Greta looked at me. Her expression was angry. I felt like burying myself out of sight of the world. The prime minister of Israel, a man I admired despite everything, was talking about me.
Ben-Gurion went on to explain that the previous evening, a wild and incited rabble made up of communists and former Irgun members had attacked the Knesset and assaulted the policemen ordered to protect it. Over one hundred officers had been wounded.
The man who had fomented this revolt, as Ben-Gurion called it, was Menachem Begin. He had incited the crowds in Zion Square. He had declared a "war to the death" against the Knesset and the government. Ben-Gurion stressed that, despite the danger posed to the Knesset by Begin's followers, he had ordered the police to refrain from using their firearms; and he praised the brave policemen who, without exception, had followed this order, even when many of them lay injured in the street.
Ben-Gurion was angry now, and this sharpened the grating qualities of his speech. Yet his outrage was more controlled, less flamboyant than Begin's, and I couldn't help but think of Birnbaum's observation: that Menachem Begin was better suited for the role of a resistance commander than that of a statesman. Fiery passion was a prerequisite of the first, but the second called for a calmer, coolheaded attitude.
To whip up a crowd into a frenzy, one would pick Menachem Begin. But to run a country, and to successfully prevail upon assailed policemen to not use deadly force in the face of serious physical harm, choose Ben-Gurion.
All were silent in Greta's Café as the prime minister spoke. The only sounds were his voice and the underlying hiss of the radio. The other patrons either stood to move closer to the radio, or sat forward in their seats, drawn toward the prime minister's voice.
Ben-Gurion said that he took the treasonous threats made by Begin with the utmost seriousness. That he did not underestimate the courage of Irgun members, nor their willingness to pay a heavy personal price for their beliefs. And that he knew full well that he was the prime target of these threats. But he assured the public that the State of Israel had the means to safeguard its democracy and to thwart any prolonged terroristic activity. That even if ministers and members of Knesset became targets for assassination, the security forces would be able to maintain order and the rule of law.
He concluded by promising the citizenry that despite this serious threat, Israel would remain a free and democratic country, and that any attempt to undermine the sovereignty of the Knesset and the government would be squashed without compromise.
Conspicuously absent from Ben-Gurion's speech was the cause of the demonstration yesterday in Jerusalem. The prime minister did not utter a single word regarding his proposal for negotiations with Germany on the matter of reparations. Politically cunning, as well as dishonest in its omission. Also unmentioned was the possibility of outlawing Herut. Perhaps Birnbaum was right and Ben-Gurion was too smart to take such a step.
Greta switched off the radio. The ensuing silence lasted but a few seconds. Then the other patrons began voicing their opinion about Ben-Gurion's speech and Begin's actions. The words fascist, terrorist, and criminal were hurled into the air. All of them were directed at Begin and his followers. Even two of the regulars whom I knew opposed negotiations with Germany expressed disgust at what had happened yesterday near the Knesset. One of them opined that Begin should be stripped of his parliamentary status and arrested.
I sat immobile, struck by the horrific realization that what had happened yesterday not only failed to sway public opinion against negotiations with Germany, but had likely done the opposite. People might still find the prospect of dealing with the Germans unpalatable, but they viewed the assault on the Knesset as a greater offense.
And I, by my heedless stupidity and unbridled rage, had contributed to this. I screwed my eyes shut and breathed deeply, trying to quell the rising tide of guilt and shame that threatened to drown me. But it was impossible to keep out the accusations flying through the air of Greta's Café. My sanctuary had been breached. I needed to get away from there, from the others. I jerked to my feet so abruptly my chair toppled, and I pounded toward the exit.
"Adam, where—"
"I have to go, Greta," I said without stopping, pushing through the door and onto Allenby Street, turning north toward my apartment.
But I didn't go there. I went further north still, to a quiet residential street inhabited by people of means and connections. To the building where Sima Vaaknin lived and plied her trade.
We had first met two years before, when I was working the murder case of a young Arab woman. Sima and I had become lovers then and perhaps something more, though I couldn't say what.
Our relationship was a strange one. We saw each other sporadically, we met solely between the four walls of her apartment, and while we had slept together and shared with each other private parts of our history, we weren't truly intimate. I did not know the real Sima, for she kept herself hidden, even while naked, and I wasn't sure how she really felt about me.
When we met, it was always at my initiative. Never had Sima sought me out, even when months had passed since we last saw each other. Yet, she had, on occasion, showed a trace of displeasure at the infrequency of our trysts, though that might have been nothing but professional pride. For she was a temptress, a skill she'd honed to perfection. She was unaccustomed to men who could withstand her charms, even temporarily.
This wasn't love, nor the promise of it. What it was, I didn't know. What I did know was that I lusted after her. But I also resented sharing her, which was partly why I stayed away. Another reason was that I was still in love with my dead wife, and being with Sima made me feel guilty, even after seven years of widowhood.
So I saw Sima infrequently and almost never planned it in advance. Sima had once told me that I only came to her when I was troubled, and running down a mental list of our encounters, I had to admit that she was mostly right.
Perhaps that was why I was heading her way now, after I'd been arrested and threatened with a lengthy prison sentence. After a man I respected showed great disappointment in me. After the prime minister of Israel accused me of trying to topple Israeli democracy. After even Greta exhibited disapproval of my actions.
