The Last Testament

EPILOGUE

JERUSALEM , TWO DAYS LATER

She had all her papers on her lap, in a neat black portfolio case. Less was always more when it came to a negotiation, she believed: a blank note pad should really be enough. Only at the very last stage did you need sheaves of documents, usually maps. And they were not at that stage. Not yet, anyway.

She took a look at this room, at the large dark wooden table stretching out before her, its faded elegance typical of this building. The same vintage as the American Colony Hotel, she reckoned, a leftover of the grand imperial past and the delusions of nearly a century ago. She looked at her watch, again. She had got here twenty minutes early. Another five minutes and they would get started.

The sheer drama of the joint press conference had had an even more powerful effect than anyone had anticipated. Television is a sentimental medium and the sight of those two old warhorses joining together, incanting the words of their common ancestor, had proved irresistible. The news networks stayed in twenty-four-hour mode-all Abraham, all the time-wiping out the coverage of the earlier violence. The pundits began wondering if peace was in fact the Middle East’s age-old destiny, a destiny of which it had been cruelly cheated. Time magazine put a renaissance image of Abraham on its cover above a single line: The Peacemaker.

A euphoric Amir Tal and his Palestinian counterpart had been on the phone just before midnight on Saturday, asking Maggie what she wanted in return for throwing their bosses an extraordinary political lifeline, allowing them to take credit for a discovery that would endow them both with enormous, enduring authority.

‘Only that the two sides resume face-to-face talks immediately,’ she had said. Not through officials: just the two leaders in a room with a single mediator.

The tablet meant there was now no excuse for failure to solve the last remaining question: the status of the Temple Mount. They should aim to have a final peace accord ready for signing within a week, one that their peoples would accept, one that would have the blessing of Abraham himself.

The two officials offered their provisional agreement. Maggie pressed home her advantage.

‘And there’s one last thing I want.’

‘And what is that, Miss Costello?’

‘Well, it relates to the identity of the mediator.’

That had been two days ago. She had spent the forty-eight hours since that phone call preparing herself. She had read every note, every minute, of the talks so far, every official document prepared by both sides, occasionally demanding translations of key texts used by the Israeli and Palestinian teams internally. She also bought herself some new clothes.

In between it all, she saw Uri. After she had watched the press conference on TV-and the moment when Mustapha and Uri had hugged before the cameras had been one of the highlights-they had met up at Someone to Run With, the late-night café where they had hammered away at the computer before fleeing, fearing pursuit from Miller’s men. ‘We’re still the oldest people here,’ she said and he smiled. Each asked the other about their plans and each shrugged. Uri said he had some things to sort out here in Jerusalem, his parents’ house, his father’s papers.

‘Your father gave you one last surprise, didn’t he?’

‘You know, it’s funny. The whole world is going crazy over this tablet. Everything it means. But for me the most amazing thing is that my dad did so much to keep it safe. Even though it says what it says.’

‘He was a scholar.’

‘Not just that. Remember what he told my mother, over and over? That this changes everything? Maybe it changed him.’

Hesitantly, Maggie steered the conversation round to Bruce Miller and why she had been sent to Jerusalem. She told Uri that Miller had wanted them to sleep together, that she had been-she hesitated before the word-a honeytrap. She told him how ashamed it made her, that she felt sickened by it.

He listened hard, unsmiling. ‘But you didn’t know you were a trap, did you, Maggie? It wasn’t your fault. You can’t be a trap if you don’t know you’re a trap. And it’s my fault for walking into you. Besides, you’re much rarer than honey.’

They hugged, a long, tight hug, and then shyly, like teenagers at summer camp, they exchanged email addresses. Neither had a physical address they could be sure of. When Maggie began to say goodbye, he placed a finger over her lips. ‘Not goodbye,’ he said. ‘L’hitraot. It means “Until we see each other again”. And we will. Soon.’ And then they kissed, until both of them knew that promise was not vain.

Now a distant grandfather clock struck ten, the clock no doubt a parting gift of the British who had built this Government House when they ruled Palestine. Maggie could hear a sudden surge of noise outside: the sound of several cars pulling up, and a press ruck, questions being shouted, bulbs flashing. A minute or two later, and the same thing all over again. Maggie straightened her papers one last time.

Then, the sound of footsteps down two corridors. From opposite directions she could see the leader of the Israelis and the leader of the Palestinians walking, each man alone, towards this room. She took a deep breath.

She shook both their hands, then invited them to shake hands with each other and gestured for them to take their seats.

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Maggie Costello said, aiming a warm smile at both of them.

The smile was genuine. It was the smile of a woman who, at long last, was back where she belonged.

She cleared her throat. ‘Shall we begin?’