The Jerusalem Inception Part 26

Danzig eagerly answered Elie's questions by nodding or shaking his head while air gurgled through his perforated vocal cords. With the war about to end, Danzig had planned to don civilian clothes and avoid capture by the approaching American forces. That explained the pa.s.sport and cash in his pocket. After removing his identification tags, papers, and uniform, Elie used his shoykhet blade to peel off the rest of the n.a.z.i's ident.i.ty. When he finished, Danzig had no face, only a mask of raw flesh, bare jaws exposing a perfect set of teeth, and lidless eyes glaring downward at the puddle of blood on the soft carpet of pine needles.

Since the war, Elie had maintained bank accounts and a tiny apartment in Paris under Rupert Danzig's ident.i.ty. He travelled to Europe often to continue his private hunt for SS veterans. The years had thinned out their ranks, but had also lowered their guard. He used them as cash cows, making them pay for their past sins and current freedom, making them work hard for money he then used to finance his SOD operations in Israel and Europe. And those who refused to pay, or ran out of money, were found dead. In most cases, no one ever detected the surgical entry point under the right ear, where Elie's blade had severed the brainstem without external bleeding.

But this trip was different. By gaining control of the fortune Tanya's n.a.z.i lover had stashed in Zurich, Elie would no longer have to chase the aging small fish. Rather, he would put his energy into a revolutionary reversal of the global balance of power between the Jews and their enemies.

When the plane leveled off over the Mediterranean, Elie unzipped his leather briefcase and took out a bunch of envelopes held together with a rubber band. He had arranged with the IDF postmaster to stop all mail addressed to, or from, Private Jerusalem Gerster. Checking the stamps on the envelopes, Elie opened Temimah Gerster's first letter, dated approximately six weeks earlier: My dearest Jerusalem, Your father gave me the address in the Zionist army and allowed me to write to you. With G.o.d's help, after many weeks, I am recovering from the terrible shock. What you did is still incomprehensible to me. I know that young men sometimes desire to a.s.sert their independence, to rebel against authority. But why did you have to go to such extremes? And why didn't you speak with us first, before stripping yourself of all that distinguishes a G.o.d-fearing member of our community? You defied your father, rejected our whole way of life, and broke G.o.d's laws. I cannot understand it. I pray that you realize your error soon. I beg of you, my son, to think of what you have done. I plead and implore you to repent. It's not too late-as the Talmud says, 'He who repents and corrects his ways shall be treated with compa.s.sion.' G.o.d will show you the way when you are ready to see it. Meanwhile, make sure to eat and sleep well, and say your prayers. I ask G.o.d every day for your safe return to us. May the Master of the Universe watch over you, my son. Please write back.

Your loving mother, Temimah Gerster.

The stamp on the second envelope was from about a week later. The letter inside was written on the same type of paper, and with the same blue pen, as the first letter: My dearest Jerusalem, You haven't responded to my previous letter. Perhaps you are away on military drills. Today is Thursday, and I went out of the apartment for the first time since that terrible day, when your father, in his understandable anger, excommunicated you. Everyone was very happy to see me at the synagogue, and most of the donated clothes are gone. I asked Benjamin to take the rest to Shmattas to be exchanged, and he did it well. He also misses you very much and prays for your return. Please write a few words to let us know how you are. Your father agreed that you may come home to celebrate Pa.s.sover with us, provided that you respect G.o.d's laws while under out roof. Please, I beg you to come, even if you have to go back to the army after the holiday. Maybe you don't understand what it means for me to think of sitting at the Pa.s.sover table without you. When you have a child one day, G.o.d willing, you will understand my agony. So please come home for Pa.s.sover. I pray for your safe return.

Your loving mother, Temimah Gerster.

Elie folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. He read the next one, and the next, until he had read all six of them. With each successive letter, her tone grew more anxious, her pleas more urgent, especially with the approaching holiday. In the last letter, under his wife's signature, Abraham had added: Jerusalem, Please respond to your mother, whose heart is broken. Cruelty is the gravest sin, while forgiveness is the finest virtue.

