Promised Land

by Martin Fletcher

  Peter was speechless. He was about to say it wasn’t Mossad but Aman, but caught himself. “Change of address,” he said instead. “Take me to the corner of Ben Yehuda and Smolenskin.” He didn’t want to stop right in front of the Office, this driver had a big mouth.

  “That isn’t all. There have been a whole load of arrests. That’s a way to run a country? It isn’t enough we let the Egyptians arrest one of our ships in the Suez Canal and don’t do anything about it? Apparently, there have been a whole string of bombs in Egypt, and the BBC said they may all be related. And now they’ve got our boy by the balls, literally. I’m telling you, this country is finished.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Poland.”

  “Will you go back, then, if it’s so bad here?”

  “Are you meshugge? Crazy? We don’t have anywhere else to go. Does that make this paradise, though? The best thing about this place is the breakfasts. Omelet with salad.”

  Peter paid the taxi and carried his case the last hundred yards to 85 Ben Yehuda. He passed through the identity checks and left his suitcase with the B floor guard. It was a four-story building with five floors. One could not be accessed or even seen from the main staircase, and had no windows. B floor was a box within a box. That was where he went.

  The first thing his section chief Amnon Sela said to Peter was, “What’s wrong with you? Last time I told you to come here and you go home. This time I tell you to go home and you come here? What is it with you?”

  “I’d laugh, but tell me, is it true, what my cabdriver told me?”

  “Must be. If a cabbie said so.”

  “About Egypt?”

  “Can you believe it? Come to my office.”

  Sela closed the door. “Harel hit the roof. He went straight to Defense HQ and now I think they’re all driving to Jerusalem. The prime minister wants blood. Says he didn’t know anything about it. Everyone’s blaming everyone else, of course.”

  “I came to talk about Bohlendorf.”

  “Yes, well, we will, but that’ll have to wait to get anyone’s attention. I think this is the worst thing to ever happen to us.”

  “Us?”

  “Not us, but it may as well be.”

  “So fill me in. What happened?”

  “Aman messed up. Totally. All this month. Letter bombs that did almost no damage in Alexandria. Then two more bombs, against the USIA libraries in Cairo and Alexandria. In hollowed-out books. The acid leaked and blew up the bombs too early. Nobody was hurt. The same in a train station. Freight trains, thank God, nobody hurt. And then this shlemiel today whose bomb went off in his pocket. Anyway, the Arabs are going through the Aman network like a knife through butter. They’ve arrested a dozen people, all Jews, and it’s still going on. God knows where it will end.”

  “It’ll probably end with the rest of Egypt’s Jews running here,” Peter said, thinking of Tamara and her family.

  “This mess is exactly what Harel warned against. Aman just doesn’t have the people to do this kind of work. We do, and only we do. Now they’ve cleaned up all the Aman network, they’ll go on trial and we’ll all be exposed as liars and crooks; and incompetent, which is worse.”

  “Just when we need everyone’s help against Egypt.”

  “Exactly. So what was that you were saying about assassinating a top German official in Bonn?”

  “I’m saying? You too.”

  It was all anyone was talking about at the Office but it was all at the gossip stage. “Have you heard…?” “Is it true?” “Whose bomb blew up…?” So after learning as much as he could, Peter decided to go home. Sela told him to wait there till he was called. “This Egypt disaster will take over for a few days, nobody’s got time to think about your man.”

  All of a sudden he’s my man, Peter thought. Sela’s a piece of work, he’s already covering his ass. “Make that our man,” Peter said.

  The word went to Peter’s team in Bonn to put everything on ice, while he picked up his case to go home to Diana, Noah, and Ezra.

  But a last word from Gingie at the door rang the alarm. “Peter,” she said quietly, laying her hand on his arm, looking around to make sure nobody could hear. “I told Diana, I had a call from the police. They wanted to know why I asked for the file of a man who died months ago. I had to tell them I was doing Diana a favor.”

  Peter felt his throat go dry, and nodded. “When did they call?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “That’s fine, no problem.”

