“He’s not seventy yet.” Tanya stood, her hair came loose, and the past fifty years fell off. She was again the girl sitting in the snow on the first day of 1945, wrapped in a fur coat, her Nazi lover’s warm corpse beside her. Elie had fallen in love with her right there, a passion that would forever go unrequited. Instead she fell for Abraham, but her love had fared no better-Elie had made sure of that.
“We haven’t spoken in years,” Elie said. “He shirked his duty when he passed the leadership to that fatherless disciple of his, Benjamin Mashash.”
“A leader without an heir is a failed leader. What’s your succession plan?”
“ People like us never retire. We must work to prevent the next Holocaust, use whatever skills and resources we possess. Abraham grew up as the rabbi’s son, so he should use the skills he acquired preparing for the pulpit. And I was the shoykhet ’s son, so I use the skills which I was groomed to practice.”
“ Slaughtering animals?”
“ Precisely, whether they walk on two legs or four. And you, Tanya? Are you still using your female skills?”
“ What’s left of them.”
“ You’re too modest.” Elie smirked. “What you had achieved by your seventeenth birthday was enough for a whole career-an irony, really, that thanks to you the stolen riches, which your dearly beloved Klaus had stashed away until he could rebuild the next Reich, will instead finance the defense of a Jewish state to last a thousand years.”
*
“ I’m home!” Lemmy entered the house from the garage, and Klaus Junior leaped into his arms. “How was school?”
“Great!”
“You’re early.” Paula appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing an apron. “What happened? The bank burned down?”
He kissed her on the lips. “I missed you guys, so I came home.”
“ There’s no dinner yet. I just started-”
“ Turn off the oven. Let’s go out for pizza.”
“ Wait a minute!” Paula stuck a finger in his chest. “What’s the catch?”
“ You know me too well.” He laughed. “I need to go to Paris in the morning.”
“ I knew it!” She pulled off her apron and tossed it at him. “Paris again-without me?”
“ A quick business meeting, back tomorrow night.” He raised his hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“ Papa!” Klaus Junior was already putting on his shoes. “When you were little, were you a scout leader?”
“ Not exactly.” Lemmy pulled off his tie. “We didn’t have scouts in the neighborhood where I grew up.”
*
Abu Yusef dropped the briefcase on the bed and opened it. “Look!” He picked up a bundle of bills and threw it to Latif. “You were right! Allah still loves me!”
“ And I love you too!” Latif rushed into his arms.
They collapsed on the bed together, and Abu Yusef yelled, “I’ll show the damn Jews whose God is bigger!”
Latif’s white teeth glistened. “You will show the whole world.”
Abu Yusef felt the heaviness, which had weighed on him since Al-Mazir’s death, lift up. Not only could he now afford the supplies needed for an extravagant revenge, but this money signaled the Saudi prince’s commitment to the cause.
“ All of Al-Mazir’s men will flock to you.” Latif unbuttoned his shirt. “You will unseat Arafat and become the leader of Palestine!”
*
Elie lit a cigarette. “You didn’t come here to rummage through old memories, did you?” He watched Tanya’s face carefully.
“ We’re concerned. The little war you’ve started here could spread.”
“ What war? The one over underage prostitution?”
“ Those photos didn’t fool Abu Yusef. He must respond. What will it be? The El Al terminal? Another Jewish school?”
“The Arabs don’t kill Jews in response to what we do. They’ve been killing us long before we did anything to them.”
“Here we go again.” Tanya sighed. “Times are changing, politically and diplomatically. Our Jewish state is almost fifty. It’s time we think and act not only as Jews, but as a state. Mossad is the government agency for overseas espionage. Let us take over the Abu Yusef situation.”
“ This isn’t a job for bureaucrats.”
“ Neither is it a job for an old man and two cute amateurs.”
Elie ignored her sarcasm. It was useful to be underestimated. “The prime minister asked me to handle this. He didn’t ask Mossad, did he?”
“ Rabin wants deniability, because it’s illegal to assassinate targets without compliance with the appropriate procedures.”
“ Are you questioning Yitzhak Rabin’s authority?”
“ He’s a soldier on a campaign,” Tanya said. “He has staked his reputation, his political future, and his legacy on the Oslo process. He thinks that eliminating Arafat’s opposition will pave the way for the final status agreement.”
“ Pipe dreams,” Elie said. “Unlike you and me, Rabin didn’t experience the Holocaust. Otherwise he would know that Arafat, like all Gentiles, cannot stop hating Jews. They’ll never live in peace with us. We must continue to fight-or die.”
“ Then why has Arafat signed two Oslo agreements? Why is he implementing those agreements?”
“ It’s the ‘salami method.’ Arafat is negotiating in phases to get more and more slices of land without any real concessions on the ‘final status’ issues-the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, final borders, and the sovereignty over Jerusalem.”
“ Rabin believes the Palestinians will ultimately keep the peace, even if their current intentions are cynical.”
“ Illusions. Once we stop giving him pieces of land, Arafat will use the land and weapons he’s gotten under Oslo to resume fighting-this time from a position of ruler of the West Bank and Gaza, a short distance from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.”
“ Is that what you told Rabin?”
Elie shrugged. “He thinks the fruits of peace would be too sweet for the Palestinians to spit out. He calls it momentum.”
“ And you’re removing obstacles from his path.”
“ Look, I do what the prime minister asks even when I disagree with his strategy. With time, he will come around to seeing things my way.”
“ Nekamah? Revenge? That’s a better strategy? Endless, useless bloodshed?”
“ Revenge is useless?” Elie paced back and forth across the small room. “That’s the thinking that caused King Saul to spare the Amalekites and lose his kingdom!”
“Enough with this biblical demagoguery.”
“The past is instructive.” He could barely speak now, his scarce resources of energy almost depleted. It was time to gain her sympathy. The last thing he needed at this crucial time was open war with Mossad. He sat on the bed and dropped the cigarette on the floor, putting it out with the sole of his shoe. “Let me finish this last job. I’m very tired. This is it for me."3"›
“I’ll give you a week. But if Abu Yusef spills Jewish blood, all bets are off. We’ll come after you, shut you down.”
Elie understood. This was the message she had come to deliver. “You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”
“Yes!” Tanya’s serious expression suddenly broke into a smile. “I will!”
He watched, reluctant to even blink, afraid to miss the transformation of her features, the arch of her lips, the faint creases in her cheeks, the way she moved with efficient, quick agility, full of grace. Even as she mocked him, Elie wanted this moment to last so he could take in every detail, memorize her every gesture, savor every bit of emotion he had managed to rouse in her.
“ Haven’t you had enough of this?” Tanya came closer. “For fifty years you’ve begrudged me for loving Abraham instead of loving you. But how could I-or anyone else-love you? You’re consumed by hate, by death, by killing our enemies, real or imagined. Even Yitzhak Rabin knows that yesterday’s worst enemy could be today’s best partner.”
Was she speaking of Rabin and Arafat or of the two of them, facing each other in this Paris apartment after a lifetime of rivalry? For a moment, Elie’s mind was consumed by hopes. Was there a chance for the two of them, after all these years? Would she take him in her arms, kiss him, caress him, tell him that she loved him? Because if she did that, he would give her everything-the job, the Nazi fortune, the life he had lived in secrecy, even his single-minded dedication to the cause. One hug, one kiss, one demonstration of true feelings, and he would give up everything that his life had stood for until this moment.