Your father, Rabbi Abraham Gerster.

Elie wondered what would have happened if the boy had received these letters. Would Lemmy have gone home for Pa.s.sover? It was a question that would never be answered. Both Abraham and his son had their separate roles to play in the historic struggle for Jewish survival, and Elie was determined to prevent any reconciliation between them. As to the mother's grief, it was unfortunate. Collateral damage. But she would get over it soon. In the grand scheme of Jewish destiny, Elie could not afford to worry about Temimah Gerster's spoiled Pa.s.sover plans.

The pilot announced that the plane would land in Zurich in three hours. Elie lowered his seatback and closed his eyes. The constant engine noise soon put him to sleep.

Tanya's phone rang near midnight on Sat.u.r.day night. It was Lemmy, calling from a payphone at the central bus station. He had won a one-day leave at a sharp-shooting contest.

She drove Elie's small Citroen, which he had left with her yesterday before departing for Europe. Lemmy waited at the curb, carrying an Uzi and a duffel bag. She took him home, and they fell into bed without turning on the lights. He smelled of dust and sweat and grease. His embrace was forceful, and his hands on her skin felt coa.r.s.e in a way she found incredibly arousing. He was tireless, his breathing not labored even as their lovemaking intensified, sending her again and again beyond the limits of her self-control.

Tanya woke up with first light. She used the fast-forward feature on the recording device to scan for any UN communications that had occurred overnight, finding only a few casual exchanges. She called Brigadier General Tappuzi to tell him there was no news.

Around noon, Lemmy appeared at her side in his khaki boxer shorts. "What a setup you have here! What is it for?" He touched a k.n.o.b on one of the receivers.

She slapped his hand, not too hard, but enough to make him recoil and laugh.

Daylight afforded Tanya a good look at him. She was amazed by the transformation. He seemed taller, with a narrow waist and sculpted shoulders. His muscles bulged like those of a man who worked with his hands. "I'm wondering," she said, "where's my skinny Talmudic scholar?"

"He's gone. I'm all you've got."

"You'll have to do, then." She stood and kissed him, reaching up to caress his cropped hair. "I've arranged a room for you in Tel Aviv. At Bira's apartment. You can stay there during leaves from the army. It's a fun group, around your age. You'll be comfortable there."

"I'm comfortable here."

She traced the line of his jaw with her finger. "It's not safe here, not until things settle down. And you're better off with young people."

His blue eyes were hurt. "Who says?"

"I do." Tanya detached from him and went to the kitchen to make coffee. She had to ease him away, no matter how painful it was for her. It would be the height of hypocrisy to keep him hooked in a dead-end relations.h.i.+p after tearing him apart from Neturay Karta. She had to complete what she had started, set him free to experience a normal life, to date girls his age, to have fun like any other young secular Israeli, to pursue a career and eventually start a family with a woman who could give him a partners.h.i.+p of equals and a bunch of cute kids. "It won't be long," she said, "before you lose interest in me."

"How do you know?"

"There's no future for us together."

"Forget the future." He hugged her from behind. "Right now, it's really good."

Tanya poured coffee into two mugs. He was right, of course. It was more than "really good." Their night together was a hundred times better than the hesitant, tender love they had made during their brief time together, before he had joined the army. The experience was like a sudden, wild storm that tossed her back in time, not only in the sense of a physical joy, of reaching heights she had a.s.sumed herself too old to experience again, but also emotionally, an overwhelming sense of wholeness and completeness that must have been false considering the enormous gaps in age, life experience, and realism-a word better than cynicism-that she had acquired through witnessing true evil time and again. How could their bond be anything but an illusion, when Lemmy didn't know the evil she knew, when he didn't understand that the evil of Jew-demonizing and Jew-hating and Jew-killing was everywhere, that the evil which had robbed her youth and killed her family and put her life on a path of clandestine armed struggle, the evil that won again and again, the evil that was clever and resilient and unbeatable, the evil that hid behind inspiring ideologies, behind nationalism and fascism and communism and even humanism, that evil which spoke grammatically-correct French, German, English, or Arabic, was everywhere, yet unfamiliar to this boy-turnedman, who was embracing her and breathing in the scent of her hair as if it were life-supporting oxygen. How could Lemmy's love be true, when he didn't know what she knew, that Gentiles sipped the loathing of Jews with their mother's milk, goat milk, or coconut milk, that it flowed smoothly into their veins and hearts and minds with each shot of Remy Martin under the Eiffel Tower, or a squirt of fig juice under a palm tree. The worlds she and Lemmy occupied weren't overlapping at all. And why should they? He lived in a world of optimistic youth and patriotic hopes, a world without an end, while she lived in a dark world, a world lurking with death, a world of kill or be killed-or better said, a world of kill, kill, kill, and eventually be killed for being a Jew.

