She made a face. “Who could invent such a thing?”
Gabriel removed his overcoat and suit jacket and tossed both provocatively across the back of an armchair. Chiara shook her head slowly in disapproval and, licking the tip of her forefinger, turned the page of her book. She was wearing a pair of ordinary gray sweatpants and a fleece pullover against the winter chill. Even so, with her long riotous hair drawn over one shoulder, she looked astonishingly beautiful. Chiara was nearing forty now, but neither time nor the intense stress of Gabriel’s work had left a mark on her face. In it Gabriel saw traces of Arabia and North Africa and Spain and all the other places her ancestors had wandered before finding themselves in the ancient Jewish ghetto of Venice. But it was her eyes that had always enthralled him most. They were the color of caramel and flecked with gold, a combination he had been unable to reproduce on canvas. When they were happy, they filled him with a contentment he had never known. And when they were disappointed or angry, he felt like the lowliest creature to walk the earth.
“How are the children?” he asked.
“If you wake them . . .” She licked her forefinger and turned another page.
Gabriel removed his shoes and in stocking feet entered the nursery without a sound. Two cribs stood end to end against a wall that Gabriel had painted with clouds. Two infants, a boy and a girl, aged fourteen months, slept head to head, as they had in their mother’s womb. Gabriel reached down toward his daughter, who was called Irene after her grandmother, but stopped. She was a creature of the night, easily woken, a spy by nature. Raphael, however, could sleep through anything, even the midnight touch of his father’s hand.
Suddenly, Gabriel realized that three days had passed since he had last seen the children when they were awake. He had been chief for little more than a month and already he had missed important milestones—Raphael’s first word, Irene’s first halting steps. He had promised himself it would not be so, that he would not allow his work to intrude on his personal life. It was a fantasy, of course; the chief of the Office had no personal life. No family, no wife other than the country he was sworn to protect. It was not a life sentence, he assured himself. Just six years. The children would be seven at the end of his term. There would be plenty of time to make amends. Unless, of course, the prime minister imposed upon him to stay on. He calculated how old he would be at the end of two terms. The number depressed him. It was Abrahamic. Noah . . .
He slipped out and went into the kitchen, where the small café-style table had been laid with his supper. Tagliatelle with fava beans and cheese, an assortment of bruschetta, an omelet with tomato and herbs, all arranged as though for a photograph in a cookbook. Gabriel sat down and placed his mobile phone at the center of the table, gingerly, as if it were a live grenade. After accepting the job as chief, he had briefly considered moving his family to one of the secular suburbs of Tel Aviv to be closer to King Saul Boulevard. He realized now that it was better to remain in Jerusalem to be close to the prime minister’s office. Three times he had been summoned to Kaplan Street in the middle of the night, once because the prime minister was restless and in need of company. They had discussed the state of the world while watching an American action film on television. Gabriel had nodded off during the climax and at dawn had been driven, bleary-eyed, to his desk.
“Wine?” asked Chiara, holding aloft a bottle of Galilean red.
Gabriel declined. “It’s late,” he said.
Chiara placed the wine on the counter. “How was the prime minister?”
“Unusually interested in Asian affairs.”
“Chinese food again?”
“Kung pao and egg rolls.”
“He’s very consistent.”
Chiara sat down opposite Gabriel and watched with appreciation as he filled his plate.
“Aren’t you going to have something?” he asked.
“I ate five hours ago.”
“Have a little something so I don’t feel like a complete cad.”
She picked up a slice of bruschetta smeared with chopped olives and Italian parsley and nibbled at the edge. “How was work?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug and twirled his fork in the tagliatelle.
“Don’t even,” she warned. “You’re my only contact with the real world.”
“The Office isn’t exactly the real world.”
“The Office,” she countered, “is as real as it gets. Everything else is make-believe.”
He gave her a declassified, white-paper version of that evening’s strike on the convoy, but Chiara’s beautiful eyes soon became bored. She much preferred Office gossip to the details of Office operations. The politics, the internecine battles, the romantic affairs. It had been many years since she had left active service, and yet, if given the chance, she would have returned to the field in a heartbeat. Gabriel had far too many enemies for that, enemies who had targeted his family before. And so Chiara had to be content playing the role of first lady. Unlike the previous chief’s wife, the conniving Bella Navot, she was much beloved by the troops.
“Is this the way it’s going to be for the next six years?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“Midnight dinners. You eating, me watching.”
“We knew it was going to be difficult.”
“Yes,” she said vaguely.
“It’s too late for second thoughts, Chiara.”
“No second thoughts. I just miss my husband.”
“I miss you, too. But there’s nothing—”
“The Shamrons have invited us to dinner tomorrow night,” she said suddenly.
“Tomorrow night is bad.” He didn’t explain why.
“Maybe we can drive up to Tiberias on Saturday.”
“Maybe,” he said without conviction.
A heavy silence fell between them.
“You know, Gabriel, God was not always kind to you.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“But he gave you a second chance to be a father. Don’t let it go to waste. Don’t be a man who comes and goes in darkness. That’s all they’ll remember. And don’t try to justify it by telling yourself you’re keeping them safe from harm. It’s not enough.”
Just then, his mobile phone flared. Hesitantly, he punched in his password and read the text message.
“The prime minister?” asked Chiara.
“Graham Seymour.”
“What does he want?”
“A word in private.”
“Here or there?”
“There,” said Gabriel.