The Jerusalem Inception (35 page)
“Sorry I yelled at you.”
She pulled him toward the row of buses. “You’ll miss your ride.”
“Will you attend my graduation ceremony next month?”
They reached his bus. “I can’t leave my post. We’re sitting on a cinder box.”
“That’s okay,” he muttered. “My friends would be surprised to see anyone showing up for me.”
“My poor little Jerusalem.” She held him tightly. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but just to make you feel better, I really can’t travel. The fate of the city is hanging in the balance. We need as much information as possible.”
The bus began to back up from the dock. He bent down to kiss her lips, but Tanya offered her cheek instead.
T
he overseas telephone number had many digits, and Elie tried again, fingering each digit, impatient for the dial to rotate back, the pulses to travel the lines to Jerusalem. But the telephone in Tanya’s house rang and rang without an answer.
He dialed her number again every few minutes for almost an hour, but there was no response. He wondered whether she even knew the account number and password. It would have been careless for her Nazi lover to give her the ledger
and
the codes. Was it possible to guess them? Back in 1945, SS General Klaus von Koenig must have realized it would be many years before he could return to Zurich. He had to use a memorable pattern. Perhaps the name of a place or a person? Something related to Tanya? Elie jotted down
TANYA 1945.
Below he wrote in reverse order:
AYNAT 5491.
A while later, Herr Hoffgeitz’s assistant reappeared. Elie showed him the page. Günter checked the file and shook his head. “Please return when you have the correct information, Herr Danzig. Or, better yet, suggest to General von Koenig that he comes here in person.”
Elie collected the passport, the SS identification card, the ledger, and the list of the Paris accounts. He put everything in his inside breast pocket.
The elderly attendant helped Elie into his coat, and Günter Schnell held the front door open. “By the way, Herr Danzig, how did you like the Chagall windows at the Fraumünster?”
“I didn’t,” Elie responded without missing a beat. “Typical
Juden
kitsch masquerading as art. Don’t you agree?”
L
ate at night, after turning on the recording devices, Tanya went to bed with an Agnon book. The story was titled
Agunot
–
The Forsaken Wives.
It dramatized the traditional marriage that kept a woman bound by the strictures of Talmud long after all the other aspects of matrimony had dissolved. Sad, but beautifully written. She was so caught up in the world that Agnon had created that the knocks on the door seemed to belong in the story rather than in reality. But they sounded again, insistent, loud.
She wrapped herself in the blanket and went to the door. “Who is it?”
“Abraham Gerster.”
When she opened the door, only his face, beard, and payos stood out in the darkness, the rest of him as black as the night. He was panting hard.
“You walked here?”
He nodded.
“Why in the middle of the night?”
“I waited until my wife fell asleep.” He coughed. “She’s going out of her mind. I have to do something. You must help me!”
“How did you know where I live?”
“My son.” He gasped for air. “I followed him one Saturday when he—”
“When he came for my books?”
“Was it only books he came for?”
Tanya thought of their Saturday afternoons together, Lemmy’s clothes on the floor, easily visible through the window.
He leaned against the doorpost. “Oh, Tanya, what have I done?”
She reached up and caressed the side of his face. “It’s not your fault.”
“Who else?” He grabbed her hands and pressed them to his chest. “My heart belonged to you! Always! But I agreed to live a lie! I made a terrible mistake marrying her!”
Her heart racing, Tanya spoke with difficulty. “Did you tell your wife to write—”
Noise outside made them turn.
Out of the darkness, in the dim light from the door, a woman appeared. She wore a gray headdress, her face bright with sweat, her body covered in a black coat—a man’s coat, which Tanya realized must be Lemmy’s old coat. Below it, her shins were exposed, very white, and her bare feet.
“Temimah!” He let go of Tanya’s hands.
She stepped closer. Her feet left wet prints of blood. “You stole my son!” She pointed a trembling finger at Tanya. “Now you want to take my husband?”
“No,” Tanya said, “please, you don’t understand—”
“
Vixen!”
Her voice had a primal pitch, like an animal screeching at the moment of death. “
I curse you!
”
“Temimah,” Abraham’s pleaded, “enough.”
“
God will bring you sorrow! Grief!
” Her eyes rolled up and she collapsed.
T
he weeks since his visit to Tanya’s home in Jerusalem had flown by with exhausting drills and endless hikes in the desert. Bits of news reports told the trainees of the rising tensions in the country as tens of thousands of reservists, called up to guard the borders, sat idly in makeshift camps and waited for the government to tell them whether to fight or to return home to their families and jobs. But Prime Minister Eshkol continued to plead with the Americans to confirm the ten-year-old guarantee issued by President Eisenhower to use U.S. forces against Egypt in the event it attacked Israel, and the Arabs continued to build up their massive forces in the Sinai Desert, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank.
On the eve of Independence Day, Zigelnick informed Lemmy and Sanani that they would carry the flags at the main parade in Jerusalem. They tossed a coin, and Sanani won the national flag, Lemmy the IDF banner.
The soldiers had spent the night oiling guns, ironing shirts, and shining shoes. A military barber set up a chair near the outdoor showers, and the kitchen supplied hot coffee and cold sandwiches to keep everyone awake.
