The Night, The Day (14 page)

She closed the door behind him, confident that, despite her revelation, she had given away nothing that could compromise her. And yet, she still wondered what had bothered him. Could it have been something in the apartment, or something else that happened during the evening? She drew a blank.

Bewildered, she walked to her bedroom. Maybe a hot shower and a good night’s sleep would help her figure things out. Maybe Martin Rosen simply had an acute case of the jitters and was freaking out over the intensity of the evening. That might be it, she mused; after all, it made perfect sense. Especially to someone who was having a few unsettled feelings of her own.

She came into the bedroom, tossed the sheet back on the bed and stood naked for a moment, observing herself in the mirror. She was 29 years old, as fit as she’d ever been. She worked hard to look this way, to have something she could use to her advantage. She thought about some of the men she had been with, many of whom had nauseated her. But she always did whatever was needed to get the job done.

She took her fingers and gently ran them down her torso, from her shoulders to her thighs. The feeling excited her; she shivered and felt warm all at once. An image of the man she’d said good night to just a few minutes earlier entered her mind and her excitement grew. She tried to fight it, to see this as merely another mission, but this time she knew something
was
different. She was used to clarity, had thrived on it her entire life, and here she was, for the first time, leery. She turned from the mirror and walked to the bathroom.

She stepped into the shower; the warmth and pressure of the water felt soothing. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to thwart the strange wave of sadness that was slowly gaining ground. Disheartening thoughts raced through her mind, thoughts of the life she’d been leading all these years; questions about her future, what awaited her as she grew older and alone. Usually, she was able to ignore such notions, but this time they’d caught her off guard. She sensed something happening within, an uncertainty she’d never known.

She cursed herself for weakening, for succumbing to a silly, fleeting instinct to let go. But something about the man had seemed to grant her permission. She would have to be more careful; simply seduce him like all the others, get what she needed and be on her way. Yes, that was
exactly
what she would do.

Convincing herself of this, she swallowed hard and silenced any doubt that she would succeed.

chapter 21

G
alit Stein was the only
child of Nathan and Eva Stein, two Polish war refugees who had survived the Dachau concentration camp, having escaped the crematoria, and found a new life for themselves on kibbutz
Kfar Giladi
in the north of Israel. Nathan was 12 years old when he first set foot on the shores of what was then called Palestine; Eva was 10. Although each had spent at least two years in Dachau, they hadn’t met until after the liberation, in a Red Cross infirmary in Switzerland where they were nourished back to life. They had both lost their entire families, a commonality that drew them to each other and eventually rendered them inseparable. Within six months, Nathan was tall, muscular and restored to health with a resilience unusual even for the young and strong. Eva, however, remained frail and vulnerable.

Nathan had sworn to protect Eva, to stay by her side and never leave, but the Red Cross had other plans. Eva had distant cousins in London, and arrangements were made for her to be sent to live with them. Nathan had no one, but the “do-gooders” were exploring adoption possibilities in America. Their only chance of remaining together was with a man named Mordechai Katz, a representative of the Jewish Agency who was secretly recruiting refugees to be smuggled into Palestine.

At first, Katz had been hesitant; Nathan and Eva were on the young side for the Agency’s operation. Transit for Jews to Palestine was illegal and fraught with all kinds of danger, not the least of which was confinement in a British internment camp if apprehended. But Nathan’s determination knew no bounds, and Katz eventually came around to see that the boy was exactly what the Zionists needed.

They traveled on a boat with hundreds of refugees through the Mediterranean and, after several weeks of evading British cruisers, they finally came ashore one late-June evening in 1947 on a deserted beach called Nahariya. From there, they were taken to a small kibbutz near the northern border, shown to their quarters, and given food, baths, and cots to rest out what remained of the night. With daybreak, they were sent directly to the fields.

In the years that followed, their existence was challenged by the earth, disease and their Arab neighbors. The fighting never seemed to cease. But the kibbutz also had its joys, the sense of family, belonging, purpose. Midnight campfires, song and dance – anything to drown the despair.

Some left, seeking passage to America in hope of something better. But Nathan and Eva remained. Together, they were determined to make this place their home. Eight years after they had arrived, they were married.

