Promised Land

by Martin Fletcher

  But what did she need?

  If Arie was haunted and driven by the evil of the camps, tortured still, did that give him the right to torture her today? I am not my husband’s keeper, she said to herself, nor his victim.

  Or was she being selfish, did that make her a bad wife to a troubled man? Shouldn’t she help him overcome his torment rather than punish him for it?

  She stared at the dark, her hands lay on her belly. Whatever the reasons, and they would never change, he was a terrible husband, always cheating, he was the selfish one. All he did was work and chase other women. Money? She didn’t want a penny of it. She was thirty-three and beautiful. She wanted love, and it was time.

  Should she leave Arie? The thought that had been so painful now seemed to comfort her. At the edge of her pain she felt a thrilling promise, akin to a bird spreading its wings on a branch, set to soar. She turned onto her side and at last began to drift away, hugging her second pillow like a lover.

  In the morning the phone rang. It was Peter.

  * * *

  They met in his new apartment, still in the same house where long ago they had made love, where she had been seduced, nay overcome, by the pleasure in his eyes. Today his home had two bedrooms and a narrow balcony, where they now sat in white plastic chairs made by Arie’s company, drank sugared lemon juice, and wanted to hold hands. The first chords of “Love Me Do” rang out on the radio.

  “The Beatles?” Tamara said with mock horror. “You’re a government servant. Are you allowed to listen to such subversive drivel?”

  Peter laughed. “Can you believe it? Golda banning the Beatles? A threat to the country’s youth?”

  “The government says they have no artistic merit. They could cause mass hysteria and disorder among young people. Like Cliff Richard did last year.” She threw her head back with a guffaw. “Wish I’d been at his concert!”

  Peter thought, that’s exactly what Diana would have said.

  “Is that what you’re working on?” Peter said. “Protecting the human rights of young women to throw their bras at four long-haired men on stage?”

  “Not exactly; it couldn’t be more different. I’m working on two Arab cases. I’m helping a sweet young woman who was raped and then had to run away from her family because her father and brothers want to kill her for bringing shame to the family. She’s in hiding and I’m trying to find her a more permanent shelter. And there’s another case, a man whose son wants to study in America. The man is the imam of a mosque, I can’t say where, and he was told by Shin Bet his son would only get travel papers if he, as the leader of the mosque, informed on his community. He refused, so Shin Bet jailed his son on some trumped-up charge. America or jail? What a choice. But instead of becoming a snitch, the imam came to our office, and I have the case. It’s outrageous.”

  “But necessary, they do it all the time,” Peter said. “It’s their best weapon. As soon as an Arab wants something, they make him give something in return. Especially information.” He stopped himself. Coercion was the most effective domestic weapon. Jews were being attacked on all the borders and Shin Bet’s fear was that the Arabs living inside the state would join the Arab struggle led from outside.

  “But that’s blackmail,” Tamara said. “Of course we need to know what is going on in our own country, but not by exploiting an innocent prayer leader and his son. The boy is in jail for no reason and his father will become an informer. And one day his village will find out and he’ll be an outcast. We’re ruining their lives, only to make ours marginally better.” She stabbed Peter with her finger. “And it’s illegal.”

  “Ouch. No, it isn’t, not under the martial law that applies to the Arabs.”

  “Oh, so it’s official blackmail. Two laws, one for them and one for us. That’s a slippery slope. What kind of a country are we?”

  “One that is always under threat from outside, and we don’t want to be threatened from inside too. That’s the kind of country. There’s a price to pay for being the only Jewish state, surrounded by Arab enemies.”

  “If that price makes us like them, then what’s the point?”

  “So that we can live safely somewhere?”

  “But why do the Arabs have to suffer for it? We should make them equal partners, then they won’t threaten us.”

  “But Tamara, as long as they do threaten us, we have to defend ourselves, and that means removing the threat, not being surprised by it. We must know what they’re planning. Information is power.”

