by Nathan Ronen
The Atos private clinic, to which Arik and his little family were heading, was located near Bismarck Park on the bank of the Neckar River, in the suburbs of Heidelberg. The ambulance he had hired for Eva and the baby was staffed by a registered nurse, in addition to Arik himself.
The distance between Paris and Heidelberg was 290 miles. Eva slept most of the way under the influence of the painkillers that she had received at the hospital.
On their way out of Paris, Arik already spotted two young people with Mediterranean features and short, military-style crewcuts in a black Citroën C5 that was following them. He photographed its license plate and sent the photos to Haya Calmy, head of the Mossad’s Paris bureau, along with a question mark.
They were assigned a well-lighted room looking out on the big park, which included a large leather sofa that opened up into a bed for Arik.
The phone rang. Haya Calmy from Paris was on the line. “Arik, what’s new? How’s Eva?”
“We’re fine. Eva’s recuperating. It’s happening slowly, but there’s some improvement every day,” he replied. “Listen, there are a couple of young guys who have been right on my tail ever since Paris. Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes, they’re our guys,” she clarified. “Cornfield wanted us to keep an eye on you since your head hasn’t been screwed on straight lately. Cornfield claims your brain’s switched from logical mode to a husband’s emotional-protective mode. So, we received instructions to keep an eye on all of you.”
Arik needed plenty of patience for the new pace of his life, which was adapted to the pace of Eva’s recovery. He passed the time between long hours of rest, slow walks in the park, and meals in their private room. He helped her shower, went to the bathroom with her when she felt dizzy, and sat next to her as she slept, gazing with love and concern at her pretty face. He noted with joy how the blue-yellow blotches were absorbed and gradually vanished from her face and ribs. The wound over her right eye still bled, but to a lesser extent.
As they walked slowly in the park, Arik noticed the same young men with a Marines-style crewcut walking on the other side of the park, parallel to them. They made no attempt to initiate a meeting.
Eva looked better with each passing day. There was still a concavity in her scalp over her right eye where her eye socket had fractured. The cast had been removed from her right arm, replaced by a light elastic bandage, connected to her neck with elastic bands. She did physical therapy daily. Her attacks of dizziness had decreased. She still felt insecure, and therefore preferred to use a walker, though the doctors encouraged her to walk without it.
The peace and quiet at the clinic, its cleanliness, and the excellent German-speaking medical staff all had a positive effect. Along with her physical recuperation, Eva was also undergoing psychological therapy to help her recover from the trauma of postpartum depression. She received targeted medication for a short time in order to stabilize her mood. And indeed, after about ten days of convalescence, she asked Arik to bring her the baby in order to feed the little one with a formula bottle.
Frau von Kesselring, Eva’s mother, came to the rehabilitation center every day, accompanied by the nanny, who stayed outside the clinic. Occasionally, when Eva fell asleep, her mother would stay by her side and Arik would sneak off to the park to meet the nanny and take his little son Leo for a walk to the playground. Leo missed his mother very much and frequently asked about her.
As Eva began to recover, she asked to see the baby more and more and began to smile at her and kiss her. She also began to think about a name for the baby.
“What if we give the baby two names?” she asked Arik. “Ethel, after your late mother, who was a very central figure in your life, and Hannelore, after my grandmother, who was a very pleasant woman.”
Arik smiled happily at Eva and the baby. He saw this as a very positive sign of his wife’s recuperation.
About a month after her fall, Eva told Arik she was ready to leave the clinic. She had had enough of the sterile environment. She missed home, wanted to see her older son Leo once more, and often asked after baby Ethel-Hannelore. Arik was pleased that she was expressing a desire to return to her previous life. She told him she wanted to introduce him to her friends from the university and to her childhood friends.
The days in which Arik stayed in Eva’s parents’ home were dedicated to long walks along the river with Mutti (Mother) Brigitte von Kesselring and little Leo. Eva’s mother proved to be a much nicer woman than the tough, enigmatic figure Arik had met at the beginning of their relationship.
Arik decided to throw Eva a surprise party at a restaurant near the university around lunchtime. It was a cheerful, happy party, attended by people who loved Eva and were overjoyed to see her happy with her family and two children. It was also the first time they got the chance to meet Arik, after only hearing about him.
At the end of the exuberant party, Eva was very tired. She returned to her apartment along with Leo, baby Ethel, and the nanny. He stayed behind to work out all the financial matters with the restaurant owner. Mutti Brigitte joined him for a shot of schnapps. He wanted to hurry off to join the weary Eva and his small children, but apparently, his mother-in-law wanted to talk to him.
“Arik, I owe you an apology,” she said in basic English peppered with German words. Luckily for her, Arik was fluent in Yiddish, a Jewish dialect quite close to German, and therefore, he could understand her. “Now I see how much you love my daughter, and how much she loves you. And I truly appreciate the devotion with which you took care of her during the difficult period you both experienced.”
Arik stayed silent. He was glad she had arrived at this conclusion.
“I also apologize for my husband’s behavior,” she went on. “He’s a difficult, rigid man, who was the son of a Nazi Wehrmacht soldier, and in his childhood, he was also a member of the Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend). He wasn’t crazy about the idea that his daughter, of all people, would marry an Israeli Jew.”