Eva had healed some and had grown stronger in body and spirit. Yet still, on their wedding night, the first time Nathan came to her, she reacted with terror. He was soft with her, as he always had been, offering to leave their consummation for another time. She cried in his arms for hours, and then spoke of things she had never before revealed.

Her voice filled with shame, she recounted how it was that she had been able to stay alive in the concentration camp, how one guard in particular had singled her out for his pleasure. The first time it had happened, she was lying with her mother in a small bunk when the guard came for her. Her mother resisted, holding her tightly, but the guard decided to take her mother also. Outside the barracks, the guard pulled Eva from her mother’s grasp and shot her mother in the head. From that moment, there would be no more resistance.

Nathan stayed silent, holding her, wishing he could extinguish her agony. But all he could do was listen and understand. And understand he did. He had his own stories, though he would never bring himself to recount them.

In the weeks that followed, the young bride and groom slowly found their way with each other beneath the sheets. They had been lovers long before they had ever made love and, while their pleasure was inevitably marred by ghosts, they would remain lovers forever. They created their way, grew comfortable, and were at home together.

They lived for each other and for the family they hoped to make. Yet, despite their determination, nature defied them. After almost two years of trying to conceive a child, it became apparent that something was wrong.

The kibbutz doctor delivered the news with a morose expression on his usually spirited face. Eva’s internal organs had sustained permanent, irreparable damage from trauma. The doctor asked no questions, he had known Nathan and Eva since they had arrived, knew where they had been. The rest remained unspoken.

The following year, Nathan and Eva fought and survived yet another war against the Arabs, while many of their friends weren’t as fortunate. Whatever their travails, they chose to be thankful, to abide in their faith that God had kept them for a reason. They clung to each other yet again, finding joy in what they had, in simply being alive.

In 1967, the worst war of all came, at least for them and their neighbors. The Syrians hit the kibbutz hard. There were many casualties. Several women were widowed and many children orphaned.

The kibbutz continued to care for these children as it always had. It was an integral part of their structure that all children, regardless of family, be provided for by the community. There was no need for private adoptions or anything of the sort.

But Nathan and Eva had an idea of their own. It concerned the youngest of these children, an 8-month-old baby girl named Galit, whose mother had died during her delivery and whose father had just been killed on the northern front. The father had been a close friend of the Steins, and Eva had already developed a surrogate relationship with Galit since birth. For all intents and purposes, Eva was as close to a mother as Galit had ever had.

The kibbutz council agreed, for Galit’s sake, and because this was a fitting consolation for two of their finest. The adoption was legalized within a few months and the infant, whose name means “small wave” in Hebrew, became for Nathan and Eva a small wave of bliss in a largely wretched sea.

From her earliest years, Galit was well acquainted with strife. The kibbutz was only a few miles from the northern border and surprise attacks by enemy rockets were commonplace. Barely a month passed without a casualty. When she was 4 years old, a band of terrorists attacked her school and killed two of her friends. Galit’s injuries were superficial, and she was home from the infirmary by nightfall. That was the day the strife turned into hatred, the moment that Nathan and Eva Stein began teaching their daughter about good and evil.

The lesson crystallized in 1973, when the Syrians again attacked the kibbutz on Yom Kippur day. Galit, her parents, and most of the kibbutz members were caught off guard while praying in the synagogue. They were not religious, not in the traditional sense, but Yom Kippur was still a holy day to them. Until that year.

The destruction was unmatched, more than half the kibbutz was wiped out, and Nathan lost his right leg to a shrapnel wound. Galit and Eva were safe, but the trauma and desolation would forever haunt the young girl.

When Nathan Stein returned from the hospital, he was a different man. Aside from the loss of his leg, the attack on Yom Kippur had been too poignant a reminder of his childhood, when the Nazis, too, had attacked the Jews of his small Polish village and herded them away on the High Holidays. His strength now transformed into bitterness, he could no longer hold his tongue about the worst things he had known. He began to speak openly to his daughter of all that had happened. He became obsessed and believed it his duty to pass that obsession on to her.

In the beginning, Eva objected and admonished her husband. But soon Galit began asking about her adoption, why her parents were older than her friends’ parents, and why she had no brothers and sisters. Eva herself could no longer evade the truth.

