Israel (47 page)

Abe stared at Stefano in shock. “You've got no right. You can't do this to me.”

“Sure I can,” Stefano grinned good-naturedly. “What can you do to stop me? You know better than to go to the police, I hope. There's no one who can protect you against me, my friend. I am your master. I'm gonna watch over you, Abe. From now on it is not our Old Testament god you must fear, but Stefano de Fazio. Forget about the job at the meat-packing plant. We'll keep you in your little grocery store for now. You'll have enough on your hands dealing with your kids for the time being. We'll forget about selling the building. Maybe I'll send somebody over with some papers for you to sign. It won't make any difference to you. You'll have the store.”

Abe tried to think of some way to counter Stefano's power. It was no use. Going to the police was unthinkable. For now Stefano was indeed his lord and master. Once again Abe was a serf.

You must prove you are strong, Abe told himself. You must earn back your pride. Think of Becky; think of your son.

“Stefano; I must go. There is the funeral for Leah—things I must take care of.”

Stefano nodded to Tony Bucci, who stepped forward to take Abe's arm. “Tony will see to it that you're driven to your sister-in-law's place. If you need any money to take care of the arrangements, call Tony.”

“This way,” Tony said, pulling him along.

Abe started walking, then broke free of Tony's grasp to turn back to Stefano. “I'm a good father,” he fervently declared. “I am, Stefano. I'd let nothing hurt my children.”

“That's what I wanted to hear,” Stefano said.

Abe nodded uncertainly. Then he walked toward Tony, who was waiting for him.

Think of Becky. Think of your son. “Please don't put your hands on me.”

“Whatever you say,” Tony Gemstones replied, amused. “Follow me. The car's waiting for you.”

Oh, Leah, how can I live without you?
“I don't need help,” Abe muttered. “I can walk by myself perfectly fine.”

The crowded marketplace in the Arab quarter of the Holy City was vibrant with sound, redolent with odors. It was a place of catacombs and tattered pastel awnings. Breezes blowing through the dripping stone warrens of the ancient bazaar filled the dim claustrophobic spaces with heavenly fragrances and raw stench by turns. When the wind blew from the east there were the heady aromas of cinnamon and cloves wafting from the spice stalls. When it blew from the west, the high stone archways and narrow thoroughfares reverberated with the steady droning of the flies as they swarmed to the rotting meat whose odor emanated from the open-air butcher stalls.

The proprietor of a stall that displayed prayer rugs had long endured the winds of the marketplace. His clothing was grimy and rank. He was unshaven and his sandals were held together with twine. He had been in his stall across from Sultan's Coffeehouse since boyhood. The stall opposite the modest coffeehouse so grandly named had belonged to his grandfather and his father. He would have handed it down to his own son, but the youth was killed
trying to drive those sons of death, the Jews, out of Jerusalem in the uprising of '29.

The rug vendor brightened as a prosperous-looking young Englishman came in. The Anglo looked to be in his twenties, but from the way the fair-haired gentleman was dressed, in finely tailored tropical-weight worsted wool and silk haberdashery, one could tell he was a high-ranking official in the British administration.

The proprietor, pleased that the gentleman understood Arabic, launched into a torrent of flowery oratory, eventually rounding the near bend of his soliloquy by detailing the quality and workmanship of his rugs as compared to the lackluster competition elsewhere in the bazaar.

The Englishman nodded. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and smoked-glass spectacles. The shopkeeper was all the more convinced that the gentleman was an aristocrat as he explained in excellent British-tinged Arabic that he needed a great many prayer rugs to send back to his family and friends.

“I'll be making notes on the quality of your goods,” the gentleman said. “I wish not to be disturbed. If I like what I see, I may well buy out your stock.”

The proprietor respectfully lowered his head, taking the opportunity to appraise the Englishman's hand-stitched crocodile shoes. “Take all the time you wish, effendi.”

“Go about your business then.” The Englishman shooed the merchant away. He glanced at his pocket watch, the gold chain of which draped across the points of his vest. “It is eleven-thirty. I'll poke around here until noon or so.”

