The Parsifal Mosaic

  Havelock had listened to the man and ordered a double Scotch.

  Three minutes past five. Breathe deep. Really breathe and think of Jenna, think what you’re going to say to her. It could be an hour or two, or longer, perhaps half the night. Half the night for the halfway man. Don’t dwell on it.

  Dusk lingered, the orange sun inflaming the New Jersey skyline beyond the Hudson River. The West Side Highway was jammed, and Riverside Drive, parallel to it, was barely less so. The temperature was dropping and gray clouds Joined the darkening sky; snow was in the air.

  And across the street a medium-tall man, wide at the girth, in a full black overcoat, walked slowly down the pavement His bearing was indeed stately, matching the distinguished image created by his pure-white hair, which fell several inches below the brim of his black hat In the light of a streetlamp, Michael could see the gray beard; it was the halfway man.

  Jacob Handelman approached the outer glass doors of his apartment building and was now in the stronger light of the large entrance lamps. Havelock stared, at once mesmerized and disturbed; did he know the halfway man? Had “the Rabbi” been part of an operation eight … ten years ago? Perhaps in the Middle East, Tel Aviv, Lebanon? Michael had the distinct feeling that he did know him. Was it the walk? The deliberate pace that seemed almost anachronistic as if the figure should be strolling in medieval robes? Or was it the thin steel-rimmed glasses, set so firmly in the center of the large face?

  The moment passed; it was, of course, possible that a halfway man might have crossed his path in any number of situations. They could have been in the same sector at one time or another, a respected professor supposedly on holiday but, in reality, meeting with someone like Régine Broussac. Entirely possible.

  Handelman went inside the enclosed entranceway, climbed the inner steps and stopped at the row of mailboxes. It was all Michael could do to restrain himself; the desire to race across the street and confront the halfway man was nearly overpowering.

  Ha may choose to tell you nothing. Broussac.

  An old man who did not care to negotiate could scream on a staircase and yell for help. And the one who needed help did not know what was behind a door across the street, what devices a group of intelligent city dwellers had mounted to defend themselves from hallway thugs. Security alarms had flooded the market; he had to wait until Jacob Handelman was safely in his flat. And then a knock on the door and the words “Qual d’Orsay” would be enough; there was respect for a man who could dude alarms, an inherent threat in someone outside a door who knew that the one inside was a halfway man. Handelman would see him; he could not afford to refuse.

  The old man disappeared through the inner door, the heavy panel of ironwork and glass swinging slowly shut behind him. Havelock waited three minutes; the light went on in several front windows on the fourth floor. It was logical that Handelman’s apartment number was 4A. A halfway man had certain things in common with deep-cover field personnel and the Soviet VKR; he had to be able to watch the streets.

  He was not watching now; there was no figure behind the window shades. Michael stepped out of the doorway and crossed the street. Inside the ornate entranceway he struck a match and held it waist-high as he looked down the row of names above the buttons.

  R. Charles, Superintendent ID.

  He pressed the button and put his lips close to the webbed speaker.

  “Yes, what is it?” asked the male voice in clear, well-spoken English.

  “Mr. Charles?” said Havelock, not knowing why the man’s voice struck him as odd.

  “Yes, it’s Charles. Who’s this?”

  “United States government, Department of State—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Charles. If you’ll come to the door, you can check my identification through the glass, and either admit me or I can give you a number to call.”

  R. Charles paused, then answered slowly, “Fair enough.”

  Thirty seconds later a huge, muscular young man appeared In the hallway beyond the door. He was wearing track shorts and a sweatshirt marked with a large number 20. It was either a proclamation of age or the gridiron identity of one of Columbia’s larger linebackers. This, then, was the protection the apartment dwellers on Morningside Heights had chosen. Again, logical: take care of your own to take care of you. Free lodgings for an imposing presence. Michael held up his old ID card in its black plastic case; the dates, of course, were blurred.

