Too distressed to sleep, she wanders down to the beach and follows the insistent beat of disco music with its pounding rhythm until she reaches a nightclub near the café where she met Dov Erlich that afternoon. Young people are streaming in, lively girls in short, tight dresses that cling to their bums, and guys in blue jeans and short-sleeved shirts, surveying the talent with eager eyes.
Ari is in the doorway of his café, talking to a customer.
‘Annika. You go dancing now?’
She shakes her head. ‘How can people dance when such a terrible thing just happened?’
‘Terrible things are always happening. If you are alive, you have to live, or they have killed you too.’
It’s midnight when she returns to the hotel but she is too restless to sleep. Instead of going to her room, she goes to the business centre and opens the computer. As Miklós Nagy saved a number of Hungarian Jews, she supposes that the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem must have some information about him online.
She clicks on various headings on the site, searching first by name, then by country, and later by rescuers, but doesn’t find a single mention of him. It’s as though he never existed. She switches off the computer and continues to sit in the empty office staring at the wall. Has she made this trip for nothing?
*
When she wakes the next morning, sunlight is streaming into her room, and from her balcony she sees that the beach is already crowded. Children are skylarking on the sand and running into the sea, and bronzed middle-aged women with disciplined bodies are lounging on the deckchairs. Vendors are circulating among them with trays of sliced mango and pineapple, iced drinks, falafels and ice cream. Her despondent mood of the previous evening has lifted, and she hurries down to breakfast.
In one corner of the restaurant, which overlooks the beach, a chef is cooking egg dishes. In another, a waiter is squeezing oranges, pomegranates and grapefruit. The long buffet table displays a mouth-watering assortment of cheeses, herrings and vegetables that have been pickled, chopped, roasted, grilled or marinated, as well as breads, cakes and pastries of every description. Breakfast over, she decides to call Dov. He will know where she should look for information. It is Sunday, but she knows that Sunday is an ordinary working day in Israel. As she waits for the operator to put her through, she hopes she won’t be switched to voicemail.
But a moment later she hears his voice. This time he sounds brisk and businesslike, not like the jovial bon vivant she’d met in Ari’s café.
‘I’m calling to take you up on your offer of help. I said I was here on holidays but that isn’t quite true. I’ve come to find out something about a Hungarian called Miklós Nagy, who saved some Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust and arrived in Israel some time after the war. Do you know where I can find some information about him?’
After a pause, he says, ‘You’re asking me if I know anything about the man who brought down the government of Israel!’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jaffa, 2005
Annika is strolling along the promenade that skirts the beach. It’s already her third day in Tel Aviv and she still hasn’t made any progress with her search. After she’d spoken with Dov the previous day, she’d tried to contact the city library for information, but the research librarian was on leave and there was no-one else there to help her. Rather than waste the day, she’d taken a trip to Masada. Her thoughts turn to that ancient clifftop fortress where, over two thousand years before, a community of Jewish rebels were besieged by Romans, and all had chosen to die rather than be taken captive.
She is wondering what it would take to choose death in such a situation when she notices a stone obelisk on the edge of the promenade. It isn’t particularly attractive, a squat rhomboid with a pointed apex, but what catches her eye is the image of a cargo ship carved into the stone, which gleams in the sunlight. According to the English translation, this is a memorial to the Altalena, an arms ship carrying 930 passengers that had anchored off shore in June 1948. It had come to fight in the War of Independence but had been shelled on orders of the provisional government.
She reads the inscription several times and looks out to sea, past the bright beach umbrellas and rows of deck chairs, trying to visualise the dramatic event, wondering why it had happened and why it was being commemorated. It sounded a sombre note, incongruous with the vibrant beach scene and the carefree atmosphere. As she stands in front of the monument, a few tourists stop beside her, curious to see what she is looking at, but after a cursory glance, they shrug and walk on.
