The Righteous Men (2006)

by Sam Bourne

  ‘But let’s sharpen the dilemma. What if the man we are discussing is not necessarily a killer, but if he stays alive, one way or another, innocent people will die? What should we do then? Can we hurt such a man? Can we kill him?’

  ‘This is the sort of question our sages discuss at great length. Sometimes our Talmudical debates can seem to be obsessed with detail, even trivia: how many cubits in length should an oven be, that kind of thing. But the heart of our study is reserved for what you would call ethical dilemmas. I have thought about this particular one in great depth. And I have reached a conclusion that, in fairness, I think I ought to disclose to you. I believe that it is permissable to inflict pain and even death on a man who may not himself be a killer — but whose suffering or death would save lives. I think there is no other way of understanding our sources. That is what they are telling us.

  ‘To get to the point, Mr Mitchell, if I conclude that you are, in effect, a rodef, and that to end your life would save others, I would not hesitate to see that it ended. Perhaps you need a moment to reflect on that.’

  The pressure came a half-second later, as if, once again, the Rebbe had given his silent cue. The cold bit deep, still shocking. Will counted, to get himself through. Usually he was lifted out after around fifteen seconds under. Now he counted sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

  He flexed his shoulders, to give his captors a signal that it was time to let him breathe. They pressed down harder. Will began to struggle. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.

  Was this the meaning of the Rebbe’s little lecture? Something not abstract or complex, despite the convoluted exposition, but rather simple: we are now going to kill you.

  Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two. Will’s legs were kicking, as if they belonged to someone else. His body was panicking, sent into a survival reflex. Did not the movies always show this, as the murderer smothered his victim with a pillow, or tightened a stocking around her neck, the legs moving in an involuntary dance?

  Forty, forty-one. Or was it fifty? Will had lost count. His head seemed to flood with dull colour, like the patterns you detect under your eyelids just before sleep. He wanted to weep for the wife he was about to leave behind and wondered if it was possible to weep underwater. Thought itself grew faint.

  At last they let go, but Will did not burst out of the water with the gasping energy of before. Now the men had to pull him out, letting him collapse onto the ground. He lay there, his chest rising and falling fast but as if unconnected to the rest of him. He heard distant breathing and could not be certain if it was his own.

  Slowly he felt his ears unblock and strength return to his arms and legs. He stayed slumped on the ground, unable to face hauling his body upright. If they wanted him to sit to attention, they would have to drag him up themselves.

  Lying there, he detected a change, another person in the group around him. There was new activity, whispered exchanges. The new member of the circle seemed to be breathing heavily, as if he had just been running. He could hear the Rebbe’s voice, though he seemed to be distracted, his voice aimed downwards, as if he was looking at something, reading.

  ‘Mr Mitchell, Moshe Menachem, who was with us a few moments ago, has just completed an errand.’ Redbeard. ‘He ran from here to Shimon Shmuel’s house. He has returned with a wallet. Your wallet.’

  They had rummaged through his bag; now it was surely over. His wallet would give him away. What was in there?

  No business cards; he was too low down the food chain at the Times to have any. No credit cards either; he kept those in a separate wallet, zipped into a pocket of its own in his bag. He had left them in there, calculating that even if Sara Leah could not resist a peek at his belongings, she would hesitate before doing a full probe.

  What else was in there? Tons of cab receipts, but anything with his name on it? He had kept all the hotel bills and credit card slips from the Northwest in a separate envelope, for a later expenses claim. Maybe he would be OK. Maybe he would get away with it.

  Take the blindfold off. Let go of his hands. Lead him back into the Bet HaMidrash.’ Will could feel the confusion in his own adrenal gland: was this a cue to produce yet more adrenalin, ready for the ordeal to come or, at last, a sign that the danger was receding? Was this good news or bad news?

  He could feel hands fussing behind his head and then an increase in light as the sodden cloth covering his eyes was removed. Instinctively he shook off the drops as he opened his eyes. He was outside, in a small area surrounded by a wooden fence — the kind of space large buildings use to keep their trash. There were a few pipes and, at his feet, the glint of water. He barely had a chance to look, his two handlers were already turning him away. But he guessed that this was the housing for some kind of outdoor storage tank, a big vat used to collect rainwater.

  Now he was heading through a door and back inside, though something told Will this was not the way they had come out. It seemed to be quieter for one thing, away from the crowds. Will guessed that this was a separate building, perhaps a house adjoining the synagogue.

  Inside it did not look that different: the same functional floors and rabbit warren of classrooms and offices. With Redbeard, Moshe Menachem, and the Israeli flanking him, they headed into one of them and Will heard the door shut behind him.

  ‘Let him sit down. Untie his hands and give him a towel. And find a dry shirt.’

  The Rebbe’s voice; still behind him. The blindfold was off, but clearly Will was not going to see everything.

  ‘OK, we should begin again.’

  Will braced himself.

  ‘We need to have a talk, Mr Monroe.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Friday, 7.40pm, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  It was the end of an exhausting week; Luis Tavares could feel the fatigue spreading through his joints. Even so, he would climb one more level: there were other people to see.

