The Fury of Rachel Monette

by Peter Abrahams

  “No, Gisela.” He kissed her forehead. “It’s something to make our holiday more worthwhile, yours and mine.”

  She lifted her face for a longer, deeper kiss. “I hope so, Simon.” Gisela turned and walked through the surveillance tunnel. The security guard ran a metal detector over her body before allowing her to go on.

  “See you in a few days,” Calvi called after her, but she was gone. The little convoy returned to Jerusalem.

  On the way Calvi found himself thinking of the night he and Gisela had eaten dinner on the Mount of Olives. He recalled her anger when he sent her home alone in the taxi. Perhaps she really did feel so strongly about even short separations. Did she love him after all? Then he began remembering other incidents that had happened the same night. The man in the broad-brimmed hat who had made no attempt to follow him when he left the villa with Gisela. Why not?

  Calvi switched on the radio. A man and a woman were talking about him. They were trying to explain to the audience why he had become more radical during the last few years. The man thought it had something to do with the possibility of increased immigration from Russia. The woman tied it to the growth of ethnic consciousness outside Israel. The announcer cut in to tell them thirty seconds remained. In that time could they make a quick prediction about his speech on Friday? The man couldn’t say but he thought there would be a big crowd; the woman said everyone would have to wait and see. The announcer thanked them very much. Calvi turned off the radio and glanced in the rearview mirror. Sergeant Levy’s head was thrown back and his mouth opened wide: he was reaching for a high note.

  Calvi drove directly to the office and parked in his reserved space. Sergeant Levy parked behind him.

  “It won’t matter that I’m blocking you,” he said to Calvi as he squeezed his enormous body out of the front seat. “We’ll be leaving together anyway.” He laughed at his joke and clapped Calvi on the back with bone-crushing force.

  “You’re a funny fellow,” Calvi said, “especially for one of Grunberg’s men.”

  “It’s an asset in any line of work.” Sergeant Levy accompanied him to the office and sat on the couch in the reception room.

  “This is Sergeant Levy,” Calvi announced to Sarah, who was typing a letter. “Major Grunberg has assigned him to protect me from myself until the rally.”

  Sarah nodded at the sergeant and held out a sheaf of messages. As Calvi took them she said: “Moses is in his office. He wants to talk to you.” Something in her tone made him look at her closely. She wouldn’t meet his eye.

  Calvi went through the door which led to the two inner offices. The smaller one was Cohn’s. He was standing with his back to the door, looking out the window.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Cohn turned slowly to face him. His wiry red hair was uncombed. It stuck out in spikes from his skull. The effect should have been comical, but there was a fierce glare in his eyes which made the hair seem right.

  “What’s wrong with you, Moses?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Cohn’s voice rose to a shout.

  “Quiet,” Calvi hissed. “I’ve got one of Grunberg’s thugs in the outer office.”

  “So you should,” Cohn said almost as loudly as before.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “A lot of things.”

  “Like what? And keep your God-damned voice down.”

  Cohn took a step toward Calvi. He was so tense his skin could barely contain him: the cords on his neck stood out and the veins in his temple rose in trembling ridges. “We’re through, Simon,” he said through gritted teeth. “Finished. There’s no more trust between us.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m doing. You’ve been lying to me and hiding things from me and I’m not going to accept it anymore. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Calvi said in a tone that was more puzzled than cold.

  “Don’t you? I’ll give an example to help you understand. Sunday night.”

  “Sunday night?”

  “Yes. Why don’t you tell me what you did on Sunday night.”

  “That’s no secret,” Calvi said. “I took Gisela to dinner. We tried Rubin’s, the tourist trap on the Mount of Olives.” Calvi reached into his pocket for a cigar and sat on the edge of Cohn’s desk. “The food was not bad,” he went on, lighting the cigar, “but the service was lousy.”

  “And what happened after?” Cohn pressed.

  “After? We went home to bed. It was late.”

  “What time was that?”

  Calvi waved his cigar impatiently. “Hell, Moses, I don’t punch a clock every time I go in the house.”

  “Approximately what time then?”

