CHAPTER 67

 

Rabbi Silber was a compact, bearded, fastidiously neat man in his late thirties. He showed Marko, Foster and Ben to a small, well-lit workspace in a corner of the dining room of his modest third-story apartment across from Sternberg Park.

“Everything to do with my sopher work, I keep here,” Silber said. “You’re welcome to look around.”

Marko said, “What if what we’re looking for is in another room?”

Silber shrugged. “I have nothing to hide. My wife is at work; my kids are in camp. Look at anything you like. Just, please, be very careful touching any of the Torahs. Some of them are very old, and the parchment is brittle.”

Marko said, “Do you know Yevgeny Steinberg?”

Silber shook his head. “Not a name I’m familiar with.”

Marko consulted his notebook. “What about Rabbi Eugene Stein, or Hermann Stein, or Gene Berg?”

Silber shook his head. “Please, officer, what is this about?”

Marko handed him two booking photos taken of Steinberg, one with the Sikh turban and beard, the other bareheaded and clean-shaven. “Recognize this man?”

Silber’s eyebrows shot up. “Rabbi Altarstone! Is he in some kind of trouble?”

Marko said, “How do you know him?”

“He’s a collector. Sometimes, he brings Torahs to be repaired.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“About two weeks ago. What’s going on? Was that a mug shot you showed me?”

“The last time he came here, what was his reason?”

“He brought me a pile of old parchments to look at. He wanted an estimate of repair costs, and an informal appraisal.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Of course,” Silber said, moving to a tall steel filing cabinet and opening the bottom drawer. He removed a battered red makeup case and placed it on his worktable.

Ben’s heart began to pound.

“Excuse me, Rabbi Silber,” Ben said. “Have you looked at that yet?”

“Just for a few minutes. Please understand: I can’t make a living as a sopher, so I also have a couple of part-time jobs. I really only get to work as a sopher stam about three afternoons a week. Sometimes in the evenings. In fact, Rabbi Altarstone called a couple of days ago. I called back, but I haven’t been able to reach him yet.”

“Would you mind opening that and telling us what kind of Torah it is? Now?”

“Oh, I know what it is. I just haven’t been able to go through it, page by page, to see enough to make an estimate of what it would take to repair it.”

Ben said, “What is it?”

Silber unzipped the case, revealing a stack of yellowing parchments. “This is not a Torah, but a Tanakh. Handmade. Mizrahi, probably Mesopotamian, likely Kurdish, 17th century or thereabouts.”

Ben let his breath out. It was not the Aleppo Codex. His quest was over.

Marko said, “What would a thing like that be worth, Rabbi?”

Silber shrugged. “There aren’t many like this. To the right collector, maybe in the low six figures. But it’s in poor condition; it would take months of work to restore it. It really belongs in a museum.”

Ben said, “May I look more closely?”

Silber stepped back. “Please try not to touch it,” he said.

Ben pushed his glasses up, put his face as close to the page as possible. “That’s a remarkably delicate hand,” he said. “And the pages are smaller than most I’ve seen.”

“Almost feminine,” Silber agreed. “Although four hundred years ago in Mesopotamia or elsewhere, no woman would have been allowed to write a sefer Torah.”

Ben said, “What about a woman sopher, a sopheret, making a Torah for other women to study? Such as Miriam bat Benaya, the fifteenth century Yemenite scribe?”

Silber frowned. “Unlikely. Bat Benaya wrote prayer books and other Hebrew items, but never a Torah. Remember, in that time, women didn’t study Torah…”

Marko said, “I hate to break up your little rabbinical confab, but I have more questions for you, Rabbi Silber.”

“Of course.”

“Did Rabbi Altarstone ever come for anything other than repairs or appraisals?”

“He calls once in a while to ask if I’m working on anything interesting, and if I am, he might come over to see it. A few times, he’s offered to buy a scroll, but I always refer him to the owner, which in every case was a synagogue.”

Ben and Marko exchanged looks.

Marko showed George Soper’s booking photo to Silber. “You know this man?”

“I haven’t seen him in years, but he looks like the son of the man I studied under to become a sopher.”

Ben said, “Is he a sopher, as well?”

Silber shook his head. “He had the hand-to-eye coordination, and he was pretty knowledgeable, but it takes more than a steady hand, an appreciation of Jewish law, an understanding of parchment, ink and writing styles. To make or repair a holy Torah, or a scroll to put inside tefillin for morning prayers, even a scroll for a mezuzah to hang on a doorpost, a scribe must live an observant life. He must be of good moral character…”

“And Soper wasn’t?” Marko finished.

“Soper? Who is that?”

“The man in the photo. That’s the name he uses.”

Silber shook his head. “He’s got two or three older brothers. I’m not sure if I ever got all their names straight, but the family name is Tobias. I think his name was Jeremiah or Gershom.”

Ben said, “You suggested that he wasn’t of good moral character?”

Silber frowned. “Gossip and tale-telling—lashon hara—is forbidden. I try to avoid it.”

Marko said, “This is a murder investigation. We believe that this man murdered a police officer. If you know something material to this investigation, tell me now, or I’ll have you charged with obstruction of justice.”

Silber seemed stunned. “I really don’t know much about him. Just that he supposedly drank, that he used cocaine, that he gambled, that he broke into stores and houses sometimes. Stuff like that. But that was years ago.”

Ben said, “Was he also his father’s student?”

“He came and went. None of his brothers seemed interested. His father was disappointed because he came from a line of sopherim, several generations.”

“Can you think of why he’d use the name George Soper?”

Silber laughed. “That’s a good one.”

“What are you saying?” Ben asked.

“That’s the name of the man who put Typhoid Mary away,” Silber replied.

Marko looked blank.

Ben said, “Of course. A hundred years ago. Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon, was a cook who spread the typhoid bacillus but she was immune to the disease. She was a carrier. Soper was the New York Public Health guy who tracked her down.”

Marko said, “Why would that be funny to you, Rabbi Silber?”

“Because Mr. Tobias, my teacher, used to say that his father, who committed suicide, had ruined the family name, had turned them all into Typhoid Marys.”

Ben said, “What did he mean by that?”

“Mr. Tobias’s father died almost ten months before he was born. The community regarded his mother as an adulteress and him as a mamzer.”

Ben’s blood ran cold. “According to halakhah, Jewish law, a child born within a year of the father’s death is nevertheless regarded as his legitimate offspring,” he said.

“Exactly. But down in Bensonhurst, among the Syrians, they have their own ideas. When Mr. Tobias grew up, he went to Israel and learned to be a sopher, following his family’s tradition. The Brooklyn Sephardim wouldn’t let him near their Torahs, their mezzuzim, their tephillin. He couldn’t even get ketubah work. He had to change his name and move to Queens. The Hasidic rabbis didn’t want any part of him, either. He worked menial jobs and made a little extra money teaching young men a sopher’s skills.”

Ben said, “He’s retired? Do you know where he lives?”

Silber shook his head. “Died a few years ago. He wasn’t even sixty.”

Marko said, “Sorry, but we’re going to have to take the Torah. It’s evidence in a murder investigation. Foster, would you bag that, tag it, give the rabbi a receipt?”

As Foster broke out an evidence bag, Ben turned to Silber. “One more question, Rabbi: Have you ever seen George Soper, or Gershom Tobias, whatever his name is—have you ever seen him on a skateboard?”

Silber said, “All the time. Him and his brothers. They zoomed all over Queens on them, snatching bottles out of liquor stores, grabbing stuff from sidewalk stands and skating off. He was an expert.”