The Fury of Rachel Monette (37 page)

“Garbage.”

“Shut your dirty mouth.” The American was on his feet. Without turning the dark man placed a restraining hand on his arm. The American sat down.

“Or the first American adventuress attracted to the Arab left. They love sending pretty western women on errands.” The Israeli continued as if there had been no unpleasantness. “Who are you working for? The P.L.O.? The P.F.L.P.?”

“I won't say another word until I know who you are and why you are holding me here.”

Rachel saw blood rush to the American's cheeks, as if she had slapped them. The Israeli held up his hand before he could jump to his feet again. “My name is Grunberg,” he told her calmly. “I am a major in Israeli army intelligence. This gentleman is Mr. Dorschug. He is a representative of the United States government. You are here because you are one of the team that has been running Simon Calvi for God knows how long as an enemy agent inside this country. Naturally, now that we have you, we want to find out more about what has been going on. We would like you to tell us soon. Before Mr. Calvi's speech at the university, in fact.” He looked at his watch. “That gives you a little more than six hours.”

“So talk,” Dorschug prodded her.

She faced him angrily: “If you're with the U.S. government you should be doing something to help me.”

“You stupid bitch. Don't you understand? You're going to rot in jail. If you start talking now there's a chance you won't rot quite so long. It's as simple as that.”

“There's no sense trying to protect Mr. Calvi,” Grunberg said. “We know all about him. We even know that he is planning to say something dramatic in his speech. Something that at this very moment has the Lebanese and Syrian armies on full and secret alert. We even got a report in the last hour of troop movements in Jordan. So we are far ahead of you, Rachel Monette. What we would like to hear from you are the details of the speech. How does he propose to start a war?”

“I don't know anything about it.” Rachel needed five minutes alone. Calvi was her only hope. Without his help she would never see Adam again. These men thought Calvi was working for the Arabs. They said they knew all about him, but they couldn't know what she knew: if they did Calvi wouldn't still be in business. And Munich. If Munich was true, and she believed it was, then Calvi could not be an enemy of Israel. Not willingly, she thought suddenly. Not willingly. Who else knows?

She became aware that they were watching her closely. “I need to use the toilet,” she said.

Dorschug snickered. “First you must talk,” Grunberg said. It was not a threat; more a reminder of the natural order, like you have to learn how to walk before you can run.

“All I can tell you is that you're making a big mistake. I am a freelance journalist. I make documentaries for radio. This afternoon, yesterday afternoon, I suppose by now, I saw Mr. Calvi for the first time in my life. We did nothing illegal. I interviewed him for a documentary I am making on multi-ethnic cultures. That's the whole story.”

“Very good. That should be easy to prove. We have only to listen to the interview.” He turned to the tape recorder and switched it on.

“Testing testing. One two three four,” she heard herself say. Pause. “What's so funny?” She sounded frightened and suspicious. How could he not have heard?

Calvi's deep voice, amused, wordly. “Don't you think testing testing one two three four sounds funny?”

“I suppose.”

“All ready?”

Her voice shook. “Yes, Mr. Victor Reinhardt, I'm ready. I want my son.”

They watched the reels go round and round. “There is no more on the tape. As an interview about ethnic cultures I find it rather brief and unsatisfying.” The opaque black eyes bored into hers. “As what it is, I find it too baroque.”

“I don't understand you.”

“Yes, you do. You see, I believe you when you say you never met Mr. Calvi before yesterday. It follows that you must have a method for identifying each other. Passwords, Rachel Monette. I am talking about passwords. This one is sillier than most of them, that's all.”

“Surely you can't believe what you're saying. Why would anyone put something like that on tape?”

“I asked myself the same thing. It is not really as difficult a question as it seems. There are amateurs in every profession, including this one. I hope you won't be too insulted if I tell you Sergeant Levy reported that you were one of the most amateurish he had ever seen. Sergeant Levy works for me,” Grunberg added in the tone he used for explaining the natural order. “Apparently you didn't even hold up the microphone to make it appear as though you were recording an interview. And the excuse you used to get rid of him was laughable.”

