“Figure you and that Arab don’t much care for each other,” Burns observed.
“No, we don’t.”
“Figure he did something bad to you.”
“Yes, it was bad.”
“Glad I didn’t sell to him.”
Chapter 57
After that Herschel Kol fretted about the security of the various operations sponsored by Sonneborn’s Institute, but there was nothing he could do. His job was to amass weaponry, not engage in counterespionage, as he was repeatedly reminded by his superiors.
It was inevitable that a certain amount of sensitive information would leak. The several dozen wealthy Jews who formed the Institute’s core, along with the many volunteers from all walks of life, could not be insulted with investigations or cross-examinations. Herschel was reminded that the Palestinians were in America as guests and supplicants. If on occasion a contributor committed an indiscretion, that was to be expected, even condoned. As many new connections had been made as secrets lost in such fashion. Herschel let the matter drop, resolving privately to keep a tighter rein on the security of his own group.
He did all he could on his own to try and ferret out Ahmed’s whereabouts. He even asked Benny Talkin to lend a hand, but all efforts came to nothing. At last he forced himself to put the incident out of his mind. He and Jibarn Ahmed would one day meet again; it was inevitable. It was time to get back to work on the Canadian venture.
* * *
Throughout the fall of 1946 Herschel and Rebecca continued their meetings in coffee shops, hotel lobbies, cocktail lounges. Finally all the telephone calls had been made, all the groundwork laid. Rebecca scheduled a business trip to Toronto for the first week in November. Herschel would travel there separately and they would meet with some who were willing to help transform Wilbur Burns’ designs into reality.
Pickman listened quietly as Becky told him the real reason behind her trip to Toronto. They were seated on the sofa in their living room overlooking Central Park. Carl took Becky’s hand as she spoke excitedly of the progress she’d made on that fellow Kol’s behalf. He had known before this Becky was working with Kol, but those meetings had lasted only an hour or so once or twice a week. Now she was asking his blessing on a week-long trip with him to another city. Carl trusted his wife; fidelity was not a concern. It was just that he felt excluded from this Palestine work; never mind that he wanted to be kept out of it. He was jealous of the way it monopolized Becky’s time. It made him feel very lonely, very old. At the same time he knew he could not forbid the trip, much as he dreaded her being away.
“You and Herschel have gotten to be good friends, I imagine.”
Becky looked thoughtful. “I suppose. For the time being, anyway,” she said somewhat cynically. “I don’t have any real friends.”
Carl was troubled. “What about Grace Turner and Phil?”
For a moment Becky looked angry, but then she affectionately squeezed his hand. “I guess we’re so busy we hardly listen to one another. Don’t you remember what I’ve told you about my differences with Phil?”
“Have you?” Carl frowned.
Becky kissed him. “My absent-minded artist. Lucky for you I’m not the sort of wife who likes to chase her errant husband with a rolling pin.”
“Yes.” Carl nodded, not really listening. “What?”
“I said like Jiggs and Maggie, you know, the comics.”
“Yes, of course, dear. It’s just that someone the other day castigated me on my forgetting something.” His brow furrowed. “Who was it?”
“If you came into the store more often you’d be more up on what’s going on.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Carl mused. “Anyway, what about your friendship with Grace?”
Becky shrugged. “Grace and I haven’t really been close for a long time,” she sighed. “I thought my promoting her would draw us closer together, but the opposite has happened. She’s always polite and respectful, always ready to chat, but she keeps her distance. I’m afraid the only thing that I’ve accomplished by promoting Grace is antagonizing Phil.”
“That’s what comes from having power and authority, my dear,” Carl said sympathetically. “The trappings of success afford one respect, but affection is another matter entirely.”
“Carl, it would help if you came into the office more often. I know it would. Everyone misses you. I think sometimes they blame me for your absence. I know that’s silly, but—”
“I understand. I—well, I haven’t wanted to burden you, Becky, but I haven’t been feeling well, I’ve been having bad headaches. It’s annoying, really. I wake up and within an hour the pain is on me. It lessens toward evening, but I’m getting so little done . . .”He paused. “My dear, you’re crying.”
