Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

by Juan Gomez-jurado

‘No!’

  ‘Come on, you’ve had forty hours of practice at my cousin’s slaughterhouse. You must have shot more than a thousand cows.’

  Kharouf had also been one of Nazim’s shooting instructors and one of the exercises had been firing at live cattle. On other occasions the cows were already dead, but he’d wanted Nazim to get used to firearms and to see what bullets did to flesh.

  ‘No, the practice sessions were good. I’m not afraid of firing at people. I mean, they’re not really people.’

  Kharouf didn’t answer. He leaned on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead and waiting. He knew that the best way to get Nazim to speak up was to allow a few moments of uncomfortable silence. The kid always ended up spilling out whatever was bothering him.

  ‘It’s just… well, I feel bad about not saying goodbye to my parents,’ he said finally.

  ‘I see. You still blame yourself for what happened?’

  ‘A little. Am I wrong?’

  Kharouf smiled and placed a hand on Nazim’s shoulder.

  ‘No. You’re a sensitive and loving young man. Allah gave you those qualities, blessed be his name.’

  ‘Blessed be his name,’ Nazim repeated.

  ‘He also gave you the strength to overcome them when you need to. Now take Allah’s sword and do his will. Rejoice, Nazim.’

  The young man attempted to smile, but the result was more of a grimace. Kharouf increased the pressure on Nazim’s shoulder. His voice sounded warm, loving.

  ‘Relax, Nazim. Today Allah is not asking for our blood. He is asking for that of others. But even if something were to happen, you’ve video-taped a message to your family, haven’t you?’

  Nazim nodded.

  ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about. It could be that your parents have become slightly westernised, but deep in their souls they are good Muslims. They know the reward for a martyr. And when you reach the Next Life, Allah will allow you to intercede for them. Just think how they’ll feel.’

  Nazim imagined his parents and his sister kneeling in front of him, thanking him for their salvation, begging him to forgive them for being wrong. In the gauzy mist of his fantasy, this was the most beautiful aspect of the next life. He finally managed to smile.

  ‘That’s the way, Nazim. Your face has the bassamat al-farah, the smile of a martyr. It’s part of our promise. Part of our reward.’

  Nazim slipped a hand into his jacket and gripped the handle of the gun.

  Calmly he and Kharouf got out of the car.

  13

  ON BOARD THE BEHEMOTH

  EN ROUTE TO THE GULF OF AQABA, THE RED SEA

  Tuesday, July 11, 2006. 5:11 p.m.

  ‘You!’ Andrea said again, with more anger than surprise.

  The last time they’d seen each other, Andrea had been perilously balanced thirty feet above the ground, pursued by an unlikely enemy. Back then Father Fowler had saved her life, but he had also prevented her from getting the great story of her career, the kind most reporters only dream about. Woodward and Bernstein had done it with Water-gate, and Lowell Bergman with the tobacco industry. Andrea Otero could have done the same, but this priest had got in the way. At least he got her - I’ll be damned if I know how, Andrea thought – an exclusive interview with President Bush, thanks to which she was now onboard this ship, or so she surmised. But that was water under the bridge and right now she was more concerned with the present. Andrea wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away.

  ‘I’m happy to see you too, Ms Otero. I see that the scar is barely a memory.’

  Andrea instinctively touched her forehead, the place where Fowler had caused her to have four stitches sixteen months ago. A thin pale line was all that remained.

  ‘You’re a safe pair of hands, but that’s not why you’re here. Are you spying on me? Are you aiming to screw up my work again?’

  ‘I’m on this expedition as an observer for the Vatican, nothing more.’

  The young reporter eyed him suspiciously. Due to the extreme heat the priest was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with his clerical collar and sharply pressed trousers, all in the usual black. Andrea looked at his tanned arms for the first time. His forearms were huge, with veins as thick as a ballpoint pen.

  Those are not the arms of a Bible-basher.

  ‘And why does the Vatican need an observer on an archaeological expedition?’

  The priest was about to answer when a cheerful voice interrupted them.

  ‘Great! The two of you have already been introduced?’

  Dr Harel appeared at the stern of the ship, flashing her lovely smile. Andrea did not return the courtesy.

