Promised Land Read online

  Yet after a few minutes, when she glanced at him, she saw that his eyes were closed, his face was relaxed, his breaths were shallow and easy. He had unburdened himself and she wished she could do the same. There was nobody to tell: Her period was late and she was frightened. She had been irregular for months because of all the changes in her life, the new diet, but … but now it was different. She had made love with a man.

  She heard Arie mutter something. “What?” she whispered, “I couldn’t hear.”

  He said it again. She moved closer, put her ear to his mouth. “I can’t hear.”

  His breath tickled. “I said, thank you.”

  ARIE and TAMARA

  APOLLONIA, ISRAEL

  March 1950

  One afternoon the car wouldn’t start.

  “You don’t know much about cars, do you?” Tamara said, as Arie kicked the tire for the third time.

  “I know enough to know I should never have bought this shtuck dreck, this piece of garbage.… It’s something to do with the battery. Or the ignition. Or the carburetor. Or whatever. How should I know?”

  “What’s shtuck dreck?”

  “Yiddish. You don’t want to know. Let’s get a taxi.”

  “Never mind, we don’t have to go.”

  “No, you’ll like it. I really want to take you there.”

  “But you haven’t said where. And what about the car?”

  Arie liked his car. He had bought the 1945 Ford Prefect from a friend who had bought it from a British businessman who left when the British army pulled out in ’48. “It’s a 100E, four-stroke ignition, very fast acceleration,” the friend had told Arie. “Zero to eighty kilometers an hour in less than twenty-six seconds.” Arie loved to put his foot down and feel the thrust, and race other cars. Tamara would grip the sides of her seat and beg him to slow down.

  “I’ll fix it later. Or sell it. Right now, I’ve got something much more important to do. Come on. It’s a surprise.” They walked to the phone box two streets away and called for a cab.

  In the taxi Arie mused, as usual, about what he should do next. “Cars. That’s the future,” he said. “You know there’s only about thirteen hundred miles of road in all of Israel. We need to build more road and then there’ll be more of everything. More road construction, more cars, more spare parts, more gasoline, more gas stations, more garages, we’re growing so fast it doesn’t matter what you do, everything is growing, you just have to be on board, grow with it. You know what they say, a rising sea lifts all ships.”

  “Unless it sinks them.”

  He laughed, and almost shouted: “But it won’t. I could make a fortune just importing parts to fix my own car.”

  Tamara had never met anybody with so much ambition, with so many ideas. He told her that a week earlier he had visited a poultry farm as workers slaughtered chickens. He watched as they plucked the feathers and threw them into bags. There were piles of them, and when he asked what happened to the feathers the farmer told him they were thrown into a garbage pit somewhere. That made him think of the feather beds he loved in Germany and another business idea was born. He would collect chicken feathers and manufacture luxury pillows and quilts.

  And Arie told her that the reason he’d been at the chicken farm in the first place was to find out what the birds ate. He wanted to collect discarded food in towns and sell it as animal feed.

  The taxi dropped them at the cliff just north of the Sidna Ali transit camp, or ma’abara, as it was also known. Rows of white tents crowded along hilly dirt paths.

  “What are we doing here?” she said. “This is where I live.”

  “You’ll see.”

  It was a fine sunny day, a relief from the winter chill. She followed him as he picked his way down a ravine lined with bushes and thorns that led to the deserted beach. “I love it here,” he kept saying.

  The water was almost as blue as the sky and gentle waves caressed the sand. They took off their shoes and walked along the narrow beach until the way was blocked by jagged sections of ancient brick walls that had crumbled into the sea.

  “You know why I love it here so much?” he said.

  “Why?”

