Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin I Series Book II Read online

  As they headed toward the table, he said, “This is my first time here.”

  “Really? I come here all the time,” she said, waving her hand in the air, bending it at the wrist.

  “The café is new,” he said, eyeing her as he made his way around the tables. “It just opened up.”

  Her breath caught in the back of her throat. “Yes, of course, I know that,” she said as she reached the table. “I meant since it opened. I’ve come often.”

  “Is someone else joining us?” he asked, pulling out the chair that didn’t have a cup sitting on the table in front of it.

  “No. Sit there,” she said, in a more rushed voice than she would have liked. She pointed to the place she had sat before he arrived. “I took the liberty of ordering for you.” She grabbed the chair in front of the cup where she had placed the spoon.

  “Here, let me get that for you.” Ghazi came around the table and pulled out the chair for her.

  “Thank you,” she said. What a gentleman. Smiling, she pointed to the cup in front of her. “This is mine. I had just added sugar when I saw you approach. I didn’t even have time to take the spoon out.” She started stirring the coffee. Her eyes followed Ghazi as he rounded the table back to his seat. Placing the spoon on the saucer underneath the cup, she wrapped her fingers around it and took a sip. “Yum,” she said, smiling warmly at Ghazi.

  “I do hope you like Turkish coffee,” she said swallowing, and wiping her mouth with the napkin. “I’ve ordered you a botz.” She pointed at the cup. “It had only just arrived. It should still be nice and hot.”

  “Thank you. I would have preferred a caffè macchiato . . .” Ghazi picked up his spoon and stirred the deep brown liquid around in the clear glass cup.

  “You’re not going to return it, are you?” She could feel a knot of panic rising in her chest.

  He raised an eyebrow. “No. Of course not.” His brown eyes beamed at her. “This is fine.” He pooled a small amount into the curve of the spoon and let it slide back off. “Yes. This is fine.”

  She watched him stir, swirling the liquid around. There is no way you could have had a macchiato, you handsome devil, she thought as she raised her coffee cup to her lips, because then, when I put that little surprise in, it would have disturbed the stain made by the milk. Couldn’t have anything make you suspicious, now could we? She giggled at the thought. Setting the cup down, she put her hand up to your mouth.

  “Oh, excuse me.” She giggled again. “The coffee tickled my nose.” She covered her mouth and nose with her napkin. “Aren’t you going to drink yours?” She spread the napkin in her lap, picked her cup up and sipped from it, as if giving him a cue.

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” Looking down into the cup, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll order a chocolate rugelach to have with my coffee,” he said, turning slightly to beckon for the waiter. “Would you like anything?” he asked, looking back at her.

  She lifted her eyes from the cup. “No,” she said, slowly. “I’m fine. Thank you, for asking.”

  Ghazi nodded and gave her a pleasant look. She watched him as he directed his attention to a waiter who had arrived at the table. As she watched him go through the motions of ordering his pastry, her eyes fell on his cup. Everything else around her faded into the background as she waited.

  Pick up the cup, and drink the damn coffee.

  She closed her eyes to try and calm herself. She rubbed her hands together, the anticipation making them damp and clammy.

  Ghazi finished his order and poured sugar into his coffee, and then started stirring. His spoon hitting the sides of the cup as he stirred made her more agitated. The clanking seemed loud, overamplified. She could hardly sit still in her seat.

  Finally, he raised the cup to his lips and blew on it several times. It felt as if her heart stopped.

  Finally, she thought.

  He tipped the cup forward, and she put her palm to her throat as he parted his lips.

  Drink.

  She tried to push the thought into his mind as she watched the coffee move closer and closer to the edge of the cup. She raised the top half of her body, making herself taller in the seat, leaning forward, her mouth opened slightly. She almost said it out loud.

  Drink.

  Peering over the rim of the cup, Ghazi looked at her and set the cup back down on the saucer.

  She let out a breath and closed her eyes.

  Dammit.

