Kaplan Street was the location of the prime minister’s office. By all accounts, Bella was an all-too-frequent visitor. Gabriel always suspected her influence at King Saul Boulevard went beyond the furnishings in her husband’s office.
“Uzi’s been a good chief,” she said. “A damn good chief. He had only one fault. He wasn’t you, Gabriel. He’ll never be you. And for that, he’s being thrown to the side of the road.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Haven’t you done enough already?”
From inside the house came the ringing of a telephone. Bella showed no interest in answering it.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I want to talk to you about Uzi’s future.”
“Thanks to you, he doesn’t have one.”
“Bella . . .”
She refused to be mollified, not yet. “If you have something to say about Uzi’s future, you should probably talk to Uzi.”
“I thought it would be more productive if I went over his head.”
“Don’t try to flatter me, Gabriel.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She clicked the nail of her forefinger against the tabletop. It had a new coat of polish.
“He told me about the conversation you had in London when you were looking for that kidnapped girl. Needless to say, I didn’t think much of your proposal.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no precedent for it. Once a chief’s term is over, the chief is shown gently into the night, never to be heard from again.”
“Tell that to Shamron.”
“Shamron is different.”
“So am I.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“We run the Office together. I’ll be the chief, and Uzi will be my deputy.”
“It’ll never work.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will leave the impression that you’re not quite up to the job.”
“No one thinks that.”
“Appearances matter.”
“You have me confused with someone else, Bella.”
“Who’s that?”
“Someone who cares about appearances.”
“And if he agrees?”
“He’ll have an office next door to mine. He’ll be involved in every key decision, every important operation.”
“What about his salary?”
“He’ll keep his full salary, not to mention his car and his security detail.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I need him, Bella.” He paused, then added, “You, too.”
“Me?”
“I want you to come back to the Office.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock. Uzi and I are going to run an op against the Syrians. We need your help.”
“What kind of op?”
When Gabriel told her, she smiled sadly. “It’s too bad Uzi didn’t think of that,” she said. “He might still be the chief.”
They spent the next hour in Bella’s garden negotiating the terms of her return to King Saul Boulevard. Afterward, she saw him outside and into the back of his official car.
“It looks good on you,” she said through the open door.
“What’s that, Bella?”
She smiled and said, “I’ll see you in the morning, Gabriel.” Then she turned away and was gone. A bodyguard closed the car door; another climbed into the front passenger seat. Gabriel realized suddenly he was unarmed. He sat there for a moment debating where to go next. Then he glanced into the rearview mirror and gave the driver an address in West Jerusalem. He had one more piece of unpleasant business to attend to before going home. He had to tell a ghost he was going to be a father again.
29
JERUSALEM
THE TINY CIRCULAR DRIVE OF the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital vibrated beneath the weight of Gabriel’s three-vehicle motorcade. He alighted from the back of his limousine and, after a terse word with the head of his security detail, entered the hospital alone. Waiting in the lobby was a bearded, rabbinical-looking doctor in his late fifties. He was smiling pleasantly, despite the fact that, as usual, he had been given little warning of Gabriel’s pending arrival. He extended his hand and looked out at the commotion in the normally quiet entrance of Israel’s most private facility for the long-term mentally disabled.
“It seems your life is about to change again,” said the doctor.
“In more ways than one,” replied Gabriel.
“For the better, I hope.”
Gabriel nodded and then told the doctor about the pregnancy. The doctor smiled, but only for a moment. He had witnessed Gabriel’s long struggle over whether to remarry. Fatherhood, he knew, was going to be a mixed blessing.
“And twins, no less. Well,” the doctor added, remembering to smile again, “you’re certainly—”
“I need to tell her,” Gabriel said, cutting him off. “I’ve put it off long enough.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It is.”
“She won’t understand, not fully.”
“I know.”
The doctor knew better than to pursue the matter further. “It might be better if I stay with you,” he said. “For both your sakes.”
“Thank you,” answered Gabriel, “but I have to do it alone.”
The doctor turned without a word and led Gabriel along a corridor of Jerusalem limestone, to a common room where a few of the patients were staring blankly at a television. A pair of large windows overlooked a walled garden. Outside, a woman sat alone in the shade of a stone pine, with the stillness of a gravestone.
“How is she?” asked Gabriel.
“She misses you. It’s been a long time since you’ve come to see her.”
“It’s hard.”
“I understand.”
They stood for a moment at the window, not speaking, not moving.
“There’s something you should know,” the doctor said finally. “She never stopped loving you, even after the divorce.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” said the doctor. “But you deserve to know the truth.”
“So does she.”
Another silence.
“Twins, eh?”
“Twins.”
