The Collaborator

by Diane Armstrong

  She takes his hand. ‘Miki, don’t take it so hard. You’ll make yourself sick. Don’t forget, the judge has heard these kinds of manipulations by lawyers before, so he won’t be fooled by what this one says in defence of his client.’

  But Miklós can’t stop brooding. ‘I should be able to sue this smart-arse for damaging my reputation.’

  ‘Your reputation is safe. Everyone knows what you did, you’re a hero. No-one else did what you managed to do, and there are over fifteen hundred people who can attest to that. As for accusing you of being responsible for the deaths of the other Jews, that’s just ridiculous. It wasn’t in your power to save them. You’re not God, and even God didn’t bother saving them.’

  ‘That’s what the prosecutor told him. But I looked at the people in court, and I had the feeling they believed what Amos Alon said, that I deliberately withheld information that could have saved them.’

  ‘Then they’re as ignorant as he is. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what they think.’

  Something else is nagging at him, but he doesn’t mention this to Judit. It’s the insinuating tone with which the lawyer mentioned Gábor Weisz’s name. Miklós hasn’t seen Gábor since the day he left for Istanbul. He doesn’t know where he is, or whether he and Ilonka have reunited, but just hearing his name evokes memories that he has tried to suppress since that dreadful day at the station in St Margarethen, the worst day in his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tel Aviv, 2005

  Annika’s mobile rings, shattering the quiet of the Law Library, and she is startled when she hears Dov’s voice. Absorbed in the drama of the trial, and indignant at Amos Alon’s vicious questioning of Miklós Nagy, she has lost track of time. Glancing at her watch, she is astonished to see that she hasn’t moved for two hours.

  ‘This is an incredible story,’ she tells him. ‘I’m only a little way into the trial but if I read it in a novel I wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say about fact and fiction. But maybe you’ve had enough facts for one day. Have you been to Jerusalem yet? I’m free for the rest of the day, we could go there for lunch.’

  ‘Jerusalem and back? In one afternoon?

  He bursts out laughing. ‘Don’t forget this is Israel, not Australia. The whole country is about one third the size of your Tasmania. If you leave Tel Aviv with a cup of hot coffee, it will probably still be warm by the time you reach the West Bank. You’ve probably heard the joke about the size of Israel? A tourist is talking to an Israeli, and he lists all the places he’s going to visit while he’s here — Masada, Haifa, Akko, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Beersheva, Eilat. And when he’s finished, the Israeli says, “And what will you do in the afternoon?”’

  She’s laughing, as she often does when she talks to him. She hadn’t noticed that reading about the court case seemed to have knotted all her muscles, and while listening to Dov she feels them loosening up. His amusing comments and anecdotes always have a relaxing effect on her.

  She hesitates. She is eager to go to Jerusalem but the trial is as compelling as any detective story. While reading the transcript, she feels she’s right there in the courtroom listening to Amos Alon sparring with Miklós Nagy, and she shares Miklós’s indignation at the lawyer’s accusations. She can’t wait to find out what happens next. But does she really want to turn down Dov’s offer?

  *

  Dov’s car is just as grimy as it was the day they met in Jaffa, and before she can get in, he’s redistributing the dirt on the windshield with a dusty rag, while she shifts piles of newspapers, books and CDs off the front seat. He switches on the sound system and a moment later they hear an Israeli pop tune at full blast. With an apologetic shrug he turns it off. ‘Yaeli’s favourite CD,’ he says, and she wonders if Yael’s mother is still in the picture.

  The winding road to Jerusalem passes vineyards, citrus groves, pine forests and, to Annika’s surprise, stands of gum trees whose feathery leaves and slender trunks cast dappled shadows on the ground in contrast with the tall pine trees whose dark, dense foliage lets in no light. She breathes in the warm smell of sundried grasses and the scent of the eucalypts.

  Dov follows her gaze. ‘You see, a bit of Australia, to make you feel at home.’

  High on a hill above the road, terraced fields, lemon trees and olive groves surround a cluster of farmhouses. ‘That’s Samaria, a Palestinian village,’ Dov says. A little further along, they pass the red-tiled roofs of a recent Jewish settlement.