By now, Tanya was crying silently, her face away from him, her hands holding the two coffee mugs, her shoulders shaking.

He kissed her earlobe, then her neck, not in pa.s.sion but in the tenderness of those early explorations of last year, when he had still worn a black coat and a black hat and those golden, ringlet side locks. And as she leaned back into his arms and surrendered to his gentleness, the onslaught of her sorrow began to recede, and she stopped crying.

"You think too much," he said. "Don't over-a.n.a.lyze what we have. It feels good, so it must be good. Leave the hair-splitting to the Talmudic scholars."

The mugs safely on the table, she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry. The last few months have been tough." She stopped there, not explaining further, not sharing with him the terror of a victim's deja vu, of recognizing the rising ghosts from another war, gathering again, circling gleefully with the single goal of exterminating the Jewish people. It was. .h.i.tler all over again, only that his incarnation had taken the three-headed ident.i.ty of Na.s.ser, a.s.sad, and King Hussein. They spoke Arabic instead of German. They propagated Pan Arabism instead of n.a.z.ism. But just like Hitler, their language and ideology was but a masquerade for their true aim. And among their chosen prey, among those they sought to murder, were the two people she truly and unconditionally loved. But unlike the n.a.z.i Holocaust, which caught her as a budding and hapless young teen, this coming war would include her as a fighter. All her training and skills were now going to count in the struggle to prevent this war from following the n.a.z.i Holocaust with an Arab Holocaust. And the fight would require her total commitment, all her physical and mental resources, as she would be fighting not on the front lines, but in the back alleys of Ma.r.s.eilles, or the power hallways of Paris, where armament, money, and military secrets could give Israel the upper hand in what seemed like an unavoidable calamity. And for her to win the secret battles under her command, Tanya had to regain the single-minded ferocity of a hunter who was simultaneously being hunted. She had to focus, to forget everything else, including the two souls that occupied her heart-Bira and Lemmy-a daughter she loved by force of motherhood and two decades of a perilous-yet-joyous life together, and a boy she loved by force of fate, or coincidence, or sheer stupidity and feminine weakness for which she had only herself to blame.

"Enough," he said as if reading her mind. "There's only here and now, okay?"

They held each other for a long moment.

Tanya breathed deeply. She rebuked herself silently for letting gloom and fear take over. Israel wasn't a Shtetl, or a ghetto, but a Jewish state with an army of dedicated men and women, ready to defend it. And she had a vital role in that effort. "My a.s.signment here will end soon. I'll probably be sent back to Europe. This house might be empty or occupied by someone else when your next leave comes around."

"I've never been abroad. Can I visit you?"

There was no way she could see him in Europe. Mossad life didn't allow for casual visitors. To change the subject, she asked, "Have you received any letters from home?"

"Are you kidding?"

Tanya was surprised. Abraham had clearly said that his wife would write to Lemmy. "Your mother didn't write to you?"

"She probably forgot about me already."

"Don't be stupid!" Tanya immediately regretted her sharp tone. "There's nothing my daughter could do to make me forget her. Your mother will never-"

"What do you know about Neturay Karta?"

"I know how a mother feels."

"Not my mother. She feels what my father allows her to feel, which obviously can't include feelings for a banished son."