“Boy or girl?”
“One of each.”
“Maybe you could let her spend a little time with them.”
“First things first, Doctor.”
“Yes,” said the doctor as Gabriel entered the garden alone. “First things first.”
She was seated in her wheelchair with the twisted remnants of her hands resting in her lap. Her hair, once long and dark like Chiara’s, was now cut institutional short and shot with gray. Gabriel kissed the cool, firm scar tissue of her cheek before lowering himself onto the bench next to her. She stared sightlessly into the garden, unaware of his presence. She was getting older, he thought. They were all getting older.
“Look at the snow, Gabriel,” she said suddenly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
He looked at the sun burning in a cloudless sky. “Yes, Leah,” he said absently. “It’s beautiful.”
“The snow absolves Vienna of its sins,” she said after a moment. “The snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain down on Tel Aviv.”
They were some of the last words Leah had spoken to him the night of the bombing in Vienna. She suffered from a particularly acute combination of psychotic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. At times, she experienced moments of lucidity, but for the most part she remained a prisoner of the past. Vienna played ceaselessly in her mind like a loop of videotape that she was unable to pause: the last meal they shared together, their last kiss, the fire that killed their only child and burned the flesh from Leah’s body. Her life had shrunk to five minutes; and she had been reliving it, over and over again, for more than twenty years.
“I thought you’d forgotten about me, Gabriel.”
Her head turned slowly, and for now there was a flash of recognition in her eyes. Her voice, when she spoke again, sounded shockingly like the voice he had first heard many years ago, calling to him from across a studio at Bezalel.
“When was the last time you were here?”
“I came to see you on your birthday.”
“I don’t remember.”
“We had a party, Leah. All the other patients came. It was lovely.”
“I’m lonely here, Gabriel.”
“I know, Leah.”
“I have no one. No one but you, my love.”
He felt as though he had lost the ability to draw air into his lungs. Leah reached out and placed her hand in his.
“You have no paint on your fingers,” she said.
“I haven’t worked for a few days.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time,” she said. “I have nothing but time.”
She turned away from him and stared into the garden. The light was receding from her eyes.
“Don’t go, Leah. There’s something I have to tell you.”
She came back to him. “Are you restoring a painting now?” she asked.
“Veronese,” he replied.
“Which one?”
He told her.
“So you’re living in Venice again?”
“For a few more months.”
She smiled. “Do you remember when we lived in Venice together, Gabriel? It was when you were serving your apprenticeship with Umberto Conti.”
“I remember, Leah.”
“Our apartment was so small.”
“That’s because it was a room.”
“They were wonderful days, weren’t they, Gabriel? Days of art and wine. We should have stayed in Venice together, my love. Things would have turned out differently if you hadn’t gone back to the Office.”
Gabriel didn’t respond. He wasn’t capable of speech.
“Your wife is from Venice, is she not?”
“Yes, Leah.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes, Leah, she’s very pretty.”
“I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“You have, Leah. She’s come here to see you many times.”
“I don’t remember her. Perhaps it’s better that way.” She turned away from him. “I want to talk to my mother,” she said. “I want to hear the sound of my mother’s voice.”
“We’ll call her right away, Leah.”
“Make sure Dani is buckled into his seat tightly. The streets are slippery.”
“He’s fine, Leah.”
She turned to face him again. Then, after a moment, she asked, “Do you have children?”
He wasn’t certain whether she was in the present or the past. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“With Chiara.”
“No,” he answered. “No children.”
“Maybe someday.”
“Yes,” he said, but nothing more.
“Make me a promise, Gabriel.”
“Anything, my love.”
“If you have another child, you mustn’t forget Dani.”
“I think about him every day.”
“I think of nothing else.”
He felt as though the bones of his rib cage were snapping beneath the weight of the stone that God had laid over his heart.
“And when you leave Venice?” Leah asked after a moment. “What then?”
“I’m coming home.”
“For good?”
“Yes, Leah.”
“What are you going to do? There are no paintings here in Israel.”
“I’m going to be the chief of the Office.”
“I thought Ari was the chief.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Where will you live?”
“Here in Jerusalem so I can be close to you.”
“In that little apartment?”
“I’ve always liked it.”
“It’s not big enough for children.”
“We’ll find the room.”
“Will you still come to see me after you have children, Gabriel?”
“Every chance I get.”
She tilted her face to the cloudless sky. “Look at the snow, Gabriel.”
“Yes,” he said, weeping softly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
The doctor was waiting for Gabriel in the common room. He spoke not a word until they had returned to the lobby.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.
“It went as well as could be expected.”
“For her or for you?”
Gabriel said nothing.
“It’s all right, you know,” the doctor said after a moment.
