“What about everyone else?” he asked.
She fixed him with a look, as if he should have known. “You’re the only one who got picked up.”
“Funny,” he said, though later, walking home in the lowering dusk, the swallows cutting the air, he wondered what it meant. That he was expendable. That he was a decoy. But why draw attention to themselves at all, unless someone wanted him out? It was possible Lipschitz had given him up, except in that case they would have asked him about Asher. Pincus, Scheib, Greta. Victor, Gideon. Edouard. No matter how Brand turned it over, he couldn’t make sense of it, and decided, with the impatience of someone who hasn’t slept in days, that it was something the interrogator told everyone.
The Peugeot was where he’d left it, shining beneath a streetlight. Brand felt a surge of pride, as if he’d outsmarted the entire British army. He only glanced at it in passing, as if it wasn’t his, promising he’d find time to wax it tomorrow.
Though the porch of the boardinghouse was dark, Mrs. Ohanesian’s windows glowed. She caught him before he could reach the stairs.
“Some men came by the other day. They said they were from the police. I told them you were at work.” She seemed to want credit for this, as if it were a brilliant gambit.
“What did they want?”
“They asked to see your room. I gave them the key. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Thank you for letting me know.”
“Of course,” she said, with neighborly sympathy. “I’m afraid they made a mess. I cleaned up the best I could.”
He thanked her again and climbed the stairs, braced for the worst, and then, when he’d lit the stove and adjusted the wick, he saw the radio. The plastic grille was cracked in half, one corner of its red-and-cream Bakelite casing gone. They’d probably dropped it, an unfortunate accident. Through the jagged hole he could see the tubes inside—still intact, as far as he could tell. Mrs. Ohanesian had kept the broken pieces as if Brand might glue them back together. He didn’t expect the radio to work, but plugged it in anyway, turning it on hopefully.
It was dead.
“Bastards.”
The rest of the flat was neat. He owned so little that he could tell instantly if something was missing, and as he cast about he noticed the windowsill was bare, the floor beneath swept clean, no telltale dirt. He thought he’d find the cactus in the trash, the pot smashed to shards, but there was nothing. He checked everywhere, discovering, as he went, that his cigar box was empty.
“Rotten bastards.”
What would they want with a plant? He wondered if Mrs. Ohanesian had come across it withered on the floor and thrown it out.
“I didn’t see anything like that,” she said, baffled.
“Did you close the window?”
Of course she had, so it had been open when they searched the place. Now everything made sense. He circled around the back of the house with an electric torch, tramping through the crypts until he was directly under his window, then paced forward, step by step, sweeping the beam over the weeds and rocks and broken glass. The night was dark and he was exhausted, and when the torch dimmed he heeded the sign and climbed the stairs to bed. In the morning he went down to look again, but he never found it.
10
She was busy Friday night, so he worked late, trying to make back what they’d taken. Once the sun set, the western suburbs were ghost towns, but the new city was alive with neon, the students packing the jazz clubs ringing Zion Square, smoking on the sidewalks, whipping around him on their motorbikes. It might have been Rome. The reckless excitement of wartime. Each night could be their last. After weeks of curfew, everyone not preparing for the Sabbath was out, and Brand the godless profiteer cashed in, shuttling the swells from the tourist hotels to Ben Yehuda Street restaurants offering black market scotch and caviar straight from the Volga.
In the lull, fashionable Jerusalem’s social calendar resumed with a dinner-dance at the King David hosted by Katy Antonius, a widowed Arab socialite who spent her husband’s fortune currying the Mandate’s favor. Her guest list was catholic and international, a mix of dowagers and diplomats, financiers and journalists whose opinions she courted with chateaubriand and old port. Brand had just let off the Swiss consul and his mistress and was counting his mingy tip, when, three cars behind him, floating up the drive, solemn as a hearse the color of smoke, came the Daimler.
