Promised Land Page 9

  “The same with Peter and me,” Diana said.

  Tamara chuckled. “How is everything? You’ve been seeing a lot of each other. People are beginning to talk.”

  “Don’t tell me what they’re saying. Put it this way, things move quickly with that man. Very quickly.”

  Tamara inclined her head in a question but Diana had picked up a knife. “How can I help?”

  They chopped vegetables, put them in the grill of the American oven, which took up a whole corner of the kitchen, opposite the fridge, and went into the garden for a smoke.

  It was the large living room that opened onto the private garden that gave their new home its rare sense of luxury, that and the cane garden furniture with white cushions, which Arie had imported just before furniture joined the rationing list. The dining room seated twelve people, so Arie and Tamara hosted all the family events. If there were more guests they could spill out into the garden, where there was an American barbeque grill. Upstairs were two bedrooms linked by an outside terrace overlooking the strawberry fields and citrus groves of Kfar Ramat Hasharon, a farming village. In the evening the fields glowed gold in the setting sun. It was half an hour’s drive to Tel Aviv but Arie, no farmer, liked the space to play. He could spend hours spraying the little twins in a game he called Germany. He shot the hose pipe into the air and water fell on them like rain, while Daniel and Carmel shrieked and ran in circles. Tamara would call out to them not to waste water, but couldn’t help laughing at their gleaming naked bodies darting around the garden.

  When Tamara asked what she had meant by “Things move quickly,” Diana winked. “I’m good at keeping secrets. It’s my job. You’ll find out soon.”

  Tamara poked her in the ribs. “Come on, don’t do this to me, you can’t tease me like this,” but Diana just answered, “Yes, I can.”

  They finished their cigarettes and with Tamara humming, “she’s so beautiful and in love,” returned to the kitchen. But they had taken too long. As Tamara placed two bowls of blackened vegetables by Rachel’s lemon chicken and roasted potatoes, Arie said, “The vegetables are burned, they’re black.”

  “They’re supposed to be, it’s an old Italian recipe,” Diana said. “Florentine.”

  They lit the candles and said the Sabbath prayer. Then Arie and Peter argued loudly about Egypt. Moshe and Rachel each took care of a twin as they ate, Moshe next to Daniel and Rachel next to Carmel. The three-year-olds squirmed, jumped down from their chairs, and crawled among the legs beneath the table as Ido and Estie kicked them. Diana was greatly amused at the chaos; family dinner in England was nothing like this. Natanel and Yasmine just held hands.

  All of a sudden Arie shouted “Quiet!” and banged a glass on the table. The twins stopped where they were on their knees and the table fell silent. “Thank you,” Arie said. “I can’t hear myself talk in this noise.”

  “Lucky you,” said Peter. “Anyway, you’re wrong. There’s no way Naguib or Nasser will make peace with Israel; if they really wanted to they’d have stopped the fedayeen attacks across the border long ago. They know we’ll have to react to their terrorist raids. They’re trying to provoke us.”

  “But they’re socialists, like our socialist leaders. They have a lot in common,” Arie said for the third time. “And they have to make peace, all that talk of leading the Arab world is nonsense, Egypt is dirt poor, all they have is the Suez Canal, and when the British pull out, which they will one day, they’ll have to make peace, or they’ll have no economy.”

  “But they hate us,” Tamara said. “It doesn’t matter if the British are there or not, or if the canal is working or not, they hate us. All the Arabs do. They will always try to destroy us.”

  “I agree with Tamara,” Moshe put in, one hand pointing a finger at Arie, the other trying to hold Daniel’s head beneath the table. “Arie, you see everything through the eye of business, where you can make money, and that may be a fair standard for America, Europe, the West, but it doesn’t hold here. The Arabs value honor far higher than money and Israel humiliated them in ’48. They want revenge, not peace. Peace may come later, inshallah, but first Egypt will need to regain its honor.”

  “How can they do that?” Natanel said.

  “War. No other way,” answered Moshe. “Today Egypt is focused on building the country’s economy, and for that they need stable relations with Israel but that is just a prelude to the inevitable. You can see how much money they’re spending on developing the military, airfields, and the like.”