  She lowered her body back from its perched position and pushed her hand up from her chest to her hair, smoothing it out and fiddling with the twist in the back of her head. Taking in a deep breath, she said, “Is something wrong with the coffee?”

  “No. Well, I haven’t tasted it yet. But I’m sure it’s fine. I was just thinking how rude of me. You asked me to come because you wanted to talk to me and I haven’t yet answered any of your questions.”

  “Yes.” She coughed into a balled fist, and shifted in the chair. “But, I’m in no rush. Drink your coffee. Enjoy it while it’s hot.”

  He wrapped his hands around the cup, and started to speak just as someone gave his chair a jolt. Holding the cup up, he tried to steady it with both hands as to not spill any.

  “Oh,” she said, instinctively offering her hands across the table for more support. Certainly, she didn’t want him to spill that coffee either.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry.” A woman had pushed her chair into the back of his as she rose to leave.

  “You’re fine. Here let me help you.” Ghazi put his cup down and stood up and pushed in his seat.

  “I’m okay now.” The woman blushed. Ghazi stood and pushed her chair under the table as she left.

  “I was just going to say,” Ghazi spoke as he sat back down, “I am very happy to speak to you about Dr. Margulies. That is what you wanted, isn’t it? You’re a writer?”

  “A writer?”

  “Yes. You’re writing a book about Dr. Margulies? Jacob Margulies?”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course. Writer. Avid reader. Lover of books. In all languages. Do you speak any other languages?”

  “Other than Hebrew and English, no.”

  “I was doing some research,” she said, becoming flustered. She licked her lips and wiped them with the paper napkin. “And I found that his father was an archaeologist and that he worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ translation. Quite interesting that although they were estranged they followed the same path in life. That was intriguing to me.”

  “Yes, it is. Isn’t it?” Ghazi seemed happy that someone wanted to write about Dr. Margulies. “Have you spoken to Dr. Justin Dickerson?”

  “Dr. Dickerson? I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”

  “She worked with Dr. Margulies. They were very close. Like father and daughter. She lives in the United States.”

  “She? Isn’t Justin a man’s name?”

  “Yes, but it is also her name. In this case Justin is a she.”

  “Oh. Maybe I should call her.”

  “But, still I can give you so much information about him,” Ghazi said. “Where is your pad? Are you to take notes as we speak?” Without waiting for an answer, he offered, “I worked very closely with him, you know.”

  “So much information.” She seemed distracted.

  “Yes, it could fill up your day and your book.”

  “Um, yes, if only I could fill you up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your coffee. I’m afraid it will get cold.”

  Ghazi looked down at it. “No. I think I will be fine. I was just waiting for my pastry . . . And here comes the waiter with my rugelach now. Perfect timing.”

  The waiter sat the flaky, chocolate pastry on the table. “Thank you,” Ghazi said. His eyes seemed to sparkle as he pursed his lips and rubbed his hands together, and then picked up his coffee cup. He tipped it toward her, like a toast, smiled and put the cup up to his lips to drink.

  Chapter Two

  It was easy to get into his shikunim, a block tenement
house covered in pale Jerusalem-stone, in the south part of the City in Gonenim. Not a place where people would be on the lookout or maybe even cared who went into where. She had followed him home the day she had found out he knew about the manuscripts.

  Walking up through the dusty cluster of apartment blocks, the faint smell of salt from the nearby water edged its way up her nostrils. Her low-heel, brown pumps crunched over the sand that had been dragged in from the outlaying dunes. Sounds of the shouts and laughter of children running past her, and the drone of car engines rattled close by as she climbed the small incline of the road to his apartment. She crossed the treeless, concrete courtyard and then halfway up the two flights of stairs she remembered that she needed help getting in. Heading back down, she found the brown door in a corner of the first floor that had ‘Manager’ written on a gold plate plastered across the front of it. A quick conversation with the building manager, she thought, as she knocked, and I’ll be in.

  With hands wiping away absent tears she relayed to the short, stout, manager that she was Ghazi’s aunt. She had come to check on what he had so she would know how to proceed with packing and moving it out.

