The sanctuary was cavernous, with beautiful wooden seats, painted-glass windows, and stone arches carved with biblical scenes. A cantor stood at the podium in a bejeweled prayer shawl and top hat, his deep baritone reaching every corner as he sang Adon Olam, Master of the Universe. The congregants, in formal suits and skullcaps, repeated each line in a chorus of singing voices, the ancient Hebrew words pronounced with a French accent. The women behind the see-through lace partition sang as well.
This was very different from the little synagogue of his childhood in rural Germany, near the Russian border, where Rabbi Jacob Gerster, Abraham’s father, had led the service in a pleading voice, his head covered in a black-and-white prayer shawl. In the shtetl, the windows had been small and opaque, the benches roughly hewn, and the congregants bearded and hunched as they begged the Master of the Universe to protect them and their families from the cruelty of the anti-Semitic gentiles. There had been no colors at his childhood synagogue, only black and white. Mostly black. And not much singing either.
He opened a prayer book, but his eyes were misted, blurring the square letters and tiny vowels. And despite decades of loathing God, who had allowed the Nazis to kill his family, Elie’s lips pronounced the words, “ Be’yado afkid ruchi – In His hand I entrust my soul, asleep or awake, God is with me, I have no fear.”
*
The black 1942 Rolls Royce waited at the dock. Gunter held the door for his boss. Armande Hoffgeitz kissed Paula on both cheeks, hugged Klaus Junior, and shook Lemmy’s hand. “See you tomorrow at church,” he said before Gunter shut the door.
Paula’s Volvo rattled over the cobblestones as it crossed the Limmat River over the General Guisan Quai. Lemmy glanced at his son through the rearview mirror. “Nice sailing, Junior.”
Klaus Junior saluted.
Paula said, “That was a nice initiative, donating those computers.”
In the back seat, the boy asked, “Can I also tell Grandpa about the baby?”
They looked at each other, and Paula said, “What baby?”
“I heard you talking yesterday.”
“There’s no baby,” Lemmy said.
“Not yet.” Paula blushed.
Their home sat on a grassy knoll in the Eierbrecht suburb of Zurich. Armande had bought it for them when Klaus Junior turned two. It had five bedrooms, a swimming pool in the back, and a six-car garage.
As soon as the Volvo stopped, the boy ran to the Porsche. “Papa! Come!”
“I promised him,” Lemmy said. It was a classic 1963 Porsche 356 Speedster in dark blue. The insurance company had recently appraised it at a price equivalent to a modest home in a good neighborhood. Lemmy had bought it two years earlier from the widow of a deceased client. The original engine enjoyed a new life with a set of dual Solex carburetors. It had a new soft top and a powerful Burmester sound system. The elaborate anti-theft alarm had been installed by a Dutch specialist from Amsterdam, an old friend who was also responsible for the security measures surrounding the new computer systems at the Hoffgeitz Bank, as well as the secret video surveillance cameras, which Lemmy alone could access.
He was about to get into the Porsche when Paula gripped his arm, pulled him closer, and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t be long. You have important work to do.”
“On the old lady?”
“ Hey! ”
“ I meant her!” He gestured to the back of the garage at his next restoration project. It was an odd looking Citroen, whose Maserati engine was exposed under the missing hood, and whose existence was all but a rumor among a niche of classic cars collectors who referred to her as the Missing Third. Only two known examples existed of the SM Presidential-an extended body version of the Citroen SM, with four-doors and a folding soft top, which Henri Chapron had built for the 1972 official visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II-and both were parked safely at the Palais de l’Elysee in Paris. But when Lemmy had visited an African dictator to personally collect a substantial deposit in diamonds, he discovered that the rumor had been true. The Missing Third, a working prototype stolen from Chapron’s workshop and sold to the Francophile predecessor of Lemmy’s client, had been wrecked a decade earlier during the coup d'etat that had elevated him to power. Having noticed Lemmy’s interest in the rusting Citroen, the grateful dictator shipped it to Zurich in a wooden crate marked Used Books.”
“ You better be in my bedroom in thirty-minutes,” Paula said, “or I’ll find someone else to do the job.”
He got behind the wheel. “I’ll be back!”
The Porsche engine started with a deep gurgling sound, settling into an even rumble. Klaus Junior released a lever above the windshield and pushed the top down.
“Buckle up, little man.” Lemmy pumped the gas pedal, making the engine growl. “We’re taking off.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were driving along the east bank of Lake Zurich. The water to their right was blue, dotted with a few brave sailboats. A cool breeze came in through the open roof.
Klaus Junior tinkered with the radio. “Did your papa like to drive fast?”
“My father?”
“Did he also drive a Porsche?”
Lemmy slowed down. “No.”
“Why?”
“He wasn’t into fast cars.”
“Were you good friends?”
He had shunned those memories long ago, lest they reignite the blinding rage, which would interfere with his mission. But his own son deserved answers. “When I was a young boy, my father was very affectionate. But later on, we grew apart. He was very strict.”
“And then he and your mama died?”
Lemmy hesitated. His father, Rabbi Abraham Gerster, might still be alive-that is, if you considered an insular, ultra-Orthodox sect to be a form of life. “As it happened,” he said, “a terrible autumn afternoon was the last time I saw them.”
“ It’s okay, Papa.” The boy leaned over as close as his seat belt would allow and put a small arm around Lemmy’s neck. “Now you have us.”
*
That night in Jerusalem, when the Sabbath was over, Rabbi Abraham Gerster left the neighborhood unnoticed. The city was coming back to life after the day of rest, with renewed bus service and pedestrian traffic. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the King David Hotel. An armed guard stood at the entrance-a new phenomenon after a recent spate of Palestinian suicide bombings. Rabbi Gerster greeted the guard and entered the hotel.
He settled in a corner of the main lobby, where a TV set was showing a program about a new medical device invented by scientists at the Weitzman Institute. He ignored the furtive glances of hotel guests, who probably wondered why an elderly ultra-Orthodox rabbi with a white beard and long, dangling side locks would sit alone in a hotel to watch TV. And they would be correct. Not a single member of Neturay Karta owned a TV-an appliance that imported sin and promiscuity into one’s home and caused men to neglect the study of Talmud. But he had a good reason to come here, having noticed an item in Friday’s edition of the religious daily Hamodiah about a TV report to be aired after the Sabbath. He had to watch it.
The nightly news show started with a story about the preparations to transfer control of Ramallah to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Answering a reporter’s question at the entrance to the Knesset, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, “If Israel is to survive as a Jewish state, we must defuse the demographic bomb. Let the Palestinians establish their own state in the West Bank and Gaza and live in peace alongside Israel.”
The story Rabbi Gerster had come to watch appeared next. According to the reporter, Itah Orr, she had agreed to be blindfolded and driven to an unknown location in the West Bank for the swearing-in ceremony of new members of the Jewish underground ILOT-a Hebrew acronym for Organization of Torah Warriors.