Reuven nodded. Samuel’s was only about four blocks away; nothing in Jerusalem was very far from anything else. They had no trouble getting a table. Reuven ordered braised short ribs; Deborah Radofsky chose stuffed cabbage. He ordered a carafe of wine, too, after a glance at her to make sure she didn’t mind.
The wine came before the food. Reuven raised his glass. “L’chaim!”
“L’chaim!” Deborah echoed. They both drank. She set her glass down on the white linen of the tablecloth. After a moment, she said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“Go ahead,” he answered.
Her smile flickered, as if uncertain whether to catch fire. She said, “You’re the son of an important man—a famous man, even. You’re a doctor yourself. Why haven’t you been married for years?”
“Ah.” Reuven had expected something like that, if perhaps not quite so blunt. But he liked her better for the bluntness, not worse. He said, “Up till I left the medical college, I was very busy—too busy to think a whole lot about such things. I was seeing somebody at the college for a while, but she emigrated to Canada as soon as she finished, and I didn’t want to leave Palestine. I have a cousin in the same town she moved to. He says she’s getting married soon.”
“Oh.” The widow Radofsky weighed his words. “How do you feel about that?”
“I hope she’s happy,” Reuven answered, much more sincerely than not. “She’s always done what she wanted to do, and I don’t think this will be any different.” He looked up. “Here comes supper.” Even if he didn’t wish Jane any ill whatsoever, he didn’t feel altogether comfortable talking about her with Deborah Radofsky.
She dug into her stuffed cabbage, too. For a while, they were both too busy eating to talk. Then she found another disconcerting question: “How do you like taking out one of your patients?”
“Fine, so far,” he said, giving back a deadpan stare he’d learned from his father.
She didn’t quite know what to make of that; he could see as much. After a sip of wine, she asked, “Do you do it often?”
“This makes once,” Reuven said, dead pan still. He threw back a question of his own: “How do you like going out with your doctor?”
“This is the first time I’ve been out with anyone since Joseph . . . died,” Mrs. Radofsky said. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel a little strange. It doesn’t feel any more strange because you’re my doctor, if that’s what you mean.”
“All right.” Now Reuven tried on a smile. It fit his face better than he’d thought it would. “I like your little girl.”
That made Deborah Radofsky smile, too. “I’m glad. Someone at the furniture store asked me to go out with him a few weeks ago, but he changed his mind when he found out I have a child.” She stabbed the next bite of stuffed cabbage as if it were her coworker.
“That’s foolishness,” Reuven said. “Life isn’t neat and simple all the time. I used to think it was a lot simpler, back when I was still going to the medical college. The more real practice I see, though, the more complicated things look.”
“Life is never simple.” The widow Radofsky spoke with great conviction. “You find that out the minute you have a baby. And then Joseph went off to work one morning, and the riots started, and he didn’t come home, and two days after that we had a funeral. No, life is never simple.”
“What did he do?” Reuven asked quietly.
“He was a lathe operator,” she answered. “He was a good one, too. He worked hard, and he was going places. His boss thought so, too. And then . . . he wasn’t any more.” She emptied her wineglass in a hurry. When Reuven held up the carafe, she nodded. He filled her glass again, then poured some more wine for himself, too.
As they finished supper, he asked, “Would you like to go see that new film—well, new here, anyhow—about ginger-smuggling in Marseille? I’m more interested than I would be otherwise, because my cousin—the one who’s in Canada now—got forced into dealing ginger there when he was in the RAF.”
“Vey iz mir!” Deborah Radofsky exclaimed. “How did that happen?”
“His superior was in the business in a big way, and David was a Jew, which meant he had a hard time saying no unless he wanted worse things to happen to him,” Reuven answered. “Of course, the Nazis arrested him, and it’s hard to get a whole lot worse off than that. My father got the Race to pull strings to get him out.”
“Lucky for him your father could,” she said, and then, after a moment, “Marseille’s one of the places that got bombed, isn’t it?”
Reuven nodded. “The film was made before the fighting, obviously. Otherwise, there’d be nothing but ruins. It’s supposed to have some spectacular car chases, too.”