  He dragged his foot through the sand and watched the little gully fill with water. “Because not far from here is where I first set foot on the Holy Land. Four years ago. The boat anchored fifty yards offshore and we waded through the water at night so that the British wouldn’t see us. No lights. There was a British police post up there.” Arie gazed toward the hilltop and then pointed out to sea. “There were about three hundred of us, so-called illegal immigrants, on the tiniest, ricketiest boat you’ve ever seen, she made it all the way from Italy, and we were half-dead when they threw the anchor overboard. They told us not to waste a second and run for it or, rather, swim. The water was almost over my head. Half of us carried the other half. I was carrying an old man, and his suitcase. I didn’t have anything. Luckily, there were Jewish boys waiting to help us; I don’t know if I would have made it otherwise. When I made it to land I almost dropped the old man, I was in such a hurry to kiss the sand. And now this is where I come when I need to be alone.”

  Tamara smiled. “But you’re not alone.”

  Arie’s eyes shone. “Nor do I want to be. Not anymore.”

  He took Tamara’s hand and helped her clamber over the rocks. On the other side he walked slowly, with care, eyes fixed to the ground, but after a minute it was Tamara who called out, “Look what I found.” On one knee she inspected an oblong object in a color she had never seen. It was a transparent sky blue, opaque in part yet smoky too, with delicate ivory streaks, the size of half her thumb and smooth as a ball. It sparkled as she held it up and turned it in the sunlight.

  Arie laughed. “That’s what I wanted to find. There are lots of them here sometimes, after storms, and that’s a nice one. Do you know what it is?”

  “A stone. It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Ah! Because it isn’t a stone. It’s a piece of glass. More than a thousand years old.” He told her its history: The rock and sections of smashed brick walls piled on the sand were remains of a Byzantine glass foundry that had fallen into the sea when the cliff collapsed a thousand years ago. It had produced glass for most of the Eastern Mediterranean. The foundry’s waste products were dumped into the sea and today, those ancient chunks of discarded glass, smoothed by centuries of currents and sand, polished by the constant battering of the water, lay hidden among the sand and pebbles of the ocean floor. A storm or high seas caused turbulence that freed the shards from the grip of the seabed and washed them to shore.

  Arie took the glass gem from Tamara’s hand, wiped it on his shorts, put it to his mouth, and kissed it. “It’s the most beautiful piece of glass I’ve ever seen,” he said, “and it was found by the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. You’re so lucky to find it, but I’m even luckier.” He took Tamara’s hands in his. “Because I found you.”

  Tamara lowered her gaze, unsure what to say. She felt the heat of her cheeks. Her bare feet and spread toes sank into the sand as waves sucked back into the sea.

  “You know what I would like to do?” he said.

  “Yes. Find lots of these, of all sizes and shapes, and make beautiful rings and necklaces and earrings, in settings of silver and gold, and sell them, and get rich quick.”

  Arie roared with laughter. The sun glinted in his eyes. “That’s a great idea, maybe I will. Why didn’t I think of that! But, actually, I was thinking of something else.”

  With the sheer cliff of Apollonia looming above them, birds hooting and swooping over the waves, Arie sank to one knee and said: “I’ll make it into an engagement ring. I know we haven’t known each other long and this is crazy, but, Tamara, I’m alone and you’re alone, I love you, will you marry me?”

  PETER

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  August 1950

  The tense young man called Willi Stinglwagner boarded the plane in
his dark suit and Peter Nesher got off. Blistering heat shimmered off the tarmac, beads of sweat rolled from Peter’s hairline, but he swung his heavy bag like a bunch of feathers. He couldn’t wait to change into shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. He looked proudly at the letters “El Al” painted in blue on the converted DC-4 that had flown him from London to Lod Airport: Israel, my country, my home!

  Peter smiled to himself as he presented his passport to the bearded Jew in the booth, back among his own people, but minutes later, outside the arrival shed, he recoiled at the yelling, sweating mob of porters grabbing at his case, the cabdrivers and lollipop vendors pushing and shoving for business.

  A familiar voice yelled and the Office driver elbowed his way through, leading Peter to the car, where Peter sat back with a deep sigh. It was sweltering, but, thank God, he thought, no more Germans. For now, anyway. Three days earlier he had received the message to return home quickly, and had rushed to London to catch a direct flight on Israel’s new national airline.

