The English Girl: A Novel (5 page)
ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM
G
abriel took a single item from Graham Seymour, the photograph of a captive Madeline Hart, and carried it westward across Jerusalem, to the Israel Museum. After leaving his car in the staff parking lot, a privilege only recently granted to him, he made his way through the soaring glass entrance hall to the room that housed the museum’s collection of European art. In one corner hung nine Impressionist paintings that had once been in the possession of a Swiss banker named Augustus Rolfe. A placard described the long journey the paintings had taken from Paris to this spot—how they had been looted by the Nazis in 1940, and how they were later transferred to Rolfe in exchange for services rendered to German intelligence. The placard made no mention of the fact that Gabriel and Rolfe’s daughter, the renowned violinist Anna Rolfe, had discovered the paintings in a Zurich bank vault—or that a consortium of Swiss businessmen had hired a professional assassin from Corsica to kill them both.
In the adjoining gallery hung works by Israeli artists. There were three canvases by Gabriel’s mother, including a haunting depiction of the death march from Auschwitz in January 1945 that she had painted from memory. Gabriel spent several moments admiring her draftsmanship and brushwork before heading outside into the sculpture garden. At the far end stood the beehive-shaped Shrine of the Book, repository of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Next to it was the museum’s newest structure, a modern glass-and-steel building, sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. For now, it was cloaked in an opaque construction tarpaulin that rendered its contents, the twenty-two pillars of Solomon’s Temple, invisible to the outside world.
There were well-armed security men standing along both sides of the building and at its entrance, which faced east, as had Solomon’s original Temple. It was just one element of the exhibit that had made it arguably the most controversial curatorial project the world had ever known. Israel’s ultra-Orthodox haredim had denounced the exhibit as an affront to God that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Jewish state, while in Arab East Jerusalem the keepers of the Dome of the Rock declared the pillars an elaborate hoax. “There was never an actual Temple on the Temple Mount,” the grand mufti of Jerusalem wrote in an op-ed published in the
New York Times
, “and no museum exhibit will ever change that fact.”
Despite the fierce religious and political battles raging around the exhibit, it had progressed with remarkable speed. Within a few weeks of Gabriel’s discovery, architectural plans had been approved, funds raised, and ground broken. Much of the credit belonged to the project’s Italian-born director and chief designer. In public she was referred to by her maiden name, which was Chiara Zolli. But all those associated with the project knew that her real name was Chiara Allon.
The pillars were arranged in the same manner in which Gabriel had found them, in two straight columns separated by approximately twenty feet. One, the tallest, was blackened by fire—the fire the Babylonians had set the night they brought low the Temple that the ancient Jews regarded as the dwelling place of God on earth. It was the pillar Eli Lavon had clung to as he was near death, and it was there that Gabriel found Chiara. She was holding a clipboard in one hand and with the other was gesturing toward the glass ceiling. She wore faded jeans, flat-soled sandals, and a sleeveless white pullover that clung tightly to the curves of her body. Her bare arms were very dark from the Jerusalem sun; her riotous long hair was full of golden highlights. She looked astonishingly beautiful, thought Gabriel, and far too young to be the wife of a battered wreck like him.
Overhead two technicians were making adjustments to the exhibit’s lighting while Chiara supervised from below. She spoke to them in Hebrew, with a distinct Italian accent. The daughter of the chief rabbi of Venice, she had spent her childhood in the insular world of the ancient ghetto, leaving just long enough to earn a master’s degree in Roman history from the University of Padua. She returned to Venice after graduation and took a job at the small Jewish museum in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, and there she might have remained forever had an Office talent spotter not noticed her during a visit to Israel. The talent spotter introduced himself in a Tel Aviv coffeehouse and asked Chiara whether she was interested in doing more for the Jewish people than working in a museum in a dying ghetto.
