Bashert Read online

  “I do not follow what you are saying.”

  “Tariq’s men attacked my wife and son.” The sound of a sharp inhale came over the phone. Migdal continued, “They are okay, but it will be regarded as a direct affront to Mossad. I do not know what or by what means, but my old colleagues will, I know, exact revenge. And warn Tariq that if any of his men are ever spotted within a hundred meters of my wife or son, I will see to it that this becomes a matter of utmost priority. Tell him his entire family will be wiped out—his wife, his children, his brothers, his nieces and nephews, his cousins—everyone. If I cannot do it myself, I will arrange it. Did you get that, Hashim? And don’t ever, ever expect to deal with me again. I will start over from scratch. I will build new contacts, starting from nothing again.”

  “Migdal, I had no choice but to deal with Tariq. Like you, I had no choice.”

  “We Jews have an expression, Hashim. You should learn it. No choice is also a choice.”

  “I don’t think I understand. I…”

  Migdal disconnected, cutting him off, then dialed the L entry from his address book. As before, there was nothing more than a click on the other end.

  “It’s Mig, again. I assume you got the document. We need to meet. I’ll be in Haifa tomorrow, lunch at the café.” He snapped the phone closed.

  He lay back on the bed, staring through the ceiling, imagining the stars beyond, shining as they had, unchanged, through all of the troubled history of the city. I can no more escape my past than can you, he thought. We cannot change what is fated.

  Bashert, he thought. My fated one, Shira. He slipped off his wedding band and rolled it between his fingers, imagining, though it was almost black in the room, that he could read the Hebrew inscription engraved inside: Zeh dodi, v’zeh rei.

  My beloved, my friend, he thought. How can I take care of you and Binyamin now along this uncertain road, this road ahead? “This Uncertain Road.” What an apt title. I wasn’t so keen on it at first, but I am glad your brother suggested that poem to read at our wedding. Yes, I know it well.

  This road ahead I do not know.

  I know not into what valleys

  Or past what shadows it may lead,

  But I will walk with you, Beloved,

  Along its wide turns and through its straits.

  Whatever course,

  Through storms and lulls,

  I will go.

  Even to the ends of the Earth,

  Even to the end of life,

  I will go.

  And I will keep watch, my Fated One.

  I will straighten the road or change the course

  of rivers.

  For you, I will rewrite the words of Fate.

  He wiped his eyes in the dark, then sat up. How do you rewrite the words of Fate, he wondered. “How?” he said aloud into the chill silence of the night.

  24

  1963 — Jef started at a trot up the stairwell to the bridge. By the time they arrived three stories up, Mitch was winded. Jef held the door for him and bowed. “Age before beauty, old man.”

  Mitch, in turn, stepped aside with a gallant bow and sweep of his arm as he let Deb pass, saying, “Ladies first. Besides I’m the youngest one here although there are others who may be older but lack my maturity.”

  Mitch felt like he was entering the top-floor boardroom of one of Boston’s old firms in the financial district. The walls were paneled in exotic dark woods with burls and tiger stripes, oversized black leather chairs faced forward, and everywhere were polished brass fittings. The bridge offered a panoramic view over the bow and to the sides, wrapping around enough so that by going all the way to one side or the other one could also get a view astern. A chart table, which appeared to be mechanized in some way, and a wooden wheel, straight out of an old movie, dominated the center of the room. But the real beauty was the view outside. Mitch could think of only one word. “Wow!” he said. Deb nodded and Jef smiled.

  In the early light, the calm seas stretched to the horizon like an endless pewter platter, dimpled by a hammered finish. Deb and Mitch just stood and stared while Jef unlocked the controls. He pressed a large button, then waited for a light to signal the anchor was weighed before starting the turbines that powered the ship. The entire ship shuddered as he engaged the twin screws and the Delft began, ever so slowly, to make headway.

  “This,” he gestured around the room, “is the bridge. That’s the radar scope, and over there,” he pointed toward the central table, “is the plotter that shows where we are and where we are headed. Here are the engine controls, and this is the helm, or, for you landlubbers who don’t know port from starboard, the steering wheel.”

  “I’ll give you guys the full tour below later. Right now I want to put as much distance between us and MIT as I can. We’ll man the bridge until we’re clear of the last of the Harbor Islands, past the tip of Cape Cod, and well out to sea, then the wonders of modern technology take over. This thing just about sails itself. My grandfather hired Honeywell and GE and Sperry-Rand to custom design the control systems so one person could run the whole damn ship from up here. My grandfather was not a very sociable guy.

  “Anyway, for now though, we keep one eye out and one eye on the radar and both hands on the helm.”

  As they watched, the rising sun slowly began to separate itself from the water, creating a golden highway ahead. Within minutes, they encountered the first commercial traffic: a cargo ship, it’s deck stacked high with brown and green shipping containers, headed in toward Boston Harbor. As they passed it port-to-port, they could just make out some crewmen waving to them. They waved back, automatically, even though they couldn’t be seen inside the bridge. Over the next several hours the sightings became less and less frequent until it seemed as though they were alone in an empty, gray world.

