengthy desert expeditions enhanced by comfortable bivouacs were an ordinary aspect of 265

Terra’s activities in the outback mining regions. In Terra’s headquarters in Fremantle, Leah Kahn-Grady analyzed the precise requirements in heavy vehicles for the two huge projects, and used the Internet to discover the best place to purchase such material.

After Amos Kahn had examined closely the various propositions with Patrick Grady, who had before his eyes the budgeted investments indicated in the contracts drawn up with Morocco and Israel, it was decided that the ideal solution would consist of purchasing these vehicles from the Renault company in France, which would then ship them off from Marseille: half of them to Tangier, and the other half to Haifa.

✡ At Capernaum, the atmosphere had become somewhat otherworldly, more like that of an open-air music festival than a civil engineering project. All around the site, the slopes were covered with the tents of Christian pilgrims from many countries who had gathered here to witness the promised spectacle: the quasimiraculous transformation of this celebrated Gospel site into a raft that would move magically, like Jesus long ago, over the surface of the Sea of Galilee. The so-called Hebrew Christians must have disposed of a powerful public-relations service, for they had succeeded in attracting hordes of spectators who appeared to belong to other branches of Christianity. In particular, there were numerous groups of Orthodox Greeks, each with a bearded longhaired black-robed ecclesiastic in their midst. There were groups of young Asian nuns in grey smocks, packs of youths in scouting uniforms from Eastern European countries, Ethiopian monks, Scottish Protestants in kilts, European priests, Evangelist preachers from Canada, and Australians wearing T-shirts proclaiming that they were ‘born-again Christians’.

Terra’s contract for this project had been established with the Messianist organization, whose headquarters were located in North Carolina, and whose spokesman in Israel was Peter Eisenstein.

The Messianists owned the block of land that was to be cut away 266

and floated by the Chariot Process, and Eisenstein was pleased to be able to provide Jake with an English translation of an official Israeli document authorizing the project. Seeing this paper, Jake suddenly realized retrospectively that there had never been any such document, as far as knew, in the case of the Caesarea project, probably because Herod’s slab of rock was state-owned property.

Jake was frankly amused by terms used in the Capernaum paper.

Clearly, the authorities were not quite sure of what they were authorizing, and they had deliberately used vagueness to conceal their doubts. The paper spoke of ‘earth-moving operations designed to improve the potential of the land for construction purposes or agricultural pursuits’. But nowhere did the authorities allude to the fact that the Messianists wished to have their land transformed into an artificial raft that would then float around on the Sea of Galilee. In spite of the vagueness of the authorization (or maybe because of it), there was no doubt whatsoever that Terra had the right—as confirmed by David Laban’s legal specialists—to go ahead with the project.

There was another slightly anomalous aspect of the Messianists’ Capernaum project, but most pilgrims only became aware of it when they arrived at the site of the future operations. It might be described as the real-estate dimension of the affair. The truth of the matter was the existence of two adjacent properties, both of which deserved to be called Capernaum. To the south, a walled block owned by the Franciscans contains the ruins unearthed during the period from 1968 to 1986 by Father Virgilio Corbo, who lies buried there. These celebrated vestiges include traces of a synagogue in which Jesus himself may have preached, along with elements of a structure that is thought to be the actual house of Saint Peter back at the time when he was a simple fisherman. Further to the north, an adjacent block of similar proportions was owned previously by the Greek Orthodox church.

When recent excavations revealed to the Greeks that their land did not appear to contain remains from the time of Jesus, they promptly decided to put it up for sale, and that is how the American Messianists were able to acquire a chunk of real estate at 267

a place that is rightly called Capernaum. As Jake observed flippantly, when he learnt these details, the Hebrew Christians are actually ‘next-door neighbors’ of Jesus and Peter.

Initially, the Franciscan proprietors of the major Capernaum area were somewhat irritated when they received news of the bizarre operations that the Messianists were planning. And they were frankly alarmed when they saw hordes of pilgrims flocking to Capernaum during the weeks prior to the scheduled date of the spectacle. They promptly closed their own territory to visitors of all kinds, since they were tired of explaining to people that the Franciscan land and its precious early-Christian vestiges would definitely never be transformed into a floating island. Besides, the Franciscans feared that the crowds of excited visitors, awaiting the technological miracle to be performed by Jacob Rose and his magicians, might start scratching around looking for fragments of ancient stone to take home as souvenirs. So, they set up signs stating that trespassers would be prosecuted, and they patrolled non-stop the perimeter of their property to prevent people from breaking in. All in all, it was a sadly comical Christians-versusChristians predicament that evoked recurrent notorious conflicts within the precincts of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher whenever, say, a Greek Orthodox cleric dared to hammer a nail into a Roman Catholic section of the wall, or vice versa.

Jake had named Enzo Florini as the operational manager of the Capernaum project, and he had been working in a friendly and efficient partnership with Martin Luria, who was slowly emerging from the distress of the terrible tragedy that had struck his family in Jerusalem. Martin had the merit of speaking Hebrew reasonably well, for there were in fact many Israelis among the pilgrims.

Besides, whenever jouranlists were looking for specialists to interview, the Florini/Luria tandem was ideal. Enzo’s mastery of geology and chemical engineering enabled him to answer every imaginable question concerning the Chariot Process. Besides, the southern European culture he had absorbed from his parents enabled him to talk intelligently about Christianity. As for Martin, he was often able to steer the discussion about Capernaum back to 268

themes of early Rabbinic Judaism, which was no doubt the most authentic context in which the phenomenon of Jesus in Galilee could be appreciated.

By this time, after the commercial success of his video work at Caesarea, particularly on British and Australian television, Aaron Rose had succeeded in bulding his Tribe outfit into an efficient little multimedia production unit. His computerized editing equipment was installed in a back room of the house in Malki Street, where Rachel was generally on hand to view the results of his work, and provide constructive criticism. Aaron had arrived at Capernaum a fortnight before the Big Day, with the vague intention of making a documentary that would encompass, not only the technical aspects of the affair (the main subject of his work at Caesarea), but maybe the symbolic and spiritual dimensions of the event, as witnessed by the throngs of pilgrims.

As soon as he started wandering through the camping settlement, with a camera in his hand, accompanied by Rachel armed with a microphone on a pole, Aaron was delighted by the rich and abundant confessions that he was able to record. Little by little, a clear leitmotif for his documentary started to emerge. Aaron sensed the presence of a strange confusion in the minds of people he interviewed. Fantasizing upon Messianist convictions, many pilgrims were mesmerized by a shift in the way they envisaged the promised events. They seemed to imagine that they were awaiting, not so much a spectacular demonstration of high-tech earthmoving, but rather a mysterious happening that was linked, through a fuzzy set of symbolic associations, to the second coming of the Messiah. It was not impossible that many folk gathered on the slopes around Capernaum believed vaguely today that, before the cock crowed thrice, they might be meeting up with the Messiah in flesh and blood. For Aaron, this was excellent stuff for the creation of a good documentary film.

With respect to Caesarea, an essential difference at Capernaum was the intimate nature of the link between onlookers (including TV-viewers) and the spectacular happenings planned for Moving Day—the term used by Peter Eisenstein in his constant public 269

declarations to designate the date of the ultimate operations. At Caesarea, the show (if this slightly pejorative term were to be used momentarily) was handled almost entirely by the same group of people who were carrying out the operations. Here at Capernaum, this was no longer the case. Terra was still totally responsible for what would be taking place from a technical viewpoint. The names of the Terra chiefs in charge of operations—Jacob Rose, Enzo Florini and Martin Luria—were known to everybody, and their operational skills were recognized wholeheartedly by observers who had viewed the countless portraits of these individuals that had been diffused through the media over the last few weeks. But Terra was by no means the master of ceremonies of Moving Day. Nor the Anointed One himself, for that matter. In the perfect spirit of free enterprise, the true organizers of Moving Day at Capernaum were those who happened to be paying for it: the Messianists. Jacob Rose and his disciples might perpetrate the miracle at a technological level, but his amazing acts would be celebrated throughout Christendom under the guidance of inspired latter-day evangelists: the Hebrew Christians.

Early on the morning of Moving Day, Jacob Rose arrived at the site in his helicopter, with Rachel at his side. This style of transport had been chosen simply because Jake had been particularly busy, elsewhere in Israel, during the week that preceded the ultimate operations on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. Alongside the zone in which the Chariot Process would be set in action, a group of five huge trailer-trucks housed the equipment. Closer to the lake, a big caravan-trailer would be serving as the control room. Further back, a bare patch of ground had been cordoned off to make space for the arrival of Jake’s Ecureuil. Between this landing pad and the control room, Jake would only have to walk some two hundred meters along a slightly sloping rocky path.

Opening the door of the Ecureuil, Jake was surprised—like Rachel—by the roars of applause that erupted from the surrounding slopes. The din was heightened by the refrains of Sweet Chariot that were being blared out over the Messianists’ public-address system, as if playing the theme song of the system 270

would guarantee its immediate success. As they stepped out of the helicopter and onto the landing pad, hordes of excited well-wishers rushed forwards with branches in their hands, and threw them on the pathway before Jake and Rachel, as if they were preparing a royal carpet of foliage for the Terra couple, who were visibly embarrassed by this silly effusion of enthusiasm. Mindless juvenile admirers even prostrated themselves on the rocky pathway, waiting for Jake and Rachel to step over their bodies, as if this were some kind of Via Dolorosa of redemption. For Jacob Rose, the whole effect of these Messianist movements was tasteless and excessive.

But these strange friends had paid their money, and the show had to go on.

Once inside the control room, Jake promptly ignited the Chariot Process. As usual, there were no visible signs indicating that anything might be taking place. A giant video screen above the truck serving as the control room showed aerial views of the rectangular two-acre block of land to be cut away and floated. It contained two modern buildings erected by the Greek Orthodox church: a domed chapel and a small two-story stone house that was once the residence of Greek monks. These buildings, surrounded by shrubs and gardens, occupied the upper half of the block. The lower half was a lawn studded with ground-level vestiges of Roman and Byzantine constructions.

Along the side of the rectangle furthest from the lake, a line of four small concrete bunkers had recently been built, under the supervision of Enzo Florini. Now hidden beneath flowers and greenery planted and nurtured expertly by Messianist gardeners, these structures housed the devices—of a not very ecological nature—that had finally been chosen as a means of propulsion for the future vessel: four giant Rolls-Royce jet engines of the kind used for airliners. A fifth bunker containing a jet engine was located in the middle of the seaward edge of the block of land, where it would be operated as a reverse drive device to brake the movement of the vessel, allowing anchors to be thrown overboard to keep it immobile. Using power requirements calculated by Jake and Enzo, the Messianists had succeeded in recuperating this 271

material from a high-tech junkyard that specialized in dismantling the remains of damaged aircraft. Rachel had remarked that it was a little like the medical phenomenon of organ transplants.

A macabre aspect of this affair was the fact that the junkyard was able to supply precise data concerning the circumstances of four mortal accidents in which the aircraft supplying these spare sparts had been been partly destroyed. The Gospel Ark—the name chosen by the Messianists for their future raft—would be powered by jet engines that had accompanied no less than thirty-three airline passengers to their deaths. Although nobody had requested such information, the junkyard even supplied the exact identities of these victims, along with a small photo of each individual.

When informed of this, the Messianists were impressed but not dispirited. On the contrary, Peter Eisenstein saw an auspicious symbolic dimension in that number, which happened to be the age of Yeshua when he was nailed to the cross. A Messianist named Yannis Spiridakis, from the Cycladic island of Tinos in the Aegean Sea, assembled the crash data and photos into a memorial window that was fixed to a wall inside the chapel.

After the delivery of the engines to Capernaum, George Thiatikos had handled the task of finding specialists—from a Greek ship-building firm in the port of Piraeus—who were prepared to spend two months in Capernaum with the mission of converting the five jet engines into a power source capable of gently propulsing the future Gospel Ark across the surface of the Sea of Galilee, and then halting it at any desired location on the lake. In theory, the system was perfectly operational, and computer simulations showed that it should enable the raft to be maneuvered like a barge. However, the jet engines could not be fully tested before the vessel came into existence and was actually floating.

When the spectators observed for the first time that the plot of land seemed to be shuddering with convulsions, they cried out in joy. Rachel, standing alongside Jake in the control room, clapped her hands in joy and exclaimed excitedly that Capernaum was a women in childbirth. Video cameras and microphones in front of 272

the people in the control room happened to be turned on that instant, which resulted in Rachel’s comment being broadcast to the crowd, who applauded her enthusiastically. Less than a minute later, a gigantic detonation resounded from beneath the plot, as it broke free from mainland Israel. The Gospel Ark had become a reality, and the spectators were now in a state of frenzied joy.

Many of them were throwing their hands above their heads and dancing wildly like whirling dervishes, while the public-address system blared out the Theodorakis syrtaki theme from the Zorba movie, followed by a stirring version of Amazing Grace performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir who had been flown in specially from Utah for the event.

Since the raft was floating less than a meter from the shore of Capernaum, Peter Eisenstein had no trouble jumping onto it. He was followed by a man wearing bright blue ecclesiastic robes and a golden miter, who was introduced to the crowd as Bishop Moshe Mendelbaum from a diocese in North Colorado. They were indeed the very first humans to board the Gospel Ark. Standing at the stern of the raft and facing seawards, so that they were turning their backs to the crowd, Peter and the bishop could be seen on the giant screen thanks to a camera on the upper dome of the chapel. Peter Eisenstein spoke first: “At this sacred place called Capernaum on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, Yeshua once met up with fishermen named Simon and Andrew, who were transformed by the Messiah into fishers of men. Today, a brilliant man named Jacob rose in our midst and transformed miraculously this rock into a vessel named the Gospel Ark, which now floats on the surface of those same waters where Yeshua once walked.” At the end of Peter’s short speech, the crowd cheered with the same proud enthusiasm as dockyard workers watching the launching of a giant ship they built. Then, in hushed silence, with most of the Messianists down on their knees in a position of prayer, the bishop blessed the newly-launched vessel, and concluded with celebrated words recorded by the first evangelist: 273

And I say to you: you are Peter, the Rock; and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall never conquer it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; what you forbid on earth shall be forbidden in heaven, and what you allow on earth shall be allowed in heaven. — Matthew 16, 18-19

Enzo Florini and George Thiatikos now boarded the vessel, accompanied by engineers from the Greek shipyard that had installed the four jet engines along the rear rim of the raft. It was time to ignite them. The din they created corresponded to what might be expected. In spite of their being placed in concrete bunkers, jet engines remain jet engines, which means they gave rise to a roar that drowned out the hymns that were being broadcast through the loudspeakers on the slopes of Capernaum.

Indeed, if Yeshua had been delivering at that moment his splendid Sermon on the Mount, at the alleged site located just above Capernaum, it is unlikely that people would have been able to hear his precious words, which would have been lost for eternity.

Another slight inconvenience of the jet propulsion system of the Gospel Ark was that it drenched countless unwary spectators in a shower of water that smelled of aviation fuel. On the other hand, the engines certainly did what they were planned to do. With George Thiatikos at the computerized helm, located in a glasswalled cubicle on the seaward side of the chapel, the Gospel Ark started to move slowly away from the shore. When the vessel was about four hundred meters from its departure point, George decided to throttle back the jets and then ignite the bow engine, to test the halting procedure. Everything worked splendidly. George then dosed the power of the various jets in order to describe a big circle, after which the Gospel Ark headed back towards its departure point, and drew up some fifty meters out from the gaping rectangular inlet at the place in Capernaum where Peter’s nextdoor neighbors once resided. Electronic devices released a pair of anchors, one at each extremity of the raft, and their chains jumped 274

off the winches around which they had been rolled, clanging on the sides of the steel boxes housing the winches, and producing metallic sounds that might have been the joyful tolling of church bells.

Small craft moved out from the shore and swarmed around the Gospel Ark. Most people simply examined in astonishment the strange vessel from a respectable distance, whereas other craft edged up close enough to the raft to allow passengers to scramble up onto it. Many excited Messianists on the shore simply jumped into the lake and swam out to the Gospel Ark, where they often had difficulty in dragging themselves up out of the water.

Jake and Rachel were not keen on the idea of swimming out to the raft, and there was no sign of a dinghy with room for two extra passengers. They decided therefore to take advantage of the excitement in order to depart discreetly in the Ecureuil. Once in the air, Jake saluted the newly-launched vessel by circling low around it several times, which gave rise to yet another wave of convulsive jubilation among the spectators.

“There’s no doubt about it,” mused Jake. “Christians are certainly a joyful bunch of people. They make us Jews look like melancholy sourpusses.”

“My dear cousin Jake, you sound a little despondent,” said Rachel, staring tenderly at the helicopter pilot. “I would love to be able to make you happy. I’m longing to be alone with you this evening at Caesarea, while everybody else is celebrating.”

Jacob Rose and Rachel Kahn were intensely happy to spend that evening together at Caesarea, where they strolled along the peaceful beach and visited the place where an earlier raft had been created. Then they returned to Jake’s lodgings at the Sedot Yam kibbutz, where they spent the night together. They had decided in common, a few weeks earlier, that Rachel should no longer take precautions to avoid becoming pregnant. So many new entities of all kinds were being brought into existence around Jake and Rachel that it appeared natural, to both of them, that it would be a magnificent idea to create the most extraordinary new entity that 275

could be imagined: a child. Later, Rachel would be able to look back on Moving Day as the precise date at which the infinitesimal primordial cell of a new individual had sprung into being, deep inside her body.

✡ In the aftermath of the Capernaum project, the fame of Jacob Rose in Israel soared inordinately, and his reputation was rising similarly in other parts of the world. Ordinary Israelis heard of Terra’s Chariot Process through magazine articles and documents shown on television. Both rafts—at Caesarea and Capernaum— became tourist attractions, and visitors flocked to these places to observe with their own eyes the seemingly miraculous phenomenon of these slabs of rock, once part of the mainland, that now floated on water.

For Jacob Rose and his collaborators, an unexpected outcome of being thrown into the public spotlight was that considerable quantities of mail of all kinds had started to arrive at Caesarea and Capernaum, with addresses ranging from Herod’s Floating Palace through to Gospel Ark. Many letters were written in Hebrew, but others were in English, from faraway places such as Canada and Australia. A substantial part of the mail was of little or no interest, while a small proportion came from students or engineers who were genuinely interested in Terra technology, often in the hope of finding employment.

One letter that caught Jake’s attention came from a twentyeight-year-old Franco-Israeli freelance writer named Donna Dreyfus, residing in Tel Aviv, who had studied Semitic languages (both Arabic and Hebrew) at the prestigious Ecole des Langues orientales in Paris. Her principal professional speciality, since settling in Israel, consisted of producing multimedia reports, primarily in English, on archaeological excavations. Working on a dig not far from Caesarea at the time the Herodian palace was floated, she had witnessed personally the C-day events, which fascinated her. More recently, she had gone out of her way to join 276

the crowd on Moving Day in Capernaum, which was an even more captivating happening for her. Donna Dreyfus, who was apparently fluent in English, Hebrew and colloquial Arabic, as well as her native French, wanted to know if there might be some kind of writing job for her at Terra. Jake asked Martin Luria—who was back in Caesarea now—to look into the idea of hiring this talented person to handle Terra’s expanding demands in the domain of public relations. An encounter with the candidate was rapidly arranged, and Jake and Martin were pleased to find that Donna would be an ideal employee for this kind of task. So, she soon moved into lodgings at the Sedot Yam kibbutz. Her first task consisted of sending off replies, whenever she thought it appropriate, to some of the incoming mail. Meanwhile, since Donna was experienced in Internet work, she started to build a multi-language website for Terra—in English, Hebrew and Arabic —using photos supplied by Aaron Rose.

Jake asked Martin Luria to take care of two interrelated tasks that would necessitate a little traveling. On the one hand, Martin would be Jake’s liaison with Dimonax, a Beer-Sheva manufacturer of high-tech precision instruments, which had received a global contract from Terra to produce all the equipment to be used in the forthcoming Chariot Process activities in Morocco and around Gaza. Martin’s second responsibility would consist of managing relationships between Terra and the Technion researchers in Haifa who were looking into possible enhancements to Chariot Process technology. In the latter domain, Martin was obliged to examine constantly—in as subtle and discreet a manner as possible, with legal assistance from Anne Levi-Rose in Tel Aviv, and industrial guidance from Amos Kahn and Patrick Grady in Australia—the complex question of patents, since it was of primordial importance to the Terra Corporation that they remain the sole owners of the Chariot Process and all its potential ramifications.

✡ As far as Aaron Rose’s multimedia activities were concerned, 277

the Capernaum project had been a godsend, enabling him to work freely without the stress of constantly reminding himself, as at Caesarea, that his job consisted of producing high-quality promotional material for Terra. At Capernaum, Aaron had operated as a cineast: a pure artist armed with a camera and a microphone, who was solely intent upon telling a good story through exceptional images and dialogues. The story he told there was a work of fiction, but it looked like fact. Aaron had quizzed the Christian pilgrims, gathered at Capernaum to await the promised Moving Day, to discover what they really thought about miracles: both biblical miracles and modern scientific miracles. Were they historical facts, or were they simply fiction? He chose for his video a striking title inspired by a line in the Pentateuch: All the Earth is Mine.

Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, ‘This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I have carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you here to me. If only you will now listen to me and keep my covenant, then out of all peoples you will become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine.

— Exodus 19, 3-5

The theme of Aaron’s film was simple, and maybe valid: Many Christians not only believe in the historicity of miracles, but they expect new ones to take place in the near future, right in front of their eyes. This, after all, was the basis of the fascination exerted upon the Messianists by the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum. When Yahveh boasted of carrying the Israelites ‘on eagles’ wings’, he may have been resorting to a poetical metaphor, to get his point across to Moses. The final remark about his owning ‘the whole earth’ was surely intended, however, as an assertion of universal power. So, when the Messiah made a first appearance upon the planet Earth, and the fishermen of Capernaum witnessed Yeshua 278

walking upon the water, this might be interpreted as a demonstration of the underlying power of Yahveh, exercised on this occasion by his representative. In Aaron’s film, he had decided to employ an actor to play the devil’s advocate by declaring to anybody who cared to listen to him that he simply did not believe in miracles, neither those described by the Evangelists, nor those that might be performed by engineers. Above all, Aaron’s choice of an actor was brilliant; he simply asked Benny Segal to make an enormous effort and kindly play this role. Now, at the best of times, Benny found it difficult to speak forcefully, without stuttering. When asked to make declarations about miracles in front of a camera, with strangers of all kinds listening in, Benny was at his worst... which meant, in fact, that he was excellent in this role. The more Benny mumbled shyly and inarticulately about matters that did not really concern him, the more the Messianists were keen to set forth their convictions about a universe full of potential miracles just waiting to be performed.

“I’ll beu, beu, believe that stone can fleu, fleu, float,” stuttered Benny, “when I see it fleu, fleu, floating.” Fortunately, the bystanders who heard Benny making this declaration of incredulity in front of Aaron’s camera could not know that Benny was indeed a Terra engineer and that he had already witnessed the success of the Chariot Process at Rottnest and at Caesarea. Maybe they imagined that Benny was a dull tourist who just happened to be there by chance during the week that preceded Moving Day. Others thought that Benny was simply a Jew who had no time for Christian beliefs about miracles. In any case, the most amazing aspect of the reactions filmed by Aaron was that everybody considered it perfectly normal that Jacob Rose had invented a method for transforming a chunk of earth and rock into a floating island. If ever this operation had been looked upon as a quasimagical act at Rottnest or Caesarea, it would be just one more ordinary miracle for the spectators at Capernaum.

✡ 279

In Morocco, ever since the earliest stages of the Port Sahara project, the major challenge had consisted of determining the ideal path—or locus, to use the technical term employed by Terra engineers—for the future waterway. Jacob Rose had explained in detail to Sidi Yussan the engineering constraints imposed by the laser Slicer technology in particular and the Chariot Process in general. The canal-digging approach could only be adopted efficiently on terrains that were reasonably flat. As soon as the Slicer was faced with abrupt slopes, technical problems of several kinds arose, including the obvious inconvenience of trying to install complex electronic equipment on a rugged terrain whose access was difficult. In other words, Terra’s technology was ideally suited to flat landscapes at about sea level, and an ideal locus had to avoid mountainous obstacles.

