He appeared out of the darkness in his long black coat and wide-brimmed hat. Elie led the way to his car. The alley was deserted, no children playing outside at this time of night. The dark interior of the car provided privacy against prying eyes. Elie considered turning on the engine for heat but gave up, not wanting to attract attention.
Abraham did not waste time. “Did you reach Tanya?”
“She’s a Mossad agent. I can’t just pick up the phone and call her.”
“Is she in touch with my son?”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“He accompanied her home that Saturday, a couple of months ago. And now he’s talking about things he couldn’t possibly know from studying Talmud all day inside Neturay Karta. It occurred to me that he might be communicating with her, maybe even seeing her in secret.”
“Unlikely. Why would she waste time on an ultra-Orthodox kid?” Elie rubbed his hands. Abraham must not find out about his son’s relationship with Tanya. “I’ll sniff around my Mossad buddies. Maybe they’ll tell me how to reach her.”
“Do it!”
Elie had never seen him so anxious. “Still, a little exposure to the real world will give your son better tools as a leader.”
“That’s my decision! What if Jerusalem loses his faith in our teachings?”
“You could always expel him from Neturay Karta. He’s practically an adult.”
“He’s my son!” Abraham’s heavy hand grasped Elie’s forearm. “And he has a mother too. He’s everything to her. If he continues down this road, it’ll kill Temimah. He’s the focus of all her hopes.”
“What if she has another child?”
“No! I can’t even look at children, so similar to our siblings in the shtetl. Every time I see a child, I think of what happened to them.”
The image appeared in Elie’s mind, the sight from the crack in the attic’s floor, where he and Abraham had hidden above the butcher shop. The Germans had separated the children from the older Jews and herded them into the corral outside. Elie’s father had kept his knives in a wooden rack, sharpened daily to perfection, as Talmud required a shoykhet to slaughter an animal in a single pass of a smooth blade, causing no pain. But the SS men got bored with slicing the children’s throats, so they started stabbing their bellies. Elie could still hear the screams, punctuated by the shooting in the street, where the rest of the Jews were being mowed down in groups of fifty. It had been the first time Abraham’s unique talent emerged. The rabbi’s son had an eerie ability to combine cold thinking with hot-tempered action. Abraham had waited until the four German soldiers were occupied with a girl, who wriggled and fought while they tried to undress her. Abraham slipped down from the attic through the flap door, collected two long knives from the rack, and stabbed the four soldiers in rapid succession. But there was a fifth soldier, who had been out of sight, smoking near the door. By the time Elie followed Abraham down, the German grabbed his machine gun, which was leaning against the wall. Elie managed to swing a knife at the man’s wrist, a passing cut that separated the tendon connecting the muscle that operated his trigger finger. The German’s momentary bewilderment about why his finger wasn’t functioning gave Elie a chance to swing the blade a second time, separating his vocal cords and windpipe. Before the Germans upfront noticed that something was amiss, the two of them slipped through the rear of the shop into the forest. And for months after that, through hunger, danger and more killings, Abraham had continued to bemoan their failure to save even one of the children.
“And tell Tanya I want to see her again.”
“You’re the leader of Neturay Karta.” Elie tapped the steering wheel. “Wasn’t her first visit risky enough?”
“We’ll meet in secret, just like you and I meet.”
“You can’t revive the past, you know?”
“That’s not your business!”
“You are my agent, and therefore you are my business.” Elie pulled a cigarette from a pack. “That son of yours won’t be ready to lead Neturay Karta for another ten, fifteen years, if ever. There’s no retirement from your job. You knew it from day one.”
“I gave twenty years!” Abraham put a finger in Elie’s face. “Find Tanya and tell her that I’ll be free in one or two years. Do it!”
Elie lit the cigarette, keeping the match burning so that he could watch Abraham’s reaction. “It’s not so simple. She has feelings for others.”
“What are you saying?”
Elie drew long on the cigarette. “Could I speak any clearer? Tanya has a reputation in the spy world. She’s a very passionate woman. Highly sensual. Surely you remember?”
Abraham leaned closer, his wide shoulders filling the tight space in the car. The flame of the match danced in his eyes, and his bushy beard trembled as his lips pressed together. His left hand rose and rested on Elie’s neck, almost encircling it. The hand tightened, four fingers at the nape, a large thumb pressing the windpipe.
Elie dropped the match, and the cigarette fell from his lips. He tried to undo Abraham’s grip, realizing he had underestimated the intensity of Abraham’s love for the woman he had thought dead for two decades. Reaching down, Elie’s hand fumbled with the beggar’s cloak, trying to reach the long shoykhet blade that was strapped to his lower leg.
The world fogged up.
His hand found the handle of the knife and tried to pull it from its sheath, but the folds of the cloak entangled it.
“One day,” Abraham said, releasing his grip, “you’ll push it too far.”
His breath shrieking through his constricted airways, Elie watched through the windshield as Abraham walked away, his black coat and hat melting into the dark of the night.
Chapter 16
Later that night, when Lemmy returned from the synagogue, the door to his father’s study was still open, the lights off. His mother was working in the kitchen. She asked, “Where’s your father?”
“He wasn’t in the synagogue.”
She wiped her hands on her stained apron. “He likes to be alone when he’s upset. Next time you should ask him whatever you want, but do it in private.”
Lemmy thought of his father’s expression. “He’s angry because I questioned the authority of rabbis. It’s like I told them not to obey him.”
“Your father cares nothing for personal glory.” Temimah smiled sadly. “Sometime I wish he did. But he carries too much guilt for having survived while everyone else died.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel the same way. But your father can’t afford to indulge in weakness. As a leader he must project strength. It has taken me years to understand, to accept some of his decisions. I must serve him without a question. It’s my duty as a Jewish wife. And you must fulfill your duty, as well.”
“To get married?”
Temimah sighed. “You think it’s easy for me? But he is my husband. He is a tzadik, more righteous than all of Neturay Karta put together. We must trust his judgment.” She fixed the collar of his shirt. Smell of dish soap came from her hands. “Good night, Jerusalem.”
“Good night, Mother.”
L ocked in his room, Lemmy read Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, the story of a young boy with black hair and dark skin, who wandered around Europe during World War II, chased by primitive villagers and German soldiers. The boy told his own story, and Lemmy imagined he was hearing the boy’s voice as he chronicled his torments.
Long past midnight, the pages became hazy. Lemmy closed his eyes. Had the rabbis in Europe caused their faithful followers’ deaths? His father’s blue eyes stared at him from the dais, dark with fury, or with terrible