“There’s an old Jewish proverb that says, ‘People make plans and God laughs.’ Do you know it?”
“Of course. That statement is true of all of us,” Brigitte said.
“Why don’t we go home and continue this conversation at the apartment, after Eva and the kids retire for their schlafstunde, their afternoon nap?” Arik suggested.
“You’re quite right,” Brigitte said, insisting on splitting the party expenses with Arik.
When Arik and Eva’s mother reached the apartment, they found that Eva had already gone to bed to nap with the baby. The nanny had taken Leo, who was full of energy and refused to sleep, to a nearby park.
They sat in the apartment’s living room. Brigitte brought them a bottle of home-brewed plum schnapps, pouring it into two glasses. She raised her glass to him, declaring, “Zum Wohl—to your health,” and he replied, “Prost—cheers.”
“I don’t know if Eva ever told you,” she resumed their conversation, “but she was a very rebellious girl in her youth. I imagine it was a kind of rebellion against my husband, who is essentially a good man.”
Arik kept his silence.
“You have to understand that the idea of protective parenting, one that is sensitive to the challenges and emotional development of the child, is a new, modern approach, which was not popular in our parents’ generation,” Eva’s mother continued. “In Germany in the middle of the twentieth century, we grew up in Saxon families where most parents’ attitudes toward their children were not characterized by gentleness and love. On the contrary! Within the family, the children were usually subjected to a tyrannical regime, and fearfully obeyed their parents, particularly the father, who was considered to be an unchallenged ruler in his own home. I was born in the middle of World War Two and my father, who was a rank soldier, disappeared in the wilderness of Russia. I have no idea where he was killed or where he’s buried. But Eva’s father, who became a
priest after we were already married, also transformed his life, since his father, Eva’s grandfather, was distinctly a Nazi who raised his children according to the Prussian Junker tradition, characterized by a haughty, unyielding attitude. Part of his attempt to make amends was retreating into religion. But his rigidity, the fact that he never hugged his children, and the fact that our oldest son drowned in the Baltic Sea during a family vacation, all made him into a bitter, closed-off, distant man.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Arik said. “I didn’t know.”
“As you can see, the Jews weren’t the only ones who experienced trauma. Plenty of German families underwent major trauma after the defeat of 1945, and Germany suffered greatly under the occupation, particularly the Soviet one,” Brigitte said sadly.
Her statement evoked much anger in Arik. He wanted to lecture her about guilt, forgiveness, and absolution, but decided that this was not the time or place.
“I don’t want to make comparisons,” he tried to control his voice, “but none of the countries that occupied you in 1945 tried to exterminate you as a people, no one made soap out of your bodies, or killed a million of your children out of six million Jews, amounting to a third of the Jewish population before World War Two, murdered in an orchestrated, industrial manner in the death camps.”
“I apologize.” Her expression was sincere. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to diminish the Holocaust you experienced. There’s no historical precedent for it, and we Germans take full responsibility, of course. I just wanted to tell you that on an individual level, as people, each of us bears the scars of this war.”
A tense silence unfolded between them. Brigitte looked at Arik sadly. “I don’t know how familiar you are with Eva’s history as an adolescent. She was a rebellious girl who did all she could to revolt against conventions, and especially against her father. At the age of sixteen, she ran away from home and took to the streets. She kept company with black American soldiers, traveled to South America and experimented with drugs, lived with some Indian girl as romantic partners in the forests of Brazil,” Brigitte told him. “She was searching for herself and her identity and lived with an evangelical cult in the southern United States. It was actually at this church, which sees itself as ‘Christian-Zionist,’ that she saw the light. And then one day she traveled to Israel. I know that Eva returned from Israel more mature and reasonable, and talked to us enthusiastically about the Jewish people, who managed to rise from the ashes and re-establish themselves. She had always felt guilty because her grandfather had been a Wehrmacht soldier, who might have killed Jews because of his Nazi ideology.”
Arik was shocked. Eva had never told him about her adventures. However, it was also true that he had never asked. She, too, did not prod him about his past or ask about his previous marriage. Eva always respected his privacy.
“Eva enrolled in the university at a relatively late age and embarked on a direct course to her PhD,” his mother-in-law said, continuing her tale. “She had a brilliant career until she went to visit friends in Israel and met you.”
Arik smiled in embarrassment.
“So, what are your plans now, as an older father of two tiny kids?” Brigitte asked. “Why don’t you stay here in Heidelberg? Eva says you have a good mind, and I’m sure that within a short time, you could be fluent in the language and maybe catch up on the required academic degrees. Maybe you can work as a journalist specializing in the Middle East. I could never understand what was going on in your part of the world and why it’s in a constant state of war. I would certainly be happy to be close to my daughter and my grandchildren, Leo and Hannelore.”
“You have to understand, Brigitte, it’s not that simple,” Arik explained. “I have two other children from a previous marriage. They’re already adults. My daughter is married with a child of her own, and at the moment, I’m on unpaid leave from my place of employment.”
“Excuse me, but what exactly is the nature of your work?” Brigitte dared to ask, although this was considered a rude question in her culture.