  But that was the last thing he thought as he took the cab home. The police? This could snowball. Why did Diana get involved? It was Tamara’s problem. Gingie shouldn’t have asked for the file. It was all right to ask over the phone for information. There’s no log. But now there’s a paper trail. It was five minutes home by car but in that time he saw his future mapped out: lying to save his brother. He’d have to come up with a cover story for Diana. Why would she have asked for the dead man’s file? Ironic, he thought. He, so straight and honest, had become a professional liar. At work, he lived a lie, he lied for his country. How long does it take to absorb those warped values at home? Here he was, desperately seeking a lie that would save his brother, and, for that matter, his wife, who would appear an accomplice after the fact. Poor, dear, Tamara, the innocent. He had to find a story to explain it all. To lie for them seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  Or was he wrong? Did his brother not do it? Was there some innocent explanation? There was no way now but to ask him.

  To lighten his mood before seeing Diana, he bought her flowers at the corner shop. He took the stairs two at a time, daisies in one hand, suitcase in the other, smiling all the way.

  This time she was ready for him. Her auburn hair was long now, with curls to her shoulders, which were bare beneath a clinging silk chemise her mother had sent from London. Its fine lace trim and flimsy straps begged to be slipped over her shoulders. She wore a short cotton skirt that swirled as she turned, and her bare feet moved silently to the sofa where she led him by the hand.

  He asked, “Are the boys all right?”

  “Yes, they’re sleeping. So much has happened.”

  “Yes, lots to talk about. But it can wait.”

  “I missed you so much,” Diana whispered, taking him into her arms, stroking his neck, kissing him.

  “I missed you too, my love.” His hand felt beneath her chemise, he slipped his fingers beneath the silk straps and carefully raised them over her head while she wiggled out of her skirt. He always wondered how she did that. And then her specialty, which amused him even more. She stood on one leg, pulled the other foot up her inside thigh, hooked her big toe inside her panties and slowly pulled them down, all the while smiling, her eyes fixed on his. It always made him laugh, as on one leg she slowly revealed herself.

  They had half an hour before the boys would wake.

  It sufficed, just. He covered her mouth with his hand. “Sssshh,” he whispered. And soon she did the same to him.

  They held each other tightly, Diana lying on top of Peter, her chest on his, her belly on his, playing with his hair, while he trailed his fingers along the warmth of her damp skin, from the small of her back to the hollows of her knees. She trembled at his touch, even afterward, while he kissed her ear and the curve of her neck, which lay so enticingly by his lips. She felt his peaceful, warm breath, thinking, I have to tell him about the police, and he was thinking, This is so idyllic, I can’t let Arie ruin it all.

  That evening he sat the boys, ten months old now, in the bathroom sink and soaped them with warm water while Diana tried to hold them still. Ezra was as slippery as the soap, first sliding down into the basin and then climbing onto the counter. Noah picked up everything within reach, the soap, toothbrushes, paste, tweezers, Band-Aids, and threw it all to the floor. He put only one thing in his mouth: the scissors, which he also tried to push into his ear. In between, the twins pushed and pulled each other, their racket merging with Peter
’s exasperated exhortations for them to behave, and Diana’s helpless laughter.

  “This is what it’s like every day, so you have no sympathy from me,” she said when she could talk. “Don’t forget between the legs and behind the ears. Would you like another one?”

  “Yes. At least three more.”

  “Triplets.”

  “How on earth do people cope?”

  “Divorce, I imagine.”

  When the boys were finally asleep, and Peter and Diana could at last rest on the sofa with glasses of juice, it was Diana who brought it up. “The police have asked about, you know, what we talked about. The man who was killed.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Gingie told me. Today, at the office. I was going to mention it now.”

  “What do we do? I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I can’t say Tamara asked me to find out. But what on earth can I say?”

  For once he was at a loss, just when it was closest to home.

  It didn’t take long. The next morning there was a sharp knock on the door and two policemen asked if they could come in.

  The younger one was built like a boxer, with small penetrating eyes that bored into Diana as his partner introduced the two of them. He was older, more worn, rumpled and wary. He could be right out of a British detective film, Peter thought. He asked the questions while his partner’s eyes roamed over every item in the room, and studied him and his wife. This could go badly, Peter thought. What on earth could they say?