  R. Charles squinted through the glass, shrugged, and opened the door. “What the hell is this?” he asked, more curiosity than hostility in his voice. A man his size did not have to be aggressive; his thick legs and neck and muscular arms were sufficiently intimidating. Also his youth.

  “There’s a man here I’d like to see on official State Department business, but he’s not in. I rang, of course; he’s a friend.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Dr. Jacob Handelman. He’s a consultant for us but he doesn’t advertise it.”

  “Nice old guy, Handelman.”

  “The best, Mr. Charles. However, I think he’d be alarmed if he thought I might be recognized.” Havelock grinned. “Also, it’s damned cold out there.”

  “I can’t let you in his apartment. I won’t let you in.”

  “And I wouldn’t allow you to. I’ll Just wait here, if it’s all right.”

  R. Charles hesitated, his eyes dropping to the open ID case still in Michael’s hand. “Yeah, well, okay. I’d ask you into my place but my roommate and I are busting our humps for a midterm tomorrow.”

  “Please, I wouldn’t think of it …”

  Havelock was interrupted by the appearance of an even larger young man in a doorway at the end of the hall. He was in a full sweatsuit, a book gripped in one hand, a pair of glasses in the other. “Hey, man, what is it?”

  “Nothing. Someone looking for the Rabbi.”

  “Another one? Come on, we’re wasting time. You’re the brain, I just want to get through tomorrow.”

  “Your roommate on the team?” asked Michael, trying to appear contemporary.

  “No. He wrestles. That is, he does when they don’t throw him out for dirty holds. Okay, Mastiff, coming.” The roommate went inside.

  “Thanks again.”

  “Sure. You even sound official. The Rabbi ought to show up any minute.”

  “Pretty punctual huh?”

  “Like a Swiss clock.” Number 20 turned, then looked back at Havelock. “You know, I figured something like this. Like you, I mean.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know … the people who come to see him, I guess. Late at night sometimes; not exactly campus types.”

  There was nothing to lose in asking, thought Michael The young man himself had provided the opening. “We’re most concerned about the woman, I don’t mind telling you that For the Rabbi’s sake we hope she got here. Did you by any chance see her? A blond woman, about five feet five, probably in a raincoat, maybe a hat Yesterday? Today?”

  “Last night,” said the young man. “I didn’t, but Mastiff did. Foxy lady, he told me. But nervous; she rang the wrong bell and got old Weinberg—he’s in Four-B and even more nervous.”

  “We’re relieved she’s here. What time last night?”

  “About now, I guess. I was on the phone when Weinberg buzzed us on the intercom.”

  “Thank you.” Twenty-four hours. A halfway man upstairs. She was within reach—he could feel it, sense it! “Incidentally, by sheer coincidence, you’ve been given privileged information. Please respect it.”

  “Man, you are official I never saw you, Mr. Havalatch. But if they institute that draft, I may look you up.”

  “Do that Thanks again.”

  “Take care.” The huge student walked down the hallway to the open door.

  The instant it was closed, Havelock moved quickly to the wide stone staircase in the center of the foyer, the steps worn smooth, indented from decades of use. He could not use the el
evator beyond; its sound might well alarm a trusting muscular student who could suddenly refect the concept of privileged information in favor of less esoteric responsibilities.

  In Paris when Michael had purchased the expensive black shoes to match his suit, he had had the presence of mind to have them resoled with hard rubber. They served him well on the staircase; he went up swiftly, silently, taking the steps two and three at a time, rounding the landings without a sound. In less than half a minute he readied the fourth floor; apartment 4A was at the end of the tiled, dimly lit hallway. He stood for several moments catching his breath, then approached the door and pressed the small button embedded in the molding. From beyond he beard the bell chime softly and seconds later the sound of footsteps.

  “Yes?” said the curiously high-pitched voice, in a guttural European accent.

  “Dr. Jacob Handelman?”

  “Who is this, please?” The speech was Jewish-rooted German.

  “I have news from the Quai d’Orsay. May we talk?”