  Calvi puffed on the cigar and thought. Cohn stood on the other side of the desk rigid as granite. “I would say about eleven-thirty,” Calvi finally replied.

  “You are a liar,” Cohn said in a clear and savage voice. “I know you’re a liar, Simon, because I saw you coming out of an apartment block on Givat Shaul at one-fifteen.” Cohn’s angry eyes probed into his own. Calvi waited. “Do you deny it?”

  “No.” He smoked the cigar. He thought about the man in the broad-brimmed hat who had not bothered to follow him that night. “Tell me one thing, Moses, just out of interest: when did you start working for Grunberg?”

  Red spots appeared on Cohn’s face like instant measles. “You are talking shit,” he said hotly. “I would never work for Grunberg.”

  “Then why were you following me?”

  “I was not following you. I happened to be at a tenants’ meeting in the building beside the one you came out of.”

  Calvi’s eyebrows rose. “A tenants’ meeting at one-fifteen?” he asked sarcastically.

  “I stayed after for coffee. Don’t try to put me on the defensive, Simon. You’re the one who has the explaining to do, not me. Try telling me, for example, why anyone would leave an apartment on Givat Shaul at one-fifteen in the morning and take a taxi to a dirty little shop in the Old City, a dirty little shop that turns out to be an under—”

  In one quick movement Calvi whirled around the desk and clapped his hand over Cohn’s mouth. He lowered his mouth to Cohn’s ear and whispered: “Don’t be a fool. The whole office is probably bugged.”

  With surprising strength Cohn wriggled his wiry body free and darted to the other side of the desk. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said defiantly. “You can’t say that, can you?”

  “No one over the age of five can say it, Moses.”

  Cohn shook his head furiously. “Stop feeding me generalities. Let’s talk about you.”

  “Very well,” Calvi said. He sat at the desk and took a pencil and a sheet of paper from the drawer. He wrote: “Not here. I have something at home to show you. It explains everything you want to know.” He turned the paper so Cohn could read it. Cohn read it. His face remained hard but he raised and lowered his head in one affirmative nod. Calvi held the sheet in his hand and touched it with the glowing tip of the cigar. As it caught fire he dropped it in an empty metal wastebasket. Then he and Cohn went into the outer office.

  Sergeant Levy was reading a day-old newspaper. Sarah was pasting stamps on envelopes. They were doing these things with an unnatural intensity.

  “We’re going to the house to work on the speech,” Calvi said to Sarah. With an annoyed glance at Cohn he added, “Apparently it’s not quite right.”

  Sarah looked closely at her husband. “Will you be home for dinner?”

  “What do you think?” he asked Calvi.

  “Oh, sure.”

  They went out the door, Cohn, the smallest man, first, trailed by Calvi and Sergeant Levy. Between them, Calvi thought of cartoons he had seen of fish with their mouths open wide, about to gobble up a smaller fish in front and be gobbled from behind.

  Sergeant Levy backed the green Fiat, giving Calvi room to turn around. He made a few hand signals to help Calvi
get his car out of the space.

  “That’s far enough,” he yelled. “Straighten the wheel.” Calvi drove off with the Fiat close behind.

  Moses Cohn switched on the radio and turned the volume up high.

  “Loud enough?” he asked over the noise.

  “Yes.”

  “Then suppose you tell me who the coffin is for?”

  Calvi’s eyes went to the rearview mirror. Sergeant Levy was trying something up-tempo. “You’re not making sense, Moses.”

  Cohn banged his hand on the dashboard. “That’s not good enough. Don’t you understand? I went in there the next day. I asked them, those pretty friends of yours. ‘I’m an inspector with the Mishtara,’ I said. ‘What was Mr. Simon Calvi doing here at three o’clock this morning?’ The greasy, bald one treated me much the way you are now: ‘You’re not making sense, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ So I asked to see the boy’s identity papers, just on the chance he was a Jordanian. It’s not impossible in the Old City, as you know. It seems his papers are lost. ‘Then I have to take him in,’ I said. That’s when the bald one remembered your visit.”

