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 Nazi 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 Nazi’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 God. 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 Class, 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 hell.” She threw open the door.
“To hell?” 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 Nazi 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 Shimon 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 godless 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 passionate, 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 God, who told us to wait for His Messiah to bring us back and restore our independence.”
“But didn’t God 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 identity. They don’t care about God!”
“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.
H is 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.