The Righteous Men (2006)

by Sam Bourne

  ‘Well, if a man had performed one act of extraordinary goodness, would that be enough to say he was a tzaddik.’

  ‘Perhaps you have some example in mind, yes? My answer is that it may seem to us as if the tzaddik performed just one holy act. But remember, these men hide their goodness. The truth may be that this is the only act we know about.’

  ‘And what might such an act look like?’

  ‘Ah, this is a good question. You know, in that story about Rabbi Abbahu and the man in the whorehouse—’

  ‘The story from the third century?’

  ‘Yes. In that story, the tzaddik has done something very small. I forget the details, but he makes some small sacrifice to preserve the dignity of a woman.’

  Will heard himself gulp. Just like Macrae.

  ‘And this seems to be the common thread. Sometimes it is an act on a very large scale—’ Will thought of Chancellor Curtis in London, diverting precious millions to the poor ‘— perhaps a tzaddik will save an entire city from destruction. Sometimes it is a tiny gesture to one individual: a meal when they are hungry, a blanket when they are cold. In each case, the tzaddik has treated a fellow human being justly and generously.’

  ‘And in that way, even a small gesture might redeem a whole life?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Monroe. The tzaddik may have lived as if he was drenched in sin. Think of Chaim the Watercarrier, drinking himself to oblivion. But those acts of righteousness, they change the world.’

  ‘So goodness is not about rules. Or wearing a hair shirt. Or praying hard. Or knowing every word in the Bible. It’s about how we treat each other.’

  ‘Bein adam v’adam. Between man and man. That is where goodness, even divinity resides. Not in the heavens, but right here on earth. In our relations with each other. It also means we have to be careful. We have to treat everyone we meet with great respect because, for all we know, this man driving a cab or sweeping the streets or begging on a street corner, he might be one of the righteous.’

  That’s pretty egalitarian, isn’t it?’

  The rabbi smiled. ‘The equal value of every human life. This is the preoccupation of Torah. This is what Tova Chaya studied each day at the seminary. And what she studied here with me, before …’ The rabbi looked wistful and, suddenly, very old. He did not finish his sentence.

  Will felt guilty. Not personally — he knew he was not to blame for TC’s leaving all those years ago. But he felt guilty as — he struggled to articulate it — as a representative of the modern world. That was it. It was modernity, America, that had lured young Tova Chaya away from the routines and rhythms that had shaped Jewish lives for centuries, whether in rural Russia or Crown Heights. It was Manhattan, shimmering glass buildings, K-ROC on the radio, tight-fitting jeans, Domino’s Pizza, blockbusters at the Cineplex, The Gap, HBO, Glamour magazine, Andy Warhol at MOMA, rollerblading in Central Park, AmEx cards, one-click shopping, Columbia University, sex outside marriage — it was all that that had drawn TC away. How could the medieval conformity of Hassidic life compete? The drabness of the clothes, the regimented calendar, the countless limits — on what you could eat, what you could study or read or draw, on who you could love. No wonder TC had had to escape.

  And yet, Will could see that TC had lost something by leaving. He could hear it in Rabbi Mandelbaum’s voice and he had seen it in TC’s eyes. He had experienced it for himself in those few hours before he was grabbed and grilled on Friday night. This place had something Will had hardly known, either growing up in England or living as an adult in America. The bland word for it was ‘community’. People fantasized about that often enough. Back home, the myth of the English village, where everyone knows everyone else, still exerted a powerful hold, though Will had never seen it for real. In America, suburban picket-fence neighbourhoods liked to think they were communities — with their car pools and block parties — but they did not have what Will had seen in Crown Heights.

  Here, people were as involved with each other as one large, extended family. An elaborate welfare system meant that each provided for the other as if they were drawing from a common pot. Children were in and out of each other’s houses. No one seemed to be strangers. TC had explained that the claustrophobia could be choking: she had had to get out to breathe. But she also described a warmth, a shared life, she had never known again.

  Rabbi Mandelbaum had his head down, turning the pages of yet another book. ‘There is one more thing. I don’t know if this will be useful or not. According to several legends, one of these thirty-six men is even more special than the others.’