  “Peter, that imam isn’t even allowed to leave his village to travel anywhere without permission from us, no Arabs are. And before we give them permission, we blackmail them.”

  “Tamara.” He drew out her name, and drew out the words that followed, as if this was a lesson she would be tested on. “There are seven hundred and fifty thousand Arabs inside Israel—” He cut himself off. Tamara was red in the face, drumming the floor with her heel, forcing herself not to interrupt. This was not going the way he had hoped.

  Nor was it for her. “You’re sounding very pompous, you and I are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. In your job…”

  “Please, Tamara, enough. Why didn’t you specialize in real estate law, or commercial law?” he said. “Much more lucrative.”

  “No, thanks. Shin Bet is bad enough, but those fields would put me up against sharks like Arie. I’d rather win some cases.”

  Peter laughed. “I see what you mean. How is Arie?”

  After ten seconds, in which Tamara rolled her eyes and sighed, clearly struggling, he said, “I see.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “How long do you have?”

  “How long do you need?”

  “How much do you want to hear? About your own brother?”

  “You think there’s something I don’t already know?”

  Tamara sniggered. “At some point we have to stop asking questions and say something. Don’t you think?”

  “Do you?”

  They laughed and chinked glasses.

  “So?” Peter said. “Tell me.”

  On the balcony above them a woman hanging laundry chatted with her neighbor, who was folding hers. Across the courtyard a woman raised her voice to be heard over piano music. A man’s deep voice boomed between the buildings, so that Peter had to lean forward to hear what Tamara was saying, for as she talked about Arie, her voice became low and hesitant. On the hour the news on Israel radio interrupted everyone. What bad news was there now?

  Peter was only half-listening to Tamara, his face close to hers. His attention was more on Tamara’s lips and the teasing tip of her tongue. Her hair was swept up tightly into a bun, and her face, half in shade, sad but fervent, was fully revealed. Drops of perspiration glinted in the valley of her throat. In the muggy heat her dress rode up her legs and clung to her thighs, her breasts billowed over the low-cut top, and all Peter could think of was to put his hands on her bare legs and at last kiss her on her luscious mouth.

  But … his brother’s wife?

  “Why now?” he heard himself saying, after Tamara’s complaints about her husband appeared to have run dry. “Arie has always been like this, has anything special happened recently?”

  Tamara hung her head, as if exhausted by the weight of it all. He wanted to take her in his hands, pull her to him, raise her mouth, so close, to his.

  “No, nothing new. I told him to stop seeing Batia or Sharon or whoever it is, or I’d leave him, but how many times have I said that? He promises, he swears, he apologizes, and then goes right back to them.” She sighed in exasperation. “There’s nothing new, it’s just too much of the same. I’ve seen the future, if you like, and it’s just like the present, and the past. And I can’t take it anymore. It’s not what I want.” She looked into Peter’s eyes, as if she didn’t need to say the rest.

  In the same instant Peter’s heart leapt and fell. He yearned to hold her, but couldn’t hurt Arie, even t
hough Arie hurt her.

  A sense of unfairness surged through him, a feeling of hopelessness that hit him in the pit of the stomach. Just as he straightened, pulling away from Tamara, forcing himself from temptation, forcing himself to listen, a name startled him. Tamara had changed the subject. “Yoram Schwartz? Schwartz’s son?” he said.

  “Yes, he changed his name to Shemesh. Arie and his father were in Auschwitz together. That’s the point. He came to dinner and that’s when I heard it all. Through the window. Arie doesn’t know I heard him.”

  Now a different set of nerves was on edge. Every scenario raced through Peter’s mind, and none were good.

  “How did they meet?”

  “The boy said he was a journalist, just to get to meet him. Arie liked him, and now he wants to pay to send him to school. He’s given him a part-time job too. He’s had a terrible life, Arie seems to feel something special for him. Anyway, he’s helping him get on his feet.”

  “He’s given him a job?”