  Mitch looked down at the compass and frowned. “Shouldn’t we be heading sort of south? I mean we are headed for the Straits of Gibraltar aren’t we. Last time I looked at a map that was, like, east and south of New England.”

  “We’re not sailing on a map, genius, we’re sailing on a globe. The bearing to sail is a geodesic, a great circle route, the shortest distance between two points on the globe. But we’re not heading for Gibraltar at the moment, anyway. We are headed for the Azores. Santa Cruz de Graciosa is our first landfall.”

  “We’re going to stop in the Azores? I thought we were going non-stop for Israel. Can’t we make it in one run?”

  “We are going non-stop, but it is some 3,000 nautical miles to Gibraltar and we don’t want to miss it, so we pass Santa Cruz as a way point, a check, just to be sure we are on target. From here, our bearing to Santa Cruz is 82 degrees, which is somewhat north of east, past Nova Scotia. And as of now we have,” he looked over toward a relay rack filled with electronics, where banks of nixie tubes flashed their glowing neon-orange figures, “only 1844 nautical miles to go. In this leg, that is. All told we cover some 5000 nautical miles before we turn tail and come back rich.

  “Okay, everything is hunky-dory up here. Time to take you guys on a grand tour.”

  “Shouldn’t somebody, you know, stay up here and stand watch or something?” Mitch asked.

  “What for? Like I said, this thing sails itself. Besides, what would you do? Do you know any of this stuff?”

  “No, do you?”

  “Yeah, obviously. Or mostly. When I was sixteen my uncle took me and my folks on a cruise in the Caribbean. He showed me how to work everything. Even let me take the helm. You can do it manually if you have to, like we just did coming out of Boston. And we’ll need to do it again as we go through the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, which gets pretty busy. But, for now, it’s just chug away at 28 knots over open water. The autopilot will keep the heading, the radar will warn us of obstacles, and we can take it easy. So, welcome aboard.” He winked. “Allow me to show you to your cabins.”

  He held the door from the bridge to the outside open. Deb started down the steep metal ste
ps, but Mitch hung back. “You go ahead, I’ll stay up here and keep a look out. I’ll have plenty of time later to see the rest of the ship. Besides, I like it up here. Great view!”

  “Okay, suit yourself,” Jef said and followed Deb down the steps. The metal door slammed behind them.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Mitch started studying the equipment. He didn’t like being either ignorant or out of control.

  25

  Lulled by the steady vibration of the engines and absorbed in reading, Mitch was unaware of passing time. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a stack of manuals that he had found in a drawer under the chart table when the door to the bridge swung open, sending a blast of chill air across the room. He looked up from the manual he was reading and gasped. “Wasserman! What the …? How the hell did you get here? Oh, shit!”

  “Your friend told me to go someplace, and I knew you were going someplace, so I got in the van. But then I thought that maybe Jef or you might be mad at me, so I decided to hide. I wanted to find out where you were going. I didn’t want you to leave me alone. Did I surprise you? Are you mad?”

  “My God, you did. You surprised me, all right. Yes, yes I’m mad. Shit, this is a problem. We’re already, like, a hundred fifty miles out. We can’t just drop you off at the next T stop. And I still don’t get how you got here. Where did you hide? Where were you?”

  “I was in the toolbox in the van. But it was getting too cold, and the wind was getting louder, so I came up here to tell you to turn around and take me back. I don’t think I like boats.”

  “Wasserman, we are not going back. I just don’t know what we are going to do with you.” Mitch stood up and started pacing back and forth. When he looked out the windows he realized that the wind had picked up, blowing the sea into a latticework of frothy waves. Now, with the horizon as a reference, Mitch became aware that the ship had developed a small but definite roll.

  As Mitch turned in his pacing, he noticed a blinking arrow beside one of the orange numbers. He frowned.

  “I don’t know what that means; I’ll have to look it up.”

  “That’s millibars,” said Wasserman.

  “I can read the label, I just don’t know what it means.”

  “A bar is one atmosphere, one hundred kilopascals. Average normal sea level pressure is 101.325 kilopascals.”

  “Look, damn it, I know all that, or I mean I don’t care how many pascals make a millibar or a Hersey bar or a sand bar. I just don’t know what that,” he pointed at the blinking arrow and the number next to it, “means for us and for the ship.”

  “It’s obvious,” said Wasserman, starting his nervous habit of rocking back and forth. “The pressure is falling. It’s already well below normal at 997 millibars. We should turn around. There’s a storm coming, you know. We need to get into port. We don’t want to be in a ship in a storm. It could be a big storm, like a hurricane.”

  “Wait a minute. What did you say?”

  “It’s obvious, the pressure is falling. It’s already well below normal at 997 millibars. We…”

  Mitch cut him off. “No, about the storm.”

  “I said it could be a big storm, like a hurricane.”