  ‘Really? What kind of special?’

  ‘One of these thirty-six is the Messiah.’

  Will leaned forward. ‘The Messiah?’

  ‘“If the age were worthy of it, he would reveal himself as such.” That’s what the scholars say.’

  ‘The candidate,’ Will said softly.

  ‘Someone explained this to you already?’

  ‘TC told me that in every generation there is a candidate to be Messiah. If now were the Messianic time, then that man would be it. If it’s not the time, then nothing happens.’

  ‘We have to be worthy. Otherwise, the opportunity is lost.’

  Almost involuntarily, Will looked at the photographs of the Rebbe, gazing out from every wall and every angle. Dead more than two years, his eyes still shone.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Rabbi Mandelbaum, following Will’s eyes. And the two men looked at each other.

  The door opened. TC was standing there, clutching her phone. There was no colour in her face; her eyes were glassy, like an animal stunned for slaughter.

  She bent down and whispered in Will’s ear. ‘The police are after me. I’m wanted for murder.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Monday, 2.20am, Darwin, Northern Australia

  The music had stopped, that was why he had gone in. He kept this up throughout his shift, whether it was day or night — tip-toeing into the room to take out the finished CD and replace it with a new one. The bedside cupboard was full of them, Schubert mainly, left there by the old man’s daughter. The family had not asked Djalu to do it, but he knew it was what they wanted.

  He put on the record. He could hear wailing from the next room along; he would have to be there in a second. But he wanted to stay a while with this resident, Mr Clark, the man who loved music. Djalu had only seen him awake for an hour or two each day; the sedative kept him asleep the rest of the time. But in those conscious minutes, Mr Clark seemed healed by the sounds of violins and cellos which uncoiled from the CD and into the room like stretches of fine thread. His aged lips parted as if to taste the melodies; his mouth sometimes made the same tiny movement even when he was in deep slumber.

  Djalu would seize on those moments to take the small sponge, mounted on a stick, dip it into the bedside glass of water and brush it onto Mr Clark’s mouth. The old man, nearly eighty-five, could no longer eat or drink, not without vomiting. So this was the only way to give him sustenance. He was dying, like so many of the people in this place, not from the disease that had assailed him for months but of starvation and eventual dehydration. Once it was clear that the patient could never be cured, the organs would be allowed to pack up, one by one until death finally arrived.

  It seemed a cruel way to let a person die. Djalu’s father denounced it as typical of ‘white man’s’ medicine, all science and no spirit. Sometimes Djalu thought he was right; after all, he had seen some terrible things in this place. Old women lying in pools of their own urine; men crying out for hours to be helped to the toilet. Some of the nurses quickly lost patience, shouting at the residents, telling them to shut up. Or addressing them by their first names, as if they were babies.

  In his first few months, Djalu had gone with the flow. He did not want to draw attention to himself, one of only two aborigine care assistants in the home. His position was hardly secure, not with a resume which included two spells in jail — one for burglary, the other for shoplifting
. So he said nothing when the senior staff would hear moans or screams from down the corridor — and would turn up the TV to drown out the noise.

  Even now he said nothing. He made no complaints to the matron or the manager; he wanted no fuss and no hassle. Sometimes he even joined in the jokes about the ‘crinkly old buggers’. But he did what he could.

  So when he heard a resident crying out, he ran. He was part of what the nursing home called Team Red, responsible for about two dozen beds. But if he saw a light flashing for a resident in Blue or Green, he went anyway — often sneaking in, hoping none of the staff would see him. He made sure Mr Martyn sipped some water or that Miss Anderson was turned over. And if they had soiled themselves, he would clean them up, wiping them gently, afterwards stroking their hair, trying to soothe away their shame.

  He heard how some of the residents referred to him. ‘Matron, I don’t want that boong touching me,’ one had said when Djalu had first appeared at his bedside. ‘It’s wrong.’ But Djalu put that down to their age. They did not know any better.

  Mr Clark had not been much friendlier. ‘Which one are you?’ he had asked.