Becky rested her head on his shoulder. “I thought you were unhappy with me or—I didn’t know what to think.” She rubbed her wet eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you were ill? How long has it been going on?”
“Since last year, I’m afraid.” He felt sheepish. “Perhaps you should be chasing me with that rolling pin. At first I just dismissed it as the result of warm weather. Then when the headaches began—Well, I suppose I’ve just been waiting and hoping that whatever it is would go away.”
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“Yes, but he wanted me to check into the hospital for tests, and I didn’t want to begin our marriage that way.”
“Well, you must go now.”
“Yes, but not while you’re away, my dear—”
“Then I’ll cancel the trip.”
“You can’t. It means too much to too many people. You simply have to go. I’ll make arrangements to check into the hospital after you’ve come back. I just can’t bear to be away from our home and you at the same time, my love. A few weeks now aren’t going to make any difference. Most likely the tests will turn out inconclusive anyway. I suppose I’m just getting old. I know that I haven’t been very much of a husband to you, Becky.” He thought about the young, dynamic Palestinian. Did she regret it when she left that fellow to come home to him? “This last year has been one of the happiest in my life, but what about you? Are you sorry you married me?”
“No, Carl. I love you. Remember what I said before about not having friends? Well, we’re friends, Carl, kindred souls. What we have is much more than I’ve seen in other marriages. When you’re well, when you’ve regained your strength, we’ll take some time off. We’ll go back to Salem Farm. We’ll go to the stables and make love in the hay—”
Carl, his heart pounding, pressed his face into her hair. “I love you so much.”
* * *
Toronto in November was a grey and frigid city. To Herschel it was just one more strange place he had to endure. The winters in this part of the world were long and debilitating. Herschel was both mentally and physically exhausted. How he missed his mother and Yol, how he missed Degania. There’d been letters during his twenty months in America, but they could never substitute for a loved one’s embrace or the smell of cornflowers and the look of Galilee’s rugged hills beyond the fertile fields.
He and Rebecca stayed in different hotels. She was in the luxurious Toronto Hilton. His own compulsion to spend as little as possible on himself led him to a clean but depressing little pension near the Yonge Street shopping district.
Rebecca, it turned out, had business other than his to conduct. Herschel spent two days waiting, lying on his bed in his room, listening to the wind sweeping off Lake Ontario.
On Wednesday evening Becky gave a dinner in a steak house that overlooked the city’s harbor. Her guests were Horace Crown, who supplied wooden hangers to department stores, and burly pockmarked Max Ross, the former chief engineer at the John Inglis Company of Toronto, which manufactured Browning automatic weapons.
It was a wonderful meal, and Herschel, who rarely drank, ended up giddy from the wine. Thanks to Becky, everything quickly and easily fell into place. Horace Crown even volunteered to fund the project. Tomorrow
Herschel and Max Ross would get together to hammer out the specifics.
After dinner Herschel was excited, unable to bear the thought of returning to his dreary pension. He begged Becky to join him for a drink in the restaurant’s lounge. She seemed reluctant, but he reminded her that they’d had many such private meetings back in New York, so what harm could there be in a drink tonight?
The lounge was a shadowy, candlelit place. They were shown to a secluded table with comfortable leather chairs and a majestic view of the harbor. When their drinks came, Herschel lifted his glass to Becky. “You were magnificent tonight. You managed everything. When Crown offered to pay, I nearly stood up and cheered.”
Becky laughed, pleased. “I’m glad to see you so happy. I knew Horace would come up with the money. Believe me, he can afford it, and right now I don’t think any Jew who is well off could say no.”
“They say no to me, but nobody could refuse you,” Herschel heard himself say. “You are far too lovely.”
