Dancing Bear

  "Kate!"

  In this racket, it was doubtful she could hear me. And if my voice somehow managed to reach her, how would I hear her response in the commotion of all the noisy kids, the laughing women, the street musicians hoping for a buck, the screeching trains, and the female voice over the loudspeaker announcing the names of lost children and the departure times of the trains?

  Nevertheless, I thought I heard something in the distance."Da - vid!"

  I tried to elbow my way down the stairs to where I thought the voice was coming from. I was blocked by punks in black. I moved to the right, and they moved together with me. To the left, and they were there too. I reached for my gun, but immediately changed my mind. There was no reason to get myself in trouble. They stretched their mouths into malicious grins. I had no time to join or fight back in their game, played out of boredom. I gave up the effort to descend the stairs and wiggled my way between two large women going back up, away from them.

  I finally got to the platform where I thought I had heard her voice calling me. She wasn't there. The homeless lay on the benches along the walls, their meager belongings scattered around them. They were sometimes the ones who provided free entertainment for the passengers. This time they were the audience and I was the lone actor running back and forth along the platform, shrieking frantically: "Kate! Kate!"

  The voice calling my name came again. "Da- vid," one of the homeless was calling, perhaps to himself. My heart was beating wildly. Is he repeating a cry he just has heard? I stopped and looked around. Suddenly I thought I saw her on the other side of the tracks. Long straight brown hair, oriental look, blue blouse, jeans. I moved closer to the edge of the platform.

  The figure disappeared into the crowd across the way. I had to get to her. Up the stairs again. I ran through the passage, but by the time I reached the other platform I couldn't see anyone who even vaguely resembled her. Here, too, I was surrounded by nameless businessmen, attorneys clad in three-piece suits and characteristically in a rush to get somewhere, baseball players, both real and imposters, students. But no Kate.

  I was having trouble breathing. The crowding, the panic, the foul stifling air. I stopped calling her name; I stopped hearing her voice. Still I raced like a madman from one end of the station to the other, from level to level, exit to exit, platform to platform. Trains came and went, but she didn't get off any of them. Finally, I went over to the information booth and asked them to call my daughter, Kate, aged four, over the loudspeaker.

  "Full name?" the plump woman asked.

  I searched my mind quickly for some name only she would recognize. I had no way of knowing who else was in that station.

  "Katherine Kaybee."

  The name was announced, and then again a few minutes later. An African-American woman brought a white girl who had lost her parents to the information booth. No sign of Kate.

  Finally, I gave up. Panic and terror now gave way to rage, pure rage.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I took the train to the Arlington station, where the consulate was, and cased the building from all sides. Taxis came and went at the Park Plaza Hotel next door. A Con Edison van was parked in front of the hotel with two men just next to it eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. I looked at their hands. They were dirty, the skin cracked. They could be the hands of linesmen. I was exhausted – drained - but didn't let down my guard for an instant. I sat down on a bench across from the main entrance to the consulate. Through the glass doors I could see the back entrance too, and I eyed everyone coming in or out of the building from either side. A few people I knew passed by, offering a forced smile, but I ignored them. I felt defeated.

  Something had gone wrong, and I hadn't caught it in time or done anything about it. I told Kate she should trust me. I could help her hide out in Tom's house. I could buy her clothes and prattle about our great future, but when she really needed my protection, I hadn't even realized she'd been snatched. I felt humiliated and guilty. I went over to a nearby phone booth and called the consulate.

  "Israeli Consulate, Shalom," I heard the thick Hebrew accent. The receptionist was kind enough to refrain from making any comment, and immediately put the call through to the consul.

  "What's going on? Have you finally come to your senses?" He sounded more affable than usual, not even mentioning my latest infractions.

  I didn't respond to the unexpected civility. "Where is she?"

  "I thought you knew better than all of us."

  "Is she at the consulate? Is someone waiting there for her?"

  "Your lady friend isn't here. I thought she was supposed to come with you. Actually, the consulate is closed for business today."

  That was a surprise. "Why?"

  "The truth? I have no idea."

  His voice was strained, as if someone was standing next to him and listening in.

  "We got explicit instructions from Washington this morning," he went on. "Where are you?"

  I hung up and went back to my place on the bench, watching the entrance. Nothing happened. I sat there for several hours. It was a lovely day. I could have enjoyed the fine weather if I had gone to the park with Kate, fed the birds, taken a ride on one of those silly swan boats or just sat on a bench and soaked up the sun...but it wasn't like that. Kate wasn't here anymore. I was all alone again. Bobby Winton's whining melody echoed in my head and I tried in vain to shake it off…Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely, got nobody…It wasn't self-pity I was feeling, but rage that just got stronger by the minute.

  For a crazy, heady week I'd had that sweet sense of togetherness, of alliance. She really succeeded in getting through to me. I couldn't even contemplate going back to my job at the consulate, where a constant stream of people came and went, while I fulfilled my duties faithfully and nothing touched me.

  Beautiful Kate, lost Kate, she might have been miles away by now. She must have been in some sort of trouble, but this time I couldn't do anything to help her.

