Triple (11 page)

VUPLE

man could take: he could not be invisible. In the lobby of the Alfa Hotel in

Luxembourg he bumped into someone who knew him.

He was standing at the desk, checking out. He had looked over the bill and

presented a credit card in the name of Ed Rodgers, and he was waiting to

sign the American Express slip when a voice behind him said in English, "My

Godl If& Nat Dickstein, isn't it?"

It was the moment he dreaded. Like every agent who used cover identities,

he lived in constant fear of accidentally coming up against someone from

his distant past who could unmask him. It was the nightmare of the

policeman who shouted, "You're a spy!" and it was the debt-collector

saying,"But your mother is in, I just saw her, through the window, hiding

under the kitchen table."

Like every agent he had been trained for this moment. The rule wag simple:

Whoever it is, you don't know him. They made you practice in the school.

They would say, "roday you are Chaim Meyerson, engineering student," and so

on; and you would have to walk around and do your work and be Chaim

Meyerson; and then, late in the afternoon, they would arrange for you to

bump into your cousin, or your old college professor, or a rabbi who knew

your whole family. The first time, you always smiled and said "Hello," and

talked about old times for a while, and then that evening your tutor told

you that you were dead. Eventually you learned to look old friends straight

in the eye and say, "Who the hell are you?" -

Dickstein's training came into play now. He looked first at the desk clerk,

who was at that moment checking him out in the name of Ed Rodgers. The

clerk did not react: presumably either he did not understand, or he had not

heard, or he did not cam

A hand tapped Dickstein's shoulder. He started an apologetic smile and

turned around, saying in French, "I'm afraid you've got the wrong---~"

The skirt ot her dress was around her waist, her face was flushed with

pleasure, and she was kissing Yasit Hassan.

"It is youl" said Yasif Hassan.

And then, because of the dreadful impact of the memory of that morning in

Oxford twenty years ago, Dickstein lost control for an instant, and his

training deserted him, and he 59

Ken Folleff

made the biggest mistake of his career. He stared in shock, .and he said,

"Christ. Hassan."

Hassan sniffed, and stuck out his hand, and said, "How long ... it must be

... more than twenty yearsl"

Dickstein shook the proffered hand mechanically, conscious that he had

blundered, and tried to pull himself together. "It must be," he muttered.

"What are you doing here?"

"I live here. You?"

"I'm just leaving." Dickstein decided the only thing to do was get out,

fast, before he did himself any more harm. The clerk handed him the

credit-card form and he scribbled "Ed Rodgers" on it. He looked at his

wristwatch. "Damn, Ive got to catch this plane."

"My car's outside," Hassan said. "I'll take you to the airport. We must

talk."

"I've ordered a taxi .

Hassan spoke to the desk clerk. "Cancel that cab-give this to the driver

for his trouble." He handed over some coins.

Dickstein said, "I really am in a rush."

"Come on, then!" Hassan picked up Dickstein's case and went outside.

Feeling helpless, foolish and incompetent, Dickstein followed.

T'hey got into a battered two-seater English sports car. Dickstein studied

Hassan as he steered the car out of a nowaiting zone and into the traffic.

The Arab had changed, and it was not just age. The gray streaks in his

mustache, the thickening of his waist, his deeper voice--these were to be

expected. But something else was different. Hassan had always seemed to

Dickstein to be the archetypal aristocrat. He had been slow-moving,

dispassionate and faintly bored when everyone else was young and excitable.

Now his hauteur seemed to have gone. He was like his car: somewhat the

worse for wear, with a rather hurried air. Still, Dickstein had sometimes

wondered how much of his upper-class appearance was cultivated.

Resigning himself to the consequences of his error, Dickstein tried to find

out the extent of the damage, He asked Hassan, "You live here now?"

"My bank has its European headquarters here."

So, maybe hes still rich, Dickstein thought. "Mich bank is thair,

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TRIPLE

"Me Cedar Bank of Lebanon."

"Why Luxembourg?"

"It's a considerable financial center," Hassanseplied. "Me European

Investment Bank is here, and they have an interna~ tional dock exchange.

But what about you?"

"I live in Israel. My kibbutz makes wine-rui sniffing at the

Possibilities of European distribution."

'raking coals to Newcastle."

"I'm beginning to think so."

"Perhaps I can help you, if you're coming back. I have a lot of contacts

here. I could set up some appointments for

YOU."

"Mank you. rm going to take you up on that offer." If the worst came to

the worst, Dickstein thought, he could always keep the appointments and

sell some wine.

Hassan said, "So, now your home is in Palestine and my home is in

Europe." His smile was forced, Dickstein thought.

"How is the bank doingT' Dickstein asked, wondering whether "my bank" had

meant "the bank I own" or "the bank I manage" or "the bank I work for."

"Oh, remarkably well."

They seemed not to have much more to say to each other. Dickstein would

have bled to ask what had happened to Hassan's family in Palestine, how

his affair with Eila Ashford had ended, and why he was driving a sports

car; but he was afraid the answers might be painful, either for Hassan

or for himself.

Hassan asked, "Are you married?"

"No. You?"

"No."

"How odd," Dickstein said.

Hassan smiled. "Were not the type to take on responsibilities, you and

V

"Oh, Irve got responsibilities," Dickstein said, thinking of the orphan

Mottie who had not yet finished Treasure Island.

"But you have a roving eye, ehT' Hassan said with a wink.

"As I recall, you were the ladies' man," Dickstein wild uncomfortably.

"Ah, those were the days."

Dickstein tried not to think about Ella. They reached the airport, and

Hassan stopped the car.

