The Jerusalem Inception Part 7

Mint, Lemmy decided, that's what her breath smelled like. He knew he should get up and leave, but he couldn't. The fire from her hand had spread to his loins. "My father is a great scholar of Talmud. Our people listen to him."

"Because they think he's a tzadik?"

"Yes. He is a righteous man."

"Oh, Jerusalem." Tanya's hand slipped off his shoulder. "It must be nice to be so innocent."

He stood up and glanced at the bookshelf.

"Would you like another novel?" Tanya picked one. "That's a good one."

Lemmy couldn't contain his smile. It was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Elie Weiss watched from his Deux Chevaux as Abraham's son left Tanya's house and walked down the street, his black coat unb.u.t.toned, his black hat tilted jauntily. When the boy was out of sight, Elie got out of his car and knocked on Tanya's door.

She stood in the doorway. "What do you want?"

"A bit of your time. May I come in?"

She moved aside.

He entered a large, tidy room. The closed door to his left probably led to the equipment room where she listened in on UN radio traffic. He sat on the sofa.

Tanya remained standing. "I need to go back to my work."

He pulled out a pack of Lucky Strike.

"Don't smoke here."

"No problem." Elie slid the pack back into his pocket. "How was your reunion with Abraham? Lots of hugs and kisses?"

"You told him I was dead!"

"I told him the facts. He drew the conclusion."

"You tricked him, just like you had tricked me about his death. b.l.o.o.d.y sieve!"

"It's a miracle he recovered, and it was a miracle the wolves didn't eat you."

Tanya's pretty face was red with anger, making her even more attractive. "We needed one more miracle, but you're still around!"

"I saw your new friend leave. Good-looking boy, Abraham's son. Snip off those payos and strip the black clothes, and he's a carbon copy of the Gerster you once loved."

Tanya's face grew even redder. "You're a sick man!"

He was pleased with her reaction, which confirmed his strategy. "I need to know what he told you. Anything about Neturay Karta?"

"You haven't changed."

"He must have told you something." Elie wanted her to think this was just about snooping for information on the fundamentalist sect, let her believe he had given up on the fortune her n.a.z.i lover had stashed in Switzerland.

Tanya walked to the opposite end of the room. "You already have Abraham in position. He's your agent. Leave his son alone."

"Why?"

"Because he's an innocent victim."

"You read too many novels."

"He's just a boy."

"He's the same age Abraham was in forty-five. You remember the boy he was, yes? The heads he blew? The necks he squeezed? The hearts he stabbed, or broke?"

Tanya turned away. She released her hair and held it to her cheek like a child seeking comfort in a familiar rag. "You couldn't make me betray Klaus twenty years ago. You think I'll betray Abraham now?"

"Your loyalty to ex-lovers is commendable."

"A snake," she said, "is what you are."

"A very powerful snake." Elie looked around. He knew she would not leave the n.a.z.i's ledger in plain sight, but he hoped to see something useful, a hint of where she had hidden the key to the dormant fortune. "You're taking it too personally. This is not about me or you or Abraham. This is about the future of Israel. We won't survive the Arabs' attacks while a Talmudic Trojan horse spews religious violence in our midst."

"A few hundred fragile scholars are a threat to the state?"

"Neturay Karta's fundamentalist ideology is like a spark that could start a brushfire, which will spread to every religious community in Israel."

"You're being paranoid."

Elie put a cigarette between his lips. "Orthodox Jews believe that one day the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on his white donkey and twiddle a magic wand to recreate King David's empire and bring us back to the Promised Land. Therefore, they perceive modern Zionism as a blasphemous usurpation of G.o.d. Remember the zealots who killed the great priest and caused Roman victory over Jerusalem two thousand years ago? Neturay Karta is the reincarnation of those ancient fanatics, the modern-day progenitors of a violent rebellion against the secular Israeli democratic government-"

"You're wasting time. I work for Mossad, not for you."

"Actually, soon you'll also be working for my Special Operations Department." He could see her face tense up. "I won't interfere with your regular duties, but you'll have to follow my orders and provide me with all information and items that you possess."