  Who in the hell was chasing her? Where did they take her? If they got her, I must be in danger too. I wasn't concerned for my own safety, but I felt that somewhere I'd made a bad mistake. I'd played the wrong game with her. She wanted support, protection, security. I'd promised her all those things, but I got carried away. I wasn't thinking straight. I'd said too much or too little. Something had frightened her and made her run again, or had given her hunters a chance to find her and disappear with her - maybe forever.

  Steve, the consulate information officer, appeared out of nowhere. I didn't see him coming. He startled me.

  "Follow me," he barked in my direction. I hesitated, and he urged over his shoulder, "Fast. Now."

  He circled the building and went into a bookstore next door. By the time I entered, he was already standing in front of the Art and Architecture section, intent on a book about New England architecture. I came up beside him and pulled out a volume entitled Twentieth Century Chairs. With a touch of irony, I thought this was the right book for Steve. After all, that's how he spent most of his time at the consulate, at least the hours he devoted to patiently answering the endless phone calls from people with something to say about the Israeli government but without the time to pay their respects at the consulate. The calls Steve had to deal with every day mostly involved criticism of Israel's foreign policy. Some used epithets like occupiers, persecutors, racist, totalitarian, controlled by aging generals; others had equally harsh words to say about the leftist, bleeding-heart country that was endangering the lives of its citizens at the hands of murderous terrorists, a puppet of the United States, selling its soul to big business, oil moguls, or anyone else they could think of.

  "They'll fight to the last drop of the last Israeli's blood," Steve used to say. If the call was unusually interesting or maniacal, he'd buzz me three times on the intercom, a signal meaning: "This is one you ought to hear. Get on the line." I'd listen in, grinning to myself and feeling sorry for those poor lost souls. With extraordinary calm and infinite patience, Steve would recit
e the official positions of the Israeli government as worded in the pink memos received weekly at the consulate. If the caller started raising his voice or getting rude, Steve would announce cheerfully, "Sir, I am unwilling to continue this uncivil conversation," and hang up with a blithe smile. "They call in to be heard, not to listen," he'd explained to me more than once. "Then they go back and tell their friends how they gave a piece of their mind to the Israeli government. So I keep telling them their comments will be conveyed to the appropriate authorities." Sometimes he put the receiver down on the table so all you could hear was a cackling, incomprehensible voice. Every few minutes he'd pick it up and say, "Yes, I see," or "Really?" Conversations of this sort went off without a hitch.

  "Take a look at this," I said, pointing to a chair shaped like a hand. "Would you want to put your ass on something like that?"

  He disregarded my question. Instead, he said with his customary tone of bored indifference, "They've been watching you for over an hour from the window of the consulate. A whole bunch of wise guys from Washington have been waiting to see who you make contact with. By now they figure there's no point to the exercise and they're getting ready to come down and pick you up."

  He slipped the architecture book carefully back in its place and started paging through a cookbook. I really appreciated the risk he was taking for me. Time was getting short, but he went on.

  "That business with your girlfriend from last week looks pretty serious. Her fan club is expanding, but she hasn't gotten back to us. I just thought you'd want to know." With an expression of distaste, he replaced the book of low-calorie desserts and started toward the door.

  "Wait a second," I held him back. I took a paper bag from the cashier. Hiding behind a shelf, I transferred my gun from my waist to the bag and stuck it hurriedly in Steve's hand.

  "Give this to the consul and tell him to stay cool."

  Steve was not willing. "And what shall I tell him? How on earth I got it from you?"

  "You'll find something. Tell him I bumped into you in the park."

  He looked reluctantly at the bag.

  "I'll be in touch," I said. "But he'd better start looking for a new security guard."

  Steve held the bag in two fingers, far away from his body as if it contained a dead fish. He turned and left. Silently, I took my leave of him; grateful for the bit of help he'd given me, whatever his motives. I wasn't overly sorry to be rid of my friendly revolver. I had to find another way.

  All of a sudden it occurred to me where to start looking. I hailed a cab. "Logan Airport," I said."The New York shuttle terminal."

  *

  It was a short flight. Waiting for takeoff and the hassles on arrival took longer than the actual time in the air. On the ride from LaGuardia into Manhattan, I tried to make sense of the whole mess, but without much success. Nothing fit. The only thing I knew for sure was what I was going to do next. At least that was something to start with.

  From the airport bus terminal on the east side, I dialed the number of the direct line to the scientific attaché of the Israeli Consulate in New York, the man Kate had claimed "blew the whole thing sky high." It rang about twenty times before he finally picked up. I recognized his voice immediately.

  "Yes?"

  I didn't answer.

  "Yes? Who is this?" he tried again.

  The third time he was a lot less polite: "Okay, who the hell is this?" A short pause, and then, "Up yours!" and he slammed the phone down.

  It was him, alright.

