Authors: Barbara Rogan
Rossiter’s eyebrows took flight. “Hasselforth fired you!”
“Hell, no. He tried to take me off the Fleishman story.”
“I see.”
“It was my story. So I walked.”
“Quite,” Rossiter said dryly. “But are you sure this is the best time to make a move?”
“Better late than never. Do I really have to sell myself to you? You know my work. You know your people have been eating my dust for years.”
“That’s true. And two months ago I’d have said absolutely, Barnaby—come on board, write your own ticket.”
“I’m the same man I was two months ago.”
“Probably. But we didn’t know you then.”
A hard knot formed in Barnaby’s gut. He stared at Rossiter.
“It’s an ugly story we’ve been hearing, Barnaby.”
“What story’s that?”
“That you had an affair with the Fleishman girl at the same time you were investigating her father; that you kept her in the dark and used information she gave you.”
“That’s a total distortion.”
“According to my sources, you publicly admitted the affair.”
“I see I’ve been condemned without a hearing.”
“It’s a shame. Everyone knows you’re one hell of a reporter. But you’re tainted goods now.”
Barnaby smacked his own forehead. “Look me in the eye and tell me your dick had never led you anywhere you shouldn’t have gone. The point is, that thing with Grace Fleishman—at worst it’s a personal failing. It’s not as if I plagiarized or fabricated. What matters is the work, not the man.”
Rossiter listened with his lower lip thrust forward, nodding as if he agreed; but he said, “Not gonna fly here, my friend. You can peddle that line elsewhere.”
* * *
When he looked at it objectively, Barnaby could see it was Gracie’s fault. She had trashed his reputation with her outrageous scene, ruining his chances with the
Times.
But somehow he could not bring himself to hate her. The girl was obviously in love with him. What else could have compelled her to make such a spectacle of herself? Fleishman’s Victorian power trip was further confirmation, if any were needed. Sending her away was a transparent attempt to sever her, once and for all, from Barnaby.
He exonerated Gracie on the grounds of female weakness, himself on the grounds of duty. That left Jonathan to bear the blame, and rightly so, for it was his corruption that had brought them all to their present pass. Fleishman was like a dragon who, with his dying breath, singed the hero who slew him. But the dragon’s ward was the hero’s rightful prize, and Barnaby, despite all that had happened, meant to claim his due.
He did have one regret about Gracie. For all the trouble their affair had cost him, he ought to have gotten more out of it. The one time they’d made love, he had been too frantic to savor her properly. All that remained were incomplete impressions: the scent of green apples, a flash of brown thighs, an air of culpable innocence. Poor Barnaby: his bewitchment was of the senses, the hardest to dispel.
26
THE WEATHER WAS CHANGING. After months of unrelenting heat, a subtle transition had begun. The daytime winds blew as hot and dry as the land they swept, but late at night another breeze arose, moist and chill. The land licked its pale, dry lips, remembering rain. Too early yet, the kibbutzniks told each other, but nightly the clouds piled up and no stars were observed.
Summer’s crop of volunteers dispersed, university students returned to the cities, and last June’s graduating class, Grace’s contemporaries, entered the army. The kibbutz settled in on itself. Overhead, flocks of pelicans and cranes flew south, headed for the Arabian peninsula and Africa.
One Saturday afternoon, the wind blew in birds of a different feather. Three men in khaki fatigues, without insignia, strode into the dining hall, looked about, and approached the table where Micha sat with five other kibbutzniks.
The oldest, a man of about fifty with a scarred face, planted himself in front of Micha. The others flanked him. “I want to talk to you,” the scarred man commanded.
Micha lounged in his seat, legs outstretched. “Pull up a chair.”
“Outside.”
One of the soldiers put a hand under Micha’s arm, as if to lift him. Micha didn’t budge, but the kibbutzniks at his table surged to their feet. The dining room fell silent.
There was a moment in which it seemed that anything might happen; then the soldier released Micha’s arm.
“No problem,” Micha said, and he went outside with the men—soldiers, unmistakably, though they wore no uniforms.
From the dining-hall window the kibbutzniks and volunteers, Gracie among them, watched as they stood outside, arguing. Or rather, the older man argued, waving his arms and stabbing a finger at Micha’s impassive face. When the older man finished, Micha spoke a few words, sketched a salute, and walked away.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Gracie entered Tamar’s small house, which smelled pungently of baking bread. The kibbutz’s bread was excellent, delivered fresh each morning from a Jerusalem bakery, but on Saturdays Tamar liked to bake her own. Micha was visiting his mother, sitting beside her on the living-room sofa. They had been talking, but fell silent when Gracie appeared in the doorway.
She stopped on the threshold. “I’m interrupting.”
“Come in,” Tamar said with a welcoming smile, though she was clearly distracted. Micha scowled at the tiled floor. Gracie knew they’d been talking about what had happened at lunch. Discretion struggled against curiosity, an unequal battle: she sat herself down cross-legged in Tamar’s armchair and waited.
“Tell her,” Tamar said. “She’d better hear it from us and not…”
Micha stared past Gracie. “A prisoner died in army custody. He’d been severely beaten. The man happened to have dual citizenship. His family went to the American consulate and the foreign press, and the government was pressured into setting up a commission to investigate. I’ve been called to testify.”
A prisoner died; he’d been beaten—the passive verb form, redolent of guilt. Once again, Grace discovered that the world was made of Tinkertoys. One touch and it collapsed. “Who beat him?” she said. “You?”
“No!”
“Then why are you being called to testify?”
“I witnessed it.”
Tears came to her eyes. “You watched and did nothing?”
Micha sighed. “When I saw what was happening, I stopped it. But it was too late. The man died the next day.”