"That's not what-"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Lemmy put down his coffee and left the kitchen. She heard him enter the bathroom, and a moment later the water was running in the shower.

Elie Weiss had spent the night at the Pension Naurische, a small hotel run by an elderly couple near Zurich's train station. When he came downstairs, Frau Naurische handed him a thick envelope addressed to Herr Danzig. Taking his breakfast in the cozy lounge, Elie used a b.u.t.ter knife to open the seal.

One of his agents had collected background information on Armande Hoffgeitz. Technically it was a violation of Israeli law, which limited all overseas clandestine activities to Mossad. But Elie had never considered his operations to be subjected to this or any other law. Only the best interest of the Jewish people counted.

He pulled out a manila folder, which contained approximately twenty black-and-white photographs. In the first photo, a family was seated on the deck of a sailboat, chewing on sausage sandwiches. The parents were pudgy, but the two children seemed athletic. The note on the back of the photo read: Armande, wife Greta, daughter Paula, and son Klaus V.K. Hoffgeitz.

Another photo showed a thin, tall man in a dark suit and a tie standing by a Rolls Royce. The note on the back read: Gunter Schnell, long-time a.s.sistant to Herr Hoffgeitz. In the next photo, the family entered a church whose front was adorned with three stained gla.s.s windows that seemed familiar. The agent noted that the Hoffgeitz family regularly attended Sunday afternoon ma.s.s at the Fraumunster on the Limmat River, which apparently was opened to tourists in the morning hours.

As he walked to church through the streets of Zurich, Elie remembered walking with his father to the synagogue through the muddy roads of the shtetl, both of them in black coats and wide-brimmed hats. At the door of the synagogue, Rabbi Yakov Gerster greeted them with his son, Abraham. The rabbi asked how Elie had been progressing as an apprentice shoykhet, and while Elie's father bragged about his son's proficiency with the slaughter of livestock, Abraham scrunched his face in revulsion.

With this memory on his mind, Elie mounted the stone steps of the Fraumunster church and entered the cavernous s.p.a.ce, which was braced by multiple cross-arches high above. The three aisles of the gothic basilica were lit by the rays of the sun, filtered through the stained gla.s.s windows. Less than a third of the pews were taken. The Hoffgeitz family sat up front. The organ played a thunderous tune, and the paris.h.i.+oners sang a hymn. He sat in the rear, far to the right. It was chilly, the damp air scented with candles. He hesitated before removing his wool cap, but he had no choice.

The pastor, in a black robe, signaled to the organ player, who picked up the pace, bringing it to a roaring climax. The organ was enormous in size, with hundreds, perhaps over a thousand pipes rising to different heights.

"This is a special day," the pastor began, his German spoken with a French accent. He pointed to the front of the choir room and the stained-gla.s.s windows. "Thanks to the generosity of our faithful and the divine gift of the inspired artist, we are blessed with the presence of prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah."

This jolted Elie's memory. Months earlier he had read in a newspaper article criticizing the elderly Jewish artist Marc Chagall for accepting a lucrative commission to create biblical scenes for a Swiss church, including one of Jesus Christ, in whose name countless Jews had been murdered over the past centuries. Elie s.h.i.+fted in the pew to get a better look.

While Elijah was rising to heaven in a chariot of fire, Jeremiah hovered in a hazy blue cloud. The next stained window showed Moses looking down on the Israelites in the midst of battle. Jacob occupied the next, his ladder reaching for the sky while a seraph wrestled him to the ground. Elie almost laughed at the next scene, which had the walled city of Jerusalem descending from a yellowish sky while King David and Bathsheba looked on amorously.

The pastor, meanwhile, crossed over to the most striking depiction, a greenish-orange creation that starred Mary, Baby Jesus, a floating tree, a lamb, and the crucifixion, with an adult Jesus ascending to divine heights that required Elie to crane his neck to look at the top, near the ceiling, where their Messiah was finally free from his earthly suffering.

