The Fury of Rachel Monette Read online

  “Yes,” she answered finally in a flat, sullen voice. He paid her wages.

  “Good. He’ll call you as soon as he can.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

  Calvi went into the guest bedroom. He picked up the eggs and toast and the broken dishes and put them on the tray. With a paper napkin he wiped up the spilled coffee as well as he could. Lifting the tray he turned to leave the room. Cohn’s eyes were again fixed on the ceiling.

  “Moses. I know you are hungry. I’ll bring you more food if you promise me you won’t shout when I remove the tape.” Cohn lay very still on the bed. “Nod your head if you promise.” Cohn did not move a muscle. “Have it your way,” Calvi said. He left the room.

  Although he knew Cohn was securely bound, Calvi was afraid to leave the villa. Yet he had agreed to meet the American journalist by the Wailing Wall. He thought simply of not going, but journalists were persistent, and this one, he thought, particularly so: she might even come to the villa to look for him if he didn’t appear.

  Calvi went into the bathroom and broke open four strong sleeping capsules. He poured the white grains into an empty glass in the kitchen and filled the glass with milk. Then he climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom. Cohn’s eyes followed him as he entered the room.

  “Stop looking at me as if I had fangs.” Calvi sat on the bed. He felt Cohn trying to shrink away. He sighed. “You’ve got to have something nourishing, Moses,” he said gently. “I’m going to take off the tape and let you drink this milk. You can scream all you want, but Levy won’t hear you. He’s got the windows of the car rolled up and he’s singing his head off.”

  Calvi unwrapped the tape and helped Cohn lift his head. He put the glass to his lips. Slowly he drank, his thyroid cartilage bobbing in the thin neck. Calvi lowered Cohn’s head to the mattress; it looked like a child’s in his big hand. Cohn opened his mouth and spoke in a strained and weary voice.

  “How did the Arabs get to you?”

  Calvi stood up. “The Arabs didn’t get to me,” he said coldly. He rewound the adhesive tape over Cohn’s mouth, but it didn’t stop Cohn from calling him a liar. He did it with his blue eyes.

  Calvi dressed and went outside. He crossed the street to the green Fiat and opened the door on the passenger side.

  “Why waste gasoline?” he said.

  Sergeant Levy laughed. “You’re right. Get in.” And he drove Calvi to the Old City.

  Sergeant Levy parked the car near the Dung Gate. Side by side they walked along the narrow street which led to the square of the Wailing Wall. Sergeant Levy made Calvi feel small, a feeling he had seldom had in his adult life.

  In a doorway lurked a young Arab with a cigarette dangling from his lips, ready to prey on tourists. He had a dozen gaudy watches on his skinny arm. When he saw Sergeant Levy approaching he rolled down his sleeve.

  From the cramped and fetid alley they stepped into the broad square which faced the Wailing Wall. The midday sun gilded the worn stones under their feet, and the old venerated stones of the wall. It warmed the scrawny necks of the Orthodox Jews who rocked back and forth within touching distance of the wall, mumbling their prayers.

  “I was here that night,” Sergeant Levy said quietly. Calvi knew he was talking about the night of June seventh 1967 when Israeli troops took the Old City and afterwards gathered by the Wall. “That’s something to tell my grandchildren.”

  “Yes,” Calvi agreed. He looked around for the woman.

  “If there is still an Israel by the time I have grandchildren,” Sergeant Levy added.

  Calvi did not reply. On the far side of the square he saw a tall big-boned woman with a large tape recorder over one shoulder. He started walking toward her, Sergeant Levy following. The woman was gazing at the Wall and didn’t become aware of them until they were very close. Calvi had seen many American Jews mesmerized that way by the Wall.

  The Wailing Wall, Rachel noticed, was divided by a screen into two unequal sections. The bigger part, about two thirds of the whole, was reserved for men; the rest was for women. Since the destruction of the Second Temple it had helped keep Jewish hopes alive; now Jewish men and women were united with their ancestors, but not with each other. In the guidebook she had read that the divine presence is said to rest eternally on the Wall: she wondered which section the presence chose.

