“ Don’t move,” Elie said, “or you’ll lose the eye.”
Agent Cohen’s cry was interrupted by a burst of vomit from his mouth.
Elie moved out of the way, let go of the broken finger, and collected his blade. He maneuvered around the end of the table, his pinky remaining inside Agent Cohen’s eye socket. “That’s a good fellow.” From behind, he made the Shin Bet officer sit down. “Will you cooperate or do you want to look like Moshe Dayan?”
Agent Cohen bit down on his lower lip and moaned in pain.
“ Take his gun,” Elie ordered Rabbi Gerster. “His comrades will be here soon.”
*
The boy who opened Bira’s door wasn’t crying, but his effort to fight back tears was endearing. He looked at their black coats and hats and started to close the door.
Benjamin blocked the door. “May we speak with your mother please?”
“She’s not available now.”
“ It’s important.”
The boy disappeared.
Lemmy and Benjamin entered the foyer and closed the door, shutting out the sun. The rest of the men waited in the van.
Bira showed up a moment later. “Rabbi Mashash? What are you doing here?”
“ We need to talk. It will only take a few minutes.”
She led them through a narrow hallway, a kitchen, and out the back door to a patio bordered by climbing vines. They sat on white plastic chairs around a coffee table.
Lemmy remembered her as a twenty-year-old in an olive uniform, shouldering an Uzi machine gun. She had aged well, keeping an athletic build and lush hair, but her face was sun-beaten and her blue-gray eyes examined him with discomforting coldness. He asked, “Have you received any news from your mother?”
“You know my mother?”
“We know she’s missing.”
“ That’s what I heard.” Bira’s shoulders slumped. “Her boss called me yesterday.”
“ The chief of Mossad?”
She nodded. “I could tell he’s worried. She’s not a field agent. Why in the world would she be out there interacting with hostile-”
“ It was a business meeting,” Lemmy said. “She didn’t expect any danger.”
“ And who told you that? God?”
He laughed.
Bira glared at him. “What the hell is going on?”
“ I’m also wondering.” Lemmy removed the hat with the attached beard and payos.
Bira wasn’t amused. “What’s this? Dressing up for Purim already?”
“We met once.”
“ I don’t think so.”
“ It was way back, when your mother lived near the border and you were in the army.”
She shook her head.
“ I carried your duffle bag. It was bloody heavy.”
“That boy died in the Six Day War.”
“ We argued. You dismissed faith, saying that Zionism is all about history, about proving who was here first, like establishing a legal ownership record. I countered that belief in the historical truth of biblical stories was a form of faith, which meant you were religious too.”
She leaned closer to look at him. “That’s impossible!”
“ We said good-bye at the gate to Meah Shearim. I watched you go, and you waved at me from the corner.”
She turned to Benjamin. “Is this some kind of a sick joke? My mother has grieved for Jerusalem Gerster for twenty-eight years, poured enough tears to refill the Dead Sea. I’m not going to accept this man-”
“ It’s me,” Lemmy said. “It’s really me.”
Bira looked at him at length in the manner of a scientist examining a specimen that couldn’t possibly exist. Then, without any warning, she leaned forward and slapped Lemmy across the face with such force that he fell off the chair and onto the floor.
*
Rabbi Gerster pocketed Agent Cohen’s gun and pushed over the table, creating a barrier between them and the door. He crouched with Itah behind the tabletop and whispered. “Get away when nobody’s watching. Find my son. Warn him!”
She nodded and pecked him on the cheek.
Gideon stepped over to the kitchen and stood with the housekeeper, who watched the whole thing with an open mouth. Elie positioned himself behind Agent Cohen, his pinky hooked inside the eye socket, his blade drawn, the sharpened edge resting nonchalantly on the trembling man’s shoulder.
The door flew open and the two Shin Bet agents rushed in, guns ready.
“ This feels like a deja vu,” Elie said. He was panting from the exertion, but no one mistook his thin voice for weakness. “Put down your weapons and slide them over, or Agent Cohen here will be shopping for an eye patch or a prosthetic arm. Or both.”
The nurse hesitated while the other agent glanced at her. She aimed at Elie. “You know the drill-we’re trained to kill hostage takers, not negotiate.”
“ You’re trained to kill Arab hostage takers,” Elie corrected her. “Not a Jew who’s old enough to be your grandpa, who’s been abused physically and mentally by this bully.” He pressed a bit on the blade, which broke though the shirt and penetrated the shoulder slightly.
Agent Cohen groaned.
“ Don’t shoot,” Rabbi Gerster said from behind the upturned tabletop. “We’re all Jews here!”
*
Benjamin jumped up and stood between them. “No violence! Please!”
“ Get out of my house!” Bira stood with her fists clenched, ready to hit Lemmy again. “ Out! ”
The boy who had opened the door for them came running, followed by a younger girl, who rushed to her mother’s side. Their presence instantly soothed Bira’s anger. Her hands fell by her side. “Everything is fine,” she said. “Go back to your room.”
The two kids looked at her and at the two men, unsure what to do. The boy pointed at Lemmy. “Where’s your beard?”
Lemmy got up from the floor and showed him the hat and attached facial hair. “You want to try it?”
The boy put it on. His sister laughed, and they ran off.
“ Just like my son,” Lemmy said. “Klaus is ten, almost eleven. We’re trying for a girl-”
“ I don’t want to know.” Bira’s anger flared again. “Son of a bitch! I could kill you for what you did to her-”
“ Please,” Benjamin said, “calm down.”
“ She’s right,” Lemmy said. “I deserve it.”
“ You deserve worse,” Bira said. “Broke her heart, that’s what you did. She blamed herself for your death-can you imagine living with this kind of guilt?”
“ I never imagined how much pain my faked death would cause Tanya. She was my first love. Her rejection seemed like the end of the world to me. I was too resentful and too young. The last thing I considered was that she would grieve or feel guilty.”
Bira sat down, still sulking. “All the grave-grooming and tears and self-deprivation. I can go on and on about the price my mother has continuously extracted from herself over that boy’s death.”
“I know. She told me.”
“ What? She knows you’re alive?”
“ Fate brought us together. We met, but she was being followed. She was hurt badly.”
“Oh, no!” Bira sucked air, covering her mouth.
“Here.” He handed her a note. “Call this number in Amsterdam. Ask for Carl. He knows me as a Swiss banker named Wilhelm Horch-Lemmy for short. Meet him there, and he’ll take you to Tanya. But trust no one else. Your