Tanya shook her head sharply, her hair flying about her, making her look like a young girl. "General Amit won't force me."

Elie thought for a moment. "Are you sleeping with the chief of Mossad?"

"You're repulsive!" She picked up a book and threw it on the desk in frustration. "Yes, Elie Weiss. I sleep with General Amit, I sleep with Abraham and his son, I sleep with dogs and pigs, and I sleep with everybody except you. Now leave my house!"

He got up and paced to the framed photo on the wall. "Your daughter's lovely."

"Leave!"

"Bira Galinski. Private First Cla.s.s, mandatory service, IDF Media Department, Central Command." He looked at the photo closely. "Not as pretty as her mother. Light hair, blue eyes, big bones. Must be her father's looks. I hear she wants to be a historian, a scholar, not a spy. Odd, if you consider her parents' career choices."

He turned to Tanya, whose face went pale. She said nothing.

"Now, let's see. She was born in Berlin on July eleventh, nineteen forty five. A healthy baby-three kilos two hundred grams. Her birth certificate refers to the father as deceased. But he must have been alive and well back in," Elie counted on his fingers, "say, late winter, nineteen forty four, which was when you and Herr Obergruppenfuhrer Klaus von Koenig-"

"Go to h.e.l.l." She threw open the door.

"To h.e.l.l?" Elie crossed the room slowly and stood close enough to smell her. "I've been there, Tanya, long nights, listening to Abraham Gerster making love to you, not even bothering to be quiet, as if I were blind and deaf and without my own desires." He paused, regretting his momentary sincerity. "Treat me with respect, or I'll expose your daughter's n.a.z.i paternal lineage. Can you imagine the consequences?"

Chapter 10.

The following Sabbath, Lemmy found a week's worth of newspapers on Tanya's coffee table. A headline read: General Bull's Demand for Reinforcements Rejected by UN Secretary General U-Thant. Another headline: Eshkol Blames Egypt and Syria for the Growing Tension at the Borders. The paper quoted opposition Knesset member s.h.i.+mon Peres: Levi Eshkol and Abba Eban Sacrifice Israel's Security for the Interests of America and the Soviet Union!

Reading through the headlines, Lemmy realized how distorted his perception of Israeli society had been. Within the insular Neturay Karta, everyone believed the G.o.dless Israelis to be uniformly immoral, rejoicing in promiscuity and porcine gluttony. But Tanya's newspapers reflected the dedication of the Zionist leaders to the survival of the young state. Their ideological bickering appeared sincere and pa.s.sionate, not the cynical materialism that he had expected.

Before he left, Tanya gave him a thin book by Emile Zola: I Accuse.

Back home, his parents were taking a Sabbath-afternoon nap. He shut himself up in his room and began reading. Written in 1898, it was the story of a Jew named Dreyfus, whose career as a French army officer had ended in a disgraceful conviction for treason. The book argued that Dreyfus had in fact been framed as a scapegoat by the French establishment to cover for one of their own.

I Accuse enraged Lemmy. Here was a Jew who lived with the Goyim, attended their schools, served in their army, and risked his life in their wars, expecting in return only the honor of equality and fraternity, as promised by the new French Republic. But his reward was injustice, humiliation, and suffering. Wasn't Dreyfus a perfect example of the Gentiles' pathological hatred of Jews?

A week later, on Sabbath afternoon, Lemmy entered Tanya's house and declared, "This book is the ultimate proof that Neturay Karta is correct, that a Jew can only live safely among other Jews who observe the strict teachings of Talmud!"

"Only Neturay Karta?" Wearing shorts and a tank top, Tanya sat cross-legged on the floor. "This whole country is Jewish. Israel offers true equality for the Jewish people as a nation, not as a religion."

"Zionism is a rebellion against G.o.d, who told us to wait for His Messiah to bring us back and restore our independence."

"But didn't G.o.d give us the Promised Land and told us to go there? The Zionist pioneers have fulfilled that promise, didn't they?"

