The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  O’Donovan walked up to the table, avoiding Ruth’s eyes while she followed his face.

  “Colonel,” he said, offering his hand across the dinnerware.

  Benni reluctantly reached out to take it, and his knuckles brushed his beer glass, which began to topple. O’Donovan saved the spill with a quick left-handed lunge.

  “Close call,” the detective said modestly as he pulled out a chair.

  “Good reflexes,” Ruth complimented with a smile.

  “Aval lo maspeek tovot. But not good enough,” Benni murmured. Ruth shot him a look that would have singed his hair had he had any left.

  “Hello there,” O’Donovan said brightly to Ruth. He was fully aware of the chilly atmosphere and trying to stay above it.

  “Hello to you.”

  Benni watched their eyes connect. He had the ability to read three layers of subtext in a greeting, but this one was an open book.

  “Like a drink, sir?” The waitress was at the detective’s shoulder.

  O’Donovan pointed at Ruth’s glass. “What’s that?”

  “Gin and tonic,” she said.

  “Same for me.”

  Benni felt his stomach flip.

  “Well, Colonel.” O’Donovan leaned forward. “I’m sorry to hear you had to cut it short.”

  I’ll bet you are, thought Benni with disgust, yet he just shrugged. “The fortunes of war.”

  “Yeah,” said O’Donovan. A long silence ensued until his drink arrived and he raised it. “Here’s to that. Something we all know too well.”

  Ruth clicked her glass against O’Donovan’s. Benni declined to toast, and he suddenly demanded in a flat and scornful tone:

  “Why the hell didn’t you shoot her, Michael?”

  Ruth and O’Donovan froze, the glasses at their lips.

  The American lowered his drink, his expression no longer so friendly.

  “I told you, Colonel.”

  “Abba,” Ruth warned her father.

  “Why, Detective?” Benni asked again, not daring to glance at his daughter. “Yes, as you said, the line of fire. But if you had just overcome your sentimentality . . .”

  O’Donovan opened his mouth and looked away in astonishment. Then he pressed his anger down, summoned a patient smile, and turned back to meet Baum’s glare.

  “I’ll tell you this much, Benni.”

  “No.” Ruth reached out and placed her hand over O’Donovan’s forearm, her choice of sides clear as she leaned toward her father and growled, “I certainly wouldn’t put it past you, Abba, to shoot a daughter in front of her own mother!”

  Benni blinked, pursed his lips, and nodded. He rose from his chair. His valise was next to his leg and he picked it up, adding the small shopping bag to the same hand. He stood there for a moment, looking at the bag, while Ruth stared at her clenched fists. O’Donovan watched him.

  “Please excuse old soldiers,” Benni said softly, raising his head. “We don’t fade gracefully.” He walked behind Ruth’s chair, looked down at her, then bent and kissed her hair. She did not move. “I have to get to Washington,” he said flatly as O’Donovan got up. This time Benni offered the hand, a silent apology.

  O’Donovan understood that Benni’s outburst clearly had little to do with him, or Martina Klump, or anything else but Ruth. He felt sorry for Baum, as well as relieved that he would take his dark cloud with him.

  “Good luck, Colonel,” he said, pumping Benni’s hand. “It was a privilege.”

  “The same,” said Benni.

  “We’ll try to do you proud.”

  Benni gripped the detective’s hand very hard and looked into his eyes.

  “I cannot protect her anymore,” he said, without gesturing at Ruth. “But you can.”

  He waited until O’Donovan nodded once. Then he released him and walked from the restaurant.

  Out on Lexington Avenue, Benni did not need to look for a cab. The yellow sedans were parked in a line at the curb before the hotel entrance. The night was bitter, yet he stood for a moment on the sidewalk, trying to flush the pain in his heart with long drafts of the icy air. The avenue was busy, the cusp of a workday evening, with streams of holiday shoppers taking advantage of the pre-Christmas store schedules. No one glanced at him, no figure waited in the distance, feigning disinterest. And still the few gray hairs at the back of his neck tickled their warning. He could hear Eckstein’s whisper inside his mind: “This bear has a tail.”