  “But of course,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, apparently interrupted from a meal by the knock at his door. The look of sympathy on his face, told her she had him. He rubbed over his brown, curly hair, and then patted his pockets. He dug deep into his front pants pocket, pulling out a set of keys, but then he paused. “Are you alone?”

  She hesitated. She wasn’t sure of what family Ghazi had. Perhaps the man knew his family, or girlfriend, or someone else he expected to be there.

  “No one else was strong enough.” She pulled her tan trench coat closed, and looked blankly past his shoulder. “Still too soon.”

  “Yes. I understand. Here, follow me.” The manager led her up the stairs and opened the door to the apartment. Standing with his back against it, he nodded as she slid by him into the small living room.

  Stepping in, she took a deep breath, and with a sad smile she turned around, her eyes met his. “Do you mind if I have a moment alone?”

  “Please,” he said, and bowed his head. “Take your time.” He left and pulled the door shut behind him.

  A small apartment. Very neat, she thought as she glanced around. She breathed in the smell of lemons and disinfectant. A dead man’s home. Everything looked scrubbed clean.

  She surveyed the room. His things were now just things. They had no meaning. Perhaps if he hadn’t been involved in things that didn’t concern him, he might have been home right now. She patted her hand on the couch pillow.

  Quite pleased with herself, she had never spoken to Ghazi before the day she had set up the meeting to have coffee with him. It was such a clever little ruse she had come up with, and it had worked wonderfully. Poor Ghazi, she thought, a grin curling up the side of her lip. He said he didn’t even know any other languages. Perhaps he didn’t know what was in the untranslated copy of the manuscripts.

  Oh well. Next time I’ll find out more about the person before I make a rash decision on what to do, she thought. Shouldn’t be too hasty. But what’s done is done.

  She snickered. “Perhaps I should have let him have that cafè macchiato,” she said to the room. “It was, after all, the last thing he would ever have to drink.”

  She walked over and stared out of the solitary window in the room, replaying the morning over in her head.

  His pupils had started to dilate even before he excused himself, she remembered, abruptly calling their meeting short. He had to leave, he’d told her, because he felt a headache coming on, licking his lips and swallowing hard. No doubt his mouth and throat had started to get dry. She cocked her head to the side with a smile, recalling him shielding his eyes from the sun that suddenly seemed too bright. She chuckled at how he had to steady himself when he rose from the table. Staggering down the street, not the same easy gait as when he arrived. He didn’t make it across Mevo HaMatmid before he collapsed.

  Maybe even convulsing as he fell, she mused.

  It had all been so alarming. Everyone ran to him. A man walking close behind seemed to almost catch him. She wasn’t quite sure, but it looked like a man that had sat near them in the café.

  She ran her fingers across the back of the cushion of the square, orange sofa. And then there were the flashing lights. The paramedics arriving. By then it was too late.

  “Yes,” she said out loud. “It was really much too late for that.”

  A black iron and wood bookcase stood against the living room wall. She walked over to it and picked up a picture of Ghazi standing with two women and three men. Maybe his family. Maybe friends. As she held the picture, she stared at the faces. They all smiled up at her, and she smiled back at them. A much happier time for poor, dead Ghazi.

  In the corner, by the window, set a metal desk. A brown mailing wrapper sat atop of it. She walked over and touched it. It had folds just where a notebook would have been.

  This could be it.

  She remembered well the first day she’d seen him at the university. He’d come with Dr. Margulies, and had had that beautiful smile, the same one he had worn today when he walked toward the café. He had really captured her imagination.

  And on that fateful day, nearly a year later, as fortune would have it, she had been near the Dead Sea Scrolls Translation Committee’s rooms visiting one of the scholars who was working on a commentary of the Scrolls when she ran into him again. She had shared lunch with the scholar. Keeping up with news about the Scrolls, her interest going back to the days when Samuel Yeoman had been Editor-in-Chief. Walking back from lunch, she had spotted Ghazi.