"The Zionists violate the Sabbath, shave off their payos and beards, and don't pray. Instead of studying Talmud, they study fragments of clay they dig up from the ground, as if those remnants of ancient dwellings could give them heritage and ident.i.ty. They don't care about G.o.d!"

"Have you ever met a Zionist?"

"Aren't you a Zionist?"

She laughed and gave him another book. "It's the story of the first Zionist. Let's see what you think after reading it."

Lemmy looked at the cover. Theodor Herzl, a Biography.

His face burned as he entered the apartment with the book under his coat. This was not a novel that could be excused as youthful indiscretion. This volume carried on its cover the face of Theodor Herzl-the visionary of modern Zionism. It was worse than hiding a pig under his coat.

That night, Lemmy tiptoed through the apartment to make sure the lights were off in his father's study and his mother's bedroom. Back in his room, he pulled the book from behind the shelved Talmud volumes and lay in bed to read Herzl's life story.

An a.s.similated Austrian Jew, Herzl was a reporter for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse who believed in modernity and freedom as a basis for a peaceful humanity. He did not observe Jewish laws and saw himself as a free citizen of Europe. But while covering the 1894 trial of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, Herzl had witnessed fervent anti-Semitism, both within the quiet halls of justice and on the streets, where the mob chanted, "Kill all the Jews!" He became convinced that the Jews in Europe faced a grave danger, and the only way to save them was the creation of a Jewish state. In a pamphlet t.i.tled, Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, he outlined a new home for the Jews in the Holy Land, based on political freedom, religious tolerance, and racial equality. Herzl called for a secular democracy that would include the indigenous Arabs and bring progress to the desolate Ottoman colony of Palestine. He summoned the first Zionist Congress in Basel and called on Jews everywhere to end their twenty centuries of exile and return to their ancestral homeland. He travelled to Palestine, met Keiser Wilhelm II, and negotiated with the Ottoman Grand Vizier, as well as Sultan Abdulhamid II himself. From Constantinople, Herzl travelled to London, obtaining tacit support from Great Britain. Meanwhile, Zionist activists took his message to countless Jewish shtetls across Russia, Poland, Germany, Hungary, and Romania, where millions of religious Jews recited daily: Next year in Jerusalem. But the rabbis rejected Zionism and ordered their followers to continue the long wait for the Messiah. Herzl died eight years after publis.h.i.+ng Der Judenstaat, lonely and disappointed, never to find out that his premonition of disaster would be validated in the n.a.z.i Holocaust that killed six million Jews.

Herzl had written: If you wish, this is not a fable; in fifty years, we can have a Jewish state. Lemmy calculated quickly in his head and was awed by Herzl's prescience: The 1948 founding of Israel came fifty-two years after Herzl had made that prediction.

It was tragic, Lemmy thought, that the rabbis had rejected Herzl's vision. Their reasoning was familiar-it was still the foundation of Neturay Karta's anti-Zionist stand. But the irony didn't escape him. The small minority of European Jews, who had defied their rabbis and left Europe to build a Jewish homeland in Palestine, lived to mourn their families and friends who had obeyed the rabbis, rejected Zionism, and died in Hitler's gas chambers, crying, "Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our G.o.d, Adonai is one."

Chapter 11.

As the weeks pa.s.sed, Lemmy's b.u.t.tocks healed, and another winter descended on Jerusalem. He visited Tanya every Sat.u.r.day afternoon, exchanging books and browsing the newspapers. She served him tea in a gla.s.s cup, and they discussed the news or the book he had just read. He was often tempted to ask how she knew his father but sensed that the subject was taboo. She gave him the works of major writers, such as Tolstoy, Edgar Allen Poe, and Jack London, which were available in the Hebrew translation. Some novels, such as Gone with the Wind, Madame Bovary, Tom Sawyer, A Tale of Two Cities, and Martin Eden, led to discussions in which Tanya described European history and the American civil war with knowledge that hinted of extensive study and travel. And certain books aroused feelings inside Lemmy that he had never experienced before, especially when it came to the relations.h.i.+p between men and women, so different from the rigid division that was strictly applied in Neturay Karta. He began to read books in German, using a dictionary to bridge the gap between the spoken Yiddish he was fluent in, and the more proper German grammar and vocabulary of literature. He read some of the books more than once, gaining better understanding of the characters, subjects, and meaning. The stories of S.Y. Agnon, for example, were populated with religious Jews like himself, yet described their innermost feelings and pa.s.sions in a way that Lemmy found irresistible.