  A voice on the radio was shrieking a song about love that lasts forever and a day. Looking in the rearview mirror Calvi realized that Sergeant Levy was singing along with it. Cohn’s words cut through the din: “So tell me about the coffin, Simon.”

  “I intend to. When we get to my place. I have something there that will explain everything.”

  “Why not start now?”

  “It is a very long story,” Calvi replied. And he felt a strong desire to tell Cohn everything. He had locked a whole life away, hidden from wife, sons, lovers, friends, colleagues; now it wanted to be free: free of the Captain’s orders, or Grunberg’s dark gaze. But it was too soon.

  Calvi turned the car into the driveway. Sergeant Levy parked the Fiat in the shade of the carob tree. From under the dash he took a radio phone and said something into it. Calvi led Cohn into the house.

  “Upstairs,” Calvi said. “In the bathroom.”

  “What makes you sure your house isn’t bugged?” Cohn asked.

  “I’m not. When we get what we need from the bathroom we’ll go outside and sit in the garden.”

  They walked along the dark hall toward the bathroom. A dead quiet filled the house. Calvi felt Gisela’s absence keenly, yet it had been only a few hours since she got on the plane.

  “In here,” Calvi said. He held the door open for Cohn. Cohn went in and turned to Calvi, an expectant look on his face. Calvi leaned in the doorway. “In the closet,” he said, pointing to a door on the opposite side of the bathroom. “On the second shelf from the bottom.”

  Cohn opened the closet door and bent forward. He felt along the shelf with one hand. “It’s at the back,” Calvi said. Cohn knelt on the floor and reached deep into the closet.

  “There’s nothing on the shelf.”

  “Here.” In two strides Calvi crossed the bathroom floor. Cohn heard him coming but before he could move Calvi had thrown a powerful six-inch punch down at his lowered head. It caught him behind the right ear. In the cramped space there was no room to fall. Cohn let his body slide to the tile floor. Calvi stepped back to give him room. As he did he saw Cohn’s hand move to his coat pocket. Calvi fell on top of him and grabbed his wrist with both hands. Even stunned by the blow to his head Cohn was very strong. The nose of the revolver in his hand turned slowly toward Calvi. He drove an elbow into Cohn’s stomach. As the smaller man gasped Calvi cracked his wrist against the corner of the tub. The gun fell to the floor. Calvi grabbed it and struck it, not too hard, against Cohn’s temple. Cohn went limp.

  Calvi touched Cohn’s neck with the tip of his index finger. The pulse was strong. He lifted Cohn into the bathtub and laid him there face down. Before going downstairs he looked out the window. Sergeant Levy was talking to a little boy who stood beside the car.

  In the kitchen Calvi found some electrical wire. He bound Cohn’s hands and feet together so that his arms and legs formed an inverted vee over the bent rocker of his torso. He wound one end of the wire around the shower curtain rod and tied it tightly. Then, stretching its long extension cord to the limit, he brought the telephone from the study into the bathroom. He lowered the cover over the toilet and sat down to wait.

  After a few minutes he heard a low moan from the bathtub. He turned on the tap at the sink and drew a glass of water, which he held to Cohn’s lips. “Are you all right, Moses?” Cohn remained silent, but he swallowed some of the water. “Listen. I am going to call Sarah. I want you to speak to her. Tell her there is a lot to be done on the speech and you probably won’t be home tonight.”

  “The speech,” Cohn said. His voice was thick and bitter. “It was much too easy. You would have let me write anything I wanted. You never had any intention of using it anyway. Did you?” Calvi saw the revolver lying beside the sink and put it in his pocket. “What is the real text, Simon? Rise and slay your fellow Jew?”

  “Don’t be ludicrous.”

  “And who shares this little secret?” Cohn continued, ignoring him. “The Syrians? The Lebanese? The P.L.O.? All of them? Is that what Grunberg’s worrying about? Is it? Answer me!”

  “Don’t make me kill you, Moses,” Calvi said quietly. He heard Cohn breathing heavily in the tub.

  “Why, Simon? Why?”

  Calvi answered with a short barking laugh that was scarcely human.