  “You mean they have to defeat us in war before they make peace with us? That doesn’t make sense,” Arie said. “If they defeat us, why would they make peace with us? They’d rather kill us all and we can find peace in our graves.”

  “Well, I didn’t say it was easy. The next thing is … Aiiieee! Daniel, don’t bite! He bit me! Ow, are you crazy?”

  “Let go of my head, then. You’re hurting me!” Daniel shouted.

  “He speaks very well for a three-year-old,” Natanel said.

  “Yes, they both do, they’re very clever,” Tamara said.

  “Trust me,” Arie said, “there is a way to avoid another war. Business. The closer our economies become, the harder it will be to go to war. We need joint economic ventures, common business interests, like they sell us water from the Nile, we sell them … whatever.”

  “Pots and pans,” Tamara said.

  “Sandals,” Peter said.

  “Featherbeds,” Arie said with a laugh, “a toast to featherbeds,” and they clinked their water glasses.

  “The only problem is they’ll never do business with the Jews,” Peter said.

  “They would,” Moshe said. “As long as it’s secret and as long as there’s profit. But I say again, they’ll never make peace until they’ve lost their shame at losing to the Jews.”

  “All I can say,” Tamara said, “is there better be peace by the time the twins reach army age, because I’m not sending them to fight. In fact, right now I’m sending them to bed; it’s past their bedtime.”

  “Inshallah, there will be peace,” said Moshe.

  * * *

  While Arie ushered everyone into the garden to smoke and enjoy the cool air, Peter volunteered to help Tamara put the children to bed. He carried them up the stairs, their heads resting on his shoulders, and helped them undress while Tamara prepared the bath. “Parenting suits you, Peter,” she said with a smile, and regretted it. She had spent too many hours studying the faces of her twins: Who did they resemble more, Arie or Peter?

  As he steadied Daniel and Tamara soaped Carmel, the girl slipped in the bath. Tamara and Peter both grabbed her, and their hands met on the child’s thin wet leg. Peter held Tamara’s eyes. Briefly she rested her hand on his, a friendly tap, as if drawing a line. As she withdrew, Peter stopped her, he took hold of her hand. “Tamara, there’s something I want to tell you,” he said. He felt her muscles tense even as her eyes softened. The sweet sadness of “if only” always hung between them: If only he hadn’t gone away for so long when they had first met. If only he had been able to contact her. If only she had not been so desperate to leave the transit camp. If only … a sigh escaped her lips. “Please,” she said. She picked up a towel, wrapped Carmel in it, and handed over the damp bundle with a sad smile. “Here, she’s all yours.”

  But Peter didn’t move. “Tamara, please, there’s something I have to say to you. I must.”

  “Don’t say it. Please, Peter, don’t say it. When it’s said you can’t take it back.” She turned her back on him. “Go. Put Carmel to bed. I’ll be right there with Daniel.”

  Outside, there was laughter from the garden and Arie’s raised voice. “Tamara, what are you doing up there? Hurry up.”

  She gave Peter a light push out of the bathroom.

  “Tamara…”

  “Go.”

  * * *

  When Peter joined the others outside, Arie was just explaining his latest coup. He had begun building another two schools bu
t had discovered during stage two of construction, when the concrete was all poured, that there was a problem with the license for stage three, installing all the infrastructure, so work could be held up for months. That would cost a fortune in unscheduled bank interest. To make things worse, there was a shortage of foreign exchange to import key supplies, especially copper. But at the last moment a French construction company had bought his share of the project. Arie had made a big profit, in French francs, and unloaded the headache and imminent interest losses. He had got out just in time.

  “Do the French know about the license issue?” Peter asked.

  “It’s their job to know, isn’t it?” Arie said. “They do due diligence.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “Of course not, why should I? I only sold my part of the project. My partners know, and they stayed in, so they must know something I don’t know.” That made him throw his head back and laugh, and Natanel clapped him on the back. “Anyway,” Arie said, “there isn’t much profit in schools.” Peter saw darkness pass across Tamara’s eyes.

