The Jerusalem Inception (19 page)
His hands reflexively threw the book back on the desk. It was the book of Kabbalah!
He wanted to put the pencil and money back in the book, but could not bring himself to touch it again. He stumbled out of the study, ran to his room, and closed the door.
“Jerusalem? Is that you?”
He had assumed his mother was out. Had she seen him enter his father’s study? He wished she would just go away.
Temimah entered his bedroom. “Why didn’t you go to the demonstration?”
He avoided her eyes, afraid of remembering the way she had looked at the height of passion. “I’m not feeling well.”
“What’s wrong?” She reached the back of her head and tightened the knot on her plain headdress. Her fingers felt around it, ensuring it covered her head. The motion was mechanical, reassuring.
“I’m tired.”
“You read too much.” Her eyes lingered on the bookshelf, lined with volumes of Talmud.
Suddenly he realized it wasn’t Talmud she was referring to. He jumped from the bed and stood between her and the bookshelf.
“I clean your room every day. You think I would miss those books?”
“Don’t tell him!”
“Your father has enough to worry about. God knows what would happen here without him.” Anxiety tightened her voice. “You must stop.”
“No!”
“But these books are bad for you.”
“That’s a lie!”
Temimah seemed startled by his anger.
“I can’t go back. I can’t ignore what I know. I’m not a damn horse.” He placed his hands by the sides of his face like horse blinders.
“Am I a damn horse?”
Her pain tied a knot in his throat. It was his father he was angry at, not her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m missing? But I also know what I have—a husband, a son, a home, and a God, who has prescribed this life for me.” She approached the bookshelf, inserted her hand behind the set of Talmud volumes, and pulled out
The Painted Bird
. The small book was wrapped in transparent plastic for protection. The cover illustration showed a bird with a human expression, its feathers red, yellow, and green, its beak crooked, its malicious eyes staring at the reader. A straw basket was strapped to its wings, and in it sat a boy with sad eyes.
“Please,” Lemmy said, “put it back.”
She opened the book. “Who is Tanya?”
He snatched
The Painted Bird
from her, shoved it behind the Talmud volumes, and headed to the door.
“Jerusalem!” His mother grabbed his forearm. “She gives you those books, doesn’t she?”
He nodded.
“Who is she?”
“Ask your husband!” Lemmy shook off her hand and left the room.
She followed him to the hallway. “I’ve asked him.”
Lemmy paused and turned.
“Your father used to have nightmares.” Her face was ashen, the wrinkles of untimely aging growing deeper. “He cried her name in his sleep.
Tanya! Tanya!
”
“What did he say when you asked him?”
“Nothing.” Temimah went to her room, pausing at the door. “He wouldn’t answer.”
“So you sent him to sleep in the study?”
His mother’s voice cracked when she answered, “That was his decision.”
“W
hat a nice surprise!” Tanya embraced Lemmy. He had never visited her on a weekday, only on the Sabbath. And she had never embraced him, only touched him briefly, as if unintentionally. Now she was holding him to her, pressing her limbs against him. Without thinking, he kissed the top of her head. She must have just gotten out of the shower, her hair still wet, its scent fresh like flowers.
She took his hand and led him inside. A beige sweater hung loosely from her straight shoulders, her breasts erect under it. He forced his eyes away, dropped off his hat, and put on a black yarmulke.
Tanya walked to her desk and collected the documents that were scattered on it.
He came closer and looked over her shoulder. He saw documents in English, German, and French, hand-written notations in Hebrew. Everything was stamped in red:
Top Secret
“Is this your work?”
“Watch it.” She pinched his nose. “You only have one.”
“I can keep a secret.”
She steered him toward the old couch. “When you love Israel like I do, you do your best to defend it. I’m best in languages, so that’s what I do.” Her teeth sparkled, and he noticed that her face was flushed, as if she had spent time in the sun. “Talk about defending Israel, why aren’t you studying Talmud today?”
“Nobody’s studying today. My father is leading a demonstration against the abortion law.”
Tanya turned on the radio—a wooden box with large, black plastic knobs for volume and tuning, and a round see-through frequency scale. Static sounds emanated from a square cloth over the speaker while the radio warmed up. Finally, the newscaster’s voice came: “Thousands of ultra-Orthodox men gathered to protest the abortion legislation, which passed another legislative hurdle this morning in the Knesset. I’m looking at the intersection of Jaffa Street and King George Street, where all the stores have shut down, and the road is a river of black hats. Police officers have taken positions—”
The reporter paused as a roar came from the demonstrators.
“There he is! The leader of Neturay Karta, the famous Rabbi Abraham Gerster.” The reporter was practically shouting now. “This rabbi vowed never to set foot outside Jerusalem as long as the Temple Mount is occupied by the Jordanians. He stands on a makeshift platform and recites from Psalms into a loudspeaker. We can only guess what King David would think if he heard his beautiful verses recited by a fanatic rabbi in a black coat as a battle cry against fellow Jews!”
Another roar came from the crowd.
“Something is happening near the platform! I can see men fighting—Orthodox and seculars beating each other! Policemen are rushing in, wielding clubs. My God! The platform is knocked over! Rabbi Gerster is down! It’s a huge scuffle! I just saw some rocks flying overhead! More policemen are running over!”
Shouts of panic came from the radio. Lemmy leaned closer. Tanya put a hand on his knee, pressing it lightly.
The reporter’s voice could hardly be heard over the background noise. “They are all rushing in that direction now. Teargas! At least ten canisters just flew over the crowd! Police snipers are shooting teargas from the roofs. It’s real war!” He paused again and cried: “Rabbi Gerster is hurt!” After a moment of pure noise, he yelled, “They’re picking him up! His face is bloody! They’re running back to Meah Shearim!”
