Dante's Equation Part 16

Oh G.o.d, no.

"Well, that's not a final offer," Denton stammered. "If you-"

Herr Kroll turned at the sink to look out the window, hearing it the same instant Denton did. Tires. In the driveway.

Oh dear Lord and his host of angels.

Denton got up and peeked out the curtain of the kitchen door. His entire bloodstream turned to antifreeze. Moving up the driveway was a small car, a rental like his. There was a man in the driver's seat wearing a hat, but Denton couldn't see the face. He knew perfectly well who it was, though. He knew perfectly well!

For a moment Denton was frozen, like a rabbit in headlights. Then he turned to his hosts with frantic energy.

"You can't-! I know this guy! He's a rabbi, for G.o.d's sake! A complete a.s.shole! He'sa rabbi !"

The Krolls looked at him in alarm. They conferred in German. They looked upset, but more at his outburst than at the new arrival. Denton realized they didn't know what he was talking about.

"A rabbi! A Jewish priest!"

Thatthe woman comprehended. Her face grew dark and she went over to her husband to look out the window. She gave him the news, which he answered with a louder voice, hand gestures. They began arguing. A car door slammed outside.

Oh dear Jesus Christ.

In his mind Denton saw a bunny cowering in a corner, the wild-eyed, knife-waving chef-Schwartz approaching. He moved as far as he could from the kitchen door.

The Krolls were arguing, but Denton got the feeling the topic was the laxity (H. Kroll) or thoroughness (F. Kroll) of her background checks on her buyers. They didn't seem very focused on the fact that a rabbi was approaching their door. Weren't they going to do something? Chase him away? Grab a gun? Footsteps on the gravel outside.

"I'm telling you," Denton all but screamed, "the guy's a n.a.z.i hunter!"

They both stared at him in shock. There was a knock on the door.

7.3. Aharon Handalman

JERUSALEM Having s.h.i.+mon Norowitz's private phone number was some big deal, as it turned out. There was still an answering machine, and Norowitz still didn't call back. Aharon had almost given up when finally, on a hot summer morning, the phone rang and Mr. Big Shot himself was on the line. "So what have you made of it?" Aharon asked, skipping the preliminaries. "Did your code people come up with statistics?"

"We haven't had time. It's in the queue." In the queue! Aharon found words in his mouth it could do no good to utter. He scowled at thin air, stumped for a more moderate reply.

"Say, have you got any more of those notebook pages?" Norowitz asked casually. "The ones written by Kobinski in Auschwitz?" "Why do you ask?" "Why? Because I want to know." "I don't have any more."

"So now I know. Do you know of anyone who does?"

Aharon thought this over, his hand tightening on the receiver. "Was there something in the pages? In the math maybe?"

"Not especially."

"But you had someone look at the doodling? Some mathematician?"

There was a pause. "Rabbi Handalman, if I had something to tell you, I'd tell you."

"If you had someone look at it, the least you could do is say so. Out of respect only. Because,

remember, I didn't have to bring this to you."

There was a pause. Aharon heard the shuffling of papers. "All right. If you give me a straight

answer, I'll give you a straight answer."

"When have I not been straight?"

"Rabbi! Do you know of anyone who has any more material written by Kobinski?"

"No."

"Very well."

"Is that straight enough for you?"

" 'No' is good. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. Now you: Did you have some scientist look at those pages?"

"Yes. Several."

"And they said what?"

Norowitz hesitated. "They said they didn't know what to make of it. That's straight."

Aharon picked at his beard. Straight as a crooked pin, maybe. "Didn't know what to make of itgood or didn't know what to make of itbad ?"

Norowitz sighed in exasperation. "Look, I have a very important call coming in. We'll talk in a few weeks." "Bu-" Norowitz hung up. Aharon sucked his teeth with his tongue. Kobinski's ma.n.u.script. He had dismissed the pages because he hadn't liked them. Maybe, so just maybe, he had dismissed them too soon.

After his last cla.s.s of the day Aharon took a bus over to Yad Vashem. He felt different about it this time. He didn't realize how different until one of the handles of the curved red doors was in his hand; then he remembered the abhorrence and anger he'd felt that first day. Today he had walked all the way up the drive from the bus stop and had not thought twice. He looked down at the handle in pained surprise, but it was a momentary remembrance. A second later, he was inside and heading for the Hall of Names with other things on his mind.

Anatoli Nikiel. He was Kobinski's most devoted follower, according to Biederer, and his name appeared on Hannah's list of barrack mates still alive. Aharon found the binder and stood in the stacks to read the two-page entry. Anatoli was a Russian Jew, prisoner of Auschwitz, number 173056. His hometown had been Rovno in eastern Russia. He'd been nineteen when sent to Auschwitz in 1943 and was still alive for the liberation in 1944. There was a snippet of camp records, his arrival on such-and-such transport. His name was on a list of those treated by the Americans after the war. There was no current address, nothing about relatives or friends.

Aharon went to the computers where the survivors' testimonies were kept, even though nothing in Anatoli's binder mentioned such a testimony. He searched on Anatoli's name and foundmakkes,zip. Aharon did the numbers in his head. The man would be in his early eighties now, if still alive.If alive. He was probably dead.

