The vast plaza in front of the Wailing Wall was mostly in the shade now, as the sun descended behind the rooftops. A late-afternoon breeze picked up. Rabbi Abraham Gerster rocked back and forth in the rear of the group of Neturay Karta men.
Benjamin led the prayers, reading each sentence aloud, pausing for the men to recite the words. “ And we shall continue to mourn, ” Benjamin chanted, “ we shall dwell in sorrow, until God forgives His sheep, until He rebuilds His house on the mountain of His glory, on the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. ”
Repeating the words, Rabbi Gerster looked up at the tall wall of massive stones. Even after so many years, it was hard to believe they could stand so close to the focus of centuries-old Jewish longing. As the leader of Neturay Karta, he had started this weekly prayer tradition back in 1948, after the War of Independence had left Jerusalem divided, with the Old City in Jordanian hands. Every Friday afternoon, he had led the men to a hill by the border, where they had prayed in view of Temple Mount. In 1967, the Six Day War drove the Jordanians back across the Jordan River, and Rabbi Gerster had turned the Friday afternoon prayer of longing into a Friday afternoon prayer of gratitude at the Wailing Wall. And when Benjamin had taken over as the sect’s leader, he had put his own stamp on this tradition, modifying it yet again into a prayer for the rebuilding of the temple.
But for Rabbi Gerster, this special time of the week-the hours before the commencement of the Sabbath-was a time of reflection about a past that had grown more painful with time. He thought of those early Fridays on the hill by the border, when Lemmy was a toddler, light as a feather, happy in his father’s strong arms atop the huge boulder, with the Jordanian-occupied Old City spread before them, the ancient walls and the Tower of David in reddish-brown, glowing in the twilight. The prayers had been mournful back then, but the days had been happy, Lemmy a blonde boy who loved his daddy with complete, unblemished adoration.
“ Rabbi?” Benjamin took his arm. The prayer was over, time to walk back to Meah Shearim and receive the Sabbath. “Are you feeling all right?”
“ Thank God, yes.” He smiled at Benjamin. “And you?”
They followed the group up the ramp, away from the Wailing Wall.
“ I’m worried,” Benjamin said.
“ Why?”
He helped Rabbi Gerster up a set of stairs. “Perhaps we can take you to a doctor?”
“ There’s nothing wrong with me, other than the fact that I’m getting old.”
They reached the top of the stairs and followed the road that circled the Old City along the walls. A group of tourists surrounded their guide, who gestured at the firing slats in the ancient battlements, his Spanish rapid and melodic. A few of the tourists stared at the ultra-Orthodox group as if it were part of Jerusalem’s quaint attractions.
“ I’m worried, because you disappear for hours at a time, and Sorkeh complains that the food she brings for you is left untouched.” Years ago, the rabbi had given his apartment to Benjamin and moved into an alcove off the foyer of the synagogue, which did not have a kitchen.
“ Tell me something,” Rabbi Gerster said. “As my heir, my successor in leading Neturay Karta, can you point to the primary lesson I have taught you, to the fundamental idea, the consistent thread of light in the chaos of faith?”
“ That’s an odd question.”
“ What is the single most important thing that I expect you to perpetuate as Neturay Karta’s leader?”
“ The value of shalom?”
“ Go on.”
“ To maintain peace among our people,” Benjamin said, “even when we see blasphemy, even when we see the secular Israelis breach the most sacred teachings of God-drive cars on the Sabbath or dig up sacred graves in search of archeological evidence of a past that we already know existed as written in the Torah. We pray, we show them an example of a life of virtue, and we protest loudly. But we don’t raise a hand against a fellow Jew, albeit a sinner.”
The curve in the road took them around a corner. To the west, only the top edge of the sun still glistened above the skyline.
Rabbi Gerster stopped and made Benjamin face him. “You are a good student. A good Jew. And a good rabbi. Now, do you trust me?”
Benjamin nodded.