  “That isn’t right,” Peter said. “Aren’t you supposed to disclose things like that?”

  “You’re kidding. I’m happy to be out of it, and wealthier.”

  “That’s plain wrong. You’ll get caught out one day,” Peter said. “You’re lying to them.”

  “How can I lie if I don’t say anything?”

  “Lying by omission is still a lie. Remind me never to do business with you.”

  “Now, now, boys,” Natanel put in. “Don’t fall out over a few lirot.”

  “One point five million,” Arie said with a broad smile.

  “Well, moving on, I too have something to say,” Peter said, drawing Diana closer, “and unlike Arie, I’ll make it brief. For a change.”

  Everyone laughed, for Peter was a man of few words. All eyes were on him.

  “Diana and I,” he began, and he couldn’t help glancing at Tamara, whose smile was fading, “are married.”

  “What?” Arie shouted. He quickly collected himself. “That’s fantastic, brother!” He rushed to Peter and hugged him and hugged Diana too. Now everyone was exclaiming and shouting “when?” and “where?” and “how” and “why didn’t you say?” and “when’s the party?” and hugging each other. Tamara seemed a step behind everyone else, but she kissed Diana and then Peter. “I love you both,” she whispered to him, brushing his ear with her lips. “I wish you every happiness, you deserve it.” He touched her cheek and had to look away.

  “I’m so happy for you both,” Moshe said, embracing them. “You’re perfect for each other.”

  “Good choice,” Natanel said, beaming.

  “Well,” Diana said, “it was an easy choice for Peter because he doesn’t actually know anybody else.”

  “Too true,” Peter said with a laugh. “Still, we’re a perfect match, we’ll probably never see each other. I’d like a toast but unfortunately we don’t have any champagne.”

  “Yes, we do,” said Arie, heading for the kitchen. “The best. Wait here.”

  Peter shook his head at his brother’s back. “Champagne. Why am I not surprised?”

  PETER

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  October 1953

  What did surprise everyone was that six months later, Diana gave birth to twins.

  “What? More twins?” said Moshe. And Tamara. And Arie. With no history of twins in anybody’s family, how was this possible?

  Diana had one crib ready as well as a variety of pink and blue clothes, but now she had to double everything. Tamara gave Diana some of her twins’ old clothing and Arie presented her with a second crib, while Moshe and Rachel brought cooked food every day for two weeks. With sunken eyes, drawn cheeks, and disheveled hair Diana received visitors in her nightgown, slumped on the sofa, an infant at each breast.

  Her most dedicated helper was Tamara, who came twice a day until Diana’s mother arrived from England, tut-tutting at the mess, the food, the manners, the heat, and the noise of Tel Aviv. Everything she did was accompanied by a French-accented “tsk, tsk.”

  “Please come back. She’s making me crazy,” Diana moaned to Tamara on the phone. “She doesn’t know that babies cry. It’s all my fault. She says that I don’t know how to breastfeed, I don’t know how to wash them, I use the wrong diapers, they shouldn’t dry in the sun, they’ll get germs, I don’t eat properly, she can’t buy her cornflakes, oh my God, please, help me.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh,” Tamara said, laughing. “How long is she staying?”

  “She wants to stay forever. She wants to move here. I need her like a hole in the head. Oh, God, what can I do? She keeps complaining I don’t have a meat grinder. For God’s sake, I don’t have any meat.”

  “Have you heard from Peter?”

  “Twice. He’ll come home as soon as he can. But you know what that means. It isn’t his fault. It’s that crazy job, whatever it is.” But few knew better than Diana, on maternity leave from Mossad’s European desk.

  * * *

  Isser Harel, the former Shin Bet chief, who had replaced Reuven Shiloah a year earlier as the head of Mossad, was known as a family man, but that stretched only as far as sympathy for Peter, who had to miss his wife giving birth: “Sorry, but this is national security.”