After lengthy computer calculations, and even lengthier debates among Moroccan engineers, geographers and politicians, the final locus of the waterway was composed of two basically linear segments. On the Atlantic side, the future canal would leave the coast at Benmansour, about twenty-five kilometers to the north of Kenitra, and extend inland in a horizontal sense (as seen on a map) until it reached a natural lake located to the north of Fes. At the Mediterranean extremity, the canal would start alongside the tiny locality of Velez de la Gomera, which happened to be one of the isolated places along the northern coast of Morocco that still remined under Spanish sovereignty. It would descend in a southwesterly to meet up with the Atlantic segment at the lakeside village of Ourtzarh, which would be the location of the shipping installations to be known as Port Sahara.

Jake, Rachel and Aaron flew down to Tangier in the helicopter for a meeting with Robert Meguid and the team of Moroccan engineers he had hired, with assistance from Hakim Bensala. All the heavy material had been shipped in safely, on time, from Marseille: dozens of Renault trucks and trailers, caravans with solar panels and antennae on the roofs, and an assortment of Caterpillar earth-moving engines. It was now a matter of moving half of this equipment overland to Benmansour on the Atlantic 280

coastline, and the other half to Velez de la Gomera on the Mediterranean. Besides the rolling stock, a large shed in the waterfront yard at Tangier was stacked with crates of hardware from Dimonax, the Beer-Sheva manufacturer who was henceforth supplying all the instruments required for Terra’s future operations.

In the style of a proud home-owner showing off his newlyconstructed residence to visitors, Robert Meguid demonstrated the comforts of a massive caravan, fitted out by a skilled designer in France, that would be his office and home for the next year or so.

“We’ll be dwelling like Bedouins in the desert,” said Robert with a smile. “But we’ll be high-tech nomads, with the Internet and satellite television and deep-freezers in our air-conditioned mobile homes.”

“What sort of people have you finally recruited?” asked Jake, who was aware that Terra’s campaign aimed at finding engineers for the Port Sahara project had resulted in an avalanche of candidates.

“Candidates were screened initially by a recruiting firm in Casablanca,” said Robert. “After that filtering, it’s been a full-time task for Hakim and me to interview people and get around to making offers. It’s safe to say that we’re dealing with the cream of bright young Moroccan engineers, most of whom have been trained in great schools or universities in France and elsewhere.

The salaries that Terra is offering are highly attractive, and candidates are generally overwhelmed by the exciting nature of the project. Many of them are married, with children, and they see this job offer as a fabulous adventure for their families as well as themselves. They seem to look upon the idea of working on the Port Sahara project as a novel way of establishing profound links with their homeland. Even the lower-level staff to be employed as truck drivers and general laborers give the impression that they see our affair as a mission.”

“They’re right,” said Jake. “Nobody knows where all these activities might be leading us. But the word ‘mission’ sounds as if it’s appropriate.”

281

✡ At Ashkelon, Aqua’s second desalination plant went into action as planned, but in a discreet manner. In view of the current tensions between Israel and the inhabitants of Gaza, it was out of the question to have journalists thronging along to an inauguration like the one that had been celebrated at Taba, since an event of that kind, not far from the border, might provide an ideal target for terrorists. For the moment, it was preferable for Terra to keep as low a profile as possible, since the huge security aspects of the excavation of the future Gaza moat were in the final stages of preparation. Tsahal had invited Jacob Rose and Rachel Kahn to remain constantly vigilant. With assistance from Anne Levi-Rose and Avram Moreno, Jake had hired the services of a security company named Arma, based in Beer-Sheva, to stand guard over the two Aqua installations as well as the sites where equipment was being stored while awaiting the start of the moat operations.

For the inauguration of the Aqua plant at Ashkelon, there were however several interested Israeli observers. Martin Luria had recently driven down to Sed Boqer with Jake and Rachel, for the first time since the death of Sarah. The purpose of their visit was to talk about the Aqua process with some of Martin’s former colleagues at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute, and to invite them along to the inauguration of the Ashkelon station. Jake had also transmitted an open invitation to members of the Technion in Haifa, and two interested researchers journeyed down to Ashkelon to see the Aqua station.

✡ The most delicate part of the Gaza Moat project concerned the relatively short segment of the waterway that would be located between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Shlomo Paran, Minister of Research and Development, informed Jacob Rose and his Terra associates in an official manner that this matter had been discussed during a person-to-person contact between the respective foreign 282

ministers of Israel and Egypt, and that the two neighboring nations had rapidly reached an agreement concerning the mutual benefits of this stretch of canal. Besides, its construction would not cost a dinar to Egypt. Above all, Egyptian and Israeli diplomats came to a consensus about how the excavation of this segment should be handled at a down-to-earth level. The exact locus of the moat would lie mainly on the Gaza side of the border, between Egypt and the abandoned checkpoint of Rafah, on territory that had always been controlled by Israel. The canal would extend inland some ten kilometers, to the Israeli village of Kerem Shalom, where it would turn sharply to the left. The Terra excavators would be authorized to set up their mobile camps on the Egyptian side of the border. Furthermore, Egypt would allow Tsahal helicopters and ground vehicles to move freely in the vicinity of the Terra camps, to protect the engineers and laborers from the risk of Palestinian attacks of any kind. Finally, both Israel and Egypt insisted upon the fact that, the less said about the Gaza Moat project, the better.

The affair could hardly remain a secret, since Palestinian observers would soon realize that a major project was under way, particularly when they saw a wide canal starting at the seafront and moving inland. However, as pointed out in instructions issued by the Israeli prime minister’s office, there was no point in referring publicly to the future waterway as a defensive moat. In other words, its raison d’être should remain as vague as possible.

Now that major operations at Capernaum were completed, Jacob Rose had decided that Enzo Florini would join up with George Thiatikos on the Gaza Moat project. The Black Swan, berthed most often at Ashkelon, would remain their home base, but the engineers would be spending most of their time on land, in mobile homes. Enzo Florini would be in charge of operations at the northern extremity of the Gaza Moat, near the old kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, while George Thiatikos would be managing activities at the Egyptian extremity. For the moment, all the material resources for the Gaza Moat project were stored on stateowned land adjoining the site of the new Aqua station, to the south of Ashkelon. This included trucks, caravans and earth-moving 283

equipment shipped in from Marseille. A large hangar had been built to shelter the crates of electronic equipment for the Chariot Process, transported here by road from the Dimona manufacturer in nearby Beer-Sheva. Protective fences had been erected all around both the Aqua station and the material for the Gaza Moat project, and members of the Arma security team were housed in their own mobile homes on the edge of the site. Furthermore, several Tsahal vehicles were stationed in the vicinity of the site, with personnel ready to intervene if ever the slightest intrusion were detected.

Two mobile bridges would cross the future moat: one at the level of the northern checkpoint of Beit Hanun, and the other at Kerem Shalom to the south. Since bridge-building was not a Terra specialty, the corporation’s management in Australia decided to subcontract this work out to the highly-reputed Eiffage company, which had built the splendid viaduct at Millau in the south of France. The French engineers called upon a Swiss architect named Henri Forez to design the future bridges over the Gaza Moat. He envisaged them as lightweight structures whose central pylons would be fixed on floating barges, anchored in the canal, and the extremities of a bridge would be composed of mobile elements. If an emergency situation were to arise, this model made it possible to block the use of a bridge within a few minutes. Besides, each bridge would be assembled on the seafront and then floated to its destination, and the location of a bridge could even be changed rapidly, for one reason or another, at any future time.

✡ Rachel Kahn received an excited phone call from a Technion researcher named Yossi Gesher, who had visited the Aqua station in Ashkelon on the day it was set in motion. “ My colleagues and I have worked through the principles of your seaweed-based catalysis, and we’ve examined the way in which an Aqua station exploits these principles from an engineering viewpoint,” he explained. “We’re extremely impressed 284

by the potential of your approach, but there’s a big challenge that needs to be taken up. I’m talking of miniaturization. Do you see what I mean?” Rachel was a little taken aback. Although she had often heard Jake referring to the concept of miniaturization in the domain of the laser Slicer and the Chariot Process, she could not imagine, for the moment, what this term might evoke in the case of the desalination system.

“Are you saying that our Aqua plants are too big?” she asked naively.

“In a way, yes,” replied Yossi Gesher, “but it’s more than a question of mere size. We’ve been wondering whether it might be feasible to change the entire global concept of a desalination station. Instead of spending a lot of time and money in erecting a huge plant whose hardware is designed to function day and night in an industrial manner, we thought that the essential elements could possibly be reproduced in the form of a sort of kit that ordinary people would be able to assemble easily and rapidly, at any place where they have access to sea water. Maybe even aboard a boat. Instead of operating nonstop, the desalination unit, powered by solar cells, could be turned on and off like an ordinary tap over your kitchen sink.”

“That sounds fabulous,” exclaimed Rachel. “Am I right in supposing that the Technion would be interested in tackling this kind of challenge?”

“It all depends on the extent to which Terra would allow the Technion to build upon your patents,” explained Yossi Gesher.

“Maybe you might raise that question with Terra management in Australia, and let me know how they react. We see this miniaturization challenge as an affair that could augment considerably the potential of your system, but a lot of work needs to be done. We’re even playing with the idea of replacing the relatively exotic Australian seaweed by some kind of less noble vegetal organism that exists here in Israel. I won’t surprise you by saying that the Technion would only get involved in this kind of research and development if we were assured that everybody was 285

working for the future well-being of the people of the state of Israel.”

Rachel lost no time in phoning her father to inform him of the Technion request.

“Israel has provided both our corporation and our family with fantastic opportunities for changing our horizons in ways we never imagined not so long ago,” said Amos Kahn, speaking solemnly to his daughter. “We’ve always known that Jake’s ideas and dreams are extraordinary, but Israel has provided us with a previously unimaginable context for transforming Jake’s visions into realities.

So, I often feel that we owe a lot to the state of Israel. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course, Dad,” said Rachel. “Jake often says that Israel has made things happen in an amazing way, for all of us.”

“Tell this Gesher fellow that Terra will be sending him a formal letter within the next few days indicating that our desalination patents will be transferred in their totality to the Technion,” explained Amos Kahn. “There are no strings attached, merely a simple request. I once made a rash promise to Israeli archaeologists about using our technology to fill the pool of Herod’s palace with fresh water. It would be fabulous if the Technion could use their miniaturized stuff to honor that promise one day, on my behalf.”

Rachel was immensely pleased with her father’s spontaneous decision. She decided in an equally spontaneous manner to take advantage of this phone conversation to touch upon another fundamental subject, for the first time ever with her father.

“Dad, everybody in our families knows that Jake and I have always been terribly close to each other. Since living here in Israel, and sharing so many experiences together, the relationship between Jake and me has turned into something much deeper than mere friendship between cousins. So, I wanted to let you all know that Jake and I have decided to spend our lives together, as man and wife.” Rachel was so moved by the substance of her declaration that she had some trouble in retaining a firm tone of 286

voice.

“We’ve known all along that things were like that between you and Jake,” said Amos Kahn, who was no less moved than his daughter. “The members of our two families have always remained very attached to one another, ever since the time they worked together in Antwerp. The love between Jake and you is another expression of that attachment.”

“We’re going to have a baby,” explained Rachel, seeking the simplest words she could imagine. “Everything’s fine. A few days ago, the gynecologist in Jerusalem showed us an image. Jake and I are going to have a son.”

“He will be called Israel,” declared Amos Kahn.

✡ Several months later, when Rachel gave birth to a baby boy in the obstetrics wing of Jerusalem’s Hadassah complex, Amos Kahn’s words were partly fulfilled. The baby, conceived at the end of the joyous day that the Gospel Ark of Capernaum floated for the first time on the Sea of Gallilee, was named Peter Israel Rose.

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11 Projects Both Caesarea and Capernaum were marked permanently and profoundly by the successful exploits of Jacob Rose and his Terra technology. Visitors thronged to these floating islands to witness what had happened. Jake remained in constant contact with the people in charge of both sites, if only to verify that there were no unexpected negative evolutions—of a physical, geological or chemical nature—in the artificial rafts produced by the Chariot Process. Jake, Aaron and Rachel had donned scuba gear to carry out a detailed inspection—accompanied by Dan Shal and his navy mermaids—of the hull of the Caesarea raft. They took hundreds of close-up photos of the submerged part of the raft, and Jake also chipped out specimens of the processed rocky matter, to be analyzed in a Technion laboratory. Then the Australians inspected the Capernaum raft in a similar fashion. Furthermore, Jake received news and technical data on a regular basis from Fremantle concerning the Gypsy. So, a sizable quantity of information enabled Jake to dispel any imaginable doubts concerning the stability and permanence of results obtained by the Chariot Process.

Visitors often asked an obvious question: Is there a danger that a raft produced by the Chariot Process might spring a leak and sink? Jake usually answered this question by comparing two kinds of watercraft: a dinghy and a surfboard.

“Let’s imagine you drilled a hole in each of these craft,” he would say. “In the case of the dinghy, water would enter through the hole and the craft would start to sink. The surfboard, on the other hand, wouldn’t react at all in the same way as the dinghy. If a 288

small quantity of water started to seep through the hole, it might wet the upper surface of the surfboard, but it wouldn’t accumulate there in such a way as to cause the surfboard to sink.” Jake’s message was clear. In the unlikely case of a hole appearing in an artificial island created by the Chariot Process, the raft would behave like a surfboard.

✡ At Caesarea, the Herodian raft was finally tugged into its specially-constructed marina to the north of the ancient harbor, at the place called Strato’s Tower. It was anchored most often in the middle of the marina, and visitors were taken out to the raft in rubber dinghies operated by the local tourist bureau. Barbara Weizmann and her team of archaeologists had devoted much effort to restoring and beautifying the ruins, and highlighting the significant features of the palace by means of didactic plaques, while the tourist authorities had installed amenities for visitors.

Visitors were happiest of all when the Mediterranean was agitated, lashed by strong winds, causing the raft to bob up and down on the swells.

Often, of an evening, Herod’s Floating Palace was used a venue for social functions of different kinds. Dinner evenings had even been organized there, under the auspices of Ari Hillel of the Israel Antiquities Authority, for politicians and members of the administration who wished to know more about the Chariot Process and the way it had been used at Caesarea. On such occasions, Aaron Rose would organize video projections. For Terra’s image in Israel, these encounters with top-ranking Israelis were of great importance. In particular, they paved the way for understanding of the ways in which the Gaza Moat project was being handled.

Jacob Rose had finally signed a contract with the proprietors of the Sedot Yam kibbutz to formalize Terra’s use of a good part of the premises as their headquarters in Israel. Donna Dreyfus had risen in rank by now into a kind of director of communications for 289

Terra in the context of Israel and Morocco. She was fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, and she could handle written enquiries and phone calls. Donna had her office in a corner of the kibbutz, and she worked in close liaison with Martin Luria, who was now sufficiently aware of the technical aspects of Terra technology to be able to give talks in Hebrew on the company’s achievements.

Martin also acted as a liaison between Jake and the Technion researchers who were currently exploring possible developments concerning both the Chariot Process and the Aqua desalination system.

As far as learning Hebrew was concerned, Aaron Rose had made rapid and spectacular progress, because Anne had decided wisely that they should make an effort to speak between themselves in Hebrew. This was somewhat difficult in the beginning, because people in love get into the habit of expressing a huge of quantity of trivialities in their intimate everyday conversations, and it sounded artificial for Aaron to force himself to learn to say such things in his quaint Hebrew. But he soon realized with joy that Anne (for whom English was no less a foreign langage than Hebrew) seemed to take pleasure in having sweet words of Hebrew nothingness whispered in her ear with an Australian accent. One day, when Jake overheard his brother holding a conversation in Hebrew with an Israeli, he asked Aaron where he had succeeded in learning the language so well and so quickly. His brother replied laughingly: In bed!

In the Tribe domain, Aaron had advanced to the stage at which he now felt confident about supervising the editing of Hebrewlanguage adaptations of his video productions, for which he used the voice of a popular Israeli actor. Aaron was immensely pleased to have succeeded in selling his Capernaum documentary, All the Earth is Mine, to numerous TV channels in the English-speaking world, but his proudest moment was when an Israeli channel purchased the rights to air the Hebrew version of this work.

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On the Sea of Galilee, in no time, the Gospel Ark became a gigantic attraction for tourists and pilgrims from every corner of Christendom, and the whole affair was managed by the Messianists with a keen sense of marketing.

“Many people fail to realize that the impact of Yeshua’s first presence on the planet Earth might have fizzled out and disappeared forever,” affirmed Peter Eisenstein eagerly, adopting the style of a revivalist preacher, “were it not for the fantastic public relations work performed within the context of the Roman Empire by an apostle named Paul, who had never even encountered the Messiah in flesh and blood. Today, we Hebrew Christians are determined to get the message across with the same clarity and efficacity as Paul, and the Gospel Ark of Capernaum can be viewed, in that perspective, as a precious and powerful public-relations instrument.”

The jet engines of the Gospel Ark were only put in operation on rare occasions, when it became necessary to change the location of the craft for a precise reason. From the very first day of the vessel’s existence, the fishermen of the Sea of Galilee had alleged —rightly or wrongly—that the terrible noise of the engines was likely to frighten away their fish. Then they complained bitterly about the presence of greasy sheets of aviation fuel on the surface of their lake, which risked tainting the taste of their catch, or even rendering the fish inedible. Finally, after formal complaints against the Messianists were lodged by the union of Galilee fishermen at the regional tribunal of business justice, a wise decision was made.

According to the letter of the law (which was not, alas, respected scrupulously), the use of the jet engines of the Gospel Ark would only be tolerated if the vessel happened to be endangered exceptionally by a violent tempest on the Sea of Galilee, in which case the raft could be brought rapidly to the shore, out of harm’s way, and tied up. For the rest of the time, the Gospel Ark was condemned by law to lay calmly at anchor a few hundred meters out from Capernaum. Fortunately, there was a loophole (discovered by a brilliant Messianist lawyer from California) 291

enabling an exceptional ‘house moving’ declaration to be lodged formally with the local authorities. The owners of the buildings on the Gospel Ark would simply indicate that they had taken all the necessary safety precautions to transport their edifices, under escort (a pair of Zodiac dinghies with flashing red lights), from their present place to another specified location on the lake. In fact, it was the same kind of procedure encountered in countries with canals when families residing on barges decide to move to another spot. Since there were no precedents of this kind of operation in Israel, and since there were no water police on the Sea of Galilee to make sure that the moving operations did not infringe the rules of the road, this loophole could be exploited freely. The Messianists, while regretting a certain loss of planned revenues due to their inability to organize a regular tour of the Sea of Galilee for pilgrims aboard the Gospel Ark, realized however that it would be counter-productive from both a public-relations and a spiritual viewpoint if they were to be brought into further violent conflict with the descendants of Peter.

Visitors, having paid their admission in a shoreline kiosk, were rowed out to the Gospel Ark in old-fashioned fishing boats. Once aboard the island, most people simply sat on the grass, in the sun, and meditated upon the idea that they were actually floating on the surface of the Sea of Galilee. Peter Eisenstein had done a fine job of hiring experts capable of transforming his slab of land into a tiny Garden of Eden. Exuberant vegetation aboard the Gospel Ark, imported from every corner of the globe, vied in splendor with that of the legendary gardens of Babylon. As for the two-story stone house that was once a Greek monastery, its lower floor was now a Messianist tourist office and bookshop, while the upper floor had been transformed into a luxury restaurant called The Fish and Loaves. Its specialities were grilled Kinneret sardines and an exotic local fish named musht. A small wood-fueled oven erected against an external wall of the stone building enabled the Messianist chef to bake, not only excellent oatmeal bread, but tasty seafood pizzas.

In his zeal to render the site as attractive as possible, Peter 292

Eisenstein had installed several items of antique sculpture that he had purchased from dealers in France and Italy. One of these was an 18th-century white marble representation of Saint Peter poised in a crouched position suggesting that he was casting his nets upon the waters of the lake. To house it, the Messianists used seashore pebbles to assemble a stone grotto (similar in style to the pizza oven) against the far side of the domed chapel. The final composition bore a sign carved in green marble from Greece: Peter’s Grotto. Inevitably, rumors came into existence almost overnight concerning mysterious events that were alleged to have occurred here, at the feet of the marble fisherman. Messianists from Greece were the first to adopt the habit of crawling up towards the statue on their hands and knees, while crossing themselves profusely. Rapidly, tales of miracles abounded. Peter Eisenstein and his associates were consternated, since they had no desire to see their delightful raft transformed into a Galilean version of Lourdes. On the other hand, it was undeniable that the myth of the miraculous statue was a godsend from a marketing viewpoint. Finally, the Messianists hit upon an ingenious compromise. They laid a rough pavement of angular stones all around the grotto, surrounded by a small wall that visitors had to climb over. This made it physically impossible for excessively pious poor pilgrims to approach the statue on their hands and knees. Besides, a special ticket to the grotto had to be purchased at the kiosk on the mainland, and its relatively high price was only refunded if you went on to dine at The Fish and Loaves. The Messianists were thrilled to discover that the effects of these solutions to their problems were truly miraculous.

✡ Jake flew to Morocco in the Ecureuil, with Aaron and Rachel as passengers, for the official ceremony that marked the start of the Port Sahara project. Sidi Yussan, Minister of Scientific Affairs, and Moussa Idris, Minister of Finance, were waiting—as indicated in a timetable received by Donna Dreyfus—to welcome them. From 293

that moment on, the Australians were treated as guests of the kingdom of Morocco. Within five minutes, they were whisked aboard a large military helicopter that took them to the Atlantic seaside village of Benmansour. As the aircraft circled around the site, passengers were able to look down onto a vast assembly of vessels, vehicles, helicopters and people. There was no doubt that the Moroccans intended to inaugurate their Port Sahara project in an atmosphere of festivity. Jake himself was surprised by this view from inside the aircraft, since he had developed the habit of talking little with outsiders about either the Port Sahara or the Gaza Moat project, and this behavior had led him to imagine that they remained relatively confidential affairs, which was probably no longer the case. He expressed his surprise to Rachel, seated beside him: “Robert Meguid has often sent me messages confirming that they’re having no problems recruiting staff for the Moroccan project, because everybody seems to have heard about Terra’s work. But I still find it hard to believe that we’ve become a kind of popular phenomenon. Maybe a household word...”

“You should have started to realize that things had reached that point after Capernaum,“ laughed Rachel. “Now, don’t make the same faux pas as John Lennon, and start comparing your popularity with that of Jesus Christ.” She kissed Jake tenderly on his left ear, letting him know she was teasing him. Rachel had always been charmed by the absence of the slightest trace of arrogance in Jake’s outlook on his personal achievements. He was certainly aware of the importance of what he had done, and what he was doing, but he always acted as if observers should consider this work as perfectly normal, if not ordinary. Jake never saw himself as deserving credit and praise for his prowess, since his outlook was pervaded perpetually by the unique theme that the engineer named Jacob Rose was no more than what might be termed the right instrument in the right place.

If Jake had had any doubts concerning his personal popularity in Morocco, they could be dispelled by the intensity of the welcome he received when he stepped out of the helicopter, 294

followed by Rachel, Aaron and the Moroccan ministers. Onlookers started to cheer, while a military band broke into the strains of Australia’s Waltzing Matilda. Jake was not sure how he should react, but he decided spontaneously to stand there motionless until the end of the music, as if he were a visiting chief of state awaiting the final bars of his nation’s anthem. Rachel leaned over and shouted with glee into Jake’s ear: “The organizers have done their homework!”

Having ended the music of the celebrated ballad about a sheepstealing vagabond in early Australia, the musicians in their lavish red uniforms broke into the equally jaunting rhythms of Sweet Chariot. Jake decided it was time to move on, for fear of finding himself enrolled in an entire recital, with Waters of Babylon as the next item on the program.

During the day, the Australians had a few brief periods during which they were able to partake in the sumptuous festivities, which ranged from a variety of succulent couscous dishes prepared by several great chefs from Casablanca and Marrakech, through to a thrilling Berber horseback rodeo, and including a nonstop presentation of traditional music and belly dancing. Jake, Rachel and Aaron were obliged however, for professional reasons, to spend most of the day in the mobile control center, alongside Robert Meguid and his Moroccan associates. This, after all, was the first time in history that a revolutionary technique for excavating a canal was being put in action.

