The Devil's Light (19 page)

Faced with the same evidence, he would still go to Dubai. But the hard truth was that this failure would discredit him. The harder truth was that the bomb could be headed anywhere. Until there was a break, or the weapon went off, the agency was back to guesswork.

Repeatedly, Brooke's thoughts returned to the unknown operative who had made the bomb disappear. The bags of heroin in Dubai were either the dead end of an erroneous judgment, or a diversion planned by an extremely clever mind. The dhow's crew seemed to know nothing; they were smugglers, paid to pick up contraband in Jiwani. The question was whether the sorcerer Brooke conjured had used them as a cat's-paw. In which case one of his enemy's operational signatures was deploying decoys and feints.

Was he Amer Al Zaroor? In one sense it hardly mattered; unless and until the agency caught him, “Al Zaroor” would serve as shorthand for whoever had spawned this plan. But each uncertainty magnified the danger—a faceless man, a missing bomb, too many targets.

Liquor brought this into a gloomy focus. Brooke saw less the living people around him than the imagined faces of the dead. Of course, he realized, these dead would have no faces. This was a failure of imagination understandable in others, but not in him. He knew too well that death sometimes left no traces, save in the hearts of the survivors.

Yet more faces appeared with his second scotch—Ben, Aviva, and Anit, their laughter captured in a freeze frame. Brooke wished that he could rewind life's tape, stepping back into that picture along with them, innocent of all that drove him now.

In the first moments of their dinner at Café Español, Anit had taken to Ben and Aviva in a way that seemed natural yet surprising, hinting at a cultural affinity. The two “nice Yiddish girls,” as Ben referred to them, had a chemistry that raised each other's level of animation—Aviva was tactile, given to touching the arm of someone she liked when speaking; responding to this, Anit seemed more carefree and kinetic, flashing a smile Brooke wished he saw more often. Then it struck him that something more was involved: Anit Rahal wanted his friends to like her.

They clearly did. In short order the three were playing what Anit called “Jewish geography”—relatives and friends who knew each other, or at least lived in the same places. The enterprise that had paid Ben's tuition, Glazer Monuments, had, in his words, “supplied the tombstones of choice for every dead Jew in Philadelphia”—among whom, it transpired, was Anit's late and unlamented uncle. A distant cousin of Aviva, a geneticist in Tel Aviv, accounted for a more vibrant interaction: She had been a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of Anit's friends to a man, Anit sadly reported, with the charisma of a fish.

Relishing his role as spectator, Brooke watched his three companions draw out facets of each other's personas. All shared a lively sense of humor and a blunt way of speaking marbled with a certain fatalism, the sense that no one could expect a disaster-free life. “Except for Brooke,” Ben fondly remarked, “who's genetically exempt from the laws of gravity.” Waving this jibe away, Brooke mentally compared this dinner to meals with some of his parents' more conventional friends—so many conversational constraints; so many polite euphemisms—and found that it deepened his amusement. It was like remembering polite but mummified couples speaking an obscure language—Americans who needed subtitles. Except, perhaps, for Brooke's far less filtered mother.

Over appetizers, Ben caught Brooke's eye. The two women were ensnared in rapt conversation about police brutality, a particular concern
of Aviva's, a new subject of interest for Anit. Ben's gaze flickered from one woman to the other—Aviva, with her sparkling blue eyes, pale skin, and riot of curly red hair; Anit, smaller and darker, with almond eyes that suggested some long-ago Tartar warrior who had jumped the fence—his expression signaling to Brooke that these two spirited females were really something. Brooke smiled his agreement.

When the paella was done, the table talk turned to Israel.

The intensity remained; the laughter ceased. The Second Intifada—the uprising of Palestinians against Israel—was raging now: No one could miss the daily reports of violence that tarnished the hope of peace, yet made peace that much more urgent. But what Brooke only now discovered was the depth of Ben and Aviva's devotion to Israel, and their discernment about what it faced. Brooke was perplexed that he had not seen this before; he felt as though Anit was his ambassador to two people who, in every other way, he knew extremely well.

“What about Ehud Barak?” Aviva asked her. “I think if there's no peace, he's done. The Israeli hard-liners take over.”