The proprietor backed off, his head full of dreams. He watched the Englishman saunter down the cramped aisles of his stall, already savoring the feel of English folding money between his fingertips.

The Englishman turned, feeling eyes on his back. The Arab murmured an apology and disappeared into a tiny
private area in the rear of the shop, drawing a curtain across the doorway.

The Englishman sighed in relief. At last he could remove his dark glasses. They'd been a hindrance in the dimly lit, shadowy alleys of the bazaar, but Herschel Kol—he had shorted his surname when he joined the Irgun-—needed them as a disguise.

Haim's son blinked his blue eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the light. He fingered the two hand grenades in his pockets. They were British-made, stolen from a police station by Irgun operatives he had never met. Today at noon he would hurl them into the coffeehouse across the way during its crowded noon rush. Then the “British gentleman” would vanish.

For an operative of the Irgun Z'vai Leumi to engage in such an elaborate charade was unusual. Today at noon, for instance, lrgun men and woman would be hurling bombs into crowded Arab quarters all across Palestine in retaliation for attacks on Jews. None of these other operatives had donned a disguise as Herschel had done; the others would simply detonate their explosives the first chance they got and then run away.

Arab women and children were going to die today, Herschel knew, and the spilling of innocent blood troubled him, but he struggled to put his doubts out of his mind. Enough Jewish women and children had died at Arab hands to justify it. This was a war, which meant that one could attack as well as defend, contrary to the policy of self-restraint preached by Haganah.

Anyway, indiscriminate killing in a terrorist action was not Herschel Kol's mission. The ramshackle coffeehouse across the alley looked harmless enough with its open windows, low tables and stools and its peeling sign of a fat turbaned sultan siting cross-legged and smoking a narghile, but it was a very special target. The Irgun's informants had named the place as a rendezvous for an
Arab activist cell led by a lieutenant of Arab terrorist Fawzi Kaukaji.

The British had been hunting Kaukaji for years. He commanded a widely dispersed force and was funded by the wealthy land-owning clans, who got along so famously with the British.

For years Kaukaji had satisfied himself and his sponsors by attacking isolated Jewish settlements, but now he had expanded his operations into the coastal cities. Hand-picked men from his inner circle went to the Arab quarters of Jerusalem, Jaffa and the other towns, inciting the fellahin to riot by spreading anti-Semitic lies and then organizing and arming them against the Jews.

The man who controlled the Arab quarter of Jerusalem in Kaukaji's name was known only as Eagle Owl, supposedly because of his ferocity as a slayer of Jews and for his elaborate caution and cunning. It was not known what Eagle Owl looked like. All the lrgun knew was that he met his agents daily at noon in this coffeehouse and that he was one of Kaukaji's most trusted and experienced aides.

“This Eagle Owl fellow is good, you realize,” Herschel's superior in the lrgun argued during the special private briefing a month ago. The superior was an elderly man who ran a religious goods shop in Mea She'arim. “We are staging a country-wide blanket reprisal against Arab aggression. In all of our other targeted areas the appearance of Jews will be noted, but nothing will be made of it until it is too late. But there is no chance that Eagle Owl will keep his rendezvous if he notices one of our own nearby.”

“Is this to be considered an assassination?” Herschel asked.

“Certainly not,” his superior snapped. “We do not assassinate; we execute.”

“It is a word game you play.”

“No, Herschel. First we circulate a death warrant, and only then we execute the condemned man. We can hardly issue such a warrant for a man we cannot recognize and whose name we don't know.”

“So I am asked to kill many in the hopes that the man we want will also perish?”

“This is just one operation among many. If you should succeed in killing Eagle Owl in your operation—”

“You mean when I blow up the coffeehouse,” Herschel scowled.

“Yes.” The officer nodded. “That's what I mean. If at that time we happen to kill Eagle Owl, our enemies will take it as an unfortunate coincidence. They will not suspect our informer.” The superior peered at Herschel. “It still disturbs you? So why are you here?”

“You know why.”

