you.”
“To me? But I don’t know anything.”
“ Perhaps he left papers or letters?”
“ Government investigators came here and took all his belongings. Come, I’ll show you.”
A small alcove off the foyer held a cot, a desk, and Rabbi Gerster’s chair. The bookcase was empty. The desk drawers were pulled out and turned over.
“They took everything, even his books.”
Lemmy sat in the chair and gripped the carved lion heads at the ends of the armrests. “He committed no crimes. It’s a diversion from what’s really going on. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Did he tell you anything?”
Benjamin shook his head. “A woman was here, the TV journalist that’s also being accused. And the rabbi received a note from a patient at Hadassah hospital.”
“What did it say?”
“Asked him to come to Hadassah. And it said: Long live Jerusalem! Now I understand what it meant!” Benjamin took a deep breath. “Did he recognize you last night?”
Lemmy nodded.
“ He must be so happy! Every week he visited your grave. Your death continued to torment him. So when the note came, he rushed out with the woman in the middle of the night. He didn’t tell me where they went, but there was mud all over their shoes the next morning, and he was happier than ever.”
“Then he must have left me a note somewhere. Where could it be?”
Benjamin waved at the walls. “They took everything.”
A memory came to Lemmy. On his last day here, back in 1967, his father carried The Zohar, the book of Kabbalah mysticism, which only the most righteous rabbis dared to study. “Go back into the synagogue and have the men search all the bookcases for my father’s copy of The Zohar. It’s bound in brown leather.”
“I know how it looks.” The hesitation confirmed Lemmy’s assumption that The Zohar was the perfect hiding place for a note. Even an accomplished scholar like Rabbi Benjamin Mashash was wary of it. “Your father wouldn’t leave it in the synagogue, where others could happen upon it.”
“Please,” Lemmy said. “Trust me.”
Benjamin left, and a moment later his voice boomed from the dais inside the synagogue. Lemmy could hear the benches creak and the floorboards groan as the men fanned out to the walls of the synagogue to search the long shelves that carried thousands of books.
*
They were sitting in the living room on black leather sofas around a chrome-and-glass coffee table. Rabbi Gerster said to Itah, “Start moaning. I need background noise so they can’t hear what I’m saying.”
Itah complied, uttering a low moan toward the ceiling.
Rabbi Gerster leaned close to Elie. “I demand that you come clean with me!”
Itah kept going, interrupted only by a brief intake of air.
Elie gave him a cold, dark glare. “Tell her to shut up.”
“The man in the photo with Tanya is my son. If you don’t cooperate, Shin Bet will find and kill him!”
“ Quiet, please,” Elie addressed Itah directly. “This game could end badly.”
Rabbi Gerster put his much bigger hand on Elie’s. “If you don’t level with me, I’ll tell Agent Cohen everything I know-about Tanya, about you, and about the fortune left by Klaus von Koenig.”
“You know nothing.”
Itah raised her hand to quiet them and stopped moaning. She took a sip of water, gargled it, and resumed moaning. Meanwhile the housekeeper went to the phone and began punching numbers. Gideon leaped from the sofa and took away the receiver, hanging up. The woman shrugged and returned to the dishes in the sink.
“I won’t sit idly,” Rabbi Gerster said, “and let my son die again. Tell me the truth!”
Elie scratched his scalp. “The truth? You seem to know the truth already. Jerusalem Gerster died in sixty- seven, and a German teenager came to life in his stead. My Swiss agent might be living inside your son’s physical body, but he’s someone else. For him, you don’t exist.”
“ That’s a lie!”
“ Can you blame him? When Jerusalem rebelled against the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, you declared him dead and sat shivah for him-made your own son homeless and hopeless. And that was even before he became a soldier, before the war. You lost him forever when you excommunicated him.”
“ That’s between me and Lemmy. You had no right to lure him into your spider web.”
“ Why? You had tossed him into the garbage, and I dug him out and made use of him. Why is it your business?” Elie’s colorless lips curled, exposing teeth yellowed from smoking.
“ Wilhelm Horch. That’s his name, correct?”
The grin disappeared from Elie’s face.
Itah ran out of breath, and the room quieted down. Instantly Gideon raised his head and howled, which made Itah burst out laughing and caused the housekeeper to smile for the first time.
Elie, however, was not smiling. He pointed at Rabbi Gerster’s chest. “If you utter that name again, you’ll cause Lemmy’s death.”
It seemed that Elie didn’t know Lemmy was already in Jerusalem. “But Agent Cohen said they’ll catch him-”
“ Bravado. Kids playing spies.” Elie sneered. “You have no reason to fear Shin Bet.”
“ I fear you! ”
“ For good reason.” Elie raised two fingers, held together. “I have a backup agent, right next to him inside that bank. You disobey me one more time, and I’ll have your son’s throat slit. We understand each other, yes?”
Before Rabbi Gerster could respond, two Shin Bet agents burst into the apartment, guns at the ready. One of them was the nurse, a large, muscular woman, who aimed at Gideon. “Quiet!”
He stopped howling.
“ What’s going on here?”
“ We’re having a contest,” Itah said, “a coyote-imitation contest. Would you like to try out?”
*
“ We found it!” Benjamin rushed into the small room with the leather-bound book. “You were right. Rabbi Gerster hid it in plain view on the top shelf.”
Lemmy opened The Zohar and browsed through the pages, which were yellow from old age. On page 67 he found a sheet of paper, folded in half, attached with a strip of tape. He peeled it off.
Jerusalem, October 29, 1995
My dear Lemmy,
Until a few hours ago, I had only grief, guilt, and regret to occupy my mind. Now I have hope-to hug you, to kiss you, and to beg for your forgiveness.
Much needs to be explained face-to-face, but just in case fate is again unkind to us, please know that I had deceived you and your mother. I don’t believe in God, and so I’m not a true rabbi. why had I done that?
I have witnessed the Holocaust firsthand. No God stopped the Nazis, and no God will prevent future disasters and deaths. It’s up to us to reduce Jewish suffering, each with the skills we possess. My skills are rabbinical by upbringing, and so I’ve dedicated my life to this job.
And what is this job?
As you have studied, civil wars and brotherly hatred typified the repeat demises of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. I came to live among the ultra-Orthodox as a mole, assigned to keep the extremists in check, lest they bring down this current iteration of the Jewish state, as they had destroyed all its predecessors since the empire of King David.
In the course of my duties, I caused you and my saintly wife much suffering. I condemned you to the loneliest agony-that of a son who hates his own father-because your innocent eyes saw in me only the cruelty of a devout fanatic. Was that the reason for your cruelty in rebuffing the pleading letters that your mother sent to you in the army?
But now I know how Elie had manipulated our lives to serve his fanatical ends. He caused me to become a deceiver, a hypocrite, a husband and father who cheated his family out of the love and loyalty which they deserved.