  ‘Something like that. Father Fowler was about to explain to me why he was pulling a Brett Favre on me a couple of minutes ago.’

  ‘Ms Otero, Brett Favre is a quarterback – he doesn’t do much tackling,’ Fowler explained.

  ‘What happened, Father?’ Harel asked.

  ‘Ms Otero came back here just as Mr Kayn was getting out of the aircraft. I’m afraid I had to restrain her. I was kind of rough. I’m sorry.’

  Harel nodded. ‘I understand. You should know that Andrea didn’t attend the security session. Don’t worry, Father.’

  ‘What do you mean don’t worry? Has everyone gone totally crazy?’

  ‘Take it easy, Andrea,’ the doctor said. ‘Unfortunately you’ve been sick for the last forty-eight hours and you haven’t been kept up-to-date. Let me fill you in. Raymond Kayn is agoraphobic.’

  ‘So Father Tackler just told me.’

  ‘Besides being a priest, Father Fowler is also a psychologist. Please interrupt me if I leave something out, Father. Andrea, what do you know about agoraphobia?’

  ‘It’s a fear of open places.’

  ‘That’s what most people think. In reality, people suffering from this affliction exhibit symptoms that are a lot more complex.’

  Fowler cleared his throat.

  ‘The thing that agoraphobics fear most is losing control,’ the priest said. ‘They’re afraid of being alone, of finding themselves in places from which there’s no escape, or of meeting new people. That’s why they stay at home for long periods of time.’

  ‘What happens when they can’t control a situation?’ Andrea asked.

  ‘It depends on the situation. Mr Kayn’s case is particularly severe. If he finds himself in a difficult situation he may well panic, lose touch with reality, begin to suffer dizziness, tremors and heart palpitations.’

  ‘In other words, he couldn’t be a stockbroker,’ Andrea said.

  ‘Or a neurosurgeon,’ Harel joked. ‘But sufferers can lead normal lives. There are famous agoraphobics like Kim Basinger or Woody Allen who’ve fought the illness for years and come out on top. Mr Kayn himself has created an empire out of nothing. Unfortunately, in the last five years his condition has deteriorated.’

  ‘I wonder what the hell provoked such a sick man to risk coming out of his shell?’

  ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, Andrea,’ Harel said.

  Andrea noticed that the doctor was looking at her in a strange way.

  They all remained silent for a few moments and then Fowler resumed the conversation.

  ‘I hope you can forgive my excessive force earlier.’

  ‘Maybe, but you almost took my head off,’ Andrea said, rubbing her neck.

  Fowler looked at Harel, who nodded.

  ‘You’ll understand in time, Ms Otero… Were you able to see the men getting off the aircraft?’ Harel asked.

  ‘There was a young olive-skinned man,’ Andrea replied. ‘Then a man of about fifty dressed in black who had a huge scar. And finally a thin man with white hair, who I imagine must be Mr Kayn.’

  ‘The young man is Jacob Russell, Mr Kayn’s executive assistant,’ Fowler said. ‘The man with the scar is Mogens Dekker, chief of security for Kayn Industries. Believe me, if you had come any closer to Kayn, given your usual style, Dekker would have become a bit nervous. And you don’t want t
hat to happen.’

  A warning signal sounded from bow to stern.

  ‘Here we go, time for the introductory session,’ Harel said. ‘At last the great mystery will be revealed. Follow me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Andrea asked as they returned to the main deck via the gangway that the reporter had sneaked through some minutes before.

  ‘The whole expedition team will meet for the first time. They’ll explain the role each of us is going to play, and most important… what it is we’re actually looking for in Jordan.’

  ‘By the way, Doc, what is your specialty?’ Andrea asked as they entered the meeting room.

  ‘Combat medicine,’ Harel said casually.

  14

  COHEN FAMILY HIDEOUT

  VIENNA

  February 1943

  Jora Myer was sick with worry. There was an acid sensation at the back of her throat that made her nauseous. She hadn’t felt that way since she was fourteen and had escaped the 1906 pogroms in Odessa, Ukraine, with her grandfather hanging on to her arm. She had been lucky at such a young age to find work as a servant to the Cohen family, who owned a factory in Vienna. Josef was the eldest of the children. When the shadchan, the marriage broker, eventually found him a nice Jewish wife, Jora went with him to look after their children. Their firstborn, Elan, spent his early years in a pampered and privileged environment. The younger one, Yudel, was another story.

