TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
April 15, 1967
Strictly speaking it wasn’t Peter’s business. His job included collecting intelligence on Palestinians as well as the ability and intentions of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon to wage war on Israel: to monitor Israel’s immediate neighbors.
But the way Israel was handling the growing number of attacks in the north worried him; it seemed the bigger question was not what the Arabs were planning but Israel’s intentions. It really seemed Moshe could be right: the military appeared to be provoking the Syrians, and now they had gone too far. A week earlier, two Israeli armored tractors had begun working near the Syrian border, the Syrians had opened fire with tanks, the Israelis returned fire, then the air forces got involved and by the end of the day Israel had shot down six Syrian warplanes, including one near Damascus, sixty miles inside Syria.
The media played it up as Israel’s greatest military success in a decade, the politicians competed for credit, but for Peter it rang alarm bells. Syria would have to respond. The Soviet Union would back its client. So might Egypt, even though the assessment was that Egypt didn’t want to fight yet. Jordan may get dragged in. What would America do? Where was this heading?
Peter’s most immediate concern though was not the international chessboard or even Israel’s survival, but Alice. He had promised her parents that he would look after her and now there she was, working and studying on a kibbutz that was on the edge of a potential war zone. Terrorists were striking twice a week, laying land mines on roads, under a bridge, attacking railroads, water towers, pipelines, shooting at farmers in fields, all within three miles of his ward. Should he send Alice back to America, or at least bring her back to Tel Aviv, out of harm’s way?
He had asked Tamara and she had responded with a laugh. “I don’t think she’ll listen to you,” she had said. “Ido told me that he’s smitten. The two of them seem to have started quite a romance. He visits her on the kibbutz whenever he can, and, to make matters worse, or better, she has her own room.”
“That isn’t funny. I’m responsible for her. Ido better be careful.”
“You can trust him. He has a heart of gold.”
“Yes, and he also has a … well, I won’t say it. He’s twenty-one, a soldier. I’d say I know what’s on his mind.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s too late now.”
“But she’s only seventeen.”
“Seventeen is the new twenty-five.”
Peter pulled Tamara to him, unzipping her skirt. He had to be back at the Office in an hour. “Well, moving right along, what is the new forty-four?”
“Hmmm. In your case, twenty-six?”
“And you, what is the new—how old are you, anyway?”
“Let’s just say, I am the new me.”
“Amen to that.”
“Which brings us to Arie,” Tamara said.
“No, it doesn’t. It brings me to you.” Peter had reached Tamara’s last item of frilly clothing, but she was already pulling it down.
* * *
Their arrangement was that Peter would never call Tamara anywhere, neither at home nor at the office. She could only call him at home between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning, when he was alone, or on a phone number which, in a land with a years-long waiting list for telephones, he was able to change every month. They were sure they were covering their tracks; after all, she was a lawyer and he was a spy. But they were also wise enough to know that in the history of infidelity, nobody ever got away with it. Eventually they would be discovered, and already there was a weak link: Rachel. Peter had joked that if he was on a job, he’d eliminate the risk factor. Not funny, Tamara said. Or a neighbor could notice Tamara coming and going, even though she hid beneath a large hat. Or some family member would notice one tender glance too many, a pointed meeting of their eyes. At a certain point, Peter had warned, subconsciously they may even want to be discovered.
“So maybe it’s time to tell Arie,” he said, propped up on the pillows. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth, away from Tamara. She was lying against him, one hand resting on his belly. “What do you think?” he continued. “I can’t bear this lying any longer. Anyway, he’ll find out one day, it’s much better if he finds out from us.”
She responded with a sigh and the tiniest shake of her head.
“Well?” Peter said. “I love you, I always have, one way or another. It’s time to live together, come on, what do you say?” He stubbed out his cigarette and turned to face her. “And please decide now, I have to leave in ten minutes.”
