Messi@ (27 page)

Full now, Andrea stretched like a cat on her café seat and watched the street coming to life in the early evening. Ben ordered a whole carafe of red wine. He rarely drank, but now he felt reckless and alive, not at all like the meticulous scholar he had been only that morning. I'm celebrating, he thought to himself, and I am happy. But almost as soon as he had formulated this thought, he was ashamed. Andrea was sad and her whole life trembled before him, filled with more sorrow than he could imagine. Once again, he touched her, caressing her hand. His gesture was meant to convey sympathy, but the caress was electric. Her skin was shamelessly alive, and Ben was suffused by pleasure.

A group of leather-jacketed, pierced people staked out the sidewalk in front of the café and passed a bottle back and forth. Yehuda ben Yehuda had been studying the eccentric young people mobbing the streets of downtown Jerusalem. He now saw an opportunity to cover up his embarrassment and appear knowledgeable and mature at the same time.

He began explaining these creatures to Andrea as if she had just landed from a planet where they were unheard of.

“They are called neotribals. When this rebellion started, piercing and tattooing were associated with sex, wilderness, and freedom. The neotribals used to kill net surfers, but now they just stare at them. The wilderness is now all copyrighted by the
National Geographic
, and sex, well …”

Andrea's warmth enveloped him like a thin fragrant film. He fought the urge to touch her again, and continued: “Suffice it to say that piercing and tattooing are not true opposites of TV watching, like sex used to be. They used to call tattooing ‘elective exile,' like you could get out of your tribe and belong to another just by your markings. But they've toned down. Now they watch
Gal Gal Hamazal
like everybody else.”

“But why,” Andrea wanted to know, “why do they pierce their bodies? Is it in imitation of Christ?” She knew that Christians in many parts of the world pierced their hands and feet in imitation of their Savior.

“There are many distinct groups of this culture,” Ben answered eagerly. “For the majority, piercing is an imitation of penetration. Very few of them have real sex anymore. In that respect, they are ascetic—” Ben had nearly said, “like me.” The rabbinical scholars at his school were expected to transcend all their physical feelings in order to commune with the divine essence.

“They
are
religious, then?” Andrea felt deeply sorry for the ascetic young.

“In their own way, yes. Without discipline, without education. There is a group that initiates its members by tattooing a faceless body on them. This body embraces them completely, making them sort of … self-sufficient. These people have no
outside
loves! They call themselves Shades.”

“Why faceless?” Andrea wanted to know.

“They claim that they are waiting for someone, an avatar. When she comes—they believe that their avatar is a woman—they are going to draw her face in the blank.”

Andrea thought about this for a moment. The streetlights had come on, and the smoke from the cafés and cigarettes, together with the incessant chatter and laughter from the street, filled her with something close to security. She did love the relentless energy of this young country, its vitality, its constant argument with itself, its turbulent identity. The world of Saint Hildegard's was an oasis in this tempestuous land.

“So, you are going to stay in Israel, then?” Ben asked, shifting to firmer ground. “Are you going to study?”

Andrea looked at the cobblestones at her feet. Her face reflected the difficulty of the decision she was about to make. Finally, she looked the boy in the eyes and told him, “I have only a temporary visa. I had no papers when I arrived, so I cannot yet prove that I am Jewish. Technically, I suppose that I am a Spanish citizen—unless you consider the Basque republic legitimate.”

Ben was so ashamed he nearly hit himself across his stupid mouth. How could he be so insensitive as to breezily assume that everything was all right now? There was the matter of her parents. Andrea must have been wretchedly lonely. If her parents were in New Orleans, he would see to it that they were found. He would enlist his whole family in the search. What was important was for Andrea to be reunited with her family. But if her legal status in Israel was in question … What if she had to leave again, resume her sad wandering? Ben couldn't bear the thought. He closed his eyes and experienced a violent realization, akin to the one that had one day caused him to change his life and leave America. He became convinced that he must help Andrea with everything at his disposal, even if that meant interrupting, for the time being, his studies in Israel. His resolve was sudden but firm. His heart told him that it was more than that.