  A group of Americans went by, the men in prayer shawls and skull caps, the women in Saks Fifth Avenue. They walked purposefully toward the Wall, all except a boy at the rear who dragged his feet. He had blackheads, pimples, and a voice which kept breaking; he whined in both man and boy registers. “I don’t care where it is,” he was saying. “I don’t want a Bar Mitzvah.”

  “Sh,” a plump woman said to him. “What if Uncle Hy hears you?”

  “So what?”

  “So maybe he won’t give you the stereo you asked him for,” a short man told him through gritted teeth. “Don’t you want the stereo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then stop bitching. It will be over in ten minutes. Jewish boys have Bar Mitzvahs and that’s that.”

  “But, Dad, I’m not religious.”

  “Don’t be silly,” the plump woman said. “How can you know you’re not religious when you’re thirteen years old?”

  “Then how can I know I am religious either?”

  “And don’t be a smart ass,” the short man hissed.

  A tall man at the head of the group turned and said: “Imagine. A Bar Mitzvah at the Wailing Wall. What a lucky young fellow.”

  “He sure is, Hy,” the short man nodded vigorously.

  The lucky young fellow and his family made their way to the Wall. The man named Hy gave it a chaste little peck with his lips. It was a signal for the others to do the same. All did, except the boy. Finally the short man took his hand and led him to the Wall. He wasn’t far from kicking and screaming. Rachel watched as the short man and his son stood before the Wall. The short man began to wave his hands in the air. The boy kept shaking his head. The short man put a hand on the boy’s back and pressed him without much force toward the Wall. With the whole group watching the boy gave in and quickly brushed his lips to the old stones. Then he stepped back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he had just been made to kiss a relative he didn’t like. The family began to applaud. One of the Orthodox Jews at the Wall interrupted his prayers to shout something angrily at them. Rachel could not suppress a laugh.

  “It is a happy sight, isn’t it?” said a deep voice right behind her.

  She whirled and faced a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark gray eyes that looked right into hers. And behind him a giant. The surprise, their dimensions, sent a sharp tremor of fear through her body.

  “You scared me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” the man replied with a smile. “I was just talking about the Wall. It means the end of wandering for the wandering Jew.” The giant nodded. “You are Miss Bernstein?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am Simon Calvi.” He held out his hand. Rachel took it in her own. It was a big strong hand, very slightly damp, which knew how to execute perfect handshakes. Not too strong or weak, long or short, warm or cold. “And this is a gentleman the state has kindly sent to protect me from all evil: Sergeant Levy.” She heard ironies in his voice that must have meant something to somebody, perhaps the Sergeant, perhaps only himself.

  “Hello,” Rachel said. The giant smiled a big warm smile.

  “Now, Miss Bernstein,” Calvi said, “shall we get down to business? I believe you asked for ten minutes. Since you turn out to be such an attractive woman I think we can stretch it to fifteen.”

  “And had I been a hag what would you have done? Cut it to five?”

  Calvi laughed, a deep rich laugh which promised to last for a long time, but didn’t. “Zero, Miss Bernstein. Zero.”

  Rachel led him to a small stone bench on the edge of the square. An Arab boy carrying a large straw basket intercepted them. Blocking their path he plun
ked the basket at their feet and fished out a silver star of David. He put it in Rachel’s hand.

  “You like, madame?” he asked. “Five hundred years old silver. I make you good price.” Rachel tried to hand it back but the boy wouldn’t take it. He was smaller than the Bar Mitzvah boy, and younger too, in everything but the look in his eyes: a look Rachel associated with men who had spent their lives selling door to door. She dropped the trinket into the basket.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” the boy said, and reached into the basket for an olivewood crucifix. “You no Jew? You like this cross? Olivewood. From a tree that Jesus sat by on the olive mountain.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Wait, madame.” The boy placed a restraining hand on her arm and felt again in the basket. “This you like.” He brandished an olivewood plaque which said God Bless This House. Rachel pulled her arm free. Calvi spoke sharply to the boy in a language Rachel didn’t know. His face impassive he picked up the basket and walked away to try someone else. Scratching a living out of tourist attractions was the same at the Wailing Wall as at Niagara Falls.