  Peter didn’t object; there was no point. Nothing stood in the way of Little Isser, a driven if unlikely spymaster. His nickname came from his height of four foot ten inches, in contrast with Big Isser, Isser Be’eri, who was head of military intelligence. Little Isser had comically large ears, but there was nothing funny about his glare, which was more piercing than an interrogation light. He was a living contradiction. Aged forty, he looked sixty, yet had the hyper energy of a child. Born Isser Halperin in Russia, his ambition could be measured by the Hebrew name he chose—Harel, Mountain of God.

  When he handed over the reins of Mossad, a transition that included a dozen ongoing operations for which there was no paper trail, Reuven Shiloah took Harel aside to outline his most sensitive undertaking: his super-secret sleeper network of ex-Nazis, who were kept in line by one of his most valued and trusted agents, Peter Nesher.

  And for Harel, a man who saw conspiracy at every turn, who on his first day at Mossad fired a top agent for skimming expenses, a straight arrow with Peter Nesher’s skills and experience was a match made in heaven. Like Shiloah before him, he needed a man close to him who he could trust.

  “We are heading for a big mess,” Harel had told Peter in September, four weeks before Diana’s due date. “And I need you back in Germany to start cleaning up before it happens. Briefly, it’s Egypt again, and it’s complicated.”

  Harel had summoned Peter to his office on Ben Yehuda Street, always the prelude to action. It made Peter’s stomach turn over. Diana would kill him if he missed the birth. He didn’t hear the first few sentences but when Harel had his full attention, he knew right away there was nothing he could do or say. He tuned back in just as Harel was saying:

  “… military intelligence. The loose cannons at Aman want to bomb the British in Egypt and say the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood did it. Can you imagine anything more stupid? And the Old Man won’t listen to me, he’s terrified the British will leave Egypt after seventy years and hand over all their military bases to Nasser. Two airfields, weapons dumps, and ammunition, docks, radar stations. Thirty-eight years of British installations. That must not happen. But state terrorism against Britain? Aman is filled with lunatics.”

  “Can they do that?” Peter asked. “I mean, do they have the people, the expertise?”

  “Of course not. But they do have Ben-Gurion’s ear.”

  “I don’t get it, or maybe I fear I do,” Peter said. “If Britain thinks the Egyptians bombed them, then the British won’t pull out. So Egypt wouldn’t get the military installations to use against us. Yes?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what can I do in Germany?”

  �
�I’ll tell you. The Old Man is quite right that another war with Egypt is inevitable. But this time there is a very dangerous buildup of Germans in Egypt, senior officers from the Nazi air force, navy, army, intelligence. They are helping Egypt rebuild its armed forces. A strong Egypt can unite the Arab world against us. And Ben-Gurion believes we may not survive against such an alliance today.”

  Peter waited with a sinking heart. He knew where this was going, Israel had to attack first. And he knew what that meant. It meant he would miss the birth.

  “What?” Harel said. “You’re shaking your head. You don’t agree?”

  “It isn’t that. To be honest, sir, I was thinking of Diana.”

  Harel came around his desk and patted Peter on the shoulder. “I know. When is the baby due?”

  “Four weeks.”

  “You’ll be in Frankfurt, then. In fact, you’ll be there next week.”

  Next week. A curse word formed. Diana would roast him, and slowly.

  There was a knock on the door, followed by a voice: “It’s four o’clock, everyone is here.”

  “Good, coffee for everyone, bring them in.”

  Peter looked at Harel, raising his eyebrows. Harel said, “This is a sanctioned operation. You’ll hear why now. The European desk will work with you.”

  Diana’s group. Peter knew all four analysts who entered the room. They nodded to him and immediately began pouring coffee, waiting for Harel to take command. “Yossi v’Hezie,” who got his nickname of “Yossi and a half” because he was so tall, sat opposite Peter. “How’s Diana?” he said.

  “So far so good,” Peter said. “Resting, it isn’t an easy pregnancy…”

  “We miss her,” Gingie, nicknamed for her red hair, put in, but before she could continue Harel silenced them with a wave of his hand as two men and a woman entered the room. They glanced at everybody and sat at the table as if they owned it. Peter had never seen them before. Maybe they were the reason Harel was running the meeting himself. Normally a section chief would be in charge.