“Oh, no pressure, then.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should leave things the way they are for now. I’m so happy with you. Why upset the cart? Can’t we just go on like this?”
“I don’t want a fight with Arie either, but it’ll come sooner or later. It’s better to control the battleground, so to speak. I’ll have to tell him. I’ll call him.”
“No,” Tamara cried in alarm. “No, not yet. Peter, think about it, where will we live? Here? And my children, they’ll live here with us? Where will they sleep, in the kitchen? Or they’ll stay with Arie? I couldn’t bear that. Divorce Arie? He’ll fight us, Peter, he’ll take my children away…”
“They’re fifteen, Tamara. They’re adults, almost. They can stay where they are and you can see them every day. Tamara, please, just think about it, it’s time to decide. We can’t go on forever hiding like this, this isn’t a life, we have to come out into the open. Be happy. Man and wife. Tamara, say you’ll do this. If Arie finds out first, it will get truly ugly. We have to go to him, not the other way around.”
Tamara glanced at her watch. “Peter, you must go. I can’t say yes or no now, I need time to think about it.”
“Think about it? That’s all I’ve been doing, I need you, Tamara, I love you, I want to live with you.”
Tamara sighed heavily, her breasts rose and fell, Peter kissed one and then the other. He stood and silently drew on his clothes. At the door he hesitated, contemplating his lover half-covered by the rumpled sheets. “So now it’s up to you, Tamara. Call me.”
He left, leaving her staring at the door.
* * *
Peter walked the last mile to work, struggling to focus on the hard-nosed questions waiting for him at Mossad. How to halt the slide to war? His job was to provide the politicians with information, not decide what to do with it. But what if you don’t trust the politicians? He heard raised voices, cars honking, and along Dizengoff Street came hundreds of people, a dozen abreast, holding up the traffic. Men protesting against unemployment. They needn’t worry, he thought, they’d get called up soon enough, they’d earn money in the reserves.
But his thoughts kept returning to Tamara. He stopped for a coffee, it didn’t matter if he was five minutes late, after all, he was heading the meeting. He needed time to think more about her. He could still feel Tamara’s kisses, her warmth and softness, her body rocking against him. Yet … she didn’t appear ready to bite the bullet. Did she even want to leave Arie? He couldn’t tell. He thought she wanted to, but would she? Right now she had the best of both worlds, living a chaste life in luxury as well as a passionate secret life: who wouldn’t want that to continue?
And why should he get into a fight with Arie? As it was they hardly spoke, they were both too busy, the only time they met was at birthdays, the family was the wrong age-group for funerals and weddings. Not for divorce though. Should he have it out with Arie? His younger brother. He didn’t often think of his parents, it was all too long ago, too hard; distant, yet too painful to bear. Now the thought of them sent a chill through him: they gave their lives for their children, and here am I, about to take my brother’s wife. I will destroy the family they died to save.
He drained his coffee, examined the mud that remained; watched the traffic and the passing people and the shadows of the ficus leaves shifting in the breeze. A part of his spirit rebelled. Don’t be romantic: Mama and Pappi didn’t die to save his life. They died for no good reason, only because they were murdered, that’s all. He didn’t need to carry this guilt forever. On the other hand, they did give him up, send him away, endured the pain of losing their eldest son to save his life. Yes, that they did. He couldn’t begin to imagine what that must have been like for them. And then he realized, yes, he could understand. When he disappeared from their lives, when his father waved good-bye at the station, he was fourteen years old. Exactly the same age as his own two sons today. It would be like sending Ezra and Noah away, knowing he may never see them again, to save them. And if he could only save one, which would it be? How could a parent choose? And yet that was exactly what his own parents had done. They had chosen him. What courage it took, what pain it caused them.
And this is how he repaid them.
And Arie, who he left behind with an empty promise to bring him to America. Arie, condemned to five years of concentration camps, so painful that he never spoke about it. And this is Arie’s reward, to be betrayed by his own brother?
Oh Tamara, what price our love?