The rodeo, the music and the belly dancing halted for a moment, in the middle of the afternoon, when a triumphant announcement in Arabic over the public-address system informed onlookers that the very first chunk of rock, about the size of a house, had just been cut away and floated. Minutes later, it was being tugged out into the Atlantic. All that remained to done, from that point on, was to continue slicing the stone into chunks of that kind, at each extremity of the future waterway, and to carry on floating them out into the open sea, for a total distance of some 240 kilometers. Simple arithmetic indicated that it was a task that 295

would take at least three years.

✡ At the house in Yemin Moshe, Rachel had hired a twenty-yearold Israeli girl named Paula Davidoff to look after Peter, enabling his mother to carry on her professional activities alongside Jake and the others. Paula, a talented cellist born in Arad, was now studying musicology at the Hebrew University, and she had high hopes of starting a concert career. Rachel offered Paula a bedroom at 23 Malki Street, which became her music studio. So, Peter Israel Rose would often be lulled to sleep by a rendering of a suite by Bach.

One day, Rachel had the urge to drive to Bethlehem, to show off her son to Mahomet. Paula Davidoff accompanied her, along with her instrument, since Rachel had begged the young artist to be prepared to play for her old prophet of Bethlehem. And lovely Paula was enthusiastic about this excursion.

As usual, Mahomet was seated on the dusty ground at his usual place, alongside the tomb of Rachel. He would be there until the end of time, unless the location of the tomb of the matriarch happened to change. Or maybe Time itself might stop before either Rachel’s tomb or its protector Mahomet thought it fit to move to another place. One never knows...

“This is my son,” said Rachel, holding baby Peter in her arms.

“His father is Jacob.”

“Jacob turned the rock into a pool of water,” said Mahomet, as if in a dream, evoking an amalgam of the inauguration of the Aqua station at Taba and the marvels of the Chariot Process at Caesarea.

“And the water will flow over the whole world, like at the time of Noah. But, this time, it will not drown the people. The water will not destroy anything, but it will wash away hatred. And the peoples of all the earth will drink water from the rock of the ark.”

The old man paused for half a minute, as if he were meditating upon the vision he had just sketched. Then he placed the palm of 296

his right hand upon the head of Rachel’s child. “Peter is a rock. He will build upon the work of his father Jacob. He will be the captain of Israel.”

Paula Davidoff sat down on a rock alongside the tomb of Rachel, with her cello between her legs. The beautiful young green-eyed girl, with her long black hair floating down in tangled locks over her shoulders, interpreted a melancholy partita in the dusty solitude. Mahomet and the other Palestinians seated around Rachel’s tomb were enthralled, since this was normally a zone of silence. The sounds of Paula’s cello pierced the Judean hills. They may have even raised a little of the eternal dust upon the tomb of the Great Mother.

✡ After a few weeks of intense activity at both ends of the future Moroccan canal, Robert Meguid sent Jake an e-mail informing him that a certain aspect of their excavation project had been, if not neglected, at least underestimated. It had often been said, a little too cursorily, that the chunks of sliced rock would be floated to the estuary and subsequently ‘dumped in the ocean’. Now, the verb ‘dumped’ was misleading in that the chunks were still floating, and there was no obvious way of making them sink anywhere, even if this were a plausible way of getting them out of sight. In fact, the chunks were abandoned in rows about a kilometer from the shore, forming big rafts that drifted around in zones that was carefully chosen because they did not lie in shipping channels. Many elementary precautions were nevertheless taken. Each time that a new chunk was appended to an existing raft, it was attached to adjacent chunks by means of lengths of heavy chain, held in place by steel spikes hammered into the upper surface of the chunks. Flashing red beacons, powered by solar cells, were also positioned around the perimeter of each raft.

With forethought, Jake decided to talk to Zvi Hanak at the Technion about this unexpected outcome of the Chariot Process, 297

which might eventually lead to problems.

“We have systems capable of handling two fundamental dimensions of our operations,” stated Jake. “Slicing rocks into blocks, and making them float...”

“Systems that are likely to be vastly improved soon,” exclaimed Zvi Hanak, proud to hint that he was optimistic about Technion research and development in this domain.

“There’s a third dimension that we’ve simply ignored up until now,” explained Jake. “I’m talking of the possibility of amalgamating a set of discrete floating blocks, produced by the Chariot Process, so that they behave as if they were a single homogeneous body.”

“Are you talking of some kind of cement?” asked Zvi Hanak.

“Fluid glue?”

“I guess you could call it that,” replied Jake pensively, as if he were already conjuring up an answer to the challenge in his imagination. “It would seep in between the various blocks and fill up the gaps. Maybe it should be a variant of the same kind of substance we produce already in the conventional Chariot Process.” It was amusing to hear Jacob Rose using the adjective ‘conventional’ to describe his technology that created floating islands.

“I understand perfectly your enunciation of the challenge,” concluded Zvi Hanak, “and I can see why this missing dimension of the Chariot Process needs to be investigated. Give me time to think about it.”

Giving time to a Technion professor to think about a technological problem was a reliable way to obtain answers, as trustworthy and almost as rapid as hitting a Help button on a computer and waiting for results to be displayed. Jacob Rose was immensely happy that the future of Terra technology was now largely in the hands of Israel’s great institution on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Haifa.

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✡ The inauguration of the Gaza Moat project was a far less spectacular event than the recent festivities in Morocco, since the Israeli authorities were determined to avoid anything that might be interpreted by their neighbors as a provocation. For Palestinians who had obtained information on Israel’s plans, the very idea of isolating the entire Gaza Strip by building a moat around it was already a huge provocation. So, there was no sense in aggravating the affair by celebrating the start of operations. Consequently, only political figures and senior members of the Israeli administration and military were invited along to the seashore, south of Ashkelon, to witness the Chariot Process being set in motion. In any case, Jake and his associates were impressed by the large number of Knesset members who stepped up and introduced themselves during the day.

Once again, Jacob Rose could not mingle for long with the distinguished guests, for he had to present in the control room, accompanied as usual by Rachel and Aaron, alongside George Thiatikos and Enzo Florini, for this was the start of a huge and complicated technological and political adventure. At a technical level, the Gaza Moat project had to unfold in a perfectly planned manner, otherwise all hell could break loose.

When Jake and his associates indicated that the countdown was at minus five minutes, a hush fell over the assembled onlookers, and the Prime Minister of the state of Israel started a short speech, whose English translation was beamed into the control room: “Our nation and our people remain unhappy and disillusioned to discover—day in, day out—that we continue to be surrounded by mortal enemies who would like to destroy us, who would translate their foul wishes into terrorist acts if only they were able to penetrate our frontiers. Sadly, we are forced to admit that the greatest threats come from Gaza. And that is why we are devoting our greatest resources to handling these threats. This gigantic waterway that Israel will be building, with the help of friends from 299

the other side of the planet Earth, will hopefully prevent, or at least attenuate, the infiltration of undesirable foreign agents, intent upon murder, into the Holy Land.”

A specimen of the no-man’s-land between Israel and Gaza was thereupon transformed into a giant floating block, which was promptly tugged out into the Mediterranean. As in Morocco, all that remained to be done, from that point on, was to carry on excavating patiently the future Gaza Moat, from both extremities, over a total distance of about 190 kilometers. It was calculated that completion of the task would take three years.

✡ Technion researchers were now working enthusiastically and optimistically on possible evolutions of the three fundamental pillars of Terra/Aqua technology: the laser-based Slicer for cutting through rock, the Chariot Process for augmenting the buoyancy of such rock, and the desalination system based upon geneticallymodified seaweed. Following Jake’s recent concern about the need for some kind of magical high-tech glue capable of amalgamating discrete floating fragments produced by the Chariot Process, this fourth item had been added to the agenda of challenges.

On the Technion side, Zvi Hanak was the coordinator of all of these projects, but the actual research and development work was performed under the supervision of four technical chiefs.

On the edge of the Dead Sea, at Ein Gedi, Mihal Ben-Dor had been assisted financially by funds from Terra headquarters in Australia to set up a laboratory aimed at exploring possible evolutions of the Chariot Process. Hakim Bensala had shipped across tons of antiquated equipment from the West Fusion junkyard in Tangier enabling Mihal’s team to set up a makeshift drilling platform out in the middle of the acrid waters of the Dead Sea, and to pump seabed gas back to the shore at Ein Gedi through a thick red rubber pipeline, which floated spontaneously—like many objects—on the surface of the sea. Inside her laboratory, Mihal used an experimental system whose basic technical 300

specifications and associated computer software had been sent to her by Jake’s professor at Curtin, Julius Stokes. This system, whose hardware had been implemented by the Dimonax firm in Beer-Sheva, subjected the Dead Sea gases to countless tests to determine their potential as a substitute for the product used up until now by Jacob Rose for his Chariot Project. Results were encouraging, in the sense that Mihal soon discovered, not surprisingly, that gases obtained at the bottom of the Dead Sea were at least as effective as those being used presently in the reactions of the Chariot Process. But Mihal Ben-Dor was determined to explore the possibility of improving the process significantly from both a quantitative and a qualitative viewpoint.

Alongside Mihal Ben-Dor, another Technion woman, a chemical engineer named Sylvia Chamoun, had been placed in charge of the so-called glue quest, designated officially as a project whose code name was Chariot Amalgamation.

A Technion physicist named Eliyahu Aharoni was in charge of the research and development unit concerned with the Slicer device. Years ago, the prototype version of this laser device had been conceived and built in a backyard garage environment by Jacob Rose and Robert Meguid, exploiting their aptitude to build upon the achievements of other inventors and electronics manufacturers. In other words, neither Jake nor Robert could rightly claim that they had invented the Slicer. They had simply assembled a working model of the device in much the same way that amateur hobbyists, once upon a time, used to follow plans in magazines to build radios, hi-fi amplifiers or even basic computers.

So, the field was wide open for Eliyahu Aharoni to imagine an immensely more powerful tool. To do so, he needed an oldfashioned stone quarry, of the kind that existed all over the Holy Land ever since biblical times. A seaside site below Rosh HaNiqra, at the northern tip of Israel, provided an ideal solution. Abandoned decades ago when Israeli workers were constantly liable to be the target of rockets from Lebanon, this quarry still contained a colossal volume of valuable sandstone. Consequently, Technion administrators had figured wisely that the expense of setting up 301

Aharoni’s experimental workshop at that place would be recovered later on by the sale of the stone blocks produced by his devices. In fact, the creativeness of Eliyahu Aharoni had been underestimated by his employer. Within a few months, advanced versions of the Slicer were producing so many superb blocks of sandstone at Rosh HaNiqra that the Technion had to call upon their academic colleagues at the prestigious Hebrew School of Business in Tel Aviv to incite members of their alma mater to create rapidly a commercial structure capable of handling this manna.

Avram Moreno and Benny Segal had decided, with the approval of Jake and Rachel, that the most convenient place for research and development concerning the possibility of a miniaturized kit approach to the Aqua system would be Taba. The prototype station was functioning perfectly and its output could be increased, if the weather were exceptionally dry, in order to supply an appreciable volume of fresh water to the region around the city of Eilat. For the moment, there was no such need to boost the production of the station. Besides, the plant was spacious, making it easy to install parallel equipment here. So, Yossi Gesher and two assistants from the Technion were at ease in testing numerous variations of the Aqua approach using many varieties of genetically-modified plants that might be capable of producing the same effects as Australian seaweed. Fortunately, they did not need to go as far as actually producing fresh water, since the liquid surrounding the experimental plants could be analyzed immediately in a laboratory context, by chemical means, to determine whether any kind of desalination process had been induced. After several weeks of experimentation, Yossi was convinced that the most promising botanical agent was a native reed that grew in saline swamps on the outskirts of the Dead Sea.

âœĄ Several months later, the four excavation units in Morocco and around Gaza had advanced a dozen or so kilometers inland, and everything was taking place as planned. Jake visited the four sites 302

regularly in his Ecureuil, accompanied most often by Rachel, Aaron or Martin Luria. After one such excursion, to the camp of George Thiatikos in Egypt, Rachel had a sudden inspiration, which she immediately submitted to the others: “Even though they’re living as nomads in the middle of the desert, their mobile homes are so well-equipped in every way that we shouldn’t feel sorry for them,” said Rachel. Maybe her phrase ‘in every way’ was inspired by the fact that George Thiatikos happened to be sharing his luxurious caravan with a splendid young Egyptian girl named Rika whom he had encountered on the beach one day when he stepped ashore from a dinghy, to the south of Gaza, after having anchored the Black Swan. “They’re surely leading far better lives, in every sense of the expression, than people who have to catch a suburban train every morning to go to the office, and another one in the evening to come home.”

“Thank God that nobody has ever asked Terra to develop a miraculous process to handle rush-hour traffic,” said Jake flippantly, while wondering what kind of rabbit Rachel was about to pull out of her magician’s hat.

“The thing that strikes me, whenever we drop in on one of the excavation settlements,” said Rachel, “is the fact that it would take so little to transform a mobile camp into an authentic home away from home.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘so little’?” asked Martin Luria.

“I don’t suppose you’re talking about a flower garden in the middle of the front lawn, or a swimming pool in the back yard.”

“Well, I am... at least to a certain extent,” objected Rachel. “I keep on thinking to myself that there must be some kind of technology making it possible to render the physical setting of a residence just as mobile as the house itself. If we can move the four walls and the roof, why can’t we also move yards and gardens?”

“I think I see what you man,” said Jake, who had never once failed to see everything that Rachel had meant, on all occasions.

“You’re saying that environmental features such as lawns, flower 303

patches and vegetable plots should be just as mobile as the residence.”

“I’m thinking in particular about utilitarian aspects of the situation, such as fresh vegetables,” explained Rachel, “rather than purely aesthetic things such as lawns and flowers. All I’m saying, I guess, is that it would be wonderful if our engineers could plant a row of tomatoes alongside their residence, for example, when they’re settled at a place five kilometers inland, then water their plants a week later, when they’ve moved a further kilometer inland, and finally pick the fruit, weeks later, when their residence has moved much further on. Do you see what I mean?”

“You’re evoking a concept that has always interested some of my former colleagues at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute in Sede Boqer,” concluded Martin. “They used to refer to it as nomadic horticulture. That’s to say, the idea that a garden capable of growing flowers or vegetables might have the general characteristics of a mobile entity such as a caravan, instead of being planted in a fixed spot. In the beginning, they were wondering to what extent a Bedouin might be able to sow vegetables alongside his tent in the desert. Over time, the nature of the challenge has shifted towards a concept that might be referred to as ‘fast’ horticulture, except that this word brings to mind socalled fast food.”

“I hope they’re not thinking of quick and dirty techniques that use massive quantities of noxious fertilizers,” complained Rachel, who had never acquired the habit of consuming tasteless French fries with the texture of soggy pastry.

“On the contrary,” replied Martin. “Their primary challenge is quality and savor. The word ‘fast’ merely indicates that the goal of high-quality produce should be attained as rapidly as possible, in an almost automatic fashion, without necessitating all the skills of an experienced gardener with time on his hands, and soil that he has been reworking for many seasons.”

“In concrete terms, what would one of their fast gardens actually look like?” asked Jake.

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“We’re talking of a hypothetical device that probably doesn’t exist yet,” warned Martin, “neither at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute nor anywhere else in the world. It would probably look like a mobile greenhouse, which could be towed easily behind a four-wheel drive vehicle. This more-or-less closed system might contain little that reminds us of the old-fashioned stuff called soil.

Instead, plants would receive their nourishment directly, in a perfectly-controlled manner, and their evolution would be constantly monitored by means of instruments powered by the same solar captors that warm the greenhouse. The environment would be totally parameterized, and it could be modified as a function of what kind of produce the user wishes to obtain. The device could be purchased in the form of a kit, and ordinary folk could use the Internet to find out how to assemble the unit and then use it to grow fabulous vegetables.”

“Hey, I’d like to place an order immediately for half a dozen of those things,” exclaimed Jake, laughingly. “Two for our settlements in Morocco. Two for our Gaza settlements. One for the backyard at Sedot Yam. And the last one for Rachel and Peter in Malki Street.”

✡ The first major breakthrough in Technion research and development came from Yossi Gesher down at Taba. As he had imagined with astonishing intuition, right from the start, the exotic genetically-modified Australian seaweed in the Aqua approach could be replaced effectively by common reeds of the kind that grew naturally in many places, not only in Israel, but throughout the entire Red Sea region.

“This plant is part of our biblical heritage,” explained Yossi Gesher, at the start of a demonstration in Taba for Jacob Rose and an assembly of concerned spectators, including Benny Segal, Avram Moreno and members of the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute.

“Contrary to what readers of translations of the Torah imagine, it wasn’t the Red Sea whose waters parted, enabling the Hebrews to 305

escape from Pharaoh’s troops, who were subsequently drowned. It was simply a sea of reeds: that’s to say, a saline swamp filled with reeds, probably located down in the vicinity of Suez, on the edge of the real Red Sea.” “That’s great, Yossi,” exclaimed Rachel jubilantly. “Not only have you discovered a fabulous solution that revolutionizes the desaliation process; you’re also teaching us how to read the Bible!”

“Here in Israel, my dear Rachel,” replied Yossi, “reading the Bible has always been a kind of universal pastime... like lying on the beach back in your native Australia.” Everybody laughed, including Rachel. She got on well with Yossi, and did not mind to find him making fun of her in this lighthearted way. After all, she admitted freely that none of the four members of her generation had ever received any kind of serious religious instruction, which often caused her to feel like a proverbial Philistine in many Israeli settings, where people were generally enlightened at this level.

“It’s the same reed plant that the Egyptians used to manufacture papyrus,” explained Martin Luria. “Genus Juncus. Family Juncaeae. In English, we often refer to these plants as rushes. The Bible often calls them bulrushes.”

“When we got around to using various specimens of these common reeds in the same role as Aqua’s seaweed,” said Yossi Gesher, “we discovered with amazement that it appears to yield even better results than your complex Australian organism.”

People in the audience—including Rachel and Jake—chuckled when they heard the friendly young researcher from the Technion referring to seaweed, in a slightly ironical fashion, as a ‘complex Australian organism’. True enough, a lot of sophisticated genetic engineering had been performed in Western Australia, financed to a large extent by Amos Kahn, in order to invent a laboratory plant that produced miraculous results of the same kind, so it would seem, as those accomplished by a common biblical reed. As people once thought, the Antipodean world was indeed upside-down.

“As you can imagine, I was the first person to be amazed by 306

Yossi’s laboratory findings,” said Avram Moreno. “You might say I grew up in the rushes, in my birthplace on the outskirts of Eilat, but I would have never imagined they concealed any kind of power to make sea water drinkable. To learn that, I had to participate in the giant circle of communications that stretched out to Australia and finally came back here to Israel.”

“I should make it quite clear,” said Yossi, “that the Aqua process is much more than the mere seaweed, which wouldn’t achieve anything at all if you simply threw it into a tub of sea water. The extraordinary originality of the technique invented in Australia concerns the ways in which the plant is used as a catalysis agent in the context of a sophisticated computercontrolled process. From that point of view, I haven’t changed anything of a fundamental nature. But I’ve miniaturized everything. Above all, the prototype system I’m showing you today could be purchased, in principle, in kit form in an ordinary hardware store. Then it would be assembled at a seaside location, using simple instructions in a guidebook, and operated like an ordinary tap. Later on, if the owner wanted to do so, the unit could be disassembled and moved to another location.”

“Can you show us a copy of the guidebook?” asked a researcher from Sede Boqer, who belonged to the generation of scientists who still imagined that a book was necessarily an object made out of paper.

“I was using term ‘book’ in a metaphorical sense,” replied Yossi. “All the required information is avilable on the Internet. Of course, you can print it out on paper if you wish to do so.” Saying this, Yossi leaned down and switched on a nearby computer, whose output was displayed on a large screen by means of a video projector. The audience met up with pages from a user’s manual concerning a prototype device named the Spring.

“Do you have any facts concerning the possible marketing of such a product?” asked Martin Luria. “Has anyone been able to give you an idea of its likely cost price?”

“Yes, I’ve had a few interesting conversations on this subject 307

with the Dimonax people in Beer-Sheva,” replied Yossi Gesher.

“They reckon the kit could be sold, say, for a couple of hundred dollars. So, we’re faced with a promising commercial product. As some of you know, Rachel’s father Amos Kahn acted generously towards the Technion by making us a donation of the existing patents. Today, it goes without saying that the Technion would be very happy if Aqua were prepared to work with Dimonax so that the outcome of our recent research and development could be implemented within a commercial structure. I’m sure you’ll all agree that it’s a sound venture, which could become quite lucrative.”

✡ Three months later, at Caesarea, Donna Dreyfus and Martin Luria handled the practical organization of an unusual festival that would be taking place, over a period of several days and nights, aboard Herod’s Floating Palace, which would be tugged exceptionally from inside its marina and taken out a few hundred meters onto the open sea. There, a few dozen Spring kits—the first to be manufactured by the Dimonax factory in Beer-Sheva, and packaged by the Aqua firm in Eilat—would be unpacked and installed by boys and girls from schools in Caesarea. The taps would then be turned on ceremoniously by Ari Hillel and senior members of the Israeli government, and fresh water would be left running from these Spring systems until Herod’s pool was overflowing.

The event, whose major moments were relayed over Israeli television, was a huge success from every point of view. An armada of spectator boats thronged around the raft as it was tugged out to sea in the early morning. People on these boats cheered as navy dinghies conveyed the schoolchildren out to the raft, each team bringing with it a pile of cardboard boxes containing components of their precious Spring kit. Other dinghies transported no children at all, only further piles of cardboard boxes. The Spring kit might be low-priced, but customers certainly 308

got a lot for their money in the way of the number and volume of cardboard boxes. The reason for this was simple: Most of the big boxes held plastic containers that protected luxuriant reed specimens, growing in a rich nutritive magma. Helicopters flew down low over the raft so that photographers and cameramen could obtain images of the children eagerly assembling their desalination systems, as if they were in a race to be the first team to complete the installation of a Spring device. More applause cme from the spectator boats, combined with a little heckling, when Ari Hillel and his distinguished parliamentarians started to step aboard Herod’s Floating Palace.

Aaron Rose was responsible for the excellent idea of installing a line of giant video screens along the Caesarea seafront, and linking each screen to a particular team of schoolchildren. In this way, in the course of the morning, crowds of Caesarea citizens assembled around the various screens to watch their children, out on the raft, assembling carefully their Spring device. For ordinary parents, there was something magic in the idea that their children were capable of putting together a revolutionary system that was capable of transforming the sea into drinkable water. Many proud parents chose to ignore the obvious fact that their children were simply following blindly certain clear instructions they had obtained by means of their portable computers, without really understanding anything at all. These parents preferred to see their offspring as wizards of a new order, capable of performing miracles. The most stirring part of the assembly process, for parents watching the video screens, was when they saw their children unpacking the reeds and lining them up in their assigned slots in a large transparent tub. Seeing the familiar face of a child emerging from among the rushes was a magic moment for a mother or a father. The reeds themselves were anachronistic in this high-tech environment. One had the impression that the images might have belonged to an ancient scenario in which Pharaoh’s daughter had just stepped into the water and discovered baby Moses in the bulrushes.

As soon as all the Spring systems had been completed, and 309

were about to be turned on for the first time, Ari Hillel delivered an inaugural speech: “Once again, we are gathered here at Caesarea to inaugurate a marvel of technology, which is a joint effort between the dynamic Terra Corporation on the other side of the planet and Israel’s prestigious Technion. Back in the second century of the Common Era, when Caesarea was still the capital of the Romans, whose role was nevertheless waning, the occupants were extremely proud of their great aqueduct that brought water to the city from the source of the River of Crocodiles, nine kilometers to the north. Their engineering was so impeccable that the gentle slope of the stone channel, almost imperceptible over those nine kilometers, enabled the water to roll down calmly to Caesarea under the effect of gravity alone. Today, the technology that enables us to obtain fresh water here on Herod’s Floating Palace is based, not upon gravity, but upon human intelligence and imagination, which are forces in the Cosmos more powerful than those of blind Nature, for they alone can contemplate Creation and see in it the constant presence of the Maker.”

On the video screens, the president of the Israel Antiquities Authority could then be seen leaning down to turn on the first tap.