  They sat on the bench, Calvi on one end and Rachel in the center, with the tape recorder between them. Rachel laid her guidebook to Jerusalem beside the tape recorder. Calvi picked it up and read the cover. “I don’t know this one. Is it good?”

  “Mediocre.” Calvi put it back on the bench. As Rachel was about to press the recording button, Sergeant Levy sat down beside her. She turned to him.

  “Please don’t think I’m being rude, Sergeant, but I’ve found that the presence of another person often makes the interview subject self-conscious.”

  Sergeant Levy smiled his big smile, but he didn’t move. “I don’t think Mr. Calvi minds.”

  “Not at all. I’m used to interviews.”

  “I’d still prefer it, Mr. Calvi,” Rachel said.

  “Very well.” Calvi looked at Sergeant Levy and shrugged. Sergeant Levy lifted his bulk off the bench and walked to the middle of the square. He moved very lightly for such a big man.

  “Thank you,” Rachel said. She turned on the tape recorder. The reels began rotating soundlessly, passing the shiny brown tape between them. Calvi took a fat cigar from his pocket and lit it with a match he struck on the stone arm of the bench. He expelled a mouthful of smoke, and a little sigh.

  “Testing, testing,” Rachel said into the microphone. “One two three four.” She looked up and saw the amused expression in Calvi’s eyes. “What’s so funny?”

  “Don’t you think testing testing one two three four sounds funny?” he asked.

  “I suppose.” Rachel pressed the stop button, rewound the tape and played it back. They listened to her say it again. She stopped the tape and touched the record button.

  “All ready?” Calvi asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Victor Reinhardt, I’m ready,” Rachel said. “I want my son.” She pointed the microphone at his face.

  28

  Rachel watched the color drain from Calvi’s face. His skin turned gray before her eyes, gray and damp. But he did not faint, or try to run away, or even drop his cigar: she felt the strength of will which kept him from doing any of those things. Slowly and deliberately he extended his right arm and pressed the stop button of the tape recorder with his index finger.

  It was very quiet. Faintly Rachel heard a man chanting by the Wailing Wall. Sergeant Levy stood in the center of the square, his feet planted wide apart, his face lifted up to the sun. Rachel lowered the microphone to her lap.

  “Who are you?” Calvi asked softly.

  She watched the gray eyes. “Adam’s mother.” She saw no fear, no surprise, no comprehension. “It won’t work. I know all about Siegfried and what happened to the women there. What you helped make happen to them.” She thought she saw his pupils wince, but it was over very fast.

  “You work for Grunberg?” Calvi looked around as if he expected to find someone standing over his shoulder.

  “Who is Grunberg?”

  Calvi regarded her carefully. “You don’t know Grunberg?”

  “No. Let’s not play games, Mr. Reinhardt—”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said angrily. He glanced quickly into the square—Sergeant Levy was watching them. “It’s not my name,” he added more quietly.

  “It was. You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to cover it up, you’ve killed a lot of people, but I know the truth.”

  “What are you saying? I’ve never killed anyone in my life.”

  Rachel thought of Dan, and Andy, the Kopples, their maid. “You had them killed then, if you prefer to put it that way. And for some reason your man kidnapped my boy. Maybe he did it on his own: I don’t even want to think why. I just want him back.”

  Calvi’s eyes seemed puzzled. It was useless to watch them. He had them under control, like marionettes.

  “You are not making sense to me, Miss Bernstein,” he said, almost as if he wanted to help.

  “Bernstein is my unmarried name. My husband’s name was Monette.” He knew the name; for less than a second his guard went down, long enough. “Daniel Monette. He was stabbed to death.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Miss Bernstein, or have anyone kill him. I never heard of him until this moment.”

  “I suppose the name Hans Kopple means nothing to you either.”

  Calvi waited a long time before he replied. “The name Hans Kopple I know,” he said at last. “I knew him during the war.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  He thought. “August of 1942,” he said quietly.

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been to Nice, Mr. Calvi?”

  “Several times.”

  “When was the most recent?”