  But even as he relaxed among his own, a painful thought inserted itself: Own? Who? He was happy to see his brother again, his best friend in the world, but who else? He had had no time to make friends. He could barely summon up a vision of Tamara. Would he even recognize her in a crowd? The note he had left for her seemed pitiful now. It had been half a year. If once he had dared hope she would wait for him, he had dismissed that hope months ago. He had lost her, he knew that. But … maybe … part of him held on to a vestige of hope like a drowning man grabs at a twig.

  * * *

  Waiting all afternoon in the familiar anteroom at the Office in Ben-Yehuda Street, Peter wondered why Shiloah wanted to see him so urgently this time. He hadn’t even been home yet. In Germany he had sent regular reports directly to Shiloah: the Info File, on who he had recruited, what they had said, how they could one day be activated; and the Ops Report, the nitty-gritty details about where the meetings were held, who knew about them, what else had happened in the meetings, especially the two that had gone badly. He had even submitted his expenses report; although they were all taught to lie, steal, and cheat for Israel, God help them if they did the same for themselves. They operated on a shoestring, forever fighting for bigger budgets, which is why the high living of the Paris office was so distressful. The reports were all routine though.

  It was not routine for a lowly operative to have a private meeting with the big boss just when rumor had it a massive reorganization of the secret services was under way. Unless Shiloah had another below-the-radar job in mind. Peter groaned. All he wanted was to go home.

  That thought made him squirm: He had transformed one chance encounter with a complete stranger who probably didn’t remember he existed into an imagined love affair. But that was six months ago, and he had gotten over her. Or had he? Peter lay on the daybed, one hand beneath his head, the other hanging over the side with a cigarette, staring at the ceiling. It was embarrassing. He must be very hard up to concoct a phantom affair out of such thin gruel.

  But: He could still feel the softness of her body when he’d stopped and she had bumped into him in the corridor. He remembered, how could he not, her delicate hands pulling her coat to cover her bare throat; her naked feet; her coy and shy smile and how she blushed when she said she was entering the same apartment. And then, inside, everything about her. Dressing while he and Arie looked away. Her saying, “Now you can turn around.” She had looked so beautiful, with her shiny big eyes, her wet hair around her shoulders, and then, holding her hair, enjoying every damp strand, its soapy fragrance, his hand cupping her head, her naked shoulders, her breasts barely covered by the little towel, a moment of such intimacy, the memory of which in his lonely bed had helped him fall asleep many a time. So tender, young, and exciting. And then, they had made love, gloriously. She didn’t say, and there had been no blood, but he was sure it had been her first time.

  Still, it’s over. In his note he had asked her to wait, but so what? He wondered where she was. What she was doing.

  And Arie. What crookedness was he up to now to get rich? Was the apartment a mess?

  Yes, that was the one certainty in his life, when he got home he’d have to clean up. The thought made him chuckle. It would be good to see his brother again.

  At the tap on the door he stood and accompanied the girl to Shiloah’s office, a bare impersonal room: a simple wooden desk, four chairs, two landscapes of Jerusalem, and the obligatory portrait of the country’s leader, his white mane framed by a halo of light. On a side table sat a cheap hanukiah, with a pile of colored candles next to it, which reminded Peter that it was Hanukah; he would be home for the holidays. He had better buy some presents. But who for? Arie? He’s already got everything.

  Shiloah came in, pointed to a chair, and didn’t waste words. “That Steinhoff bastard, what happened?”

  Peter replied in kind. “It was clean. Quick. Quiet. As I wrote in the report, the hotel was close to the train station, that’s why we chose it, so I took the first train that left, it was going north to Hamburg. I got off at the next stop and made my way by bus and another train to the fallback rendezvous with Veronique. Why? Is that a problem?”

  “No, not at all. Pity it came to that, that’s all, we could have used him, but no, no problem. You did well, what you had to do. I want to talk to you about some things. Veronique. Karla. In other words, Diana Greenberg.”

