"What?"
"Never mind. He's just anxious to get back to the hotel."
"Can we send him back with the police?" Zhava asked.
"If they're willing to hear about how marvelous 'As the Planet Revolves' is, I don't see why not," Remo said.
"What?"
"Never mind again. Sure, let the police bring him back."
Remo brought Chiun over to the waiting police car and the Korean happily sank into the back seat, babbling about how great Rad Rex, the star of "As the Planet Revolves," was.
"He is truly without peer," said Chiun as the car door closed.
"A marvelous artificer. I have met him. In Hollywood. Yes, it is true. Would you like to see an autographed picture? I have one. He gave it to me personally. I taught him how to move…"
Remo and Zhava watched the car move away and the two policemen within turn to each other, saying, "Ma? Ma?" And Chiun repeated himself, this time in Hebrew.
As Zhava turned to Remo, the morning sky darkened.
"Looks like rain," said Remo, "we had better put the jeep's top up."
Zhava continued to look at Remo even as they moved toward the car. Her eyes continued trying to pierce through his as they clipped on the canvas jeep top.
Remo thought he saw something in the back of her eyes, but then he remembered what Chiun had once said. "The eyes are not the windows of the soul. They mislead. The true window is the stomach. There, all life begins and ends. Look to the stomach, Remo."
Remo looked at Zhava's stomach. Her muscles were rippling under her shirt just enough for Remo's trained eye to see them. To him, her stomach was jerking in and out like a piece of rice paper trying to control a pulsating flood.
Just as they finished securing the jeep top, large drops of rain started to fall.
"The storm is coming from the south," said Zhava. "Let us drive in that direction."
Remo started the engine and Zhava rode beside him. They passed through the rain. They passed through towns, and they passed kibbutzim. They passed children who played in bomb-made lakes. And they passed rusted Russian tanks with faded Egyptian markings.
Zhava began to talk. "My people, the ones I work for, do not think there is any conspiracy against the security of any weapons we may or may not have, no matter what Time magazine says. They can discover no connections among any of the murdered men. They think it is just a mad killer and, as such, simple police business."
"What do you think?" Remo asked.
"I think they are wrong," Zhava replied slowly. "I feel a danger all around us. I feel a noose around our necks." She was quiet for a moment, then continued briskly. "But my people do not work from feelings. They want to meet with you and see what you think."
"Naah," said Remo. "I don't like to meet new people. I'm not a good mixer."
"On my urging," said Zhava. "I think you are really here to help. Remo, I am not an agent for Israeli intelligence or the military."
"No kidding."
"I am an agent for the Zeher Lahurban."
"What's that?"
"The nuclear security agency. It means 'Remember the Destruction of the Temple.' The Jewish people's first two temples were destroyed long ago, leaving an entire race with no home. To us, Israel is the last temple."
Remo pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.
"Ooh," exclaimed Zhava. "Look, Remo. The flowers have bloomed from the rain."
As if by magic, flowers had appeared across the desert sands, creating an aromatic carpet of red, yellow, white, and blue. Zhava hopped out of the jeep and started walking through them. Remo followed. The landscape rivaled any garden Chiun could name. Remo walked alongside Zhava, their sides brushing.
She felt the flowers pet her ankles and the post-rain wind caress her face. "When I lost my fiance," she said, "I thought that I would never feel again. I thought that I never could be happy. That life was only worth living if I worked to protect others from the same tragedy."
Zhava's words came slowly and carefully, as she tried to translate her Hebrew feelings into English. "Remo, I saw something in you that frightened me. I know we work in the same business, and I know you feel the same way I do. That the only thing that keeps up alive is our work."
"Now, wait…" said Remo.
"No, let me finish. I know you cannot help it anymore than I can. But now I see that your hopelessness, your emptiness, is wrong. It is wrong to deny happiness. It is wrong to deny hope."
Remo looked into Zhava's eyes and knew they were not misleading. He looked into her eyes and saw himself. He saw himself as he was years ago before Chiun's training had taken effect. When he thought the killing had some purpose, besides display of killing technique. So long ago.
Remo saw another girl in Zhava's eyes. Another girl with a job. Another girl that was everything that Zhava was. Good, brave, dedicated, soft, tough, honest, kind, and beautiful. A woman Remo had loved.
Her name had been Deborah, and she had been an Israeli agent, trained to hunt down Nazi war criminals. She had tracked Dr. Hans Frichtmann, butcher of Treblinka, to a think tank in Virginia. And there she met Remo.
They had one hour together before Frichtmann jammed enough heroin up her arm to wipe out an Army. Remo had paid the butcher in kind, but nothing could bring Deborah back. Not Remo, not Chiun, not CURE with all its computers, not even Zhava.
"Remo," Zhava's voice said from among the flowers. "Make me feel. I could be happy again if only I could feel."
Remo drifted in the flowers and felt like the Wizard of Oz. What did the tinman want? A heart. What did Zhava want? To feel. The tinman got a watch that ticked. What could he give Zhava?
Remo looked across the flowers that blanketed the desert. One part of him said that they would burn into straw in a few days. Another part of him said that that was no reason to deny their beauty today. Remo took Zhava's hand and sat her down in the desert.
"I once got a letter," he said. "Who I got it from and why is unimportant now. Did you ever have a sister?"
Zhava shook her head no, tears forming in her eyes. Remo sat down next to her. "Anyway, I got this letter and it said, 'All of us carry our histories like crosses and our destinies like fools. But occasionally we must succumb to logic. And the logic of the situation is that our love would destroy us. If we could only shake our duties off like old dust. But we cannot.' "
Remo leaned back, sinking into the flowers, surprised that the letter came back into his mind word for word. He was happy he still remembered.
" 'We gave each other an hour and a promise. Let us cherish that hour in the small places that keep us kind. Do not let your enemies destroy that. For as surely as the Jordan flows, we shall, if we maintain our goodness, meet again in the morning that never ends. This is our promise that we will keep.' "
Remo found his voice was shaking. He stopped talking and tried to swallow. But his throat was too dry. Why didn't Chiun's training cover voice shaking and throat dryness? Remo blinked and saw the gentle face of Zhava Fifer fill the sky. Her mouth was soft and smiling. Her eyes were not empty. Remo was not sure what they were filled with, but they were not empty.
"I only got my hour," he said.
Zhava came to him and whispered, "I will keep the promise."
Remo pulled her down and brought her shamma.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Irving Oded Markowitz slapped his stomach. Then he slapped his forearms. Then he slapped his thighs. Once he had assured himself that his blood was flowing briskly, he punched the cellar wall. Once with his right fist and once with his left. Then he kicked the cellar wall with his bare feet, first the right, then the left. Then he ran around the room fifty times. Then he fell on his face and did fifty push-ups. On the last one, he threw his feet out in front of him, lay on his back, and did fifty sit-ups. Then he stood and slapped his stomach again.