  “Really, Miss Bernstein, I don’t understand what you are leading to.”

  “Just answer the question,” Rachel said fiercely.

  “Keep your voice down.” Calvi looked across the square. Sergeant Levy had stopped watching them and again had his face tilted up to the sun.

  “Answer me,” Rachel repeated more quietly.

  “It must have been three years ago this summer. I went to a congress of parliamentarians.”

  “You weren’t there yesterday by any chance?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Easily. Why do you ask?”

  “Hans Kopple was murdered in Nice yesterday afternoon.”

  Calvi’s eyes narrowed very slightly. “Do you know who killed him?”

  “Someone who didn’t want him to tell me who you really are. But he was too late. I already knew. Hans Kopple was killed for nothing.” She paused. “Have you any idea who might have done that?” she added coldly.

  He shook his head. “Do you?”

  “Yes. A tall man, tall as you. Who likes to dress up as an Orthodox rabbi.”

  “Why do you say that?” Calvi asked quickly.

  “Because the man who took my boy was wearing rabbinical dress.” Now for the first time since she had called him by his real name she saw fear in his eyes. “Would I find rabbi’s clothing hanging in one of your closets, Mr. Calvi?”

  “No,” he answered in a low voice.

  “That’s not good enough. You are a convincing liar, but a liar all the same. Understand me, Mr. Calvi: I don’t accuse you of killing my husband. The blond man did that. But you took my boy, didn’t you?”

  “The blond man?”

  “The one who does your murdering for you.”

  “No one does any murdering for me,” Calvi said furiously.

  “Or should I say did. He’s dead. I killed him.” With astonishment, and disgust, she heard the pride in her voice.

  Calvi’s eyes flickered; his jaw dropped a fraction of an inch. He didn’t say a word.

  “How can you keep denying it? It’s written all over your face—you know what I’m talking about.”

  “I’m glad the blon
d man is dead,” Calvi said slowly. “But you are mistaken, Miss Bernstein. He did not work for me. I don’t know exactly what is happening, but I think I am as much a victim as you are. Please believe me. I know nothing about your son. Or your husband.”

  Something in his eyes, or in his tone, or perhaps in her mind at that moment made her realize that despite all her reasoning and all her hopes he was telling her the truth. She had dug and dug, dug down as far as Simon Calvi, but she had not dug deep enough. He was digging too, she thought, but in a different direction. Perhaps he was digging up while she dug down: like moles underground they had touched in the blackness. She shot one final round.

  “Listen to me. You must be aware what would happen to your career if what I know about you became public knowledge. An Israeli politician, a leader of the Oriental Jews—who is not an Oriental Jew, not even a Jew, but who spent the war as a Nazi guard at a concentration camp where medical experiments were performed on Jewish women.”

  “I was not a Nazi,” he said hotly.

  “A soldier in Hitler’s army, then. It won’t make any difference.”

  They stared at each other. Drops of sweat hung on Calvi’s upper lip. Rachel felt her own sweat in her armpits and the small of her back. “And babies,” she continued quietly. “I forgot to mention that it is almost a certainty that medical experiments were performed on babies at Siegfried.”

  “I didn’t know.” His voice was hoarse.

  “No, you had gone before that became apparent. At least to Kopple. You can explain that to the press. Or the courts.” She leaned across the tape recorder and placed her hand on his: “Or you could tell me how to find my son. Maybe you didn’t take him—but you have information you’re holding back that will lead me to him. I’m not a fool, Mr. Calvi. I can see that. Tell me what it is and I won’t breathe a word of what I know. I will let you live out this fraud for as long as you want.” Rachel heard herself pleading with him, but she made no attempt to change her tone. She kept her hand on his.

  He looked up, across the square. She followed his gaze. The Bar Mitzvah was over. The boy and his family were returning in high spirits. Even the boy seemed delighted: he would never have to go through that again, and he had his stereo. He yanked off his skull cap and stuffed it into his pocket. They flowed around Sergeant Levy like a river around an island. Sergeant Levy reached down and patted the boy on the head. The family grinned nervously, perhaps only because of Sergeant Levy’s size, but the boy didn’t seem to mind.