Before he could inquire further, the TV reporter appeared in the patio doors.
“I’ll be a few minutes.” Masada went into the house.
Professor Silver waited a moment and followed. The policemen were gone. He heard the voices in the study.
“Nice decor,” the reporter said. “Gothic.”
“Don’t joke,” Masada said. “We’re working together now. You better shut off your gas main.”
“You should feel very special. I think this is the first assassination attempt in Arizona since Geronimo.”
“Intimidation, not assassination. It’s just a bad prank.”
She was right, and Silver’s rage flared up again. Allah Almighty, why did you send me the only stupid Jew in the world?
“Did you find Sheen’s flight?”
“A single Air Canada flight that day,” Tara said, “arriving Phoenix at 9:00 p.m., but no passenger named Sheen.”
“Probably not his real name. You have the SuperShuttle records?”
Silver heard the fluttering of paper and Masada saying, “My source’s address is not on this list.”
“Maybe your source is lying?”
The professor held his breath.
“My source,” Masada said, “is the only person I trust in this town.”
Good girl. Silver exhaled.
“What makes you so sure?” Tara asked.
Silver strained to hear.
“He reminds me of my dad. That whole generation of Jewish men were the same-thoughtful, learned, soft spoken, ethical, always trying to do the right thing. Even his humor is like my dad’s.” Masada paused. “He’s kosher, trust me.”
In the hallway, Silver was beaming; he had managed to fool Masada El-Tal, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter!
“I know what you mean,” Tara said. “I had a source once who reminded me of my first boyfriend. He also turned out to be a scumbag.”
“My source was used as a safe house, that’s all. Sheen must have tipped the SuperShuttle driver to keep him off the log. Our last hope is your priest.”
A priest? Silver scurried away and dropped on the singed sofa, slumped, head back, eyes closed. Why does Masada need a priest?
The two women walked by, and the reporter asked, “Who’s the old Lenin?”
“Professor Silver is a good friend from Temple Zion.”
They walked away, and a moment later Masada’s footsteps returned alone. She shook his shoulder.
Silver opened his eyes in his best imitation of an old Jew rising from a brief nap. “Oy!” He stood up, leaning on her arm. “Did I fall asleep?”
She made him turn and began pounding his back and buttock, raising a cloud of soot. The burnt upholstery had clung to his shirt and pants.
“If I knew you’d spank me,” he said, “I’d fall asleep every time.”
“There.” She tapped his shoulder. “Best I can do.”
“I’m such a schlemiel.”
She led him by the arm to the front door, which was cracked at the hinges.
“Meidaleh, why don’t you drop the whole thing?” He reached up and pinched her cheek. “Move on to something else. Let sleeping lions sleep.”
“They’re not lions, and they’re not sleeping. They’re wide-awake bullies.”
“They can do more than mess up walls and slaughter cats.” Stepping outside, the sun’s sudden brilliance stabbed Silver’s eye. He removed his glasses and wiped his face. “It’s getting a little warm,” he said, his back to her. Opening his eyes cautiously, he saw that the fire engines and police cruisers were gone. The yellow line stayed. “What about the snake? That was deadly.”
“It was scary,” she shuddered. “But if I had just slipped into bed, like they had expected, at most it would have bitten me on the foot, which happens to a lot of people in Arizona. I’d be in terrible pain, but every hospital in this town stocks enough serum to treat a whole football team, cheerleaders included, if they all run together barefoot into a rattlers’ den.”
The image made Silver shiver.
Masada hugged him. “I’ll see you at temple on Friday night.”
“Are you leading the discussion?” He laughed. “God help us.”
“God’s too busy dishing out suffering to his chosen people-famines, slavery in Egypt, civil wars, exiles, pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions, ghettos, Holocausts, terrorists, internal strife, missiles, corrupt leaders-”
“Good-bye!” Silver got into his Cadillac, turned on the engine, and blew her a kiss.