  But he could not spot the watcher. He was losing his touch, yet somehow the loss did not trouble him as it should have. He suffered that bitter resignation of all old warriors, who awaken one day, in the offensive quiet of retirement, wishing they had fallen in battle.

  The first cabbie approached him. In keeping with professional precaution, Benni declined the ride.

  He got into the second taxi, bound for La Guardia Airport, Washington, D.C., and perhaps parts, as well as parcels, unknown.

  Chapter 10: The Grill

  Ruth’s father was gone, yet the pall of his parental obstinacy remained behind, hanging above the table like the cordite clouds she had once witnessed in the war-torn hills of Lebanon. She stared into a blurred distance, wondering if there would ever be a time when they would meet on an equal plane. Could a man who had diapered her as an infant ever view her as a human being apart and self-sustaining? And would she ever find a way to truly snip her own umbilical and defuse his disapprovals with powerful calm?

  How long would it take? He was no longer young, well into that phase of life where work-obsessed men often burst their overlabored hearts. Would she soon stand beside his bedridden form, making one final attempt to penetrate those large unhearing ears?

  She closed her eyes and swallowed, remembering that she was not alone, forcing the vision and emotion back down. There will be another chance, she told herself. We started something good here. . . .

  Yet only yesterday a gunshot had nearly slashed the future at its roots, and in Abba’s business, tomorrow could bring the same. His lifestyle parried with premature death. It angered her, then brought on fear, then dissolved into despair.

  She felt a set of fingers pressing gently on her forearm. Michael O’Donovan was still there, his reddish brows knit together in empathic concern. Ruth looked at his Gaelic face and wanted to run. What the hell was she doing here? What childish attraction to this “greener grass” had made her fantasize any true connection between them? She had spent her day staving off images of sexual play with this man, then wasted a full half hour primping like a debutante. To what end? It could only fizzle in an emotional cul-de-sac.

  She slowly drew her arm from his fingers and put her hands in her lap.

  “I’m sorry, Michael.” She tried to smile kindly. “I think the mood has passed.”

  He registered no disappointment, no evidence of a punctured male ego. He nodded slowly as he spoke.

  “ ‘O you kind gods. Cure this great breach in his abused nature.’ ” He recited without drama, as if every NYPD detective held Shakespearean soliloquies in reserve.

  “Excuse me?” Ruth watched his mouth return to its smile, a sensation of disembodiment under her skin. As if she had witnessed a man momentarily possessed.

  “It’s from King Lear,” he said.

  “King Lear.”

  “Yeah. Shakespeare.”

  “I know the author, Michael. It’s the actor who surprised me.” Despite her mood, she decided to delay her urge to bolt. She reached out for her drink. “Something they teach you at the Academy?”

  “My father was a fan.” O’Donovan also took up his glass. “Big Irish street cop. Hated television, made us spend an hour reading every night after dinner. His favorite gag was pulling doctors over for traffic violations. He’d let them talk down to him for a while, then he’d recite Henry V while he wrote out their tickets.”

  Ruth smiled. “He sounds like fun.”

  “He was.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Rest his
weary soul,” the detective intoned in an Irish brogue, as he raised his glass toward the ceiling. “And Mother’s with him.”

  The atmosphere dipped once more as Ruth was reminded of Benni’s mortality. She frowned. “So is that how you see my father? The poor old Lear, tormented by his daughters, railing against the storm?”

  “No,” O’Donovan replied with surprise. “It’s how I view you. The wronged Cordelia, trying to reach him.”

  Ruth regarded him for a silent spell, somewhat stunned. Still wrapped in her comfortable cloak of self-recrimination, she was unprepared to be understood. And the source of support was so incongruous, a man she hardly knew, a police detective whose exposure to daily cruelties should have deadened his emotional availability. Yet she had seen American men do this before. They studied women’s magazines. They often knew what to say.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those sensitive, liberated men, Michael,” she said doubtfully.

