Sprawled on the bed thumbing through a day-old edition of Le Monde, he was sipping his second glass of Chivas Regal when the sounds of a scuffle in the hallway interrupted his reading. He went to the door, pulled it open, and the same two officers shoved the girl into the room. “Oh no,” he whispered to himself. It wasn’t Rachael! This girl was tall, thin, and at least ten years Rachael’s senior.
“What about the other girl?” he asked, trying to keep his face from registering any alarm.
“She’s been arrested. We brought you this one instead.”
“There’s not much difference between them,” the other officer added.
The girl looked down at the floor, trembling.
“Call us when you’re done.” The officers turned toward the hallway.
“Just one more thing,” Ari said, his words halting them in place. “Why was the first girl arrested?”
The taller of the two looked back. “Because she’s a Jew.”
Before Ari could ask if there was any connection between Rachael’s visit to the hotel and her arrest, they were gone. As the door slammed shut behind them, tears burst from the girl’s eyes.
“Please don’t cry, I’m not going to hurt you,” Ari sad. He went to the dresser, poured two glasses of Scotch, and extended one toward her. She vigorously shook her head no. He pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. “Sit down,” he said. She stood pressed against the wall, riveted in place. He pushed his own glass away; he didn’t want it either. “You won’t be harmed, please sit.” She darted toward the chair and fell into it, clasping her arms across her chest, trying to keep them from shaking. Ari took a chair from next to the bed and sat across from her. “What’s your name?”
“Saliha Maaruf.”
The name was not familiar. Tsur, who had briefed him in detail on the inhabitants of the ghetto, had not mentioned a Maaruf family. Ari thought about the man he had seen in the lobby and the sudden arrest of Rachael; there had to be some connection. Her arrest on the heels of her visit to the hotel was too much of a coincidence. Some extra sense inside of him warned of a trap.
“What happened to Rachael Khatib?” he asked.
The girl drew her legs tight together and seemed to collapse into herself.
“What happened to Rachael?” he repeated.
“She was arrested.”
“I know that. When and why?”
Saliha hesitated, then spoke rapidly with nervous inflections. “The morning after she came here to the hotel, the soldiers took her and her father away. They don’t tell you why, when they’re coming back, if they’re coming back.” The girl broke into tears again.
Ari took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. He wanted to believe this girl was legitimate, that she was a Jewess randomly selected to serve as Rachael’s substitute; but he held back. If he gave the details of Operation Goshen to a Second Bureau agent he would soon find himself dangling from a rope in Marjeh Square. “How do you know Rachael came to this hotel?” he asked.
Saliha dried her eyes. “Everybody in the haret knew it. Jewish women, alone, never venture far from their apartments. Rachael was taken to spend the night in a fancy hotel with a German, then she was arrested. It is not the type of thing that remains a secret.”
Ari got up, retrieved a glass of Scotch from the dresser, and drank half of it in a gulp. “What did she say about the night she spent here?”
“Nothing.”
“What did she say?” he repeated roughly.
“That you yelled, beat her, and made her….” The rest of her sentence dissolved into a torrent of tears.
If this girl is working for the Syrians she’s a damn good actress, he thought to himself.
“We assumed she didn’t please you,” Saliha continued between choked sobs. “And that’s why you had her arrested.”
Ari drained his glass and reached for the bottle, his hand shaking noticeably. Each question drove more strength out of him. He gripped the edge of the dresser to steady himself. He believed this girl was telling the truth—he wanted to believe it. Her anguish was too pervasive, the fear in her eyes, stark naked, real. She was terrified that she was next, that she would be beaten, raped, and thrown into a prison cell.
“I did not have Rachael arrested,” he said softly.
A puzzled look of uncertainty clouded her face; she stopped crying.
“Do you know Yakov Dahman?” he asked quickly, mentioning the name of the recent escapee who had come to Kibbutz Revivim to speak with him.
She started to answer, then stopped and lowered her eyes. “No, I never heard of him,” she said after a moment.
He sensed that she was lying, that she was afraid to talk about a Jew who had escaped. Or, he asked himself, was that just what he wanted to believe? Maybe she really was a Syrian agent who had never heard of Dahman; that would explain why neither he nor Tsur had mentioned the Maaruf family—they didn’t exist. Ari could not ignore the possibility that Rachael had been arrested to get her out of the way, so that the Second Bureau could plant this informer near him. He had to decide immediately; either he risked trusting her or he aborted Operation Goshen. There could be no delaying his decision. If he did not sleep with her and she really was a Jewess, he would lose the trust of the Jewish community, who at the moment already blamed him for the arrest of Rachael and her father.
“Tell me about Ibrahim Sassoon,” Ari demanded, searching for some way to determine if she came from the Jewish quarter or the Second Bureau.
“The Rabbi?”
Ari nodded. “What happened to him during the Yom Kippur War?”
She looked down at the floor. “He was tied to the gate of the Al-Frange Synagogue, arms spread out like a cross. Then he was beaten with palm branches.”