After spending a year in the Office’s secretive training program, Chiara returned to Venice, this time as an undercover agent of Israeli intelligence. Among her first assignments was to covertly watch the back of a wayward Office assassin named Gabriel Allon, who had come to Venice to restore Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece. She revealed herself to him a short time later in Rome, after an incident involving gunplay and the Italian police. Trapped alone with Chiara in a safe flat, Gabriel had wanted desperately to touch her. He had waited until the case was resolved and they had returned to Venice. There, in a canal house in Cannaregio, they made love for the first time, in a bed prepared with fresh linen. It was like making love to a figure painted by the hand of Veronese.
Now the figure turned her head and, noticing Gabriel’s presence for the first time, smiled. Her eyes, wide and oriental in shape, were the color of caramel and flecked with gold, a combination that Gabriel had never been able to accurately reproduce on canvas. It had been many months since Chiara had agreed to sit for him; the exhibit had left her with little time for anything else. It was a distinct change in the pattern of their marriage. Usually, it was Gabriel who was consumed by a project, be it a painting or an operation, but now the roles were reversed. Chiara, a natural organizer who was meticulous in all things, had thrived under the intense pressure of the exhibit. But secretly Gabriel was looking forward to the day he could have her back.
She walked to the next pillar and examined the way the light was falling across it. “I called the apartment a few minutes ago,” she said, “but there was no answer.”
“I was having brunch with Graham Seymour at the King David.”
“How lovely,” she said sardonically. Then, still studying the pillar, she asked, “What’s in the envelope?”
“A job offer.”
“Who’s the artist?”
“Unknown.”
“And the subject matter?”
“A girl named Madeline Hart.”
G
abriel returned to the sculpture garden and sat on a bench overlooking the tan hills of West Jerusalem. A few minutes later Chiara joined him. A soft autumnal wind moved in her hair. She brushed a stray tendril from her face and then crossed one long leg over the other so that her sandal dangled from her suntanned toes. Suddenly, the last thing Gabriel wanted to do was to leave Jerusalem and go looking for a girl he didn’t know.
“Let’s try this again,” she said at last. “What’s in the envelope?”
“A photograph.”
“What kind of photograph?”
“Proof of life.”
Chiara held out her hand. Gabriel hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
When Chiara nodded, Gabriel surrendered the envelope and watched as she lifted the flap and removed the print. As she examined the image, a shadow fell across her face. It was the shadow of a Russian arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov. Gabriel had taken everything from Ivan: his business, his money, his wife and children. Then Ivan had retaliated by taking Chiara. The operation to rescue her was the bloodiest of Gabriel’s long career. Afterward, he had killed eleven of Ivan’s operatives in retaliation. Then, on a quiet street in Saint-Tropez, he had killed Ivan, too. Yet even in death, Ivan remained a part of their lives. The ketamine injections his men had given Chiara had caused her to lose the child she was carrying. Untreated, the miscarriage had damaged her ability to conceive. Privately, she had all but given up hope she would ever become pregnant again.
She returned the photograph to the envelope and the envelope to Gabriel. Then she listened intently as he described how the case had ended up in Graham Seymour’s lap, then in his.
“So the British prime minister is forcing Graham Seymour to do his dirty work for him,” she said when Gabriel had finished, “and Graham is doing the same to you.”
“He’s been a good friend.”
Chiara’s face was expressionless. Her eyes, usually a reliable window into her thoughts, were concealed behind sunglasses.
“What do you suppose they want?” she asked after a moment.
“Money,” said Gabriel. “They always want money.”
“Almost always,” responded Chiara. “But sometimes they want things that are impossible to surrender.”
She removed her sunglasses and hung them from the front of her shirt. “How long do you have before they kill her?” she asked. And when Gabriel answered, she shook her head slowly. “It can’t be done,” she said. “You can’t possibly find her in that amount of time.”
“Look at the building behind you. Then tell me if you still feel the same way.”
Chiara looked at nothing other than Gabriel’s face. “The French police have been searching for Madeline Hart for over a month. What makes you think you can find her?”
“Maybe they haven’t been looking in the right place—or talking to the right people.”
“Where would you start?”
“I’ve always believed the best place to begin an investigation is the scene of the crime.”
