Destiny

FIFTY-SIX

Marcus arrived at the Hebrew University early. He had confined his work to a brand new computer with no outside access, no Internet connection. A few minutes after 10:00 a.m., the phone next to him buzzed. “Mr. Marcus, this is Shirley at the front desk.”

“Yes, Shirley.”

“Dr. Kogen is off campus in meetings this morning. I have a woman on line three who wanted to speak with him. Her name is Gisele Fournier. She is the person who donated the remaining Newton papers to the library. She’s the granddaughter of the gentlemen who bought them in England. She’s asking if we have any news or developments to share with her. Since you are doing so much work with these papers, I thought you might want to take the call for Dr. Kogen.”

“Okay.” Marcus pressed the button for the blinking line. “This is Paul Marcus.”

“Hello, my name is Gisele Fournier. The receptionist told me Professor Kogen is out and that you are researching the Newton papers I donated to the library.”

“That’s correct.”

“May I ask you, have you found anything?”

“There are many notes that Newton made. His research is the most exhaustive I’ve ever seen. It’s going to take a while to penetrate furthermost areas. The majority, I believe, will never be understood. I’m still not sure how much Newton himself understood during the last years of his life.”

“I see. I just thought that, because my grandfather used to…never mind. Thank you, Mr. Marcus. I’m sorry if I bothered you.”

“Wait, please, Miss Fournier. You haven’t bothered me. I appreciate your donation to the library. What did you start to say about your grandfather?”

“My grandfather was a collector.”

“A collector?”

“Yes, he was an antiquities dealer by trade. He spoke four languages, and he knew history, especially biblical history quite well. He traveled, buying and selling religious artifacts around the world, often working with biblical archeologists.”

“Is that why he had interest in the Newton papers?”

“Yes. My grandfather was going to resell the Newton papers. However, once he began reading and studying them, he thought they belonged in a place like the Hebrew University Library in Jerusalem, and he wanted them donated after his death.”

“Why, if I can ask, why did he want them donated after his death since he bought them back in 1936? He’d kept them for decades.”

“I believe it’s because he found something in them that frightened him. That’s the reason I am calling you.”

“How was he frightened?”

“He was convinced that prophesies Newton found foretold of a vast nuclear war. And he thought the key to preventing the war was to keep a biblical relic from the hands of madmen, men who would have no qualms about using nuclear weapons.”

“What biblical relic?”

“I’m not certain. I do remember, as a little girl, my grandfather taking me to a park in Paris that had a special place in his heart. It’s a Japanese garden near the UNESCO building. There is the figure of a winged angel. The small statue was given to UNESCO by the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The little angel is disfigured, blind in one eye, the result of the nuclear bomb dropped over Nagasaki. The angel, with her wound, was found in the rubble from a large church that was leveled by the bomb. Everything else was destroyed. My grandfather used to say that it was a sign, a prophetic symbol, of man’s inhumanity to man and how it affected God. The angel looks like she’s crying.”

Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, his mind racing over the decrypted verses. ‘…to the head of the garden, one eye weeps for man, one sees revelation in the direction of the temple measured by Solomon…’

“Mr. Marcus, are you still there?”

“I thought of something I read. Do you know which direction the statue faces?”

“Direction?”

“You said it’s in an outside garden, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can you recall which direction in Paris it’s facing — from the statue, the angel’s point-of-view?”

“Let me think. In the direction of the Seine River, I believe. I haven’t been there in quite a few years. The last time I was there they were installing a memorial and planting an olive tree in memory of the Israeli Prime minister who was assassinated, Yitzhak Rabin.”

“When did they install the memorial?”

“Umm…almost ten years ago. Why?”

“Just curious. Do you know if a ceremony is scheduled to mark the tenth anniversary?”

“Yes, I read about it.”

“When does it occur?”

“Soon, a week or so, I think.”

“Miss Fournier—”

“Please, it’s Gisele.”

“I’m Paul. Gisele, was your grandfather involved during World War II?”

“How do you mean, involved?”

“Was he in the military?”

“No, but he was part of the French Resistance.”

“Did he ever enter Germany after the war?”

“I’m not sure. My grandmother, his wife, is here and she’s fifteen years younger than my grandfather was when he was alive. If you hold a minute, I can ask her.”

“Okay.” Marcus could hear Gisele explaining in French and then the slow answer coming back from an older woman.

“Paul, my grandmother said he went to Mannheim, Germany, after the war.”

“Ask her if she knows why he went there.”

Gisele asked the question of her grandmother. “She told me he went there to meet someone, a man.”

“After all these years, can she possibly recall his name?”

“I’ll ask her.” Half a minute later, Gisele returned. “She said it was an easy name to remember because the man came to their home one night for dinner. Also, he had a similar name to the Tower of London. His name was James Tower.”