“What about Rachael’s brother? What do you know about him?”
“He doesn’t live in Damascus anymore.”
“Where does he live?”
“Israel,” she said.
“What city?”
She mumbled something.
“What city does he live in?” Ari asked angrily.
She cleared her throat. “Haifa, he lives in Haifa.”
“And his name?”
“Yair.”
“And Eli Dahman, where does he live?” Ari shouted.
“In Israel,” she whimpered. “Don’t ask me which city. We just heard that he was smuggled across the Lebanese border. That’s all I know.”
Ari paced the room. “Why did you lie to me before when I asked if you knew him?”
“I was afraid,” she cried out, bursting into tears again. “It’s illegal for Jews to leave Syria. I could be put in jail just for knowing he’s in Israel.”
“Recite the first paragraph of Israel’s Confession of Faith,” he demanded.
She stared at him, a puzzled look of bewilderment on her face.
“Don’t you know the Shema?” he asked accusingly.
“Va’ahavta et Adonai eloheha b’chol l’vavcha…”
“Enough,” he said. “That’s enough.” He went to the dresser and refilled his glass. The bottle was half empty. He knew that all he had succeeded in proving was that she was either a Jewess or a highly trained agent. And if the Second Bureau had sent somebody after him, it would not be a sloppily arranged affair.
He touched the Chivas Regal to his lips, then stopped. He had surpassed his limit and he knew it. He set the Scotch down.
“Why are you asking me all these questions?” she asked, sitting back in the chair, pushing herself as far away from him as possible.
He stared at her for a long time, hoping that something in her eyes would tip him in either direction. “Because I’m an Israeli,” he said finally, wondering if he had just pronounced his death sentence.
She looked at him in disbelief. “But Rachael said that you…”
“She really could not go around broadcasting that she had met with a representative of the Israeli government,” Ari interrupted her
.
“But the arrest?”
“I didn’t know anything about it until tonight.”
Suddenly a look of terror crossed her face. “You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me. I’m going to be beaten and put in jail like Rachael.”
He went to the dresser drawer, took out the chocolate bars, and handed them to her. They were soft; the heat had melted them. “As a former Nazi and an Arab sympathizer I don’t have to trick you, I can take whatever I want. I have nothing to gain by pretending to be an Israeli.”
She stared at him for a long time, the fear in her eyes fading. “Why are you here? What does Rachael have to do with it?”
“We’ll talk in a few minutes. First, eat the chocolate; it’s imported from Switzerland.”
Ari moved out onto the narrow balcony and stared down at the noisy, neon-lit city—at the muddy Barada River with its concrete banks, at the dark windows of the Tajhiz Secondary School directly across from the hotel. A warm, sandy breeze blew across Damascus from the El Hamad Desert. The wailing refrains of Fairuz, Syria’s favorite singer, rolled from a transistor radio on the balcony above him. Feeling the fear of isolation, Ari turned and went back inside.
The chocolates still lay on the girl’s lap; she hadn’t touched them. Lowering himself to the edge of the bed, he smiled at her. “Do you know Nissim Kimche?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s the Headmaster of the Alliance school. He lives on Tel el Hadjara Street near the old Dahdah Palace.”
As she began to calm down he noticed her brown eyes, no longer fearful, were large and sad. He touched her hand. “You can eat the candy, there’s nothing in it.”
She nodded and carefully began unwrapping the foil cover on one of the bars.
He waited until she had bit off a piece of the cream-filled chocolate and swallowed it.
“Rachael was going to contact Headmaster Kimche and relay a message to him. I have no idea if she had time to do so. For now I have to assume that she did not.” The girl stared at him, silently chewing the chocolate. “I want you to take her place. Do you think you could tell the Headmaster something for me without anyone else overhearing?”
“I don’t know.” She fingered the candy bars nervously and looked away. “I’m afraid.”
“I understand, but it’s important, otherwise I wouldn’t ask. You might be saving the lives of some of your friends. And I promise, it won’t be dangerous.” He held her hand in his. “Will you do it?”
A hard silence. Finally she nodded. “All right.”
“Good. The message is short; just tell Nissim Kimche to arrange for his and Rabbi Sassoon’s children to be in the basement of the Alliance school at precisely 7:00 P.M. on the twenty-second, that’s eleven days from now. You needn’t be concerned about anything else.”
“But what should I say if he asks why?”
“Don’t worry, he won’t.” Her question made him uneasy; details were the first thing a Syrian agent would want.
“Is that all?” She had expected something much more complicated.
“Yes, except you are not to let anyone but Kimche know you met an Israeli agent; everyone else is to think you were sexually molested.”
She nodded, exhaling tensely. She looked worn out.
“Are you tired?’
“Very.”
“All right,” he said, rising. “We’ll continue this in the morning.” His steps unsteady, he crossed the room and bolted the front door. He wanted no uninvited intruders. “I’ll sleep in the small bed. You can stay here.”
“Thank you,” she said, as he closed the adjoining room door behind him.