“It's only laughable if you don't believe I am who I say I am.”

“How can I believe you?” He allowed his voice to rise very slightly. “You are clearly not a journalist: a journalist would have recorded an interview.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dorschug said. “We don't have time for all this pussyfooting, Major. With all due respect. We've got to start knocking heads.”

“You fool!” Rachel shouted. “You could knock my head right off my shoulders and it wouldn't make any difference. I can't tell you what you want because I don't know. You've made a mistake.”

Dorschug cracked her across the face with the back of his hand. He cocked it for a second blow but Grunberg said, “No,” in a tone that stopped him. He should have spoken sooner. The damage was done. Her whole head throbbed in pain with each beat of her heart. She could barely keep from crying out. The two men watched her, waiting.

“Do you think she's going to puke again?” Dorschug asked. Grunberg ignored him.

Rachel tried to think. She had a tired aching brain but it was still willing. The trouble was she had nothing to work with. It probably would not have mattered even if she had. All she wanted was to talk to Calvi.

“I'll make a deal.”

“No deals,” Dorschug said.

“Go ahead,” Grunberg told her. “We'll listen.”

Dorschug stood up and faced Grunberg. “Absolutely not. No deals with terrorists.”

Grunberg sat very still, looking up at him from under his heavy, hanging eyebrows. He spoke mildly. “In the end it is we whose lives are at stake, not you. We will deal.” Dorschug strode out of the room and slammed the door. “He won't go far,” Grunberg said, more to himself than to Rachel: “His job is to spy on me.” He sighed. “All right. Talk.”

“I want to put my skirt on.”

“After. Talk.” He didn't seem interested in her legs anyway. Only her eyes.

“I'll tell you everything I know on one condition: that I get one hour alone with Calvi tomorrow. No matter what happens.”

“Agreed.”

“How do I know you'll keep your word?”

“How do I know you will tell me everything?”

“Because you can keep beating me on the head until I do. I haven't got the same privilege.”

“Then you will have to trust me.” He said it without irony.

“All right. But it's not going to help you at all.”

“We shall see.”

And she told him a story that began one afternoon when she found her husband in his study with a letter opener in his chest. A story about a blond man in her basement, a well in the desert, and a man named Victor Mendel. By the time she finished darkness was beginning to lift. The first silvery fingers of dawn had slipped under the dome of the sky on the eastern horizon. Not once did Grunberg take his eyes off her face. He seemed to be drinking in every word.

Silence. He leaned back in his chair. “I take it back,” he said coldly. “You are very good. Far from an amateur.”

“What do you mean?”

“Very good,” Grunberg repeated. “That is easily the most inventive cover story I have ever heard. Lovely detail. The difficulty is, it would take days to discover if any of it is true. And we don't have days. We have a few hours.” He stood up. “You stall very cleverly, Rachel Monette. I suppose you can be proud that you've done your job well.” He turned to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“There is nothing more I can do here.”

“And what about me?”

“I told you that at the beginning.” He opened the door.

“What about my hour with Calvi?”

Grunberg opened his mouth. A harsh ragged sound seemed to tear itself from his throat. His laugh, she realized.

“But I told you the truth, you God-damned bastard. I want that hour.”

“Prove it's the truth.” His voice was almost a whisper. He closed the door. She heard his footsteps in the hall. She looked at the door. It stayed closed. Her eyes went to the table, the tape recorder, her skirt.

“Grunberg,” she shouted. “Come back. Grunberg. Grunberg.”

The door opened. The dark eyes looked in. “Grunberg,” she said, trying to control the excitement in her tone: “Where is the guidebook?”

“Guidebook?”

“Yes. I can prove everything with the guidebook. I had a cassette recorder inside. I taped the whole conversation with Calvi.”

Grunberg crossed the floor in a moment. His hands darted through the things on the table. No guidebook. He picked up a telephone, dialed, spoke rapidly in Hebrew, listened. Whatever he was told made him angry. His back stiffened and his tone turned to ice. He hung up.

“Well?”

