The Q Document

Specifications

Roberts, James Hall (pen name for Duncan, Robert), The Q Document, (a novel), William Morrow and company, New York, 1964.

Reading

I read this from about November 20, 2007 to November 27. The book is from my personal library.

Review

This is a good book, although the theme is somewhat adult in nature.

The Q Document is a document that is a source document for the books of Matthew and Luke. That is the theory is that Mark was written, then Matthew and Luke were written from Mark, and second document called the Q Document. This document has never been found.

Cooper is a college professor who is on leave to Japan. There he works for a rather questionable person, Victor, who is into many questionable business practices. That is, he runs a house of prostitution, and obviously is into the slave trade, that is, the buying ans selling of young women for sexual reasons.

He also deals in old documents, which is what Cooper was hired for. That is, Victor gets documents from questionable sources, then has Cooper evaluate them (a true evaluation) and the good ones are sold for a good profit.

One collection he's managed to acquire is the "Baum-Brenner" collection. This is a collection of documents collected by the Third Reich, and handled by Martin Baum, AKA Martin Brenner. Martin Baum was a Jewish Rabbi in Poland. He started fighting the Nazi's in Poland, but latter defected, and worked for them for two years. Questions were why did he do this, and why did the Nazi's recreate this Jewish Rabbi as a German?

The novel follows as Cooper translates the papers (known as the Baum-Brenner collection, and may contain he Q Document). He translates the first few documents, which are numbered. But all they are are receipts for ink, letters concerning the death of Baum-Brenner's family, all but his daughter, who was allowed to go to Switzerland for her health. It also includes a letter to his daughter, in which he talks about sending her a "key."

Then he translates the other documents. First, a letter from a Roman soldier claiming to say that Saint Paul was executed on a charge of murder. A second letter from Paul to Timothy indicates that this might be the case, except Paul may be crazy. A Third document is from Luke attempting to convince Timothy that the work of the Church is good.

The last document is the "Q Document" which was written in the hand of Jesus. It depicts Jesus as a crazy rebel, who was executed as a rebel. His handlers intended that he be used to sponsor an uprising to overthrow Rome.

Needless to say, the Catholic Church, in the person of priest Father O'Connor, was upset. Also, these document were taken from a Catholic priest who escaped from Mainland China, and China claimed the documents. Therefore, Victor was able to raise the price was raised by bidding the Vatican against the Communists.

Cooper did the translations, but was not satisfied that the documents were real. The problem that caused the Church trouble is that they contradict the Church's ideas of Jesus. Cooper was troubled because it was too pat. That is, the particular collection of letters normally wouldn't be found together.

At the same time, Cooper's personal life is in shambles, and he manages to get it back in order. He is on leave from the University because his wife and daughter were killed in a fire while he was at a conference. His daughter died shortly after he returned. As it turns out, his wife was seeing another man, and that is the real reason they died. That is, his wife locked his daughter in her room, and because of that she couldn't get out, and, therefore, couldn't warn his wife.

The first time he is at Victors in this novel (he had been there before) Victor is buying an eleven year old girl for his brothel. He expects he'll have to let her get older, of course, but her future with Victor will be as a prostitute. Cooper doesn't like it. Later, he is visiting Victor, when the girl is brought in because she has attempted to escape and return to her mother. Her mother turned her in, and Victor is planning to beat her. Cooper intervenes.

Later, the girl escapes again, and this time finds her way to Cooper's apartment. Cooper keeps her in him room for a while, afraid of what would happen to her if Victor caught her. But she can't stay in his room, so he sends her to a school for American students - American, meaning both north and south American. He tells them that she is his daughter by a Japanese wife who died.

Also, Willa is Cooper's mistress. She is an out of work reporter, who won a Pulitzer Prize at one time. Cooper sleeps with her every Friday, but Cooper is beyond love. As the novel progresses Cooper becomes more capable of genuine emotion, and their relationship becomes real.

In the end, Cooper asks Willa to marry him, but she turns him down because she isn't ready to marry yet.

Cooper steals the Q Document, and sees Baum-Brenner's daughter, who happens to be in Japan. He gets small pieces of documents she has, which are worthless. She doesn't know about any keys. This happens during Myoko's Christmas break (Myoko is the girl Cooper kidnaped).

Victor traces Cooper to the resort where he was meeting the daughter, but he doesn't know about her. He has his thugs kidnap Myoko, so Cooper brings the Q Document back, and certifies it. Victor, who knew all about Cooper and Myoko, releases her to him.

Then there is the bidding. The Catholic church bids it up to $2,700,000. China bids $3,000,000. (China what's to use the documents to discredit the Church.)

At last, Cooper figures it out. The key is that Baum-Brenner took two years on the document, whereas Cooper, who was not an expert in all the languages, was able to translate it in two months. Therefore, something else was afoot. Remember the key?

The seemingly worthless documents are the key. Baum-Brenner also did send a "key" to his daughter. The receipts were for expensive ink. He was sending complaints about the heat and size of his apartment, when he had been living in the ghetto in Poland. Also, there was a document telling the Nazi's that some documents discovered in Poland was worthless.

The key was that Baum-Brenner cut pieces out of the corners of the documents, and sent them to his daughter. The "keys" show that the documents were worthless receipts, etc. from the Roman era. The expensive ink was ink needed to forge the documents. So the time Baum-Brenner spent was to forge the documents, not to translate them.

Cooper, now somewhat recovered from the death of his family, is ready to return to the University. The novel doesn't say what happens to the Baum-Brenner papers, but Victor is in business as usual. Willa got into trouble because of a financial transaction, and has to leave Japan within 30 days, but she will remain for a while until she starts writing again. Myoko is returned to her school, as Coopers ward. (He cannot take her with him because she is Japanese, and he has no legal interest in her. Her mother is living.)