The Nylon Hand of God by Steven Hartov

Author:Steven Hartov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Argo-Navis

CHAPTER 10

IN the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was

coming to see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there

He noted Benni’s double confirmation, the word “hospital” in the first line. Then he set the first page of his notebook against the margin of the print and began to decrypt. He had used this method rarely, yet retained the ability to quickly count words as summed groups, slowing only as he approached the required number. In the first line, the thirty-sixth letter was m. In the second, the second letter was o. In the third, the twenty-fourth letter was also o.

His five columns of numbers corresponded to five consecutive pages, the breaks having been cued by Benni’s changes of medical requirements. The process took less than five minutes, during which Eckstein did not try to read the phrases forming in his notebook but kept one eye half cocked on the doorway, through which he could see the Ethiopian boy chatting with the driver of the pickup.

Eckstein closed the novel, the cover of which showed a large red cross and part of a photograph below the title. The picture was of Hemingway himself during the Great War, fully uniformed and recovering in a wheelchair from his leg wounds. The cracked image reminded Eckstein of his own long recuperation, wheeling himself impatiently around the sunny grounds of an IDF military hospital.

He replaced the book in the rucksack and closed the pad as the young proprietor trotted back into the café.

“Is it good?” the boy inquired as he passed by, clutching a sheaf of bills.

Eckstein shot him a thumbs-up as he popped the top of the Pepsi and downed half the can, quenching the spicy fire of the wat. The boy grinned, rooted behind the counter for change, and skipped back out the door.

Eckstein took a breath, opened the notebook again, and quickly read the five rows of decryption.

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