Hadassah Covenant, The (13 page)

“I’ve lost my life, Jacob.” She looked into his face a moment. “I’ve lost my meaning, my momentum, my reason for living. I don’t know where it went. I mean, I didn’t lose it like you misplace a wallet. And I can’t really see why my father’s death would have suddenly destroyed it. All I know is, I can’t seem to grasp ahold of it anymore.”

“What can I do?”

“You can listen,” she replied hastily, emphatically. “A few years from now, you’ll be out of office and living the comfortable, respected life of a national statesman. You’ll have media appearances, speeches in faraway countries, books to write, protégés to counsel. And me, I’ll just be one of the well-dressed ladies-who-lunch, shopping in the boutiques, with no children”—she rushed over the words—“whose greatest achievement is what she
used
to be—First Lady.”

She stared at him for a sign of affirmation and received none.

“What happened to the young woman you met, who wanted to write the definitive history of the Holocaust, who wanted to be the best mother who ever lived, who wanted to run for the Knesset?”

He bent forward to rub his forehead, obviously realizing she intended to wait for his reply. His politician’s mind quickly strung together her demands—to be young, to write, to be a mother, to be a politician in her own right. With an ability honed by years of negotiating, he mentally zeroed in on what might be the true source of her frustration.

He again ran his hand over his face, then stared at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. He briefly wondered if the small bit of shrapnel that had pierced her womb had also blown apart his marriage. The physical wound was healing quickly enough—yet the question of children festered, unanswered.

“What does Hadassah tell you about this?” he finally replied.

She frowned, misunderstanding. “
Me
?”

“No. The ancient one. The Hadassah who wrote in your family’s journals.”

Her eyes flashed with quick anger. “What about her?”

“G-d had a plan for her.”

“Yes. She was one in a million. What I wonder, when I read those journals, is what about the young concubine to whom she wrote the letters? Leah? She’s my ancestor, remember. Not Esther. What about
her
? Is it possible that her only reason for being on earth was to pass on that journal? Was that it? To spend years in some royal harem being essentially raped once every few months, year after year? Is that what a loving G-d had in mind for her life?”

“I don’t know.” Jacob shook his head slowly, wishing he had not brought up the subject.

“No. We don’t. But here’s what I came to ask you. See, I didn’t want you to just listen. I have a request. Not from my husband, but from my Prime Minister. I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I’m a scholar. An investigator, at least in an academic sense. Let me help find out who came after you. The one who killed my Poppa.”

“You don’t think it’s the usual suspects? Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah . . .”

“No, honey. Jacob. I don’t.” She smiled wryly at the inadvertent endearment.

“Why not?”

“First of all, because if it had been, they’d be stumbling all over themselves to claim responsibility. And in over two weeks, there’s been complete silence. Second, because I know you would have told me if the intelligence had come back with anything. And third . . .”

“Yes? Third?”

“Because of Poppa’s last words.” She automatically lowered her voice. “He wanted me to hear him so badly, he just refused to die until he’d gotten the words out. He said, ‘
She did not perish. You must find her.’”

“Why didn’t you tell me this? I didn’t know he said anything!”

“Because I haven’t been sure if it meant anything. But I’ve been thinking about it for the last two weeks, and now I’m convinced. Besides, I think you and your people haven’t the first clue why that man attacked. And I think my father knew. Something.”

For the first time all day, Prime Minister ben Yuda looked shocked. He stared ahead into space, searching for an answer in the thin air.

“Do you have an answer for me?” she asked.

Rather than speaking, he reached over to a dark green folder among the papers to his left. He pressed down on its surface and slid the cardboard toward her.

She made no move to open it.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“This top-secret report concludes that the bombing was not carried out by any known Palestinian group. And that it was probably not even directed at me. Who it was actually directed at may never be known, although the investigation continues. The document was presented to me twenty minutes before you arrived.”

They both exhaled and let a long, tense pause flow between them. “Hadassah, I suppose it makes sense for you to spend some time researching this. You might even be entitled. I’ll open some doors for you, quietly. Try to improve your access to people and documents. But I have to warn you. First, you have to be careful. No playing secret agent. And second, this cannot come out. If the world discovered that the Israeli First Lady was conducting some kind of
ad hoc
personal investigation, I and my intelligence cadres would be humiliated. Do you understand? With the very first media report of this, it’s over. Nonnegotiable.”

“I agree. I’ll be totally discreet.”

There was a knock on the door. A steward entered, carrying two steaming lunches, set them down before each, then backed out, closing the door behind him.

Both of them looked wearily at the plates, then broke into laughter. The food had arrived just as they were through. And then a sudden pain in the still-healing muscle wall of her abdomen cut short her laugh. With a grimace, she reached for her belly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you hurt yourself.”

She shook her head forgivingly. “The doctor said it’s healing fine. I’m lucky to have only had such a small wound.”

“But in such a critical area,” he said, his voice gentle. Then he leaned across the table and looked deeply into her face. “You have such extraordinary eyes, Hadassah. I’ve always . . .”

But he didn’t know how to finish, and an awkward silence descended on them.

“I just had an idea,” Jacob suddenly said with a forced energy. “It’s not much, but . . . just this morning, I was given a strange briefing from the head of Mossad, about a matter that might possibly involve you. One of our top undercover men has just been rushed back from Iraq with some documents that, if they’re authentic, could set off bombshells across the Middle East. In an odd twist, it looks like the
only way to authenticate them will be to compare them with your family’s Hadassah documents. I was going to grant him access as your husband, but maybe . . .”

