And he made you repeat my errors in your own life. How ironic!
But Elie’s malice does not diminish my responsibility. It’s too late for either of us to obtain your mother’s forgiveness, yet I hope you can find it in your heart to understand, and perhaps accept, that my choices were motivated by selfless idealism, foolish as it might be.
Now to the present. I am convinced that you will return to seek answers soon, as Elie’s current scheme stinks more ominously than anything he tried before. This morning we’ll try to pluck him out of the hospital and question him.
Stuffed into the binding of this book you will find a complete summary of my investigation, assisted by Itah Orr. The agent nicknamed ‘Freckles’ is the key. Seek him, and you’ll find what Elie is up to, how to stop him, and how to free yourself from his web.
And for this-your freedom-I’m willing to lose my life. I’ll do anything to bring you home, to give you a second chance to live a normal life.
I love you, my son, more than anything in this world or the next. I love you more than I love life itself, more than the sun and the air that I breathe.
Your father, Abraham Gerster
Lemmy held the letter before him, too choked up to do anything but look at his father’s handwriting. He wiped his eyes and read the letter again, more slowly, from the beginning. One sentence especially made no sense: Was that the reason for your cruelty in rebuffing the pleading letters that your mother sent to you in the army? Lemmy could not understand. What letters? He had received no letters from his mother during his IDF service!
“ Jerusalem?” Benjamin touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
Lemmy tore off the book’s binding and found a densely scribbled, three-page note that described everything Rabbi Gerster and Itah had uncovered about ILOT, Freckles, and Yoni Adiel. A copy of the table of contents of the ILOT Member Manual was also hidden there, together with bank statements showing the money that passed through the young men’s accounts and old paychecks from the VIP Protection Unit.
A youth, about eighteen, came in and whispered in Benjamin’s ear.
“My son tells me there are strangers in the neighborhood. They might be looking for you.”
“Then I must leave.” Lemmy folded everything and put it in his pocket. There was no point in breaking Benjamin’s heart with Rabbi Gerster’s blasphemous confession. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“Nonsense. You’re not going anywhere.” Benjamin took off his black coat and hat. “These should fit you.”
Lemmy put them on.
“ Now,” Benjamin clapped his hands, “let’s go home and have something to eat!”
*
Wednesday, November 1, 1995
Lemmy woke up in a room he knew well. Sunlight came in through the window. Hushed voices filtered through the closed door. He lowered his feet to the floor. The bed screeched under him. His old bookshelves lined the wall, heavy with tall volumes of Talmud. He stuck his hand behind them, but there was nothing hidden there. He rubbed his face, chuckling at the memory of Benjamin’s stunned expression at the sight of the novel he had pulled from behind the Talmud volume. They had been teenagers, budding Talmudic scholars in Neturay Karta, a sect dedicated to God’s worship, where secular novels, like all forms of alien entertainment, were strictly banned. But Lemmy’s secret relationship with Tanya, and the books she had lent him, had penetrated the walls of isolation, planted doubts in his mind, and eventually led to his blasphemous rebellion and his excommunication. He touched the first volume of Talmud- Baba Metziah -and wondered how things would have turned out if there had been no place to hide Tanya’s novels in his room.
He washed and joined Benjamin’s family for breakfast. His parents’ old dining room had remained unchanged, the long table that left little room to get around, the portraits of famed rabbis that looked down from the walls. Like Rabbi Abraham Gerster before him, Benjamin sat at the head of the table, slurping tea from a tall glass. But unlike the old days, the other chairs were taken by children. They looked up at Lemmy, their chatter abruptly halted.
“Did we wake you up?” Benjamin stood, beckoning to a vacant chair.
“It’s time.” Lemmy smiled at the children. “Good morning, kids. My name is Baruch.”
“ Hi Baruch,” they chorused as their mother appeared from the kitchen with a fresh cup of tea and toast with butter.
Last night, when Benjamin had brought him home, Sorkeh accepted his resurrection with surprising equanimity. “ Baruch ha’ba, ” she had said, which meant Blessed be the newcomer. “I never felt that you were dead. Now I know why.”
The name Baruch stuck to him, and they agreed that Lemmy’s return from the dead would remain a secret, not to be discussed with anyone.
The children resumed their busy chattering, the older ones getting ready for school. They breathed new life into his parents’ old apartment.
After the meal, as he took his plate back to the kitchen, Lemmy thought of his late mother, bending over this very sink, cleaning a fish with a serrated knife. For a moment, he could smell the carp, hear his mother’s scraping knife, and see the shining scales on the countertop.
After the children had left, Sorkeh brought him a black hat that had a fake beard and side locks attached to it. “Our kids have a treasure trove of costumes for Purim.”
He put it on and looked at the mirror. That’s how he would have looked had he stayed at Neturay Karta.
Benjamin summoned a few of his men, and they boarded a van. Driving through the narrow streets of Meah Shearim, Lemmy looked around, absorbing the changes and the things that had remained the same. He was surprised at the abundance of graffiti on the walls:
Meir Kahane lives! Death to the Arabs!
Stop obscene advertising! Boycott Coca Cola!
Digging up Jewish graves is sacrilege!
He who violates the Sabbath should be stoned to death!
God’s land is not for sale! Peace comes from God!
Zionism is blasphemy – we must wait for the blessed Messiah!
They stopped to buy the morning papers, and Lemmy looked through the news pages. A brief report described the accusations against his father and Itah Orr, who were being interrogated at an undisclosed location. But there was no mention of Tanya Galinski or even a reference to an accident in Amsterdam involving an Israeli woman. It was the third day already, and nothing! He searched through the list of funeral announcements, relieved to find nothing there either. Tanya had run into the street because of his false accusations, and now she was lying in a foreign hospital surrounded by strangers. There was only one thing he could do to help Tanya right now, and it was worth the risk. “Let’s get it done,” he said to Benjamin, who nodded and spoke quietly to the driver.
*
“ Enough with the games!” Agent Cohen stormed into the apartment. He slammed four photographs on the kitchen table in front of Elie Weiss. “Look!”
“You again?” Elie put down his knife and fork.
Itah said, “Here goes another good breakfast.”
“If you don’t give me answers, there won’t be any more breakfasts-good or bad!”
Rabbi Gerster looked closely. The first photo was the one they had seen yesterday of Lemmy and Tanya in a Zurich park. The second photo showed him wearing a fedora, kneeling by Tanya, who was lying on a cobblestone street across rail tracks. The third photo was in a hospital room, Lemmy wearing a baseball hat. The fourth photo was grainy, likely enlarged from a wide-angle video lens. It showed Lemmy at the entrance to the King David Hotel, also wearing a baseball hat, but in a different color.
“A handsome fellow,” Elie said. “Is he a hat salesman?”
“Don’t!” Agent Cohen poked Elie’s chest. “Tell me where to find him, because if I have to track him down myself-and I will!-then I’m going to shoot him in the head!”
Elie looked down at the poking finger. “Be careful where you stick it.”
“I’m warning you! He’ll be trapped and killed like a stray dog!”
“It’s not good to be obsessed with revenge. All because he shot your guy in the leg?”
“And knocked out a nurse at Hadassah!”