All four doors opened before the valets could reach them, and out stepped Emilie de Rothschild, whom Brand was forbidden to see. She was taller and blonder than he recalled, with the flawless skin of a movie star. She wore black, her skirt slit high up the thigh, exposing a coltish flank. He folded his money and shoved the wad in his pocket, then, knowing he should resist, glanced at the mirror again. He didn’t recognize the driver, also tall and fair, possibly American, with a strong chin, but identified the wiry man climbing out of the backseat, dark as a Yemeni in a beautiful pinstripe suit—even before he saw the scar—as Gideon. The last of the foursome, half obscured by the car as she joined the others on the curb, fetching in a red dress Brand had zipped her into a dozen times, was Eva.
A brazen assassination or more reconnaissance, the mission smacked of Asher. The only reason he wasn’t there himself, Brand realized, was his face. Like Begin, he had to fight by proxy now. Brand thought it would be harder waiting back in Nablus, though, knowing Asher, he was probably already plotting the next operation.
Gideon took Eva’s hand, the driver took Emilie de Rothschild’s, and they joined the other couples inside.
Had they seen him, alert, like spies, for every detail, or were they too busy playacting? He could have driven them. Maybe they no longer trusted him, after having been detained, and she couldn’t tell him. As he mulled what it all meant, a valet swung the Daimler past him and left onto Julian’s Way, signaling and turning up the drive again, giving the car privilege of place at the front of the queue, as if for a quick getaway. It was possible he was theirs too, the plan elaborate, split-second. Since Brand wasn’t part of it, he decided it would be better if he cleared out, yet as he rolled the Peugeot down the drive, he was frowning, his brow furrowed as if he weren’t sure.
She’d said nothing to him, just as, for her own safety, he’d said nothing about Major Chadwick. He’d felt guilty, keeping that lethal secret from her, though finally Asher was right: she didn’t need to know. He couldn’t blame her. They all followed protocol for a reason.
For the same reason, the next night, lying beside her, he didn’t ask what the mission was, or how late she came home, or with whom. It wasn’t just protocol. Since he’d been released she spoiled him, baking cookies and serenading him in bed as if he’d been away for years. She told stories about her brother and her grandmother with the sight and hummed lullabies from her childhood, her head resting on his chest, her hair smelling of vanilla. Drowsy with brandy, he held her in the warm dark, not wanting to break the spell.
Normally she preferred being left to herself Sunday night, but this time she asked him to stay. She made an elaborate coq au vin, and after dinner opened a vintage bottle of cognac she’d been saving.
“What’s the occasion?”
“This is what I do every Sunday. You’re just never here.”
Later, as they slow-danced to the phonograph, her head nestled against his shoulder, she cleared her throat and began hitching, and he realized she was crying. The husband. An anniversary, maybe. He knew to let it pass instead of asking what was wrong, kept swaying and rubbing her back. Before the song ended, she recovered, dabbing at a tear with a knuckle and smiling at her own silliness, her scar forming a twisted dimple. As always, he saw them as if he were hovering in a corner of the room, and wondered what Katya would think. Brand the pushover, Brand the dupe.
“Remember you said we could go anywhere in the world,” she said, sniffling. “Where should we go?”
“Right here,” Brand said.
“No, somewhere far away. Somewhere no o
ne would bother us.”
“Tahiti.”
“That’s where I want to go.”
“We’ll go,” he said. “I have money.”
“You don’t have that much money.”
“We’ll have a grass hut right on the beach and I’ll catch fish for our dinner.”
“We’ll sleep in a hammock,” she said.
“And shake coconuts out of the trees.”
“You’d get sunburnt.”
“So would you.”
“I’d turn brown and wear a flower in my hair.”
She seemed better, though he knew she was only playing along for his sake. Her tears were real, her laughter an act, while Brand’s optimism was false, never quite masking the open grave of the past. When weren’t they pretending?