  Some money had just come in. He could see that all around him. Suddenly this street was paved, the asphalt fresh enough to smell. Kids were buzzing around a TV set, visible through the open, doorless entrance to a shack. Luis smiled: his pestering of the authorities had worked. Either that or someone had bribed the power company to connect this row of huts to the city grid. Or a few people had clubbed together to find a cowboy electrician who would do it for a few reais.

  Luis felt a familiar spasm of ambivalence. He knew he was meant to advocate respect for the law and condemn all forms of theft. Yet he could not help but admire these outlaws, these entrepreneurs of the favelas, who did whatever it took to provide for their communities. He applauded their determination to provide a stretch of road or desks for a classroom.

  Could he condemn them for breaking the law? What kind of pastor would deny people who had next to nothing the little that makes life bearable?

  He wanted to rest, but he knew he would not. Even the briefest pause made Luis feel guilty. He felt guilt when he awoke: how much more work could he have done if he had not slept? He felt guilt when he ate: how many more people could he have helped in that half hour he had spent feeding his face? And in Favela Santa Marta there was never any shortage of people needing help. The poverty was unstoppable, insatiable, like waves on a beach. And Luis Tavares was the local Canute — standing on the shore, raging at the sea.

  He continued upward, heading for the view he knew would stun him, even after all these years. From that vantage point, he would be able to see both the city and the ocean, stretching out ahead. On nights like this, he liked to gaze at the glittering carpet of light, the sparkle of other favelas in the distance. Best of all, he was close to the sight that had made Rio de Janeiro famous: the giant statue of Jesus Christ, watching over the city, the country and, as far as Luis was concerned, the whole world.

  As he climbed, the pastor noted for the thousandth time how the housing deteriorated with the altitude. At the bottom of the hill, there were homes that were recognizable as homes.

  The structures were solid; they had walls,
a roof and glass in the windows. Some had running water, a phone line and satellite TV. But as you moved up the hillside, such sights became rarer. The places he passed now barely qualified even as shelters. They were thrown together, perhaps a wall made of rusty steel, a sheet of corrugated plastic serving as a roof.

  The door was a gap; the window a hole. They were jammed together, one leaning on the other like a house of cards. This was one of the main shantytowns near Rio’s wealthy beach district and it was abject.

  He had been here for twenty-seven years, ever since he first graduated from divinity school. Baptist clergy were always meant to see some searing deprivation early in their career, but not all became transfixed by it as he had. He would not learn its lessons and move on. He would stay and fight it, no matter how unequal the struggle. He knew poverty on this scale was like a garden weed: you might banish it today, but it would be back tomorrow.

  Even so, he refused to feel that what he had done here was futile. There were dose to ten thousand people crammed on this hillside, each one of them a soul created in the image of God. If even one had a meal he would otherwise not have eaten, or slept under a roof rather than in a tiny, fetid alleyway - there was no room for anything so grand as a street — then Luis’s entire life’s work would have been justified. That was how he saw it, at any rate.

  He felt frustrated that he was not engaged in that kind of activity this evening: the direct business of care — ladling out soup to a hungry woman, draping a blanket over a shivering child — where a change is made every second. No, his task tonight was to gather evidence for a report he had been asked to submit to a government department.

  That they even wanted to see a report counted as an achievement, the result of nine months of Luis’s lobbying.

  Government — federal, state and municipal — had given up on places like Santa Marta years ago. They did not visit them, they did not police them. They were no-go areas where the writ of the state did not run. So if people wanted something - a hospital, say, or a yard where the kids could play football — they either organized it themselves or they had to harangue and nag government until it finally paid attention.

  Which is where Luis came in. He had become Santa Marta’s advocate, lobbying the state bureaucracy one week, a foreign charity the next, demanding they do something for the people of the favela, for the kids who grew up sidestepping sewage in the alleys or scavenging food from the trash mountains nearby. His favourite tool was shame. He would ask people to look at Lagoa, the neighbourhood just over the hill which was proud to be one of the wealthiest districts in Latin America. Then he would show them a Santa Marta child who ate less in a week than a Lagoa chihuahua nibbled in a day.

  Tonight he was gathering testimony, talking to residents of one of the favela’s toughest stretches. They would explain to him why they needed a clinic, what it should provide and where it should be, and he would pass that information on to officialdom as part of his submission. These days Luis even used a video camera, ensuring that the people of the favelas could speak for themselves.

  Now he was at the first address, not that there were any numbers on this or any other house. He went inside and was surprised to see several unfamiliar faces: all young men.

  Perhaps Dona Zezinha was not around.

  ‘Should I wait?’ he asked of one of the group. But there was no reply. ‘Is this your home?’ he said to another, a wolf faced boy who seemed nervous, avoiding Luis’s gaze. Finally, ‘What’s going on?’

  As if to answer the pastor’s question, the wolf-boy produced a gun. Luis’s instant thought was that the weapon looked vaguely comic; it was too large for the lad’s hand. But then the gun was aimed at him. Before he had a chance to realize he was going to die, the bullet had torn his heart wide open.