“I’ll come,” Deborah Radofsky said. “Miriam won’t give Sarah too hard a time. She’ll go to sleep, and my sister can look at the television or find something to read.”
“Oh, good.” Whether it was too much trouble for her sister would have been Reuven’s next question.
The theater wasn’t far, either. It was the one Reuven and Jane Archibald had come to on the night they first made love. He glanced over at the widow Radofsky. He didn’t think they’d be sharing a bed tonight. He shrugged. He’d known Jane a long time before they became lovers. He wasn’t going to worry about hurrying things here.
“You’ve got about fifteen minutes to wait before this show lets out,” the ticker-seller told him as he laid down his money.
“That’s not bad,” Deborah Radofsky said. Reuven nodded. They went into the lobby. Reuven got them both some garbanzo beans fried in olive oil and glasses of Coca-Cola. They were just wiping their hands when people started coming out of the film.
Reuven heard Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, and something that might have been either Russian or Polish. The film would be subtitled in the first two languages; the dialogue, he knew, was mostly in English. And then, to his surprise, a couple of Lizards came out. They were chattering away in their own tongue.
“What were they saying?” Mrs. Radofsky asked.
“They were wondering how much of the story was true and how much was made up,” Reuven answered. “What I’m wondering is whether they were from Security, or if they were ginger smugglers themselves. One or the other, I’d bet. I wish I’d got a better look at their body paint.”
“If they were in Security, wouldn’t they be smart to wear body paint that said they weren’t?” she remarked.
“Mm, you’re probably right,” Reuven said. “Come on—let’s go in and grab the best seats we can.”
The film wasn’t one for the ages, but it wasn’t bad, either, and the chase scenes were at least as spectacular as advertised. Reuven had no trouble following the English; it was the most widely used human language at the Moishe Russie Medical College. He saw the widow Radofsky’s eyes drifting down to the bottom of the screen to read the Hebrew subtitles.
After the last explosion, after the policeman hero collared the villains, the lights came up. Reuven and Deborah Radofsky rose and headed for the exit. They’d just got out into the lobby again when he took her hand. He wondered what she’d do, what she’d say. She gave him a brief startled look, then squeezed his hand a little, as if to let him know it was all right.
“I hope you had a good time,” he said as they neared her house.
“I did.” If she sounded a little surprised at herself, he could pretend he didn’t notice. And he might have been wrong.
Hoping he was, he asked, “Would you like to do it again before too long?”
“Yes, I’d like that a lot, I think,” the widow Radofsky said. She smiled up at him as they got to her front door.
“Good,” Reuven said. “So would I.” He embraced her, not too tightly, and brushed his lips across hers. Then he stepped back, waiting to see what she’d do about that.
To his relief, she was still smiling. She took keys from her handbag and opened the door. “Good night, Reuven,” she said.
“Good night, Debora
h,” he answered, and turned to go. He hoped she’d call him back to come inside with her. She didn’t. She closed the door; he heard the latch click. With a shrug, he headed home. He’d had a good time, too. Maybe it would be even better when they went out again.
19
In the encampment outside the little town of Kanth, Gorppet waited and worried. Every day that went by without the explosive-metal bomb’s going off was something of a triumph, but no guarantee the accursed thing wouldn’t detonate the next day—or, for that matter, the next instant. And one of the things he worried about was that the encampment might not be far enough outside Kanth. If the bomb went up, he was too likely to go up with it.
“Can we do nothing to rout out these Tosevites?” Nesseref asked him. “Can we do nothing to make them release my friend?”
Gorppet had asked her to come to Kanth precisely because she was Mordechai Anielewicz’s friend. Now he wondered if that didn’t make her more annoyance than asset. Trying to keep sarcasm out of his voice, he said, “I am open to suggestions, Shuttlecraft Pilot.”
“Have we yet tried negotiating with these Jewish Big Uglies?” the female said. Before Gorppet could speak, she answered her own question: “We have not.”