“ Then stop worrying. My efforts continue to be dedicated to this task of keeping Jews from hurting each other. That’s all you need to know.”
They turned into Shivtay Israel Street. Down by the gate of Meah Shearim, a woman stood by a car, waiting. Rabbi Gerster recognized Itah Orr. He would have stumbled, if not for Benjamin grabbing his elbow. She wore pants and a sweatshirt, and her hair was not covered.
The men murmured, “ Shanda! Shanda! ” One of them picked up a soda can from the gutter and raised it threateningly.
*
Taking a train from the airport to Zurich’s main rail station, Tanya walked the streets, thinking of her next steps. After meeting Herr Horch, she would continue on to Paris tonight, where her team was engaged in tracking every piece of information related to the recent spate of Palestinian violence. Unlike the French police, Mossad wasn’t interested in catching the perpetrators but in discouraging those who aspired to step into the shoes of Al- Mazir and Abu Yusef. Prime Minister Rabin had issued clear orders to prevent further terrorist attacks, which were turning a disillusioned Israeli public against the peace process.
The tip from the Mossad informant in the French police was intriguing, and she was eager to learn what Herr Horch really knew about Elie Weiss. It had been a stroke of luck that the bank manager in Senlis recognized the news photos of Abu Yusef’s corpse and connected it to the large wire transfer signed by Herr Horch of the Hoffgeitz Bank of Zurich. She had also learned that Armande Hoffgeitz was recovering from a heart attack while Herr Horch ran the bank in his absence. She remembered Armande, who had been Klaus von Koenig’s best friend. The last time they met, at the Swiss-German border crossing, Armande Hoffgeitz was a chubby thirty-four-year-old banker, lounging in the rear of his Rolls-Royce, congratulating himself for getting richer from a war that had destroyed most other people. It was odd to think of him as an old man with a bad heart. Should she visit him in the hospital? She chuckled. Seeing her would surely give him another heart attack.
But this was no time for nostalgia. Tanya was alarmed by the involvement of the Hoffgeitz Bank. This was a development she had to pursue herself. To her team she had reasoned that Herr Horch was more likely to open up to a woman than to a whole group of Mossad agents. Their time was better spent in Paris, tracking down the festering opposition to Arafat and the Oslo process. But the real reason she was doing it alone was the risk of exposure. No one at Mossad knew of her teenage relationship with the Nazi general or of the fortune he had left with Armande Hoffgeitz. There was little risk that Herr Horch would somehow make that connection, but even a small risk was too much for her to take. How could she justify to the chief of Mossad keeping such a secret throughout her decades-long career with the Israeli secret service? But even more crucial was her fear for Bira. It was one thing to grow up without a father, his absence justified with a fictional story of a brief relationship and a death in the war. But to be identified as the daughter of Himmler’s deputy, Oberstgruppenfuhrer Klaus von Koenig, a top Nazi whose hands were covered with the blood of millions of Jews? The ramifications of such disclosure were too horrific to consider. It would ruin Bira completely.
Tanya had taken a gamble by mentioning Elie Weiss on the phone, but the Swiss banker’s rudeness in repeatedly hanging up revealed that he recognized Elie’s name. And his suggestion to meet with her away from the bank was another indication that he knew the clandestine nature of Elie’s business. He was clever to suggest a public park in a quiet neighborhood-a safe location for a rendezvous with a woman he didn’t want to be seen with. Tanya would have preferred a cafe on a side street near Bahnhofstrasse, where she would be warm and dry. In general, it was safer to meet an informer in a public place, where the presence of strangers reduced the danger of outright violence.
It was unusual for her to wander around a European city without her escorts. But the vice president of an old Zurich bank did not pose a security risk. He was probably a younger version of Armande Hoffgeitz-overweight, bespectacled, and morally pragmatic. The only attack he was likely to engage in was a panic attack, and she had already planned the conversation to put him at ease. She had no intention of causing him or the bank any trouble-as long as they cooperated fully.