At sunrise, they lined up three-deep, and Captain Zigelnick inspected each soldier’s appearance. “Listen up,” he said. “You’ll represent the Paratroopers Brigade, but it’s not because you’re so good looking.”
Everyone laughed.
“But because everyone else is on alert along the borders.” The captain looked at them for a moment, letting the implication set in. “So wipe the milk from your lips and march like real soldiers. And don’t expect lots of adoring crowds. The Voice of Israel told listeners to stay home and enjoy the live broadcast of the parade, followed by the National Bible Bee.” He grinned. “Let’s load up!”
It took another hour to get all the gear on the truck. They left the camp as the heat of the desert began to rise. Sanani led the company in singing Israeli folk songs, which he modified to his own lyrics, mostly involving female body parts that rhymed with the names of Arab leaders.
T
he heartbreaking confrontation with Temimah Gerster had left Tanya shaken up. She wanted to call an ambulance, but Abraham disappeared into the night, carrying his wife in his arms. He must have feared a public scandal.
As the days passed, the intensity of UN communications rose steadily. Her work consumed every waking moment.
One morning, soon after Tanya finished her first cup of coffee, she picked up a radio conversation between UN General Odd Bull and one of his officers—an Indian by his accented English. Bull instructed the officer to alert the UN observers stationed at the Mandelbaum Gate that he would be crossing over to the Israeli side later to protest the Israelis’ Independence Day parade, which he called “That damned Jewish provocation!”
Tanya was still writing down the last sentence of their conversation, translated into Hebrew, when Elie arrived. He came in with a burning cigarette dangling from his thin lips. She held up an ashtray for him to stub it. He had been showing up occasionally since his return from Zurich weeks earlier, trying to pry open her memories of the years with Klaus. She had been honest in her denials. Klaus had never told her the account number and password. But fearing that Elie would somehow interfere with Lemmy’s new life, she forced herself to treat him cordially.
“I have to call in a report,” Tanya said. “General Bull is upset, even though Eshkol cut the parade down to a joke.”
“What choice did he have?” Elie removed his wool cap and rubbed his gaunt skull. “All the foreign ambassadors are boycotting our Independence Day. In all fairness, the Armistice Agreement bans heavy weapons in Jerusalem.”
“That agreement is long dead. The Arabs are violating it.” Tanya poured him a cup of coffee. “The Sinai and the West Bank are filled with their tanks and cannons.”
Elie took the cup from her hand cautiously. “It’s the diplomacy of oil.”
“It’s the diplomacy of turning the other cheek. Eshkol has no right to downgrade Israel’s national birthday. A parade is an opportunity to showcase the IDF’s power to our nervous population.”
“What’s to showcase? President Johnson suspended delivery of the new Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets on condition that we allow American inspections of the nuclear reactor in Dimona. And the French are holding up the weapons we’ve already paid for. You think a parade would reassure the nation?” Elie took a sip of coffee. “Listen, I was thinking. Do you remember von Koenig’s birthday?”
“Sometime in 1910. April, I think.”
“You didn’t celebrate it?”
“Not really.” Tanya recalled Klaus returning from a field inspection, aching from endless hours in the car. When he saw the cake she had baked for him, he kissed her and asked her to give it to his driver, Felix. Instead of blowing out candles, they soaked in a hot bath. At first they listened to Wagner, but as Klaus’s mood improved, they piled more embers under the bath and started reciting lines from a play he had taken her to see in Berlin a month earlier. They ended up laughing so hard that the bathwater splashed all over the room.
“Tanya?”
“Yes.” She shook her head to drive away the sadness. “Klaus didn’t like to celebrate his birthday. But he was important enough that the date should be on record somewhere.” Before Elie could ask another question, she headed to the other room. “I must return to my work. Please let yourself out.”
Elie put down his cup of coffee. “Have you heard from Abraham?”
Something in his voice made Tanya pause. “Why should I hear from him?”
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“Why?”
He pulled the wool cap down over his ears and opened the front door. “It’s just that I assumed he would run straight to you with the bad news.”
“Bad news?” Her chest constricted with dread. “What bad news?”
T
he drive from the Negev Desert to Jerusalem took over three hours, providing time for much-needed sleep. They woke up in the city, which was crowded despite the government’s call to stay home. Lemmy sat in the back of the truck and took in the incredible sight of thousands of Israelis in white shirts and blue pants, the children waving little flags, the windows and balconies along the road packed with cheerful spectators.
The soldiers jumped off the truck and assumed formation for the parade. Lemmy adjusted the flagpole against his hip and glanced at Sanani, who struggled to do the same. Just ahead, two half-tracks rolled into position. On a stage farther down, a band played a fast-paced tune while dignitaries took their seats.
His eyes searched the crowds. He knew his parents would never attend an event celebrating the Zionist state, and neither would Benjamin. But could Tanya be among the revelers, unaware that he was marching with his unit? He sought her pale, delicate face, framed by black hair, even though he knew how unlikely it was for her to leave her post. No. She was sitting dutifully inside that half-ruined house, wearing the bulky headphones, eavesdropping on secret communications across the nearby border.
The music stopped, and the thousands of spectators gradually quieted down. On the stage, the loudspeakers crackled, and a woman’s voice announced, “Prime Minister Levi Eshkol!”