“Sharon.” Anit spoke the name like a curse.

Ben gave her a somewhat cynical smile. “You should pray for Sharon,” he said with his contrarian's frankness. “He's got so much blood on his hands that even the pigheaded trust him. It could be like Nixon to China—only an inveterate Red-baiter could have opened that door.”

“Nixon had no principles,” Aviva objected. “Sharon does. Bad ones.”

Anit nodded vigorously. “I agree.”

Ben was unperturbed. “I think you're both wrong,” he said. “With all due deference, Anit, humanitarians like you can't achieve peace by yourselves. You lack the credibility of a mass murderer like Sharon. If you're lucky, he won't want that to be his only legacy.”

“With all that excess weight,” Anit responded softly, “I've been hoping he'd have a heart attack.”

Ben shook his head. “Let him make peace first. Then he can keel over.”

A pensive silence ensued, and then Aviva raised her glass. “To Israel,” she said.

Anit touched her glass to the others. “To Israel,” she said. “Whatever it needs to survive.”

Quiet, Ben looked from Brooke to Anit, and back again. Brooke
sensed Ben trying to gauge his feelings for this woman and then, for an instant, saw the concern of a friend for the heart of his closest friend.

Dinner broke up with hugs all around, Ben and Aviva exacting promises from Brooke that they would see much more of Anit. “On the other hand,” Aviva assured her, “we'll take you without Brooke, too.”

“Oh, bring him along,” Ben put in. “I enjoy watching diversity in action.” Then the couples went their separate ways.

It was mid-October, the night air cool but still pleasant. When they decided to go for a walk, Anit took his hand.

They wound up on a park bench in Washington Square. Facing him, Anit gave him a look that, for once, was less probing than soft. “I like your friends,” she said. “Very much.”

“Thanks.”

Anit shook her head, as though his response was insufficient. “They adore you, I hope you know.”

“I do know.” Brooke paused, then decided to give voice to his deeper feelings. “I'm an only child, Anit. There's no privilege in life more important to me than having Ben as my best friend. There's nothing I can't tell him, or he me. Now Aviva's part of that. I love them more than I can say.”

She took his hand again. “Then they're lucky, too.”

The warmth in her eyes drew him closer. Anit rested her forehead against his, as though wishing to hide her face. “You know what's so terrible?” she murmured.

“No.”

“That beneath that arresting veneer of charm, good looks, and money, you're actually a very nice person.”

“That's ‘terrible'?”

“Maybe for me.”

Brooke curled his fingers beneath her chin, tipping her head back to see her. To his surprise, the look she gave him was unguarded. “Then why don't we just sit here,” he suggested, “and live with it awhile.”

They did that, quiet, Brooke's arm around her shoulder, Anit's face resting in the crook of his neck. A breeze, stirring the first autumn leaves, made the air feel cooler. “I guess we should move,” he said.

“Yes. I should be getting back.”

This did not feel right to Brooke. “It's early yet. Why don't I show you my place?”

Anit hesitated. “Actually, I'd like to see it.”

They left the park, holding hands again. Walking back along Carmine Street, Brooke pointed out the foreign movie store, Vinyl Mania Records, the ornate architectural beauty that was Our Lady of Pompeii Church. Just beyond that was Brooke's apartment.

They climbed two flights of stairs to his door. Once inside, Anit looked around, noting the print by Agam, an Israeli artist she admired. But something in her gaze was veiled, perhaps preoccupied. Puzzled, Brooke asked, “Can I get you some wine?”

She shook her head, searching his face now. Suddenly he knew why she had come.

Silent, Brooke went to her. She returned his kiss almost fiercely, body pressing into his. When his mouth found her neck, she shivered. Her body felt tensile and light.

Standing, Brooke undressed her, then himself, their eyes still locked. She was slender yet full, as beautiful as he imagined. As they walked naked to the bedroom, he caught them reflected in the mirror, a glimpse of a man and woman about to become lovers. His throat felt tight.

They fell on the bed together, her eyes suddenly vulnerable, her skin warm to the touch. Brooke placed his lips wherever he wished, her murmurs of approval his guide. Now and then he paused to look into her eyes. As when he entered her.

