Exile: a novel (38 page)

Hertz’s gesture, an upward turning of palms, suggested that the question was too absurd to answer.

“So who did?” David prodded him. “Not Al Aqsa, surely.”

Hertz touched the crew-cut bristles of his thinning hair, then gazed silently at David. “Now you are over your head,” he said finally. “And well beyond the scope of your defense.”

“That’s not for you to say,” David answered. “Which is why we have a judge.”

“Which is why you’re here,” Hertz rejoined. “To cement your predicate for whatever legal tactic you’re pursuing.” The disdain behind his words was apparent. “I do not begrudge you your priorities—you are, after all, a lawyer. But only that, and for a woman accused of helping to do Israel great
harm. We have many such enemies, and much larger priorities with which you do not seem concerned. I can only ask that you attempt to comprehend them.”

David let his own annoyance show. “I’ve had this conversation before, with Sharpe—the same condescension, the same lofty references to national security, the same invocation of grand ‘priorities.’ My job is to make sure Hana Arif isn’t swallowed by everyone else’s ‘priorities’—geopolitical or, less grandly, the merely political.

“The question of whether an Israeli chosen to protect Ben-Aron conspired to help kill him could cause your government great trouble, perhaps even determine which forces within Israel hold power. And it also bears directly on whether Hana was part of a larger design, or its victim. About which, I suspect, your government may already know more than it is saying.” David paused to choose his words with care. “I know that this is delicate, especially if someone in Ben-Aron’s security detail facilitated a suicide bombing planned by those who want Israel to disappear. Perhaps there’ll come a time when your priorities, and mine, will require some accommodation.”

Hertz took the time to weigh David’s words, absorbing both their substance and the unstated threat they were intended to convey. “Your letter says you plan to visit Israel,” he said simply. “Consistent with our interests, we will help you if we can.

“To repeat, we have nothing that would exonerate Arif.” His voice, though softening, betrayed a buried anger. “We remember the Holocaust well, Mr. Wolfe. We are not in the business of murdering the innocent because they are not ours. Or protecting the guilty because they are.”

“So,” Hana said gently, “now you are at odds with the Israelis. And still you do not speak of your fiancée.”

It was David’s first visit since the polygraph examination, and he felt more at sea than before: to his doubts about her innocence and his fear of being manipulated to some ruinous end, the examination had added a sense of guilt about mistrusting her. He had no heart to speak of this, nor to engage her sympathies by intimating what he had sacrificed to help her. “How many times in our relationship,” he asked, “have you begun a sentence with ‘So’? And what percentage of those sentences have caused me some discomfort?”

Hana’s lips had the trace of a smile, though her eyes did not. “So,” she persisted, “Carole is no longer your fiancée.”

“That particular sentence,” David answered, “proves my point.”

Hana’s eyes met his. “I am sorry,” she said quietly, “and ashamed. I
discover that being charged with murder has created a peculiar narcissism. ‘Will he help me?’ ‘Will he understand how much I need him?’ And, yes, ‘Will he believe me?’ ”

She paused, looking down for a moment. “I was angry at you, David. Then I considered how much defending me must be costing you. For thirteen years, you remained in my heart and mind the David you were to me at Harvard. You had the right to expect more contemplation of what I’ve done to your life as it really is. Or was.”

Though touched, David steeled himself against his own emotions. Evenly, he said, “You have a family, you’ve been charged with a capital crime, your face is on the cover of
Newsweek,
and you have a few concerns about who will raise your daughter. I have no expectations of you.”

“Perhaps you should.” To his surprise, Hana reached across the table, resting her hand on his wrist. “I want to be a friend, if it is not too late.”

Instinctively, David glanced at the window, to see if a guard was watching them. Seeing this, Hana withdrew her hand.

“And your fiancée,” she asked at length, “is that beyond repair?”

“It would seem so.”

“Because of me,” she said tonelessly. “And now the Israelis are unhappy with you as well.”

“Yes. But that, at least, is relevant to your defense.”

With veiled eyes, Hana absorbed this tacit rebuff. “Then tell me.”