As he was about to drive off, a large SUV stopped in front of Masada’s house. Two men and two women came out, all wearing blue FBI windbreakers. One of them showed her a piece of paper before entering the house.
Masada leaned on Silver’s window. “Don’t worry. They won’t find it.”
An oval line of gravel stones circled the hump of dirt, and a photo of Shanty was stapled to a stick. Rabbi Josh felt sick. Officiating at hundreds of funerals over the years hadn’t prepared him for this one. Not only was the deceased a dog, but the mourner was his son.
Raul mulled the dirt, crying softly. The rabbi went into the house and found the rubber cat Shanty had favored. He gave it to Raul, who held it to his cheek.
After sunset, he prepared a dinner of chicken and rice. Raul sat in his lap, and they ate from the same plate while watching Clifford the Big Red Dog on TV. He gave the boy a quick bath, together with the rubber cat, and read him a story in bed. Raul cried again before falling asleep.
Back in the kitchen, Rabbi Josh watched CNN. In L.A., the Nation of Islam organized a march from the Steven S. Wise synagogue to the Israeli consulate, which turned the freeways into parking lots before flaring up into a full-fledged riot. A crowd of youth in Queens, NY, beat up yeshiva students, and a Saint Louis Jewish Community Center was burnt to the ground. Other Jewish institutions across America were vandalized with broken windows and graffiti, followed by sporadic incidents in Canada and Europe. The White House issued a statement urging Americans to “distinguish between criminal actions of foreign countries and law-abiding U.S. citizens of any religion who uphold our constitutional freedoms and way of life.” The President himself, however, had remained conspicuously mum, indicating through his spokesman that he deferred to the Senate on the issue of investigating Israel for its suspected “unfriendly legislative interference.”
One day, Silver thought, this ugly little house would be a tourist destination: The Flavian Silver-Abu Faddah Museum. Schoolchildren and academic scholars would come to learn about the man who defeated the Zionist apartheid state and restored Palestine to its rightful Arab owners-not by the power of the sword, as his comrades had tried, but by the power of his ideas.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
He had taken the phrase to new heights, joining the Jews and beating them at their own ancient game of manipulating the gentiles. He had studied how the Jews survived through gaining influence, leagues beyond their tiny numbers, by devising advantageous financial and political systems-emancipation, communism, socialism, and capitalism, all supported by their system of international banking. Living as a Jew and utilizing academic tools to study them had given him an understanding of their ways. His plan owed its brilliance to his immersion in the Jewish way of thinking.
Al’s white van was in the garage. Silver drove in slowly until the front bumper of the Cadillac connected with the tire he had placed against the wall. His eye, slow to adjust to the dark interior, was a poor judge of distance. With practiced motions he depressed the foot brake, turned off the engine, and put a few drops of saline in his eye.
Down in the basement, the dumb grin was absent from Al’s face. He lit one of his cheap cigarettes and filled his barrel chest. “Don’t know,” he said, smoke petering through his spaced teeth, “how she walked away from such an explosion.”
The professor bit into an apple, savoring the juicy flesh.
“Don’t know.” Al blew a long tunnel of smoke.
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“Well, I’m just a professor.” Silver took another bite.
Al drew once more, and the ashes fell on his shirt, rolled over the protruding belly, and dropped to the floor. “Being a witch, that’s her shield.” He bent down to pick up the ashes, which crumbled between his stubby fingers. He straightened up, huffing, red-faced. “Snake was huge. Should have seen how it fought me until I managed to stuff it in the pillowcase. And the explosion? Shot out of every window-boom!” He clapped his hands. “Nothing can destroy her. Nothing!”
Silver took another bite from the apple. The failure of Al’s fire trap, while causing unnecessary delay, meant the Jew would have to accept his destiny. “Your contraption ignited as soon as she pushed in the door. The explosion slammed the door back, protecting her.”
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” Al walked in a circle, beating his head. “Should have placed the ignition strip farther in, so the matches would reach it only when the door was wide open.”