  ‘Have you heard of the prophet Samuel?’ he asks, and points. ‘His tomb is just over there.’

  She shakes her head in wonder. Ancient and modern history, past, present and future in one tiny patch of land. Further on, they come to several overturned trucks lying by the side of the road. Annika leans forward, and sees a bunch of wilting flowers lying beside one of the trucks. She looks questioningly at Dov, and he pulls up, switches off the ignition, and turns towards her.

  ‘In 1948, when Jerusalem was besieged, food and water had to be brought along this road, which was dangerous because Arabs from the villages on the hilltops would descend on the convoys and ambush them. The commander of this truck was under heavy fire for twenty-four hours. He was ordered to fall back but he refused. When a Molotov cocktail exploded and set his truck on fire, he ordered the others to get out but he stayed in the truck until the last moment and got blown up with his vehicle. The trucks have been left here as a memorial.’

  Dov’s account of the siege of Jerusalem reminds her of Shula’s story about the Altalena, and as they drive on, she struggles to recall the details. Shula had said something about Amos Alon’s brother who was aboard the Irgun ship which was bringing weapons and ammunition to relieve the siege. When the government shelled the Altalena, his brother was killed, and from that day, Amos had become obsessed by the idea of wreaking revenge on the government. Like a man possessed, he couldn’t talk about anything else. Unable to cope with his single-minded obsession, Shula had left him. Now that Annika has connected up the pieces of this mosaic of vengeance and obsession that led from the siege of Jerusalem to the Altalena, and then to the trial, she thinks about Alon’s misdirected rage that made him target Miklós Nagy as a collaborator.

  To her surprise, forty-five minutes after leaving Tel Aviv, they are standing on the Mount of Olives, gazing at the fabled panorama of Jerusalem that she has only ever seen in news clips. The luminous limestone of the buildings spread out below them glows in the afternoon light, and the golden cupola of the Dome of the Rock sparkles under the cloudless sky.

  Dov is pointing to the graves that cover the slope of the mountain. ‘Orthodox Jews believe that when the Messiah comes, the first souls to be resurrected will be the ones who are buried here, and that’s why Russian oligarchs are rushing to buy up these plots. They want to make sure of getting to heaven before anyone else.’

  Overwhelmed by the view, she nods absently. ‘There’s something different about the light here,’ she says. ‘It seems to pour out of the sky in white-hot flames. It’s like a painter’s representation of the breath of God. It’s almost ethereal.’

  ‘Ethereal,’ he repeats. ‘That’s what my wife used to say.’

  She turns towards him and waits.

  He is looking straight ahead but she knows he doesn’t see the view. ‘Nurit was a plastic surgeon, she was dedicated to patching up people who were mutilated by fire, bombs, and every kind of disaster you can imagine. She and her team reconstructed shattered and charred bodies, they looked after everyone who needed help regardless of nationality and religion, and that included Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese who swore to destroy us.

  ‘One day while she was in the operating theatre, trying to give a deformed baby a new face, a bomb went off and she was killed together with her colleagues and some of the patients, Jews and Muslims alike.’

  Annika knows that any comment she might make, any commiseration she might offer, would sound trite. Instead, she asks, ‘When did
that happen?’

  ‘About twelve years ago, during the first Intifada. Yael was nearly four. Nurit was pregnant with our second child.’

  Her mouth is dry. She wonders how he can carry on a normal life and not be consumed by hatred and grief.

  ‘You must hate them,’ she says.

  He sighs. ‘I hate the ones who detonated those bombs, but Palestinians are fine people who are unfortunate to have corrupt, power-hungry leaders. I always remember what Golda Meir once said: if the Palestinians loved their children as much as they hate us, we’d have peace in this land. I think hatred is a poison that destroys everything good in humanity. Nurit was a positive force for healing in every sense of the word, and I want Yaeli to feel the power of that.’

  She is looking at Dov with admiration. She never would have suspected that beneath the humour and high spirits he had experienced such tragedy, and she marvels that despite what happened, he has tried to raise his daughter without hate or bitterness. A breeze ruffles his curly hair and she feels an impulse to stretch out her hand to stroke it, but at the last moment she lowers her hand. She looks away, confused and embarrassed.