With time, his life divided into two separate tracks. His days as a Talmudic scholar started shortly after dawn, with a quick rinsing of his face and off to the synagogue for morning service. Breakfast was bread, jam, and milk in the foyer of the synagogue, followed by studying Talmud with Benjamin. Lunch was followed by Rabbi Gerster's daily lecture and independent study until sunset and the evening prayers. Lemmy and Benjamin usually stayed in the synagogue for another hour to settle their arguments.

Dinner at home was the conclusion of a day of studying. While Temimah served them soup and a dish of meat and potatoes or fish with vegetables, his father always asked the same question: "What do you know tonight that you didn't know this morning?"

This question led to a discussion of the pages of Talmud that Lemmy had studied with Benjamin. Invariably, Rabbi Gerster shed new light on the subject, revealing hidden threads and subtle concepts that had escaped Lemmy.

Each scholarly day ended when his father recited the final prayer after the meal and retired to his study. Lemmy always helped his mother clear the dinner table before wis.h.i.+ng her good night.

He read Tanya's books every night, including books she borrowed for him at the public library. His nights filled with excitement as his eyes raced across printed pages filled with strange characters, foreign societies, and human conflicts. When his eyes burned, he'd go to the bathroom, splash cold water on his face, and return to reading. The forbidden books transported him to locations far beyond the walls of Meah Shearim, and the excitement lingered even when his eyelids refused to stay open and he fell asleep for a couple of hours before another day started.

Lemmy learned to juggle his daily studies and nightly escapades. The days were filled with the intellectual intensity of cracking Talmudic riddles with Benjamin among the companions.h.i.+p of a synagogue filled with cigarette smoke and familiar faces. The nights were spent in literary forays outside Neturay Karta. He erected a virtual wall between the life he shared with Talmud, family and friends, and the solitary adventures of his nights. He knew that a crack in the wall could precipitate a deluge of acrimony-his father's wrath, his mother's tears, Benjamin's hurtful betrayal. But the books' allure was too great.

Chapter 12.

On a frosty morning in late December, Tanya switched the eavesdropping equipment to automatic recording and left her home for the long walk to the bus station in West Jerusalem. Across the border, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City, church bells tolled to summon the faithful to Christmas ma.s.s.

The bus took almost three hours to reach Tel Aviv, often stopping to wait for the army to scout the road ahead for Arab terrorists. Getting off the bus at the central station, Tanya walked west toward the Mediterranean coast.

The first Jewish city in modern times, Tel Aviv, which meant Spring Hill, was nothing like Jerusalem. Its inhabitants were secular Israelis. Women wore outfits that revealed the contours of their bodies, and men were muscular and sun-beaten in a healthy, exuberant way that contrasted with the pale Jews of Jerusalem. The sea air was fresh, and the sun shone as if summer hadn't yet departed.

She changed into a bathing suit in the public showers at the beach and walked across the strip of soft sand to the water. The sea was almost flat, only shallow waves lapping at her feet. She took a deep breath and ran into the chilly water of the Mediterranean.

By early afternoon, the unseasonably mild weather had drawn hundreds of bathers, who rose and fell with the waves, squealing in a blend of Hebrew, English, German, and Arabic. A lifeguard with bronze skin and a hairy chest rowed his white fibergla.s.s board toward Tanya and offered to take her for a ride. She declined, and he continued on his patrol.

After drying herself, she spread a towel on the sand and lay down in the sun.

Bira and Eytan met her for dinner at an outdoor cafe near the beach. He was a dark Israeli with a sunny smile, and seemed unconcerned when the two women lapsed into German, reminiscing how Tanya had taught Bira to ride a bicycle in a Munich park until they both fell into a shallow reflecting pool.