“To avenge your father's death. I allow you the means to accomplish it. I even afford you a clean target. There will be few innocents in that terrorist-infested coffeehouse. I understand your feelings, you see. I thought you'd be more appreciative of this particular mission.”

“Stop it.” Herschel winced. “I intend to do my job, so stop talking to me like a fool. You couldn't care less about my sensibilities. You said yourself that Eagle Owl would be on the lookout for Jews. You have no other operatives who can accomplish this execution, or reprisal, or whatever you want to call a mass killing.”

The lrgun officer hesitated, becoming embarrassed. “Eagle Owl would never suspect you. He might even feel safer, assuming that we would never dare attack if it meant jeopardizing a British subject in the vicinity.”

Herschel understood. He could pass as English. He had his father's blond hair and blue eyes, but his finely chiseled features were a product of British ancestry on his mother's side. As a youth he vacationed with his maternal grandparents at their inn in Jaffa. The visits allowed him to
practice his English and pick up a reasonable facsimile of the clipped inflections the seasoned Anglo civil servant brought to his Arabic.

At the end of his briefing Herschel followed as the old man in mended sweater, yarmulke nestled on the sparse white tufts of his liver-spotted scalp, shuffled in backless slippers toward his storeroom. Herschel watched as his superior officer moved boxes of prayer shawls and phylacteries from a shelf to reveal six hand grenades lined up like toy soldiers. He took two and handed them to Herschel, who stowed them beneath his shirt.

“Now then, some tea and a honey cake, maybe?” the old man smiled. The briefing was over.

“No thank you,” Herschel said, turning to go. Before he left, he turned back. “It's clear that we're in for another war. No matter that the Chamberlain government gives in to Hitler the way it gives in to the Arabs.”

“Nu?”

Herschel eyed his superior. “Well, I was just curious about our plans. I remember that the Jews helped the British during the last war.”

“We're helping them now as well,” the old man asserted, “by not killing them.”

As Herschel hurried from Mea She'arim he trailed his fingers along the cool limestone walls, thinking: My father toiled to cut the stone that shelters our people. He is everywhere in this country. Mama has taught me well. I am a Palestinian and can never be fatherless in this place.

“You have made your selections, effendi?”

Herschel started. It was the rug merchant, tugging at his sleeve. “What? What did you say?” Herschel asked in Arabic.

“Pardon me, but I saw that you were no longer examining my wares. I thought perhaps you had made your selections and were waiting for me.”

“No, I'm not ready,” Herschel stammered. “More time. I need more time.”

The merchant eyed him curiously. “As you wish, effendi.” He backed away to his inner sanctum.

Damn, Herschel fumed, he's seen my face without the dark glasses. I mustn't let this assignment rattle me so.

Violence was not new to Herschel, but he still hated it. This would not be the first time he'd spilled blood. He had used his rifle to defend Degania during the Arab riots of '29.

He and the other youths of Degania slept in their clothes with their rifles beside them during the Arab rioting. News of massacres in Hebron and Safed came to the kibbutz; they heard tales of how the rampaging mobs murdered or mutilated defenseless Jews. The British reacted to these atrocities by locking up the surviving victims “for their own safety.” There were few arrests of Arabs, who chanted and carried banners that read, “The British are with us.”

Herschel and his comrades drilled with their rifles. When Degania was challenged they killed those who would have killed them. Like most adolescents, they dreamed of the future; like most, they thought they would live forever. After the attacks, Herschel and his friends found themselves obsessed with thoughts of dying.

But the young men gritted their teeth and rode with their elders, pursuing the Bedouin marauders to the banks of the Jordan River. They soon learned that it was possible to beat the nomads at their own game. Indeed, they learned that it was necessary to do so if they were to survive. The British had replaced the Turks, but little else in Palestine had changed.

Papa, it is all just as it was when you died, Herschel brooded as he absently picked over the prayer rugs, waiting for it to be noon. We are older. Mama has grey hair
and old Yol is bald on top, with a beard salted white. I have had to learn to be a desert fighter just like you. There is still no peace, Papa, never any peace.