  “I’ll be quick, ma’am,” Sergeant Ludlow said. Peter half-congratulated himself. He was right, he’s English, probably one of those rare Christian admirers of the Zionists left over from the Mandate period. He’ll be sharp.

  “I understand you asked your friend in one of the security services to order a police file of a man, Yonathan Schwartz, suspected to have been murdered. I’d like to ask you, why?”

  Diana was flustered. If only they’d worked out what to say. Peter was worried. “Does she have to answer?”

  “Not right away. But it’s better if you do, ma’am,” the sergeant said, addressing himself directly to Diana. “This is an official inquiry and you are obliged to answer. If not here, then at the station. This is purely a formality, you understand, I’m sure you had a good reason.”

  Peter tried to control his heartbeat. He looked at Diana with a hint of encouragement, hoping to look unbothered.

  “Of course,” Diana said with a polite smile. “I can’t really say fully, but it’s related to an inquiry of my own as part of my work for a government department. If you know where the inquiry came from, then you know which department.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do. But I still need to know what it is about, and I thought you may prefer that I ask you here rather than at your office.”

  “Well, thank you sergeant, that’s considerate, but there is really nothing to hide. We are trying to contact survivors of Auschwitz in relation to an SS guard there. You would need to approach the Office officially to ask why we need the information, I’m not allowed to say, but I can say we were hoping to find out through the deceased man’s personal file whether he knew the whereabouts of other survivors who could help us. It concerns a particular guard and we are having trouble finding people who remember him.”

  Peter looked from Diana to Ludlow, his eyebrow rising imperceptibly. Brilliant, he was thinking. Everyone’s looking for someone, and her general description could fit any number of ongoing activities including, for that matter, his own. The Office would confirm it without blinking an eye. Especially if the police inquiry went through Gingie. And he would make sure it did.

  “It’s purely routine,” Diana added. Perfect, Peter thought, she’s a genius improviser. Veronique. Karla. She always knew what to say. What other phrase so deftly establishes an equivalence between the policeman’s inquiry and her own? They’ve got the same job, she was saying in code.

  “Of course,” Sergeant Ludlow said. “Thank you. I suspected something of the kind. Well, that’s all I need to know now. Thank you for your time.”

  Diana tried not to smile at Peter.

  But at the door, his hand on the knob, the policeman turned and said, “I’m curious though, ma’am. You have a part-time job. Yet you asked a much more senior person to make a simple call for you. Wouldn’t it normally be the other way around?”

  Diana forced herself not to swallow. “Uh, yes, and no.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause as the two policemen stared at her.

  “It’s a very informal place,” Peter put in, “but coordination between security services, even of a minor nature, must go through the proper channels.”

  Sergeant Ludlow nodded with pursed lips, as if his question had been conclusively answered.

  “Yes, of course. Thank you both for your time.”

  Peter knew what was going through the English copper’s head. Mossad? Proper channels? That’ll be the day.

  Later, on his way to see Arie, Peter’s mind was aflame. He just wanted the cabbie to shut up. The taxi driver was angry about German government reparations to Israel. What’s one and a half billion dollars for all they did? We shouldn’t take a penny, it’s blood money. Nothing can pay for six million lives. Or if they insist, then it should be three times that. Maybe I’ll get a new cab out if it, he said. This piece of junk has had it. Falling apart. No gearbox.”

  “Do you mind?” Peter said. “I have a headache.”

  “Bloody Nazis. Bloody Ben-Gurion. Calls himself a Jew!”

  Peter was trying to think straight before he met Arie at Kapulsky. And why always Kapulsky? Probably another crooked deal, did he own it? What a corner they were in, thanks to Arie. Diana had lied to the police. He had backed her up. These were small lies and could be supported, but protecting Arie would lead them to bigger, more serious lies. They were digging themselves into a hole, and maybe it was unnecessary. He had to know. Did Arie kill the man or not? If not, why had he demanded an alibi from Tamara, and so crudely?