In bed he couldn’t get the husband and Katya out of his mind, and then fell victim to a confused nightmare in which Asher’s face merged with his, the bruised flesh rotted and soft as an old pumpkin. He was in his car, waiting at the Zion Gate checkpoint. Somehow he knew they knew who he was, and to disguise himself, with his fingernails he began peeling off wet strips of skin. As blood filled his mouth, salty as seawater, Asher’s and then his own face disappeared, and the eyes watching him from the rearview mirror were no longer his but Koppelman’s, rolling back like they had when Nosey crushed his skull. The Tommies were coming with their dogs. The cars in front and behind were too close, and there was nowhere to go. In the morning he blamed it on the coq au vin and didn’t tell Eva.
Like every Monday, they left for the King David at eleven thirty. She liked to be early, so did he, another way in which they were sympathetic. The Zion Gate was slow, giving him a chance to buy a Post from an enterprising newsboy, but there was no problem getting through. They took Abraham Lincoln, leaving the Old City behind. It was hot, and they rode with the windows open, her hair blowing across her face like a second veil. He almost wished he hadn’t stayed the night. After being so close, it was harder to let go. He would never get used to delivering her. He rolled up the drive and took the last shady spot under the portico. It was almost time.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, fixing her hair in the mirror.
“Why not?”
She shook her pendant at him like a talisman. “Because I love you, stupid.”
He laughed as if it were a joke. Inwardly he was thrilled. She’d never said it before.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“Here?”
He twisted in his seat so she could reach him.
She held his face in her hands. “I don’t want to do this, but it has to be done. Please understand.”
“I do,” he said, because she was serious. She’d had a double cognac before they left, and this last week she’d been emotional, talking about how she looked for her brother after the war. Brand reciprocated, saying he never found any of his family, but left out the story of Crow Forest. Now he felt selfish.
“Remember Tahiti.” She fished in her purse for a compact and fixed her lipstick. “Go eat your lunch. I hate thinking of you waiting for me.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I do. Go, please.”
“We’ll go out tonight,” he offered as she was walking away.
He wasn’t sure she heard. She turned and blew him a kiss, waved for him to take off. The doorman opened the door for her, and she was gone.
As if to prove his devotion, he stayed. Stoic Brand. Much as he despised Mondays, he had his routine, and this time of day finding a shady spot was a bonus. The lunch rush was beginning, the lobby bar filling with businessmen. He opened the Post, resting it against the steering wheel, and settled in. The high commissioner had flown back to Whitehall for a meeting with Churchill. The Anglo-American committee was visiting Poland to decide the future of European Jewry. As he pored over the stories, last night’s dream intruded, his nails digging into Asher’s face, peeling away the skin like rind. He was surprised Lipschitz hadn’t made an appearance, having haunted him so constantly, or Katya. He never dreamed of his mother and father, only pictured them being marched down the snowy road hand in hand, which was wishful and probably wrong, and had to shake his head, like now, to banish the idea.
He turned on the radio—piano music. Not the soothing movements Mrs. Ohanesian favored, but a wild flurry of notes racing up and down the scale like stairs, and he lowered the volume.
He was in the middle of an editorial speculating on how the Jewish Agency would function with most of its leaders in prison when a Poppy with a tommy gun exited the front doors, stalked to the far edge of the drive and peered over the wall. There was a sunken service entrance below where trucks made deliveries, a fact Brand had noted on his map, and as he imagined the possibilities, the Poppy raised the stock to his shoulder and fired.
The doorman didn’t budge, as if this was normal. Brand’s instinct was to drop the paper and throw the car in reverse, but, afraid of calling attention to himself, stayed put.
The Poppy let off a second burst. There was a crackling as someone below opened up, making him duck, and the pap! pap! of a single-shot pistol. A cloud of thick gray smoke rose from below, eclipsing him for a moment before he retreated, carrying his gun in one hand, barrel down, as he ran for the doors. The doorman let him in as if he were a guest and stood aside again.
After a minute the smoke dissipated, leaving an acrid taste. A smoke grenade. Asher had shown him one in the lab. They were expensive and hard to get.
