The Jerusalem inception Read online

  The second photo in Elie’s hand was smaller, its edges fraying, yellow with age. He had taken this photo during the war with a camera that had previously hung from the neck of a Nazi officer. Abraham had twisted the leather strap tighter and tighter until the German’s tongue grew out of his mouth like a baby eggplant and his black boots stopped twitching. In the photo, Abraham was already wearing the boots, which had fit him perfectly.

  Elie held the two photos together, the face of young Abraham in 1945 next to the face of his son in last week’s photo, which Elie had taken from a rooftop near Meah Shearim. The resemblance was astonishing, which meant Tanya was now very confused.

  He dropped the photos on the passenger seat, drew once more from his Lucky Strike, and tossed it out the window. A gust of wind blew smoke back in his face, and his eyes moistened. He closed the window and latched it in place. Pressing the lever into first gear, he made a U-turn and drove away, leaving behind a wake of blue engine fumes.

  Chapter 6

  Lemmy had memorized the landmarks along the way, which he now followed in reverse order. He thought of Tanya’s sculpted face, one moment serious, the next smiling. The Fountainhead, in his coat pocket, banged against his thigh with every step. Should he read it? Should he know more about the Goyim, as Tanya had argued? Father had once said that Talmud contained all the knowledge a man needed. But that obviously wasn’t accurate. Electric lights, for example, weren’t mentioned anywhere in the thousands of pages of Talmud. Perhaps The Fountainhead would also illuminate things that were not mentioned in the Talmud? He reached into his pocket and touched the book, feeling a quiver of excitement. He remembered a Yiddish idiom: Stolen water is so much sweeter.

  Along the way he passed through a secular neighborhood. A group of teenage boys and girls played soccer in an empty lot. They wore short-sleeved shirts, three-quarter pants, and leather sandals. The girls wore ponytails, but the boys’ hair was short, even where their payos should have been left untouched according to Jewish law. He stood at a distance, intrigued by the ease with which they played together, the girls as aggressive as the boys. The ball found its way into the goal, marked by two rocks, and the scoring team cheered and hugged. A girl locked her arms around a boy’s torso and hoisted him up in the air.

  They noticed Lemmy and stopped playing. He tipped his black hat and resumed walking. One of them started imitating the calls of a crow. Several others joined in, and a choir of crows sounded behind him.

  Lemmy paused and turned. He stretched his arms sideways like wings and mimicked a flying bird. They laughed, and the crowing ceased. A girl put her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Good Sabbath!”

  He waved. “Good Sabbath to you.”

  T wenty minutes later, Lemmy turned the corner on Shivtay Israel Street. He stopped and stared. What he saw seemed unreal. The gate leading into Meah Shearim was closed. Chairs and tables were piled against it from within. The metal shades had been shut over all the windows in the outer walls. A crowd of Neturay Karta men in black coats and red faces filled the alley behind the gate. Someone shouted, “The rabbi’s son!” Others yelled at him to run away.

  A bunch of policemen in riot gear hid behind their vehicles from a steady shower of eggs and vegetables. One of them ran toward Lemmy. Brass fig leaves adorned his shoulders, and egg yolk smeared his chest. He raised his club, his eyes wide under the gray helmet, and shouted in Hebrew, “Where are you going?”

  Lemmy pointed to the gate.

  The officer grabbed his arm and pulled him toward a police van. “You’re under arrest!”

  Angry protests sounded from the gate.

  A policeman aimed a shotgun, and his colleague slipped a cylindrical grenade into the open end of the barrel.

  “Don’t!” Lemmy struggled to get free.

  The policeman pressed the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder.

  Lemmy wriggled free, sprinted at the policeman, and knocked him down. An explosion slapped a wave of heat at his face, and the world turned dark.

  E lie Weiss entered the police compound at the Russian Yard and headed downstairs. The operations center, a beehive of activity during the week, was manned by a single policewoman. Her feet were on the table, and she was humming Jerusalem of Gold along with Shuli Natan on the radio.

  She gave him a casual salute. “What’s happening?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Major Buskilah is in Meah Shearim, making an arrest.”