  Now the child lay curled up in a ball on his makeshift bed, which consisted of two folded blankets on the floor. Until yesterday he had shared the bed with his brother. Lying there, Yudel seemed small and sad, and without his parents, the stifling space seemed huge.

  Poor Yudel. Those twelve square feet had been his entire world practically since birth. The afternoon he was born, the entire family, including Jora, had been at the hospital. None of them had returned to the luxury apartment on Rienstrasse. It was 9 November 1938, the date the world would later come to know as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Yudel’s grandparents were the first to perish. The entire building on Rienstrasse burned to the ground, together with the synagogue next door as the firemen drank and laughed. The only things that the Cohens had taken with them were some clothes and a mysterious package that Yudel’s father used in a ceremony when the baby was born. Jora didn’t know what it was, because during the ceremony, Mr Cohen had asked everyone to leave the room, including Odile, who could barely stand up.

  With scarcely any money, Josef was unable to leave the country, but like many others, he believed that the trouble would eventually die down so he sought refuge with some of his Catholic friends. He did not forget about Jora either, something that, in later life, Miss Myer would never forget. Few friendships could withstand the terrible obstacles faced in occupied Austria; there was one, however, that did. The ageing Judge Rath decided to help the Cohens at great risk to his own life. Inside his house he built a hideout in one of the rooms. With his own hands he laid a brick partition, leaving a narrow hole at the base that the family could use to get in and out. Judge Rath then placed a low bookcase in front of the opening to conceal it.

  The Cohen family entered their living tomb one December night in 1938, believing that the war would last only a few weeks. There wasn’t enough room for all of them to lie down at the same time, and their only comforts were a kerosene lamp and a bucket. Food and fresh air came at one in the morning, two hours after the judge’s maid went home. At about half past midnight the old judge would slowly begin to push the bookcase away from the hole. Because of his age, it could take almost half an hour, with frequent rests, before the opening was sufficiently wide to allow the Cohens through.

  Together with the Cohen family the judge was also a prisoner of that life. He knew that the maid’s husband was a member of the Nazi party, so while he was constructing the hideout, he sent her on holiday to Salzburg for a few days. When she returned he told her that they had had to replace the gas pipes. He didn’t dare find another maid because it would have made people suspicious, and he had to be careful about the amount of food he bought. With rationing it became even more difficult to feed an extra five people. Jora felt pity for him since he had sold most of his valuable possessions to buy black market meat and potatoes which he hid in the attic. At night, when Jora and the Cohens came out of their hiding place, barefoot, looking like strange whispering ghosts, the old man would bring down the food from the attic for them.

  The Cohens didn’t dare stay outside their hiding place for more than a few hours. While Jora made sure that the children washed and moved around a little, Josef and Odile would talk quietly with the judge. During the day they couldn’t make the slightest noise and mostly spent their time sleeping or in a state of semi-consciousness, which to Jora was like torture until she began hearing about the concentration camps at Treblinka, Dachau, and Auschwitz. The smallest details of daily life became complicated. Basic needs, drinking or even changing the baby Yudel, were tedious procedures in such a restricted space. Jora was continually amazed by Odile Cohen’s ability to communicate. She had developed a complex system of signs that allowed her to carry out long and sometimes bitter conversations with her husband without uttering a word.

  Over three years went by in silence. Yudel didn’t learn any more than four or five words. Luckily he had a calm disposition and hardly ever cried. He seemed to prefer being held by Jora rather than his mother, but this didn’t bother Odile. Odile appeared to care only for Elan, who was suffering the most from being locked up. He had been an unruly, spoiled five-year-old when the November 1938 pogroms exploded and after more than a thousand days in hiding, there was something lost, almost crazy, about his eyes. When it was time to return to the hideout he was always the last to go in. Often he refused, or would remain clinging to the entrance. When that happened, Yudel would go over and take his hand, encouraging Elan to make the sacrifice once more and return to the long hours of darkness.