In their divulgence, both Nathan and Eva found an unexpected sense of relief. The burden was no longer theirs alone, the suffering could be shared. For Nathan, there was no question about the self-serving nature of his actions. He had convinced himself that he was behaving in Galit’s best interest, for her betterment as a Jew and a human being. For Eva, there remained a conflict between the guilt she felt over tainting Galit and her belief that only the tainted survived.

By the time Galit was 10 years old, she understood more about life’s travails than most grown-ups. She also understood that there was little she could do to bring her parents true happiness. Her father’s every breath and action were imbued with venom, her mother’s sadness unending. And her own helplessness fostered within her the singular purpose to one day capture and smite the terrible demons who had wrought all this ruin.

Kibbutz life stressed discipline, fraternity, hard work and perseverance. Everyone was equal, no one special. But when Galit entered the military at 17, as all Israeli women, that changed. Aside from her obvious physical beauty and charm, which attracted the attention of her superiors, her uncanny ability to learn new languages and pass for a young woman of several nationalities made her an excellent candidate for certain foreign intelligence operations.

For her, the choice was simple. She could do an ordinary three-year stint in the army, like most of her peers, return to the kibbutz, find a husband and raise a family, or she could at last pursue the dream for which she had longed. In this decision, and in every subsequent step she took, she became more the daughter of Nathan and Eva Stein than she could have been had she emanated from their own flesh.

chapter 22

J
acques
Benoît wore his satisfaction
in his smile. He couldn’t help himself, Martin figured. The news about the Gamatron/LMI merger was a day old, and no one who read the newspapers would have missed it. The stock had almost tripled in value.

“Good morning,” Martin said.

“Good morning to you, my dear doctor,” Benoît replied.

“You seem to be in an up mood.”

“Observant of you to notice.”

Not really
. “An occupational hazard,” Martin replied.

“Ah.”

“To what should we attribute your jubilation?”

“Nothing much, just that the stock I told you about took a little jump yesterday.”

“So I saw.”

“You watched it?”

“I read the financial section every day.”

“Oh,” Benoît said.

“I’m glad you brought that up though. I think we probably need to talk more about it.”

“What more is there to say?”

“It’s important to our work together that you understand where I was coming from,” Martin said.

“I believe you made yourself perfectly clear. It would be unprofessional of you to confuse our relationship by accepting a favor from me, especially a possibly illegal favor.”

“Was it illegal?”

Benoît seemed to consider the question. “It’s a gray area. The information I received was just speculation, of course, but my sources are usually well placed. It goes on all the time ­– certain individuals have an advantage over others by getting more reliable and timely information.”

“And if it’s ‘insider’ information, it’s illegal?”

“Precisely.”

“So, was it?” Martin asked the question matter-of-factly, as if he were asking if it was raining outside.

“I received the information from one of my brokers.”

“Then it wasn’t?”

“I cannot be held responsible for where others get
their
information.”

Martin noted the defensiveness in Benoît’s tone
.
“Even when they pass that information on to you?” he asked.

Benoît appeared unnerved. “We all have our ethical shortcomings, doctor. I am sure that you are no exception to this.”

“You’re probably right. But to the extent that I can, I try to leave my ethical shortcomings out of this room. That was why I couldn’t accept your offer.”

“I understand perfectly well.”

“I hope you do, because it wasn’t personal. Nor do I judge you for your choices, including the choice to share your information with me.”

“Ah, but now you
are
making an ethical compromise!”

Martin looked curious. “In what way?”

“By not being completely honest with me.”

“How so?”

“In claiming that you don’t judge me, you are certainly being less than truthful. Of course you judge me, doctor. Men always judge one another, regardless of what room they are in.”

“I suppose you have a point, but you see, I make every effort not to be judgmental, and if at times I fail, I’m probably unaware of it.”

“Not very different from what I do with my investing. As I said, I am
unaware
of the exact sources of the information I get. And perhaps, like you, I want to believe that everything is proper.”

Martin saw no purpose in continuing this. The more he would enumerate the differences between Benoît’s rationalizations and his own, the more Benoît would point out the similarities. It could go on endlessly.