Silver threw the apple core in the trash and took his time rolling the first joint of the night. His supply of hashish was ample, thanks to Rajid. He lounged in the armchair and puffed a cloud of smoke. “The National Council will be meeting after the Sabbath to discuss this situation.” He sighed. “We failed again. I’m so ashamed.”
“Honest mistake,” Al protested. “They must understand.”
The professor removed his glasses and buried his face in his hands. “We’re an embarrassment.” He considered quoting Rabbi Hillel, but decided it would be wasted on Al. “Our clumsiness is turning Judah’s Fist into a joke.”
“Give me another chance. Know I can get her. Let’s do it before they meet!”
“We can’t fail again.”
“Won’t fail. I swear!”
Silver make a show of pondering the dilemma. “We’ll have to do it in public-if you have the courage.”
“Yes! I have nothing to lose but a bad heart and a heartless wife.”
“Who poetic,” Silver said, surprised.
Al grinned. “A line from an old song.”
“Nice.” He rubbed his hands together. “How about we do it tomorrow evening at Temple Zion?”
“During the service?”
Pressing his fist to his heart, Silver invented a quote: “And God said to Moses: Hold down the traitor upon my altar and slaughter him before my ark, and his blood shall pass through my temple for all to see.”
Elizabeth McPherson typed quickly, determined to finish the draft she had been working on-an objection to an appeal of a deportation order. At 10:02 p.m., she was done. She filed it with the immigration court electronically, and left her office with an empty cardboard box.
The building was empty. She started downstairs, collecting forms, file folders, and blank receipts from the service counters. On the way up she stopped at various offices and picked up blank letterheads, approval stamps, and sample signatures of immigration officials who together formed the long assembly line traveled by every application for permanent resident status.
Earlier she had pulled from the archive the file of Dr. Greta Fusslig, an Austrian chemistry professor at ASU, who had won permanent resident status four months earlier through the little-known genius-visa route, based on her research on metal stress fractures.
Back in her office, Elizabeth arranged the blank forms in chronological order on the window ledge overlooking Central Avenue. Professor Silver had given her copies of his book, several research papers, passport photos, and fingerprints.
She began making up a file, starting with the application form.
A voice nagged her. You could go to jail! To fight off her doubts, Elizabeth thought about David’s betrayal and his promotion, which she had deserved after long years of diligent loyalty and hard work. This was her revenge, helping the strange professor obtain a green card, winning her own redemption at home. She imagined the stage, the Palestinian tricolor flags fluttering in the breeze, Father’s creased face joyous. Years from now, her child would look at those photos with pride.
With renewed resolve, she typed up fake statements, reports, interview records, and reference letters from academicians, praising Professor Silver’s brilliant work and future contributions. She used Dr. Fusslig’s file for inspiration, changing the jargon from chemistry to history and modifying gender from female to male. She signed each document differently, using her left hand in different angles and positions, and forged the professor’s signature on the forms, based on the sample he had provided. She granted him passing scores on an English and American history test, created transfer notes that would have accompanied a legitimate file between departments, and copied the medical report, attaching Dr. Fusslig’s lab results with the professor’s name plastered on it. A close review would reveal the female characteristics in the blood tests, but Elizabeth counted on the unfailing bureaucratic indifference of federal employees.
She drafted a Conditional Rejection Notice, addressed to Flavian Silver, berating him for overstaying his tourist visa, created a contrite reply letter from him, and a memo recommending a waiver, signed by a review officer whom Elizabeth had often criticized for unwarranted leniency.
When she finished creating the fictitious file, the dates on the documents spanned more than a year-the time it took Dr. Fusslig’s application to go through the various stages. Shortly after 4:00 a.m., Elizabeth began the tedious process of entering dates and actions into the database in the order they appeared in the paper file.
When it was time to save the new record to the system, her finger hesitated over the key. You are committing a crime! Think about your job, property, freedom, think of your child!
