City of Secrets by Stewart O'Nan

Author:Stewart O'Nan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-28T16:35:16+00:00

7

After a long evening of Carmel wine and cognac, Brand and Eva were dead asleep when there was a rapping at the door. It was past two, and reflexively he thought it was the police. They could go out the kitchen window and across the rooftops. His car was parked beside the Hurva.

“Stay here,” she said, pulling on her robe. “It’s probably just Mrs. Sokolov.”

He kept still under the covers, listening as she unlocked the door. As she’d predicted, the voice was her landlady’s, too soft for him to make out their conversation.

In a minute she returned, clicking on the bedside lamp.

“You have to go.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

The police had Asher. To be safe they needed to break contact and go to ground for a while.

“I’m sorry,” Eva said.

Stunned, Brand sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on his socks. Asher. It had to be a mistake. He couldn’t imagine the cell without him. “What about Monday?”

“I’ll call a taxi.”

“Ask for Pincus. He’s a friend.”

He never suspected Mrs. Sokolov was one of them, and again he marveled at the reach of the underground. Who knew to call her?

He kept that in mind the next day as he drove, appraising the Canadian couple and the Uruguayan cleric and his secretary as if they might be spies. Taking the New Gate and sneaking through the linked courtyards of the Christian Quarter, he expected, any second, a gun to the back of his head. Instead, they tipped generously and blessed him. At home, his window open to the night, he waited for the low dieseling of an armored car and the rumble of jackboots on the stairs, the door cracking, but there was only Mrs. Ohanesian poking at Mozart, her budgie’s irritating whistle.

When the Russians had first detained him, dragging him from his usual coffee shop, they wanted the names of everyone in the neighborhood who belonged to the army. Though it was common knowledge, Brand resisted, relenting only when they threatened his family. Knowing his own weakness, he ascribed it to Lipschitz—unfairly, perhaps. While Brand daydreamed of breaking into the hospital, Lipschitz had actually done it.

Asher. He still couldn’t believe it.

Every instinct told him to flee. In an hour he could be in Jaffa. His merchant seaman’s papers were up-to-date. The docks worked round the clock. By morning he could be steaming for Lisbon or Port Said, leaving simple Jossi behind.

Without Eva, his days took the same shape. He woke, he drove, the perfect weather mocking him. Palm Sunday was almost upon them, and Pesach after that, the pageantry of Passion Week. The hotels were brimming with pilgrims. For lunch he ate falafel from his favorite vendor by the Damascus Gate, then a late dinner at the Alaska, finishing the night at his little table, sitting in the dark, nursing two fingers of scotch while the radio played. His cigar box was so stuffed with tips the lid wouldn’t close. Now that he had money, he had no one to spend it on.

He worked the weekend, and on Monday gave Pincus a note for her—untraceable, he hoped.

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