The pastor's sermon went on for a half-hour, extracting lessons of modesty and charity from the lives of Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah, concluding with Jesus. Elie watched the Hoffgeitz family, the mother nodding approvingly, the daughter glancing at her watch, and Herr Hoffgeitz's chin resting on his chest while he napped. The son, who was about twelve, seemed captivated by the colorful biblical scenes.

The service ended with another hymn. Elie put on his wool cap and moved to the shadow of a thick stone column. The Hoffgeitz family lingered to look up at the windows, while the pastor spoke animatedly, gesturing at each of the scenes. He paused when Herr Hoffgeitz spoke and leaned forward in deference.

Elie slipped outside and chose a discreet vantage point. A dark Rolls Royce glided into the plaza. The driver came around to open the door. Gunter.

A rattling engine noise drew everyone's attention as a yellow VW minibus arrived, stopping behind the Rolls Royce. It was filled with teenagers with longish hair. The daughter jumped in, and only young Klaus waved at the departing VW, which left behind a smell of burnt oil. Across the rear of the minibus, a crudely painted serpent slithered between purple letters LASN, which Elie suspected stood for Lyceum Alpin St. Nicholas, the Swiss boarding school once attended by SS General Klaus von Koenig and Armande Hoffgeitz. It appeared that the prestigious boys' school had become coed.

Lemmy tied a towel around his waist and went to the living room. He felt at home among Tanya's books, the music from the wooden box of the radio, and Bira smiling from her photo on the wall. He found Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and flipped through the pages, finding familiar pa.s.sages.

When he put down the book, Lemmy noticed a cigarette lighter leaning against an empty ashtray. He picked it up, surprised by its heavy weight. With his thumb he opened the tiny cover and pressed. It worked. He thumbed the cover, extinguis.h.i.+ng the flame. He could see the glint of silver under the greenish coat of aging.

Tanya entered the room, carrying two cups. "You didn't finish your coffee." She sat on the sofa. "I made you a fresh cup."

"I'm sorry for ending our conversation so abruptly."

"Apology accepted."

"No one can possibly understand Neturay Karta unless you've been part of it." He sat next to her and picked up the cigarette lighter. "Have you started smoking?"

She put down the cup, splas.h.i.+ng hot coffee on the table. "Give it to me!"

He held it up, away from her, and pulled out the Mauser with his free hand. The long s.h.i.+ning barrel lined up with the oxidized rectangle of the lighter. Both had the same engraved initials. "Who is K.v.K.?"

Elie crossed the Limmat River and headed back to the Pension Naurische. Sunday traffic was spa.r.s.e. The tram rumbled by, throwing electric sparks from the overhead wires. On Bahnhofstra.s.se, near the entrance to the central train station, he bought the Sunday edition of the German-language daily Neue Zuricher Zeitung. Farther down, he found a small cafe off the main road and sat at a round table outside, raising his collar against the early evening chill, and lit a cigarette.

The waitress noticed the Lucky Strike pack on the table and asked, "Amerikaner?"

"Nein," Elie said. "Ich bin ein Berliner." It amused him to name another divided city when lying about where he lived. Before she could ask more questions, he ordered black coffee and Erdbeertoertli, a traditional Swiss dessert of strawberries and whipped cream in a pastry cup.

The front page carried a long article about a proposed ban on foreign-controlled banks in Switzerland. A headline on the second page reported that Mahmoud Riad, the Egyptian foreign minister, had gone to Jordan to negotiate a military pact with King Hussein. Until now, the young king was not receptive to the idea. But the events of April 7, almost three weeks earlier, had created a different mood. According to UN observers, Syrian cannons atop the Golan Heights had released a barrage of 247 sh.e.l.ls on the Israeli farmers at Kibbutz Gadot on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Kinneret. The IDF air force sent a squadron to destroy the cannons, and the Syrians scrambled their planes into the air. In the ensuing dogfight across the clear sky over Damascus, Israeli Mirage jets shot down five Syrian MiGs. This intimidated the Jordanian leaders.h.i.+p enough to support joining an Egyptian-led alliance against Israel.