Water gushed forth from it, whereupon Ari Hillel filled a glass and drank from it, while people on the spectator boats cheered. All the other taps were then turned on, one by one, by the politicians who accompanied Hillel. Aqua’s familiar theme song started to blare out through loudspeakers: By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down And there we wept when we remembered Zion...

Ari Hillel and his guests were then taken back to the mainland, followed by the schoolchildren with their piles of empty cardboard boxes. Meanwhile, people from the spectator boats started scrambling up onto the raft to obtain a closer view of what was happening. Although the taps were all pouring out their maximal yield, Herod’s pool was big, and would take a long time to be filled. Several excited individuals jumped in and splashed about in 310

the shallow water, while others danced around the edge of the pool.

Thoughout the entire day, all these happenings gave rise to regular news bulletins on Israeli television. As night fell, many people continued to dance on Herod’s Floating Palace, now illuminated by giant lamps powered by a generator installed at the extremity of the raft. By that time, it might be said that few people who watched TV could ignore the fact that children had created great joy, that day, by their astounding acts of wizardry, which had transformed the sea into fresh water to fill up Herod’s pool in Caesarea.

✡ The festivities were over. Terra people in Morocco and around the Gaza Strip were now embarked upon a period of steady hard work, normally scheduled to last for several years. One had the impression that the exciting pioneering period during which Jacob Rose and his associates had to make a name for themselves in this part of world was no doubt drawing to an end. The excitement, from now on, would be of a different, more profound, order. There was great work in progress, and the primary challenge consisted of making sure that this work was performed in an optimal fashion, in the traditional style of the Terra Corporation. This meant that Jake and his associates had to be constantly vigilant, since there was always the anguishing possibility that somebody might throw a spanner into the works, either deliberately, out of hatred or jealousy, or fortuitously, as was the case when Sarah Luria died in Jerusalem.

Above all, the two waterways were advancing slowly but surely, in a perfectly efficient manner. This was the essential prerequisite for the stability of Jake’s enterprise. That was the keyword: stability. Jacob Rose had developed the habit of employing constantly this term in a leitmotif fashion. In Jake’s mind, this concept of stability underlined his personal conviction that he was henceforth surrounded by an excellent company of 311

friendly and talented people, and that nothing whatsoever should disrupt this precious harmony. It was an intriguing fact, visible to casual observers, that Jacob Rose appeared to be bound by links of affection to every one of the many individuals who surrounded him, with no single exception. In trivial terms, it could be said that Jake existed within a big friendly family. Aboard the giant Terra vessel that he had launched since arriving in Israel, Jacob Rose was determined that every present crew member and passenger should remain abord. But the captain was not yet capable of supplying them with details concerning the future voyage.

From time to time, Jake and Rachel would invite Aaron and Anne to dinner evenings at the house in Malki Street during which the four partners would review the state of their worldly existence, which often consisted essentially of counting their many blessings.

It was never a matter of gloating upon the popular success of their operations or felicitating themselves upon the ways in which their activities seemed to be evolving, but rather a question of making sure—in the intimacy of their family group—that nothing was being neglected, and that everything was beseder, in order. These encounters would drag on inevitably until late in the night, while the cellist Paula Davidoff and baby Peter Israel Rose slept in an adjacent bedroom. And often, instead of driving back to their flat in Jaffa, Aaron and Anne would simply bed down for the night in Yemin Moshe.

On one such occasion, Jake asked his sister-in-law a direct question: “Does David Laban ever give you his direct thoughts concerning the financial stability of Terra in Israel and Morocco?”

“He never stops finding pretexts to inform me of his huge confidence,” replied Anne. “In fact, I often have the impression that he stops short of saying all that he believes—in a positive sense, of course—because he has a double image of me: on the one hand, a collaborator in his firm, and on the other, a member of the Rose/Kahn family group. To call a spade a spade, he’s no doubt a little embarrassed, in an innocent way, to realize that the firm 312

acquired its Terra contract because a junior employee put him in contact with her husband’s uncle, who happened to be the president of the Terra Corporation;” “What you’re saying, darling,” interrupted Aaron lightheartedly, “is that, if David Laban were to find himself saying too many nice things to you about Terra, he would feel obliged to give you a huge raise.”

“Oh, I’ve never felt cheated at Laban Associates from a salary viewpoint,” said Anne, who was actually contributing by far the greater part of the combined income of Aaron’s household. “Only yesterday, David told me he’d just sent Patrick Grady a hugelypositive summary of the current state of Terra affairs. Apparently he forwarded a paper copy of this analysis up to Donna Dreyfus up at the Sedot Yam office. So, you’ll soon know more about David’s judgments than I do. But I’m sure you won’t be demoralized.”

“Talking about Patrick and Leah,” said Rachel, frowning in make-believe puzzlement, “my little finger informs me that there might well be a major event on the horizon that has nothing to do with earth-moving. In her recent e-mails, my sister has been throwing in tiny unexpected questions about how I’m taking care of Peter, and those kinds of things.”

“I’ve often wondered what Patrick and Leah really thought when they learned that Rachel and I were unmarried lovers and that we had a child,” pondered Jake. “On the surface, they certainly seemed to forgive us our sins, as Christians say, and share our happiness and sense of fulfillment. But I’ve never known what they truly thought about the relationship between Rachel and me.”

“I think I can put your mind at rest,” said Anne. “Besides Uncle Amos, I’ve always been captivated by the beauty and depth of his sister Rebecca, the mother of Aaron and Jake. In Australia, we became instant friends. You recall her emotional words, here in this house, just after their arrival in the Holy Land, when Rebecca told us all about the massive force of what it meant to be a Jewish mother. Rebecca remains a little outside the Internet circuit, but she ends up seeing everything that’s going on. Often, when my 313

husband is roaming around Israel for his Tribe operations, searching for images and interviews, I’ve got into the habit of phoning up my mother-in-law during the late-night time slot when people in Australia and Israel are still up and about. And we chat together about all kinds of things, because we seem to understand each other. Rebecca reminded me that she was a juvenile passenger on the Memphis Star, when Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn fleed with their families from Nazi Europe. Rebecca told me how she and her childhood friend Nahum would prostrate themselves together under the tarpaulins on the prow of the aging vessel, playing at hide-and-seek, while Amos tried to find them.

Later, on the shores of the Swan River at their new-world homeplace in Western Australia named Anvers, the adolescent Rebecca Kahn was a little troubled by the fact that she was actually falling in love with her childhood friend Nahum Rose, with whom she used to play hide-and-seek. Whenever she dived naked into the warm waters of the Swan, and snuggled up alongside the muscly body of Nahum, Rebecca felt that some kind of obscure incest might be at play. ‘I was almost his sister,’ she once said to me. But this didn’t worry her too much. And it certainly didn’t dissuade Rebecca from marrying Nahum in a Perth synagogue and procreating the fine men we know.”

“In any case, our elders are in fine shape,” concluded Aaron.

“And they’re immensely happy to learn that great adventures are unfolding for us in the Holy Land and elsewhere. They seem to be following events as if they were an exciting series of real time movies.”

“You mention the legendary Memphis Star,” remarked Rachel.

“Strangely, Leah and Patrick never say a word about two mythical vessels in Western Australia that played a huge role in the background of all of us. First, there’s the splendid Haifa, which was surely the fastest yacht in Fremantle. Then, of course, there was the Gypsy.”

“Maybe they’re simply taking precautions not to make us homesick,” observed Jake, with a wry smile. “In any case, there’s 314

no place in our present lives for nostalgia. Leah and Patrick are perfectly aware that we’ve moved on now to greater vessels.”

“On the subject of greater vessels,” said Aaron, “I’m delighted to inform you that I have great hopes concerning the film I’m editing at present on the theme of filling Herod’s pool at Caesarea with fresh water. After a lot of thought, I’ve chosen a long and clumsy title. Donna Dreyfus tells me it doesn’t look good from a marketing viewpoint, but I prefer to hold on to it: They turned the rock into a pool of water! The vague subject ‘they’ is frankly annoying. Nobody knows whether we’re talking of the Aqua firm, or Uncle Amos, or the Technion, or the schoolchildren of Caesarea, or Jake and the Terra Corporation, or maybe even Yahveh and his Elohim. All we know is that the undefined they were responsible for the huge success of the recent event at Caesarea, which was aired nonstop on Israeli TV.” “Does it really matter,” asked Jacob Rose, “if we don’t know what prime forces are driving us onward? Things have been happening in the Cosmos for a long time now, without anybody ever coming along and asking us poor humans to draw up a technical report about the nature of events. We should remain humble.”

“The loveliest cases of genuine humility I’ve ever encountered, “ exclaimed Rachel, “are those of Barbara Weizmann and Rudi Kaplan. I adore these people. Barbara has so many academic titles in her professional baggage that she could treat us all as amateur nitwits. As for Rudi, he seems to have enough cash on hand to envisage a financial takeover of a firm such as Aqua. But they’re not the sort of individuals who would seek to inflict any kind of harm or distress upon their brethren. On the contrary, these two Jews are pure specimens of the mentality of the magnificent Sermon on the Mount.”

“Barbara often talks to me about Jake,” added Aaron, “as if he were a superb suntanned lifesaver on the beach of Caesarea who had dashed into the surf to rescue her ancient stone palace, in danger of drowning. Excuse me for being uncouth, but I often 315

wonder whether she didn’t have in mind vague visions of mouthto-mouth resuscitation.”

“Don’t me stupid,” exclaimed Rachel, reacting comically as if she were outraged. “She doesn’t need Jake. Haven’t you noticed the manly presence of her old rock named Rudi?”

“What about the second raft, at Capernaum?” asked Anne.

“Now that the project is successfully terminated, has anybody ever succeeded in learning what it’s all about?”

“Dan Shal once said to me, philosophically, that certain wrecked ships should never be raised,” remarked Jake. “They hide so many nasty secrets that they’re better left lying on the floor of the ocean, for eternity. In the case of the Messianist Gospel Ark, I must admit that I’ve asked myself on countless occasions whether it should have ever been launched, and whether I should have participated in that launching. It was a crazy affair, from the beginning to the end. But I often feel that we’re all crazy, not only Peter Eisenstein and his wealthy friends. In any case, I don’t regret anything. That relatively absurd operation enabled me to test various technological hypotheses in a real-world environment. In doing so, Terra didn’t lose any money. On the contrary, we were left with quite a lot of cash at the end of that affair, not to mention the countless tons of marketing benefits.

“In another domain,” said Anne, “we’ve been wondering at Laban Asssociates how Avram Moreno is reacting to the revolutionary evolutions in the desalination system.”

“OK, it’s a fact that Avram is no longer in quite the same business that he imagined when his Siloam enterprise first thought about exploiting my father’s seaweed process,” explained Rachel.

“But he hasn’t lost any feathers in this affair. On the contrary.

Instead of retaining its affiliations with Terra, our Aqua partnership pays royalties to the Technion for every Spring kit it sells. And they’re selling like hot cakes, all over the Middle East.”

“And our dear friend Benny Segal, in the middle of all that action?” enquired Aaron. “What’s he doing exactly, these days, apart from wrapping up boxes of bulrushes?”

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“You shouldn’t joke about industrial necessities in this fabulous domain,” said Rachel. “The truth of the matter is that Benny has indeed become the chief gardener in charge of Aqua’s reed parks down in Eilat, where the ingredients of the Spring kit are assembled. He still resides permanently in a private studio at the Coral Beach Hotel, where his partner Edouard Simon is training him to become a great chef. The latest gastronomical news is that Benny has been been wandering around the sandhills of the Negev and collecting desert herbs that Edouard is incorporating in his inventions.”

“I’ve never had any doubts about Benny’s capacity of finding an ideal place in society, because he’s a truly brilliant guy,” explained Jake. “The case that has alway concerned me more is that of Martin Luria. Ever since Sarah’s death, I’ve always been alarmed by the thought that Martin might transform himself into an inert block of memory. Today, it’s safe to say that this has not been the case.”

“Up in their makeshift lodgings at the Sedot Yam kibbutz, Martin and his children had to endure the daily calvary of realizing that Sarah was no longer there,” said Rachel. “None of us can know how they got through this terrible trial. We made an effort to inform their neighbors in Caesarea concerning the tragedy, and ask them to be compassionate towards the Luria family, but we couldn’t really achieve very much in the context of such a loss. All I can say today is that Martin, David and Lisa seem to have survived in one way or another. They’re convinced above all that the forces that annihilated Sarah were so blindly absurd that there’s no point in directing animosity today against any particular adversary. Rather than any particular evil man or woman, their enemy is the Devil.”

“Be that as it may,” reacted Aaron, “if I were to find myself face-to-face with the guy who blasted Sarah’s face away, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment. I would kill him.”

“We Israelis are stuck with that eye-for-an-eye reputation,” said Anne, “but there’s no such mentality within the ranks of Tsahal.

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Affairs are handled in an almost antiseptic manner, with no apparent spirit of revenge. When I was a member of the Israeli security forces, I soon learned what my comrades thought about individuals who perpetrated terrorist acts. Whenever we identified a culprit with absolute certainty, he wouldn’t normally spend a lot more time on the surface of the planet Earth. He would simply be removed in one way or another, with as little fuss as possible. But we would never sing and dance about his disappearance.”

“In the domain of terrorism,” said Rachel, “isn’t it surprising that we haven’t had any incidents whatsoever in the vicinity of the Gaza Moat? Does this mean that they simply don’t understand what’s taking place, or is it that they simply don’t care?”

“It’s probably a bit of both,” replied Jake. “There are so many rumors running around concerning the purpose of the excavations that observers really don’t know what to believe. Many Palestinians spread the notion that we might be digging in order to install banks of rockets aimed against the people of Gaza. Then, when they saw that the Mediterranean was flowing into our excavations, and creating the start of a waterway, they no longer knew what to believe. So, they ceased to be excited about our operations.”

“There’s another aspect of the situation that is surely playing a role in discouraging terrorism directed against the Terra excavators around Gaza,” observed Anne. “The mobile settlements of George Thiatikos and Enzo Florini are being protected day and night by the finest unit of Tsahal. For a prospective Palestinian suicidebomber, it would be frankly suicidal to even attempt to get near George or Enzo and their teams.”

“Talking about desert settlements,” said Jake, “I forgot to tell you that Martin Luria was absolutely enthralled, in his typically quiet manner, by Rachel’s recent remarks about the notion of mobile vegetable gardens. A few days ago, he told me that his former colleagues at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute have set up a working group on this theme. They’re looking into the idea of creating an association, maybe even a firm, to be known as Manna.

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I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, because things are still in a planning state, but I’m told that that Manna will be dedicated to the memory of Sarah Stavros, and that they intend to ask Rachel to be their president.” Rachel Kahn blushed with emotion, without uttering a word. The ensuing silence was broken by a question from Aaron: “Is everything happening as planned in Morocco?”

“As you can well imagine, I’m in constant contact, seven days a week, with Robert Meguid,” replied Jake, “and everything appears to be advancing perfectly. I also get a lot of feedback from Hakim Bensala in Gibraltar, who tells me that the Moroccan sovereign himself is tremendously enthusiastic about the Port Sahara project. Apparently, they’re getting into the habit of talking about the entire region to the north of our future waterway as if it were an autonomous province. Many Moroccans are already starting to refer to it by a new name: Berberia.”

“Here on the home front, in Israel,” asked Rachel, “do we have any encouraging news from our Technion partners?”

“At a global level, Zvi Hanak keeps us constantly informed of the progress of their research and development,” replied Jake.

“Donna Dreyfus receives this information up at our Sedot Yam offices, then she dispatches it to Martin, who forwards the significant stuff both to me and to Fremantle. All in all, the progress reports are highly encouraging. The other day, I dropped down to Ein Gedi to take a look at the activities of Mihal BenDor’s team. They’re doing some great research work, in a fabulous landscape of palm trees growing on the edge of a white world of brine. Mihal took me out in a rubber dinghy to have a look at the weird drilling platform they’ve set up in the middle of the Dead Sea, using bits and pieces supplied by Hakim Bensala. Seen from a distance, it looks like the tail end of an airiner that has nose-dived into the lake. Everything is caked with salt. Mihal told me that their major task, before assembling anything, consisted of coating every single piece of steel with special paint designed to minimize corrosion. Safety precautions are maximal, too, to avoid the risk of 319

people falling into the brine. But the seabed gas is being extracted successfully at a trial level, and experiments in Mihal’s laboratory on the shore at Ein Gedi suggest that this product can be used with great efficiency in their latest version of the Chariot Process.”

“And the amalgamation woman?” asked Aaron, referring to the Technion researcher named Sylvia Chamoun who was faced with the challenge of finding a technique to weld floating fragments into artificial islands.

“Zvi Hanak informed me the other day,” replied Jake, “that Sylvia is looking into the possibility of incorporating industrial coal ash into fissures, and then cementing it in place by means of the usual technology employed in the Chariot Process. Whichever way we look at it, the notion of amalgamating separate blocks so that they form a single piece will involve a lot of conventional earth-moving methods involving trucks and mechanical shovels.

Let’s say that it will always be far easier for Terra to cut up land into pieces than to weld them together again.”

“Hearing you talk,” remarked Aaron, “I’m reminded of the technique used by ship-builders to increase the capacity of an existing petroleum tanker. They simply cut it in two and then insert a new piece in the middle.”

Rachel turned to Anne, who had been silent for quite some time.

“Forgive us for all this technical Terra talk. At home in Australia, the Rose/Kahn kids were accustomed to hearing their fathers talking constantly about dynamite and bulldozers and earth-moving work in the outback. But it must be rather boring for you.”

“No, not at all,” replied Anne, hugging Rachel tenderly to thank her for her consideration. “I was just saying to myself that it’s wonderful for me to be surrounded by strong-willed individuals like the three of you, who are constantly intent upon changing the world, and making it a better place to live in. In fact, if I’m silent, it’s simply because I’ve been waiting for a lull in this evening’s intense discussions to make a tiny announcement in a different domain. This morning, my doctor told me I’m pregnant.”

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12 Dreams The office of Donna Dreyfus at the Sedot Yam kibbutz in Caesarea continued to be used as a convenient address for professional correspondence concerning Terra activities in Israel and Morocco. Media-oriented contacts used the Tribe address of the flat of Aaron Rose and his wife in Jaffa, while administrative and legal mail concerning Terra arrived at the offices of David Laban in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, Jacob Rose, on his visiting cards and personal stationery, had got into the habit of using the address of the house in Jerusalem: 23 Malki Street, Yemin Moshe. He also included this address in his e-mail signature, and it was here that he received many letters of a non-professional kind, much of which was ‘fan mail’ from members of the public who had heard about Jake’s exploits through the media. Rachel, acting as a filter, would browse through such mail and redirect it, if necessary, to Donna or Aaron, or simply set it aside for Jake to read. Finally, much correspondence had to be redirected through the Internet to either Robert Meguid in Morocco or George Thiatikos and Enzo Florini aboard the Black Swan, alongside Gaza. In other words, the question of communications played a fundamental role in the Middle Eastern cosmos of Jacob Rose and his family and associates.

Rachel opened a handwritten envelope and discovered with joy a short letter that had been written in naive English by an aged Israeli named Yohanan Navon, living in Haifa: My dear Jacob Rose, I am 88 and I am hearing of you through TV and I am saying to myself that maybe you are descended from Yitzhak and Anna of Antwerpen. And I like for you to 321

come and see me in Haifa, if you have the time.

Shalom, Yohanan Navon

12 Derekh Stella Maris, Haifa

Jake, like Rachel, realized immediately, with excitement, that the sender of this amazing letter might indeed be a survivor of the Holocaust who had been in contact with the remnants of their Rose/Kahn family heritage in Belgium. Kissing Rachel and Peter goodbye, Jake jumped into his Toyota and headed towards Haifa.

He was so thrilled by this magic message emerging unexpectedly from the somber past that he did not even think of letting his brother Aaron know it had arrived. But Rachel, losing not a moment, transmitted an electronic copy of Navon’s letter to two of the four corners of the world: Jaffa and Fremantle.

In Haifa, Jake had no problem in locating 12 Derekh Stella Maris. It was a solid white stone building looking out over the port of Haifa. Once inside the apartment building, Jake was struck by signs of modern Israeli opulence: particularly the use of marble, no doubt of Italian or Greek origins. Whoever he might be, this Yohanan Navon was accustomed to living in a kind of antiquated luxury.

He was an old white-haired man, slightly stooped, but apparently in fine physical form. He wore rimless spectacles, perched on the tip of his nose, but he peered over the top of them in addressing Jacob Rose, whom he appeared to recognize immediately.

“I knew you would come quickly to see me, Yakov,” he said, employing the Hebrew pronunciation of Jake’s name, “because there is maybe not much time left for me. The time is now for you.”

Jake was momentarily stunned by the powerful simplicity of those words, spoken with a Yiddisher accent: The time is now for you. It took him a moment or two to recover his spirits in the wake of such a piercing affirmation, which he tried to analyze.

“When I rushed here to meet up with you, I was not thinking of our time,” explained Jake, hesitatingly. “I was thinking of the time 322

of my ancestors in Antwerp.”

Yohanan Navon did not reply immediately. Instead, he ushered Jake into his splendid living room, which looked out over the city of Haifa. There was a magnificent view of the port, filled with craft of all kinds, from tiny sailing boats and luxury yachts up to huge passenger liners and even a few navy vessels. The old man made a silent gesture inviting Jake to be seated in a massive brown leather lounge chair, which might have been imported to this elegant residence on the slopes of biblical Mount Carmel from the salon of an aristocratic club in London. A young housemaid, who appeared to be Palestinian, entered the livng room and asked Jake and her employer, in perfect English, what they would like to drink. A minute later, when she returned with whiskeys and ice cubes, not a further word had been exchanged yet between Jake and the old man. It was an eerie silence, of a profound nature, as if great thoughts were waiting to be expressed.

“Yakov, when I saw on TV that you are from Australia, I knew immediately that you are a grandson of Yitzhak and Anna. I remember them so well in Antwerpen, in our world of diamonds. I was a young man. Everybody in the community knows the story of the big ship that will take Yitzhak and Anna to the other side of the world. They are leaving too with David and Naomi.”

“Did you stay in Antwerp during the Shoah?” asked Jake naively, not knowing whether it was correct to put such a question in blunt terms.

“Nobody stay in Antwerpen,” replied Yohanan Navon with a sad smile. “I hide in attic when the Gestapo come to take away my father and my mother. Next morning, I visit the empty workshop and put all the diamonds in a bag. In the night, I ride a bicycle quietly to Oostende, in the dark with my diamonds, then a fishing boat take me to England with my bicycle, where I work on a farm with a kind family. They are Jews, like me, and I find them when I knock on the door of a synagogue in London. Then I ride my bicycle to their farm in Kent. I stay with them for many years, and I marry an English girl named Rachel, who is dead now. But I 323

never know what happens to Yitzhak, Anna, David, Naomi... like I never know what happens to my parents.”

“My wife is named Rachel, too,” said Jake, glossing over the trivial fact that he was not yet officially married, neither from an administrative nor a religious viewpoint, to the mother of Peter Israel Rose. “She is the granddaughter of David and Naomi Kahn from Antwerp. In fact, Rachel is my cousin.” Jake was a little embarrassed to find himself describing his personal situation in the presence of this flesh-and-blood phantom from the epoch of his European ancestors, but he had the impression that the old man wished to be reassured that his former friends from Antwerp had indeed arrived safely at their Antipodean destination.

“When Israel is created in 1948, Rachel and I take big boat from London to Haifa,” continued Yohanan Navon, whose persistent use of the present tense gave Jake the weird impression that the events being described were still taking place at the present moment.” Here I work again in diamonds. I make much money, but there is not much happiness, becuse we have no children and Rachel is always sick, after the hard times of the war in London, where she has little food. After five years, Rachel is dead in Haifa.” The old man pointed towards a sepia-toned portrait of a young woman, in a frame on the wall of his living room.

Jake explained that Nahum Rose, the only son of Yitzhak and Anna, had married Rebecca Kahn, the daughter of fellow-voyagers David and Naomi, and that Rebecca’s brother Amos was the president of the Terra company, which happened to be producing the technological miracles that Yohanan Navon had heard about on Israeli TV. “But it is you, Yakov, not your ancestors, who is making these strange things happen. No?” Yohanan seemed intent upon drawing a line between advantages acquired through the family business and Jake’s unique talents. It was no doubt a style of thinking that characterized people in the diamond trade, where businesses would end up passing intact to eldest sons, for generations.