Becky looked away, obviously discomforted, and Herschel was embarrassed into chattering. “Yes, you are most definitely a heroine of Zionism. I thought my mother could command a meeting, but you, Becky—one-two-three, you could be the leader of a kibbutz.”
Her laughter sounded grateful, Herschel thought, himself greatly relieved. When Becky lit a cigarette he asked if he could have one, reaching for the pack.
“I thought you didn’t smoke.”
“I haven’t since prison,” he blurted, and then it was his turn to look away. He toyed with the cigarettes and then put them down. “It was a British prison,” he said weakly, wincing. “I’m talking like a fool. It’s the alcohol going to my head, I suppose—that and being here with you in this strange city. I feel I’m dreaming. Anything is possible.”
“I knew about prison,” Becky said. “When we first began working together someone from the Institute approached me and told me you were a terrorist.”
“I’m not. I’m not looking to terrorize anyone. I want only to return to my home and live in peace.”
“I understand that. Tell me about Palestine. What’s it like, living in a kibbutz? My husband claims people weren’t meant to live like bees in a hive. He says once the necessities of life are provided, it’s only natural to revert to capitalism.” She paused.
“Carl’s possessions mean a lot to him, but I don’t think I’d mind not owning things very much as long as my work was interesting and everyone was friendly to me.” She searched his face. “What I’ve read said that everyone on a kibbutz is very protective of one another, that there is no loneliness, no cause for shyness, that everyone takes care of one another.”
“It is like that to a degree,” Herschel replied, “but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there are never any spats. Despite what your husband may think, Socialists are individuals, not insects.”
He began to tell her about his childhood at Degania, about what it was like to be the child of pioneers in a raw, unsettled land. He talked quietly and plainly of the beauty of Palestine and of the pride its people felt in building cities upon the shifting sands and turning swamps into gardens.
It had been so long since he’d let his guard down to speak of his past, his fears and his aspirations. As he spoke he watched Becky’s reactions. She listened intently, nodding now and then, asking an occasional question, but mostly looking beautiful in the lambent candlelight, looking approving, looking admiring. Maybe she cared for him a little.
He downed his Scotch and ordered another. He talked of the adolescent, vulgar vitality of Tel Aviv and of the holy serenity of Jerusalem. He talked of orange groves and the Mediterranean, of hiding from the Turks during the First World War and of killing Arabs in defense of Degania later in the service of the Irgun. He talked about his mother and Yol.
If there’d been time, he probably would have found the courage to talk about his father and a certain unmarked grave close to Degania. If there’d been time, he might have told her that his family name was not Kol, but Kolesnikoff, that his father was able to reach the Holy Land thanks to the kindness of a guardian named Abe Herodetzky, that his father helped sire both Tel Aviv and Degania.
But long before he could bring himself to reveal so much, the waitress came to tell them that the cocktail lounge was closing. Herschel, his throat dry, realized he’d been talking for hours.
Becky let him pay for their drinks. He offered to escort her in a taxi back to her hotel, and she accepted. As they waited for the doorman to flag one he was acutely aware of her arm in his.
In the cab he told her, “Someday you must come to Palestine and see it with your own eyes. Perhaps my country would work its magic on you and you would stay.”
“Oh, what could I do there?”
“You would live, thrive, and the country would thrive with you. In my country what one individual decides to do with life still makes a difference. Perhaps if we are fortunate it always shall.”
“Perhaps some day you’ll show me all this beauty first-hand.” Her collar was turned up, framing her face. The cold had brought a blush to her cheeks and her lips looked delicious.
Thought and action became one. His fingers turned her head and tilted up her chin, and then his lips touched hers. She submitted to his kiss, or seemed to submit, but then she pushed him away and turned her head to the window.
“Y-you shouldn’t have done that.”
Her voice was hushed; was it a whisper or a sob?
“I love you,” Herschel said, as surprised as she but sure it was the truth.
“No, you don’t, Herschel. That’s just the whiskey and the night and your own loneliness talking. Believe me, I know.” She was still turned away.