Elizabeth breathed deeply, calming herself. What had she gained after years of impeccable service to the U.S. government? Disrespect. Dishonesty. Disgrace. She thought of the crowd, cheering around the raised platform in the middle of the Kalandria refugee camp, the medal placed around her neck, Father hugging her, begging forgiveness. Hero of Palestine.
She clicked on Save.
Friday, August 8
Masada pulled up a chair, sat next to Priest and watched his fingers dance on the keyboard, aligning photos of white vans.
“The meeting took place inside a white Ford van.”
Instead of solutions, she was running into more questions. Sheen had borrowed Silver’s Cadillac, but met Senator Mahoney in a Ford van. “Was it Mahoney’s van?”
“I checked DMV records,” Priest said. “Mahoney didn’t own a car.” He skipped to the end of the clip and focused on the handshake. He enlarged Sheen’s hand, which seemed pudgy and hairy. He marked off a square from the green sleeve by the wrist and dragged it to the other half of the parted screen. He brought up a mesh of tiny blocks in different colors, scrolled down to shades of green, and dragged the cutoff from the sleeve to a glistening green square for a perfect match. Florida lime.
“I’m confused,” Masada said. “My source said Sheen left his house Saturday morning in a black Cadillac wearing a brown suit.”
“Could be another guy. A relay.” Priest pulled up the Public Television web site and found a promo for an old band of five men in long sideburns and glistening green suits.
Tara tapped the screen with her finger. “Polyester. My dad still has one.”
Masada stood and stretched her right leg, wincing.
“What’s wrong?”
“Old battle scars. What happened to the sound on the video?”
Priest turned on his stool. “It was muted.”
Tara laughed. “A mute senator-that’s a new one.”
“He’s not mute,” Priest said, smacking his lips.
Masada saw an opening. “Do you remember why Bush Senior lost to Clinton?”
Tara imitated the ex-president: “Read my lips — no more taxes!”
Professor Silver entered McDonald’s. A fat youth stood by the door, stuffing his mouth with fries. Elizabeth was sitting at a corner table with the Arizona Republic. She held it up to show him a cart
oon. It depicted a tank, marked with a Star of David, aiming its cannon at a lanky woman with black hair, who crouched behind a cactus, next to a burned-down house, aiming a giant pencil at the Israeli tank.
Silver laughed. “That’s my Masada. Fearless!”
Elizabeth handed him an envelope. “You’re officially approved as a permanent resident of the United States.”
They smiled at each other with the camaraderie of sinners.
He peeked inside the envelope. “Is this the green card?”
“They’ll mail your card directly from Washington. When you leave the country, you show the card at the airport, and the system won’t flag you for overstaying your visa.”
“Washington?” His good eye stung and blinked. “You can’t give it to me now?”
“Your application has been approved. It’s done, really. You should receive the card within sixty days.”
“That’s two months!”
Elizabeth’s face was taut. “Maybe less, several weeks.”
“I don’t have weeks. I’m booked on a flight Thursday morning. You must get it!”
“Must?” Elizabeth’s face turned red.
He grabbed her wrist. “Thursday!”
She pulled free. “Just like my father! Ungrateful!”
“Grateful for what?” Silver stood up, shaking the envelope. “A job half-done?”
Masada spent the morning clearing up the broken glass and scrubbing the floors. After a quick shower, she went to the bedroom, closed the door, and lay down.
She thought of Rabbi Josh, the way he had come to check on her the morning after Mahoney’s suicide, sweating and panting. She thought of his concerned eyes, his scruffy chin. She imagined caressing his bulging biceps, kissing his skin, and felt a jolt of pleasure.
Assuming a fetal position, Masada hugged her knees to her chest, the brace pressing against her heart. She could barely breathe, shocked by the crushing lust. “You’re a foolish woman,” she said. “Foolish! Foolish! Foolish!”
The Masada Complex Page 15