  “ Trying to make an arrest.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Has he called for reinforcement yet?”

  “On a Sabbath? I don’t have anyone to send there.” She took her feet off the table. “You want Buskilah on the wireless?”

  “I have a feeling he’ll call us soon.” Elie sat down and lit a cigarette.

  W hen Lemmy’s vision recovered, he saw the grenade spewing teargas under a truck. The policeman, shotgun still in hand, struggled to get up. Where’s the officer? Lemmy turned his head in time to see the club coming down on his buttocks. He screamed in agony and rolled away. Faint shouts came from the gate, and a bunch of shoes flew over, landing on the cowering policemen. The officer chased Lemmy, the club raised for another blow, his face a mask of hate. He missed and raised the club again, yelling in Hebrew.

  Lemmy ran faster. I’m going to die!

  Picking up speed, he glanced back, stumbled, and fell. The officer had no time to avoid him and tripped, and rolled over. Lemmy saw an opening, landed a punch into the officer’s crotch, and sprinted toward the gate. A hoard of policemen were chasing him, but he didn’t look back. He reached the gate and turned right, running around the outside wall of Meah Shearim. Farther down, a metal shade swung open, and Benjamin’s head emerged. Lemmy raced to the window, the policemen’s steps thudding behind him. The window was high. As he came closer, he did not slow but instead sent one foot forward and kicked the wall, which catapulted him high enough to grab the window sill. Benjamin caught his arms, someone else got his coat, and they hauled him inside.

  He found himself on the floor, the room full of men, Benjamin talking excitedly, calling him “ meshuggah!”

  There was havoc around the window. Club strokes rang on the wall and the metal shutters. A helmeted head appeared, and then another one. Lemmy realized the Zionist police would soon get through, beating in heads and slapping on handcuffs. He got up and stood aside as someone carried a pot of steaming tcholent to the window. A second later the policemen screamed outside.

  They hurried through the small apartment, which was missing furniture and its front door. The crowd by the gate jeered as the policemen ran back and hunkered down behind their vehicles. The road was dotted with black shoes, vegetables, and patches of yolk and eggshells.

  Lemmy realized that his hat was gone, his black coat was torn in two places, and blood stained his white shirt. His buttocks ached badly.

  “Coming through!” Redhead Dan pushed through the crowd with a wheelbarrow loaded with bricks. He reached the gate and handed out bricks.

  The officer shouted at his subordinates, and they advanced at the gate.

  Redhead Dan yelled, “Heretics!” He hurled a brick, hitting the windshield on one of the vans. A cheer came from the crowd, and he shouted: “Death to the Zionists! Death to the enemies of God!”

  The officer pulled out his handgun. He aimed upward and released one shot.

  All the black-garbed men turned as one and fled up the narrow alley toward the synagogue, except for Redhead Dan, who stayed by the gate and shouted, “Don’t run! God is great! Don’t run!”

  Lemmy took refuge in a doorway. He heard someone yell, “The rabbi! The rabbi!”

  Rabbi Abraham Gerster appeared at the synagogue doors up the alley. He walked in measured steps toward the gate. The men parted to give him a wide berth, bowing their heads in respect, or embarrassment. He was dressed in Sabbath clothes-black coat, white shirt, and a wide-brimmed, black velvet hat, which cast a shadow over his bearde
d face.

  The officer watched from across the gate, gun in hand, deputies wielding their clubs.

  The rabbi waved a hand, and a handful of men removed the chairs, tables, and doors. The hinges screeched as the gate opened.

  He walked into the street, approaching the officer, who holstered his gun and took off his helmet, revealing gray hair. They spoke for a few moments. The officer kept shaking his head, and Rabbi Gerster pointed at the van. The officer pulled out a mouthpiece attached to a spiral cord. He stood in a pool of shattered glass, engaged in an angry exchange with a person on the other end of the radio. He threw the mouthpiece onto the driver’s seat and beckoned his men.

  Rabbi Gerster spoke to him, and the officer gestured at his crotch, his eyes searching the silent crowd. He pointed. “There! The punk with blond hair!”