“That is a truth,” Gorppet agreed. “The next sign of willingness they show for negotiations will be the first.”
“Perhaps we should not wait for them to show signs. Perhaps we should seek negotiations ourselves.” Nesseref waggled an eye turret at him. “Perhaps you should seek negotiations yourself. You can afford failure here even less than the Race can.”
With deliberate rudeness, Gorppet turned both eye turrets away from her. Unfortunately, that he was rude didn’t mean she was wrong. If the Race succeeded here—and especially if the Race succeeded because of his efforts—Hozzanet might have enough pull to set that in the balance against his ginger dealings down in South Africa. If not . . . If not, he was going to spend the rest of his days in some very unpleasant places.
Nesseref said, “Maybe you could use that Deutsch Big Ugly, that Drucker, as a go-between. I know he is acquainted with Anielewicz, and Tosevites know one another better than we can hope to know them.”
“No.” Gorppet not only used the negative gesture, he added an emphatic cough. “Remember, the Big Uglies with the bomb are Jews. They would be more inclined to listen to one of us than to a Deutsch male.”
“Ah. Well, no doubt you are right. In that case, maybe one of us ought to go and talk with them,” Nesseref said. “As things stand, I do not see how that could hurt.”
“Do you not?” Gorppet said in hollow tones. He could see all too well how it might hurt: bullets, knives, blunt instruments, whatever other tools for torture Tosevite ingenuity—always too fertile in such areas—might devise.
But Nesseref also had a point. Something needed doing. The longer the Race and the Deutsche waited, the more things that could go wrong. Even more to the point, as far as Gorppet was concerned, the longer the Race waited, the more likely the disciplinarians were to seize him and take him away, concluding he was not helping in the present situation.
And so, without enthusiasm but also without anything he saw as choice, he approached Hozzanet the next morning and said, “Superior sir, if you need someone to approach the house where the Tosevite terrorists are staying, I volunteer for the duty.”
“I am not sure we need anything of the sort,” Hozzanet replied. “Anyone we offer to these Big Uglies would likely be seized as a hostage, as Mordechai Anielewicz was.”
“I understand that, superior sir,” Gorppet said. “I am willing to take the chance. You will understand why I am willing to take the chance. More than any other male of the Race here at the moment, I am expendable.”
“No male is expendable,” Hozzanet said. “Do you hope that you will be a hero if you succeed where few males would even have tried, and that that will be weighed against your present difficulties?”
“Yes, superior sir. That is exactly what I hope,” Gorppet answered.
“Well, it could be that you are right,” Hozzanet admitted. “Of course, it could also be that the Big Uglies will torment you or kill you, in which case you will gain nothing and lose that which is irreplaceable.”
“Believe me, superior sir, I understand this is a gamble,” Gorppet said. “It is, I repeat, one I am willing to make.”
“I cannot give you permission for such a rash act myself,” Hozzanet said. “I shall have to consult with my superiors.”
Gorppet made the affirmative gesture. “Go ahead, superior sir. I hope they decide quickly. Would you not agree that we may not have much time?”
Hozzanet didn’t say whether he agreed or disagreed. He just waved Gorppet away and began making telephone calls. Later that day, he summoned Gorppet back into his presence. Not sounding particularly happy, he spoke formally: “Very well, Small-Unit Group Leader. You are authorized to pursue negotiations with the Big Uglies at whatever level of intimacy proves necessary.” He twisted an eye turret in a particular way. “Try not to get killed while you are doing all this.”
“I thank you, superior sir,” Gorppet said. “It shall be done.”
“Wait,” Hozzanet told him. “It shall not be done quite yet. We are going to make you a little more useful first.”
And so, when Gorppet approached the house in Kanth from which Mordechai Anielewicz hadn’t returned, he wore several small listening devices glued to his scales. They were covered with false skin, to make them as difficult as possible for the Big Uglies to detect.
Of course, he thought as he walked up to the house, they could just shoot me now, in which case my superiors back at the encampment will hear nothing useful. But no shots rang out. He looked for a speaker by the door with which he could announce himself. The house boasted no such amenity. Few Tosevite houses did. Lacking anything better to do, he knocked on the door.