  O’Donovan raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess you could ask my detectives. They might answer you when they’re done laughing.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “It doesn’t mean my sympathy’s some kind of ploy.”

  “So what is it?” Her residual bitterness had left her spoiling for a fight.

  “Maybe it’s just identification,” he said. “We probably grew up in similar homes.”

  “Hmmm.” She doubted that anyone could appreciate a childhood under Benjamin Baum’s parentage-in-absentia.

  “But it’s interesting that you find it threatening.” His tone was pensive, not challenging at all.

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know, Ruth.” He shrugged. “You’re the psychologist. Examine it.”

  She sipped her drink and stared at the glass. I don’t need this, she thought. A cross-examination by some amateur analyst. She felt the anger swell, then suddenly recalled her father’s reaction to her own barb not ten minutes ago. Just like your old man, huh, Ruth? she challenged herself. Truth hurts too much?

  She pushed a strand of hair behind her right ear as she looked over at him sheepishly. Her wry smile was greeted by his, and she knew why she wanted to run. She was prepared for a primitive attraction here, but had not bargained for a man with a brain and a heart as well.

  “You know, O’Donovan?” she said. “You might be too much for me. I could be out of my league.”

  “Funny. One of my guys suggested the same thing. In reverse.”

  “Fair warning, for both of us.”

  “Let’s wing it,” he suggested.

  “Fine.” She waved her hand as if sweeping away all recent unpleasantness. “So, I believe you owe me dinner.”

  “The case isn’t closed yet.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Maybe the bomber was an Iranian Jew.” He tried to sound serious.

  She pointed at him. “Welsher.”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his palms. “Let’s order.”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Jesus!” He rolled his eyes in mock disgust.

  Ruth laughed. “Tell you what. Another drink, then we’ll pick a place. A different place.”

  “Fair.” O’Donovan signaled the waitress and pointed at the empty glasses.

  The Grill was filling to capacity as hungry shoppers came in off the street. A line of chattering New Yorkers hauling bags of wrapped gifts had formed at the maitre d’s station, some begrudgingly being siphoned off to the lower dining level. A medley of old Perry Como carols drifted over from the bar, and the waitress deposited two more drinks along with a check, a suggestion to either order dinner or make way.

  O’Donovan raised his fresh drink. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Happy Chanukah,” Ruth countered as they touched glasses. “We’re a little early, though, I think.”

  “It gets worse every year,” said O’Donovan. “Someday we’ll be singing ‘We Three Kings’ in July.”

  “In my country, we haven’t commercialized Chanukah yet.”

  “As it should be.”

  “No admiration, please. Plenty of us picnic at the beach on Yom Kippur.”

  “Well, us Catholics appreciate creative sacrilege.”

  “I was just a kid in 1973,” Ruth remembered. “On that Yom Kippur, half the country was in synagogue. The Arabs were smart, launched an attack, and by evening the whole army had gone from prayer to slaughter.” She shrugged. “Gives you kind of a ‘fuck you’ attitude toward God.”

  “Careful, lady,” O’Donovan warned.

  “Why?” she scoffed. “What can he do? Send me to Lebanon?”

  O’Donovan chuckled. Jerry Binder often used the same expression, with Vietnam as the tag.

  “So, Michael.” Ruth looked at him with an impish expression.

  “Yes?” He shifted in his chair, ready to parry a coming barb.

  “Got a cigarette?”

  With some relief, he fished into the pocket of his baseball jacket. “Just a Camel.”

  “A camel will do when a Mercedes will not.”

  “Come again?”

  “Expression from home.” She accepted a light, and O’Donovan took one for himself. “Did you think I was going to ask something personal?”

  “Doesn’t scare me.”

  “How’s your sex life?”

  The detective coughed. He prolonged it a bit while he stalled for time, and Ruth grinned.

  “Sorry, but I did warn you yesterday,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. Blunt as a ball-peen hammer.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a tool.” He was about to describe the shape, then dropped his hands. “Not important.”