Kicking off his shoes, he sat on the edge of the narrow bed, then stretched out. The tiredness seemed to explode from him. The thoughts inside his head were jumbled, confused. He knew he had to work things out, grapple with his uncertainties, decide what to do next. But the ability to fit a pattern over the last days’ events eluded him. Suddenly he wondered if Karl Richtman hadn’t been right in Frankfurt; maybe he was too tired. He closed his eyes and the Scotch spun inside his head. He fell asleep wondering if Saliha worked for Sarraj, hoping she was legitimate, and that a fate similar to Rachael’s did not await her departure from the hotel.
There was a knocking on the bedroom door. Ari opened one eye just enough to discern that it was morning, then let himself sink deeper into the mattress. The knocking grew louder. He strained to wake up, sweating in his sleep. The last weeks had exhausted him, but he’d be fine as soon as he was out of bed and functioning. Finally, he forced himself into full consciousness. Realizing to his dismay that he was fully clothed, he wiped his forehead on the pillow case and unbuttoned his shirt, allowing the air to flow against his damp collar. The tapping on his door continued. He slipped on his shoes and thought about the girl who was trying to rouse him, hoping he had done the right thing in trusting her.
He opened the door.
“The phone was ringing and I thought it might be important,” she said self-consciously. “But it’s stopped now.”
Ari affected a smile in an attempt to calm her.
“What do you want me to do?”
Ari looked at her bed; the covers were tangled and draped half over the floor. She hadn’t spent a peaceful night either. “If you don’t mind, you could make the bed in the small room,” he said. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll do both of them,” she volunteered.
“No, just do the one.” She nodded and hurried past him into the adjacent bedroom. He moved toward the window. Taking the Chivas Regal from the dresser, he held it up to the morning light and looked through the amber bottle. The dark convexity of the glass shone out of its lip. There was something warm and comforting about the color amber. Scotch fills the meek with courage, provides the lonely with a friend, and helps the bored bide time. Ari shook the bottle vigorously, watching the bubbles form on the liquid’s surface, then disappear a second later. Scotch also distorts one’s judgment, destroys the body, and drowns reality in a false sense of well-being. People who drink because they can’t cope with life soon find they can’t cope with alcohol. He shook the bottle again, trying to keep the bubbles from disappearing, but he couldn’t, the same way he couldn’t seem to keep his world from disintegrating around him. Slowly he turned from the window and made his way to the bathroom, still clutching the Scotch.
He looked into the mirror, not liking what he saw. His hair was matted against his skull, crease lines ringed his eyes, and he needed a shave. He screwed the cap off the Chivas Regal, brought the lip of the bottle to his nose, and inhaled. The odor stung the inside of his nostrils. He hesitated for a moment, then poured the Scotch down the drain.
Ari emerged from the shower with a fresh sense of vigor and determination. He dressed quickly and crossed into the main room, where Saliha sat waiting in the same chair she had occupied the night before.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I was up most of the night.”
“I’m sorry.” He moved to the phone on the nightstand and smiled at her. “Don’t worry. Everything’s all right. You’ll be home in a little while.”
He picked up the receiver and dialed the five-digit police number, assuming he was not delivering their agent back to them.
13.
SEPTEMBER 12
Ari lay on the bed, tangled in thought when the phone rang.
“Monsieur Hoffmann, this is the bell captain. Your friend the American photographer has just arrived in the hotel.”
Ari sat up excitedly and ground his cigarette into the bedside ashtray. “Is Miss Johnson in her room now?”
“She just stepped into the elevator.”
“Thank you very much.” Ari hung up and hurried toward the door. When he reached her room he entered without knocking.
“You,” she said, turning back from the window where she stood staring out at the city. “How did you know I was back?” Irritation was ev
ident in her voice.
“Either I come down here every hour or I bribed the bell captain.”
“What did it cost you?”
“Ten pounds.”
“You could have gotten a decent whore for that price,” she said caustically.
“Kim.”
“You shouldn’t have wasted your money, because you’re finished climbing into my bed. Go back to your friend the bell captain. I’m sure for another ten pounds he can find you a consenting female. Maybe you can get somebody else right here in the hotel, since you’re used to not having to go too far.”
“Why did you leave for Aleppo without saying anything?” he asked, ignoring her sarcasm.
“I had to get away from you.”
“Because I’m a former Nazi?”
She turned and moved toward the window without answering.
“As an American you find Nazis utterly despicable?”
“Yes,” she said, facing him. “As an American and as a Jew.”
“I’m still the same man you met before you knew.”
“What difference does that make?”
“What if I tell you I was in charge of organizing work useful for the war effort, that I didn’t have anything to do with the killings?”
“But what did you do to stop them? You were right there and you did nothing—that’s even worse.” She took a pack of cigarettes off the end table and nervously lit one. “You’re a murderer by virtue of your silence.”
Feeling her slipping away, he groped in the nothingness. There had to be a way without telling her the truth.
But he found none.
“Kim,” he pleaded, at a loss for words. “Stay.”
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