  ‘Which one, Mr Clark?’

  ‘Yes, there’s that other abo, whatisname? Which one are you?’

  But Djalu could not feel angry, not with a man who was in the last days of his life. So he brought tea and biscuits when Mrs Clark visited; brought her a tissue when he found her quietly sobbing; and when she fell asleep in the chair by the bed, he draped a blanket over her.

  Maybe his father was right that European medicine was a cold, metallic discipline. So he, Djalu, would give it a warm, human face — even if that face seemed to scare so many of these dying white folks.

  This was his favourite time to work, late at night when he could have the corridor to himself. He would not need to explain his presence in the rooms, would not need to make up excuses for why he was reading the newspaper out loud to a woman on the second floor, not on the Red list, or simply holding the hand of a man who craved the touch of another human being.

  So he jumped when he saw the door to Mr Clark’s room creak open. The woman who came in had her finger to her lips, hushing Djalu. Her eyes were smiling, as if she were planning on giving Mr Clark a surprise and did not want Djalu to ruin it.

  ‘Good evening, Djalu.’

  ‘You gave me a fright. I didn’t realize you were working tonight.’

  ‘Well, you know death. It never sleeps.’

  Djalu leapt to his feet. ‘Did someone die tonight?’

  ‘Not yet. But I expect it.’

  ‘Who? Maybe I should—’

  ‘Djalu, don’t get excited. OK?’ Calmly, the woman bent down and pulled out several of the CDs in the bedside cabinet, letting them fall to the floor.

  ‘Hey, miss. That’s Mr Clark’s music. I’m looking after it—’

  ‘Here it is.’ She had reached behind the discs for what looked like a bandage. Now she lay it on the bed, on the square of mattress next to Mr Clark’s chest, which was rising and falling like a set of bellows. The old man was fast asleep.

  She opened up the bandage, pulling one flap of material to the left, the other to the right, to reveal a hypodermic needle alongside a vial of clear serum.

  ‘Is the doctor coming? No one told me.’

  ‘No, the doctor is not coming.’ She snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

  ‘You giving Mr Clark a shot? What you doing?’

  ‘I’ll show you if you like. Come closer.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him.’

  ‘Relax, Djalu. Now come over here and you can see. A bit closer.’

  The woman held the needle up to the window, where it made a silhouette against the moonlight. ‘Now, Djalu, if you can place your hands on Mr Clark’s shoulders. That’s it, just bend slightly.’

  Cleanly, the woman jabbed the needle into Djalu’s neck, her thumb pushing the plunger hard, sending the drug swimming into his veins within an instant. Djalu had a second to turn around, his face frozen in astonishment. A second later, he fell forward, landing heavily on Mr Clark’s heaving chest.

  His killer had to use all her strength to haul Djalu off and lay him smoothly on the floor. She laid a blanket over him, stopping only to close his eyes with the palm of her hand.

  ‘I apologize, Djalu Banggala, for what I have done. But I have done it in the name of the Lord God Almighty. Amen.’

  She packed the needle and the empty vial back into the bandage, tucked it into her pocket and headed out, noiselessly. Mr Clark did not stir. If he heard anything, it was only music — the insistent strings of one of Schubert’s most famous pieces. Death and the Maiden.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Sunday, 10.10pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  TC was leading the way, fast and determined. She was not to be diverted. She last walked these streets a decade ago, but she had not forgotten where Rabbi Freilich lived.

  Rushing to keep up, Will was firing out questions. But TC was staring straight ahead. ‘They found the body a couple of hours ago. On the floor of my apartment. Apparently no one realized he had gone missing till this morning.’

  ‘Christ. How long do they think he’d been dead?’

  ‘Since last night. He was killed in my apartment, Will.’ TC’s voice wavered for the first time.

  Will thought of the super’s face: the Garry Kasparov of the basement. If he had been killed last night, it could only have been minutes after he had helped Will and TC escape. That was surely why he had been murdered. An image jumped into Will’s mind. The man in the baseball cap.