Yehuda ben Yehuda had become so deeply intent on his sudden understanding that he did not see Andrea's dreamy face come closer. His baby face now stood within a kissable inch of hers. When he looked sufficiently lost in himself, Andrea kissed him. The boy's body underwent a shock as if electrified. For the next eternity or so he locked his soul to her lips and soared to heaven in delight. All mystical steps to the crystal crown of the Sefirot were illuminated.

“We must return to New Orleans together!” Ben said when he came up for air. “I will help you find your family. My parents can even adopt you to make your situation kosher with Immigration. I can even—” Ben stopped himself short and drew a breath.

“Marry me?” asked Andrea.

“Why not?” said Ben. “Just for legal reasons, of course.” Flustered, he made an impatient gesture to shoo away the Russian violinist, who had crept closer and was avidly listening.

“Marry me, too!” the musician burst out.

“Fuck you, Boris!” said Ben, reverting briefly to a semblance of normal self.

Andrea licked a small cut on the inside of her lip where Ben had bitten her when they were kissing. She was thinking about America, how her story had led to this, and then, without much connection, she felt very sorry for the people with the faceless bodies tattooed on them. Her mind was racing. She wondered, too, why she'd chosen the name Isabel. Is … Abel. Yes, that was it, of course. She was the daughter of Abel, the nomad, not the child of Cain, the murderer. She would never allow herself to be imprisoned again, whether in a camp or a convent. She had to start moving. She would go to America. Her story had set the wheel of both their fortunes spinning, and Venus gave it an extra push.

Yehuda ben Yehuda ached to kiss Andrea again. But she had drawn back, so he gave himself to words instead. Something momentous had happened, something that demanded, it seemed to him, nothing less than the display of his entire being. Ben believed that if something true had to be told, he told it; and more important, he provided commentary on it, so that the habit of thought would accompany every bit of data. These days, this was a great blessing because most data were free of thought. As were most people. Whatever emptiness was in facts was cleansed by thinking about them. Thought was a “cleansing light.” This was written on the wall above his bed at the yeshiva in big black letters.

“I believe that the world must be talked back to its source!” Ben exclaimed, his cheeks flushed by this imperative that was so much like himself.

Andrea chased a grain of rice on her plate and cornered it with her finger. “I believe no such thing. A kiss is worth one thousand comments.” She squished the grain on her fingertip and brought it to her mouth. Her plate was empty. Everything she had learned had been the result of an action. And in order to act, one had to forget. Andrea thirsted for forgetting and for doing. Words prevented both.

They left the café and walked to the bus stop. Yehuda ben Yehuda walked clumsily next to the lithe orphan, feeling heavy, hairy, and ungraceful. Men looked hungrily at the girl, not hiding their evident greed. Ben was angry on her behalf, but Andrea did not seem to mind. When they passed a jewelry store where the proprietor and his son both waved at Andrea from the door, she thrust out her left hand as if asking them to adorn each finger with rings. The men laughed and made huge kissy noises toward that graceful hand floating in the air.

Ben's resolve to rescue Andrea grew as they walked past cafés and basilicas, tobacco shops and bakeries. Evening had fallen and the streetlights made Jerusalem glisten, merging its cobblestones with the phantoms peering from behind arabesque grille windows.

Elaborate plans of escape, featuring him as Andrea's rescuer, passed through Ben's mind, but while he fantasized half aloud and half to himself, he found himself standing alone at the bus stop. He was still talking when the bus came and he realized too late, after the bus had pulled out, that he had no idea where Andrea lived. She had clambered aboard quickly as a cat. All he knew was that next day she was going to audition for
Gal Gal Hamazal
. He would be there no matter what happened.

Chapter Seventeen

Where in Joe, the policeman, searches for Felicity
.
Major Notz, distressed by the disappearance of his niece and rudely interrupted at his meal, swings into action
.