I knew that Sima would accept me as I was, even in my bedraggled state. She would tilt her pretty head, cock her curvy hip, smile in triumph, and invite me in. Most likely, she wouldn't bother to inquire as to the cause of my troubles, but she might fling a biting remark about my appearance or the time that had elapsed since our previous meeting. And she wouldn't be satisfied with my being there. She would continue to reel me in, angling parts of her anatomy in a way designed to shatter any inhibition and outside loyalty. For this was a game of seduction, and she wasn't content to win by anything but the widest margin.
And she would take me to her bedroom, and there would be comfort and pleasure there. For she knew men, and she knew me, and she would give me what I needed with uncanny precision, more attuned to my physical wants than even I was. It would be a surrender but of the sweetest kind, and for a few hours, I longed to stop all fighting.
But when I got there, I stopped on the sidewalk opposite her building and looked up. The light in her living room window was yellow and electric. The one in her bedroom was dimmer, muffled by curtains and likely cast by candles. I had been a fool to come here. It was still early, an hour when a man could tell his wife he was working late, but instead come here, to Sima Vaaknin. To her large bed with its plump pillows and soft sheets. To her exquisite body with its enticing curves.
I could have stopped somewhere and called in advance, and I wasn't sure why I hadn't. My mind was swirling, and I wasn't thinking straight. Now I stared at her window like a lust-deranged boy and felt a pang of unwarranted jealousy. For Sima Vaaknin did not belong to me, and sharing her with other men was unavoidable. A symptom of her profession. I had reconciled myself to this reality. For the most part.
"You're such an idiot," I whispered to myself, and had made up my mind to go home and stay there till morning, when the candlelight in Sima's bedroom started wavering and weakening. A series of tiny flames blown to oblivion one after the next. Then her bedroom went dark.
I knew what this meant. Hastily, I retreated into the shadows afforded by a wide-canopied evergreen diagonally across from Sima's building. I did not want the man who would soon be coming out to see me. Truth was, I did not want to see him either. I only wanted to know when he was gone.
A few minutes later, he emerged. A short, rotund man dressed in dark clothes and a hat. With small steps he traversed the short stone path that connected Sima's building with the sidewalk. I was about to look away to avoid glimpsing his face when something about him—his posture, shape, movement—made me stop and peer more closely.
We were but a few meters apart, but the early evening darkness and the angle of his hat combined to obscure his features. I squinted in a feeble attempt to pierce the murkiness clouding his face, gripped by an irrational craving to know his identity.
As luck would have it, when he got to the sidewalk, he turned in my direction, still on the other side of the street but shaving the distance between us with each step.
Yet, though ever closer, his face remained blanketed in shadow. Soon he would be directly across from my position, and then I would only see his back as he walked away. I would either have to cross the road and confront him, or he would remain an enigma. I was weighing the potential downsides against the obscure benefit of quenching my curiosity when the man paused at the edge of a quivering pool of light cast by a flickering streetlamp. Bowing his head, he doffed his hat with his left hand while drawing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket with his right. As he ran the handkerchief over his forehead and cheeks, he tipped his head back, so that the wavering light played across his face.
My heart stopped. The man was none other than Baruch Gafni, my powerful and selfish client. Forehead damp with recent exertion and cheeks ruddy with ecstasy, he wore a grin of abject satisfaction, like a fat cat that had just gobbled up a songbird. Gafni was Sima's client. He had just been in her apartment, in her bed. Now he cast his eyes upward at her window, gave his pudding face a final mop, folded the handkerchief with small, precise movements, and shoved it back in his pocket. He put his hat back on and strode away, whistling.
I remained stock-still, the wind jostling the branches above me, unmooring tiny tears of rain that fell upon me from sodden leaves. I didn't move until Gafni entered a car two buildings down and drove off. Only then did I allow myself to emerge from the shadows and look up at Sima's apartment once more.
I could see her now, moving in her living room. Even from this distance, her movements were liquid elegance. Alone in her home, she remained in the character of the seductress.
But I felt no stirring of passion, no spark of desire. There was only revulsion, violent and clawing, as my stomach flipped itself over. I accepted that Sima slept with other men, but with Gafni? With this shameless creature who wished to sell his people's honor to enhance his bottom line? This was the man Sima sold her body to?
Bile burned the bottom of my throat as I pictured the two of them together. The images were much too vivid, the transaction of sex for money sordid beyond tolerance. At that moment, whatever ties connected me to Sima, that led me to return to her again and again, snapped as though severed by shears.
I turned and walked away.
I rose early the next day, packed a bag, ate a desiccated piece of bread I found in the otherwise barren cupboards, and went out to start working on my new case.
I bought a new hat in a shop on King George Street, then made my way to the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, where I waited twenty minutes for the bus to Jerusalem. On the bench next to me was a crumpled copy of yesterday's Ma'ariv. Going through it confirmed my worst fears. Ezriel Carlebach, editor-in-chief of Ma'ariv and possibly the most widely read columnist in Israel, and a man who publicly opposed talking to the Germans, wrote that if there had been waverers among Mapai and its coalition partners, the violence in Jerusalem had undoubtedly pushed them firmly into the aye camp. No self-respecting parliament would surrender to a violent mob. By their mutinous actions, Carlebach wrote, Herut followers had guaranteed that the government's proposal would pass in the Knesset.
With a curse, I crushed the newspaper into a ball and flung it into a nearby trash bin.
