Targov stood, his dogs crouching by his heels, surveying the big sculpture. His second model, the one one- third human scale, was dwarfed now by the full-sized piece.
He glanced at Rokovsky, so stern and gaunt. Pale and skeletal, he looked his part as homme de confiance. ' I know just what she'll say if I let her in: 'So big, Sasha. I had no idea! But perhaps a little grand, don't you think? Not pretentious. The Great Form-Giver could never be! But maybe just a trifle…hmmm… fancy? Grandiose?' '
'Since you know what she's going to say, what difference does it make?'
'It brings me down, Tola. I'm feeling really good just now.'
He moved slowly to the large window, trailed by the dogs, then turned back suddenly to confront the work.
'Big impact,' he said. 'Good shadows, especially in full light. Very strong, but California light, Pacific light- how much different will the light be there?'
'We don't know. Not yet. No way to calculate. A couple of days smoothing and it'll be ready for the foundry. By the way, I'm driving up to Palo Alto in the morning. Please make sure the car's gassed up. Better arrange for a truck too, and contact our friends at the Israeli Consulate. I want them to see the piece before it's cast.'
He gazed again at the enormous overpowering thing he'd wrought. He'd never done anything like it, had had no notion such an image had been harbored in his brain. Part human, part abstract, it would rise, 'The Righteous Martyr,' a black bronze vision from a black basalt pedestal, his signature against the sky.
At midnight, a pounding on the door. The dogs leapt, then turned to him, their shaggy slobbering faces inquiring whether they should bark. For four months he'd been living in the studio, sleeping on his day bed, eating at his workbench, rarely venturing to the main house. No distractions, just work sixteen hours a day, his only recreation once-a-week fucking sessions with Maureen. Recently she'd taken to dressing up in black silk underwear, then prancing in time to Polish marches while he sat watching from her moldy couch, his cock a cylinder of steel.
It was Irina. He recognized her style: fierce pounding alternated with whimpers. He went to the door. 'All right. I hear you. What do you want?'
'Can't sleep, Sasha. Why are you so cruel? I want to see it. Please…'
When it's finished-I told you.'
'Oh, now. Please. Please…'
Christ! She's impossible! He opened the door, she inserted her foot, and then, when he saw her face, he knew he'd been suckered once again.
'Not a word,' he warned her. 'A quick glance from here. Then out! Back to the house! I'm exhausted. I need my sleep.'
She nodded to assure him she agreed and that she understood his artist's temperament. He opened the door all the way and then stepped back. She stared at the sculpture. He stared at her. 'It's so big, Sasha. And so-'
He brought his finger to his lips. 'Shut up!'
She clamped her mouth, then suddenly brought up her hand to shield her eyes. 'Oh no!'
'What's the matter?'
She was frightened. 'The face!'
'What about it? What?'
'It's him!'
'Who?'
'Sergei, Sasha. Sergei. Just as he was then. But suffering, suffering so, the boot on his neck, his face ground down into the dust…'
Today Rokovsky was bringing the Israelis-he must greet, present, explain, persuade. He would pay for everything, the casting and the pedestal. But in return he would demand a major site.
Jerusalem. He had never been there but for weeks he'd poured over photographs and maps. He had a vision of it: capital city of the world, central city, the world's heart. City of martyrs, temples, passions, crucifixions, dreams, redemptions, and now an enormous garden embellished with works of art. He had created 'The Righteous Martyr' especially for this place. His journey there, accompanying the work, would be his chance to put the tortured past to rest.
The Abattoir
While he groped for the phone Anna turned over and faced the other way.
'Yeah?' He glanced at his watch. It was a little past 2 A.M.
'Got him!'
'What?' As he blinked and tried to clear his brain, David realized he was speaking to Peretz. 'Been looking for you. Where've you been?'
'Got him. One of my old boys. Questioning him all night. Don't think he's going to last.'
David sat up. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Guy who did the killings. So far he's confessed that much. Funny thing though-says he wasn't trying to pin them on me. Seems it was lack of imagination, old habits die hard. He used our old unit signature because he couldn't think up a new one on his own.'
No, that's wrong…
'… took a lot to get that out of him, and that he was hired, the executioner. Thing is, Bar-Lev, much as he doesn't like the pain, and he doesn't…' Peretz must have turned his receiver to the room, because now David could hear some kind of whimpering in the background. '…still he'd rather suffer than tell me who's behind this and what it's all about.'
'You're crazy!'
Anna turned and buried her face in her pillow. David cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, got out of bed, and carried the phone into the kitchen.
'Listen carefully, Peretz. You can't do this by yourself. If he dies on you, you'll be a murderer. Stop right now, tell me where you are, and we'll handle this the proper way.'
A pause, and then a weary: 'You don't understand-he was one of my boys.' David shook his head: the old insanity. 'I trained him and now he's let me down. I've got the right to waste him if I want.'
'Tell me where you are. There's stuff going on here that you don't know about. Who tipped you off about the Rubin seminar?'
'Never mind that shit. Check this out. Mei Naftoah. There's a restaurant there, at the end of the road.'
'Yeah, I know it. Eat there all the time.' What a maniac! 'Listen , Peretz, you were set-'
'…down the slope, below the third house from the end. Smashed-in roof, but there're a couple rooms left intact. He says that's where he killed them. There ought to be some evidence. Says the victims were brought to him there, he cut them, then the people who brought them took their bodies away. Says he worked over the nun when she was still alive but the rest of them he killed right off. Oh, oh…he's moaning again.' David heard the moans. 'Got to get back to work. I'll call you around seven, see how you made out.'
'He's lying, Peretz. You were set up.'
But the line was already dead.
A strange place, Mei Naftoah, especially at night. The west side of Jerusalem suddenly ends, there's a gas station etched in orange neon, then a large dense housing project, five bleak buildings on a ledge, hulking silhouettes against the sky. Below the ledge a steep incline, then a rocky slope crisscrossed with ancient terraces. On this slope there are remnants of an Arab village, a few old stone houses abandoned at the time of Independence. Beyond are the Judean hills.
An occasional olive tree, a cave, discarded broken-up tractor tires, a few burned-out rusting husks of cars. David found the place mesmerizing; he sensed a haunting desolation. The Iraqi-Jewish restaurant where he and Dov had lunched, where he'd first broached his theory of 'hidden symmetry,' was an oasis at the end of this narrow twisting dusty path.
A light mist filled the valley. From out in the hills the howls of jackals. He smelled wood smoke, perhaps from a Bedouin camp. The air was so still he could hear Liederman strike a match a hundred meters behind where they'd left him to stand guard on the road.
Dov was at his side. Uri had gone ahead to find the house. Shoshana trailed carrying their radio. Micha was on night duty, watching the house of Amit Nissim.
'David, I'm going down,' Uri called to them. He'd said he'd heard these old houses were sometimes used by