Joe, the policeman, was a romantic boy. He could admit this because he prided himself on scrupulous self-examination. He had discovered that while he was outwardly a strong man, with women he was shy and boyish. He still lived with his mother in the old house in the Irish Channel and helped her bake all the breads for their annual Saint Joseph's altar. These loaves were artistically shaped to depict saints and churches, and Joe excelled at detail. One year he had created such an elaborate replica of Saint Peter's Basilica, the
Times-Picayune
came to photograph it. It was a good thing, too, because the next day a stray dog sneaked in with the crowds who'd come to see their altar after the photograph appeared in the paper and ate the basilica—cupola, balconies, tiny pope, and all. Joe was often cited by other mothers in the neighborhood as an ideal example of a good son.

Felicity had aroused in him emotions reminiscent of his first crush, on Angela Damato, who had dashed his hopes by eloping with a black accordionist from Breaux Bridge. Angela had been a classic beauty of the local Irish-Italian type, green eyed with long chestnut hair, a small waist, and bazoombas out to here. Everyone expected her to marry Joe, but she surprised them. And now, Joe told himself, I'll surprise them. A Creole girl dick is very much like a black zydeco accordionist. What will Mama think? He'd left seven messages on Felicity's tape machine over the past two days. In the first one, he told her that he had retrieved more of the Kashmir Birani file for her. In the next six, he asked only, “Where are you?” in tones ranging from anxiety to anger.

When his seventh message elicited no answer, he went to her apartment. He found the front door of Felicity's office wide open. A scene of utter devastation met him inside. Everything had been turned upside down, ripped open, torn apart. Felicity's bed cover had been tramped on with muddy shoes. Felicity's books were all over the floor, many of them torn in half by a doubtlessly insane person or persons. Her collection of coffee mugs from various volunteer jobs she had performed over the years were smashed into smithereens. A bowl of fruit had been turned upside down; the oranges had been stabbed and the peaches had been crushed with a fist or a hammer. When Joe looked under the bed, a lone unmolested orange hid there. Even the contents of the refrigerator littered the small kitchen. Someone had even probed a jar of mustard, spattering it on the wall above the sink.

Joe had seen plenty of burglaries, but this was something else; this was demented. There was, however, no blood anywhere and no sign of a struggle. If Felicity had been anywhere near this maelstrom of devastation, she would have left some mark. Whoever had done this had been in a rage. He had destroyed her stuff as if seeking to obliterate her essence.

Joe couldn't determine if anything had been taken, or whether the vandals were even looking for anything. This seemed to be destruction for destruction's sake. He remembered Felicity telling him about her laptop, but there was no laptop in sight. Perhaps she had it with her.

Oddly enough, the only object left untouched was the telephone answering machine. The savages had left it whole on purpose. Joe turned it on. There were two messages in addition to his seven. The first was from somebody named Martin, with a private school accent: “Felicity, darling, I hope you possess the whole integrity of your superb physique. You haven't called as you said, but I will wait for you in the lobby at Commander's Palace tonight at eight.”

The second message was a voice steeped in smoke, whiskey, and blood. It said: “Put this in your jigsaw puzzle, bitch!”

Joe called his sergeant and reported the break-in. When the detectives and crime-scene technicians arrived, he made sure fingerprints were collected from every surface. They finished about eight, and Joe headed for Commander's Palace. At eight-thirty he parked his patrol car in front of the flock of valets assisting bald men and starched matrons out of taxicabs, and rushed into the lobby. The lobby was full of more baldies and consorts waiting for their tables, but Joe spotted a dandy with a yellow rose in his hand, who kept glancing at his Rolex.

“Martin?”

“Yes,” said Martin Dedette, worried. “Something wrong, Officer?”

“I hope not. Could I ask you a few questions?”

Martin nodded and led Joe through Commander's pepper-smoky kitchen to the bar in the courtyard beyond. Martin waved a greeting to a fat man dressed in some kind of uniform, seated at a table near the bar, then chose a table in the far corner.

“Okay, what can I do for you?”

“When did you last see Felicity Le Jeune?”

Martin Dedette told Joe the entire story of his chance encounter with Felicity and their meeting with the Shades. He did not mention the envelope or her instructions, but he hinted at a shared romantic past that was just too complex and too subtle to share with a cop.