Aharon sat at the computer until the hostile throat clearings of a young woman broke his reverie. He scowled at her. Her s.h.i.+rt covered her navel, thank G.o.d, at least she had that much respect for this place, but fit entirely too tightly at the bosom. In his contemplation of this immodesty his eyes lingered too long on the area, earning him another dirty look as the girl took his seat.

He wiped his hands on his vest. No Anatoli. What did he expect? Yad Vashem, as good as it was, wasn't going to hand him everything on a silver platter.

Now to the other thing he'd come for. He'd been chewing it over since that last phone call with Norowitz. Hannah was listed on the register of people who'd copied Kobinski's ma.n.u.script pages. Just thinking about it made his heartburn flare up. He didn't want a man like Norowitz to even know his wife'sname , much less to have her on some . . . Well, any list of the Mossad's was not a fit place for his wife.

He could golook at the ledger. How hard would it be to change her name to his? His own name could be there twice; that made perfect sense. He only had to worry about thenebbish at the counter.

Thenebbish was not at the counter. At the counter instead was a young woman. Aharon gave her the file number he had written down in his little notebook. She looked on her computer.

"I'm sorry. That doc.u.ment has been removed from the collection."

"What are you talking? I saw it myself a few months ago."

"It's listed as unavailable now."

So Aharon went over the number with her again, a digit at a time. He made her turn the computer to face him so he could see she wasn't typing it wrong.

"Why was it removed?" His exasperation was turning to anger.

"I have no idea."

"What genius made such a decision?"

The girl's spine was growing stiffer by the minute. "You can speak with the manager, Mr. Falstein, if you'd like."

"Of course. Yes. If that's what it takes. Go get Mr. Falstein."

She went.

Falstein was not so easily intimidated. His face was already set into a no-nonsense grimace as he approached. "That doc.u.ment has been removed from the public collection."

"For what reason? By whose authority?"

"The doc.u.ment has been removed from the public collection," Falstein said more firmly still. "That's all the information I have."

Aharon was still fuming as he left the doc.u.ment department and began to make his way back through the historical wing. Leave it to a place like this! The one thing of interest in the entire collection, and they took it away from the public. It just went to show that you could have all the money in the world and still be incompetent.

He was halfway through the hall when it occurred to him, like a flash of lightning.

Norowitz. Mossad.

He sank down onto a bench, a smile quivering about his lips. Could it be? Could it bereally ? Yes, it could, and oh-ho! Ah-ha! So s.h.i.+mon Norowitz, Mr. It's-in-the-queue, was interested after all! Interestedenough, let's put it that way, that he didn't want anyone else seeing those pages. And he had asked Aharon over the phone if he had any more. Of course Norowitz wanted more! It is written: "A handful does not satisfy a lion."

After a few moments of feeling gratified that he was neither crazy nor useless, it began to dawn on Aharon that maybe . . . maybe the Mossad being interested wasn't such a blessing.

He sat contemplating this turn of events for some time, reasoning through the pros and cons, projecting possibilities, as if he were writing Midrash on the subject. And perhaps it was some of the darker turns in his reasoning that caused him to notice the large photograph right in front of his eyes, or perhaps the photograph subconsciously infused some of his darker thoughts. At length, he found himself staring at the picture.

It was a photograph blown-up and printed on a large posterboard and hung from the ceiling. In the black-and-white image three young n.a.z.is were beating an old Jewish man with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles. He had a long white beard and fedora. The side of his head was b.l.o.o.d.y. In his hands he clutched a small carpetbag as if it contained all that was important in the world.

Aharon stared at the image for a long, long time. As it settled into him his mind became blank, not thinking, only looking, onlyseeing , really seeing. Then words crossed that blank s.p.a.ce like a funeral procession: The ma.n.u.script. What if the danger isn't something that's already occurred, something Kobinski did in the past? What if it's something that hasn't happened yet? Some weapon that will maybe come about through the discovery of his ma.n.u.script?

Then:And I'm the one who told them about it!

Evil. What is evil? I come back to it again and again. I think I know, and then I realize I know nothing. My equation tells me it is a natural force in the very fabric of s.p.a.ce-time. Kabbalah says evil is what happens when thesephirotare out of balance. I once believed both those things were true at the same time. But what does that explain? Is a little imbalance in thesephirotall there is to it? To this h.e.l.l? To this stinking carnage of pain and p.i.s.s and death? To our complete abandonment by G-d? To the torment of a beautiful, innocent, precious ten-year-old boy?

And what about the law of good and evil? Where is the good here? Where is the balance? If one place, one time on earth could convince a placid, lifeless, scholarly Jew that such a theory was complete nonsense, that all his work meant nothing, it would be this time and this place.

Wake up, Kobinski! Here are the questions you should be asking yourself:Whois responsible? Who made these snakes?

7.4. Denton Wyle

OUTSIDESTUTTGART, GERMANY.

If Denton could have run past Herr Kroll into the living room of the farmhouse he would have. But he was still debating how weird that would seem when Frau Kroll opened the door.

Denton's eyes rolled in anguish toward the opening and saw a tiny, frail old man in small wire gla.s.ses and a huge overcoat. The coat's style was thirty years old and it was way too large. It looked like it would bend the man beneath its weight. Black gloves and a hat completed the picture. He might have been dressed for December, and it was a warm August day outside.