For the third time in the past few minutes she checks the time. She doesn’t want to be late for her meeting with Dov. He’d said, ‘I can’t talk to you now,’ when she asked him to explain his comment about Miklós Nagy, but he suggested meeting for coffee in Jaffa on Monday.
The concierge at the hotel told her that Jaffa was about four kilometres from Tel Aviv, and suggested taking a cab, but she has enjoyed the beachside walk and, determined not to be late, she has overestimated the time she needed to get there on foot. While she waits, she wanders around the area’s narrow alleys until she comes to the flea market, and is delighted by the enormous Aladdin’s cave of second-hand junk that occupies several blocks, and spills from the stalls and shops onto the narrow footpaths.
The goods on offer cover every kind of item imaginable: antiquated TV sets, coils of rope, spades, stand mixers from the 1950s, rusty trumpets, shaggy wigs, yellowed wedding dresses, faded shawls, metal pots, chipped plates and dolls with grimy porcelain faces, interspersed with antique clocks, Moroccan tagines, Persian rugs and pretty English tea sets, all heaped on shelves, piled on the floor, or suspended from the walls, with hardly any space in between.
The intoxicating mosaic of textures and colours displayed in the stalls reflects the crowded market itself: Arabs in keffiyehs smoking narghilehs, Ethiopian women in brilliant headdresses and colourful robes, sunburnt European tourists in skimpy tops, and Israelis in shorts having coffee and baklava at rickety little tables on the narrow footpaths. This was the Israel she had imagined, exotic, oriental and exciting.
Leaving the market behind, she climbs a steep street, and past the Ottoman clocktower she comes to a plaza of art galleries, silversmiths’ studios, antique shops and jewellery boutiques. She lingers outside the shop windows, and admires the unusual designs within. Drawn to an interesting silver pendant on a fine chain, she enters the shop to have a closer look.
‘You like the chai?’ the saleswoman asks as she clasps it around Annika’s neck. ‘You have good taste. I designed this one myself.’
‘Chai,’ Annika repeats. From the conversation at Ari’s café the day she arrived, she recalls that the word means life. The woman nods approvingly. ‘It suits you.’
Annika has always disdained souvenirs in general, and religious symbols in particular. She has always dismissed Stars of David, crosses or saints’ medals hung around someone’s neck as displays of tribal membership. She has certainly never wanted to own such a symbol, let alone hang it around her neck to advertise her religion.
She had chosen this pendant on impulse, but apart from its eye-catching modern design, it was also meaningful.
Too hot to keep walking, she heads for the café beside the old sea wall where she and Dov have arranged to meet. From her table under a large umbrella, she looks down at five fishermen sitting on the wall wearing caps or woollen beanies, casting their lines into the sea, and past them to the trawlers, fishing boats and cruisers inside the breakwater of the lively port.
Beyond the sea wall a cluster of sinister-looking black rocks floats in the water. She takes her travel guide from her bag and looks up Jaffa. The paragraph about the rocks tells her that the largest outcrop is called Andromeda. It is a long time since she has thought about the Greek tragedies, and now, gazing at this rock, she realises that this port had been part of the Hellenistic world at a time when Aeschylus and Sophocles wrote the plays she loved so much.
According
to one of the legends, Andromeda had been chained to this rock as a sacrifice, but at the very last moment, she was rescued by Perseus on his winged horse. She smiles at this ancient version of bringing in the cavalry. Past the harbour, she gazes at the wide sweep of beach that curves from Jaffa to Tel Aviv, and thinks about the ship that was shelled in these waters back in 1948.
‘Do you realise you’re looking at one of the oldest ports in the world?’
She swivels around and sees Dov mopping his face with a handkerchief as he takes the chair facing her. No longer a beach bum in board shorts, he looks trim and businesslike in grey trousers, an open-necked shirt with short sleeves, and rimless glasses that often slip down the bridge of his nose.
