“Many of my people are tired of waiting for that solution. Tell me, what would you do if someone took away your homeland and your way of life?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But I think I understand a small measure of your anger. I know what it is to have something you love stolen from you.” She paused, still finding it difficult after all this time to talk about Mark. “A few months ago, another woman stole my husband. When she did, she also stole my home and my life. All the memories of what I had are changed, tainted. But unlike you, I don’t think I want that life back.”
“I am sorry,” Marwan said. “Adultery is also a sin for Muslims and a very great tragedy when it destroys families.”
By the time they finished their dessert of Arab pastries and strong coffee, it was late. “I should be getting back to the hotel,” Abby said. “As you know, morning comes pretty early. Thank you so much for inviting me, Marwan.” She started to rise, but Marwan waved her down.
“Wait. Before you leave I must tell you something. For an Arab to invite someone to eat with him is a pledge of friendship and trust, so I must be honest with you and keep that trust. I like you very much, Abby, and I am glad we are friends. But I had another motive for inviting you here tonight. I wanted you to see my Palestinian people for who we really are. It is my hope that you will return to America and tell your people that we are not all terrorists. We simply want a homeland.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your honesty.”
Abby waited. Marwan seemed to be considering whether or not to say something else. His youngest son had come to sit on his lap after they finished their dessert, and Marwan absently stroked the boy’s hair.
“I wish I did not have to tell you this,” he finally said, “but the Israelis have not been completely honest with you. They also have hidden motives.”
“What do you mean?”
Marwan kissed his son’s cheek and lifted him to the floor, telling him something in Arabic. Then Marwan stood. “Come with me, Abby. I will show you.”
They went out through a back door, across a tiled courtyard, then up a darkened flight of stairs to the flat, open rooftop of Marwan’s house. The night was clear and very warm, the air fragrant with the smell of frying garlic and onions. They stepped around plastic buckets and scattered children’s toys in the darkness, then Marwan crouched behind the waist-high wall that formed a railing and pulled Abby down beside him. He pointed to the street below.
“See that car?” A dark sedan was parked on a narrow side lane down the street from the house. “It followed us here. Someone is waiting inside it, watching this house. When we leave, you will see that the car will follow us to the hotel.”
A cold chill ran through Abby that had nothing to do with the night air. She never should have accepted Marwan’s invitation. Agent Shur at the airport had implied that she was involved with Palestinian extremists—now perhaps she was.
“Why are they following you if you’re not involved in terrorism?” she asked.
Marwan’s large eyes looked luminous in the darkness. “Not me, Abby. They aren’t following me. They are watching you. They have been ever since you arrived. It is because of the Israeli secret agent who died in the airport.”
“But . . . but that’s crazy! I didn’t have anything to do with his death! Hannah believes me, and Benjamin Rosen was her cousin.”
“I know. I believe you, too. But the Israelis obviously don’t.”
She shivered again. “I think I’d better go.” Abby nearly ran down the stairs and back to the brightly lit living room. Marwan’s children were sprawled on the rugs and the sofa, watching television.
“I am very sorry if I have upset you,” Marwan said, kneading his hands together.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll be fine.” But Abby felt frozen inside as she thanked Marwan’s wife for the dinner. His youngest son, Kamal, gave her a kiss good-bye, and Abby thought again of her little Jewish friend, Ivana.
Abby’s legs trembled as she walked to the car. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder at the car parked down the lane. On the short drive back to the hotel, Marwan was silent until they reached the top of a hill. “Look in your side mirror, Abby. The car is following us with its headlights turned off.”
Abby looked. She saw the car. She couldn’t stop her tears.
“I am very sorry to have frightened you,” he said. “I don’t think you need to be afraid of them, since you have done nothing wrong.”
“I’m more angry than scared, Marwan. And I’m glad you told me. I just hope that your family doesn’t get into trouble because of me.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “We live in occupied territory. We have no rights. My family will learn to be strong.”
Abby remembered how frightened her daughter had been after their house was ransacked. If what Marwan said was true, if Abby was still a suspect in Ben Rosen’s death, then the robbery was probably part of this nightmare. She had an overwhelming urge to run to her bungalow and call home, to hear her children’s voices and assure herself that they were all right.