  “Vos?” The silence was brief, the words that followed rushed. “You are mistaken. I have no idea what you are talking about I know no one in … what you say, the Quai d’Orsay?”

  “In that case, I’ll have to get in touch with Paris, and tell my contact she’s made a dreadful error. Naturally, Jacob Handelman will be removed from the catacomb’s computer terminal.”

  “Just one minute, please. I must jog this old man’s memory.”

  Havelock could hear the moving footsteps again, faster now, receding, then returning long before the stated minute was up. The metallic sounds of several locks were heard behind the thick wood; the door opened and the halfway man stared at him, then gestured with his head for Michael to come inside.

  What was it? Why was he so certain he knew this man, this old man with the gray beard and the long white hair? The large face was soft, but the eyes, in the creased flesh behind the heavy—lensed glasses with the thin steel rims, were—He was not sure, he could not tell.

  “You are in my house, sir,” said Handelman, dosing the door and manipulating the locks. “I’ve traveled widely, of course, not always by my own wishes, like so many thousands in my situation. Perhaps we have a mutual friend I cannot at the moment recall. At the Quai d’Orsay. Naturally, I know a number of professors at the Sorbonne.”

  Was it the high-pitched, singsong voice? Or the questioning tilt of the head? Or the way the old man stood, feet planted firmly, the posture soft, yet somehow rigid? No, it was not any single thing; it was all of them … somehow.

  “ ‘A mutual friend’ isn’t quite accurate. You know a name. Broussac. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Section Four. She was to have reached you today; she’s a person of her word. I think she did.”

  “Ah, but my office is filled with scores of messages only my secretary is aware of, Mr.… Mr.…?”

  “Havelock.”

  “Yes, Mr. Havellacht Come in, come in. I knew a Habernicht in Berlin in the old days. Friedrich Habernicht Quite similar, no?”

  “Close, I guess.” Was it the walk? The same deliberate stride that he had seen outside. The stately … arrogant steps that should be cloaked in medieval robes, or. a high priest’s cassock. He had to ask. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

  “We?” The halfway man’s eyebrows arched; he adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses and peered at Michael. “I cannot imagine where. Unless you were a student in a large class of mine, but that would have to be a number of years ago, I would think. In such a case, you would remember me, but I would not necessarily remember you. Age and the sheer mass of numbers, you understand.”

  “Never mind.” A number of years ago. How many years? “Are you telling me you haven’t heard from Broussac?”

  “I’m telling you nothing.…. Sit down, do sit down.… I am merely saying that I do not know. You say this person Broussac sent me a message today, and I am saying I receive dozens of messages every day that I frequently do not get to for many days. Again, age and the sheer mass of numbers.”

  “I heard you before,” interrupted Havelock; he remained standing, his eyes scanning the room. There were bookshelves everywhere, old furniture—overstuffed chairs, fringed lamps, hassocks—nothing Spartan. Once more the smell of Academe. “Jenna Karas!” said Michael suddenly, rapidly, raising his voice.

  “Another message?” asked Handelman ingenuously, an old man bemused by a younger antagonist “So many messages—I must have a talk with my secretary. She overprotects me.”

  “Jenna Karas came to see you last night, I know that!”

  “Three … no, four people came to see me last night, each a student of mine. I even have their names over here, and the outlines of two graduate papers.” Handelman walked to a cluttered desk against the wall.

  “Cut it out!” shouted Havelock. “You packaged her and I’ve got to find her! That was Broussac’s message.”

  “So many messages,” intoned the halfway man, as if chanting a Talmudic passage. “Ahh, here are the names, the graduate outlines,” continued Handelman, bending over the disorganized pile of papers. “So many visitors … so many messages. Who can keep track?”

  “Listen to met Broussac wouldn’t have given me your name or told me where to find you if I weren’t telling you the truth. I have to reach her! A terrible thing was done to her—to us—and she doesn’t understand!”