  Rabbi Gerster curled his finger at Lemmy.

  Benjamin muttered, “ Oy vey! ”

  “Say Kaddish for me.” Lemmy limped out the gate.

  His father looked at him-the dirty pants, the bloodied shirt, and torn coat. “Major Buskilah says you punched him.”

  “He clubbed me. Here!” Lemmy motioned at his behind.

  The major took a step forward. “You little-”

  “ Jerusalem! ” Rabbi Gerster pointed. “Apologize to this man.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Lemmy smiled at Major Buskilah. “May God ease your pain in a week or two.”

  “That’s enough!” Rabbi Gerster waved his hand. “Go home and clean up!”

  Benjamin waited at the gate. “What did he say?”

  “We discussed the weather. Why are they here, anyway?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “What?”

  “There was a demonstration downtown!”

  Cheering sounded as Major Buskilah and his men drove off. Rabbi Gerster crossed the soiled street. The cheering quieted down. He entered the gate and walked up the alley. The men watched in silence until he entered the synagogue.

  “Did you see that? Your father scared away the police!”

  “What demonstration?”

  “Redhead Dan organized a group. They went to King George Street to protest the abortion law. The drivers were honking, so Dan threw a rock at a car. They say the driver was injured.” Benjamin nodded knowingly. “God punished him for driving a car on Sabbath.”

  “Throwing rocks is also forbidden on Sabbath.” Lemmy had heard his father say it. “Let’s find my hat.”

  Chapter 7

  After instructing Major Buskilah over the radio to leave Meah Shearim, Elie Weiss waited at the Russian Yard police headquarters until the force returned. The major was fuming. “We should have arrested them! Stone throwing is a crime!”

  “Count your blessings,” Elie said. “The event ended without serious injury and, even more importantly, without any media presence.”

  “Appeasement will only empower these fanatics!”

  “Leave the strategy to me.”

  “You’re a civilian. This is a police matter.”

  “It’s a political matter, and I speak for the prime minister. From now on, you’ll consult with me before taking any action against the ultra-Orthodox. Understood?”

  Major Buskilah grunted, but he didn’t argue anymore.

  From the Russian Yard, Elie drove to Premier Eshkol’s official residence in the Rehavia neighborhood. The house rested in the shade of a giant elm tree. The previous meeting had just ended, and Elie saw Chief of Staff General Yitzhak Rabin cross the small courtyard and get into his staff car, which drove off.

  An assistant showed Elie in.

  Like David Ben Gurion before him, in addition to being prime minister, Levi Eshkol also held the defense portfolio. The meeting with General Rabin had left him with a red face. “They’re sucking my blood, Weiss, and spitting it in my face!” Eshkol dropped into a chair. “I’ll be remembered as the klutz who got lost in Ben Gurion’s big shoes.”

  “You’re doing a fine job,” Elie said.

  “And what about your job? You told me they’ll only chant Psalms and go home to eat tcholent. Now they’ve put a driver in the hospital, and the opposition is drafting a no-confidence resolution for tomorrow’s Knesset session over my government’s failure to rein in the meshuggeneh black hats. I don’t need this! I have President Nasser and King Hussein and the crazy Syrians to deal with!”

  Elie lit a cigarette. “It was an accident.”

  “Accident is the incompetent’s fig leaf.” Levi Eshkol had been pressed into leadership by Golda Meir and the other old-guard Labor leaders, who used him to block the younger politicians from ascending to the top. But now the Arabs were gearing up for another wholesale attack on Israel, and the media was pressuring Eshkol to yield the defense portfolio to the famed General Moshe Dayan. “Are you losing your touch, Weiss? My people were able to cut deals with the religious parties on the abortion vote in the Knesset-”

  “Neturay Karta is not a party.” Elie stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray that was already full. “It’s a fundamentalist sect that cuts no deals, a fuse that can ignite a nationwide religious revolt.”

  “My point exactly. They are your responsibility.” He shook his finger at Elie. “I inherited you, Weiss. I was told that your Special Operations Department can handle them, but I’m starting to have doubts.”