  At the café Peter walked right to Arie, who was sitting at a front table dominating the entrance. See and be seen. Arie stood and hugged Peter, beaming. “Your timing is perfect,” he said. “Welcome home. Peter, this is Nadav Bru … well, never mind, Nadav from Bank Diskont. We have just shaken hands on something. I’ll tell you about it later. How are you?” He held Peter at arm’s length, admiring him. “Sit down, join us, what will you have?”

  “Arie, I don’t have much time, I thought we were meeting just the two of us.”

  Nadav rose immediately. “That’s fine, Peter, good to meet you. I was just going. Arie, I’ll get back to you, don’t worry, this is going to happen.” He shook hands with them both and left. When he was gone, Peter sat down, leaned forward, and put his hand on Arie’s forearm.

  “You look serious,” Arie said. “Listen, I’m going to get a loan for a huge deal, maybe you’ll get a new car out of it, Nadav is the chief…”

  “I don’t care, at this point,” Peter interrupted. “Arie, I’m going to ask you once. And remember, this is my job. So don’t lie to me.”

  “All right, all right,” Arie said, pulling back his arm. “What is it, why are you so riled up? Relax.”

  “I’ll relax if I get the right answer to my question.”

  “Fine. What is it?”

  Peter looked around, leaned forward again, pulled Arie closer, and whispered in his ear, “Did you kill Yonathan Schwartz?”

  “What?” Arie jerked back, his brow creasing, shaking his head. “Who? Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

  “That’s not an answer. Did you murder Yonathan Schwartz?”

  “Why would you ask me that? I haven’t seen you in months, and that’s your first question?”

  “Arie, I just need a yes or a no. Did you have a fight with Yonathan Schwartz and beat him to death?”

  FAMILY TIME

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  September 1954
/>   Money bought power, even within the family. With the most money and the biggest house, at thirty years of age Arie was beginning to act like the patriarch. His call for a family meal was like a summons.

  While Tamara and Rachel prepared dinner in the kitchen, he and Peter drank orange juice as they contemplated the kids yelling and rolling across the floor.

  Ido had wrestled Estie to the ground and was sitting on her. Combining their four-year-old strength, Daniel and Carmel pulled him off. They all ended up rolling on the floor, tickling each other and laughing. How bizarre, Peter thought, Tamara’s brother and sister fighting her son and daughter, aunt and uncle wrestling with niece and nephew. The minute age difference between Tamara’s children and her siblings confused the generations.

  Sitting down for dinner, Peter told Ido to calm down. Ido was still breathless and had kicked his sister under the table. Now Peter was telling his brother-in-law to behave.

  Tamara came in beaming, carrying a large dish, which Moshe helped place on the table. “Food is ready, and it’s just right,” she said happily. Arie told her to wait. “I have an announcement.”

  “Wait till after dinner,” Tamara said.

  “What for? This is a celebration, they should know what we’re celebrating.”

  “No business during dinner.”

  “This isn’t business, it’s pleasure. It is for me, anyway.” A glass tinkled as Arie tapped with his fork.

  “Ladies and gentleman, your attention, please.” Peter and Diana, Moshe and Rachel, Wolfie and Mayan, looked toward the head of the table, where Arie stood with a raised glass. Ido and Daniel were staring at each other, seeing who would blink first.

  “I won’t take a moment, because we all want to eat this wonderful meal that my beautiful wife has prepared, but I’d like to share with you my latest news. There has been a big development. Feather Products Limited is the new Israel distributor of…” He beamed around the table, enjoying his dramatic pause. “Of … Peugeot, the French car manufacturer. That means I’ll sell their cars, we’ll set up garages to service them and sell spare parts, and I hope to expand into gas stations to fuel them and everyone else. As you know, there are very few private cars in Israel but as the country grows, and more roads are built, every family will have one. It’s going to be a huge business and we’ll be in on the ground floor. And mostly, I’m happy to add, the investment comes from the bank and third-party backers. Very little of Feather Products’ money will be needed in direct investment. And the loan interest is favorable. We’ll pay it off with profits from car sales. So tell your friends, come buy your Peugeot 203 from me.” He drained his glass with a flourish and sat, smiling at Peter.