No other soldiers ran out, no plainclothesmen from the hotel. They were probably in the basement, and Brand thought he should take off while he had the chance, except Eva was inside. She’d told him to leave. He hadn’t listened, and now it was too late. From the street, shocking as a crack of lightning, came an explosion like the mail car going up. When he turned toward the noise, he saw a bus listing like a freighter rolled by a tidal wave. It tilted precariously, hung balanced for a second on two wheels before capsizing, landing on its side with a crash that sent a tremor through the Peugeot.
This the doorman couldn’t ignore, and though Brand knew the blast was probably Asher’s work, he joined him, chucking his Post and running down the drive to see how he could help. Across Julian’s Way the bomb had blown out the shop windows. People were slowly emerging, groggy with shock. Closer, a dusty jeep sat sideways in the middle of the street. A woman in army khaki staggered toward them, clutching her face, blood pouring between her fingers. The doorman took her arm and helped her to the curb while Brand ran on. The soldiers from the guardhouse were already climbing the bus. The air raid siren wound up, filling the sky with its warning, as if there were more on the way.
“Stand clear!” a Poppy ordered, holding out a palm like a traffic cop, and Brand detoured around the other side, where the rusty undercarriage of the bus was leaking diesel fuel and a soldier above him lowered a moaning Arab woman into his arms. She was old, and light as kindling. Her shoulder was broken, and with his every step she cried out. Not knowing where to take her, he made for the curb and the bleeding Englishwoman until a soldier pointed him through the barbed wire beside the guardhouse to a walkway that led directly to the south wing and the suddenly unguarded doors of the Secretariat.
Was that Asher’s plan? Brand imagined the woman—everyone on the bus—was smuggling a grenade under her burkha, except her arm was useless and her cries were real, and before Brand reached the guardhouse another squad of Poppies arrived and took her from him, steering him back to the street. The pool of diesel fuel had spread, and the pavement was a welter of footprints. He expected nails and screws strewn everywhere, but there were just a few jagged scraps of tin—the bomb’s container, whatever it was. Someone had set a stepladder against the bus, and a brigade of rescuers was handing down the injured. He helped another grandmother who was more worried about her missing shoes than the gash on her forehead. As he bore her toward the guardhouse, promising he’d look for them, a twittering of girlish voices drifted down from above. Acr
oss the imposing stone face of the south wing, the Mandate’s file clerks and stenographers lined the balconies, gawking at the carnage. Higher up, peering down from the roof’s edge with a pair of field glasses, stood a jet-haired woman in bright red lipstick. At that distance it was impossible to tell, but for a second, before he registered her white blouse, he thought it might be Eva.
Impossible, unless she was in disguise. He wouldn’t put it past her, or Asher. He wasn’t meant to be a spy. They would always be a step ahead of him.
He handed his charge over to a soldier. When he glanced up again, the woman was gone.
In the bus there were dozens of sandals, some of them bloody. The soldiers weren’t interested in retrieving them, and shooed Brand to the far sidewalk. A line had formed outside a drugstore, waiting for first aid. From what he could piece together, a man dressed as an Arab porter had rolled a cart of melons up the walk with the bomb hidden inside, lit the fuse and pushed it into the street, then run off behind the YMCA. Brand thought it was probably meant for the guardhouse—the bus had gotten in the way. None of them mentioned the shooting by the service entrance, or the smoke grenade, and he wondered if it was supposed to be a diversion. Asher wouldn’t be happy. He hadn’t spent all that trouble on a bus.
The Y’s bell tower pealed the half hour, its cheery carillon strangely out of place. Seconds later, as if to disperse the crowd, the all clear sounded, a single sustained wail rising from all sides, blaring, going on too long, then finally winding down. On the balconies, clumps of stragglers lingered, not ready to return to their desks just yet. In the street the bus lay in its slick of diesel like a torpedoed submarine. Someone had pulled the jeep into the drive of the King David, and as Brand passed, he saw the dash was dotted with blood. It would smell awful baking in the sun like that all day, an observation he shared with the doorman. Within minutes a red-jacketed valet appeared with a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush and set to work with an industry Brand admired.
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