Gracie drew a long, shuddering breath. “This prisoner was an Arab?”
Micha’s face curdled with disgust. “You think they would do that to a Jew? They didn’t even use their fists. When I came in, he was lying on the floor and they were using him like a trampoline.”
“Micha,” Tamar said warningly.
“Tell her, you said. Our Gracie likes to have all the facts.”
“And those soldiers today... ” Gracie said.
“Came to remind me where my true loyalty lies.”
“But you know what you have to do.”
“No doubt it’s clear to you,” he said bitterly.
“Isn’t it to you?”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “We have a name for people like you:
yefei nefesh,
beautiful souls. People who always know the right thing to do.”
“That’s certainly not me.”
“People like you have no idea what it’s like on the ground. Every day I send my soldiers into danger. I’ve had men kidnapped and tortured, knifed in the souk, shot from behind. I’ve seen them broken by what
they’re
forced to do. One kid, nineteen years old, He’d shot at the legs of a man holding a firebomb and killed a five- year-old girl. He tried to hang himself. And by the way, the prisoner who died wasn’t just some random Arab. He was a leader of the Intifada.”
“You’re saying you won’t testify?”
“I have to,” he said miserably. “It’s the end of my career. But there’s no choice.”
“Why? Because they subpoenaed you?”
“Because he was my prisoner. My responsibility.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For what it’s worth, “ I admire your courage.”
“Did I ask for your admiration? You know nothing.”
The telephone rang. Tamar went into her bedroom to answer it. She was gone a long time.
Gracie smelled the bread burning and went to rescue it. As she returned to the living room, Tamar emerged from the bedroom, pale and thin-lipped.
“Leave us,” she told her son. “I need to talk to Gracie.”
* * *
That night, after everything was packed and readied for her flight the next day and Gracie lay sleepless on her iron cot in the airless room, an urgent desire came upon her to go into the desert.
Her thoughts turned with longing to the hidden waterfall of Nachal Arugot, where Tamar had taken her. It
seemed to her that if she could only visit that sublime place one more time before she left, if she could once see the sun rise in Eden, that would sustain her through all that lay ahead. It was three A. M. If she left now, she would be back by breakfast, long before anyone missed her.
She dressed in blue work shorts and a sweatshirt against the night chill, and set out down the long road to the Dead Sea. The full moon conspired, hiding behind a cloud as she traversed the exposed section of the winding drive. Though two guards patrolled the kibbutz at night, neither saw her go.
The moon emerged as she reached the entrance to Nachal Arugot, bathing the trail in an eerie glow. Bats swooped silently through the wadi, from whose depth she heard a wailing cry. The coolness of the moist night air made climbing easier, but the moonlight ebbed and flowed; parts of the path were overhung by rock, in deep shadow. Everything looked different by moonlight. Keeping to the trail required so much concentration that, for the first time since Tamar had broken the news about her mother, Grace was able for minutes at a time to forget it.
The gorge at night was dark and primordial. Under the flattening sun it had seemed lifeless, except for the green swath cut by the stream in its depth. But at night the wilderness teemed with invisible life that buzzed and rustled, clicked and swooped all around her. Disoriented, Grace passed the unmarked trail down the gorge to the hidden waterfall and continued for half an hour more before growing convinced of her mistake. Retracing her steps took a long time. By the time she found the turnoff, she was impatient and exasperated with herself. Halfway down the steep slope, she skidded, lost her footing, and began to tumble. Her fingers dug at the ground but found no purchase. Her bare legs scraped and bumped along the rocky ground. As she fell, she gathered speed and momentum.
At the bottom of the slope, Grace shot over the lip and plunged twelve feet to the floor of the gorge.
She landed in water, feet first. Her left foot sank into soft silt, but her right collided with a boulder. Then both legs gave way, and she pitched forward into the shallow stream.
For some time she lay as she had fallen. Quick moving in in its channel of stone and sun-baked mud, the frigid spring water sluiced over her bruised body and washed away the blood.
At length, Grace stirred, sat up, took stock. She had multiple aches and scrapes, and a deep, ugly-looking bruise where her canteen had dug into her side, but the pain in her right ankle eclipsed all the rest. It hurt so badly she was afraid to look at it, but she forced herself. Nothing protruded, but the ankle was blue and distended, already swollen to the width of her calf. She wiggled her toes experimentally. Fiery arrows shot up her leg, but the toes obeyed. Using both hands, she lowered her leg from the boulder into the rushing stream.
She nearly fainted from the pain, but as it subsided, the cold water numbed the ankle wonderfully. Feeling better, Gracie cupped her hands and splashed water onto her face. A patch of forehead burned. When she touched it, her hand came away grotty with blood and bits of rock.
A fine sight she would look, thought Gracie, hobbling off the plane at Kennedy all bandaged and bruised. Clara would have a fit, seeing her worst fears realized. With that thought, Grace glanced down at her watch to find it clinging uselessly to her wrist by a shred of a leather band, the dial smashed to bits. Abruptly she awoke to her plight. There was no way she could climb out of here alone on one good leg; it was challenging with two. And no one knew where she was. Like some fool of a tourist, she had broken the cardinal rule by wandering off into the wilderness without leaving word. She knew exactly what the kibbutzniks would say when they realized she was gone: that she’d slunk away without a word of farewell, like Paul had. They wouldn’t even look for her.
But no, she thought; her clothes, her wallet and passport were in her cabin. And her canteen was not. Micha and Tamar would figure it out, and they would search for her. Eventually help would come; but when?
Her flight was to leave at two p.m. She had planned to leave Ein Gedi by ten. Unless some early-morning hiker happened by, which was extremely unlikely, there was no way she’d be found, much less extricated, by then.