The Fury of Rachel Monette (34 page)

“Even then my father was unable to understand that German society would never make a move to stop the hoodlums. He couldn't see they were the same people. My mother pleaded with him. He told her to be patient. But he allowed her to send me away, to stay with a Christian family she knew living in a little village near Balderschwang on the Austrian border. I never saw my parents again.

“This family hated the Nazis. When I arrived in the village they let it be known that I was a cousin whose parents had died in an automobile accident. They adopted me legally as their son. I took their name. Reinhardt.

“As a German with full citizenship I was naturally obligated to serve in the army. In 1940 I was taken into the Afrika Corps and sent to North Africa.” Calvi looked up over the Wailing Wall at the golden dome of the great mosque. “Kopple must have told you the rest.”

“Some of it. I don't know exactly what happened the day the woman escaped.”

Calvi shrugged. “Nothing happened. I used the opportunity to escape myself.”

“Why then?”

“I didn't know if there would be a better chance.”

“Had you intended to desert for a long time?”

“Not consciously.” Rachel thought that Calvi's face seemed older than when they had first sat on the bench, as if talking about years gone by had given them another go at aging him. But it did not make him weak or pathetic or diminish the feeling his physical presence gave her.

“What became of the woman?”

“I have no idea.” They both thought about that.

“Why don't you ask if Kopple told me the woman was found?” Rachel asked.

“It wasn't even important to me at the time. It is less important now. I never had any intention of looking for her.”

“What if she survived to tell the whole story?”

“Then I would have heard it.”

“Doesn't it bother you—what they did to the women at Siegfried?”

“Of course.”

“Not of course,” Rachel said quietly. She looked again for the wince in the gray eyes, and saw it. “How can the man who wants everyone to remember Kristallnacht keep his mouth shut about something like that?”

“Don't be ridiculous. You know the answer. It is not merely a question of my career. I am in a position to help a lot of poor people. Not a little of the social reform enacted in this country in the last ten years has been due to me personally. Is dredging up the past more important than that?”

“You put yourself in a flattering light. I've heard that you've been splitting Israel down the middle so the Arabs won't have to work up a sweat when they march in.”

Calvi jumped up and faced her. “My movement is completely legitimate,” he shouted. “Completely.”

“But you're not.” Was he a man who believed his own lies? In the square, Sergeant Levy was watching them carefully. “That is a fact. I know it. Maybe someone else knows it too. Someone else must at least be suspicious. Does that explain Sergeant Levy? I thought bodyguards kept their eyes peeled for potential attackers. He keeps his eyes on you.”

She saw Calvi stop himself from turning around to look. He sat down. Only after a few seconds did he glance across the square. Sergeant Levy had resumed his pacing. “You don't know what you're talking about,” he said to Rachel coldly.

“Perhaps not, but I'm making good guesses.”

“You delude yourself.”

“Then help me. Explain how you passed as a Moroccan Jew, for example.”

“I am not obliged to explain anything to you.”

Rachel laughed in his face. “That's true. And I'm not obliged to stop myself from calling Sergeant Levy over here and telling him all about Victor Reinhardt.”

The gray eyes showed anger, fear, nothing. Calvi made a gesture of acquiescence with his hand. “There is very little to tell. I found my way to Taroudant, in the Atlas. There was a large mellah there, very ancient, very crowded, very poor. I went to the chief rabbi and told him I was a Jew on the run from the Nazis. He gave me protection. I stayed there for three years. I learned the jewelry trade. I learned to speak Arabic. And Hebrew. The rabbi was surprised I knew so little Hebrew. Assimilation was a foreign concept to him. Later I went to Fez and lived among the Jews there as a Moroccan Jew. Any oddness about my mannerisms they attributed to my origin in the backward south. In 1948 I came to Israel and after a while got interested in politics.” He leaned back on the bench. “Now you know all there is to know about me. I am at your mercy.” He was very calm about it.

“Are you married?” Rachel heard herself asking.

“No.”

