Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

In the center of the group, one man was taller than the others, his thick mane of gray hair brushed back from a handsome face. He sensed Lemmy’s gaze, glanced, and stopped in his tracks, causing the whole group to come to an awkward halt, bumping into each other.

It took a moment for Lemmy to recognize the blue, wise eyes.

Father!

Lemmy was stunned, not only by seeing his father for the first time in almost three decades, but by the loss of his rabbinical manifestations. Yet years of honing his self-control in a life of clandestine survival kept Lemmy from expressing any emotions while his mind absorbed all the details within his field of vision: Elie, much shorter than the rest, looked frail. A woman, about fifty, wore a headscarf and an anxious expression. The men with the guns were alert, professional, focused on their three prisoners.

Lemmy reached into his pocket to draw the Beretta he had taken from the security man at Hadassah, but his father gave a quick shake of the head, turned in the other direction, and bellowed in the familiar baritone that Lemmy remembered so well: “Benjamin! Benjamin!”

Everyone turned in that direction. The agent in charge-blue jacket, thin lips, and rusty hair-recovered quickly and ordered them into the cars. A moment later they drove off.

“What a bunch of showoff girls,” one of the bellmen said. “These guys think the world should stop for them.”

“Come on,” his colleague said, “they have to be ready if someone attacks a bigwig.” He noticed Lemmy standing there. “Welcome to the King David Hotel.” He reached for his shoulder bag.

“I’m fine,” Lemmy said. But he wasn’t. His hands shook and his knees threatened to buckle. His father’s eyes had been surprised, but not shocked, as if he had expected to see his dead son show up alive. And his coolheaded diversion had prevented disaster. But had his father yelled “Benjamin!” only as a diversion, or also as a directive to go to Benjamin in Neturay Karta?

He entered the lobby and bumped into a chubby young man in sandals and shorts, who picked up his blue skullcap, which had fallen to the marble floor, and pressed it to his head. His freckled, sweaty face turned up to Lemmy for a second, and he sprinted to the exit, pausing to check that the circular driveway was vacant before running out into the night.

*

“ What was that about?” Itah’s lips were warm on Rabbi Gerster’s ear. “Did you see Benjamin near the hotel? On the street?”

He shook his head.

“Then why did you yell his name?”

The rabbi smiled.

Agent Cohen, who sat next to the driver up front, glanced over his shoulder. “No more tricks, guys. We could be less polite, if you get my drift.”

“Same here,” Elie said. He was sitting by the window, looking out.

The Shin Bet officer sneered. “And I was told you’re a dangerous man. Ha! ” He faced forward and switched on the radio, filling the car with fast-paced Hebrew music.

Itah squeezed Rabbi Gerster’s knee.

He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “When we were leaving the hotel lobby, did you see the guy with the baseball hat?”

She nodded.

“That was Lemmy.”

Itah jerked backward as if he had hit her. She mouthed, No!

Rabbi Gerster nodded and whispered, “My son!” And before he knew what was happening to him, his face crumbled, and hard, painful sobs burst from his chest. Itah put her arms around him, and he cried, rocking back and forth, consumed by joy and relief and by a terrible fear that this encounter, this brief, wordless eye-contact with Lemmy, would turn out to be the end, rather than a new beginning.

*

Tuesday, October 31, 1995

Lemmy checked out of the King David Hotel in the morning. He left the rented Fiat at the YMCA and walked through the streets of Jerusalem, which bore little resemblance to the divided city of his childhood.

He crossed the point where the border had once cut an arbitrary north-south line and saw none of the bullet-scarred, half-ruined buildings that had abutted the no-man’s land. Through the Jaffa Gate, which had been in Jordanian territory the last time he saw it, Lemmy entered the Arab Quarter of the Old City. He followed the market alleys, finding himself in the revived Jewish Quarter, home not only to Talmudic yeshivas and bearded scholars, but to artists’ studios and galleries. Stone-built residences had been restored to original antiquity with meticulous details. Fenced-off archeological digs reached down through layers of sediment, unearthing physical remnants all the way back to King David’s empire. Looking down into one of the deep holes, Lemmy could see the layers of Jewish life, each era settled atop the previous era, century after century, accumulated on this mountaintop citadel.

Reaching the vast plaza in front of the Wailing Wall, he found a marble bench all the way to the side. Religious and secular Jews, foreign tourists, and men in uniform stood at the wall shoulder to shoulder. The giant cubical stones piled up to immense height. The physical enormity and the weight of history gave the Wailing Wall an intangible spiritual aura. Lemmy thought of that early morning on June 5, 1967, when he had driven by this place, an eighteen-year-old IDF paratrooper, disguised in UN uniform, deep inside Jordanian East Jerusalem, tasked with blowing up the UN radar on Antenna Hill moments before every Israeli fighter jet took off for synchronized bombing raids against all of Egypt’s airfields.

Only now, as he sat here in view of the Wailing Wall, in the center of Israel’s modern capital, Lemmy realized that his own life’s meaning really came down to that sunny morning twenty-eight years ago, which had changed Jewish history and saved his people from a second Holocaust at the hands of the Arab armies that were prepared to destroy tiny Israel with the best Soviet weaponry. The realization put things in perspective for Lemmy. Yes, he must expose the reason behind Shin Bet’s illegal activities in Europe and protect Paula and Klaus Junior from the consequences of his secret life. But the current challenges were not beyond reach, considering what he had managed to achieve by age eighteen and the clandestine skills he had developed since then.

A notepad and a jar of pencils drew his attention. He tore off a piece of paper and scribbled: For Tanya’s recovery. He didn’t even know whether she was still alive, but he folded the note and stuck it in a crack between two stones. The wall was cooler than he expected, and he rested his forehead against it, closing his eyes. He thought of Tanya lying on the cobblestones in Amsterdam, looking up at him with eyes that were surprisingly peaceful. And he remembered her looking up at him almost three decades earlier, her black hair spread on a white pillow in the old house by the Jordanian border, her eyes not peaceful but burning with passion.

A man tapped Lemmy on the shoulder, startling him. “Are you Jewish?”

“ Excuse me?”

He gestured at a group of black hats nearby. “We only have nine. We need one more to complete the minyan quorum for prayer.”

“ Oh.”

“ So? Are you Jewish?”

After a brief hesitation, Lemmy nodded. “Yes. I am a Jew.” He accepted the prayer book and joined them in reciting the Hebrew words.

*

The previous night, the Shin Bet agents had brought the three of them to a top-floor apartment in Tel Aviv with enough bedrooms for everyone. It was quiet and peaceful, but Rabbi Gerster’s mind was stormy and he couldn’t sleep. He kept seeing Lemmy’s face-a grown man, yet so familiar. Had he understood that he must seek Benjamin in the old neighborhood? Would Benjamin keep his cool and know what to do?

At dawn Rabbi Gerster tiptoed to the front door and tried the handle. It was locked. A female voice came from a hidden speaker. “Can I help you?”