In the Defense of Israel
God Will Avenge His Blood
When he inserted the edge of the shovel under the corner, Itah gasped. “What are you doing?”
“ You saw the note.” Rabbi Gerster used the long handle as a lever, lifting the stone.
“ No!” She kneeled and held the stone down, preventing him from toppling it. “It was just a form of salute. Long live Jerusalem! Like a patriotic cheer or something.”
“ The man who wrote the note knows where to stab his victims for best results. I will be in pain until I find out the truth with my own eyes.”
“ E.W.?”
“ Elie Weiss. He spends most of his time in Paris.”
“ You think he’s the one giving money to Freckles?”
“ I’m afraid so. And now he’s trying to lure me to the hospital to facilitate his escape.”
“ By hinting that your son is alive?” Itah picked up the other shovel. “It’s so transparent. Cruel!”
“ But irresistible, right?”
“ Surely you don’t believe him, do you?”
“ A bereaved father would grasp at any straw of hope.”
“ But you know the truth, right? Your son is long dead. No one can bring him back to life.”
“ If anyone can, it’s Elie Weiss.” Rabbi Gerster grunted as he lifted the headstone and rolled it over, exposing the dirt underneath. “That devil has a history of playing with life and death.” He pushed the shovel hard into the soil.
“ You can’t actually believe this, can you?” But still, she joined him, and they dug until the top of the coffin was exposed. He got into the grave, stood wide so his shoes were off the coffin, and bent down to grab the cover.
“ This is so wrong.” Itah aimed the flashlight into the hole. “God will punish us.”
“ God is an illusion, remember?” Rabbi Gerster tried to pull up the side of the cover. “And so are ghosts, in case you’re worried about the neighbors.”
The coffin creaked, and the beam of the flashlight trembled with Itah’s hand. “The body of your son is only bones now. How could you tell if it’s really him?”
“ Can’t open it!” He straightened up, rubbing his hands. “Talmud forbids steel nails, only wooden nails are allowed in coffins. After all these years, it’s bonded together.”
“ A chance to reconsider,” Itah said with a tremulous chuckle.
He climbed out of the grave, turned, and jumped back in, landing hard on top of the coffin, which broke under his weight.
“ Oh, shit!” Itah dropped the flashlight into the hole.
“ Calm down. It’s only bones.” Rabbi Gerster pushed aside the shattered wood planks of the cover and reached in for the flashlight among the pieces of white cotton shroud. He shone the flashlight up and down the coffin interior, located the skull, and pulled it out.
The cranium emerged from the coffin with a length of the spine and a single shoulder, attached to an arm and a skeletal hand.
“ Here,” he said, “hold it.”
“ No, thanks. I’ll hold the flashlight.”
“ At the time, they didn’t let me see the body.” Rabbi Gerster was breathing hard as he peeled strips of shroud from the skull. “They told me Lemmy had been hit point-blank by a grenade, that he was unrecognizable. I should have insisted.”
The last piece of shroud came off the skull. He shook off the dust, and the bones rattled.
“ Ouch!” Itah stepped back. “How can you mess with your son’s remains?”
“ I don’t believe in life after death. I need to know if these bones belonged to Lemmy.”
“ But how?”
He turned the skull around. The grinning jaws, hollowed nose, and empty eye sockets faced them in eerie whiteness. “Point the light at the jaws.”
Itah complied.
“ Ah!” Rabbi Gerster probed the gaping mouth, toward the rear. “This guy has all his teeth!”
“ So?”
“ My Lemmy was missing this one.” He tapped a tooth with a fingernail, producing knocking sounds.
“ How can you be so sure? It’s been decades!”
“ I held his hand while the dentist pulled it-upper jaw, second molar from the back. Lemmy cracked it on an olive pit just before his Bar Mitzvah. You should have seen that boy. He didn’t make a sound while that two-left- handed dentist labored with his pliers.” Rabbi Gerster tossed the bones back into the grave. “This poor bastard is not my son.”
“ What now?”
“ Now?” He began to shovel the dirt back into the grave. “Now we’ll go back to Meah Shearim for a good night’s sleep.”
“ And then?”
He leaned on the shovel. “In the morning, we’re going to see an old friend and squeeze him until all the lies drain out of him.”
*
Sunday, October 29, 1995
Lemmy had not expected Metz amp; Co. to be so busy on a Sunday morning, but shoppers kept coming in. Two female models dressed as tulips stood just inside the automatic glass doors, bowing their heads, adorned with red and yellow petals, and waving their green arms.
A security camera was mounted at the corner under the ceiling. It was aimed at the glass doors, but Lemmy estimated that the lens wasn’t wide enough to capture him. At any event, with his fedora and winter coat, there was little risk of identification, even if someone bothered to examine the video footage.
Attached to the wall was a pay phone, which Lemmy could use while enjoying a clear view of the opposite street corner, where a green phone booth stood close to the arched bridge. Tanya had not arrived yet. He picked up the receiver and asked the operator to place a collect call to Zurich.
Christopher was at his desk. “Herr Horch?”
“Sorry to drag you to the bank on Sunday morning.” Lemmy sheltered the receiver. “Regarding the inactive account, I want to try a few things.”
“We first need an account number. Only then will the computer let me try a password.” The sound of fingers hitting the keyboard came through the receiver. “I’m ready.”
“Try this date: January one, nineteen twenty eight.”
“ One. One. Nine. Two. Eight.” The keystrokes were quick. “No good.”
“Try the opposite order: Eight. Two. Nine. One. One.”
Rapid keystrokes. “Yes! It’s asking me for a password!”
Lemmy breathed deeply. Tanya’s birthday did the trick. Would her name finish the job? He glanced over the two tulips, toward the green phone booth on the other side of the street, by the arched bridge. “Try this: T-A-N-Y- A.”
Again the keys clicked. “No good,” Christopher said.
Lemmy bit his lips. A group of teenagers walked in, chatting happily. When they passed, his eyes caught sight of the petite figure across the street, her head held up, her hair flowing free now, casting a silky shadow over her shoulders.
“Try the reverse order: A-Y-N-A-T.”
The rattling of the keyboard was followed by Christopher’s cheer. “I’m in!”
“ Tell me!”
“ The account owner is Klaus von Koenig. First name is spelled like your son’s name.”
Lemmy wiped the sweat from his face. “What else do you see?”
“The entry page. It’s asking for Gunter’s personal pass code.”
“That’s required if you wanted to conduct transactions in the account. There should be an icon for View Only.