“You didn't marry during all those years in Morocco?”

“No.”

Rachel suddenly felt a tremendous fatigue, a tremendous sense of futility, as though a much thicker atmosphere than she was used to was pressing on her body. Simon Calvi was adapted to that pressure; perhaps he thrived under it; perhaps he was its source. She remembered the twelve-month pregnancy of her dream. A thousand clues had led her to a puzzle that had nothing to do with Adam. Rachel tried again. She spoke quietly, without passion:

“Simon. I don't agree with you. I think you can make deposits in the innocence account. That is what doing good is about. I want my son back.”

“I told you—”

She held up her hand. “I know. I accept your word that you didn't take Adam, didn't have him taken or have anyone killed. But there is a connection between us and if we examine it carefully I'm sure we will find someone or something else connected to us both. I'm asking you to help me.”

Calvi put his hand on her knee. “How can I, Miss Bernstein?”

“Rachel.”

“Rachel.” He used the Hebraic pronunciation. “How can I?”

“I don't know. We can start by going over our stories together, line by line. Something you know that seems trivial or irrelevant may mean everything to me. You see that by now, don't you?”

“Yes.” He removed his hand, leaving her knee warm where it had rested. “I will do what I can to help you. But you must wait.”

“Why? There may not be much time.”

“Only until tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I am giving a speech at the university.”

“I saw a poster.”

“It's an important policy speech, one we've been planning for a long time.” He looked at his watch. “I'm now two hours late for the final preparatory meeting. But tomorrow after the speech I can see you for as long as you like. Does that seem reasonable?”

“I don't have much choice.”

“Don't talk like that, Rachel. It's less than twenty-four hours.” He rose. “Why not come to the university tomorrow morning? My speeches are said to be entertaining, if nothing else. We can meet after and go somewhere from there.”

“All right.”

“Until then I don't have to tell you to be very careful. The boy's life may depend on our discretion.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Then he turned and walked toward Sergeant Levy. Together they crossed the square toward the southern wall of the Old City.

Rachel felt the hot circle of his lips on her skin. She pulled the strap of the tape recorder over her shoulder, took the guidebook in her hand and stood up. Immediately a dizziness flowed through her body: white mist rose on the edge of her vision, obscuring the mosque, the wall, the stones of the old square. Rachel lowered her chin to her chest and it slowly dissipated.

She left in the opposite direction to that taken by the two men. Behind her a little boy ran to the bench, picked up Simon Calvi's cold cigar and stuck it in his mouth.

29

“Was she a good interviewer?” Sergeant Levy asked as a way of making conversation. In his hands the Fiat's steering wheel was a baby's toy, easily crumpled.

“Not bad,” said Simon Calvi. He had endured enough conversation. As they drove toward Rehavia he was thinking about it. In his whole life he had never once loved a woman, but it hadn't troubled him at all until today, until a few minutes ago. It was too late. Of course he didn't love the woman—he knew that without a doubt. And yet he had fought a strong desire to tell her what he supposed she wanted to know. He had even tried to convince himself that it was a sensible idea: he could set her on the Captain. But the Captain was far too smart for her; so was he, for that matter. Perhaps later, he told himself, he could find a way to send her a message. It was possible.

“She was Jewish, wasn't she?” Sergeant Levy said.

“Nominally.”

“It's so hard to tell with some of the Americans. They don't speak Hebrew, they don't speak Yiddish, they have their faces reshaped by plastic surgeons.”

“This one kept her real face,” Calvi said. Something in the way he spoke made Sergeant Levy glance at him from the corner of his eye.

“What was the interview about?”

“The usual subjects. The survival of ethnic cultures, the Arab threat, the peace talks.”

“You must get bored answering those questions all the time.”

“It's part of the job,” Calvi replied. “You must get bored watching me all day.”

Sergeant Levy turned and gave him a big smile. “I enjoy every minute of it.” A battered pickup truck, crammed with passengers, cut sharply in front of them. Out of the back popped an iron washtub. It bounced on the road, scattering dozens of dried salt fish on the pavement. Sergeant Levy swerved smoothly around the tub. The pickup pulled over to the side of the road. Women began yelling angrily in Arabic.