  First Yosef Yitzhok, now Pugachov. Two people who had come to Will’s aid had paid for it with their lives. Who would be next? Rabbi Mandelbaum? Tom Fontaine?

  Ever since Friday morning Will had felt as if he was falling down a mineshaft, getting further and further away from the light. He could see nothing clearly. The rabbi had explained what was surely going on, but how on earth did it involve him and Beth? What had they got to do with this mystical prophecy, a kabbalistic legend which now appeared to be fuelling an international killing spree? He was falling and falling.

  And just when he thought he had hit rock bottom — hearing of the killing in Bangkok or of YY’s death — he would fall some more. Now Pugachov was dead and TC was in dire trouble.

  ‘Janey says the police knocked on every door, asking after the occupant of Apartment 7. Thank God she was in. She told them my name and said she hadn’t seen me since yesterday afternoon, which is good. Luckily, she was smart enough to say she didn’t know my cell number. They just left and she phoned me right away, to give me a heads-up.’

  ‘And they definitely regard you as the suspect?’

  ‘Janey says she got that impression. Why else was the guy in my apartment? Like, he went in there alive and now he’s dead. I’m gone. What else does it look like?’

  TC was still striding forward, her breath forming instant clouds. Her cheeks were beginning to glow. ‘Apparently, they asked lots of weird questions.’

  ‘What kind of weird questions?’

  ‘About me and Pugachov. Did we have a sexual relationship?

  Was he obsessed with me? Was he a stalker?’

  Now Will understood what the police were thinking.

  Pugachov, the psycho super, gets himself into TC’s apartment after midnight. Tries to rape her. TC reaches for her gun, kills him and flees the scene.

  ‘It won’t take long for them to get your cell number. The police must have access to all that.’

  ‘Hence this.’ TC held up the carcass of a cell phone, minus its battery. Once the police had her number, they would doubtless be able to track it. Will had covered a couple of investigations where detectives reconstructed someone’s movements using phone records. These not only revealed the numbers the suspect had dialled, but each time they had come within range of a transmitter. Police could draw a map showing where someone had been and when. Unless the phone was completely without power: no sig
nal, no trace.

  ‘When did you last have it on?’

  ‘Mandelbaum’s.’

  ‘It won’t take them long to get there. Will he talk?’

  TC slowed down and turned her eyes to meet Will’s. ‘I don’t know.’

  They had come to Rabbi Freilich’s house, no grander than any of the others in Crown Street. The paint was peeling on the front door, but that was not what Will noticed. Rather it was the bumper sticker that had been placed just above eye level: Moshiach is coming.

  If these were student digs, it would not have looked incongruous.

  But this was the home of a grown-up, a man of standing. The sticker sent a tremor through Will. It said one thing: fanatic.

  TC had already knocked on the door and now Will could hear movement. Through the opaque glass, he could see the outline of a man’s head and shoulders.

  ‘Ver is? Vi haistu?’

  Yiddish, Will imagined.

  ‘S’is Tova Chaya Lieberman, Reb Freilich. I’ve come because of the great sakono.’

  ‘Vos heyst?’ What do you mean?

  ‘Reb Freilich, a sakono fur die gantseh breeye.’ The same warning she had given Rabbi Mandelbaum: a threat to all creation.

  The door opened, to reveal the man Will had talked to at some length but had never seen. He was neither tall, nor physically commanding but his face had stern, firm features which, Will could see, conveyed a quiet authority. His beard was brown rather than white or grey and it was short and well-kempt. He wore neat, rimless glasses. In a different context, Will could see him as the CEO of a moderate-sized American company. As he saw and recognized Will, he hesitated, then gave a dip of the head, a gesture Will chose to interpret as contrition.

  ‘You’d better come inside.’

  They were ushered once again around a dining table white tablecloth, plastic sheet — in a room filled with holy books. This room, though, was large, airy and tidy. In a corner, Will spotted a pile of editions of The New York Times. He could also see a magazine rack stuffed with the Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and a variety of Hebrew newspapers. Making the instant assessment that was part of his trade, Will wrote a four-word headline in his head to describe Rabbi Freilich: Man of the World.