She pulled him close. When they began moving together, it felt natural, two bodies whose spirits had met. With other women, Brooke had felt divided, half involved in the act of love, half mindful of his obligations as a lover. Now he was a single person who, without thinking, knew how to be with another. At that moment, he understood—without conscious thought—that this was how it should be.

When they were still, he looked into her face again. “Anit Rahal,” he said softly. Like the answer to his own question.

She smiled a little, kissing him. “Let's not try to name this,” she said softly.

After that, they saw each other several times a week—sometimes just for coffee, sometimes for a meal, sometimes overnight. She never spoke of Meir.

Brooke became her guide to Greenwich Village, and then Manhattan at large. They stopped to watch the chess players in Washington Square, men hunched against the encroaching chill; bought fresh produce at the farmers market in Union Square. They met Ben and Aviva for dinner in Little Italy at Benito II, and then Umberto's Clam House, where Ben helpfully pointed out the bullet holes that marked the demise of Crazy Joey Gallo. They went to the Bottom Line, where Springsteen once had played, and had Irish coffees at a venerable bar, the White Horse, where Dylan Thomas had labored to drink himself to death. Anit soaked it in with relish, like a woman on sabbatical from care.

Soon they ventured nearer the environs of Brooke's parents, uptown Manhattan. They went to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. They scored tickets for the last game of the Subway Series, in which the Yankees beat Brooke's beloved Mets: Anit—who comprehended little of the game—consoled him with a philanthropic kiss. They heard Andrea Marcovicci sing at the Algonquin, and saw
Turandot
at the Met—after which, to Brooke's pleasure, Anit admitted loving his favorite aria, “Nessun Dorma.” On the mornings after Anit stayed over, they jogged along the Hudson River. If the weather was good, they would end by drinking coffee in Sheridan Square, where the fierce Union general shared space with larger-than-life sculptures of gay lovers. The one experience Brooke spared her was dinner with his parents.

Instead, over Thanksgiving, Brooke asked for the key to their home on Martha's Vineyard. In her usual commanding way, Isabelle Chandler said, “So you're abandoning us for a weekend tryst. Just when are we allowed to meet this mystery woman?”

Brooke knew his mother well. “At the wedding,” he answered lightly, and left her precisely where he wanted—guessing about his life.

The white rambling house in Chilmark sat on the bluff above the Vineyard Sound. Their days there were simple and sweet. Brooke introduced Anit to lobster and turkey; Anit devoured both. It was a good thing, Brooke supposed, that she seemed to burn off calories just by watching cable news. Not that the news itself was good. Though Bill Clinton was using all his skills to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians,
the goal was proving elusive. That the president's time in office was running out quickly made Anit more anxious.

But these serious moments were leavened with lightness and, it seemed to Brooke, a rising passion. They made love on every soft or warm spot in the house. On the last night, feeling the tentacles of time reaching out for them, Brooke asked, “Would you ever consider living here?”

In the darkened bedroom, he could not see her face. “‘Here'?” she asked softly. “If you mean the world of Brooke and Anit, it's a very seductive place.”

“But?”

“But that place must exist in a country. To believe that whatever person you may love is more important than anything is very American. And Americans think that anyone would be delighted to live here.”

Brooke touched her arm. “But if there were peace for Israel—a true peace—could you?”

For a time, Anit was quiet. “I love being with you,” she answered. “Right now, that's all I know to say.”

Her Israeli friend Meir remained a phantom in Brooke's mind.

Over Christmas, they busied themselves in the city—several plays, a concert by the Dixie Chicks, skating in Rockefeller Plaza, dinners with Ben and Aviva. But it was the last such dinner that settled in Brooke's memory.

The two couples had intently followed the peace negotiations at Camp David. As the prospects waned, so did Brooke's hope—shared with Ben and Aviva—that Anit might consider staying. With shameless selfishness, Brooke weighed every new proposal on the scale of his own desires—that Israel yield sovereignty over the Temple Mount; that the Palestinians give up the claim to land in what was now Israel—relating all of them to his prospects with Anit. Unaware of his seesawing calculations of cause and effect, she remained skeptical throughout. “In the end,” Anit predicted, “Arafat can't say yes. There's no true greatness in him.”