“The safe was blown?”
“Blown? Ah, yes, with some kind of explosive. But the safe has been replaced. There’s nothing for you to examine.”
“When was the theft?”
“A week ago. Yes, or perhaps a little more.”
“You didn’t report it immediately?”
The priest fidgeted with the ends of the gray vest. “I was ordered not to do so. By the thieves. They told me 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.”