  “ ‘The Filioque Denials in the Councils of Arius,’ ” chanted Handelman, standing erect and holding a sheaf of papers under the light of a floor lamp. “Those would be the Nicene rejections of the Eastern Church around the fifth century. Very little understood—speaking of understanding.”

  He may choose to tell you nothing. “Goddamn you, where did you send her? Stop playing with me! Because—if I have to—I’ll—”

  “Yes?” Jacob Handelman turned his head in the spill of the floor lamp and peered once again through the steel-rimmed glasses. He took several steps to his left and replaced the papers on the desk.

  It was there, at that moment. It was all there. The eyes behind the thin rims of steel, the rigid posture of the soft body … the walk. Not the measured gait of a high prelate of the church or of a medieval baron entering a great hall … but the strutting of a man in uniform. A black uniform!

  Sheets of lightning filled Havelock’s eyes. His mind exploded … then and now, now and then! Not eight or ten years ago but the early years, the terrible years! He was one of them! The images of his memory confirmed it; he saw the man in front of him now as he was then. The large face—without a beard, the hair straight and long, not white but Aryan yellow. Walking … strutting … down to rows of ditches. Machine-gun fire. Screams.

  Lidice!

  As if in a trance, Michael started toward the halfway man, his hands taut and hard, his fingers curving into claws, tensed for combat with another animal—a lower form of animal.

  “Vos?” Handelman drew out the sibilant s in his high-pitched whine. “What is the matter with you? Are you crazy, perhaps? Look at you … are you sick? Stay away from me!”

  “The Rabbi …? Oh, Christ, you son of a bitch! You incredible son of a bitch! What were you—Standartenführer? Sturmbannführer?… No, it was Obergruppenführer! It was you! Lidice!”

  The old man’s eyes widened; magnified by the thick lenses, they looked monstrous. “You are mad, completely, utterly mad! Leave my house! You are not welcome here. With the pain I’ve suffered, I will not listen to the ravings of a madman!”

  The intense singsong chant of the words covered the halfway man’s movement. His right hand slipped down to the desk, to the clutter of papers. Havelock lunged as a gun emerged in Handelman’s hand, placed there minutes ago by an Obergruppenführer who could never afford to forget his origins. The halfway man was a killer of Czechs and Poles and Jews, a man who had taken the identity of a ragged inmate he had sent into a shower of gas or a cave of fire.

  Havelock grabbed the hand with the gun, jamming his third finger behind the trigger, slamm
ing it repeatedly against the edge of the desk. It would not come loose! The halfway man was arched beneath him, pinning his right arm, the face grotesque, the mouth stretched like a rabid dog’s, the soft body suddenly hard, writhing in spasms. Handelman’s left hand surged up and clapped Michael’s face, the fingers digging into his eyes.

  Havelock twisted violently back and forth, and the halfway man slipped out from under him. They were at the edge of the desk, immobilized by each other’s arms bent to the breaking point. Suddenly Michael freed his right hand; he clenched it into a fist and brought it crashing down like a hammer into where he could see the blur of Handelman’s face.

  The steel-rimmed glasses shattered. The German screamed, and the gun clattered to the floor as he brought both his hands to his face.

  Havelock leaped backward, yanking the German to his feet, and clamped his hand across the ugly mouth. Havelock’s eyes burned, and tears and specks of blood clouded his vision. But he could see; the Nazi could not.

  “You raise your voice, old man, I’ll kill you the instant you do. Now, sit down!”

  He pulled the German away from the desk and pushed him into the nearest chair with such force that the halfway man’s neck snapped back. The shattered glasses, however, remained secure on Handelman’s face; they were a part of that face, part of the ugliness.

  “You have blinded me!” whined the soldier from Lidice. “A madman comes into my house—”

  “Forget it!” said Michael. “I was there!”

  “Madness!” Gasping, Handelman raised his hands to remove his glasses.

  “Leave them alone!” ordered Havelock. “Let them stay right where they are.”