that if I involved the authorities, they would destroy the scroll.”
“The scroll?” Omar Yussef twisted toward the priest.
“Our greatest treasure was stolen, Abu Ramiz,” Ben-Tabia said. He lifted the tips of his fingers to his beard, as though he might pull it out in despair at the thought of such a calamity. “I felt terrible shame that it should be during my tenure as a priest here in our synagogue that the Abisha Scroll might be lost.”
“The Abisha?” Omar Yussef’s voice was low and reverent.
“What’s that?” Sami said.
“A famous Torah scroll,” Omar Yussef said. “The oldest book in the world, they say.”
The priest raised his eyes to the ceiling. “The five books of Moses, written on sheepskin three thousand six hundred and forty-five years ago. It was written by Abisha, son of Pinchas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron who was the brother of Moses, in the thirteenth year after the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. Every year, we bring it out of the safe only once, for our Passover ceremony on Mount Jerizim.”
“It must be very valuable,” Sami said.
“It’s beyond all value. Without this scroll, our Messiah can never return to us. Without this scroll, we cannot carry out the annual Passover sacrifice, and if we fail to sacrifice on Passover we cease to be Samaritans and the entire tradition of our religion comes to a terrible close.” The priest’s eyes were moist.
“You said the thieves told you to keep quiet?” Omar Yussef spoke softly.
“I was blindfolded and taken to a place where I was shown the stolen scroll. They took me because they knew I would be able to recognize it and tell the rest of the community that it was safe. Then they demanded a million dollars for its return.”
“Did you pay?” Sami asked.
“We don’t have a million dollars.”
“But the Abisha Scroll has been returned?”
“We asked for help from all our friends in Nablus.” The priest lifted his hand in front of him, fingers pointing upward. “Perhaps one of them was able to influence the thieves.”
“What friends?”
“We’re part of the local community. My accent is like everyone else’s in Nablus-I say
“Did one of them pay the ransom for the Abisha?”
“No one told me they did so. I finally reported the scroll stolen during the weekend, because our Passover takes place in three days and, as I told you, the entire ceremony would have to be abandoned if I couldn’t carry this scroll in our procession. But the scroll was returned overnight. I came here this morning to meet you, as your office instructed me to do when I called in the theft. But then I found the scroll on the steps, safe in its box. My prayers had been answered.”
“Just like that?” Sami spoke calmly, but Omar Yussef heard the suspicion in his voice. “The thieves didn’t tell you they’d returned it?”
“No one comes here unless they’re accompanied by me. I have the only key to the building. They must have known I’d find it.”
“Who knew that the scroll was kept in the safe?”
“Many people in Nablus.”
“Who knew where the safe was?”
“We often welcome guests such as you in this synagogue. Then, there are international scholars who come to study our community. Any one of them might know where the safe is kept.”
“Was the scroll damaged when the safe was blown?”
“No, it’s in good condition, thanks to Allah.”
“Let’s take a look.” Sami stood.
The priest rose with some reluctance and led them to the back of the synagogue.
At the foot of a whitewashed stone staircase, he opened a heavy metal door and entered a small office. A tall green safe the size of a refrigerator stood in one corner. “A moment, please. The combination,” he said, working his fingers to mime the twisting of a dial. He shut the door behind him.
When the priest allowed them to enter, he beckoned to Omar Yussef. On the desk, beside a pile of ragged prayer books, was a box with three curved sides covered in dull, blotchy hide and less than two feet in length. Omar Yussef bent close and saw that the case was overlaid with silver panels, oxidized to a dark gray tone. He lifted his hand toward it and glanced at the priest. Ben-Tabia nodded and Omar Yussef touched the box. He felt a thrill of electricity pass through his hand. He smiled at the priest. “It’s one of the most beautiful objects I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“The box was made several hundred years ago on the orders of one of my predecessors in the priestly caste,” Ben-Tabia said. “Inside is the ancient scroll, but I cannot show you that today. Only on Passover may it be seen.”
“The workmanship is wonderful.” Omar Yussef ran his hand over the raised silver. Under its grimy coating, it was decorated with scenes from biblical stories. At the center of one of the plates was an image of a building that looked like a castle with high walls surrounding a courtyard and a central turret. Omar Yussef stroked a fingertip around the outline of the building.
“That’s our temple, which once stood on top of Mount Jerizim.” The priest inclined his head toward the place where Omar Yussef’s hand rested. “The Jews say the temple was in Jerusalem, where your famous Dome of the Rock now stands. But we know it was on Jerizim.” He swallowed hard. “May I return the Abisha Scroll to the safe? It makes me nervous even to have it here on the table.”
Sami left the room with Omar Yussef, while the priest again worked the combination on the safe.
In the stairwell, Sami pursed his lips. “He’s lying,” he whispered.
“You’re right,” Omar Yussef said. “Why would someone steal the scroll and simply give it back?”
The priest came out of the office and shut the metal door. He straightened his fez, gave a brittle, polite smile and gestured for them to lead the way up the stairs.
“Forgive me if I seem to be overprotective of the scroll,
Omar Yussef blanched at the unearned senior rank mistakenly accorded him by the priest.
“It truly is important to the redemption of the entire world,” the priest continued. “You see, our holy texts tell us that the Messiah will be born to the tribe of Levi or Joseph. We Samaritans are all that’s left of those two tribes. But what makes us Samaritans? Only that we celebrate Passover and also the Feast of Tabernacles in the way taught by our tradition.”
“With the Abisha Scroll at the head of your procession.”
The priest opened a hand to acknowledge that Omar Yussef’s understanding was correct. “If we were to miss both these festivals for a single year, we would no longer be Samaritans. The lines of Levi and Joseph would come to an end, and there would be no possibility of a Messiah being born to redeem mankind.”
Omar Yussef stroked his chin with his knuckles. “Were there other ancient documents in the safe?”
“A few, but nothing else was taken.” The priest looked out of the window at Mount Jerizim. “Most of our ancient documents are kept in my house on top of the mountain. Some are almost a thousand years old. But none are nearly as old as the Abisha Scroll. Only the most valuable are stored here in the safe.”
“Do you preserve all your people’s old texts?”
“The Torah scrolls and original manuscripts used in religious services.” Ben-Tabia pointed toward the blue curtain above the dais. “When they can no longer be used, these documents are packed away there inside the holy ark.”
“Why don’t you throw them away?” Sami asked.
“For the same reason you Muslims don’t use pages from the Koran to wrap falafel.” The priest smiled, but Omar Yussef saw a glint of hostility behind the old man’s outmoded spec-tacles. “Each page from a prayer book must be preserved, even if it’s beyond repair.”
He lifted a corner of the velvet curtain to reveal a low box built into the wall. At first it looked like a bench, but Omar Yussef saw that it was hinged at the back. “In here we safe-guard many fragments of documents, all unusable, but still filled with the holy word. We call them ‘Allah’s secrets.’ ”