  I waited for him outside the consulate on Second Ave. A guard patrolled outside the building, on watch for suspicious characters. I was very familiar with the way he scrutinized the street cleaner's equipment and the wares of the newspaper stand. I went into a bar across the street. It's no problem to sit in a bar with a foaming glass of beer in front of you and not do anything. From there I could watch the entrance, waiting. It was after five, and Gadi would surely be leaving soon. Two cars with diplomatic license plates were parked out front. One of them was probably his. I had to get to him before he got into the car. I called the waitress over and paid my tab. I'd feel pretty stupid if I didn't reach him in time because I was waiting for the check. I bought a paper and sat down again, the beer and the paper on the table in front of me.

  In the army, Gadi was an officer in the paratroopers, the ambitious type who never break. He must have gone to a vocational school, because he was trained for bomb disposal and was a demolitions expert, and that's what he was doing at the age of thirty, more or less, when I joined up.

  I sipped my beer and remembered the day I told my father I was enlisting in the Israeli army, ready for his objections. I was astounded by how calmly he took it. At that time, he was seeing that adoring student of his. She gave him all her love, and the better part of her parents' fortune, and in his paternal gallant way he repaid her with kindness and the intellectual conversation she thrived on. A year later, they were to vanish forever in a freak avalanche on the ski slopes. I flew back to the States for the funeral and then went back to Israel to finish my tour of duty. I loved my father, and I miss him constantly, even though he devoted very little of his time to me. He was intelligent and lofty, handsome and generous. Sometimes, I still talk to him at night.

  That day I told him I was joining the army, he made me promise, more than once, that I'd be careful and consider my own survival before anything else. He said the ones who survived weren't necessarily the most cunning, but the brightest and the quickest.

  "Be kind and giving, do your part, help others. That's the right thing to do. But you'll be surrounded by wily bastards, so don't be off guard for a minute. You'll survive if you preserve your integrity, son. Your intelligence will enable you to read situations accurately, and your agility will get you out of them unscathed. At the end of the day, the bastards will pay the price. There’s a fundamental justice built into every system, even if it doesn't seem to switch on at the first minute."

  I nodded, even though I didn't really understand what he was saying. He was a university professor. Once I was in the army, I asked to serve in the paratroopers, to his considerable dismay. After boot camp in the corps, which I had been looking forward to most of all, I was assigned to a bomb disposal and special material squad. I was happy enough with my posting, even though it didn't exactly square with my father's warnings. I served as a sergeant in the unit intelligence class, a job I considered of major importance. It's good intelligence that ensures success in defusing bombs. The more you know, the fewer mistakes you make. It's no surprise that the members of the bomb disposal squad are known as the guys who never make a mistake twice.

  That's where I met Gadi. At the time, he was the head of an experimental lab at the Military Industries, working on top secret projects whose nature was a mystery to me. The lab was in a dilapidated wooden building in a eucalyptus grove in the middle of a huge installation in the center of the country. We went to visit him frequently, since he was considered the supreme authority on explosives. He would sit on a tall stool, cursing and swearing and throwing things around, while incidentally finding answers to our questions - and his answers were almost always right. I wouldn't say I was his friend - he didn't really have any friends - but I admired his mind.

  After that, he left the army, and to our amazement, his posting in the reserves was to the bomb disposal squad. He'd go out on what we called "sensitive patrols." On his annual visits to the base, he surprised us by showing up in the uniform of a captain in the paratroopers: dusty red boots, with a bright red cap invariably in place on his head. Aside from this odd practice, the fact that he was a Teflon man that no dirt ever stuck to, and his filthy mouth, he did good work.

  The next time we met, was in the States. Just as I was mulling this over, a group of people left the consulate, each going his own way. I knew some of them. Not one of them was as short, had as jaunty a step, or was dressed as elegantly as Gadi, but I knew he'd show up any second now. I erased the memories from m
y mind, replacing them with alert anticipation.

  Finally, he appeared - but he wasn't alone. He had a young lady with him. She was a few inches taller than him and her blond hair reached almost to her waist. I figured it must be his secretary. Gadi was notorious for changing them like he changed his socks. If she got in the car with him, I'd lose the chance to talk to him. They reached the car. I got up and walked out of the bar. Gadi's companion was obviously in a hurry. She kept looking at her watch, but he went on talking as if he were unaware of her impatience. Standing across from them, I was equally on edge. I crossed the street and moved toward them.

  Just as I reached them, he opened the car door and she hurried off. She was wearing flats. Wondering if that was a condition for all the women who worked for Gadi, I crashed right into him.

  "What the hell!" he started, and then got a look at me. "David! What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I want to talk to you."

  "Look," he said, "I heard you've been acting a little crazy lately. I don't want any part of it, and there's nothing I can do now to help you. The truth is, I'm really in a hurry, so you might as well buzz off."

  "What would you say to a little hot information?" I asked. "You're not interested in that sort of thing anymore?"

  Automatically, he looked around to make sure no one was listening. "You're really sick, aren't you?"

  "Look," I said, "I have to talk to you. You say no, and I'll hang around the consulate and your house for as long as it takes. Why not spend a friendly half hour with me now and get rid of me?"

  Sighing in exasperation, he locked the car. "Come on!"