“I do not think of myself as making things happen,” replied 324

Jake. “I am an instrument, and I have worked hard on these projects, but I am not the force behind them. I have had visions of what can be achieved through advanced technology, and the Terra company in Australia, created by Yitzhak Rose and David Kahn, has enabled me to transform some of those visions into reality. But the force behind these visions has come from elsewhere.”

“It is wonderful that Yitzhak and David travel on a great ship, while I ride my bicycle in the dark,” remarked Yohanan, “and our stories come together again here in our Israel, where I am talking to you now.” The old man seemed to be momentarily lost in thought, as though he were comparing retrospectively the two journeys. Meanwhile, the maid dropped in again, bringing with her a tray of eats, and poured out two more whiskeys.

Seeing that Yohanan Navon was visibly interested in hearing more about the marvels of the Slicer and the Chariot Process, Jake provided him with a firsthand account of all that was currently taking place in the vicinity of Gaza and in Morocco. Jake even suggested to Yohanan that he might like to be driven down to the Gaza zone to obtain a close-up view of operations, but the old man replied laughingly that he was no longer capable of participating in such an expedition. Late in the afternoon, as Jake prepared to leave, Yohanan Navon asked him to approach a big oaken chest of drawers at the far end of the living room. He slid out the upper drawer and took out a small red leather box, that might have been used for cigars. Handing it to Jake, he said: “Long ago, I promised my Rachel that I mount this stone for her, one day. But she leave me before I do it. Today, it is for your Rachel.” Opening the lid of the box, Jake was amazed to discover a magnificent diamond, as big as an acorn.

“Rachel will be astounded,” stammered Jake, fascinated by the reflections of the setting sun in the countless facets of the extraordinary gem. “She will come up here with me, the next time, to thank you.”

“No thanks are necessary,” said Yohanan Navon. “That stone is a part of what we leave behind in Antwerpen. In my bag, on the 325

bicycle, it is the biggest rough stone. But it is only in Haifa that I find the greatest cutter to spend many hours to make it so beautiful.

Tell your Rachel that it is a piece of our Antwerpen.”

As soon as he was out on the sidewalk next to the waterfront, Jake called Rachel on his mobile phone, to describe his encounter with Navon.

“As I was about to leave, the old man handed me a fabulous gift for you,”explained Jake. “You’ll have twenty-four hours to guess what it is. Meanwhile, I’m going to be terrified that I might get attacked by a robber.” Above Rachel’s vain pleading to be told the nature of the gift, Jake informed her that he had decided to take advantage of his surprise journey to Haifa to call in at the Technion, the following morning, to talk with Zvi Hanak about the current state of their research. “I’ll book into a quiet hotel for the night, and I promise you I’ll put your gift under my pillow and sleep on it, to make sure that nobody steals it.” In fact, Jake was not not using a metaphor. After dining in a quayside restaurant, and then taking a room in the comfortable hotel that he used regularly on his overnight stays in Haifa, Jake placed the red leather box under the thick pillow of his bed. Within five minutes, Jacob Rose fell asleep with his head resting a few centimeters above the magnificent stone from Antwerp.

Jake did not sleep well during that night in Haifa, which was troubled by a strange mixture of nightmares and fabulous dreams.

Clearly, the principal origin of these fantasies was the presence of the diamond, and the anguish of being robbed. But the glorious view of the port of Haifa, seen from Yohanan Navon’s living room, was probably another factor behind some of Jake’s oneiric visions.

Haifa had always exerted an immense charm upon Jake. Besides, the port reminded him of Fremantle, where everything had begun...

Jacob set out from Beer-Sheva and journeyed towards Harran.

He came to a certain shrine and, because the sun had gone down, he stopped for the night. He took one of the stones there and, using it as a pillow under his head, he lay down to sleep.

— Genesis 28, 10-11 326

The giant raft that moved slowly way from the shore, propelled by mysterious means, appeared to be a floating island, similar to the chunk of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, but infinitely bigger. There were countless people aboard the raft, while others were swimming in the ocean around the edge of the vessel, and trying to scramble up its rocky sides with the help of rope ladders.

At one point, the people struggling to save themselves by clambering aboard the ark gave the terrifying impression that they might be innocent folk pursued by Nazi killers. Then these people became actual victims of the Shoah, now metamorphosed into heavenly creatures. And they continued to climb, even though they were now aboard the giant ship. The rope ladders had been replaced by a single great ladder that reached skywards from the center of the vessel.

In a dream he saw a ladder, which rested on the ground with its top reaching to heaven, and angels of God were going up and down on it.

— Genesis 28, 12

Jake now saw himself entering explicitly into the vision. He was aboard the great ship, surrounded by innumerable passengers who seemed to consider him as the skipper of the vessel. Like any ship’s commander, he was in charge of all these people, and he had to protect them from unidentified assailants who seemed to have boarded the ship stealthily. Suddenly, Captain Jacob Rose was assaulted from behind by a mysterious attacker whose facial features were partly hidden by a checkered kaffiyeh. Who was this assailant with whom Jake found himself grappling in a mortal combat? At times, the attacker’s kaffiyeh became dislodged, and Jake discovered that the individual had the blond Aryan features of a Nazi guard in a death camp. At other times, the relentless combatant gave the impression that he might be a Palestinian terrorist, intent upon murdering Jake for his role in creating the Gaza Moat. Maybe he was a reincarnation of the suicide bomber who had blown the lovely face off Sarah Luria outside the Mahaneh Yehuda market in Jerusalem. Then the kaffiyeh budged again, allowing Jake to discover with astonishment that his alleged 327

attacker was not really a foe at all, for he had the friendly features of old Mahomet. But the curious combat continued inexplicably for hours and hours...

Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him there till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not get the better of Jacob, he struck him in the hollow of his thigh, so that Jacob’s hip was dislocated as they wrestled.

— Genesis 32, 24-25

Then the scene returned to the great ship. Jacob Rose was still aboard, and the vessel still seemed to be under his control. But a greater commander had boarded the floating island, whose name was now painted in huge letters on the flanks of the ship: Israel.

The Lord was standing beside him saying, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. This land on which you are lying I shall give to you and your descendants. They will be countless as the specks of dust on the ground, and you will spread far and wide, to west and east, to north and south. All the families of the earth will wish to be blessed as you and your descendants are blessed. I shall be with you to protect you wherever you go, and I shall bring you back to this land. I shall not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

— Genesis 28, 13-15

✡ Jake awoke in a sweat. He was convinced that the diamond had been stolen from under his pillow during that long night of strange dreams. False alarm. His dreams were no more than dreams. The red box and its precious contents were still there, under the pillow where Jake had placed them the previous evening. His thoughts went back to the extraordinary encounter of the previous afternoon with Yohanan Navon. Jacob Rose suddenly understood that this gift for Rachel was more than a mere gem. He realized at that 328

instant that the diamond of Antwerp was a stone of memory upon which futures might be built. And his confused dreams had spelt out the elements of those futures.

Later on that morning, at the Technion on Mount Carmel, not far from Yohanan Navon’s apartment building, the visions of Jacob’s dreams were strengthened by the latest news delivered by an enthusiastic Zvi Hanak: “Our collaborator Mihal Ben-Dor has just sent me a technical report confirming that the Dead Sea encloses vast quantities of seabed gases of a kind that could be used in a revised version of your Chariot Process. The efficiency of your technology could be augmented immensely by the use of these gases, which are unlike anything else in the world.”

“If I understand you correctly, Professor Hanak, you’re saying that Dead Sea gases could put a tiger in the motor of the Chariot Process.”

“Not just a tiger,” laughed Zvi Hanak, whose kippah identified him as a believer in Yahveh. “A whale, like the huge animal that swallowed Jonah. With the immense resources of the Dead Sea, your Chariot Process could float mountains. There’s enough gas there to transform our entire land into a gigantic whale, whatever that might mean.”

It so happened that Jacob Rose had a perfectly clear idea of what it might mean to transform the Holy Land into a giant floating animal, for this was the vision of his dreams of the previous night, when his head was resting on the Antwerp diamond. It was essentially a matter of using the Chariot Process at the level of the entire state of Israel.

He rushed back to Rachel, to give her the magnificent gift. Then he phoned excitedly a man whom he no longer encountered very often, but who remained for Jake an uncanny source of wisdom: Ari Hillel, the aging president of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Jake asked to be received by Hillel as soon as possible. An hour later, he arrived at Hillel’s office in the Rockefeller Museum.

329

“Ari,” exclaimed Jacob Rose, daring for the first time ever to address the distinguished but fanciful gentleman by his first name, “you have been at my side ever since Caesaria, and you have often given me the impression that the Chariot Process might be more than a mere technological device for helping archaeologists who have fun in playing around with high-tech tools. I’ve had a dream: a vision for Israel. Can I describe it to you?”

“You have already demonstrated your magic in the Holy Land,” observed Hillel, “and I have always believed in your power. What do you have in mind?”

“We must use the Chariot Process to create islands,” replied Jake. “Artificial floating islands. Great vessels of unlimited dimensions.”

“What do you mean by unlimited?” asked Ari Hillel.

“We could envisage the creation of a great ship of Israel,” replied Captain Jacob Rose.

“A ship of Israel?” asked Hillel, intrigued. “What exactly do you mean by that? Are you dreaming, Jacob?”

“I have had a vision of the Holy Land metamorphosed into a great ship, sailing out on the open ocean, far from the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Certainly, it was only a dream, but a vivid dream, full of details, which seemed to relate clearly to my professional preoccupations. In my dream, there were ladders everywhere, dangling over the flanks of a mysterious ship. In the beginning, these ladders enabled people who were floundering in the sea to clamber aboard the giant vessel, to save their lives. Then these rope ladders were amalgamated into a great rigid ladder that reached upwards from the deck of the vessel into the clouds, enabling the passengers to attain the heavens. But I soon realized that my vision was not a mere dream. It was a sign: a representation of my work.”

“Your work?” asked Hillel calmly. The doyen of archaeology in Israel did not appear to be perturbed by the revelations of Jacob Rose. On the contrary, Hillel gave the impression that he sensed 330

already the profound nature of what Jake was saying, or about to say. “If I understand correctly, your vision of a great ship of Israel, as you put it, is related to future possibilities of the Chariot Process, of colossal proportions. Have I judged rightly?”

“Exactly,” replied Jake. “But my vision remains complex, in a dreamlike way. Nothing suggests that it could ever be transformed into a reality. We would need a consensus of all the citizens of Israel. All those who dwell around the Mediterranean. Maybe even, if possible, all the peoples of the world, for it is a global vision. I am imagining a gigantic operation in a domain that might be termed geopolitical engineering.”

“Tell me how you see things,” suggested Hillel, “and I’ll give you my blunt reactions.”

“If the world were to agree upon such a project,” started Jacob Rose, taking extravagant precautions to avoid possible accusations of narrow-minded thinking, “the state of Israel could be transformed, through Terra technology, into a giant floating ship, which could then move slowly away from its present location at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and venture out onto the vast oceans of the world.”

“If your extraordinary vision were to become a reality,” asked Ari Hillel, “what are the possible consequences of such a huge event?”

“The state of Israel would be geographically liberated, once and for all, from neighbors who have always called upon her destruction, ever since 1948,” replied Jacob Rose. “If Israel were an island, cruising freely upon the waters of the globe, she could become an earthly paradise and a haven of peace whose capability of resisting infiltration or invasion by the forces of evil would be enhanced by her isolation. This is mathematically certain.”

“Outside of the pure world of mathematics and geopolitical engineering,” asked Hillel, “can you imagine ways and means of convincing Israelis that their land should be transformed into a giant floating island?”

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“As an outsider, even though I might be of Jewish origins,” answered Jake, “I am totally incapable of imagining arguments that might convince Israelis to pack up and set sail, as it were. But I strongly suspect that the forces of the nation, particularly young Israelis, are totally fed up by never-ending half-measures of the kind that have left many of their comrades dead, and installed an atmosphere of frustration and anguish right throughout the Holy Land. Descendants of the kibbutzim, not to mention immigrants who abandoned everything in order to rejoin Israel, had hope in their destiny. They are shocked by the harassment to which their adopted land seems to be condemned, and they ask themselves, bewildered, why this state of affairs should endure. In fact, as we all know, it should not endure. Threats from belligerent neighbors are an eternal thorn in the foot of Israel. Our foot should be the paw of a tiger, ready to spring into action to defend our people.”

“You talk like an Israeli,” observed Ari Hillel.

“We are all Israelis,” replied Jacob Rose.

“Do you have a plan for action?” asked Hillel.

“The basic challenge consists of informing the populace what it would mean if Israel were to be transformed into a floating island,” replied Jake.

“And what exactly would it mean, to your way of thinking?” enquired Hillel.

“It would mean peace,” replied Jacob Rose, “or at least relative peace. The enemy would no longer be in the position of a nextdoor neighbor. They would have to come out and chase us. It would be like attacking a battle ship or an aircraft carrier in the open sea.”

✡ During the ensuing weeks, Ari Hillel devoted much energy to bringing Jacob Rose into contact with people from many branches of life in Israel, so that they might be made aware of the futuristic 332

vision of their land transformed into a giant vessel. Consequently, Jake had ample opportunities of exposing his dream to members of the Knesset, military chiefs, industrialists, rabbis, journalists, academics and ordinary Israeli citizens.

There was an inevitable first question: “Is this scheme feasible?”

“From a technical viewpoint, my propositions are sound,” Jake would reply. “We would point batteries of horizontal Slicers under the entire land mass and use the Chariot Process to cut it up into half a dozen big floating rafts. One by one, these islands would be tugged westward out into the Mediterranean, and anchored there.

Later, they would be oriented ideally with respect to one another and then amalgamated to form a single land mass with roughly the same shape as present-day Israel, but turned through an angle of ninety degrees in an anti-clockwise direction. In other words, Rosh HaNiqra would be the bow of the great ship, pointing towards Gibraltar, and Eilat would be its stern.”

“You make it sound so simple,” laughed Ari Hillel, “as if we were children assembling a jigsaw puzzle.”

“That’s a pretty good metaphor,” said Jake. “We’ve carried out computer simulations to determine the optimal number and shape of the fragments, and how they should be put together to form a new land. One of your recent leaders used the term convergence to designate this kind of shuffling process.”

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13 Politics Three years had gone by since the Terra Corporation started work on the Port Sahara project and the Gaza Moat, and both waterways now existed. In Morocco, the first ship to sail through the canal, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, was a navy frigate carrying the royal family accompanied by guests from many nations. In Israel, the first vessel to travel along the entire length of the moat, from its Egyptian extremity to the estuary south of Ashkelon, was Terra’s Black Swan, skippered by George Thiatikos, escorted by Tsahal helicopters and carrying Jacob, Rachel, Aaron, Anne and their children.

During those three years, in the world that surrounded Jacob Rose, many events had taken place. Jake and Rachel had decided to spend a month out in Australia, accompanied by their two-yearold son Peter, and to get married there in a civil ceremony. On that occasion, the Rose/Kahn seniors organized a big outdoor banquet on Rottnest Island, to which all the Terra employees in Western Australia were invited. Not far behind the seaside table at which Jake and Rachel were seated, an archaic wedding guest observed their joy: the resuscitated wreck of the Gypsy.

Later, Rachel gave birth to a second child: a daughter named Mary. Aaron Rose and Anne now had two children, too: Louisa and Kevin. As for Leah and Patrick Grady, they had three children: Sarah, John and Matthew. Sarah Grady (named in memory of the wife of Martin Luria) was already old enough to be enrolled in Catechism classes at Fremantle.

Within the Terra microcosm in Israel, other deep human unions had been concretized in a formal manner. Benny Segal and 334

Edouard Simon decided to be united in a same-sex marriage: a concept that had been recently brought into existence in Israel. As for Martin Luria and Donna Dreyfus, they spent so much time together at the Sedot Yam kibbutz, handling the communications aspects of Terra in Israel and Morocco, that they had ample opportunities of discovering many affinities between each other, and they finally fell in love and decided to get married. This decision was encouraged, too, by the marvelous relationship that had grown up between Donna and the Luria children, David and Lisa.

The three Australians—Jake, Rachel and Aaron—now handled everyday Hebrew in an effortless manner, which enabled them to communicate easily and amply with Israelis in ways that had been impossible back in the early days of the Caesarea and Capernaum projects. In particular, whenever they found themselves in discussion with people of differing opinions, they could now argue with them, and defend their points of view. This language question was a major evolution in the existence of Jake, Rachel and Aaron in Israel, since it so happened that many citizens were reluctant, in the beginning, to share the Terra vision (as it came to be called) concerning the future of the Holy Land. As a result of being called upon constantly to explain and defend their scenario, the Australians had become so skilled in presenting an objective outline of the facts and hypotheses, in simple but faultless Hebrew, that they often succeeded in bringing around Israelis to their point of view. But they were not alone, by far, in advancing the exotic idea that the state of Israel might be transformed into a great ship, which would set sail towards horizons far beyond the primeval ‘middle of the Earth’ known as the Mediterranean. Vast numbers of Israelis, in all walks of life, were seduced by this fabulous notion, and urged their political leaders to examine seriously the Terra proposition, to see if it could become a reality.

It was not so much the intrinsic nature of Jake’s dream that enticed a majority of Israelis to accord Terra the green light, as it were, but rather the state of sheer despair into which the country had fallen as a result of the intransigence of fundamentalist 335

Palestinians who had adopted fanaticism and terrorism as their political creed. Many Israeli leaders, along with certain Palestinians, had tried vainly to find a way of breaking out of this vicious circle of hatred, which had now existed for decades. Heads of state in Europe and elsewhere had attempted to intervene in a positive fashion, but to no avail. Consequently, Terra’s dreamlike concept of the Holy Land simply floating far away from its hateful neighbors appeared to the majority of frustrated Israelis as a miraculous godsend.

Aaron Rose had used computer graphics to conceive a spectacular message on this theme for Israeli television. His publicity ended with a curious but convincing suggestion that had a huge positive impact on viewers with a wavering opinion: “If it turned out that you were not happy elsewhere, the ship could always be brought back to its home port.”

✡ Moshe Zed, the new prime minister of Israel, had just turned fifty-five, a fortnight after his accession to power. Unlike generations of former Israeli leaders, he was neither a soldier nor a seasoned politician. Zed was a prosperous industrialist in the electronics and computing domain, who had finally stepped into the political arena relatively late in life, by which time many voters had come around to considering that one of the most credible prerequisites for running a country was proven experience in building and running a successful business. Following studies in computer science at the Technion, Moshe Zed had spent three years at Stanford University in California, where he obtained a doctorate. Then he returned to his native city of Beer-Sheva where he created a high-tech engineering firm named Dimonax, which worked largely in the domain of atomic energy. Since this was a crucial aspect of Israel’s global preoccupations, these professional activities brought Zed into constant contact with senior government officials, politicians and high-ranking military chiefs.

Like many other industrial leaders, he developed an interest in the 336

affairs of the nation, and became an outspoken activist within the ranks of the Peace Now group. He took the initiative of setting up an informal club of fellow industrialists who shared his convictions that Israel needed a totally new style of political leadership, liberated from obsolete ideology, whose greatest priority would consist of establishing stable frontiers for the nation, even if this meant abandoning immediately the Golan Heights and a good part of the occupied territories of Samaria and Judea. The expression that best summarized Zed’s aspirations, ‘new-style leadership within stable frontiers’, gave rise in Hebrew to an acronym that could be pronounced as Soledad, and Moshe Zed was happy to use this term as the name of his club, which evolved rapidly into a political movement.

It was Zvi Hanak who had put Jake in contact with the Dimonax enterprise in Beer-Sheva, back in the days when Terra needed to find an Israeli high-tech manufacturer capable of reproducing electronic devices that had been created in Australia.

Not surprisingly, one of Jake’s first contacts at Dimonax was with the company’s founder and president, Moshe Zed, who spoke perfect English. The two men shared a common engineering culture, and they were rapidly linked at a business level when Terra management in Australia signed a contract with Dimonax for the production of all the sophisticated equipment that would be required for the Port Sahara and Gaza Moat projects. In other words, it could be said that Jacob Rose had been a close associate, for ages, of the future prime minister of Israel. Jake appreciated the clarity and precision of Zed’s approach to problems, and the efficient style with which he managed the Dimonax company. On the other hand, during the early years of their acquaintance, Jake had no idea whatsoever that Zed might have had political aspirations.

Since his election as prime minister of the state of Israel, Moshe Zed and his Soledad party had become the major advocates of the Terra project aimed at transforming the land into a gigantic floating vessel, often referred to as ‘the ship of Israel’, whose official name would be Exodus.

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Jake and Rachel met up most often with Moshe Zed and his wife Helena at their official residence in the Talbieh neighborhood of Jerusalem, at 9 Smolenskin Street, which was within walking distance of Yemin Moshe. They would be joined there invariably by the three leading members of the lobby set up to promote the Exodus vision: Ari Hillel, now minister of Culture, Ezer Bar-Lev and Shlomo Paran. Other regular participants in these high-level discussions were Yitzhak Vidal, minister of External Affairs and Uri Youdim, chief of the Mossad.

“Traditionally, in Israel, whenever people come up with good ideas capable of promoting peace,” said Moshe Zed, “they get knocked back by eccentrics and obscure minority groups of all kinds. Jerusalem, above all, is a city of madmen. For any cause whatsoever, there’s always a bunch of crazy folk in the Holy City who are convinced that you are far crazier than they are. In many cases they’re prepared to commit murder to promote their madness.” The prime minister halted for a moment and glanced at each of his listeners, as if he wished to know whether they agreed with him. “Well, the Exodus project is extraordinary in that it engenders immediate approval from every crackpot in the country.

It’s only ordinary folk, who think clearly and objectively, who hesitate when they first hear of Jake’s vision.” Moshe Zed laughed in what appeared to be a cynical fashion, assuring his listeners that his words should not be taken too seriously.

“The most amazing reaction comes from Palestinians,” said Uri Youdim. “We were expecting all hell to break loose as soon as they learnt that the Gaza Moat was a prelude to transforming the Strip into a floating island, which would be subsequently tugged to another corner of the Mediterranean, so that the stern of Exodus could move northwards, away from Egypt. In fact, the inhabitants of Gaza appear to be reacting to our plans in a totally enthusiastic manner. They’re all excited about locations where the future island of Gaza might be lodged, once Exodus has moved away. There’s a big lobby in favor of tugging the island up to the former location of the Dead Sea, between Judea and Jordan, so that Gaza could be 338

physically amalgamated with the main part of Palestine. Another Gaza lobby is even wondering whether the opening into the Gulf of Aqaba, after the departure of Exodus, would be wide enough for the island of Gaza to be tugged out into the Red Sea, to become a neighbor of their legendary Arabia. As you can well imagine, the two lobbies are already in terrible conflict. Members of the first group are accusing the others of wanting to destroy the unity of the nation of Palestine by transforming Gaza into an autonomous province. There’s even a timid third lobby whose members stand a good chance of being assassinated by their excited fellow citizens.

They’ve dared to suggest that Gaza should make an official request to Israel to remain firmly attached to Exodus, so that they can set sail as part of our great ship.” Every laughed at the geopolitial irony of this third proposition. Truly, the vision of Jacob Rose was turning the world upside-down.

“Yitzhak, what’s the latest news from Morocco?” asked the prime minister.

“All quiet on the Western front,” replied the minister of External Affairs, revealing a certain cinematographic culture.

Maybe it would have been preferable—at least less anachronistic —if Yitzhak Vidal had made a trivial allusion to the Far West of Hollywood, insofar as Israel was counting upon the collaboration of the kingdom of Morocco in order to open up new frontiers and encounter vast territories throughout the planet. “In fact, we could say that the situation is optimal. In the general enthusiasm of imagining the future creation of a floating province named Berberia, most Moroccans have totally forgotten that Israel promoted this enormous scheme for purely self-interested reasons, to widen the Strait of Gibraltar to such an extent that Exodus can escape from the Mediterranean.”

“I tend to observe details, whenever I can, of special relationships that spring into existence between individuals in Israel and people in the outside world. You might say it’s my job as head of the Mossad,” remarked Uri Youdim, whose big smile suggested that he was unlikely to be about to introduce facts 339

concerning an alarming case of espionage. “I simply wish to invite our modest friend Rachel to describe to us—and to the prime minister, above all—the gigantic role she has been playing, for ages, in the domain of friendly relationships between Israel and Morocco. Please!”