Chiara removed her sunglasses from the front of her shirt and absently polished the lenses against her jeans. Gabriel knew it was a bad sign. Chiara always cleaned things when she was annoyed.
“You’ll scratch them if you don’t stop,” he said.
“They’re filthy,” she replied distantly.
“Maybe you should get a case instead of just throwing them into your purse.”
She made no response.
“You surprise me, Chiara.”
“Why?”
“Because you know better than anyone that Madeline Hart is in hell. And she’s going to stay in hell until someone brings her out.”
“I just wish it could be someone else.”
“There is no one else.”
“No one like you.” She examined the lenses of her sunglasses and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re scratched.”
“I told you you’d scratch them.”
“You’re always right, darling.”
She slipped on the glasses and looked across the city. “I assume Shamron and Uzi have given their blessing?”
“Graham went to them before talking to me.”
“How clever of him.” She uncrossed her legs and rose. “I should be getting back. We don’t have much time left before the opening.”
“You’ve done a magnificent job, Chiara.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“It was worth a try.”
“When will I see you again?”
“I only have seven days to find her.”
“Six,” she corrected him. “Six days or the girl dies.”
She leaned down and kissed his lips softly. Then she turned and walked across the sun-bleached garden, her hips swinging gently, as if to music only she could hear. Gabriel watched until she disappeared into the tarpaulin-covered building. Suddenly, the last thing he wanted to do was to leave Jerusalem and go looking for a girl he didn’t know.
G
abriel returned to the King David Hotel to collect the rest of the dossier from Graham Seymour—the demand note that contained no demand, the DVD of Madeline’s confession, and the two photographs of the man from Les Palmiers in Calvi. In addition, he requested a copy of Madeline’s Party personnel file, deliverable to an address in Nice.
“How did it go with Chiara?” asked Seymour.
“At this moment, my marriage might be in worse shape than Lancaster’s.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Leave town as quickly as possible. And don’t mention my name to your prime minister or anyone else at Downing Street.”
“How do I contact you?”
“I’ll send up a flare when I have news. Until then, I don’t exist.”
It was with those words that Gabriel took his leave. Returning to Narkiss Street, he found, resting on the coffee table in plain sight, a money belt containing two hundred thousand dollars. Next to it was a ticket for the 4:00 p.m. flight to Paris. It had been booked under the name Johannes Klemp, one of his favorite aliases. Entering the bedroom, Gabriel packed a small overnight bag with Herr Klemp’s trendy German clothing, setting aside one outfit, a black suit and black pullover, for the plane ride. Then, standing before the bathroom mirror, he made a few subtle alterations to his own appearance—a bit of silver for his hair, a pair of rimless German spectacles, a pair of brown contact lenses to conceal his distinctive green eyes. Within a few minutes he scarcely recognized the face staring back at him. He was no longer Gabriel Allon, Israel’s avenging angel. He was Johannes Klemp of Munich, a man permanently ready to take offense, a small man with a chip balanced precariously on his insignificant shoulder.
After dressing in Herr Klemp’s black suit and dousing himself with Herr Klemp’s appalling cologne, he sat down at Chiara’s dressing table and opened her jewelry case. One item seemed curiously out of place. It was a strand of leather hung with a piece of red coral shaped like a hand. He removed it and slipped it into his pocket. Then, for reasons not known to him, he hung it round his neck and concealed it beneath Herr Klemp’s pullover.
Downstairs an Office sedan was idling in the street. Gabriel tossed his bag onto the backseat and climbed in after it. Then he glanced at his wristwatch, not at the time but at the date. It was September 27. It had once been his favorite day of the year.
“What’s your name?” he asked of the driver.
“Lior.”
“Where are you from, Lior?”
“Beersheba.”
“It was a good place to be a kid?”
“There are worse places.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
Twenty-five, thought Gabriel. Why did it have to be twenty-five? He looked at his wristwatch again. Not at the time. The date.
“What were your instructions?” he asked of the driver, who just happened to be twenty-five.