  But six nights ago, Elan couldn’t take it any more. He waited until everyone else had gone back into the hole, then slipped away and out of the house. The judge’s arthritic fingers only managed to brush the boy’s shirt before he disappeared. Josef tried to follow him, but by the time he was out on the street there was no trace of Elan.

  The news came three days later in the Kronen Zeitung. A young mentally disabled Jewish boy, apparently without family, had been placed in the Kinderspital Am Spiegelgrund. The judge was horrified. When he explained, the words catching in his throat, what would probably happen to their son, Odile became hysterical and refused to listen to reason. Jora felt faint the moment she saw Odile go out the door, carrying that same package they had brought to their hideout, the one they had taken to the hospital years before when Yudel was born. Odile’s husband accompanied her, despite her protests, but as he left he handed Jora an envelope.

  ‘For Yudel,’ he said. ‘He shouldn’t open it before his bar mitzvah.’

  Two terrible nights had passed since then. Jora was anxious for news, but the judge was more silent than usual. The day before, the house had been filled with strange sounds. And then, for the first time in three years, the bookcase began to move in the middle of the day and the judge’s face appeared in the entrance hole.

  ‘Quick, come out. We haven’t a second to waste!’

  Jora blinked. It was difficult to recognise the brightness outside the hideout as sunshine. Yudel had never seen the sun. Frightened, he ducked back in.

  ‘Jora, I’m sorry. Yesterday I found out that Josef and Odile have been arrested. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to upset you further. But you can’t stay here. They’re going to question them, and no matter how much the Cohens resist, the Nazis will eventually find out where Yudel is.’

  ‘Frau Cohen won’t say anything. She’s strong.’

  The judge shook his head.

  ‘They’ll promise to save Elan’s life in exchange for revealing where the little one is, or worse. They can always make people talk.’r />
  Jora began to cry.

  ‘There’s no time for that, Jora. When Josef and Odile didn’t return, I went to see a friend at the Bulgarian embassy. I have two exit visas in the names of Bilyana Bogomil, tutor, and Mikhail Zhivkov, son of a Bulgarian diplomat. The story is that you’re returning to school with the boy after spending the Christmas holidays with his parents.’ He showed her the rectangular tickets. ‘These are train tickets to Stara Zagora. But you won’t go there.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jora said.

  ‘Stara Zagora is your official destination, but you’ll get off at Cernavoda. The train stops there for a short while. You’ll get out so that the boy can stretch his legs. You’ll leave the train with a smile on your face. You won’t carry any luggage or have anything in your hands. As soon as you can, disappear. Constanta is thirty-seven miles to the east. You’ll either have to walk or find someone willing to take you there by cart.’

  ‘Constanta,’ Jora repeated, trying to remember everything in her confusion.

  ‘It was Romania before. Now it’s Bulgaria. Tomorrow, who knows? The important thing is that it’s a port and the Nazis don’t watch it too carefully. From there you can take a ship to Istanbul. And from Istanbul you can go anywhere.’

  ‘But we don’t have any money for a ticket.’

  ‘Here are some marks for the trip. And in this envelope there’s enough to book passage for the two of you to somewhere safe.’

  Jora looked around. There was hardly any furniture left in the house. Suddenly she understood what the strange noises the day before had been. The old man had hocked almost everything he owned to give them a chance of escaping.

  ‘How can we ever thank you, Judge Rath?”

  ‘Don’t. Your trip will be very dangerous and I’m not sure that the exit visas will protect you. God forgive me, but I hope I’m not sending you to your death.’

  Two hours later Jora had managed to drag Yudel to the building’s stairway. She was about to go outside when she heard a truck halting on the pavement. Everyone who lived under the Nazis knew exactly what that meant. The whole thing was like a bad melody, beginning with a screech of brakes, followed by someone shouting orders and the dull staccato of boots on snow, which became more precise as the boots hit wooden floors. At that point you prayed for the sounds to fade away; instead there was an ominous crescendo culminating in knocks at a door. After a pause, a chorus of weeping would ensue, punctuated by machine-gun solos. And when the music was over, the lights went on again, people returned to their tables, and mothers would smile and make believe that nothing had happened next door.