Tanya turned off the radio.
“I’d better get back home.” Lemmy could barely breathe.
“Your father is fine, don’t worry.”
“He was bleeding!”
“How timely.”
He looked at her, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
“His injury happened at the right time. It stopped the fighting just as it was getting out of hand, don’t you think?”
“Thank God!”
She laughed, leaning toward him, her long hair against his cheek. Again, the smell of flowers sent a warm tide through his guts. He felt an urge to bury his face in the thick mass of her hair. He sat down on the edge of the sofa, weakened.
Tanya put her arm around him. His muscles tensed, and he felt hot. “Please don’t.” He could barely speak. “It’s not allowed.”
She touched his neck, her hand cool against his burning skin. “But I’m not a married woman.”
“Still.”
“Because I haven’t dipped in the ritual mikvah?”
He was surprised how easily she read his mind. Every woman was sullied by her monthly menstrual discharge and therefore forbidden to touch a man until her impurity was cleansed by immersing in the mikvah, the community ritual bath of collected rainwater.
“But I’m pure,” Tanya said. “I dipped in the sea last week. That’s as good as a mikvah, right?”
Lemmy could tell by her tone that she was smiling. He wanted to say that, while the sea was indeed the best form of purifying a woman, the exacting rules prescribed by the rabbis required that she immerse while naked, to ensure that the cleansing water had unhindered access to her impure skin. But the thought of Tanya swimming in the nude paralyzed his tongue, and he bowed his head forward, submitting to her touch. His muscles softened under her firm fingers, which crept up from his nape, to the back of his head. His hair passed between her fingers. The world around him shrunk, nothing existed—no sound, no smell, no taste, no sight—nothing but the light touch of Tanya’s hand.
His black yarmulke fell to the floor.
Her hand backtracked down to his lower nape, under his ears, brushed against his spiraling payos. He turned to face her.
I
t was close to midnight when Lemmy left Tanya’s house. He kept a fast pace along the border that crossed Jerusalem from north to south. A full moon illuminated the night. He was bursting with happiness and energy. Breaking into a run, the hard soles of his black shoes pounded the road.
Down Shivtay Israel Street, near the gate, he slowed down to catch his breath. His parents were likely awake, waiting for him. He had to calm down. There was much he had to tell them. He would make them understand his feelings and thoughts. How could he marry Sorkeh Toiterlich when his heart belonged to Tanya?
It was dark, except for a dim street lamp. The night breeze was cool on his face. He thought of what had happened with her, the all-consuming joy they had shared, joy like he’d never felt before. These feelings could not be sinful!
He entered the gate and hurried up the alley. A hand emerged out of the darkness and yanked him into a doorway. He was thrown against a wall. A whiff of body odor made him gag.
A hushed, urgent voice said, “It’s the rabbi’s son!”
Lemmy pulled his arm free.
A match was struck, and the bearded face of Redhead Dan appeared. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking a stroll. And you?”
“Don’t mess with me, Gerster!”
A car engine sounded in the night. Two headlights appeared in the street, advancing toward the gate.
“Stay here!”
Lemmy watched Redhead Dan approach the car, accompanied by Yoram in his hesitant, stooped gait.
The car stopped. The two men bent over the driver’s window. There was a lengthy discussion. Lemmy saw a box emerge from the window. There was more hushed talking, and the engine growled as the car began moving in reverse, retreating up Shivtay Israel Street.
Yoram carried the box through the gate. They stood under a lamp, and Redhead Dan opened the box. Inside were four fist-size metal balls, more elliptical than round, with black skin that resembled turtle shell. A ring was threaded through a lever at the top of each one.
Redhead Dan grabbed Lemmy’s coat and shook him violently. “If you say anything to anybody about this, I’m going to turn you into chopped liver and feed you to the cats. Understood?”
E
lie Weiss maneuvered the car in reverse all the way up the street and around the corner. He shifted into first gear and drove away. He had not expected to see Abraham’s son with the two men. Had he stayed with Tanya so late? Things must be heating up between them faster than expected. Soon the boy would be ready for the picking, ready to assume his own clandestine destiny.
As Elie drove through the sleeping neighborhoods of West Jerusalem, he pulled off the fake beard and side locks. He had told Redhead Dan that the car was borrowed from a relative. A more thoughtful man would be suspicious, but the young hothead was eager to take revenge on his Zionist tormentors.
Abraham would be outraged if he ever found out. He had truly embraced his role-playing as the scion of rabbinical ancestry, fulfilling his preordainment as a Talmudic saint, a demigod for these fundamentalist Jews. Not bad for a man who had lost his faith in God. But the coming crisis would test Abraham’s abilities. The attack on the prime minister would be visible, unquestionable, and dread-inciting beyond its actual nature. The secular Israeli majority would rally behind Eshkol while the state’s security agencies clamped down on the ultra-Orthodox. Elie’s reward would be the Mossad appointment he had coveted, finally providing him with trained personnel, overseas branches, vehicles and weaponry, which together with Klaus von Koenig’s fortune, would enable Elie to pursue his grand vision of countering anti-Semitism worldwide.
T
here was light in the windows of the apartment. Lemmy ran up the steps. He had to warn his father immediately. The box contained some kind of explosives, he could tell, and Redhead Dan was up to no good.
He entered the foyer and closed the door. His parents were in the dining room.
“Master of the Universe!” His mother ran to him. “We were so worried about you!” Her eyes were red, and she hugged him.
“I’m fine.” Lemmy detached from her and entered the dining room.
Rabbi Gerster had an open book of Talmud before him. A white bandage was tied around his head, an oval stain showing through in the middle of his forehead.
“Where did you go?” Temimah asked. “You could have been killed!”