“You must not be angry with me, Becky.”
“I’m not.” She turned to look at him and squeezed his hand. “Listen to me. I’m married. I love my husband very much. You are far away from your home. You’ve grown fond of me because you’re lonely. That’s all right, Herschel. I’ve grown fond of you as well.”
“Then let me make love to you, Becky.”
“Try and understand, Herschel. This isn’t easy for me to say.” She stroked his cheek. “I want to too, but I won’t. All I have that matters besides my work is my honor. If I betray my husband, my honor will be gone.”
“We are so distant from New York. He would never know—”
“I would know.”
“Perhaps he cheats on you,” Herschel said, frustrated and angry. If she wished to love him, why wouldn’t she?
“I don’t think he does.” Becky smiled. “But it wouldn’t matter if he did. If all the world cheated, I still wouldn’t. All I’ve got is my work and my honor.”
The hotel loomed and the doorman was approaching.
“It doesn’t matter, really,” Herschel whispered. “In our circumstances just saying you wished to is as important as doing it.”
Then the doorman had the door open and Becky was getting out. “Good night, Herschel,” she said. Then she was gone, leaving behind the lingering fragrance of her perfume.
Herschel gave the driver the address of his pension and the taxi pulled away. Now that Becky was gone and the Scotch was wearing off, Herschel began to wonder if he hadn’t done something worse than act like a fool. He wondered if he had done something dreadful to Becky.
He was mortified; he pressed his hot, flushed forehead to the cool glass of the taxi window. He had repaid her efforts to save his country by groping at her as if she were a whore.
He spent a fitful, sleepless night with his recriminations. The next day he scribbled a note of abject apology and sent it off with some flowers to Becky at her hotel. The flowers came back to the florist, who reported to Herschel that Mrs. Pickman had checked out of the hotel early that morning.
Herschel understood. She had left Toronto because she could not bring herself to see him again. He didn’t blame her; he hated himself for his behavior.
During his appointment with Max Ross the engineer
mentioned that it was a hell of a thing about Mrs. Pickman’s husband.
“What do you mean?” Herschel asked.
“I guess you haven’t heard.” Ross shrugged. “I only found out because I talked to Horace Crown this morning. They found Carl Pickman dead last night.”
“The housekeeper says Carl went out for his walk around six Wednesday night, and the doorman remembers warning him to mind the ice on the sidewalks.” Norman Collins shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why Carl would have wanted to go out for a stroll on a cold, dark November night.”
“He’d been having bad headaches during the day.” As Becky spoke she struggled to keep her tone emotionless and her grief and shock under control. “They went away toward evening. Wednesday night he’d probably been feeling better and wanted some air.”
It was Friday morning and Becky was in Norman Collins’ walnut-paneled study. The lawyer was in his sixties, a short, slender man with an abundance of snow-white, fluffy hair and a walrus mustache. He favored fancy walking sticks and tweedy country squire suits custom tailored in England. For the past three decades he had been Carl’s attorney and his closest friend.
“I’m sorry about the autopsy, Becky,” Collins told her. “There was nothing I could do to prevent it. The authorities were adamant. It’s not every day a man of Carl’s stature is found lying dead in a city park. I’m just glad that I was able to keep most of this out of the newspapers.”
Becky nodded. “I understand and I’m grateful for everything.”
Collins called her in Toronto late Wednesday night with the terrible news and made reservations for her on the first flight home Thursday morning. He sent his limousine to meet her at the airport and all that day he dealt with the authorities while Becky made the funeral arrangements. The burial was at four, just before sunset.
“Don’t forget that Carl was my friend,” Collins said, waving aside her expressions of gratitude, “and don’t forget that I’m your friend as well. It’s been years since Carl introduced us so I could look after that building of yours downtown. I must admit that initially I concerned myself with it purely as a favor to Carl. Even then I could sense that you were quite special to him.”
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