  “Part-time, while he studies, yes, and he’s been to our home for dinner. That’s what’s so hard about Arie. Every time I hate him he does something wonderful that makes me think I must be wrong, that I should give him another chance.”

  Peter went silent. Everything was wrong about this. Arie, the snake, must sense trouble in the lad, and felt threatened, so in the time-honored way, Arie was keeping his friends close, but his enemy closer.

  And Peter knew, when Arie had an enemy, anything could happen. Arie killed the boy’s father, Peter was sure of it. What would he do to the son? What does the son know? And what does Tamara know of all this?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’d better be going. It’s getting late, I’m tiring you, you drifted away.”

  He shook his head. “No. Yes. I did, I’m sorry, I thought of something.”

  “My fault. I talk too much.”

  “Not possible.”

  She stood slowly, as if waiting to be stopped. She smoothed her dress, worked her feet into her sandals, taking her time, drained her glass of water, put it back on the table.

  At the door he laid his hands on her shoulders and she must have sensed a change in his touch, a question, because she slowly turned, with downcast eyes. His hands found hers and for a moment they stood, at the edge of mankind’s oldest question. Their eyes met, their fingers entwined, their hearts raced.

  Until one word came between them. “Arie,” Tamara whispered. She felt the shudder of Peter’s sigh in his hands.

  As Tamara’s wooden sandals tapped down the stairs, like a ticking clock, Peter groaned. Go after her, he told himself. Now. This is it.

  PETER

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  September 1964

  Mahmoud al-Faradis and Arie. The two names tumbled through Peter’s mind. He closed the file he was reading and stared at the wall. His team’s unanimous conclusion was that Nile, who had nearly killed him, had to be killed himself. In this new conflict they all knew was just beginning, Palestinians needed a warning of what would happen if they crossed a Mossad agent.

  And now they had found him, in Paris.

  Israeli agents had long known of an emerging leader of the Palestinian cause, a planner of terrorist attacks against Israel. He called himself Abu Ammar but was better known as Yasser Arafat, though even that wasn’t his real name. Mossad helpers routinely tracked Arafat in Paris as he recruited fighters among exiled Palestinians; their names were collected and passed to Shin Bet. Their families back home were identified, and blackmail candidates noted for future coercion.

  Several months after the attempted murder Arafat had met two men in the café of the Gare du Nord. To the agents’ surprise, one of them was Nile. He was back in town. Nile was now being tailed around the clock, and Mossad’s top floor had to decide: Should Nile live or die? Peter pushed for a decision—they had to act quickly.

  It was hard to focus. His brother imposed himself upon every thought, demanding attention. Act quickly with Nile? With Arie too? Harm an agent? Would Arie harm the boy Yoram and make things worse? Live or die? Would Yoram, despite Arie’s help, pursue the murder file against Arie?

  Peter couldn’t get Arie out of his mind.

  Did Yoram believe Arie killed his father? What would he do? He visits the house. Could Tamara or her children be in danger?

  Nile and Arie. Peter stood and moved slowly around the conference room, the only office large enough to contain him, where he could pace and find complete silence to think. He had approved the plan to eliminate Nile, now it was up to his boss Amit. But what was his plan with Arie? The more he thought about his brother the angrier he became.

  Nile had failed to take his life, but Arie was destroying it.

  He destroyed everything he touched, while enriching himself in every way.

  Tamara. If only, he thought. If only he’d gone after her on the stairs. That was the moment, and he had missed it. He had hesitated, and she had left. Instead of rushing after her he had watched from the balcony as she walked along the path and disappeared behind the trees.

  He sat down heavily at the table and poured himself a glass of water. He must get a grip. There was too much going on. Killing Nile. Confronting Arie. Tamara.

  He had to act, on every front, and now.

  He drained the glass, phoned Arie’s office, hailed a taxi, and rode straight to the tower building under construction at the end of Herzl Street. Arie had rented new office space on the ninth and tenth floors, and was reviewing the building’s progress with the owners.

