the treasure

The treasure

By David Verveer

I am talking about events which occurred about 15 years ago, when the parents of our friends decided that they had outgrown the need for a large house and garden, and that they would enjoy more their children and grandchildren in a small flat in center of the town.

They had built the house about 20 years earlier, on the remains of an old building (most likely a house in the middle of an orange grove, housing the caretaker, as this area was in the center of the citrus production, which made Israel famous worldwide.)

Today, that spot is in the middle of a relative luxurious low houses neighborhood, and the only citrus trees remaining are in the gardens and as trees in the street.

The truth is, that the new house they built was in actual fact a reconstruction of the old building, this for tax reasons, as with reconstruction the building taxes were much lower. Thus the main western wall of the original house was integrated in the two floor building, a fact which was only known to the municipal tax people and the parents of our friends. In actual fact, nobody knew about this ancient, most likely more than 100 year's old exterior wall until the decision to sell the house, as explained above.

In the kitchen, a built-in cupboard was removed, and taken to one of the children's flat for reassembly, when a definite difference texture of the plaster indicated that somebody had hastily covered something without bothering in smoothing and painting the spot, it showed a clear sign that there was something behind the plastered spot. The father of our friend had never seen it, and did not know about the spot, and the sons decided to explore what was behind the plastered wall.

Of course, it is easier said than done, the house was already sold, opening and making a mess is hardly something you do when you are leaving the building, but curiosity was stronger than common sense, and with hammers, the plastered spot was opened, and showed a hole in which an iron box of 80 cm long and 40 cm wide and high, was found. According the color of the box and the rust on it, you could see that the box was rather old, around 60 or seventy years (dating from the First World War era, when the country was still run by the Ottomans).

Of course, the box was extracted from the wall and put on the kitchen table. It was of course closed but nobody left a key, and opening the box required special tools, which one of the sons brought the next day from work. I don't have to explain that the entire family was excited and like all normal humans imagining the great treasures found in this treasure box, and I don't exaggerate, the expected contents of gold and money were already divided and fought over, even though, in this family, they do not have inner fights over possessions, but the son who discovered the plaster spot, thought that he had more rights to the treasure, than the rest of the family.

There is of course also another problem, the Government owns any antiquity treasure found and if this is not enough, the house was already been sold and the treasure did not belong to the family but to the new owner. All this was excitingly discussed by the family, the night before opening the treasure box. You need a crisis to know what everybody really thinks, and this was certainly the right time to show hidden feelings, but I have to admit, the argument did not explode and damage the close family ties, which still exist today.

Thus we get with our story, to the eventful morning when the box was opened, and the contents were examined by the entire family, all present, even though it was a regular working day. The lid was opened, and a small cotton bag was found inside containing an army coat button, with inscriptions which afterwards were found to be Turkish. It was clear that the treasure had vanished in the clean air, and even trying to strike the button, did not bring the fairy, with the usual three wishes.

Nobody knows what is the story behind the placing of a button into the treasure box, why and who did it, it can be a romantic story of a Turkish soldier and his local lady friend, it can be a prank of a child, but perhaps it was the proof of a dreadful cruel murder, when the husband returned home and found his wife in the arms of a Turkish soldier, nobody will ever know the truth, and perhaps this is for the best.