  “I will withdraw the question.”

  “No, it’s okay.” If she wanted to bring up the subject, he was not going to run from it. “My sex life.” He pondered for a moment. “I’d describe it as . . . festive.”

  “Festive?” She widened her eyes, imagining costumed orgies.

  “Yeah. I usually get lucky on major holidays.”

  Ruth laughed, impressed by his modesty. She was certain he could do much better than the rare tryst.

  “And yours?” O’Donovan asked, fully expecting her to unfairly claim, None of your damned business.

  “Mine?” She leaned on an elbow and placed her chin in her palm. “I would describe it as selective.”

  O’Donovan nodded, avoiding her eyes while they smoked. Selective. What did that mean? Was she saying that he might be one of the few, or that he should not get his hopes up?

  “Let’s change the subject,” said Ruth.

  “Okay,” he quickly agreed.

  “Let’s talk about your army career.”

  The optimism faded from his face. “Maybe we should go back to sex.”

  “Later. First we’ll exchange some army lies.”

  O’Donovan looked at his hands. “Do we have to?”

  “I think so.”

  He knew what she meant. The military was so obviously a large part of his history, his character, and hers as well, that they were not going to get very far by skirting the issue. He glanced at the nearby tables, then pulled his chair closer, while Ruth, who had been swaddled in such behaviors, leaned in as well.

  “I was nineteen when I volunteered for the Eighty-second Airborne Division,” he began, “twenty when I got into Special Forces. . . .”

  He glided quickly over the mundane aspects of army life, for Ruth had surely undergone a similar experience. Yet when he returned once again, as he had on so many tortured nights in his bed, to that hellish twilight on the salt flats of Desert One, the Story emerged as it never had before. His confession bolted unbridled, in streams of repressed smells and images, unrelated bits he sensed would be understood as no priest or army comrade had ever done. Before, he had always censored his pain. Yet here, confronted by a woman who hailed from a warrior tribe, he surrendered to a fantasy that God had finally sent a battle-scarred angel who c
ould understand and perhaps absolve him. He would tell it all at last.

  Some time later, he finished his story, his hands still, the cigarette a gray snake of brittle ash. Now Ruth’s fingers rested on his forearm.

  “It was cruel, Michael,” she said gently.

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  “I have heard this story before.”

  “Well, it’s no secret.”

  “No. I mean that I have heard it. AMAN intercepted all of the transmissions from the Iranian desert that night. I wasn’t in the army yet, but I’ve heard the tapes. It was terrible.”

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowing as he thought to close the window to his soul.

  “Are you ashamed, Michael?” she asked. Her face was very close.

  “No,” he began to lie. Then, “Yes. Or at least I was. For a long time. Now I don’t know. Bitter, I guess.”

  “Sad,” she ventured.

  He nodded. She moved her hand along his arm until she covered his fingers.

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked, not really seeking permission. “You are part of an outlaw class in your society. Maybe the Gulf War will change that, I don’t know. But your experience is still a lonely one here, so this thing has become a shameful secret to you.” Her other hand joined the first, to hold him as she continued. “I was an intelligence officer. I worked in The Hole at Tel Aviv headquarters, monitoring mission progress. We rarely tell the world about our failures, but for every Entebbe I listened to, there were three small disasters. For every supercommando raid splashed across the world headlines, I heard half a dozen fiascoes.”

  O’Donovan watched her eyes as they glistened, felt the warmth of her hands as she went on.

  “That sickening calm of the commanders while they start off, and then the noise, the gunfire, the confusion. I’ve wanted to cover my ears, to scream, to run from the damn room. Right out of the army. Right out of the country. I’ve heard the helicopters, the kid lieutenants crying, sergeants yelling for medevacs while their soldiers bled to death. And sometimes, when I couldn’t take it anymore, when I felt like some voyeuristic whore down there in my antiseptic hole, I’d grab some other pathetic officer and we’d rush to the hospital, to meet the wounded, carry them from the choppers just so we wouldn’t go stark raving insane.”