  Luis Tavares died with a look of surprise rather than terror on his face. If anything, it was his killers who looked scared.

  They hurriedly covered the corpse with a blanket, just as they were told, then ran through the streets, agitated, rushing to meet the man who had ordered this job done. They took the money from him quickly, their eyes feverish. They did not listen as he thanked them. They barely heard him as he praised them for doing the Lord’s work.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Friday, 10.05pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  ‘I see that we have both made a mistake here. Your mistake is that you have lied to me and lied consistently, even under immense pressure. Under the circumstances, I now understand that and even find it admirable.’ Will could hardly hear the words over the sound of his own heart throbbing. He was scared, much more terrified than he had been outside. The Rebbe had discovered the truth. Something in the wallet had betrayed him, doubtless one loose credit card receipt or a long-forgotten Blockbuster membership card. God only knew what pain lay in store for him now.

  ‘You are here to look for your wife.’

  ‘Yes.’ Will could hear the exhaustion in his own voice. And the anguish.

  ‘I understand that, and I hope that I would do the same in your position. I am sure Moshe Menachem and Tzvi Yehuda agree.’ Now both the thugs had names. ‘It is a duty for all husbands to provide for and protect their wives. That is the nature of the marriage commitment.

  ‘But I am afraid the usual rules cannot apply in this case.

  I cannot let you come charging in here, no matter how heroically, and rescue your wife. I cannot allow it.’

  ‘So you admit that you have her here?’

  ‘I don’t admit anything. I don’t deny anything. That is not the purpose of what I am saying to you, Mr Monroe. Will. I am trying to explain that the usual rules don’t apply in this case.’

  ‘What usual rules? What case?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you more, Will, I really do. But I cannot.’

  Will was not sure if he had just been ground down by the ordeal of the last few — what was it: hours, minutes? — or whether he was simply relieved that it was over, but he was sure he heard something different in the Rebbe’s voice. The menace had gone; there was a sadness, a sorrow in it that Will heard as sympathy, maybe even compassion for himself.

  It was ridiculous: the man was a torturer. Will wondered if he was succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome, the strange bond that can develop between a captive and his captor: first depending on the Israeli as if he was a guide dog for the blind rather than a violent brute, and now detecting humanity in his chief tormentor. This was surely an irrational reaction to the end of the ducking-stool treatment: rather than feeling anger that it had happened at all, he was feeling gratitude to the Rebbe for ending it. Stockholm Syndrome, a classic case.

  And yet, Will rated himself a good judge of character. He reckoned he had always been perceptive and he was sure he could hear something real in that voice. He gambled on his hunch.

  ‘Tell me something which I have a right to know. Is my wife safe? Is she … unharmed?’ He could not bring himself to say the word he really meant — alive — not because he feared the Hassidim’s reaction so much as his own. He feared his voice would crack, that he would show a weakness he had so far kept hidden.

  ‘That is a fair question, Will, and yes, she will be safe — so long as no one does anything reckless or stupid, and by “no one” I am referring chiefly to you, Will. And by “anything reckless or stupid” I am speaking chiefly of involving the authorities. That will ruin everything and then I can make no guarantees for anyone’s safety.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you could want from my wife.

  What has she done to you? Why don’t you just let her go?’

  He had not meant to, but his mouth had taken the decision for him: he was begging.

  ‘She has done nothing to us or anyone else, but we cannot let her go. I’m sorry that I cannot say more. I can imagine how hard this is for you.’

  That was the Rebbe’s mistake, that last line. Will could feel the blood rushing to his face, the veins on his neck rising.

  ‘No, you fucking
CANNOT imagine how hard this is. You have not had your wife kidnapped! You have not been grabbed, blindfolded, shoved into freezing water and threatened with death by people who never so much as show their face. So don’t tell me you can imagine anything. You can imagine NOTHING!’

  Tzvi Yehuda and Moshe Menachem almost sprang back, clearly as shocked by this outburst as Will himself. The anger had been brewing since he got to Crown Heights — in fact, long before. Since the moment that message popped into his BlackBerry: We have your wife.

  ‘You said it was time for plain dealing. So how about some plain dealing? What the hell is this about?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’ The voice was softer than it had been, almost dejected. ‘But this is about something much bigger than you could possibly know.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Beth is a shrink. She sees kids who won’t talk and girls who starve themselves. What bigger thing could involve her? You’re lying.’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth, Will. The fate of your wife depends on something much larger than you or her or me.

  In a way it hangs on an ancient story, one that no one could ever have imagined would have turned out this way. No one ever predicted this. There was no contingency plan. No preparation in our sacred texts, or at least none that we have found so far. And believe me, we are looking.’

  Will had no idea what this man was talking about. For the first time, he wondered if these Hassidim might simply be delusional. Had he not seen them earlier this evening, swept up in an ecstatic frenzy in adoration of their leader, worshipping him as their Messiah? Was it not possible that they had fallen into a state of collective madness, with this man, their leader, the maddest of all?