Rachel was a little taken aback to learn that the Mossad chief had apparently made a positive assessment of her services as an agent, rendered unwittingly. But she had got to know Youdim well enough, over the last year or so, to realize instantly that he was merely flattering her in a harmless fashion.

“Uri is surely referring to the fact that Jake and I became close friends of an English woman named Jane Watson,” explained Rachel, “who used to be the secretary of Sidi Yussan, ever since he has held the post of minister of Scientific Affairs. Everybody knew that Yussan was madly in love with Jane ever since they met up long ago in California, when he was a visiting professor and Jane was a doctoral student in computer science. Well, to cut a long story short, Yussan finally divorced his Moroccan wife and married Jane, who immediately acquired Moroccan citizenship and entered into a fairy-tale world in which her husband managed to put her in charge of major appraisals and decisions concerning the Port Sahara project. Jane is about the same age as me, and we share a similar English-based culture. We became friends right from the start when she dropped in with Sidi Yussan to attend the inauguration of our Aqua station at Taba, then the Caesarea operation. Since then, we’ve been in constant contact, mainly through the Internet. We also met up periodically when Jake and I used to drop in on the Port Sahara excavations. It’s a fact that we’ve been able to smooth out countless aspects of the unofficial collaboration between Terra, Israel and Morocco simply by meeting up with our friend Jane and telling her, in straightforward English, what we needed to obtain. Whenever Jake or I spoke to Jane, about anything whatsoever, we knew that the message would get through instantly to her husband. That’s to say, if you see what I mean, to Morocco.”

“The Moroccans are thrilled by the idea that their present 340

waterway from Benmansour to Velez de la Gomera would become a vast new coastline,” continued Yitzhak Vidal. “The huge shipping installations of Port Sahara, which are currently being completed at Ourtzarh on the southern bank of the waterway, would give out directly onto the ocean. As for the inhabitants of the future province of Berberia, they are hotly debating the choice of an ideal permanent location for their floating island. Israel has made it clear to them that, once Exodus has left the Mediterranean, we would be perfectly happy to tug Berberia back to its original location, and amalgamate it once again to the Moroccan mainland.

Funnily enough, that idea doesn’t seem to interest anybody. There are those who consider that Berberia should remain a Mediterranean island, whereas others talk of tugging it down the Atlantic coast. In any case, Israel has made it clear to the Moroccan authorities, who have been most cooperative with us ever since the beginning, that we are prepared to foot the bill of moving Berberia to whatever location they locate upon.”

Jacob Rose decided that the moment was ripe to bring up an underlying problem of great importance: the question of moving such huge floating land masses from one point to another. In fact, he had some fabulous news to relate to the prime minister and the Exodus apostles, but he preferred to take his time and present his revelations, as usual, in as didactic a manner as possible.

“Uri Youdim and Yitzhak Vidal are correct in using the verb ‘tug’ when they talk about shifting the future islands of Gaza and Berberia from one location to another,” explained Jake. “For the moment, apart from the notorious jet engines aboard the Gospel Ark on the Sea of Galilee, our only way of handling this task would be to call upon an armada of powerful tugboats. The inertia of a raft such as Gaza or Berberia, not to mention the future fragments of Israel, would be gigantic, which means that a considerable amount of energy and time would be required to set it in movement. Then it would tend to drift in a more-or-less straight line, and a similar quantity of energy and time would be required to halt it. Naturally, tugboats provide a feasible solution while 341

we’ve got nothing better, and I fear that we won’t have anything better until Exodus is out on the high seas. But, from that point on, I am happy to announce that the situation could change in a highly spectacular manner.” Jake smiled timidly, as if the magician within him was slightly embarrassed as he prepared himself for the marvel of dragging yet another white rabbit out of his top hat.

“Something tells me that Jake has something to say,” laughed Moshe Zed. “I can see the tip of his nose twitching.”

“Out on the open oceans, there’s a colosal phenomenon referred to as wave energy,” explained Jake, “which reveals its existence constantly in the form of giant swells that are capable of crossing an entire ocean before their energy is dissipated on remote shorelines. Much research of a theoretical nature has been carried out by visionary physicists, in the USA and Japan, concerning the challenge of capturing this wave energy and using it to propel a vessel. Over two years ago, the Technion got in contact with a French scientist named Pierre Aron who produced a doctoral thesis on this subject at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Frenchman was thrilled to learn that people somewhere on the planet might be interested in building a prototype propulsion system based upon his theoretical work, and he agreed to spend some time at Haifa to assist the Technion physicists in tackling the problem at an experimental level. Over the last year, Terra has made a small practical contribution to this research and development by inviting Pierre Aron and his Technion collaborators to use our trawler, the Black Swan, skippered by George Thiatikos, to conduct experiments using their prototype system out in the Atlantic. I can even inform you retrospectively, Mister Prime Minister, that the sophisticated equipment for the wave energy prototype was built in Beer-Sheva by Dimonax.”

Moshe Zed gave a startled shrug when he heard that the company he had founded was now collaborating on such an amazing project.

“As everybody knows,” explained Moshe Zed, “I had to set aside my activities in industry when I got involved in politics, and started to create the Soledad party. Then, as soon as I became 342

prime minister, faced with promoting the Exodus project, I was obliged to sell all my shares in Dimonax, since everbody knew that my company had been building all the equipment for Jake’s Chariot Process. It would have been unbearable if our opponents were to claim that I was advocating the Exodus project simply because I was motivated by financial interests. So, I no longer know what’s going on inside the company I founded, otherwise I would have heard of Technion’s work on wave energy.”

“Well, Zvi Hanak and I have known for a week now,” continued Jake, “that the prototype system attached to the prow of the Black Swan appears to be yielding the kind of results predicted by Pierre Aron’s theory. In other words, we can look forward to the possibility of propelling the great ship Exodus, out on the oceans of the world, by means of this amazing source of energy.”

“What does the prototype look like?” asked Shlomo Paran, who still held the portfolio of Research and Development in Zed’s government.

“A few days ago, I took Rachel and Zvi on a helicopter flight over the sector in the Atlantic, just off Morocco, where Pierre Aron is testing the prototype aboard the Black Swan. Seen from the sky, the contraption looks like a giant insect that has settled on the water and spread out its long thin legs to each side of the nose of the trawler. Maybe Rachel can give your her impressions.”

“The prototype reminded me of the huge sprinkling systems used out in Australia to water fields of corn,” explained Rachel.

“A pair of long symmetrical metal rods protrudes to both sides of the bow. At first sight, from the air, they look like antennae of some kind, then you see that these semi-rigid rods are actually supported by floats on the surface of the water.”

“Pierre Aron refers to these rods as whiskers,” said Jake. “The elements that Rachel describes as floats are actually energy absorbers, held in place by the articulated rods. They capture the wave energy of swells bearing down upon the vessel, and transform it into electric currents that flow along the rods and 343

down to a big electric motor installed alongside the normal diesel engine of the Black Swan. When the wave energy system is operating, it drives the trawler forward in total silence.”

“When the Black Swan is ploughing into a rough sea, and the wave energy system is in operation, the view from the air is spellbinding,” exclaimed Rachel. “Directly ahead of the vessel, the choppy sea is agitated by swells and covered with white-crested waves. All this movement ceases as soon as the wave energy is extracted by the absorbers, and the vessel leaves behind it a totally calm band of water, disturbed only by the narrow wake of the electric motor. In moving forward, the Black Swan seems to have the magical power of pacifying the violent ocean.”

Hearing Rachel’s poetic description, Ari Hillel was transported into a state of bliss.

“Jacob Rose, you are truly a bringer of miracles,” exclaimed the minister of Culture. “You have made your rocky chariots float upon the waters, and you have transformed the salty sea into fresh water. Now you declare from your pulpit of technology that our future Exodus will tame the wild waters of Yahveh as she glides across the oceans of the world. Thank God I am not a Messianist, my dear Jake, otherwise I would be most suspicious concerning your real identity!”

✡ During the latter phases of the Port Sahara and Gaza Moat projects, Terra had been able to implement in a spectacular fashion the outcome of research in the domain of so-called nomadic horticulture carried out by Martin Luria’s former colleagues at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute in Sede Boqer. They transformed Rachel’s naive vision into a reality: the possibility, for desertbound workers, to keep vegetable plots alongside their mobile homes. On the surface, it might not appear to be a proverbial giant step for humanity, but this agronomical breakthrough meant that voyagers—such as those aboard the future Exodus, for example— 344

could henceforth produce their ordinary vegetables in any climatic circumstances, either at the Equator or in the vicinity of Antarctica.

The success of the researchers of the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute would not have been possible were it not for the existence of the celebrated desalination system known as the Spring kit, designed by Yossi Gesher at the Technion, based upon the primitive seaweed approach promoted long ago in Australia by Amos Kahn. Today, the latest version of the Spring kit, manufactured by Dimonax, was selling throughout the Mediterranean region like proverbial hotcakes, and this had become the major commercial activity of the Aqua company in Eilat, now managed conjointly by Avram Moreno and Benny Segal. The Nomad kit—to be marketed through the same channels as the Spring product, with multimedia publicity conceived by Martin Luria and his wife Donna, and created by Aaron Rose— could be thought of as a logical corollary of the Spring kit, since nothing in the domain of so-called ‘fast agronomy’ was possible without the presence of the divinity named Aqua, and the ideal source of water was the sea.

✡ Ultimate actions aimed at obtaining the total adhesion of the state of Israel to the Exodus vision were the combined work of a triumvirate composed of a political nucleus, a technical consortium and what might be termed a public-relations vector. The political nucleus was headed, of course, by Moshe Zed, prime minister of Israel, who was aided automatically by the vast infrastructure of the Soledad party, whose members now dominated almost every sphere of everyday Israeli existence... except the religious domain, which was relegated to a dwindling number of more inspired fellow citizens. Happily, the latter—including even the extremists of Mea Shearim—happened to be most enthusiastic about the Exodus idea. Not surprisingly, Jacob Rose was in charge of the technical consortium, which brought together resources from the Terra Corporation (including the Aqua firm), the Technion, the 345

Dimonax company and the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute. Finally, the public-relations pole of the triumvirate was, in many ways, the most complicated of all, since the ‘public’ with whom the Exodus project had to ‘relate’ comprised, not only Israelis, but Palestinians, Moroccans and, to a large extent, the entire Mediterranean community. The individual capable of directing operations in this delicate domain, where almost nothing existed in the way of international jurisprudence, needed to be an experienced negotiator, able to establish friendly relationships with all the concerned partners and people. Above all, this individual had to be capable of working in perfect symbiosis with the political nucleus and the technical consortium. The unanimous choice for this key role fell upon the jurist David Laban of Tel Aviv. His team would include, not only Anne Levi-Rose, but her husband Aaron, in charge of all the media aspects of the Exodus project.

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14 Islands Israel was faced with exciting challenges in a novel domain of technology—with gigantic geopolitical repercussions—that quickly came to be known, from one end of Yahveh’s planet to the other, as insular engineering.

The first task would consist of shifting the Gaza Strip, since its present location blocked the withdrawal into the Mediterranean of the vast Negev zone that stretched down from Beer-Sheva to Eilat.

David Laban encountered unexpectedly few problems when he informed his contacts in Khan Yunis and Ramallah that Israel would like to transform the Strip into an island that would be tugged in a south-westerly direction, over a distance of some sixty sea miles, and anchored temporarily against the uppermost corner of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli offer was accompanied by a generous aid program that would consist of supplying Gaza with an unlimited number of Spring/Nomad kits capable of providing the inhabitants of the island with their basic requirements in fresh water and vegetables. In any case, they would be in direct contact with the Egyptian mainland, thanks to a mobile bridge to be installed by Tsahal, and Israel would be prepared to authorize certain maritime links between the island of Gaza and the Hebrew state. Finally, David Laban had made it clear to the inhabitants of the future island of Gaza that, once Exodus had set sail, Israel was willing to tug Gaza to whatever location they desired. So, everybody was content. Gaza could therefore be floated and shifted, which represented the successful completion of the first phase number of the grand project.

Meanwhile, colossal banks of Slicer devices, fresh out of the Dimonax factories in Beer-Sheva, had started to attack the entire 347

Holy Land in a minutely-programmed fashion, from one end to the other. First, they burrowed vertically, like desert rock rats, then they switched to horizontal ablations, enabling the Technion’s advanced Chariot Process to be set in action, using buoyancy gas from the Dead Sea. At times, Jacob Rose felt as if he were a latterday Alexander, building a kingdom. In reality, he knew he was a simple engineer.

The loci of the ablations were clearly indicated on a huge map of Israel suspended on the wall of Jake’s headquarters at the Sedot Yam kibbutz in Caesarea, but they were defined in a considerably more precise manner on Terra’s computers down in Fremantle, which constantly transmitted their data back to Israel.

The backbone of the Exodus—if one were allowed to employ this incongruous metaphor in the case of a virtual vessel that was defined, for the moment, by nothing more than a set of dotted lines on a map of Israel—would be composed of a single great land mass that would extend from Rosh HaNiqra down to Eilat. To enable this huge chunk of Israel to be extracted from its present position, over five hundred kilometers of vertical ablations would be required, followed by an astronomical computer-controlled sweep of horizontal ablations spanning a subterranean area equivalent to eighty-five per cent of the surface of Israel: some eighteen thousand square kilometers.

Terra’s computers estimated that cutting around and beneath this gigantic backbone—whose global mass was frankly astronomical—and subjecting it to the Chariot Process would take at least five years. So, there was still ample time for future passsengers, hoping to set sail aboard the Exodus, to purchase their tickets, organize their voyage, and even study in detail the foreign ports they might be visiting.

✡ A gigantic consequence of the extraction of the Exodus backbone—known all along, but only mildly publicized (because it 348

did not concern greatly the state of Israel and the future Exodus vessel)—would be the immediate connexion of the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aqaba, hence the Red Sea. Shipping companies would soon learn with delight that their vessels could sneek through the gap where Eilat one stood, and enter the Mediterranean without having to pay the huge fees demanded by Egypt for passing through the Suez Canal. This freedom reflected the situation at the other end of the Mediterranean, with its Port Sahara waterway. Rumors indicated that the Gibraltan exit would be wide enough, after the extraction of Berberia, to allow for the passage of a latter-day Spanish Armada.

Once the big backbone of the Exodus was floating calmly out in the Mediterranean, in the direction of Crete, further applications of Slicer ablations and the Chariot Process would be required to extract from the Middle Eastern mainland the remaining fragments of the Holy Land, which were five in number.

The central piece was a trapezium whose eastern apex was Jerusalem. In Terra’s scheduling, it was urgent that this fragment should be extracted as soon as possible, and amalgamated safely with the Exodus backbone, since any hesitations concerning the place of the Holy City within the future ship of Israel could have dire consequences. To put it bluntly, it would be unwise to encourage the Palestinians to imagine, even for an instant, that Jerusalemn might be abandoned.

Not surprisingly, in the north of Israel, the Golan Heights would be relinquished and left to fall permanently into the hands of Syria, except for a band of territory running down along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Complicated ablations would be necessary to extract the Galilee region, which would have to be sliced apart to form three separate islands. Great precautions would be taken to ensure that the lake itself remained intact, in spite of the fact that its waters would no longer be regenerated by rivers flowing down from the north. Later on, a solution to this problem would have to be found.

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After the backbone, the second-largest piece of the future ship of Israel would be a big triangle to the south of Judea whose eastern side was the lower half of the Dead Sea. This was a highly symbolic fragment in the sense that its extraction would result in the immediate invasion of the Dead Sea by the waters of the Mediterranean. For many observers, this inevitable inundation of the Dead Sea would be a highly symbolic and emotional affair: the end of a biblical legend. For Jacob Rose, the programmed death of the Dead Sea meant one thing only: the end of precious supplies of seabed gas for the Chariot Process. Consequently, this would be the terminal operation of the project.

In Morocco, the cost of creating the island province of Berberia —an operation that was motivated largely, if not exclusively, by the Exodus project—would be equivalent to a good third of the global investment in Israel. David Laban succeeded ingeniously in convincing the kingdom of Morocco that they should support half of these costs. As Moshe Zed remarked cynically, this was a little like asking a condemned man to pay cash for the rope that would hang him. But the Exodus project would not, of course, be condemning anybody to death. On the contrary, Moroccans, like Palestinians, saw it as a huge breath of much-needed fresh air in the region. People quickly coined a new buzzword, readjustment (replacing the outworn term convergence), to designate the consequences of the massive redistribution of geopolitical cards that would be brought about by the Exodus project.

Concerning costs, a remarkable feature of the Exodus project was the fact that it would not be colossally expensive. From the beginning of Terra’s interventions in Israel, their clients had learned with astonishment that the mind-boggling services of the company were in fact far less expensive than what might be expected. Everything in the environment of the Slicer devices and the Chariot Process was performed robotically by sophisticated computer-controlled machines. Consequently, Terra was never obliged to support heavy personnel charges. Items that might appear to be luxurious, such as the Black Swan and Jake’s 351

helicopter, had in fact been written off long ago from an accounting viewpoint. So, Terra’s invoices—prepared scrupulously by the services of Patrick Grady in Fremantle—were unlikely to shock their receivers.

✡ It had been decided—for psychological reasons, as it were— that the first island to become a reality would be Berberia. This suggestion had originated with the Mossad chief Uri Youdim, who had pointed out wisely that the largely enthusiastic context of the Berberia project would give rise to what might be called an emulation effect. If Terra’s operations in insular engineering obtained popular approval in the context of an Islamic nation such as Morocco, this would normally persuade Palestinian observers that they feared nothing in the case of similar operations concerning the Gaza Strip. Consequently, without actually slowing down Terra’s activities in the vicinity of Gaza, Jake augmented disproportionately the quantity of resources deployed in Morocco, so that Berberia could be brought into existence as rapidly as possible.

Subsequently, the chief of Moroccan operations, Robert Meguid, informed Jake that the people of the kingdom were visibly roused to an apogee of pride and excitement when they discovered that Terra was according them top-priority status. One had to admit retrospectively that, in the beginning, few ordinary Moroccan citizens would have been capable of explaining clearly the logic of the Port Sahara project, with its great waterway linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Likewise, once the canal existed, few people would have been able to expose and defend the amazing concept that consisted of creating an island to be named Berberia. Today, on the contrary, it would appear that the entire kingdom considered that the rapid creation of this floating province was a matter of the utmost necessity and urgency. An observer had the impression that, if Berberia were not to become a reality as rapidly as possible, then the overall future and 352

socioeconomic stability of the kingdom of Morocco were at stake.

For all these reasons, Berberia was indeed the first island to spring into existence, in an ambiance of global jubilation.

Everybody was thrilled. The royal family and the Moroccan government were proud to see their nation thrown into the spotlight of international high-tech hype. Besides, Aaron Rose did his utmost to ensure that every drop of international media potential was squeezed out of the creation of the island of Berberia. This was not difficult, because Berberia was indeed an extraordinary happening, which could leave nobody indifferent. It was the first time in human history that a vast section of seaside territory had been transformed into a floating island. It was impossible for an objective observer to remain blasĂŠ when confronted with such a miracle. And Moroccans were immensely proud that this technological marvel had been enacted in their ancient land. Berbers, of course, were delighted to know that they now existed as a sort of de facto country. Without evoking anything as radical as autonomy, the citizens of Berberia saw themselves henceforth, with respect to mainland Morocco, in the same kind of position as Corsicans with respect to France. And that, alone, was a miracle.

Over a period of several months, giant tugboats nudged Berberia out into the Atlantic and down along the coastline of mainland Morocco. When it finally reached an ideal location, the huge island was anchored in place by steel cables linked to the mainland, and a dozen mobile bridges were installed, enabling Berberians to move back and forth between their floating province and the mainland.

Meanwhile, seeing what was taking place in Morocco, the citizens of Gaza were becoming more and more enthusiastic about the possibility of counting upon Terra to attain a similar kind of insular remoteness with respect to Israel. Their desires were rapidly brought to fruition. Gaza became a floating island, like Berberia, and Israeli tugboats took two months to lodge it alongside the northern coast of Egypt’s Sinai. As in Morocco, mobile bridges enabled the citizens of Gaza to set foot on the 353

mainland, if they so desired. But most inhabitants of the new island stayed at home, where many of them exploited advantageously the celebrated Spring/Nomad kits that had been thrust upon them without their demanding anything, as it were, like manna from the heavens.

Now that Berberia and Gaza had become objective realities, it was high time for Terra to concentrate exclusively upon Israel. A big fish in a big pond.

✡ At the house in Malki Street in Yemin Moshe, Paula Davidoff still occupied a bedroom looking out over the backyard lawn. She was often absent for a day or so, doing cello recitals in various corners of Israel, but she maintained her original simple au pair role as the guardian of Peter and Mary, the children of Jake and Rachel. Often, such and such a young male admirer would drop in and spend a day or two at Malki Street with Paula, but none of these casual affairs seemed to amount to love of a kind that might persuade Paula to establish a permanent relationship with a partner.

“Paula, you know I love to have you here,” said Rachel, “and the children need you as a friend, especially when I have to move around the countryside for professional reasons. And they never see enough of their father, who’s always so busy. But I often wonder whether Jake and I are not exploiting you unfairly. Each time I see one of these splendid young men who drift into your realm for a few days, and then drift out for no obvious reason, I can’t help imagining that maybe Jake and I are at fault for holding to to you, selfishly, and discouraging you from becoming attached seriously to one of your admirers. This situation disturbs me, and Jake too. We feel that we might be taking advantage of your kindness, and that Malki Street is a kind of rut for you. Maybe a nice rut, but a rut all the same. We would be terribly distraught if you were to leave us, but Jake and I often feel that it’s not right to encourage you to stay on living with us. Do you see what I mean?”

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Paula Davidoff, a highly emotional young woman, erupted instantly in tears—probably of joy, rather than distress—and hugged Rachel tenderly as if she were her mother.

“You must understand, Rachel,” she sobbed, “that I continue to stay with you and Jacob and the children, not because you force me, but because you have become my world. As an artist, I am constantly performing in front of people who consume my vital energy. It’s normal. That’s my role as a performer: to transfer my artistic energy to those who pay money to listen to me and my cello. One evening long ago, soon after my arrival at Malki Street, Jake was talking with his brother and you about astronomy. He started to tell us about those weird things known as black holes, which suck in all the energy that arrives in their vicinity. Suddenly, I realized that I am surrounded by black holes, which empty me constantly. Even those young men who admire me, who probably love me, are black holes, because they seek only to consume me, leaving little in return.”

“I understand you perfectly, Paula,” said Rachel. “That’s why I’m worried that Jake and I and the children might be tempted to consume you, as you say, in the same way as your admirers.

Naturally, if that were the case, we don’t wish to do so.”

“Rachel, the world is upside-down,” declared Paula Davidoff, now laughing instead of crying. “From time to time, alongside the black holes, there are marvelous things that Jake would probably call anti black holes, or something like that. Instead of devouring your personal energy, these anti-black-holes do exactly the opposite. They overwhelm you with tons of unexpected life energy. An artist who happens to wander alongside such an antithing suddenly discovers that his batteries are being charged by lightning. It’s the opposite of a black hole. Let’s call it a white source.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said Rachel. “To tell the truth, I’ve always felt that Jake plays that kind of role in my own existence. He clarifies everything. He has always given me the force to understand things, to dominate problems.”

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“In any case, for me,“ continued Paula, “you and Jake have always been a white source in my life. After listening to you, I feel transported. You give me the energy to perform. It sounds crazy to say so, but I have thought on countless occasions that, when audiences are applauding, I should tell them to dispatch a good part of their thanks to Jake and you and the children, because you are my artistic fuel... if you see what I mean.”

✡ Extracting the backbone of the future Exodus—from Rosh HaNiqra down to Eilat—was a tedious process that took four years. It was a little like the seemingly never-ending works carried out in cities that are installing underground tunnels and rails for a new transport line. Citizens see signs, above ground, informing them that something is happening below, but they remain unable to appreciate the exact nature of what is taking place, for the simple reason that everything remains hidden. Then, bingo, they wake up one morning and discover that their neighborhood has a new underground train station.