“My job is the kind you get married to,” Arik replied enigmatically. “You breathe it, sleep with it, and wake up to it. It’s the kind of work that sometimes successfully competes with your family and wife.”
Brigitte looked at him in disbelief. He decided he would not tell her about the true nature of his work.
“I was the Israeli prime minister’s national security advisor,” he finally said. “And I deal mostly with matters of national security and strategy.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Brigitte said, impressed. “Eva never boasted about your important position. She said you were a government employee in an office. I really wondered about how you could receive the Legion of Honor medal, the highest honor that the French president can bestow on a foreign citizen.”
“In the meantime, I’m here. Until Eva is back on her feet,” Arik stated. “Let’s live in the moment. Do you know the phrase ‘carpe diem’?”
Brigitte nodded. “I’m glad we talked,” she said, patting Arik affectionately on the back.
He turned to her and hugged her warmly. “You’re a great mother and grandmother, and I’m glad to be here with you.”
The grandmother’s blue eyes grew misty. She was obviously moved. “The Old Testament says, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’”19 she said. “Who knows? Maybe my grandchildren, the offspring of a generation of murderers and a generation of victims, will grow up to be the humane bridge that brings healing, a bridge to peace in this crazy world.”
“Who knows,” Arik said.
* * *
19Leviticus 19:18
Chapter 19
The Oligarch’s Birthday Party, Caesarea
Leaving by car from Jerusalem to south-central Israel on a Thursday evening was always a nightmare. This was the time when everyone ran out to shop in preparation for a brief two-day weekend. Most of the senior administrators lived in the cities of central Israel, particularly in the beating heart of Israel’s unofficial capital, Tel Aviv. This liberal city, on the eastern bank of the Mediterranean Sea, was nicknamed “the White City,” due to the white, Bauhaus-style structures built there in the early twentieth century.
Ehud Tzur was very happy with the fact that, as prime minister, he was entitled to a clean, secure pathway allowing him to exit the city smoothly with no traffic. The VIP Security Unit’s convoy of black vans drove in front of and behind his black armored Audi 9 limousine, which was worth close to three million New Israeli Shekels (NIS). Jerusalem Police blocked major intersections in order to allow the convoy to leave the prime minister’s residence with no delay on its way to Road 1, leading west, toward the coast.
The western skyline was tinted in a reddish hue. The entire sphere of the sun was glowing gold in a breathtaking, early-autumn sunset, while cirrus clouds provided the proper contour for this image of natural kitsch. The convoy drove at a mad speed while two traffic police officers on motorcycles cleared its path. All drivers shifted aside reverently, allowing the procession to make its way like a hot knife through butter.
That evening, Ehud Tzur and his wife were on their rather reluctant way to the town of Caesarea. They were invited to the sixtieth birthday party thrown by a mysterious Russian oligarch’s wife for her husband. The woman was friendly with Monique, Ehud Tzur’s wife. She had provided a dowry from her husband to Ehud Tzur: the promise of a generous donation to fund his election campaign in the digital media.
Ehud Tzur could never stand his wife Monique’s friends. He also didn’t understand her obsessive need for information and control over certain things that seemed unreasonable to him. He didn’t like her need to cozy up to various hairdressers, stylists, and celebrity chefs, or her attempt to portray herself in the spotlight as the Israeli masses’ ‘Joan of Arc.’ He was also not fond of the image of ‘Evita’ that clung to her and pursu
ed her in respectable media outlets. He especially did not like her tendency to demand gifts from those who surrounded her. He did not like her paintings and her floundering artistic career, which had been bolstered since she became the prime minister’s wife. He viewed her as a very minor artist.
One thing was on his mind that night was how to successfully traverse the election campaign, and how he might motivate anyone who could help him, to come to his aid. As he sat in the back seat going over the intelligence briefing, he heard his wife snoring lightly. He looked at her, the woman by his side, who had put on plenty of weight since they first met. At the time, he had been a junior legislative assistant as a law student, working for a longtime Knesset member who was among the founders of the Revisionist Party. She had been a freshman student at the Bezalel Academy of Art and an occasional flight attendant.
He had two women in his life: Geula Mordoch, his loyal office manager, who watched over him at work, but had ultimately betrayed him when she joined the gatekeepers in an attempt to bring about his downfall, and Monique, his wife, who always watched over him at home.
His wife Monique was there, as always. She was by his side, with him, behind him, and around him constantly, loyal to the last. Sometimes, it seemed like she had been there even before he was. Only the old-timers could describe him in that forgotten era before she came into his life. Very few, if any, could imagine him without her. Only a handful tried to imagine how he would look and where he would be without her. Since their fateful meeting, more than three and a half decades had gone by. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of gifts had been demanded, bestowed, and purchased in their honor by many lucky people, as the two of them transformed from a pair into one, from a couple to a single being. From two separate, independent people, they had become one united entity, melded together, until it was hard to tell them apart. The challenges of political life had forged them into one unit, Siamese twins connected at the navel. There was not a single journey on which she did not accompany him, always bringing him gossipy information of which his intelligence personnel were unaware.