Elie put down the paper and nibbled on the Erdbeertoertli, its crust practically melting on his tongue. The confetti strawberries were too sweet for his palate, and he washed it down with a bit of coffee. The steam rising from the coffee made him rub his neck, still tender after several months of healing. The news of an Arab joint command, dominated by the belligerent Na.s.ser, was a realization of Israel's worst fears. Elie knew he had little time to waste. As soon as the Hoffgeitz Bank began transferring Klaus von Koenig's fortune to the accounts in Paris, he would return to Jerusalem.

"K .v.K. stands for Klaus von Koenig." Tanya looked away from the Mauser and the cigarette lighter, two personal objects Klaus had carried on him every day until his death. "He was in charge of budget and finance at the SS Central Command, reporting directly to Himmler."

"You knew him?"

"I lived with him."

Lemmy's face paled. "As a s.e.x slave?"

"As a lover."

"You loved a n.a.z.i?"

"I loved a man, a wonderful man, despite who he was, or what he was."

"I don't understand."

"It didn't start that way. I was only thirteen." Tanya closed her eyes, taking herself back to that horrifying day. "We arrived in the morning. My mother. My little sister, Edna. A train filled with Jews from Lindau, Germany, our hometown. My father had died a year earlier. He had always thought of himself as a German first and a Jew second. But when they burned down his bookstore, it just broke his heart. At least he didn't live to see us arrive at Dachau. Three days in a cattle car, no room to sit, no water, no toilet. No dignity. We were made to strip naked and line up by the doors to the showers, s.h.i.+vering from cold and fear. The doors opened. My mother and Edna were pushed in, but someone grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. I wanted to go with them, but my mother shook her head. She knew."

Tanya wiped her eyes. It had been a long time since she had allowed these memories to surface. She felt Lemmy's hand on her arm. "To this day I cannot remember my mother clothed. She's forever naked in my mind, holding Edna's hand as the steel doors were shut behind them. I know she was a beautiful woman, always dressed tastefully. I know it, but I cannot visualize her the way she had been before Dachau. I can't, and there are no photos left to remind me. It's as if our past, our nice little family life in Lindau, never existed." Tanya took a deep breath. "Anyway, there I was, standing with my hands over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was so cold. I saw a tall man in a long coat and an officer's cap. The others looked like midgets around him. He took off his coat and draped it around me." Tanya rubbed her neck with her hand. "I can still feel the stiff collar chafing against my skin."

"And then?"

"I was lucky." She shrugged. "Not only to stay alive, but to be with Klaus."

"Lucky?"

"I was numb with grief, alone in the world, with no one to protect me. He could have used me and put me back in line, but he didn't. He took me to his home and nurtured me back to life like a precious bird with broken wings."

Lemmy's mouth was slightly open, his expression incredulous.

"You think I should have hated Klaus?"

He nodded.

"Because he was a monster, responsible for killing millions of innocent people, our people, right?"

"Yes."

"And you're correct. He was part of that evil machine. But with me he was someone else. He was a confident, impeccable man, who showed me only kindness and devotion. He was the first man I'd ever been with-as a woman. He was there for me, strong and caring, very patient and considerate. I know it sounds crazy, but I knew that he really loved me. I was his angel, and he was mine."

"But he was a n.a.z.i!"

Tanya rolled a lock of her hair around her finger, as a girl would do. "If you were a young woman, perhaps you would understand. I was just becoming a woman then. My body and my emotional universe revolved around those feelings. Klaus von Koenig loved me, really loved me, like no one else before or after. He was a formidable man. Senior SS officers trembled before him. But with me he was different. He saved my life, but he treated me as if I saved his. There was nothing he wouldn't do for me, and I was happy with him, would have stayed with him even after the war, would have gone to Argentina and borne his children. I would have."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because we were ambushed by two starved, half-frozen Jewish partisans, one of whom was your father."

Lemmy held up the gun. "That's how he got this Mauser?"

She nodded. "Abraham shot Klaus in the head just before dawn, on the first day of 1945. My seventeenth birthday."

"I didn't know my father was a partisan."