I have referred to the amulet. Now let me tell you about it.
Once, at sunset, Wechsler was browsing in some Jerusalem shops that dealt in antiquities. He was both happy and sad. Happy that even skilled counterfeiters didn’t try to cheat him, knowing he was an expert; sad that, because of his known expertise, nothing interesting enough to attract the attention of scholars to him was likely to come his way. Confused by this mix of joy and sadness, he noticed another man’s shadow extending over his own. He turned around and asked, “What do you want?” The shadowy figure said to him, “In the Monastery of the Outstretched Hand, there is a young monk who has a leather amulet, found in a cave near Ashkelon, with an inscription in ancient Hebrew letters. It is for sale, because the monk would like to help a young woman who is here on pilgrimage and about to give birth.” Wechsler did not procrastinate. He undertook the climb to the monastery and looked at the amulet. He did not succeed in buying it, because the seller was asking more than Wechsler could afford. Wechsler left, in a depressed and agitated mood. Several days later, he met someone who said, “So you want to buy the Ashkelon piece, and you can’t afford it because the seller is asking such a high price. Then let me whisper that he must sell it now, because it’s time for that woman to leave the country and go back to her husband. But she can’t go back, because she has given birth in the meanwhile and can’t take her child. When she left her husband over a year ago to come to Jerusalem, there was no sign of a pregnancy. Now that she has given birth, she has to hire a wetnurse for the child, and that monk, who offered to help her in her distress, has no choice but to convert the amulet into cash.” Once more Wechsler climbed up to see the monk. He met the one who first informed him about the amulet, who now said to him, “So you are going to buy the amulet, and you think you will succeed because the woman has to hire a nurse and can’t ask her husband for the money, and the monk wants to help her by selling the amulet. In that case, you might as well know that she no longer has to worry about a nurse. She found a woman doctor, one of your doctors, who took the child and put it in a Jewish foundling home free of charge. So she no longer has to pay a nurse and doesn’t need the monk’s money. The amulet is, nonetheless, for sale. Now that the monk has sniffed the scent of money, he would like to convert the amulet into cash. An American tourist has turned up and made a good offer, but something he said will work in your favor. The tourist said he would make the monk and his monastery famous, but the monk is concerned about the evil eye. He has no choice but to favor the scholar over the millionaire, since scholars tend to be discreet and to avoid publicity.” At night, a Syrian girl came to Professor Wechsler’s house, carrying a letter with this message: “The one I spoke of won’t sell the amulet to the American, but you must buy it quickly, before someone else does.” In less than twenty-four hours, the amulet passed from the monk’s hands into the hands of Professor Wechsler.
As soon as the amulet was in Wechsler’s hands, he — unlike those who find something rare and disclose it only when it is worth their while, who collect many opinions and finally publish them, prefaced by “in our opinion” — immediately photographed it and circulated the photograph. The amulet acquired renown; Jews and non-Jews were busy decoding it. And, whenever they mentioned the amulet, they mentioned Wechsler. Wechsler’s name became known around the world and all the way back to Jerusalem.
Mrs. Herbst returned and was bewildered. When she regained her bearings, she asked, “Wasn’t Wechsler here? Did he disappear? I never saw him go. I may have no choice but to believe in magic. I’ll bring supper in a minute. Don’t go, Taglicht. Stay, your supper is ready. Boiled eggs and a glass of tea.”
Chapter twenty-seven
As they ate, the conversation turned to the amulet and from the amulet to Wechsler, who was transformed by the amulet. This lazy fellow, whose laziness exceeded his ambition, was suddenly the darling of the scholarly world because of a snip of an amulet that fell into his hands. Most Orientalists became preoccupied with it and credited it to him.
Let us present their views first, followed by Wechsler’s. Some of them wrote, “Traces of three Aramaic letters can be discerned on the amulet. If we identify the middle one as t and the final one as n, we have two letters of Satan, from which we conclude that the amulet was related to Satan and that both the person who made it and the person for whom it was made were Satan worshipers. Inasmuch as there are no other indications of Satan worship in Ashkelon and its environs, it is more likely that it was invoked to counter Satan’s power. There are grounds for the assumption that this small object is part of a larger one with a more extended inscription. Which is cause for regret. If the amulet had been preserved in its entirety, we would have the formula for a spell against Satan.”
Other scholars maintained that the symbols on the amulet were not letters, and certainly not Aramaic letters; that, if they were letters, they were related to proto-Sinaitic script; that the word had to be read from left to right and was one of many words we cannot as yet attach to a particular language group with total certainty. In any case, three letters can now be added to the proto-Sinaitic alphabet, whose letters have not as yet all been discovered.
Other scholars regarded it as a transitional sort of script, a bridge between Semitic and ancient Greek, though they weren’t sure how it should be read, since it leaned in both directions, toward the Semitic and toward the Greek as well.
What did Professor Wechsler say? Wechsler said, “The inscription is not Aramaic. It is not proto-Sinaitic. Nor is it a transition between Semitic and Greek script. Those are Hebrew letters, not three but four of them. They are t, y, g, y, which should be read as a segment of ptygyl, a word in First Isaiah. Since the word occurs in First Isaiah, this bit of leather is obviously from the time of First Isaiah, one of the earliest and thus most precious disclosures provided by the soil of Palestine. Henceforth, we must dismiss all existing theories about this word. We can no longer say it refers to a silk belt or a fringed buckle — a forced interpretation to begin with — since what we have here is leather, not silk or fringes.”
The saga of Wechsler and the amulet adds nothing to our story, but it was useful to Herbst. It distracted him from what had happened with Shira the night before, so that he seemed to himself much as he had been in the old days, before he met Shira.
Chapter twenty-eight
Although the meal was over, the conversation between Herbst and Taglicht was not. It shifted from the amulet to other objects discovered in the country, from the cave in which it was found to other caves whose mouths remain sealed and, when they are finally dug up, will also yield great rewards. The strip of land known as Palestine, seemingly parched and denuded, is actually a treasure trove with all sorts of riches ensconced in it.