“We wait. At least someone remembers seeing it.” He spoke with contempt.

“Do I have to be strapped into the chair?”

“Yes.”

Without speaking a word to each other, they waited. Rachel's head hurt. She felt the sweat in her armpits, between her legs. She could smell it. And his sweat. She smelled that too.

A knock at the door. A thick-set woman entered, hair rumpled, eyes puffy from sleep. She wore faded jeans and a T-shirt; in her hand she had the guidebook. At first Rachel did not recognize her. Then she did: hours before the same hand had swung a nightstick.

Grunberg did not take it from her at once. He stared at her instead, until she lowered her eyes and mumbled something faint and apologetic in Hebrew. Grunberg opened the book so she could see the cassette recorder inside.

“Speaking of amateurs,” Rachel said. She couldn't help herself. The policewoman went out. Dorschug came in.

“Got something?”

“Perhaps,” Grunberg said. He pressed the play button. They listened. Rachel talked. Calvi talked. Rachel talked. Grunberg touched a button. He talked. Dorschug talked. If she closed her eyes the pain in her head wasn't as bad. She closed them. They all talked. Calvi had the best voice. Then she. Grunberg. And Dorschug.

Somewhere a man began to chant. Other men joined him, some nearer, some farther, singing the same chant. They sounded peevish and bored, all except one who sang beautifully. Then it was over. Calvi talked. Grunberg talked. The other man talked. She talked.

Someone untied the straps. She felt a bite on her arm, near the triceps. A deep bite, but nothing at all compared to what she felt in her head. Up in the air, sagging in someone's arms. Lying full length on her back.

Full length. On her back on the playroom floor, the baby Adam an airplane high above. Coming in for a landing. Kiss. Take off. Kiss.

“Okay. Now what? Pull him in? Stop the speech?”

“And turn him into a political martyr? No. He makes a speech. A different one.”

“Yeah?”

“Certainly. Now we know what they know. Why not play the same game?”

“So who took hubby out? Them?

“Or him. It doesn't make much difference.”

“And the kid?”

And the kid? And the kid? But there was no answer. Kiss. Take off into the night.

31

First the sun touched her feet. Slowly it spread its warmth up her legs to her body and finally her face, until she lay wrapped in a cocoon of golden down. A man was speaking. His words were incomprehensible but she knew the voice. She had heard it before, one afternoon sitting on a bench. A stone bench in Jerusalem.

Rachel opened her eyes. She was lying on a couch beneath the only window in a small plain office. The rich sunlight pouring through the window made the office look as mean as it was. Like many offices it was more easily endured on rainy days. In the center of the floor two straight-back wooden chairs facing a steel one formed an awkward little group: makeshift stage props of a third-rate theatrical company. The man kept speaking.

Rachel stood. The action set off a banging in her head that made her gasp aloud. After a few moments it became less intense: sure that his presence was felt right from the beginning the banger withdrew to the background. Rachel stripped off her underpants, shirt and brassiere and found fresh clothing in her suitcase, open on the rectangular table. She put on clean white corduroy slacks and a navy blue silk shirt, but she didn't feel any fresher. She opened the door and went into the hall.

Sergeant Levy was waiting for her, seated on a wobbly card-table chair. A transistor radio lay in his hand like a black egg lost in a nest that was far too big. The voice came from the radio. Simon Calvi. He was speaking in Hebrew.

“What is he saying?” Rachel's tongue felt thick and clumsy; she tasted vomit. A confusion of wispy memories of the night gone by floated through her mind.

With old-fashioned courtesy Sergeant Levy got to his feet. The chair squeaked and stood a little taller. “Do you feel better, I hope?”

Better than when—after the hit on the head but before the slap on the face? After the drugging but before the rotting in jail? “Tell me what he is saying.”

Sergeant Levy looked disappointed at the tone she was taking, but he put the radio close to his ear. Rachel sensed a large crowd, listening quietly. Very quietly. “He says that all Jews must stand together in a dangerous world.” She listened to Calvi's voice. He may have been saying it, but he wasn't backing it up with any enthusiasm. She said so.