  He’s a megalomaniac, Peter was thinking as the building came into view. In addition to new offices Arie had also offered to rent the entire thirty-sixth floor as a residence, which would give him the highest floor of the tallest building in the Middle East, with a view of the Mediterranean to the west and on a clear day, to the hills of Jerusalem in the east. His palace in the sky.

  Israel’s largest city would be at Arie’s feet. How fitting. Peter hoped the owners would decline the offer.

  He found Arie just as he was ending the tour, shaking hands with Moshe Meir, one of the three brothers building the tower. “What a pity,” Peter couldn’t resist saying. “Everyone loved the old building here, the first Hebrew high school, a beautiful Ottoman design. Pity it was demolished to make way for this…” He glanced at the tower emerging from the earth. “… this … building.”

  “Progress, brother,” Arie said with a winner’s chuckle and a wink to Moshe. He put his arm around Peter’s shoulder and guided him to his car. “Change of plan, I’m sorry. I need to get back to my office. We can talk there.”

  Peter looked at his watch. He had an hour and a quarter before the meeting with Meir Amit, when he hoped to get the green light to eliminate Nile. He’d have to get to the point with Arie straightaway. But with Yaacov driving, it had to wait. They barely talked in the car, even though it had been a month or more since they had last spoken. Children fine? That’s good. Ido in the army, outstanding soldier, making us all proud.

  By the time they reached Arie’s office, Peter could contain himself no longer. He had no time and there was too much on his mind, infuriating him.

  “This young man, Yoram Shemesh. You’ve hired him? Why? You’re playing with fire, Arie, and that risks me too.”

  “What? Slow down, brother. No it doesn’t.”

  “Yes, it does. I got that police case suppressed, remember? I brought Mossad into a civil murder investigation and got it quashed. If it gets reopened, I’ll be in the firing line.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I will. I should never have helped you. And now you think you’re so clever, putting your arms around this man, hiring him, paying for his studies…”

  Arie flushed. “Who told you? Tamara?”

  “Why hire him?”

  “What does it matter? If I said I felt sorry for him, I just wanted to help him, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

&nb
sp; “That’s true enough. Anyway, it’s too late now. They had a direct line to you, through Gingie and Tamara, and if they reopen the file, they’ll find it. And then me. What a mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  “Pipe down, Peter, and don’t get so excited…”

  Barely controlling his voice, Peter launched into a tirade against his brother. It poured out. His selfishness. His arrogance. His false values. How he treated Tamara. His …

  “Ah, so that’s it. Now we’re getting somewhere,” Arie said. “Tamara. That’s what this is all about. That’s what it’s always about. I wondered why you were getting so hot under the collar. This isn’t about Schwartz, it’s about Tamara.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous…”

  “You don’t be ridiculous. And let me tell you something. There’s no danger from Yoram Shemesh. He won’t reopen the file. He can’t.”

  “He can, he only has to…”

  “He can’t. I’ll tell you why. Because the police don’t have the file.”

  “Of course they do. Just because it was ten years ago doesn’t mean anything, their files go back to the twenties.”

  “Not the Schwartz case. Not anymore.” Arie took out two keys and went to his safe, cemented into the floor beneath his desk. He pulled out a faded olive green file with black print and writing in red and blue on the cover. He flipped through it.

  “Because here it is. The police file.” He dropped it on the desk with a flourish. “They have nothing on me, on you, on the case. It’s all here. I got it a week ago.” Peter picked it up and leafed through sheets of handwritten notes, a typed report of a dozen pages, interview transcripts, and an envelope of photographs.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “You stole it?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Who did?”

  Arie sat behind the desk, leaned back with his arms outstretched, tapping his fingers. How Peter wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face.

  “Let’s just say an old friend repaid a debt.”

  “Are you crazy?” Peter almost shouted, then hissed, eyeing the door, “this is a serious crime. Stealing police property. Interfering with an investigation. God knows what else.”