  “Why?”

  “With food comes appetite. Now rocks, tomorrow guns.”

  “Shooting is not a Talmudic skill,” Elie said. “My reports outline our strategy. Neturay Karta is the epicenter of Jewish fundamentalism, of fervent anti-Zionists. We’ve been monitoring them for two decades. Ben Gurion had expected bloody religious riots within five years of declaring independence. It’s been almost two decades, and I’ve been able to contain them.”

  The mention of Ben Gurion’s name had the desired effect. Prime Minister Eshkol seemed deflated. “I don’t read the Bible every day like he does. Maybe I should.”

  “A small disturbance here and there is a small price to pay for civic order.”

  “Not so small if you’re the poor driver who paid with a cracked skull.” The prime minister took off his thick glasses and started polishing them. “If they go meshuggah again, you must crush them like flies.”

  “Neturay Karta might be a small sect, but thousands of ultra-Orthodox citizens would come to its defense from all over Israel-Haifa, Tel Aviv, Beersheba. I have informers everywhere. The black hats despise the Jewish state as a sin against God. They view the secular majority of Israelis as heretics.”

  “You exaggerate.” The prime minister pulled off his shoes and rested his feet on a chair. “How many do we have nationwide?”

  “Altogether about seven percent of the population. And they believe only God and his Messiah may rebuild the Jewish homeland.” Elie snapped his fingers. “Miracle making is reserved for God. They deny the authority of the government, and if they choose to go from Talmudic pontifications to action, they could destroy the Zionist dream.”

  “They can sit back and let the Arabs do the job.” Prime Minister Eshkol sighed. “The Soviets have been arming the Arabs to the teeth-planes, ships, tanks, rockets, guns. The wars of ’forty-eight and ’fifty-six were child’s play compared to what’s awaiting us. They won’t repeat their mistakes. And if the Jordanians join Egypt and Syria? A unified Arab force, trained and armed by the Soviets, attacking us simultaneously on all three fronts! Armageddon! ”

  “What about the UN?” Elie was referring to the Truce Supervision Force, which had monitored the borders since 1948.

  “General Bull is useless.” Eshkol was referring to the former chief of the Norwegian air force, with the unlikely name Odd Bull, who commanded UN forces in the Middle East. “He’s a like a castrated sperm bull who knows what he’s supposed to do but can’t perform.”

  Elie chuckled. The prime minister’s metaphor was poignant. The UN observers, sent to keep the peace, had no power to counter belligerence.

  “The Arabs,�
�� Eshkol said, “learned the lessons of past defeats-”

  “We also learned some lessons.”

  “We have one tank to their hundred! One rifle to their thousand! One soldier to their ten thousand!”

  “One smart Jew is better than ten thousand Arab soldiers. And don’t worry about Neturay Karta. My guy can handle them.”

  “With one man inside you hope to contain such a fire?”

  “It would help if you could delay the abortion vote.”

  Eshkol shook his head. “We’re socialists. Our labor unions and the kibbutzim want to see progressive legislation, gender equality, women’s rights. Otherwise, what differentiates us from the Arabs?”

  “I understand.” Elie stood to leave. “Oh, almost forgot. I have a favor to ask.”

  The prime minister peered at him through his thick eyeglasses. “Money?”

  “My department is self-funded, as you know.”

  “Then maybe you can spare some cash for a few tanks?”

  “Of course, as soon as you appoint me chief of the Mossad.”

  Prime Minister Eshkol laughed.

  Elie didn’t mind. He would eventually get his wish. He had bankrolled the Special Operations Department with money and valuables he and Abraham had taken from the Nazis they had killed. In the past twenty years, he had traveled to Paris regularly to withdraw cash from several accounts he maintained there under a false identity. It allowed him to finance SOD activities outside the Israeli government’s budgetary controls. But SOD was nothing compared with Mossad. His secret plan was to gain possession of General von Koenig’s fortune and win control over Mossad. With both money and the infrastructure of overseas espionage, he would become the master of a formidable clandestine apparatus with limitless powers.

  “So, what’s the favor?”