  “That’s not good enough, Simon. There has to be a better reason for starting a war.”

  “No one is starting a war,” Calvi said angrily. He picked up the telephone. “Now talk to Sarah.”

  “Never. You will have to kill me after all.”

  “That’s very brave, Moses. But is it fair to Sarah, or the three kids?” Cohn was silent. “It’s only two days until the speech, Moses. Then you’ll see them again.”

  “You’d let me go after this?”

  “You will be freed after the speech, I promise you.”

  “But you told me to say I’d be here only for tonight. What about tomorrow and tomorrow night?”

  “We’ll think of something later.”

  Cohn sighed. “All right.” He gave in much too quickly, Calvi thought as he dialed the telephone. He knelt by the tub, leaning over the rim and holding the receiver so that each could hear. His other hand held the gun, pointing to Cohn’s neck. Sarah answered.

  “Mr. Calvi’s office,” she said.

  “Hello, dear.” Cohn lifted his head to speak into the mouthpiece. “It’s me. Listen, I’m very sorry, but I think we’re going to be at this thing all night.”

  “You sound funny, Moses. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, no. We’ve just been arguing, that’s all.”

  “What’s he up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  There was a long pause. “You can’t talk right now, is that it?”

  “No. I can talk. I don’t think he’s up to anything, that’s all.”

  “You certainly change your mind in a hurry,” she said, slightly irritated. “So, you probably won’t be home tonight, is that it?”

  “I’m sorry. Kiss the kids for me.”

  “Sure. Goodbye.” Calvi heard a click, followed by the single note of an unchanging hum. He hung up. Cohn turned his head away. They had nothing more to talk about. Before he left the bathroom Calvi stuck a strip of adhesive tape over Cohn’s mouth.

  He needed a drink. He found nothing in the house but a bottle of vodka. He hated the stuff, but poured a glassful anyway. As he took the first sip the door bell rang. His hand shook as he set the glass on the liquor cabinet. He went to the door.

  Sergeant Levy stood outside, with a thin old woman beside him. Aziza. She carried a large paper bag in both hands.

  “Yes?” Calvi said, opening the door. He heard the tremor in his voice.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Sergeant Levy said. “This woman says she has melons for you.”

  “That’s right. She grows the b
est melons in Israel. Do you want to examine them first?”

  “I already have,” Sergeant Levy replied, smiling. “No bombs. I just wanted to check with you about it.”

  “I appreciate it.” To Aziza he added, “Step inside for a minute. I haven’t got my wallet with me.”

  He led her into the kitchen. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She looked small and out of place in the fancy kitchen. Calvi saw she was afraid. “I came to warn you, Simon. It was the only way I could think of.”

  “Warn me?”

  “Yes.” She had received a letter from an old friend who had hung on in the mellah of Taroudant with the few remaining Jews. Her friend reported that a man had come to the mellah a few weeks before, asking questions about Calvi. No one knew his name; all she could say about him was that he had heavy black eyebrows.

  “What kind of questions?”

  “How well she knew you. How you lived in the mellah. Where your family came from.”

  “And what did she tell him?”

  “Nothing. She thought he was working for the Arabs.”

  “Good.” He was afraid of those questions. Long ago he had left Aziza because she knew some of the answers, left Taroudant and tried to start again in Fez where no one knew him. In this he was successful for a year or two. Later she had followed him to Israel, and demanded not her own rights but those of the boys. Now Grunberg was working back along the trail.

  “Is everything going to be all right, Simon?”

  “Of course.” He took the bag of melons. “Here’s the money for the fruit.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Take it. It has to look right.” He showed her to the door. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but whatever it was stayed inside. Through the window he watched Sergeant Levy watching her walk away. He had forgotten to thank her.

  Calvi finished the glass of vodka and went to bed early. Sleep would not come. In the night he got up and looked in the bathroom. Cohn’s face was turned away but Calvi knew he was awake. He drank another glass of vodka and returned to bed.

  Just after dawn the telephone rang. The caller asked for Simon Calvi. It was a woman, and she spoke English. With an American accent.