Dickstein said, "rhank you for the lift!' 61

Ken Folleff

Hassan swiveled around in the bucket seat He stared at Dickstein. "I

can!t get over this," he said. "You actually look younger than you did

in 1947."

Dickstein shook his hand. "I'm sorry to be in such a rusk" He got out of

the car.

"Don't forget-call me next time you're here," Hassan said.

"Goodbye." Dickstein closed the car doorand walked into the airport.

Then, at last, he allowed himself to remember.

7le four people in the chilly garden were still for one long heartbeat.

Then Hassan's hands moved on Eila's body. Instantly Dickstein and Cortone

moved away, through the gap in the hedge and out of sight. The lovers

never saw them.

They walked toward the house When they were well out of earshot Cortone

said, "Jesus, that was hot stult"

"Let's not talk about it," Dickstein said. He felt like a an who, looking

backward over his shoulder, has walked into a lamppost: there was pain

and rage, and nobody to blame but himself.

Fortunately the party was breaking up. 7bey left without speaking to the

cuckold, Professor Ashford, who was in a comer deep in conversation with

a graduate student. They went to the George for lunch. Dickstein ate very

litfle but drank some beer.

Cortone said, "Listen, Nat, I don't know why you're getting so down in

the mouth about it.' I mean, it just goes to show shes available, right?"

"Yes," Dickstein said, but he did not mean it.

The bill came to more than ten shillings. Cortone paid it. Dickstein

walked him to the railway station. They shook hands solemnly, and Cortone

got on the train.

Dickstein walked in the park for several hours, hardly noticing the cold,

trying to sort out his feelings. He failed. He knew he was not envious

of Hassan, nor disillusioned with Eila, nor disappointed in his hopes,

for he had never been hopeful. He was shattered, and he had no words to

say why. He wished he had somebody to whom he could talk about it

Soon after this he want to Palestine, although not just because of Eila.

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TRIPLE

In the next twenty-one years he never had a woman; but that, too, was not

entirely because of Efla.

Yasif Hassan drove away from Luxembourg airport in a black rage. He could

picture, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the young Dickstein: a pale

Jew in a cheap suit, thin as a girl, always standing slightly hunched as if

he expected to be flogged, staring with adolescent longing at the ripe body

of Eila Ashford, arguing doggedly that his people would have Palestine

whether the Arabs consented or not. Hassan had thought him ridiculous, a

child. Now Dickstein lived in Israel, and grew grapes to make wine: he had

found a home, and Hassan had lost one.

Hassan was no longer rich. He had never been fabulously wealthy, even by

Levantine standards, but he had always had fine food, expensive clothes and

the best education, and he had consciously adopted the manners of Arab

aristocracy. His grandfather had been a successful doctor who set up his

elder son in medicine and his younger son in business. The younger,

Hassan's father, bought and sold textiles in Palestine, Lebanon and

Transiordan. The business prospered under British rule, and Zionist

immigration swelled the market. By 1947 the family had shops all over the

Levant and owned their native village near Nazareth.

The 1948 war rained them.

When the State of Israel was declared and the Arab armies attacked, the

Hassan family made the fatal mistake of packing their bags and fleeing to

Syria. They never came back. The warehouse in Jerusalem burned down; the

shops were destroyed or taken over by Jews; and the family lands became

"administered" by the Israeli government Hassan had heard that the village

was now a kibbutz.

Hassan's father had lived ever since in a United Nations refugee camp. The

last positive thing he had done was to write a letter of introduction for

Yasif to his Lebanese bankers. Yasif had a university degree and spoke

excellent English: the bank gave him a job.

He applied to the Israeli government for compensation under the 1953 Land

Acquisition Act, and was refused.

He visited his family in the camp only once, but what he !aw there stayed

with him for the rest of his life. They lived in a hut made of boards and

shared the communal toilets.

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Kon Folio"

11ey got no special treatment: they were just one among thousands of

families without a home, a purpose or a hope. To see his father, who had

been a clever, decisive man ruling a large business with a firm hand,

reduced now to queuing for food and wasting his life playing backgammon,

made Yasif want to throw bombs at school buses.

The women fetched water and cleaned house much as al-ways, but the men

shuffled around in secondhand clothes, waiting for nothing, their bodies

getting flabby while their minds grew dull. Teenagers strutted and

squabbled and fought with knives, for there was nothing ahead of them but

the prospect of their lives shriveling to nothing in the baking heat of

the sun.

The camp smelled of sewage and despair. Hassan never returned to visit,

although he continued to write to his mother. He had escaped the trap,

and if he was deserting his father, well, his father bad helped him do

it, so it must have been what he wanted.

He was a modest success as a bank clerk. He had intelligence and

integrity, but his upbringing did not fit him for careful, calculating

work involving much shuffling of memoranda and keeping of records in

triplicate. Besides, his heart was elsewhere.

He never ceased bitterly to resent what had been taken from him. He

carried his hatred through life like a secret burden. Whatever his

logical mind might tell him, his soul said be had abandoned his father

in time of need, and the guilt fed his hatred of Israel. Each year he

expected the Arab armies to destroy the Zionist invaders, and each time

they failed he grew more wretched and more angry.

In 1957 he began to work for Egyptian Intelligence.

He was not a very important agent, but as the bank eXpanded its European

business be, began to pick up the occasional tidbit, both in the office

and from general banking gossip. Sometimes Cairo would ask him for

specific information about the finances of an arms manufacturer, a Jewish

philanthropist, or an Arab millionaire; and if Hassan did not have the

details in his bank's files he could often get them from friends and

business contacts. He also had a general brief to keep an eye on Israeli

businessmen in Europe, in case they were agents; and that was why he had

approached Nat Dickstein and pretended to be friendly.

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