  Peter leaned back in relief. It wasn’t another job. He could stay home, for now, anyway. He caught himself and sat straighter. Shiloah wouldn’t miss a thing but could get the wrong impression. With him you always had to be raring to go.

  “Tired, Peter? It was a long job.”

  “Not too much. But well, it’s nice to be home for the holidays.”

  “Good. Enjoy it. While you can.”

  Peter tensed. Maybe he wouldn’t tidy up the apartment, after all. It may not be worth it.

  “First, I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want you to repeat,” Shiloah said. “It will all come out in due course, but I want to make sure you continue to be available to me for special operations. The prime minister has instructed me to reorganize the intelligence community. I’m sure you’ve heard that already. I’m bringing all foreign intelligence gathering under one roof: The Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks. It’s a bit of a misnomer, though, because for now, at least, I have to be sensitive politically. So the institute will gather the information while actual foreign jobs will still be carried out by military intelligence, which will have the new name of Aman.

  “I will head the new institute. It will be known as Mossad. Now, some jobs must remain secret, even from Aman. And that’s where you come in. You will be my first operational hire. For special ops, answerable directly to me. No title yet. Do you accept?”

  Peter felt his nerve ends tingle. He’s looking right through me, he thought. He knows I’d never say no. His brother flashed into his mind. His response would be: What’s the pay raise?

  Peter stood up. He didn’t know why, but he looked Shiloah directly in the eyes and saluted. A rigid American salute, palm out, fingers together, thumb snug along the hand, he snapped his right hand till the tip of his forefinger touched his right eyebrow, just as he did in the 45th. It wasn’t a gesture of servility, but of respect and trust, and it was about as un-Israeli as you could get. Here, to show respect to an officer, you didn’t punch him.

  Shiloah said, in a laconic voice, “I take it that’s a yes.”

  Peter dropped his arm to his side, and thought better of shaking Shiloah’s hand. “I couldn’t be more honored, sir,” he said.

  “Good. Consider it done. The paperwork will be drawn up in due course and until then, this stays between us. Only one other person knows about this: none other than David Ben-Gurion himself. He knows you did important work in Europe, especially in Germany. He appreciates your discretion and, shall we say, decisiveness in the heat of the moment. Let’s leave it at that. For now.”

&
nbsp; Shiloah went on to the other item. “Diana Greenberg. She’s asked to move to Israel. But she’s valuable in Europe.”

  Peter suppressed a smile. “She certainly is.”

  “Tell me about her…”

  “You’ve read in the reports what she did. Invaluable. But beyond that, what can I say? She’s beautiful, sexy, intelligent, I’d say a keeper.”

  Shiloah raised an eyebrow, and said with a sniff, “Tell me more that relates to her fieldwork, where she could serve us best.”

  * * *

  Peter had left his apartment with a backpack, and now he returned with the same backpack, unopened. The clothes he really traveled with, European suits and ties and shirts, he had returned to the office rack, ready for the next slim agent of average size who needed to melt into a European crowd. He searched his pockets for the key to the apartment and found it caught in the paper packaging of the little present he had bought Arie at the bus station. By chance, the day was Sunday, December third, in the Hebrew calendar, the twenty-fifth night of Kislev, the first day of Hanukah. He was looking forward to surprising Arie and lighting the first candle together.

  But it was Peter who was surprised. The flat was neat and tidy, the surfaces clear, the sink empty, the beds made, as if nobody lived there, and indeed that was almost the case, for Arie had moved out. Peter found a note beneath a saucer on the kitchen table dated two months earlier:

  Peter, Welcome Home. A lot has happened. Come to see us right away at 224, Dizengoff, top floor, apartment 8.

  Us?

  It was six o’clock in the afternoon and still muggy, so after a brief cold shower Peter dressed in his light clothes: white shirt, khaki slacks, and sandals, remembering at the last moment to take the little gift. He walked along Rothschild Boulevard, in the shade of the ficus trees, stopping for a quick iced soda at a corner kiosk, and continued the length of Dizengoff to the corner of Arlozorov Street.