The Big Uglies inside had to know he was there. They could surely see he carried no weapon (and they just as surely couldn’t see the little patches of false skin). Why wouldn’t they let him in? If nothing else, he gave them another hostage. They wouldn’t know that a good many members of the Race—everybody who particularly hated ginger—wouldn’t be sorry to see him dead.
But no one came to the door. Would he have to leave emptyhanded? He didn’t intend to do any such thing. He knocked again. “I come in peace!” he called in his own language. He could have said the same thing in Arabic, but no one in this part of Tosev 3 used that tongue. He knew none of the languages the Deutsche and the Jews spoke.
At last, the door did open, though not very wide. A Big Ugly gestured with an assault rifle—come inside. Gorppet obeyed. He’d come here to do nothing less. The door slammed shut behind him.
“I greet you,” he said, as if he’d come on a friendly visit. “Do you understand my language?”
“No, not a word,” the Big Ugly answered—in the language of the Race.
It could have been funny, had the Tosevite not been carrying that rifle and had he not been so plainly ready to use it. As things were, Gorppet said, “I thank you for letting me come in here.”
With a shrug, the Tosevite said, “You came to this house. We can hold you here. You cannot give us any trouble.”
“As you still hold Mordechai Anielewicz?” Gorppet pronounced the name, so alien to him, with great care: he did not want to be misunderstood.
And he was not. With a nod, the Jewish Big Ugly answered, “Yes, we hold him; that is a truth. But you will have nothing to do with him. Nothing, do you understand me? You two shall not plot together. I know you are our enemies.”
“I have fought side by side with males of your superstition, and—” Gorppet began.
“It is not a superstition,” the Tosevite snapped. “It is truth.”
“We disagree,” Gorppet said, wondering if that would get him shot the next instant. “But as I say, I have fought side by side with Jewish Tosevites against the Deutsche. Mordechai Aniele
wicz has led you. How can you say that we are your enemies?”
“Because it is a truth,” the Big Ugly said. “Now you of the Race and the Deutsche work together against us. You do not want us to have the vengeance we deserve.”
“We do not want another round of fighting under any circumstances,” Gorppet said. “What good could it do?”
“Go down these stairs,” the Jewish Tosevite said. Gorppet went. The Big Ugly stayed far enough behind him that he couldn’t hope to whirl and seize the rifle. He didn’t intend to try any such thing, but his captor couldn’t know that, and took no chances. The Big ugly resumed: “Destroying the Deutsche is worthwhile for its own sake.”
“If you set off this bomb, you will not only be destroying the Deutsche,” Gorppet said. “Do you not see that? You also put the Race at risk, and your fellow Jews in Poland.”
“Destroying the Deutsche is all that matters to us,” the Tosevite said implacably. He pointed to a door. “Go in there.”
Gorppet opened the door. The chamber inside was small and dark. Be-fore going in, he said, “You would also destroy yourselves, of course.”
“Of course,” his captor agreed with chilling calm. “Do you know the story of Masada?”
“No.” Gorppet made the negative gesture. “Who is Masada?”
“Masada is not a person. Masada is—was—a place, a fortress,” the Big Ugly answered. “Nineteen hundred years ago, we Jews rose up against the Romans, who oppressed us. They had more soldiers. They beat us. Masada was our last fortress. They put soldiers around it. They demanded that we surrender.”
“And?” Gorppet asked, as he was obviously intended to do.
A melancholy pride in his voice that Gorppet could not mistake, the Jew said, “All the soldiers in Masada—almost a thousand of them—killed themselves instead of giving up to the Romans. We can do that again here. We are proud to do that again here.”
Gorppet had seen plenty of Muslim Tosevites willing to die if in dying they could carry out their goal of harming the Race. Big Uglies who did not care whether they lived or died were the greatest problem the Race faced, because they were so hard to defend against. Gorppet said, “If you harm your own males and females more than you harm the Deutsche, what have you accomplished?”
Aftershocks Page 66