“There is something else I must tell you,” Marwan said as he stopped the car in front of the hotel.
His dark face was so somber, Abby wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.
“They have deliberately deceived you. Dr. Bazak is not who he says he is. He is a government agent assigned to follow you.”
“No! I don’t believe you!” She saw immediately that her response had wounded Marwan, and she hurried to explain. “I mean, I don’t
want
to believe it. Hannah is my friend. I . . . I can’t believe that she would deliberately lie to me.” But Abby remembered the way Ari followed her everywhere, staying in adjoining rooms, enduring Hannah’s lectures about Jesus, assigning Abby to his work areas. Then she remembered his gun, hidden beneath his khaki work shirt. Her stomach rolled.
“Why don’t you ask Hannah?” Marwan said. “She knows the truth. If she is really your friend, she will tell it to you.”
Abby climbed out of the car on shaking legs, then stood on the front step as Marwan drove away. She watched for a long time, waiting for the mysterious sedan to pull up, waiting to see if Ari was behind the wheel. The car never came.
Maybe it wasn’t the Israelis at all, she thought as she started down the path to her bungalow. Maybe it was one of Marwan’s Palestinian friends trying to scare her. He had admitted that he wanted to win sympathy for his cause. But no, she would never believe that Marwan was a terrorist, he—
Abby stopped in her tracks. How had Marwan known about Benjamin Rosen? Even if the report of his murder had been in the newspaper, how had he known about Abby’s part in it? Or that Ben had been a spy? Surely the press wouldn’t have printed those details. And if it was true that Ari was also a spy, how did Marwan know?
She started to run as each bush and shrub suddenly seemed alive with danger. When she saw lights in Hannah’s bungalow, she bounded up the steps and pounded on her door.
“Abby! What a nice sur—”
“I want to ask you a question,” Abby said in a trembling voice. “Promise me you will tell me the truth.”
“Of course, but . . . my goodness, you’re shivering! Come inside!” Hannah pulled a sweater out of her closet and wrapped it around Abby’s shoulders, then helped her into a chair. “What on earth is wrong?”
“Is it true that Ari is a spy like Ben was?”
Hannah was very still for a moment, then she slowly lowered herself to the bed. “Yes, Abby. It’s true. Ari works for the same agency Ben did.”
The truth jolted Abby like a slap in the face. The people she trusted as friends had been frauds—watching her, following her, betraying her trust. She could barely speak. “All this time . . . you’ve been lying to me?”
“No, Abby. I never lied—”
“Yes, you did! You said Ari was an archaeologist, one of your students! Are you a spy, too?”
“No. Never. And everything I told you about Ari is true. He has a doctorate in archaeology, and he was once my student. He resigned from the Institute five years ago and joined the Agency. This is the first dig he has worked on since then.”
“But . . . you let him follow me? I feel so betrayed, Hannah. I thought you were my friend. I can’t believe you would let him spy on me.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry, but it wasn’t like that. I had no choice in the matter. I’m being used, too. The Israeli government would have assigned someone to follow you whether I approved of it or not. I know Ari, and I thought it was better that they sent him than some stranger. I have been defending your rights all along. That’s what most of my arguments with Ari have been about. He has been pressuring me to get out of the way and let him invade your privacy even more, but I won’t allow it.”
“My email! He wasn’t just being nice, was he?”
“I’m so sorry.”
Abby thought about all that Ari had done for her, how close their rooms were, how he had even held her in his arms, and she felt so angry, so used, she couldn’t speak. She shivered uncontrollably.
“Ari was very angry with me for becoming your friend,” Hannah said. “He was supposed to get close to you himself, become your confidante, offer you solace . . . no matter what that might involve. But I wouldn’t let him use you like that. I saw right away how fragile you were, how wounded you had been by your husband. You might have succumbed to his charms all too easily, and I couldn’t allow him to manipulate your feelings that way. Our friendship is genuine, Abby. I liked you the very first night we met. And after losing Ben so suddenly, I needed a friend as much as you did.”