  Standing flush along the wall, just around the corner from the receptionist’s desk, she stepped back, and ducked out of sight. She wanted to watch him. To look at him. She peeked her head around to see him.

  Maybe when he leaves I’ll walk out and bump into him, she had thought, she remembered biting back a giggle.

  Ghazi stood, his elbows resting on the high-top counter, and spoke to the blonde, overly flirtation receptionist. Telling her that he had stopped by because he wanted to donate a notebook – no a journal, yes he used the word journal. She smiled at the thought and fingered the wafts of her auburn hair that had fallen around her face.

  His voice was soft. Pleasant, she thought. But a bit obsequious. Trying to remain as still as she could in the hallway, she cocked her head to be able to hear him better.

  He said he had a journal of one of the original translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That it was an untranslated copy of some of the manuscripts that he had while he worked on them.

  She straightened out her back. An original translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls? She strained to hear more.

  Oh how nice, Blondie, the secretary had said.

  “Yes,” he had said to Blondie, he thought it a nice gesture, too. He thought it would be good to bring in the journal and have it added to the archive of the history of the find. He told Blondie that he knew that there had been many donations after the Jubilee from family and friends of the original translators, and he wanted to give this in Dr. Margulies’ honor.

  “Dr. Margulies’ honor?” she had asked.

  “Yes, his father was one of the original translators,” he told her.

  A broad smile came over her face. “Really?” Blondie had asked.

  “Yes,” Ghazi said. He seemed excited to tell the story. “And this is his journal. It’s very interesting. Here take a look. It is in his handwriting and in three different languages.”

  “That’s very nice.” Blondie was pouring on the charm.

  “Isn’t it?” Ghazi had said. “Yes. He never knew his father. He died when Dr. Margulies was quite young.”

  “And what was his father’s name?” she had asked.

  “Dr. Amos Sabir.”

  Standing in the shadows of the hallway, she gasped when she heard that name. Dr. Sabir.

  Pressing he
r back against the wall, she tried to catch her breath, and she now remembered being so nervous. She slithered back until she thought she would be out of sight and made her way back down the hallway.

  How did Ghazi have Sabir’s notebook?

  Three different languages. That’s just what Samuel had told her. And she had promised him she would help to keep that secret.

  Shaking herself, she came back from her reverie. The thought of people seeing Dr. Sabir’s notebook still made her shudder.

  She stood with her hand on Ghazi’s desk and grabbed the collar of her sweater. She knew at that moment, the moment she heard Dr. Sabir’s name, she had to get that journal. She would find a way to get back into the office and get it. But first, she had realized, she must silence Ghazi from uttering another word about it. He’d already blabbed to Blondie. Who else had he told?

  A sound outside of Ghazi’s door brought her attention back to the matter at hand. She examined the wrapper, running her fingers over the face of it. “Dr. Justin Dickerson.” She said, pleased with herself for finding it. “And in Cleveland, Ohio, are you? I wonder what you might have found out from Dr. Sabir’s notebook. You’ll be sorry if you’ve been snooping around in it. Ghazi could tell you how sorry.” She giggled out loud. “If he could talk.”

  She folded up the brown wrapping paper and put it inside her purse. She brushed the hair off of her face, and tied the belt of her coat around her waist, popping up the collar.

  Arriving at the door, she placed her hand on the door knob, pulling it to her. Taking one last look around, she sighed wistfully, “Now, Dr. Justin Dickerson,” she said, “Let’s see what you’ve been up to.”

  Chapter Three

  Cleveland Heights, Ohio

  2011

  “So, where is Atlantis?” my husband, Mase, asked out of the blue. We were sitting at the kitchen table. Mase was reading the newspaper and I was picking greens to cook for Sunday dinner.

  “What?” I pulled a dark green leaf from the broad stem and dropped it into the large bowl I was collecting them in.

  “You never did tell me what happened to Atlantis. Did you write about it in the new book?”