  He turns towards her. ‘Is there someone waiting for you in Sydney?’

  ‘No, but I met a lovely guy in Budapest.’

  He is looking straight into her eyes. ‘So tell me about your guy in Budapest.’

  She doesn’t feel like going into details in this iconic place, with the ghost of his dead wife hovering around them. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Have you heard of the tyranny of distance?’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘Do you think it’s really impossible to overcome that?’

  She wonders if there’s anything behind his question and changes the subject. ‘Tell me what made you decide to live here.’

  ‘I’ll give you the short version. I came from a close-knit Jewish family in Manhattan. I was educated in the best schools, and I was studying to be a lawyer like my dad, but I was bored. I hated the course I was doing, and the people I knew seemed pretentious and superficial. My future stretched in front of me like an unbroken grey line. Today they’d probably say I was depressed, but I reckon I was frustrated, living my parents’ life, not mine.’

  Annika has been listening intently. ‘I can relate to that, it’s such an empty feeling. And parents just don’t get it. So what changed?’

  ‘One day in 1973, I read that the armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon had attacked Israel, and I suddenly came to life. Israel was in danger of being wiped out, and I knew I had to do something. To my parents’ horror, I threw away my privileged life, left college without finishing my degree, made aliyah, and joined the army.’

  ‘So you found a purpose in life.’

  He gives a short laugh. ‘You could say that. Back in 1973, everyone was swept away on a wave of patriotism, but after the war, the recriminations started. Whose fault was it that we were caught unprepared? The army’s? Golda Meir’s? Mossad’s? I soon discovered that the idea of Israel is very different from the reality, and the political and religious divisions here are bitter and intractable. But imperfect though it is, it’s home, and as you probably know, home for most people is the biggest battleground of all, with the most hurtful conflicts but also the fiercest love.’

  Annika nods, and is about to say that she shares his sentiments about families, but he has already embarked on an explanation of the Israeli political system. ‘It’s impossible for any single party here to have an outright majority, so they have to compromise with minor parties which represent hawks, settlers, peaceniks, Ethiopians, Russians, Druze, Israeli Arabs, Orthodox Jews who think we have a God-given right to the whole West Bank, and Peace Now people who demonstrate on behalf of Palestinian rights. There’s even a party that wants to legalise marijuana — but maybe they have a point: if Israeli and Palestinian leaders got high together, maybe they’d solve all our problems!’

  ‘So what’s the good news?’

  Dov pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose with the flat of his hand and his gaze rests for a moment on two young women in army fatigues with rifles slung across their shoulders, who are chatting in animated Hebrew as they point at the view.

  ‘Life here is chaotic, unpredictable, infuriating, volatile and dangerous, but people are committed and passionate. Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone cares deeply about something. I’m working on an investigative piece about corruption in the government. The politicians won’t like it, and they’ll complain, but it will be published, and I won’t be imprisoned, flogged or beheaded for writing it.’

  He pauses for a moment, and she can see that he’s struggling to express the intensity he feels. ‘It’s like living inside a kaleidoscope — noisy, colourful, multifaceted, changeable, disorienting, incomprehensible, but also beguiling. Do I love living here? Yes. Do I loathe it at times? Yes. But would I live anywhere else? Not on your life.’

  ‘You’re talking about patriotism, aren’t you?’ she says. ‘That’s a dirty word in Australia these days. People accuse you of being a chauvinist if you sound patriotic.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because they never had to fight for their existence or their freedom. Having to keep fighting for your survival probably sharpens your patriotism.’

  He clears his throat. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about politics and problems. Let’s walk down to the Christian Quarter. I think you’ll find it interesting.’

  Interesting is an understatement, Annika thinks as they follow the steep road down from the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. Having been educated at a Christian school where other faiths were acknowledged with condescending tolerance, she feels a surge of religious nostalgia when they enter this sacred site. As they stroll along a path lined with rose bushes, she comes to a gnarled olive tree which, according to a sign nearby, was two thousand years old. She stands very still, overcome by the thought that she is walking along the paths where a tormented Christ walked before his crucifixion, where Judas planted a traitorous kiss on his cheek. Dov watches her but doesn’t comment, and they walk on in silence.