As angry as Abby was, she knew in her heart that Hannah was telling the truth. She was a true friend. It frightened Abby to think that if it hadn’t been for Hannah, she might have ended up in bed with Ari to get even with Mark. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I never believed you were involved in Ben’s death. I don’t know why the Agency sent Ari on this wild goose chase with you, but—” Hannah stopped. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “That’s not true. I do know why they sent Ari. . . . It was an answer to my prayers.”
She struggled up from the bed and retrieved a photograph in a silver frame from her dresser drawer. “There is something else I haven’t told you, Abby. Something I haven’t been allowed to tell you.” She handed the photograph to Abby. It was of a much younger, much happier Ari Bazak with a strikingly beautiful woman.
“My daughter, Rachel, married Ari. I love him like my very own son.”
CHAPTER 18
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE—1986
H
annah held the bronze coin beneath her desk lamp and peered at it through the magnifying glass. When the front-door security buzzer suddenly sounded, she nearly leaped out of her skin. It couldn’t be seven o’clock already, could it? It was noon just a moment ago. She glanced out of her office window and saw that it was dark outside. She rose from her chair and hurried down the hall to open the door for Ari.
He had called that morning, inviting Hannah to dinner. “Sorry, I don’t have time,” she’d said. “I’m finishing my field report, and I have a publishing deadline to meet.”
“You have to eat, Hannah,” he’d said, then he’d laughed. “Oh, that’s right! You usually forget to eat once you’re buried in your work, don’t you?”
“Is it something we can talk about over the phone?” She propped the receiver against her shoulder and continued scribbling notes to herself.
“No, I really need to see you in person.”
They had agreed that he would stop by her office at seven o’clock that evening. This would be him at the door.
Ari had a huge grin on his face and an armload of soft drink bottles and paper carryout bags from King David Schwarma. “If you won’t come to dinner, dinner will have to come to you,” he said. He wasn’t alone.
“Rachel! Sweetie, what a wonderful surprise!” Hannah said, hugging her daughter. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come to tell you our good news.” Rachel slipped her arm comfortably through Ari’s. “We’re engaged!” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his bearded cheek. He grinned sheepishly behind the takeout bags.
“Very funny, you two,” Hannah said as she led the way to her office. “Whose idea was this little joke?”
Ari set the bags on Hannah’s desk, then draped his arm around Rachel’s shoulder, pulling her close. “It’s not a joke. I’m in love with your daughter. I’ve asked her to marry me.” Hannah stared, incredulous. Rachel laughed and steered her mother to a chair.
“You’d better sit down, Mama, before you fall over. No doubt you forgot to eat again.” She began opening bags and dishing food from the takeout containers onto paper plates.
“Y-you can’t be serious,” Hannah said when she finally found her voice.
“Why not, Mama?”
“Well . . . well, because you’re a child and . . . and Ari is a grown man. How old are you, Ari?”
“Thirty-one.”
“You see, Rachel? He’s—”
“Ten years older than I am. I know. That’s not so much. Here, eat your dinner, Mama, before it gets cold.” She shoved a full paper plate into Hannah’s hands, then licked her fingers. “It’s not as though I’m marrying a stranger. Ari is already part of the family, isn’t he? You always said how much you liked him, what an excellent scholar he was, how much you admired his teaching . . .”
It was true. Hannah had always enjoyed a close relationship with Ari Bazak. He had been invited to her home many times as Rachel was growing up. But she had never imagined that her daughter’s adolescent crush would lead to this. She looked up at Ari, who was calmly chewing an olive.
“You can’t be serious, Ari. Won’t marriage interfere with your . . . life-style?”
He spit out the pit, then perched on the edge of her desk. “I am serious. I’m getting too old for that life-style. I’ve been wishing for a long time that I would find the right woman and settle down. And here she was all the time, right under my nose.”
The food under Hannah’s nose smelled too good to resist. She picked up her plastic fork and began to eat. “Would somebody please explain to me how this happened? The last I heard, Rachel was working on some sort of special project this summer and was too busy to come home.”