“Please,” the woman said, “you’re wasting valuable time.”
Natalie surrendered the phone and went into her bedroom. It looked as if it had been ransacked. The contents of the manila envelope lay scattered across the bed, everything but the letters, which seemed to have vanished. Natalie had a sudden vision of a roomful of people reading passages aloud and then bursting into uproarious laughter. She gathered up a few more items of clothing and packed a small toiletry kit, including her birth control pills and the prescription pain reliever she took for the headaches that sometimes swept over her like a storm. Then she returned to the kitchen.
“Where are my letters?”
“What letters?”
“The letters you took from my bedroom.”
“I didn’t take anything from you.”
“Who did?”
“Let’s go,” was all the woman said.
Descending the stairs, suitcase in one hand, purse in the other, Natalie noticed that the woman walked with a slight limp. Her car was parked in Ibn Ezra Street, directly in front of Natalie’s. She drove calmly but very fast, down the Judean Hills toward Tel Aviv, then northward up the Coastal Plain along Highway 6. For a time they listened to the news on the radio, but it was all stabbings and death and predictions of a coming apocalyptic war between Jews and Muslims over the Temple Mount. The woman rebuffed all questions and attempts at conversation, leaving Natalie to stare out her window at the minarets rising above the West Bank towns just beyond the Separation Barrier. They were so close she imagined she could touch them. The proximity of the villages to such a vital road had left her dubious about the prospects of a two-state solution. French and Swiss villages existed side by side along a largely invisible border, but Switzerland did not wish to wipe France from the map. Nor did the Swiss beseech their sons to shed the blood of French infidels.
Gradually, the Coastal Plain fell away and the highway tilted toward the bluffs of Mount Carmel and the green-and-tan patchwork of the Galilee. They were headed vaguely toward Nazareth, but a few miles before reaching the city the woman turned onto a smaller road and followed it past the sporting fields of a school until a security barrier, metal and spiked, blocked their path. Automatically, the gate slid away, and they proceeded along a gently curving street lined with trees. Natalie had been expecting a secret installation of some sort. Instead, she found herself in a quiet little town. Its layout was circular. Bungalows fronted the road, and behind the bungalows, like the folds of a hand fan, lay pastures and cultivated cropland.
“Where are we?”
“Nahalal,” replied the woman. “It’s a moshav. Do you know this term? Moshav?”
“I’m an immigrant,” answered Natalie coolly, “not an idiot. A moshav is a cooperative community of individual farms, which is different from a kibbutz.”
“Very good.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“You really do think we’re idiots. You ask us to make aliyah and then you treat us as though we’re not quite a member of the club. Why is that?”
“It’s not such an easy life in Israel. We’re innately mistrustful of people who choose to live here. Some of us had no choice. Some of us had nowhere else to go.”
“And this makes you superior?”
“No. It makes me something of a cynic.” The woman drove slowly past the shaded bungalows. “Not bad, eh?”
“No,” said Natalie, “not bad at all.”
“Nahalal is the oldest moshav in Israel. When the first Jews arrived here in 1921, this was marshland infested with Anopheles mosquitoes.” She paused. “Do you know this type? The Anopheles spreads malaria.”
“I’m a doctor,” said Natalie wearily.
The woman appeared altogether unimpressed. “They drained the swamps and turned this place into productive farmland.” She shook her head. “We think our lives are so difficult, but they came here with nothing and actually built a country.”
“I suppose they didn’t notice that,” said Natalie, nodding toward the Arab village perched atop a hillock overlooking the valley.
The woman gave her a despairing sidelong glance. “You don’t really believe all that drivel, do you?”
“What drivel is that?”
“That we stole their land.”
“How would you describe it?”
“This land was purchased by the Jewish National Fund. No one stole anything. But if you’re ashamed of our history, perhaps you should have stayed in France.”
“That’s no longer an option.”
“You’re from Marseilles, yes?”
“Yes.”
“An interesting place, Marseilles. A bit seedy but nice.”
“You’ve been?”
“Once,” said the woman. “I was sent there to kill a terrorist.”
She turned into the drive of a modern bungalow. On the covered veranda, his face obscured by shadow, stood a man clad in faded blue jeans and a leather jacket. The woman slid the car into park and switched off the engine.
“I envy you, Natalie. I’d give anything to be in your place right now, but I can’t. I haven’t your gifts.”
“I’m only a doctor. How can I possibly help you?”
“I’ll let him explain,” the woman said with a glance toward the man on the porch.
“Who is he?”
The woman smiled and opened her door. “Don’t worry about your bag. Someone will see to it.”
The first thing Natalie noticed after stepping from the car was the smell—the smell of rich earth and newly mown grass, the smell of blossom and pollen, the smell of animals and fresh dung. Her clothing, she thought suddenly, was wholly unsuited for such a place, especially her flat shoes, which were little more than ballet slippers. She was annoyed with the woman for having failed to tell her that their destination was a farm in the Jezreel Valley. Then, as they crossed the thick green lawn, Natalie again noticed the limp, and all sins were forgiven. The man on the veranda had yet to move. Despite the shadows, Natalie knew he was watching her with the intensity of a portrait artist studying his subject. At last, he came slowly down the three steps that led from the veranda to the lawn, moving from the shadow to the bright sunlight. “Natalie,” he said, extending his hand. “I hope the drive wasn’t too difficult. Welcome to Nahalal.”
His temples were the color of ash, his eyes were an unnerving shade of green. Something about the handsome face was familiar. Then all at once Natalie realized where she had seen it before. She released his hand and took a step back.
“You’re—”
“Yes, I’m him. And I’m obviously very much alive, which means you are in possession of an important state secret.”
“Your obituary in Haaretz was quite moving.”
“I thought so, too. But you mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. You’re about to find out that about seventy percent of history is classified. And difficult things are almost always accomplished entirely in secret.” His smile faded, the green eyes scanned her face. “I hear you had a long night.”