Sergeant Levy parked in the shade of the carob tree. From one of its lower branches a long seed pod dropped, falling on the hood of the car with a soft thud. Calvi started involuntarily at the sound. He noticed that Sergeant Levy did, too.

“They make good cattle fodder,” Calvi said opening the door.

“I didn't know that.” Sergeant Levy watched it carefully through the windshield.

Calvi entered the villa and went into the kitchen. In a cupboard above the sink he found a box of cigars. He lit one and drew the smoke to the back of his throat, let it linger there, and slowly breathed it out through his nose and mouth. He felt his body begin to relax. As he was about to bring the cigar to his lips again, he heard a muffled squeak somewhere above his head. It was the kind of sound bedsprings might make.

Very quietly, taking his weight on the balls of his feet, he walked to the stairs. Slowly he went up, keeping to the outside of the steps where they were less likely to creak, up the staircase and along the carpeted hall to the guest bedroom.

The door was open. Sarah stood by the bed, her back to the door. She was supporting Cohn in a sitting position. She had removed the adhesive tape from his mouth, untied the electrical wire from his wrists and ankles, but she was having trouble rousing him from his drugged sleep. His eyelids, thick and puffy, drooped like heavy curtains.

“You shouldn't have come, Sarah,” Calvi said.

Letting go of her husband she spun around to face him. Cohn sank limply back on the bed. “What's going on, Simon?” Fear pitched her voice much higher than normal.

From the doorway Calvi watched her but didn't say a word. He thought of several alternatives, none good. She was afraid of him, almost hysterically afraid: her eyes were opened so widely he could see the rim of white all around her pupils; her hands trembled. There was nothing to stop her from screaming, once.

“What have you done to Moses?”

“I gave him a few sleeping pills, that's all. He will be fine.” Calvi spoke in a tone he would use to soothe a frightened child. “I don't want to hurt him.” Or you, he thought. “You know that.”

From the bed came a groan and an indistinct mutter. “You lured him here yesterday to kill him,” Sarah said. The panicky edge in her voice had become sharper. “He knows something about you, doesn't he? Something about you and the Arabs. They got to you in the past few years, didn't they, Simon? How did they do that? Money? How much are they paying you?”

“Don't be silly.”

“Silly? If I'm so silly why was my husband drugged, bound and gagged on your bed?”

“It's not what you think, Sarah. Trust me. We've known each other for a long time.”

She laughed a nervous laugh which cut off abruptly. “We can never trust you again.” She turned to Moses and lifted one of his arms onto her shoulder. “I'm taking him home now.”

“I'm afraid I can't let you do that.” Calvi took one step into the room. “Neither of you will come to any harm, but I have to keep you here until tomorrow.” He advanced another step.

“No,” she said, in a small, strangled voice. He didn't like it at all.

He shook his head sadly. “You shouldn't have come,” he repeated.

“But I did.” Gently she lowered Cohn's head to the mattress. It should have been a signal to him, but it wasn't. He was watching the tender way her hands held his head. He should have been reminding himself that she was a very fit woman, and twenty years younger than he. He should have, but he didn't.

With a quickness that caught him by surprise she darted across the room and dodged around him, weaving low to the ground like a soldier under enemy fire. Off balance Calvi reached out and grabbed her arm. He heard a ripping noise and her blouse came away in his hand. She raced down the hall.

Calvi charged after her. She was making a quiet whimpering sound in the back of her throat, like a child chased by a dog. She started running down the stairs, taking them two at a time as she made for the front door. She was almost at the bottom by the time he reached the top step. With a long stride he launched his body, aiming to land somewhere in the middle of the staircase, but one heel caught on the way, sending him head first down the stairs like a projectile. Just before he crashed into Sarah he saw a pattern of little freckles on her naked back. Then he saw white, black, and nothing at all.