“Maybe I could help him myself?”

“Exactly. Might help you open some of your own back channels with intelligence. Make some connections that have nothing to do with me.”

“That’s exactly what I need. And I could take it from there.”

“Just remember, my dear, I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing, letting you do this. I’m certainly not setting you loose because I think you won’t come up with anything. Quite the opposite. And also, quite frankly, I’m afraid that if you truly get somewhere, I’m not sure I’ll be able to protect you. Every Israeli can use a little help from the Mossad at some point or other.”

“I understand. And thank you. Now where could I meet this man?”

“I’ll arrange it. He wanted to see the Hadassah scroll, so—back to where it all started. The Shrine.”

Chapter Thirteen

I
SRAEL
M
USEUM
, S
HRINE OF THE
B
OOK—LATE THAT NIGHT

S
he had stepped onto
the floor beneath the Shrine of the Book’s curved dome many times in her life—especially since learning right before her wedding day that the famous museum housed her own family’s oldest and most cherished documents.

Yet she had never seen it at this hour—eleven o’clock at night—and never in these conditions. All lighting was turned off, and the only illumination in its curved roof line glowed from a pool of moonlight pouring in through the hole overhead. Banks of deep shadow only seemed to lengthen the stone floors and heighten its sensuous overhead lines. Its only sounds were the faint echo of her delegation’s footsteps upon marble and her own breathing.

She paused for a second to take in the strange sight, causing her Shin Beth bodyguard—at least the only one she could see—to almost collide with her back. He stepped back with a cowed grunt of apology.
Surely only a handful of people have ever seen the room in this eerie atmosphere
, she noted silently. She fought back a shiver of privilege mixed with unease, feeling a bit like one of those reckless teenagers in the horror movies who inexplicably walk into a cemetery at midnight on a full moon.

Looking around, she remembered another reason she was liking the Shrine’s unusual appearance—she appreciated the contrast with the bright, vivid tourist attraction she had visited with Poppa on that day barely five years before. The wonderful morning when he had brought her here and first informed her of her family’s unique heritage.

Her museum escort, the same matronly woman who had introduced her to the Hadassah journals on that fateful visit, walked her across. A man waited, so upright and motionless that Hadassah did not even notice his presence until she was less than twenty feet away.

Fighting the weariness of a first, long day out, she peered closer for a better look. She had been wondering who this mystery man was ever since learning of this meeting. The first thing she noticed was the dim outline of a medium-built man wearing dark, nondescript street clothing. Close-cropped dark hair, a lean jawline concealed by a full beard. Wasn’t exactly young.
Could be anybody
, she remarked to herself, and then realized that this was precisely the man’s intention.

“Mrs. Prime Minister, Ari Meyer of the . . . Investigative Archaeology Committee,” stammered the museum guide, likely set off kilter by the unusual time and august company.

He lowered his head in greeting and held out his hand, the dim light glinting off his aviator glasses.

“Ari Meyer.” Then, as the matron stepped back, he whispered with a sly smile, “
Mossad
. I am very grateful for this meeting and for your being willing to grant me access.” He had a low, confident voice with just a trace of a British accent.

“Pleased to meet you,” Hadassah said as they shook hands. His was cool and dry, and he held her hand loosely, almost indifferently.

Now came an awkward pause. Trying not to stare at her mysterious greeter, Hadassah felt for a moment as though she had been transported into some obscure spy thriller. Finally Meyer raised a small handpiece to his mouth and muttered something to an unseen colleague. He lowered it and tilted his head.

“Shall we go in?”

The escort nodded, and Meyer turned to her bodyguard. “Would you care to remain here and secure the entrance? It’s the only way down.”

The Shin Beth operative glanced at Hadassah thoughtfully and nodded. Meyer tossed the man another handpiece from his pocket, murmured, “We’re on channel four,” and they left him behind.

Walking to the recessed staircase and descending again into the hidden passageway, she felt herself swept back once more, reluctantly, to that landmark day with her father. She could not help smiling faintly as she recalled how coy he had been with her on the way to the Shrine, wearing the mischievous smile she had only seen in his later years.

At first her father’s refusal to explain their museum visit had irritated her. Her wedding was only a few days away and time far too short for idle distractions. Then he had inexplicably diverted them right past the museum’s ticket counter and first-floor exhibits, even more thoroughly confusing her. But when he had unerringly steered them to the out-of-the-way stairs and nearly bounded down the steps as if he owned the place, she had found herself completely bewildered. And there at the end of an isolated corridor had stood an even greater oddity: her aunt Rose from America and nearly every living older woman in her family.

It was the repetition of a hidden ritual her family had observed for centuries. And now she was the only one left who even remembered it.

Hadassah narrowed her eyes for an instant and pictured the proud glow that had swept over her father’s features. And then the way his facial muscles had constricted as a wave of emotion had overtaken him. It had been one of the most moving episodes in his life, he had told her later.

But the matrons’ appearance had been far from the final mystery, Hadassah reminded herself as she followed the museum guide and the Mossad agent to a now-familiar reinforced-metal door. Where before her father had ploddingly extricated the paper with the entry codes from his pocket and deliberately poked in every digit, now the hostess keyed in the codes swiftly from memory. The thick barrier swung open with a
whoosh
!—such a specific and singular sound, it made Hadassah feel that no time had passed since she had last heard it.