‘Jaffa is unique,’ he says. ‘Right under our feet lie thousands of years of history.’ Waving his arm in the direction of the visitors’ centre behind them, he adds, ‘If you’re interested in ancient history, you should spend a bit of time in there — there’s an amazing Hellenistic and Roman excavation site underneath.’
‘As a matter of fact, I am interested,’ she says. ‘I’ve been reading some of the plays that were written during Hellenistic times.’ She can’t resist saying this, and knows she is trying to impress him.
Not taking his eyes from her face, he gives her that magical smile. ‘What an interesting woman you are,’ he says.
She is pleased at the compliment but changes the subject. ‘I can see you love this place. Tell more about it.’
He doesn’t need any urging. ‘Jaffa was a hot spot for Jews, Muslims and Christians for four thousand years. An early example of what real estate agents call position, position, position.’
He rests his gaze on her neck, and when he takes off his glasses to wipe them, she notices that his eyes are as clear and green as the water below. ‘So you bought a chai,’ he says. ‘Is that symbolic, religious, ethnic or talismanic?’
‘Maybe just because I liked it.’
It is too early for wine and too hot for tea, so she orders an iced coffee, which arrives in a chilled glass topped with a scoop of ice cream, while he orders beer. Aware that his time is limited, she is reluctant to spend it discussing ancient history, intriguing as it is. Draining most of her coffee in one gulp, she places the glass on the table, wipes the cream off her mouth, and sits forward.
‘You said Miklós Nagy brought down the government. Were you serious?’
His glasses slip again, and he pushes them back up with the flat of his hand.
‘It was an exaggerated version of the truth. Journalistic licence, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. It’s a very complicated topic, and involves all kinds of political issues which will leave you confused without answering your question.’
He pushes his glasses up again, and she realises this is a habit that gives him time to organise his thoughts. ‘This man, Nagy. Tell me why you’re so interested in him.’
‘I could give you the same answer that you gave me. It’s complicated. Travelling all this way to find out something about the man who saved my grandmother’s life doesn’t even make sense to me.’
‘It must make sense at some level, Annika,’ he observes. His lips are twitching as if he is suppressing a smile, probably at her confusion.
She stares out to sea. A breeze has sprung up and waves are crashing into the Andromeda rock and splashing the anglers on the seawall.
He listens attentively while she tells him about her grandmother’s strange reaction to Miklós Nagy’s name and how it aroused her curiosity; about the comment of the guide at the Sydney Jewish Museum, about Jansci’s father’s memoir, and the cryptic comments of the guide at the Holocaust museum in Budapest.
When she stops talking, he leans forward and looks straight into her eyes. ‘You really don’t understand why you’re doing this, do you?’
‘I just told you.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’ve told me about a series of encounters linked with Miklós Nagy. But do I believe that this is really what motivated you to travel around the world? I don’t buy it. No way.’
Annoyed by his arrogance, she is about to make a glib retort, but perhaps he can discern something that has eluded her, something that might help her understand her impulsive behaviour. So she waits for him to continue.
‘I think your search for this man is a search for something about yourself and your own past. But only you can figure out what that is, and why it’s so important to you.’
She shifts in her chair and grips her glass more firmly. Dov was obviously an opinionated journalist who felt entitled to make judgments about people he didn’t know.
‘Now that you’ve psychoanalysed me, can we go back to Miklós Nagy?’
Dov laughs and drains the rest of his beer. ‘Touché. So, back to Mr Nagy. You need to understand that all this happened long before my time — I was born in the States, and didn’t make aliyah until I was in my twenties. That was during the Yom Kippur war in 1973, but I know that the fallout from the Nagy case was toxic, and some people believe its legacy still haunts Israeli politics to this day. From what I’ve heard, even if Nagy wasn’t personally responsible for what happened later, he was a catalyst. Perhaps he was in the wrong place at the wrong time or, to be more exact, through no fault of his own, he got tangled up with the wrong people.’