“There’s a conflict,” David began, “between your rights and what the U.S. and Israel perceive as their national security interests. How the U.S. and Israel define those interests may also conflict: to maintain this prosecution, our government may want the Israelis to cooperate with
me
more than the Israelis want to.”

“Which makes Sharpe’s position more difficult?”

It was easier, David discovered, to speak to Hana as the lawyer she once had been. “It could,” he answered. “As a first resort, she’ll say that her case against you is a straightforward murder prosecution, made remarkable only by the identity of the victim—in essence, that I’m using Ben-Aron’s identity to expand the case in a way that threatens the interests of both countries but has nothing to do with your innocence or guilt. And I’ve got only two means of leverage against the Israelis themselves: to pressure them through the media and, with Judge Taylor’s assistance, through Sharpe.”

“Do you have any grounds for that?”

“I think so.” David considered how to describe where matters stood. “The Americans, Israelis, and you are all part of a three-way Catch-22. But

we’ve got a chance of putting the Israelis to a choice: either they tell me what they found out about Ben-Aron’s assassination—however painful, and wherever it may lead—or they jeopardize Sharpe’s ability to maintain a case against you.”

Hana tilted her head, gazing into his face. “At what cost to you, David?”

“How do you mean?”

She paused to choose her words. “You live in a frightened country— not the one that existed when we met. I have seen myself in the magazines: I am an alien creature, like Bin Laden, and what I am accused of makes Americans fear for their children and the world they will live in. Just as, for years, I have feared for Munira.

“Now you, who are Jewish, are tampering with those same existential fears in the Israelis—worse, you’re suggesting that their enemies are not just Palestinian but, perhaps, Jewish. This must be part of what happened between you and Carole.” Her voice was gentle. “And so I cannot help but wonder, amid all this, just how you are living.”

David summoned a deflective smile. “On Chinese takeout, mostly.”

“At least say this much,” Hana asked quietly. “Does Carole know what we were to each other?”

“Yes,” David answered. “Does Saeb?”

Hana looked down, then shook her head. “Never in words.”

For a long minute, they shared a silence. Then Hana looked up at him. “I would like to see Munira, David. Without her father if I could. It has been too long.”

Another moment passed, and then David nodded. “I’ll try to arrange it,” he told her.

For weeks, David had weighed the need to pressure the Israelis against the risk of antagonizing Judge Taylor. Now he sat in a semidarkened room at CNN’s San Francisco outpost, trying to project sincerity into the glass eye of a camera; on a TV monitor to one side, King’s mouth, by virtue of a three-second delay, had stopped moving even though his voice still sounded in David’s earpiece. “Ms. Arif passed a comprehensive lie detector test,” David answered. “She denied any knowledge of the Ben-Aron assassination, the assassins, or the acts she’s accused of committing. The polygraph showed her answers to be truthful.

“I took these results to Marnie Sharpe, the United States attorney, and offered to make Ms. Arif available for another examination, conducted by the FBI. Ms. Sharpe refused my offer.” David paused, then added firmly, “Hana Arif is being sacrificed on the altar of political expedience—quite literally, if she’s executed despite this new evidence that she’s been framed. And Americans, Israelis, and the world will still know nothing about the conspiracy to murder Amos Ben-Aron.”

On the monitor, David’s mouth was still moving as King asked, “Do
you
have an opinion as to who could have planned such a horrific act?”

David had prepared his answer with care. “At this time, Larry, I’m not free to tell you everything I know or suspect. But I believe that the prime minister’s death resulted from a deliberate leak to the assassins that his motorcade was changing routes. That’s why they were on Fourth Street, and that’s why they were able to kill him.

“There’s no evidence I’m aware of that the leak came from the Secret
Service or the San Francisco police.” For a moment, David hesitated. “That leaves the Israelis. Unfortunately, Israel has refused to share with the defense, or even the United States government, what its own investigation has uncovered.

“In short, the United States is prosecuting Ms. Arif while ignoring that she’s passed a lie detector test, and Israel is refusing to address whether one of its own people may have helped murder its prime minister—”

“Are you saying,” King interrupted, “that the Israelis
and
the Americans are perpetrating a cover-up?”