“You see, my dear doctor,” Benoît continued, “the world is filled with moral ambiguity.”

Martin nodded. “I can’t argue with that.”

“So,” Benoît said a bit awkwardly, “where do we go from here?”

“Where would you like to go?”

Benoît hesitated, then said, “Why don’t we continue from where we left off last time?”

“That’s always a good idea.”

“I believe I was talking about my first wife, the war, all those very unpleasant things.”

“Did it upset you to discuss them?”

“Upset me? That’s an interesting question. It was so long ago, it is hard to tell how I feel about it.”

“I would imagine that it’s hard for you to tell how you feel about a lot of things.”

“Very good, doctor.”

“You know, Jacques, I’m sitting here wondering why it is that you seem to enjoy this so much.”

“You mean our repartee?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

Benoît smiled. “It is simply that I find you to be a formidable adversary.”

“Why do you find me to be an adversary at all?”

“Because you are. Here again, we have an ambiguity: your job is to help me, but in doing so, you must dismantle my defenses, invade my psyche and uncover my secrets. I, however, have always lived by these defenses, and – as you can see – in some ways they have served me quite well. To my mind, that sounds adversarial.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” Martin said.

“Which means that you don’t agree.”

“No, I don’t. I never see
myself
as the adversary of a patient. On the contrary, I see each man as his own adversary, myself included. As a psychologist, I facilitate you in becoming aware of your own destructive tendencies, and then, hopefully, you gain more mastery over them. Admittedly, that is often painful, but – to use an analogy – I would hardly characterize a doctor who injects an antigen into a patient’s body as an adversary.”

“I agree that he is not, from his point of view. But to me, because I am the recipient of the pain, the perpetrator’s intentions do not matter. He is still an adversary.”

Paranoid, self-absorbed,
Martin thought
.
“It seems to me that you have arrived at your conclusion without considering all the facts.”

“Perhaps so. But then again, don’t we all give more weight to some aspects of a situation than to others.”

“Yes, but when doing so creates psychological distress, it is healthy to entertain alternatives.”

“Psychological distress, doctor, isn’t always the worst thing.”

Martin looked at Benoît curiously.

“What I mean is that sometimes psychological distress aids in our survival.”

“That’s a very astute comment, Jacques,” Martin admitted while wondering where Benoît was going with this.

“I have read about the ‘fight-or-flight response,’ that it is a feeling of distress when a person feels threatened.”

Martin smiled. The
fight-or-flight
response was a popular explanation of why people experience anxiety. The senses perceive a threat, and the heart beats rapidly to pump more blood to the skeletal muscles to prepare the body to either flee or fight. This reaction, however, occurs because the mind believes there is danger, even though there may be none in actuality. In a case in which there is no real peril, the individual remains still. And since the body has prepared for action but doesn’t act, the physiological changes bring about hyperventilation, dizziness, nausea and other common symptoms of anxiety. If this happens often, it can be detrimental to one’s physical well-being.

“That’s correct,” Martin responded, “but there are clearly times when that reaction is neither healthy nor useful.”

“Ah, but how am I to know if this is, or is not, one of those times?”

“By asking yourself some questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Like, in what way could I possibly pose a threat to you?”

“You have never heard of doctors injuring patients?”

“I have. But you speak as if I intend to hurt you.”

“Maybe you do, maybe you do not. Or maybe you simply don’t care and are just out for your own gain.”

“And what would that gain be?”

“Perhaps you derive satisfaction from uncovering things, like a voyeur? You will do whatever it takes to satisfy your own needs, regardless of how it impacts your patients.”

“Do you see me that way?”

Benoît hesitated. “Not really, but one can never know for certain.”

“I suppose one can’t, and that’s where trust comes in. It must be hard to trust in your world.”

“Yes, that is quite accurate.”

Martin glanced at his watch. It was always important to keep track of the remaining time in the session.

“Worried about the time?” Benoit snapped.

“It’s an unfortunate pitfall of the process that our time is limited,” Martin explained.

“And also beneficial, so I am told.” Benoît said.

Notwithstanding the derision, Martin appreciated Benoît’s understanding of how the time limitation can make the patient and therapist use the session more wisely. “You’re well informed,” he said.

“I try to be.”