He can see from the waitress’s own pitched-browed, wide-eyed response that she, in a non-teasing way, really thinks that he’s maybe mad as a hatter.
He will fix that later, if he can. But he’s already in the bedroom, grabbing a leather satchel in which he drops his favorite of the books he’s bought. He stuffs in a Patagonia shell from the pile of clothes in the bottom of the cabinet, and he does all this very self-consciously—as the waitress, now leaning back against the deep solid archway that separates the rooms, gawks at his frantic running around.
Z sticks a hand under the mattress and pulls out a flip knife. It is a large and stupid-looking thing that he bought from a cutlery stand at the open-air market, a table set with cheese slicers and nail clippers and faux-hinged steak knives that don’t really fold, as well as a few implements of violence.
Z opens the knife with one hand, and, looking over at the waitress, he can see that she’s not the least bit afraid of him, even like this. Her trust touches him deeply and is also disheartening, for making clear how absolutely un-terrifying a man he seems.
Z passes her by and grabs a chair that he takes over to the bathroom. He steps up and works the knife blade into the top edge of the flimsy bathroom door, prying off the strip of wood between the panels.
With that strip popped loose, Z holds the knife in his teeth and, hand over hand, pulls up a string that hangs in the narrow hollow.
Attached to the end of the string is a ziploc bag, sealed with packing tape. He hops down and heads to the dining table to cut it open.
Inside are a passport and three fat stacks of bills, two in euros and one in dollars, rubber bands stretched around.
“Good,” the waitress says. “That’s an improvement.”
“What?” Z says, his face tight, a sweaty seriousness about him.
“Now you seem less crazy, and more like a dangerous spy.”
“Do I really seem more dangerous?”
“Not really. I was trying to be nice because it seems like it matters to you.”
“It does. If I were a bit more threatening now, it would help.”
“To scare the waiter who has come to kill you?”
“Yes, because of him.”
“You still don’t seem very scary. But you do seem legitimate. The passport and the money, they make you seem authentic. But shouldn’t you have maybe five passports, or a gun?”
“The passport thing is only in the movies, and the gun for a different kind of spy. If the French came in here to arrest me, how guilty do I look with a half dozen identities lying around? How do you talk your way out of that?”
“How do you explain a passport inside a door?”
“One is odd, the other is criminal.”
“Well, either way, I’m much more likely to believe whatever it is you’re about to tell me you’re caught up in.”
“And you?” Z says, as he breaks up the money. Some in each pocket, some in the leather bag. He gets on his knees and pulls another ziploc from where it’s taped under the couch.
“And me, what?”
“Are you caught up in it too?” he says, standing.
“You think, because we spent the week together? Because we had sex and took some baths and I made you dinner and bought salt?”
“Sort of, because of all that, yes. Because I think, new as it is—we have something good.”
“So, what you said before, it’s the opposite. Your troubles are contagious. And now, because I’ve been exposed, it’s like I have a kind of espionage-STD? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“You could go home.”
“Will I get home?”
“I bet you will. I bet it will be fine.”
“You ‘bet’?”
“You’re linked to me now, and, unfortunately, you’re also now marked in some way.”
“‘Marked’?” she says, looking rattled for the first time. “I don’t like that at all.”
“I’m just saying, it would make sense to keep tabs on you. But you haven’t done anything. They will see that you’re innocent and a waste of resources.”
“When will they see that?”
Z stands there, trying to wait her out, to be patient, but things are feeling really pressing. The Huguenot, if he’s still in the building, has had ample time to prepare whatever terribleness he’s been sent to deliver. Every extra instant is in the waiter’s favor.
“I need to go somewhere,” Z says, “to a hotel, or a hostel, or something. Even just for a night. Just until I can figure out a next step. But it has to happen now.”
“And you want me to join?”
“I want you to do whatever you want.”
“If I do go home, and forget about you, you promise I’m not going to end up getting tortured? I don’t want to be dunked in water and made to talk. That’s a nightmare I’ve had since I was a little girl.”
“I’d be very surprised if that happened.”
“You’re quite the salesman,” she says.
“Then, I promise,” he says. “It won’t happen. You’ll be safe. Your roommates will be safe. I’m sorry if I said it wrong.”
The waitress purses her lips, first aiming them left and then right, her perfect nose wrinkling in the sexiest of concerned manners.
“This is the moment, traditionally,” Z says, “where you decide if you’re on board.”
The waitress thinks about this and taps at that broken tooth with a fingernail, as if she’s checking to see if it’s grown back on its own.
“Well, if I come along. Where do we go?”
“Pretty much anywhere that’s not here.”
Giving that tooth three more thoughtful taps, the waitress lowers her hand and says, “If I do come?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t do hostels. There’s only so much sacrifice I can make, even for adventure.”
“You can pick the place.”
“And you’re really not going to get me killed?”
“And not dunked in water either. If we get out of here, absolutely not. If they don’t have to surprise us and can see, in public, that we are two, it will be fine. It’s very clear that who wants to talk to me wants only me.”
“To talk to you?”
“To capture me, to torture me, to maybe kill me if options one and two aren’t feasible.”
“One more thing, then, before my first-ever escape. Answer that and I’ll join you.”
“Like in a fable.”
“Sort of.”
Z straightens his back, shakes out his arms, and nods.
“I’m ready. Ask away.”
“This is really more to make my father happy. It’s how he raised me. But still, even to rebellious, sleeping-with-strangers, socialist me, I admit, it matters.”
“I can respect that.”
“So tell me, operative. Is what you’re doing good for the Jews?”
2014, Limbo
Oh, how it torments him, the sound of that shot. The General practically leaps from his chair.
He drops the newspaper on the side table. But the paper keeps dropping. The table isn’t there.
The General finds it behind him, beneath Lily’s weaving, pushed up against the wall. Atop it, in place of the tea he was drinking, sits a small clay menorah, caked with wax. It is wonderfully misshapen, with pencil-bored wells spaced too closely together, ready for the candles that will burn too quick. A masterpiece one of his grandchildren made in school.