Tanya looked at him, saying nothing.
“You can work with me as an equal partner, apply your field experience to commanding an international army of agents. You’ll be the most powerful woman in Israel, maybe in the world.”
“I’m happy at Mossad.”
Elie didn’t tell her of his plan to become chief of Mossad, as well. She would find out in due time, become his subordinate, and despite her hostility, she would end up admiring him. “I’ll split the money with you.”
“I don’t need money.” She loosened her hair and retied it in a bun. “But there’s something else I need.”
Was she offering a trade? A dip in the road caused the car to sway from side to side. Elie struggled to control it.
“Abraham’s son deserves a chance for a normal life.”
Even though her words were uttered without intonation or dramatic gesticulations, Elie knew Tanya had just allowed him a peek into her innermost passion. “Why would he want a normal life? He’s a black hat, lives the good life in Neturay Karta, studies with his friends all day, not a worry in the world. He doesn’t know any better.”
“He does now.”
“So?”
“Tell Abraham to let him go.”
Elie considered this unexpected development. “It won’t be easy. He’s counting on the boy to get married, become a great Talmudic scholar, a leader in the sect.”
“Abraham will obey you.”
The incline slowed down the Deux Chevaux. Elie downshifted to maintain momentum. “What will you do with-what’s his name?”
“Jerusalem. I want him free of their insular religious extremism.”
“He was born into it.”
“And you were born in a kosher butcher shop in a shtetl on the eastern border of Germany. I don’t see you pursuing your birthright.”
“Abraham won’t like it.”
“I want the boy to leave the sect, enlist in the army like any young Israeli, and go on to study in the university. He’ll be a doctor, a scientist, a businessman. He has a good mind.”
“The IDF might decline to draft a religious fanatic.”
“You could pull some strings.”
“I could.” Elie threw the cigarette out the window.
“The day he starts boot camp, I’ll give you Klaus’s ledger.”
Elie downshifted to second gear. The engine struggled uphill, the noise an effective masquerade for the joy in his voice. “How do I know you won’t cross me?”
“I’m not like you.”
“Would you prove your good intentions by telling me the name of the bank?”
“The Hoffgeitz Bank of Zurich. Armande Hoffgeitz signed the ledger as the bank’s president. He and Klaus-”
“Attended boarding school together at Lyceum Alpin St. Nicholas.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Information is my business.” Since that night near the Swiss border, Elie had investigated General Klaus von Koenig’s personal history in detail. As a teenager, Klaus had been sent by his parents from Munich to the most prestigious Swiss boarding school in the Alps. Elie had traced each of his classmates, finding twenty-nine who in 1945 had served in senior banking positions. Armande Hoffgeitz was on Elie’s list of possible bankers in possession of the Nazi general’s loot.
“Do we have a deal?”
Elie offered his hand. “I’ll do my part, but what if Abraham refuses?”
“First day of boot camp. Or nothing.”
They shook hands, and when she let go of his hand, Elie gripped the steering wheel to conceal a tremor.
Chapter 13
After morning prayers, all the married men lined up in front of Rabbi Gerster to receive their gelt — a weekly allowance that sustained the scholars and their families. He handed each man a sealed white envelope containing a sum based on each family’s needs. Only the rabbi knew the source of the tsedaka, the charity funds that sustained the sect.
Lemmy went outside to the courtyard, filled with chatty wives who waited for their husbands to come out. The rain had stopped, and a blue window opened in the clouds. His mother was surrounded by bags of children’s clothes. A cluster of mothers picked little shirts and pants, which they measured against their toddlers. Temimah sorted through the bags to help them find the best sizes and colors. When the selection process ended, she collected the remaining clothes into a large sack and handed it to Lemmy. Meanwhile the men emerged from the synagogue and gave their wives the white envelopes.
As always, the women did not leave until the last man came out, followed by Rabbi Gerster. They lined up, and the rabbi blessed each family as they passed before him.
After all the women and children left, and the men returned inside to take their breakfast in the foyer, Rabbi Gerster beckoned Lemmy, who followed him with the sack of used clothes, wondering why his father was going into town.
They left Meah Shearim through the gate on Shivtay Israel Street and walked down to Jaffa Street. The rabbi held a hardbound book, his long black coat buttoned up, his wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes. Most pedestrians were secular Israelis, and occasionally someone pointed at him and whispered to another.
“Your mother told me you’re nervous about the marriage.”
The comment caught Lemmy off guard.
“What’s the problem?”
“I’d like a little more time, Father.”
“You want to delay fulfilling the most important mitzvah?” Rabbi Gerster was speaking of the first divine order in Genesis: Procreate and multiply, and fill the land.
“Just for another year. Maybe two.”
“What’s next?” Rabbi Gerster stopped and turned to his son. “Recite the midday prayers at night? Put off the fast of Yom Kippur until Passover?”
Lemmy looked down, thankful for a noisy bus that allowed him a moment to think. He couldn’t tell his father the truth, that Tanya’s books had confused him, that he dreamt of falling in love with a beautiful woman and sharing a passionate attraction of body and soul that would last forever.
“You must remember,” Rabbi Gerster said, “what King Solomon wrote: Each want has its time, and there is a time for each desire. The time for marriage is at eighteen.”
There was a lull in traffic, creating quietness that made Lemmy’s silence even louder. He forced the words out of his mouth. “I’m not sure about Sorkeh.”
“The cantor’s daughter isn’t good enough?”
“She’s very good, but-”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing.”
“Cantor Toiterlich is a righteous man who raises his children with Torah and faith in the Master of the Universe. Do you agree?”
Lemmy didn’t answer.
Rabbi Gerster put his finger under Lemmy’s chin and made him look up. “Our creator said in the Torah: And a man shall adhere to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. You are not the first young man to find this mitzvah a tad daunting. That’s why parents choose a good match for their son or daughter. Do you understand?”
What could he say? That he feared watching Sorkeh become as wrinkled and lusterless as his mother? Lemmy picked up the sack of clothes. “Yes, Father.”
The rest of the way they did not speak.
Shmattas ran her clothing exchange from an enclosed passage between two buildings, fitted with a tin roof. Rabbi Gerster waited outside while Lemmy entered.
The space was cluttered with open boxes of used pants and shirts. Wood hangers carried coats, jackets, suits, and dresses. There were black clothes for the ultra-Orthodox residents of the neighborhoods to the north and east, and colorful clothes for modern Zionists in the secular neighborhoods to the south and west. Lemmy found himself gazing into a box of colored ladies’ underwear.
Shmattas emerged from the dark end of the store. She was an old hunchback, shorter than a ten-year-old child, who smelled of dust and mold and sweat. She plucked the sack from his hand and gave him another sack. “God bless Rabbitzen Gerster.”