The first concrete signs that something strange was indeed taking place, invisibly, beneath the backbone of the Holy Land were the installation of a series of curious ramps and mobile bridges in the middle of various major highways throughout the land. They were incongruous in the sense that these bridges seemed to straddle nothing whatsoever, neither streams nor even valleys. In fact, they spanned carefully-determined lines where the backbone of the future Exodus would soon start to break away from the mainland.

Non-stop warning messages flooded the media in Hebrew, Arabic and English to let people know that exceptional events would soon be shaking the land in Israel, giving rise to extraordinary and possibly dangerous phenomena along her frontiers with Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. (For the moment, these media ads mentioned neither Lebanon nor Syria, which would not be affected directly by the extraction of the backbone.) After 356

lengthy discussions with people from the political and technical poles of the Exodus project, Aaron Rose had invented the ingenious concept of a so-called artificially-induced earthquake.

What this meant, basically, was that citizens would be subjected to a harmless overkill campaign based upon the common-sense principle that too many warnings were safer than too few, and that it was better to scare people by exaggerating the nature of imminent dangers rather than giving them simple facts that they might choose to ignore. So, with the help of Martin Luria and his wife Donna, Aaron conceived stark messages that were designed, frankly, to frighten people into paying attention to impending risks brought about by Exodus operations. They were told that the earth would open up under their feet, as it were, and that buildings along the lines of fissure might topple and crush their occupants. To shock viewers into listening to these excessive warnings, Aaron even dared to exploit archaic footage from films related to the San Francisco earthquake. Cigarette packets carry a sober message in small print stating that people who smoke cn catch cancer. In a similar but inverse style, Aaron’s announcements were accompanied by a lighthearted explanation to the effect that this talk about artificially-induced earthquakes was pure fiction, and that Q-day (Quake Day, as it came to be called) would in fact be a whimper rather than a bang. The outcome was that people were puzzled. Why were the authorities promising them an earthquake, on the one hand, and then saying that they were not tlking seriously? What this meant finally, in so many words, was that everybody would be taking elementary precautions on Q-day and in its wake. And this was the simple result that the triumvirate in charge of the Exodus project wished to obtain.

✡ One sunny Shabat afternoon, when everything was quiet in the Holy City, Rachel decided to drive to Bethlehem, accompanied by Paula Davidoff and the two children, to meet up with Mahomet— as she often did—in the vicinity of the tomb of Rachel. Alas, the 357

old Palestinian was not there in his customary place, seated in the shade of the tomb of the Great Mother. Rachel used a few words of her rudimentary Arabic to ask an old lady where she might find her friend Mahomet. The woman understood seemed to understand Rachel’s interrogation, but she did not reply in words. Instead, she made gestures indicating that Rachel, Paula and the children should wait there for ten minutes (the extended fingers of her withered brown hands) while she fetched somebody in a nearby house. Then she departed as quickly as her aged body allowed her to move. Five minutes later, a young Palestinian girl came running towards Rachel with a brown paper bag in her arms. She spoke perfect English, with a delightful French accent.

“Madame Rachel, your great friend Mahomet is no longer with us,” she explained slowly and solemnly, bowing her head to escape the direct regard of Rachel. “His spirit has left Bethlehem, and his old body lies beneath the dusty soil over there on the hill.” She made a vague gesture in the direction of the slopes on the other side of the valley, where the sandy fields were sown with Moslem tombstones. “My name is Leila. Mahomet was my grandmother’s cousin. He was a wise man, and I loved him very much. We would talk together for hours, and he often spoke to me about his great Australian friend Rachel, and Jacob, and your children. You were very special people for Uncle Mahomet.” Leila’s fragile voice quivered as she spoke these words, and she used a corner of her shawl to wipe away sudden tears. “He knew that you would soon be calling in here at Rachel’s tomb, and he asked me to give you this.” Leila handed the paper bag to Rachel. “Uncle Mahomet told me it was for your boy Peter. He said I would not need to say anything, because you would understand everything. ” Rachel opened the bag,which contained nothing more than a dusty chunk of Judean rock. For Rachel, it was a diamond.

✡ Q-day arrived, as scheduled by Jacob Rose and his engineers.

But it was by no means an earthquake, nor even a cause for 358

celebration, since most Israelis had lost track of what exactly was happening, apart from recognizing that certain strange events did indeed appear to be taking place, but without worrying anbody unduly.

On the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, a big hump in the form of a makeshift bridge straddled a gulley, or maybe a creek, which had sprung into existence overnight, as if by magic.

Intrigued motorists gazed downwards, as they moved slowly over the hump, and many of them saw a trickle of water. If these observers had parked their automobiles by the roadside and wandered down to the trickle (which was out of the question, since these crossings were henceforth sealed off by security barriers erected by Terra), they would have discovered that it was sea water: infiltrations from the Mediterranean. Other humps of a similar nature had sprung into existence on the roads from Haifa to Nazareth, and from Beer-Sheva to Arad.

Over a period of several months, these road bridges assumed more and more explicit proportions. It became clear to passers-by that these crossings straddled waterways whose dimensions were evolving imperceptibly but surely. The mobile bridges had been designed and constructed in such a way that they expanded lengthwise, as it were, to take into account the ever-increasing width of the waterway, and the fact that one side of a crossing was the firm primeval mainland whereas the other was the floating backbone of the future island named Exodus.

A gigantic media campaign was soon set in action, under the control of Aaron Rose and his associates, based upon a purely maritime slogan, suggestive of a Piraeus-based tourist agency organizing cruises to Greek islands: Get ready to sail! The Exodus backbone would soon be drifting so far away from the mainland that mobile road bridges would no longer suffice. Within a month or so, if mainlanders and backboners wished to meet up with one another, for commercial or other reasons, they would have to call upon the services of ferryboats, built recently in Haifa in the context of the Exodus project. In other words, to travel from 359

Jerusalem, for example, a short boat trip would be obligatory.

Furthermore, this kind of situation would exist for many months, if not years, up until all the fragments of the Holy Land were successfully extracted, floated, oriented and finally amalgamated to form the great ship Exodus.

✡ The extraction of the trapezoidal fragment comprising Jerusalem and its surrounding settlements—wedged in between Samaria to the north and Judea to the south—was a solemn but anguishing operation. Tsahal and the Mossad had feared that this event might be marred by political demonstrations of one kind or another, or even terrorist acts, but no such happenings occurred.

Maybe the very idea of transforming the Holy City into a floating island and tugging it out into the Mediterranean was so enormous, in every sense of the word, that no potential opponents had enough imaginative energy to invent a strategy for opposing this operation.

The Jerusalem fragment was tugged slowly out to the north of the Exodus backbone, now anchored in a horizontal orientation with Rosh HaNiqra to the west and Eilat to the east. The new island was then nudged into its original position with respect to the main backbone, and soon fixed in place by means of the Chariot Amalgamation technology perfected by Sylvia Chamoun at the Technion. Vehicles could then circulate with no obstacles between Tel Aviv and the Holy City. But drivers took time in getting used to the fact that the sun was no longer blinding them through the front or rear windshield, but hovering rather, strangely, in the heavens above Tel Aviv. Decidely, heavenly bodies had a reputation for behaving erratically in this corner of Yahveh’s world.

Joshua spoke with the Lord, and in the presence of Israel said: ‘Stand still, you sun, at Gibeon; you moon, at the vale of Aijalon.’

The sun stood still and the moon halted [...]

The sun stayed in mid-heaven and made no haste to set for almost 360

a whole day. Never before or since has there been such a day as that on which the Lord listened to the voice of a mortal.

— Joshua 10, 12-13

Since the eastern perimeter of the Jerusalem fragment, in its original location, had lain quite some distance from the Dead Sea, the latter remained perfectly intact. This meant that Terra could still obtain precious seabed gas from the station at Ein Gedi.

✡ Handling the northern section of Israel would be a complicated affair, because sections of this land extended both northwards between Lebanon and the Golan Heights, and southwards between Samaria and Syria. So, it would be geometrically impossible to extract the Galilee block in a single operation. This northern region of Israel would therefore have to be sliced into three fragments, each of which would be moved separately.

The first fragment, encompassing the Sea of Galilee, included Safed, Nazareth and Tiberias. It had been decided from the start that Terra’s Slicers would cut around this precious aquatic expanse in such a way as to preserve it as a freshwater container, which meant calling upon conventional engineering techniques to erect small dams at the top and the bottom of the lake. In the near future, the contents of the Sea of Galilee would be refreshed by a huge desalination station whose construction by Aqua would start as soon as the fragment was floating out in the Mediterranean.

Ultimately, it was hoped that rainwater, in an ideal climatic environment, would regenerate the contents of the lake.

Next, Terra extracted the northernmost tip of Israel surrounding the legendary kibbutz of Kiryat Shemona, which had lain deep in the jaws of Lebanon and Syria. The final fragment of Galilee to be extracted was a small triangle of territory to the north of Samaria.

Now that the Sea of Galilee had been withdrawn, the Jordan River ceased to exist as a supply of fresh water to Samaria. To 361

alleviate this predicament, Israel had placed orders for countless Spring systems from Aqua, to be donated to the Palestinians of Samaria, who were happy to learn how to create their fresh water directly from the sea. Besides, as a parting gesture, Israel offered them Nomad kits, enabling Samaritans to grow vegetables abundantly. This was all that could be reasonably offered by the Hebrew state to these former neighbors who had cried out for so long for the destruction of Israel. In any case, if the Palestinians persisted with threats of that nature, after the departure of Exodus, they would be crying out in a wilderness.

✡ Jake, Aaron and Rachel were thrilled to learn that their parents would be happy to fly across to Israel for the final stages of Terra’s giant project.

“As the airliner started its descent towards Israel,” explained Amos Kahn, “the pilot announced that he was ‘practically certain’ that the great land mass ahead of us was Israel. Some of the passengers—probably Jewish—were terrified when they heard such strange words spoken by the commandant of an airliner, and they asked the hostesses what it was all about. Fortunately, the pilot told us immediately that he was joking, and he excused himself by pointing out the shoreline of the mainland where Israel had once been located. His explanations were all very didactic, and passengers could distinguish clearly the huge gap at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba where the Negev had once been located.”

“A few minutes later,” added Nahum Rose, “as we were circling Tel Aviv and getting ready to land at Lod, the pilot informed the passengers that the airport was identical to what it had always been, except that runways that used to lie in a north/south direction direction are now oriented west/east. Many passengers were confused, because this was the first time they had heard of these unexpected consequences of the Exodus project. They were relieved when we finally touched ground safely, and applauded the 362

crew.”

“That corner of the world remains confusing,” observed Jake, “but for other reasons. For the moment, while we’re still manipulating the fragments, the Israeli Navy decided to move a good part of its fleet down to the zone where Eilat used to be located. Foreign vessels and shipping companies, not to mention navies, have the impression that the state of Israel might be opposed to the idea of using this channel between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean as a shipping lane. The truth of the matter is that Israel has no reasons whatsoever for preventing these new waters from being transformed into a regular shipping lane.

But Egypt knows perfectly well that, as soon as vessels start using this new itinerary, the Suez Canal is likely to go bankrupt. There was even a rumor going around that Egypt was trying to convince the Palestinians to tug the island of Gaza down to that spot, to be used as a plug to prevent vessels from getting through. But nobody really has the right to implement such a negative scheme. So, people have adopted a wait-and-see approach. But the destiny of the Suez Canal will become a big question, inevitably, as soon as the Exodus and the Israeli Navy pull out of the region.”

The Rose/Kahn elders were accompanied by Patrick Grady, Leah and their children Sarah, John and Matthew, who were excited to meet up with their Israeli cousins: Peter and Mary (the children of Jake and Rachel) and Louisa and Kevin (the children of Aaron and Anne). Patrick and Leah were keen to meet up with Peter Eisenstein, who had invited them to Capernaum for a holiday aboard the Gospel Ark. By this time, the three Galilean fragments had been reassembled and amalgamated in their original positions with respect to the backbone of the ship of Israel. It was decided that Patrick and Leah, accompanied by Paula Davidoff, would rent a van and take all seven children on an excursion to the sunny Sea of Galilee... which was henceforth bathed in a Mediterranean climate identical to that of the neighboring Greek island of Crete.

✡ 363

If the Sea of Galilee had been saved for posterity, no such happy future existed for the Dead Sea, which was truly condemned to die. This happened at the precise moment of the extraction of the final fragment of the Holy Land: the big wedge to the south of Judea that included Arad, Dimona and Masada.

To witness this exceptional event, the state of Israel—in collaboration with Terra for the material organization of the affair —had invited distinguished guests to a ceremony up on the Masada plateau. Prior to the start of the Exodus project, an excursion to Herod’s legendary fortress for a ceremony would have been a commonplace event. For ages, Tsahal had exploited this national shrine as a venue for military graduation ceremonies.

Today, however, things had changed vastly in the sense that Masada was indeed was of the few remaining sites that remained entrenched, like strongholds, at their primeval locations, whereas the great majority of Israeli citizens resided henceforth on a floating island out in the Mediterranean. So, concerning the ceremony at Masada, guests had to conveyed to the vicinity of Arad by boats or helicopters, and then by buses to Masada. In spite of this inconvenience, it could be said that almost every individual who had played any kind of role in the realization of the Terra vision was present at Masada to witness this penultimate phase of the great project: the extraction of the final fragment of Israel, which would herald the incursion of the Mediterranean into the basin that had encapsulated, since time immemorial, the waters of the Dead Sea. Whenever the Black Swan was not being used by Jake and other Terra engineers to visit various sites where the Chariot Process was in progress, or fragments were being tugged around in the Mediterranean, the vessel was usually moored at Caesarea or Ashkelon. Early that morning, George Thiatikos had brought her to Jaffa to pick up the Rose/Kahn seniors and David Laban, to take them on a leisurely trip across to the mainland, for the festivities.

They tied up at a pontoon in Dimona, which had been transformed into a makeshift port, where buses were waiting to convey guests to Masada.

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The president of Israel, the prime minister and all the members of the Knesset were present to witness the definitive ablation of the Holy Land’s last concrete link with its archaic geographical cocoon, which was once the westernmost segment of the celebrated Fertile Crescent. Numerous guests from foreign nations had also been invited to Masada for the ceremony and festivities.

Among these, the most noteworthy were a delegation from Morocco including the ministers Moussa Idris and Sidi Yussan, accompanied by his English-born wife Jane. Their presence was not only normal but appropriate, since Israel and Morocco had succeeded in collaborating in a friendly state of mutual understanding at all stages of the great works carried out by Terra upon their respective territories.

“Well, Moshe, can you imagine what’s going to happen with your country from now on?” asked Sidi Yussan, who had developed a relationship of familiarity with the Israeli prime minister during their frequent contacts over the last few years.

“Israel will soon be like a young man who has attained an age at which he leaves home and sets out to discover the wide world.”

“Everybody knows that religion has never played a dominant role in my life,” replied Moshe Zed, with a timid smile, “but I think it’s fair to say today, as far as the future of our country is concerned, that only God knows. We have made exhaustive studies of all kinds of scenarios, using simulation methods. We have tried to imagine the ship of Israel in all kinds of sitution, in various corners of the planet. But the computers only give us a theoretical description of what might happen. Many things could go wrong.

On the other hand, many things could go right, and lead to beautiful surprises. We are confident that we’ve made the right decision. But, as I say, we are henceforth in God’s hands.” It was unusual to hear an industrialist and political chief such as Zed evoking God, but it was probably a mere figure of speech.

Various Jewish and Christian religious leaders were also present at Masada. They kept a low profile, however, since the possible implications of the Exodus project in the religious domain had not 365

yet been fathomed out clearly and explicitly. Many religious authorities thought it preferable to bide their time while awaiting inspiration and understanding. Moslems aboard the floating fragments of Israel were most confused, for example, because they now had to resort at times to a magnetic compass to be sure of the right direction in which to orient their bodies when praying.

Many guests, strolling through the ruins of Herod’s fortress, carried binoculars. This was the only way of remaining in vague visual contact with the events that were unfolding a few kilometers away, down at the Dead Sea, which was shrouded in heat mist.

There was no longer any human presence whatsoever throughout the vast zone that would be inundated, before the end of the day, by the influx of the Mediterranean. The ultimate operations of the Chariot Process were being carried out robotically, as usual, by equipment that could be controlled in a remote fashion. Besides, all these machines were destined to be destroyed by the imminent rush of incoming waters.

Jacob Rose had made arrangements with the police to have a small patch on top of Masada cordoned off for his helicopter.

Periodically, he would leave with a couple of associates for a rapid flight over the operational zone, to verify the state of advancement of the ultimate ablations. At first sight, viewed from the air, there was little evidence that anything at all was happening. Inside the cockpit of the Ecureuil, Jake and his associates had access to realtime data, displayed on portable computers, indicating the state of the ongoing operations. From time to time, Jake would bring down the helicopter sufficiently close to the surface of the Dead Sea to distinguish the presence of agitations, as if some kind of volcanic phenomenon were disturbing the seabed. The eruption, of course, was the Chariot Process. Its fault line—to borrow the terminology of earthquakes—was advancing along a north-south locus in the middle of the lower region of the Dead Sea, and down along the last remaining section of the border between Israel and Jordan. The ablations had been programmed in such a way that Mediterranean waters would enter the Dead Sea simultaneously at two different locations: a little to the north of Ein Gedi, at the eastern extremity 366

of the border between Judea and the remaining triangle of Israel, and down at the southernmost extremity of the Dead Sea, near Mount Sedom.

The first guest conveyed to the summit of the fortress of Masada by Jacob Rose and his helicopter was Yohanan Navon, who had been greatly amused to see such an aircraft alighting, below his balcony, in the port of Haifa. The old man was a little dubious about stepping into such a contraption, but Jake had little trouble in convincing him, with humor, that he should do so: “Yohanan, you might think you’re risking your life, but this isn’t true. Imagine you’re about to get on your bicycle to escape from Antwerp. My helicopter is far safer than your bike. Our destiny is not London. I’m taking you to Masada. You’ll meet up with my father and mother. I’m taking you back in time to your ancestors in Antwerp.”

The encounter between Yohanan Navon and the Rose/Kahn seniors was intense and tearful. It was a necessary moment that brought together, not only the painful past of hateful ideology and the lucky present of comfortable survival, but the bewildering future of abstract technology that seemed intent upon turning the world upside-down.

“Today, my address is still Haifa,” complained Yohanan Navon, whose smiling features suggested that he was not suffering unduly, “but I don’t know where I am. People say I am in the middle of the Mediterranean, which is in the middle of the world. All I know is that I am in the middle of a big mess. I don’t know where I am.

But does it matter?”

Does it matter? To a certain extent, that was the dominant theme of many guests who were gathered upon Masada to witness the separation from the mainland of this final great fragment of the future vessel Exodus. What they wanted to know was whether or not it really mattered (whatever that verb might mean) whether Israel should remain eternally a part of the Middle East, or whether the Holy Land might escape from the clutches of its goegraphical heredity and become a free electron within the cosmos of Yahveh.

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“The patriarchs were wanderers,” explained Ezer Bar-Lev, who had remained minister of Tourism in the current government of Moshe Zed. “Israel is a moving entity, with no fixed frontiers. We are primarily a concept rather than a geographical entity. Yahveh told us that Israel is not a mere part of the universe. He said clearly: All the earth is mine. We should not waste time trying to establish frontiers. Yahveh has told us they do not exist.”

Guests at Masada strolled through places where insurgents of the year 73, faced with an imminent Roman attack upon their doomed citadel, drew straws to determine who would kill whom on their suicidal path to martyrdom.

Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery and after we have slain them. Let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom, as an excellent funeral monument for us.

— Josephus Flavius

Up on Masada, death was everywhere, as from the dawn of creation. The great engineer Yahveh had reckoned upon almost everything when he created his world, but he had forgotten apparently the anguish of a mother seeing her son piercing with a sword the bodies of his brothers up on Masada, or that of another mother watching her children die at Auschwitz. Clearly, Yahveh was a bad engineer.

A roar went up in the crowd upon Masada when an announcement proclaimed that a junction had just been established between the waters of the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. Through binoculars, a great torrent could be seen, moving ferociously from the south to the north, like the biblical parting of the waters of the Sea of Reeds. Sensitive witnesses claimed, later on, that they had felt a jolt when the Chariot Process cut the umbilical cord linking the ultimate fragment of the Holy Land to the Middle East. Be that as it may, Israel was henceforth totally liberated. She had reached an adult age, and she had left home, 368

with hardly a farewell, were it not for the sedate jubilations up on Masada.

“Jake, you’ve given the Holy Land a fabulous kick in the backside,” exclaimed Moshe Zed, who had no time for solemnity.

“No, Moshe, it’s the other way round,” replied Jacob Rose. “I have hardly touched Israel. It was Israel who touched me. She has caressed my mind and my imagination with millenia of wisdom and acts of faith. She has made me what I am today. At times, I look at myself and I end up believing that Jacob Rose has become Israel.”

✡ In the context of the Exodus project, the land of Israel had been sliced up into exactly six floating fragments: the backbone (from Rosh HaNiqra down to Eilat), the small triangle whose precious center was Jerusalem, the three pieces of Galilee, and finally the big triangle surrounding Arad.

In principle, these autonomous fragments could be reassembled, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in any layout whatsoever. But the optimal outcome of this reassembly process was determined by obvious constraints. A priori, if there were no good reasons for changing things, it was preferable that fragments should conserve their original layout. This was the case, for example, concerning the Jerusalem fragment. There had been much discussion about the possibility of placing this essential piece of the Holy Land at the prow of the future Exodus vessel, by tacking it onto the new coastline beyond Rosh HaNiqra. But there were many reasons for abandoning this incongruous idea. Above all, Jerusalem had always formed a neighborly tandem, as it were, with Tel Aviv. It was good that this should remain so, even if it meant that the Jerusalem region, no longer surrounded by Samaria and Judea, would become an isolated promontory reaching out towards the memory of a virtual Dead Sea that was no longer there.

The only abnormal juxtaposition that arose concerned the 369

northernmost tip of Israel, surrounding the legendary kibbutz of Kiryat Shemona, which used to lie in the shadow of the Golan Heights. When this fragment was tugged up alongside the backbone of the Exodus, Jacob Rose suggested spontaneously that it might be repositioned above Rosh HaNiqra, meaning that it would become the prow of the vessel. The Knesset examined this proposal, and ended up approving it. Consequently, the bowsprit of the ship of Israel coincided with a dull little village named Metula, subdued into mutism by countless years of shelling from Lebanon and Syria.

That was the global picture as the final triangle of Israel was tugged out into the Mediterranean, to be amalgamated with the backbone of Exodus.

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15 Exodus Now that all excavation operations were successfully terminated, and the initial stress concerning the feasibility of the technology of the Exodus project was starting to subside, Jacob Rose and his associates were able to relax a little. Huge amounts of civil-engineering work of a conventional nature would still be required to patch up countless scars left all around the land by the Chariot Process, but there was no longer any profound anguish of a ‘Will it work?’ kind. Above all, much deep thinking would be necessary to invent future strategies for the state of Israel, now that she was being transformed into a floating vessel.

Jake took advantage of this lull in the engineering operations to solve a problem that had been nagging him for some time: the creation of appropriate headquarters for Terra in the Holy Land.

The solution of the Sedot Yam kibbutz at Caesarea had been convenient, if not ideal, for many years, but it had always been somewhat improvised and informal. Ever since the days of the early project involving Herod’s Promontory Palace, there had always been room for everybody at Sedot Yam, thanks above all to Barbara Weizmann and her friend Rudi Kaplan, who had supported the initial charges of Terra’s use of this quaint residence.

Later, when Terra got around to renting premises at the kibbutz for offices for Donna Dreyfus, accommodation for Martin Luria and his children, and lodgings for Rose/Kahn relatives and friends, not to mention a pied-à-terre for Jacob Rose himself, Sedot Yam became the nerve center of the vast series of operations that were to culminate in the Exodus project. The delightful but somewhat shoddy setting of the kibbutz hardly corresponded, however, to the high-tech image of Terra that outside visitors might have expected.

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While this trivial discrepancy had never, up until now, worried Jake or Rachel or any of their close friends and associates, the vast international publicity concerning the Exodus project had already resulted in an exponential increase in visits from individuals and organizations wishing to know more about the Terra Corporation and its expertise. So, Jake had decided that a logical first step would consist of designing and building a permanent home for Terra in the Holy Land, and a place from which he could supervise the delicate task of tugging Exodus out into the Atlantic.