“What’s that?”
“For you to be happy.”
“I’m not sure I know how.”
“Try,” said the doctor. “And if you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me.”
“Take good care of her.”
“I always have.”
With that, Gabriel surrendered himself to the care of his security detail and climbed into the back of the limousine. It was odd, he thought, but he no longer felt like crying. He supposed that was what it meant to be the chief.
30
NARKISS STREET, JERUSALEM
CHIARA HAD ARRIVED IN JERUSALEM only an hour before Gabriel, and yet their apartment on Narkiss Street already looked like a photograph in one of those glossy home design magazines she was always reading. There were fresh flowers in the vases and bowls of snacks on the end tables, and the glass of wine she placed in his hand was chilled to perfection. Her lips, when kissed, were warm from the Jerusalem sun.
“I expected you sooner,” she said.
“I had a couple of errands to run.”
“Where have you been?”
“Hell,” he answered seriously.
She frowned. “You’ll have to tell me about it later.”
“Why later?”
“Because we have company coming, darling.”
“Do I have to ask who it is?”
“Probably not.”
“How did he know we were back?”
“He mentioned something about a burning bush.”
“Can’t we do it another night?”
“It’s too late to cancel now. He and Gilah have already left Tiberias.”
“I suppose he’s giving you running updates on his location.”
“He’s called twice already. He’s very excited about seeing you.”
“I wonder why.”
He kissed Chiara again and carried the glass of wine into their bedroom. Its walls were hung with paintings. There were paintings by Gabriel, paintings by his gifted mother, and several paintings by his grandfather, the noted German expressionist Viktor Frankel, who was murdered at Auschwitz in the lethal winter of 1942. There was also a three-quarter-length portrait, unsigned, of a gaunt young man who appeared haunted by the shadow of death. Leah had painted it a few days after Gabriel returned to Israel with the blood of six Black September terrorists on his hands. It was the first and last time he agreed to sit for her.
We should have stayed in Venice together, my love. Things would have turned out differently . . .
He stripped away his clothing under the portrait’s pitiless gaze and stood beneath the shower until the last traces of Leah’s touch had slipped from his skin. Then he changed into clean clothing and returned to the sitting room, just as Gilah and Ari Shamron were coming through the front door. Gilah was holding a platter of her famous eggplant with Moroccan spice; her famous husband held only an olive wood cane. He was dressed, as usual, in a pair of pressed khaki trousers, a white oxford cloth shirt, and a leather jacket with an unrepaired tear in the left shoulder. It was obvious he was unwell, but the smile he wore was one of contentment. Shamron had spent years trying to convince G
abriel to return to Israel to take his rightful place in the executive suite at King Saul Boulevard. Now, at long last, the task was complete. His successor was in place. The bloodline was secure.
He leaned his cane against the wall of the entrance hall and, with Gabriel following, went out onto the little terrace where two wrought-iron chairs stood beneath the drooping canopy of a eucalyptus tree. Narkiss Street lay still and silent beneath their feet, but in the distance came the faint rush of evening traffic along King George. Shamron lowered himself unsteadily into one of the chairs and motioned for Gabriel to sit in the other. Then he removed a packet of Turkish cigarettes and, with enormous concentration, extracted one. Gabriel looked at Shamron’s hands, the hands that had nearly squeezed the life out of Adolf Eichmann on a street corner in northern Buenos Aires. It was one of the reasons Shamron had been given the assignment: the unusual size and power of his hands. Now they were liver-spotted and covered with unhealed abrasions. Gabriel looked away as they fumbled with the old Zippo lighter.
“You really shouldn’t, Ari.”
“What difference does it make now?”
The lighter flared, acrid Turkish smoke mingled with the sharp scent of the eucalyptus tree. Memories gathered suddenly at Gabriel’s feet like floodwaters. He tried to hold them at bay but could not; Leah had shattered what remained of his defenses. He was driving across a sea of windblown Cornish grass with Shamron at his side. It was the dawn of the new millennium, the days of suicide bombings and delusion. Shamron had recently been hauled from retirement to repair the Office after a string of operational disasters, and he wanted Gabriel’s help with the enterprise. The bait he used was Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian master terrorist who had planted the bomb beneath Gabriel’s car in Vienna.
Maybe if you help me take down Tariq, you can finally let go of Leah and get on with your life . . .
Gabriel heard the sound of Chiara’s laughter from the sitting room and the memory dissolved.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked gently of Shamron.
“The list of my physical ailments is almost as long as the list of challenges facing the State of Israel. But don’t worry,” he added hastily. “I’m not going anywhere yet. I fully intend to be around to witness the birth of my grandchildren.”