“What I’m saying,” David demurred, “is that my client’s guilt or innocence may cease to matter. That could be fatal both to Ms. Arif and to any chance of determining who murdered Amos Ben-Aron.”

“For which, you’re claiming, Israel’s at least partly to blame.”

“The Israeli people have suffered a great tragedy,” David responded in clipped tones. “I’m hoping their own government won’t compound it. The judicial murder of an innocent woman is contrary to the precepts on which Israel was founded—not only as a refuge for a persecuted people but as a beacon of justice in a region that has known too little.” David paused, choosing his next words with care. “The murder of John F. Kennedy haunts us still. Now a conspiracy of unknown origins has murdered Amos Ben-Aron and, quite possibly, the chance of a lasting peace. That’s what this trial must concern. For the United States to execute Hana Arif, based in part on Israel’s silence, will haunt at least three peoples: Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians.”

On the monitor, King’s face was grave. “That’s a fairly dire warning, David Wolfe. What’s your solution?”

David kept his expression composed, his voice calmer than he felt. “If the Israeli government doesn’t cooperate with the defense,” he answered, “we will ask Judge Taylor to dismiss our government’s prosecution of Hana Arif.”

Driving home, David listened to Sharpe’s message on his cell phone. Her tone was icy. “You’ve crossed the line,” she said. “Before Judge Taylor decides whether to kick this case, she’ll have to decide if you defied her order.”

The call did not surprise him. But Sharpe’s words were a depressing reminder of the controversy—not to mention hatred—his tactics would provoke.

As he pulled into his driveway, he saw that the windows of his living room glowed with light.

David searched his memory. Turning off the lights before leaving his
flat was so habitual that he could not recall having done so. Using the automatic garage door opener would announce his presence. He parked his car on the street.

Walking softly, David climbed the darkened steps to his front door, the key in his hand. Turning the lock with a soft click, he eased himself into the alcove.

The light of his standing lamp caught Carole’s startled face.

She was waiting on his sofa. Belatedly, David felt the gooseflesh on his skin, followed by a small rebirth of hope. “Should I be glad you’re here?” he asked.

“I watched you tonight.” Carole’s voice was muted. “I hope
she
was allowed to see you. So impassioned, and so convincing. So much better than the man she made the mistake of marrying.”

Deflated, David heard the depth of Carole’s torment; she was unable to be with him, yet not able to let go. Now she had watched David deploy his gifts on behalf of a woman she both despised and envied, to challenge a country that she cherished.

“I had no choice,” David said. “The media requires excess, and what I said is true enough. Whatever I may feel, lawyers don’t have the luxury of divided loyalties.”

“What
do
you feel, David?”

David sat on the arm of his sofa, a few feet from the woman he had planned to share his life with. “Except at night, when I’m alone, I try to detach myself. So that all I do is think, not feel.”

“Perhaps that’s how you prefer to live.” Though composed, Carole looked away. “I ask myself, now, whether you’re unknowable. To others, and to yourself.”

This struck close enough to home that David felt both defensive and misunderstood. “This is
hard
for me, Carole. Do you really think I’m not in touch with that? I keep trying to follow my own conscience as a lawyer and a man, always wondering where the two collide.”

“And Hana?”

“I wish I’d never met her,” he said flatly, then wondered if this were wholly true. “I wish she didn’t need my help. I wish you and I were still living the life we had, and that I didn’t lie awake questioning my own motives and decisions.” His tone grew softer. “More than anything, I wish I’d never hurt you. Or found out what you were capable of saying to me— worse, thinking about me—when I violated your sense of what it means to be a Jew.”

Carole shook her head. “That’s not fair, David.”

“Isn’t it?” David asked. “It’s ironic, actually. ‘You’re so American,’ Hana told me years ago. ‘To you the individual is all that matters.’ Maybe so. To
me,
both of you are so branded by two peoples’ collective history that you’ve lost some part of yourself. But only one of you is accused of murder. And there’s a decent chance she’s innocent—”