Past Lives Read Online Free PDF Page A

never met them. They died before I was born. A village in the north I think.'
    'But still in Palestine?'
    'Israel,’ replied Benny.
    ‘ Quite,’ said Ignatius as if vaguely amused then he took a breath and said, ‘Good, my colleague Dr Stroud and I would both be grateful for your help with our research into life here in the Holy Land. We will need to ask you questions about your family background but, for this, you must be properly relaxed.'
    Benny found that there was something unsettling about the phrase 'properly relaxed'. He’d felt the same about 'controlled conditions' when Eli had used it earlier. He looked first to Eli and then back at the priest. 'Properly relaxed?' he said.
    'No need to be alarmed. No harm will come to you. But we would like to put you to sleep before we ask you things. It will improve your powers of recall.'
    Benny’s eyes opened wide. 'You mean you want to hypnotise us?' he said, clearly appalled at the prospect.
    'Something like that,' said the priest.
    Benny shook his head. Eli too was unsure. Benny drew him to one side and whispered urgently, 'Anything could happen to us while we were under the influence. We could be murdered!’
    'But they’re holy people!' protested Eli. 'Why would they want to murder us? We’ve got nothing worth stealing! They’ve no reason to kill us.'
    'They’ve got no reason to pay us three hundred shekels either,' countered Benny, his eyes moving between Ignatius and Eli.
    The priest saw that Benny was the more anxious of the two. 'There's really nothing to be afraid of,' he said to him in a calm even voice. 'Why don't you and your friend talk it over while I ask Sister Benedict to bring you something to eat and drink? If after that you don't want to go on with it we'll say no more about it. Under these circumstances of course, we would not be able to pay you the money . . .'
    Ignatius left the room and Eli got to work on Benny. 'We can't afford to let an opportunity like this go,' he insisted. 'How often do we get the chance to get our hands on easy money?’
    'I still don't like it,' said Benny. 'I'd like to know what's going on. They could do anything to us while we were asleep.'
    'Like what?'
    ‘ Steal our kidneys. You hear stories of . . . ’
    Eli’s look of derision stopped Benny in his tracks. ‘Stop talking rubbish about kidneys, will you?’
    Benny shrugged and tried an alternative. 'So what's to stop them asking us all they want to know and then murdering us so they don't have to pay the money?'
    Eli held up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. 'The man is a priest. We’re not dealing with robbers and thieves here,' he said. 'Besides, what are we going to do if we don't go through with it? It's too late to go back to Tel Aviv and we've no money to stay.'
    A nun entered the room carrying a metal tray with sandwiches and a jug of wine on it. She put it down and left without saying anything. Eli filled a glass and handed it to Benny. ‘At least have a drink,' he said. 'Maybe it will help you to see sense.'
    Benny took a mouthful then drained the glass in one go.
    'That's more like it,' said Eli. He took a bite out of a sandwich and murmured approvingly. 'You said it yourself out there,' he said. 'We are important people, real Israelis. Our help is worth three hundred shekels of anybody's money.'
    Eli topped up Benny’s glass and watched him continue to mellow as the wine allayed his fears. He could see he was becoming much more relaxed about the whole affair. Eventually he broke into a smile and said, 'Maybe you're right about these people,' he said. 'They probably don't mean us any harm.'
    'That's the spirit,' said Eli. 'We'll finish our supper and tell Ignatius that we're going to help.'
    Benny began to notice what a pleasant room this was - warm, friendly, reassuring. He was glad he had come.
    When Ignatius returned, he was accompanied by a second man, even taller than he himself but not nearly so well proportioned. Ignatius was slim but the