  Back on the road, they pass pilgrims from Poland, grey-robed monks from France and white-clad nuns from Spain, all coming to pray in the churches, chapels, convents and monasteries that line this historic road. They stand in the doorway of the sombre Grotto Gethsemane chapel, and listen while an African priest in a scarlet cassock conducts Mass in lilting English for his rapt international congregation.

  The Via Dolorosa is jammed with priests, nuns and pilgrims as they follow the Stations of the Cross, and she is shocked by the profusion of tourist shops and stalls selling tawdry souvenirs. A young man in a long white robe dragging a heavy wooden cross stops right in front of her, barring her way. He wears leather sandals, his hair is long and tangled, and there’s something compelling in his beatific smile as he leans on the cross and wipes his sweating brow. ‘God bless you,’ he says, picks up the cross, and continues trudging along the ancient cobbled street. A few metres further on, two grey-haired women in biblical garb hold up placards warning passers-by to repent as the apocalypse is nigh.

  Annika turns to Dov. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Jerusalem can make you crazy. Every year hundreds of visitors channel biblical characters, convinced that they’re the reincarnation of Jesus, John the Baptist, Moses or the Virgin Mary. Some years ago, one of your compatriots, a sheep-shearer I think he was, set fire to the Al-Aksa mosque, believing he was on a mission from God to clear the Temple Mount of its non-Christian buildings. Biblical delusion has become so prevalent here that psychiatrists call it Jerusalem Syndrome.’

  ‘It’s amazing that a city can have such a powerful impact,’ she says.

  ‘In the Middle Ages, they believed Jerusalem was the centre of the world, and in a way it probably still is. You never know what effect it’s going to have on you, so you’d better watch out,’ he says as they push their way through a huge crowd approaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and fal
l in behind a procession of Ethiopian priests, vivid in their hot pink cassocks and elaborate black hats.

  Inside the church which stands on the site where Christ was crucified and buried, the candle smoke and the aroma of incense add to the stifling atmosphere, which reaches fever pitch as hundreds of worshippers, gripped by religious frenzy, surge forward to kiss the rock where the cross once stood. Some have tears streaming down their cheeks, while others sob loudly. ‘Mass hysteria,’ Annika mutters, but in spite of herself, she can’t help feeling moved by the powerful aura of this church and the pilgrims’ heartfelt outpouring of emotion.

  It’s a relief to emerge into the fresh air again. ‘Sadly, the teachings of the Prince of Peace haven’t created harmony among the Christian sects which are the guardians of this holy site,’ Dov says. ‘In fact, the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Coptic and Armenian churches have fought so bitterly over control of the keys to the church that today it’s a Muslim family that opens and closes the church!’

  They are on their way towards the Muslim Quarter, where shopkeepers in the crowded bazaar try to lure them to buy woven rugs, brightly patterned pottery, or religious souvenirs. ‘Are you hungry? I know a great place for lunch near here,’ Dov says.

  Inside the Bashura Café, the owner greets him with a hug. ‘I am happy to see you again, my friend,’ he says. ‘I will cook special dishes for you.’

  He notices Annika gazing at the vaulted ceiling and stone columns of the restaurant. ‘Dear lady, can you believe, this place was built in Roman times when this part of the city was part of the Cardo, the main street of ancient Jerusalem, in the days of Christ and Herod.’

  After they finish their lamb shashlik and roast eggplant, Dov says, ‘If you’re not too tired, I’d like to show you one of the best-kept secrets in Jerusalem.’

  From the rooftop of the Austrian Hospice, they seem to be looking at the Old City through a close-up lens, and the golden dome of the mosque seems close enough to touch. As they gaze at the view, bells peal from the Russian Orthodox monastery, and the sound of male voices singing Gregorian chants floats in the air. The beauty of their voices makes Annika’s eyes prickle, and she wipes them in embarrassment. ‘I’m beginning to see why this city has such a profound effect on visitors,’ she says.