In the choice of an ideal location, Jake’s experience as a yachtsman probably played a determinant role. Henceforth, Exodus was a vessel. And every vessel has a prow. And every skipper has his eye fixed permanently upon the nose of his vessel.

In the case of Exodus, the prow was the village of Metula: formerly the northernmost point of Israel, now its westernmost extremity, facing the hugely-widened strait between Spain and Morocco leading out into the Atlantic. So, Metula was a perfect site at which to build a home for Terra and a control center—a bridge, as it were—for the great ship Exodus.

As soon as Jake had made this choice, Terra had no trouble in acquiring an Israeli authorization to use this site for their future headquarters, subject to approval of the plans by the nation’s architectural authorities. The task of designing an appropriate structure gave rise to rich discussions between Jake, Rachel, Aaron and various Israelis.

“Soon, in distant lands, hordes of people will be standing by the seashore and watching the horizon with binoculars,” explained Rachel. “They will be awaiting with excitement the coming of the Exodus: their first vision of the Holy Land. Whenever the great ship is heading towards land—near New York, say, or Bombay, or Rio de Janeiro—the first thing people will see, looming up over the horizon, is the silhouette of Terra’s headquarters at Metula. So, our building must be a memorable monument. It must strike people and fill them with awe. For precious minutes, for countless people throughout the world, the sihouette of our building will be a 372

symbol of Israel, a little like the Dome of the Rock or the Tower of David in Jerusalem.”

“I’m convinced that the ideal solution would consist of organizing a competition,” concluded Ari Hillel who, as the minister of culture in Moshe Zed’s government, was the doyen among Israel’s leaders. The old man had always been one of Jacob Rose’s greatest supporters, ever since the days of the Caesarea project. Hillel’s political decisions were always characterized by a strange blend of wisdom and fantasy, as if he looked upon human existence as the constant reenactment of an archaic fable. “We could invite entries from architects all over the world, then we could draw up an international jury of eminent cultural authorities to select the prize-winner.”

Hillel’s suggestion was adopted immediately. Entries poured in, for architects sensed the prestige that would be attached to designing the form of the prow of the Exodus. A year later, the jury was composed of celebrated painters, sculptors and photographers, professors of architecture and art history, and several renowned architects from America, Japan and Brazil. Entrants remained anonymous right up until the final decision, which awarded the prize to a project submitted by a young architect name Yazid alKassem, who had left his birthplace of Hebron to study in Cairo.

Today, he was working on several major building contracts in the United Arab Emirates, notably at Dubai. Certainly, some Israeli eyebrows were raised when it was learned that Terra’s future headquarters at the prow of the Exodus were to be the work of a Palestinian, but everybody agreed rapidly that al-Kassem’s plans were superb. He proposed a giant pyramid, composed of an airy blend of stone and glass, on a square base. A finely-written paper, accompanying the structural plans for the pyramid, explained in a convincing fashion that this building would symbolize the primeval Egyptian heritage of Judaism, when the patriarch Joseph —eleventh son of Jacob, and Rachel’s first child—was employed

by Pharaoh. The edges of the pyramid would represent the cardinal points: the directions in which the Exodus might set sail.

Subsequently, no matter where the great vessel happened to be 373

located on the oceans of the world, the pyramid would recall the Fertile Crescent from whence she came.

Concerning the material for Terra’s future headquarters at Metula, Yazid al-Kassem was fortunate in being able to exploit the nearby resources of the quarry at Rosh HaNiqra where the Technion physicist Eliyahu Aharoni had once developed an improved version of Terra’s Slicer, leaving behind him sufficiently many blocks of stone to erect a pyramid. Sheets of plate glass were supplied by a prosperous Italian manufacturer of Jewish origins named Luigi Verra, who refused to be paid, claiming that his company was honored to have an opportunity of participating in the creation of such a symbolic building.

✡ As soon as all the floating fragments of Israel were securely amalgamated, plans were made to start tugging the great island to the west. For this purpose, over the last two years, the state of Israel had been using its navy budget to purchase an armada of over a hundred powerful specially-designed tugboats from four shipyards, in Greece, France, Germany and Sweden. The hybrid conception of these vessels was half civilian and half military. On the one hand, they would be used for tugging whenever this was necessary, but they would also be able to play a role as escort vessels with a constant coastguard mission. The man who had been placed in charge of this fleet, with the title of commodore, was none other than Dan Shal. His former preoccupation of investigating subaquatic archaeological vestiges off the coasts of Israel had lost much of its meaning since the decision had been made to extract the land from its archaic position. Furthermore, since discovering the fabulous Chariot Process technology introduced by Jacob Rose at Caesarea, Dan Shal had become one of Terra’s most ardent advocates. After too many years spent in an office at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, Dan Shal welcomed this challenging opportunity of moving back into the seafaring world and commanding the tugboat fleet.

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Besides directing the actual tugging operations, Dan Shal was faced with a huge responsibility that could be summed up in a single sentence: Israel had to make sure that the Exodus would not enter into collision with regular shipping. At a technical level, this task was not exceptionally difficult, but it necessitated a sophisticated monitoring infrastructure and a high degree of expert organization. Each vessel in Dan Shal’s fleet was equipped with radar devices that relayed their data to a central control room installed in the basement of Terra’s new headquarters at Metula, now known simply as the Pyramid.

✡ It took some four months to tug the Exodus slowly, with great caution, across the Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, a new item of Israeli legislation was introduced in the Knesset, and voted unanimously. Ever since the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the nation had had both a president and a prime minister. From now on, there would be a third chief, with precisely-defined powers and responsibilities: the captain.

Captain of Israel. Captain, more precisely, of the great ship Exodus. Nobody in the land of Israel was surprised to learn that the first individual to receive this title was Jacob Rose. As such, he was granted the supreme power, in theory, to make any and all final decisions concerning movements of his vessel and the safety of those aboard. In practice, of course, Jake would simply translate into navigational acts the wishes of the prime minister and president, and the decisions of the Knesset.

✡ Once Exodus was out in the Atlantic beyond Gibraltar, the moment had come to tackle the installation of the vesel’s propulsion system based upon the revolutionary technique invented by the Frenchman Pierre Aron, which consisted of capturing the energy of ocean swells and using it to drive marine 375

engines. The feasibility of this approach had been studied thoroughly by Technion physicists during extensive tests aboard by the Black Swan, and Dimonax engineers had finally designed a totally-efficient absorber unit, which was now being manufactured in industrial quantities by a shipbuilder in Haifa.

The outline of the Exodus, seen on a map, was neither symmetrical nor harmonious, and no human shipbuilder in his right mind would have ever constructed such a poorly-streamlined vessel. But the ragged nature of the starboard flanks of the vessel turned out to be most advantageous as far as the propulsion system was concerned. The great oval gaps on either side of Jerusalem, where Samaria and Judea had once existed, were ideal places to install vast banks of wave-energy absorbers, or whiskers, as they were commonly called. When the great raft was oriented in such a way that Atlantic swells rolled into these vast bights, the energy had no way of escaping, as it were, and the whiskers functioned with optimal efficiency, producing power that could then be transmitted by conventional land lines to propeller units installed all around the coastline. On the opposite side of the land, other whiskers were installed in the bay above Haifa and at the place where Gaza had once existed.

Inside the Pyramid at Metula, the bridge of the Exodus was composed of banks of computers and communications equipment that controlled the propulsion system in a highly sophisticated fashion, with little human intervention. Jake simply indicated the navigational plans, and the system immediately calculated the precise propeller system that should be engaged to achieve the desired results.

In an adjoining control room in the Pyramid, Dan Shal supervised communications with the fleet of escort vessels. There was a constant risk that small craft might not be aware that they were in danger of colliding with the Exodus. Consequently, the escort vessels had to be constantly vigilant, twenty-four hours a day. Compared with conventional vessels, the speed of the Exodus was extremely slow—never more than a single knot—but the 376

inertia of the colossal mass was such that much energy and time were required to halt its course or modify its bearing. The numerous Technion scientists and engineers who now surrounded Jacob Rose had simulated all kinds of hypothetical disasters, ranging from a direct frontal collision with an aircraft carrier through to the unlikely idea of Exodus ploughing into an island, which would surely be the worst scenario of all. Ever since the Titanic, nobody liked to claim that a vessel was unsinkable, but it appeared certain that the Exodus would not suffer damage in the case of collisions. Inversely, a moving cargo ship or fishing boat that plowed into the prow of the Exodus could, of course, be gravely damaged.

Clearly, it would never be possible to maneuver the Exodus in the style of an ordinary vessel, but this obstacle would not prevent the great ship of Israel from sailing across oceans and visiting every corner of the world. The essential prerequisite was to plan a future excursion in minute detail, and choose a route where regular shipping was minimal. Then Israeli authorities had to conduct international public relations of an intense and in-depth kind, to make sure that shipping lines and navies throughout the entire planet were aware of the present and future movements of the Exodus.

✡ After many discussions of a technical nature, and lengthy debates within the Knesset, the destination chosen for the inaugural voyage of the Exodus was the birthplace of the captain: Western Australia. In fact, this decision was not influenced at all by the nationality of Jacob Rose. This antipodean destination had the advantage of being one of the most remote spots on the planet, and the itinerary—down the western coast of the African continent, around the Cape of Good Hope, then across the Indian Ocean—would make it possible to test calmly a host of technical and environmental factors, while interfering as little as possible 377

with the world’s shipping.

It was decided, above all, that this inaugural voyage should be an excessively leisurely excursion, in the sense that Exodus would loiter deliberately, as it were, taking time to start patching up the countless scars left upon the land as a result of years of enduring Slicer ablations and the Chariot Process. In surgical terms, it might be said that Israel was still more or less in a state of postoperative shock. The land was in need of a long period of tranquility, in a pleasant environment, to lick her wounds.

From the main control center of the Pyramid, Jake and Rachel were communicating by radio with their children, aboard the Black Swan. Often, the trawler had adopted the habit of behaving as a would-be flagship of the Israeli armada, idling around at the nose of the Exodus in such a way that she was clearly visible from the Pyramid at Metula. The Black Swan was skippered, as usual, by George Thiatikos, who had now made the trawler his permanent residence, which he shared with his Egyptian companion Rika.

Peter and Mary Rose were never happier than when Rachel allowed them to spend time on the Black Swan, generally with Paula Davidoff. As for Paula, she was inevitably accompanied by Enzo Florini. Since the successful conclusion of the extraction of Israel, former key individuals such as George Thiatikos, Enzo Florini and Robert Meguid were in a position to envisage a precocious retirement, with the encouragement of Terra. Robert had decided to become a permanent resident of the island of Berberia, and Morocco had granted him honorary citizenship for his pioneering work. Enzo was thrilled to discover the rich musical scene in Israel, and Paula accompanied him to concerts all over the land. As soon as Terra had abandoned the Sedot Yam kibbutz in Caesarea, Enzo had moved in there, taking over the flat recently occupied by Martin Luria, Donna and Martin’s children, who now resided alongside the Pyramid at Metula. Enzo soon transformed the former Terra offices into a splendid music studio for Paula, who spent much of her time now in Caesarea, since the Rose children no longer needed an au pair girl to look after them, and 378

Paula was visibly in love with the handsome Italo-Australian engineer.

“The weird thing about this departure for Australia on the Exodus,” mused Rachel, whose grin informed Jake that she was about to make a lighthearted remark, “is that nobody, at any stage, was there to see us off. There were no crowds of noisy friends at a port terminal shouting goodbye to passengers, throwing streamers and striving to keep contact as the vessel edged away from the quay. In fact, there wasn’t even a port, because the vessel is taking its ports along with it for the trip.”

“Talking of ports, my father told me that our Haifa is still waiting patiently for us at Fremantle,” said Jake, “propped up in a Terra warehouse. When the port of Haifa arrives in the vicinity of Fremantle, we’ll be able to collect our boat and find her a berth.”

“The world is truly upside down,” laughed Rachel. “Instead of sailing a boat to a distant port, we’re sailing the port to the boat.”

“Exodus is destined to change the perspective of many things,” said Jake. “Maybe we’ll end up discovering that the world was actually upside down before the birth of the ship of Israel, and that Exodus is simply going to put things in their correct original perspective.”

“You have an answer for everything,” exclaimed Rachel, hugging her husband tenderly.

“Maybe,” observed Jake, “but I never need to spend much searching for answers. I simply find them as I go along.”

“Are you claiming that, back in your student days in Perth, you never at any moment envisaged the vague idea of a future Chariot Process being used to displace Israel?”

“Exactly,” replied Jake. “I never became conscious of the possibility of such a scheme prior to my fabulous dream in Haifa, which I’ve often described to you, when my head was resting upon the diamond.”

“I hope you’ll have many more fabulous dreams while resting 379

upon that diamond,” said Rachel, taking Jake’s hand and drawing it firmly against her breast.

✡ When Exodus reached the equatorial zone of the Gulf of Guinea, a decision was made to halt the great vessel out in the open ocean, to the south of Abidjan, so that the land of Israel could be bathed, for the first time in its history, by tropical rainstorms.

Among other things, this lengthy drenching would top off the Sea of Galilee, whose level had dropped considerably since being separated from the archaic River Jordan. Besides, scientific observers were impatient to see what effects this rain might have upon the Negev.

After several weeks of drenching, the outcome exceeded all expectations. Vast areas of what had once been parched desert started to erupt in shrubs, flowers and greenery. Environmental and agronomical experts realized overnight that many of their existing notions about the potential of Israel would need to be totally reexamined.

✡ It soon became apparent that meteorology would be one of the most crucial domains that the navigators aboard the Exodus would need to master. Jacob Rose and his associates soon discovered that, whenever the seas were exceptionally rough, as a result of tropical cyclones, the best approach consisted of inactivating all the waveenergy absorbers, whose flexible ‘whiskers’ could be retracted almost instantly from the ocean, and simply riding out the storm in a time-honored fashion known to mariners for centuries.

When precise meteorological forecasts could be obtained a few days ahead of predicted events, the Exodus could in fact be turned around in order to face the bad weather at an ideal angle. For example, if it were known in advance that Exodus was being approached by a severe cyclone, the ideal solution would be to 380

pivot slowly the vessel in such a way that Eilat and the pointed extremity of the Negev faced directly into the turbulence. It was calculated that even a huge cyclone would wear itself out in moving over such a desert.

In any case, the ideal general strategy for Exodus would consist of simply avoiding regions that were known to be dangerous at particular periods. Obviously, it was far easier, whenever possible, to stay away from tropical cyclones rather than face up to them.

Another rapidly-assimilated lesson was the fact that Exodus was safest of all out in the open sea. If ever certain advocates of the project had imagined (as they had, indeed) that the ship of Israel might call in at various great ports along the way—such as Durban in South Africa, for example—this overly-optimistic if not naive notion was soon dropped, because such stopovers would be both complicated and risky. This meant that Exodus was condemned, as it were, to remain a maritime outsider: a hermit of the oceans, with no pretensions of ever behaving in the carefree sociable style of a pleasure-cruise vessel.

Yet another naive hope that had rapidly receded into oblivion was the idea that Exodus might return one day to her archaic position at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean. Up until recently, people such as Moshe Zed himself had indeed left this possibility open, no doubt to avoid giving the impression that Israel might be burning bridges behind her. But today, nobody looked upon this hypothesis as a credible alternative, because the outlook of Israeli citizens had evolved considerably since the departure of the Exodus, and the idea of wishing to step backwards in time, and retreat into the Mediterranean, now appeared to be absurd. Besides, there were rumors that Palestinians were no less happy than Israelis to find themselves alone at last. So, a page had been turned. The proverbial moving finger had written, and moved on, and there was no point in thinking that it might be lured back to rub out even half a word.

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16 World Stories about the fabulous Exodus vessel spread throughout the world, based largely upon excellent documentary footage distributed through the Tribe organization, which Aaron Rose had transformed into a prosperous company based in Tel Aviv. Hearing these stories, people everywhere marveled at the technological prowess that had made this miracle happen. Aboard the Exodus, on the other hand, ordinary Israelis were fascinated, indeed infatuated, by another miracle: the evaporation of the threat of terrorism. They could henceforth stroll through the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem without the constant fear that a suicide bomber might cross their path. They could go to bed calmly knowing that they would not be woken up in terror by shells or rockets fired at their settlements during the night. They could be confident that no malicious neighbor would talk of driving the Jews into the sea.

Henceforth, the sea was their constant friend. Israel belonged to the sea, and the seas of the whole world belonged, in a sense, to Israel.

Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed Though the squalls of hate Sail on, sail on, sail on... — Leonard Cohen, Democracy

Moshe Zed’s Soledad party organized a wide opinion poll to learn what Israeli citizens thought about Exodus, now that the project had become a reality. The results were astoundingly encouraging. The vast majority of voters said that they were happy

with the consequences of the project, even though many of them had doubts about its feasibility at the beginning. When asked what was the major factor in their satisfaction, some Israelis said they were excited above all by the spirit of adventure that characterized the project, while others mentioned their pride at seeing the nation exhibit her technological prowess. But the vast majority of citizens explained that they were relieved to be liberated from the climate of hatred that had reigned in the Middle East, and the risk of terrorist acts.

âœĄ The arrival of Exodus in the waters off Rottnest Island in Western Australia was a grand happening, which might be thought of as closing the Terra circle. In fact, this event opened far more than it closed.

Australians, whose nation had been forged by wandering OldWorld navigators, often in less than honorable pursuits, saw the ship of Israel as a vessel of global peace. A local journalist dubbed it the Biblical Boat, and this nickname became an instant success.

Ordinary Israelis who had never set foot outside the frontiers of their tiny land were thrilled to visit the Australian mainland, which soon hosted hordes of tourists. Likewise, citizens of Western Australia were astounded to be able to take a short boat trip out beyond their familiar Rottnest Island to encounter the legendary Holy Land. For the peoples of both nations, these encounters of a new type changed their vision of the world. In former times, pilgrims risked their lives in visiting the celebrated sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in Palestine. Even within the context of modern Israel, many foreigners were reluctant to visit a land that had become notorious for its constant atmosphere of thrife, and the risks of bloodshed. Today, on the contrary, Australians could conduct a pilgrimage to such-and-such a sacred site by means of a short boat trip from Fremantle. Reciprocally, more and more Israelis developed the habit of spending Friday on the Australian mainland, doing their Shabat shopping in Fremantle.

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✡ During the lengthy stay of Exodus in Australian waters, the physical appearance of Israel continued to evolve in a spectacular fashion as a natural consequence of the novel climatic environment in which the land was now thriving. Researchers at the Ben-Gurion Desert Institute were fascinated by the new possibilities in agronomy that were opening up before their eyes since Israel’s departure from the archaic Fertile Crescent. For the first time since the stories of the Torah were written, the Holy Land revealed concrete signs of its effective potential as a rich food-producer. A land of milk and honey.

The Lord said, ‘I have witnessed the misery of my people in Egypt and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors.

I know what they are suffering and have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that country and into a fine, broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey...

— Exodus 3, 7-8

Clearly, what was needed was an objective strategy for displacing Exodus in a precisely-planned fashion enabling Israel to take advantage of optimal climatic conditions during the entire year, simply by moving the vessel from one location to another.

Specialists determined that this strategy could be implemented easily, in theory, within any of three great oceanic expanses: the Atlantic, the Indian or the Pacific. The Exodus would simply have to get into the habit of spending roughly half of the year in the vicinity of the Tropic of Cancer, and the other half close to the Tropic of Capricorn. It was decided therefore to conduct extensive experiments in a systematic fashion, over many years, to determine which of these oceanic zones would cause the milk and honey to flow must abundantly.

✡ During the years of enchanting navigation that ensued, the 384

theme of Exodus conquered the peoples of the planet. It was a conquest of peace—Shalom!—without a single shot being fired.

Once upon a time, Yahveh had informed Moses: All the earth is mine. Today, in a metaphorical sense, the entire world belonged to Exodus, even though the great ship never interfered with, or even touched, another nation in a offensive manner. In this way, Exodus might roam the seas forever, like the Ancient Mariner or the mythical Flying Dutchman, maintaining a respectable distance between the vessel and adjacent ports, remaining just a little aloof.

Many authors evoked the time-honored concept of the Wandering Jew, but nobody was sure that it had any profound meaning.

In former times, after repeated devastations of their ancestral homeland, Jews had been dispersed throughout the four corners of the world, giving rise to a vast phenomenon known as the Diaspora. Today, instead of calling upon the inhabitants of the Diaspora to return to the Holy Land, Exodus proposed another approach. The ship of Israel was transporting literally the Holy Land to the Diaspora. As Rachel once remarked, the port of Haifa had moved out towards a boat of the same name, like a father recovering a lost son.

✡ The son of Jacob and Rachel was growing up in a harmonious ambiance of adventure, wisdom and hope in the future, surrounded by friends and mentors in every domain, from engineering through to music, including politics. Observers might have concluded that he was being groomed for leadership, like David in the court of Saul. Be that as it may, it was becoming clear to everybody that, one day soon, Peter Israel Rose would be fit to replace his father as captain of the Exodus. And this promise pleased everybody.

✡ It was unthinkable that the ship of Israel might ever be tempted 385

to return to its original location at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, even for a brief excursion. Many people aboard the Biblical Boat nevertheless used the media to keep abreast of ongoing events in what they referred to, lightheartedly, as the Old World. They learned with interest that their former neighbors, the Palestinians, had been devoting much energy to tidying up their land. To grasp what was happening there, one had to move back to the time when Terra was using Slicers and the Chariot Process to excavate simultaneously the Gaza Moat and the Port Sahara canal across Morocco. These operations had created huge quantities of debris: countless chunks of rock cut out by Slicers, rendered buoyant by the Chariot Process and then floated out into open waters beyond the estuary of the developing canal. Subsequently, these floating rocks had been gathered together and lined up along the coastline as best as possible, so that they would not become a danger for shipping. Well, with assistance from Moroccan and Egyptian navy vessels, the Palestinians had decided to collect all this floating debris and tug it back to the empty inlet between Samaria and Judea where Jerusalem had once been located. Then the island of Gaza was tugged up into that same zone, and pushed into the opening until it was totally jammed, acting as a barrier to keep all the rock debris firmly in place. Finally, Egypt provided barges to transport sand from the nearby Sinai, which was poured over the interstices between the chunks of rock, transforming the inlet into a vast and solid shelf of artificial land. The Palestinian government then called upon their fellow countryman Yazid alKassem—the same brilliant architect who designed Terra’s Pyramid at Metula—to take charge of transforming this new space in the middle of their territory into a future administrative center of their tiny scarred land. With financial help from Morocco, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, Yazid al-Kassem erected a magnificent glass-walled palace, in the shape of a crescent, at the exact spot where the Holy City had once been located.

When Moshe Zed and Jacob Rose heard of the role of their friend Yazid al-Kassem in this imaginative Palestinian building project, the Exodus happened to be stationed in the Atlantic, to the 386

west of Morocco. A week later, the Palestinian architect received an e-mail from the prime minister of Israel: Shalom Yazid, The Knesset has just reached a unanimous decision, and I would be grateful if you were to convey the terms of that decision to the authorities of your nation. As a gesture of goodwill towards our former neighbor, the state of Israel would be prepared to carry out the careful dismantling of two celebrated structures that stand today on our floating island, Exodus, and the transport of the fragments to a Palestinian port, so that they might be reassembled in your land. I am referring to the Dome of the Rock and the mosque of al-Aqsa.

I await your reactions.

Congratulations on your work, and best wishes for the future.

Moshe Zed

The Israeli proposition was accepted enthusiastically by Palestine, and Yazid al-Kassem flew out immediately to the Exodus to discuss the project with archaeological specialists in Jerusalem.

Surveyors in Palestine had no trouble determining the exact latitudes and longitudes where these two edifices had once been located, within a large empty esplanade in front of al-Kessem’s constructions. The task of dismantling the two buildings, packing the fragments and transporting them to the port of Gaza took two years. Then three more years were required in Palestine to assemble the fragments and restore the Dome of the Rock and the mosque of al-Aqsa to their previous splendor. The result was magnificent. Standing in front of the pair of ancient mosques, with the glass-walled palace shimmering in the background, visitors had the impression that they had alighted in a celestial city.

When the work was completed, the Palestinians named their capital al-Quds.

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