Annika is listening intently, trying to imagine the complex legal and political issues in Israel during the 1950s, when his mobile rings. He turns away to take the call, and from his tone she can tell he is talking to his editor, and is grateful for the interruption. This conversation wasn’t answering any of her questions. Perhaps she should rephrase them.
But Dov is already standing up and motioning for the bill. ‘Sorry, I have to go. There’s been an incident in Ramallah and an Israeli soldier has been injured. Walk me to my car so we can keep talking.’
‘I still don’t understand it. Why is Miklós Nagy so controversial?’
‘This story is a quagmire, and if you pursue it, you’ll drown in political quicksand, and even then, I don’t know if you’ll get at the truth. But if you’re determined to keep digging, and I figure you are, then you should start with a lawyer called Amos Alon who practised here in the fifties and sixties. I don’t imagine he is still alive, but the Law Association will have some records. If you call my office later, I’ll ask our secretary to look up the number for you. But you should be aware that not everyone will be enthusiastic about the subject of your search.’
He rifles in his pocket for the car keys, and as he opens the door of his dusty Ford Falcon, she suddenly remembers the strange memorial she saw on the promenade on Tel Aviv beach. ‘It said something about a ship called the Altalena. Do you know what that was about?’
He turns to face her. ‘So you noticed the Altalena monument. That’s amazing. You seem to have a knack for ferreting out information.’
Now it’s her turn to look surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That inscription is actually one of the keys to unlocking the Nagy saga. You know I just mentioned a solicitor called Amos Alon? Well, he was directly affected by the Altalena incident. He was also the defence attorney in the lawsuit that involved Miklós Nagy.’
*
Later that afternoon, the secretary of the Law Association puts her through to the officer in charge of their archives. He sounds friendly when she says she is Australian, but his tone cools noticeably when she explains she is searching for information about Amos Alon. He would have to find the files, he isn’t sure where they are, it will take a great deal of time as some of the old files aren’t digitised, she’ll have to fill in a requisition form … Annika realises he is making excuses to put her off and, remembering Dov’s warning, she tries to get him on side.
‘I can imagine how busy you are,’ she says. ‘The last thing you need is some woman from Australia bugging you to dig out files about someone who practised so long ago. But if you could possibly find them, I’d really appreciate it because I have to fly back
home in a few days.’
Mollified, he tells her that his grandfather fought alongside the Aussies at Beersheba in 1915. ‘He told us they were amazing, those Australian horsemen, brave and fearless, and they looked after their comrades. Said they called each other “mate”.’
He rouses himself from his reverie. ‘The Alon-Nagy lawsuit happened a long time ago, and I don’t think that file has been digitised yet. I’m out of the office tomorrow, but come back on Thursday morning and I should have it for you by then.’
Irritated at the delay, she goes to the hotel lobby and scans the tourist leaflets on the concierge’s desk. With two extra days to fill in, she decides to take the tour north to Haifa, stopping on the way at the vineyards of Zichron Yaakov, the Roman ruins in Caesarea, and the crusader castle in Acre. The day after that, she books a trip to the Dead Sea and the Negev desert. She is looking forward to these excursions, but she can’t wait to get to the law library so that she can finally find out what happened to Miklos Nagy, why there was a lawsuit, and how a lawyer called Amos Alon came to be involved in it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tel Aviv, 1953
Isaiah Fleischmann is about to knock on Amos Alon’s office door, racking his brains in an effort to recall the sequence of events that put an end to his reclusive existence and led him here. Someone must have suggested it, but he has no friends, and his neighbours in the rundown part of Tel Aviv were too preoccupied with their daily struggles to be concerned with his problems. Perhaps it was just chance that led him to this legal maverick. He muses that luck requires two disparate events to coincide, just as a hammer needs a nail to unleash its power, and he hopes that this encounter will prove to be a stroke of luck. He reckons he needs it.
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