  “That’s it! My God, it must be Hurricane Ginny. It must have turned north. I’ve got to get a weather report.” He looked around. “Okay, this must be the shortwave radio. No, wait, this is what I want. “ He flicked a switch and suddenly the room filled with a thundering hiss, like the sound of Niagara Falls from the observation deck. He quickly turned down the volume, then started slowly twisting a knob, scanning across the dial. When he finally found what he was looking for, the news was not good. The storm that had been tracking almost due east out to sea only the day before was now racing north-northeast at more than 20 knots, picking up energy from the warm waters of the Atlantic.

  “Look, Wasserman, I just want you to stay here and watch out until I get back. I have to go find Jef. He’ll know what to do.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “Just watch. Pay attention. Listen to the radio. But don’t touch anything.” Wasserman took his hand off the railing by the window that he had been holding. “No, just don’t touch any of the equipment. When I get back with Jef, you tell us about whatever you saw and heard. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mitch’s heart was pounding as he raced down the stairs. He suddenly realized he had no idea where to go. They could be anywhere, and the ship was huge. It had originally been built to carry a crew of two hundred. Jef had said that, after conversion, there were 12 large staterooms plus a master suite. Mitch took a guess and headed down the first hallway with the lights on. He opened a door with a nameplate that said “Agneta.” It opened on a bedroom finished in bright yellows, a room so large it dwarfed the enormous four-poster bed to one side and the desk, bureau, and vanity along the other. It was empty.

  The next door was marked “Bertina” and was finished in shades of pink and peach. It, too, was empty. By the third room, “Catrijn,” he had figured out the pattern: Dutch names of girls. By the time he reached the quiet greens of the “Linde” stateroom, he was doing no more than swinging the door open, giving the room a perfunctory sweep, and closing the door again. That was it. Nothing. The corridor ended at another set of stairs. Up or down? he thought. Up, of course. he bounded up the flight and stepped into a short hall that ended in a small foyer. It was dark, but by the light spilling over from the stairwell he could see the wide double doors ahead, each with a bright brass knocker at its center. He reached for one of the knockers, then hesitated. He tried the knob. It turned, and the door swung open.

  The scene before him resolved slowly, like a photographic print in a darkroom tray, the image gradually darkening and sharpening as the chemicals gently washed over it, pulling the hidden picture from within. Across an expanse of blood-red oriental carpeting was yet another four-poster bed. But the bed, ornate though it was, was not what drew Mitch’s attention. He stared instead at the rolling waves in the muscles of Deb’s back as she arched and twisted, arched and twisted. He had never in his short life seen anything so hypnotic, so painfully beautiful. A small, choked cry involuntarily escaped from his throat.

  “Jesus, Mitch! Knock, will you,” Jef barked at him.

  Deb slowly turned and gave Mitch a lopsided smile. “It’s all right. Mitch is cool, aren’t you, Mitch. We’ll be up top in a bit. Okay?”

  Mitch stared at her breasts for a moment, watching a drop of sweat fall from her left nipple. “I …” He took a deep breath. “I think you better come up to the bridge. Now. I … oh shit, this … this … not another.” He started to shake.

  Deb pulled herself off of Jef, who protested and tried to hold her back, but she crossed the room and put her arms around Mitch. The sharp pungency of her sweat and the musky smell of sex washed over him as she held him. He tried to straighten up, to stop the shaking, but he was suddenly cold.

  “It’s okay, Mitch. It’s okay. Everything is all right. The trip isn’t over you know. You never know what might happen next. Right?”

  Mitch bit his lip and pulled back. “Look, I may look like just a kid, but I’m a big boy. I don’t need charity. Or sympathy. It’s just that, well, a lot is going wrong. You better come up to the bridge and see for yourself.”

  “Can’t it wait?” said Jef impatiently from across the room. He had a pleading, expectant look on his face, like a puppy eager to chase sticks.

  “Fuck! You do what you want. You fuck until your dick falls off, for all I care, but I’m going back up to the bridge. Maybe Wasserman and I can figure out what to do about the hurricane.” He stomped out and slammed the door behind him. Before he could start up the stairs, Jef rushed out, pulling his pants on, trying to get his penis stuffed in.

  “What the hell was that about Wasserman? And what hurricane? That thing down off the Carolinas was heading out to sea and petering out.”

  “Well, it changed its mind, then, because now it’s
making right for us and kicking up 90 mile-an-hour winds. The barometer is already falling, and if you guys weren’t so busy with your bedroom pushups you might have noticed the seas have picked up, too.”

  Jef reached out and put his hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry. It just happened, you know. Win some, lose some. Who can fathom the female mind, right?”

  “I heard that, Jef Vries,” Deb said, straightening her hair as she emerged from the bedroom. “Nobody won or lost anything.” She pushed past him and took Mitch’s hand. “Come on, sport, let’s go up to the bridge and see what we can do. Wait a minute. Did you say Wasserman? Wasserman is on board?”

  By the time they reached the bridge, Wasserman looked like he was on the edge of panic. His rocking had increased to a dizzying pace. “I did what you said. I watched and listened and I didn’t touch anything. I waited, like you said.”

  “Good. That’s good, Wasserman,” Mitch said, giving him a gentle pat. “So what’s up?”

  “Well, the barometer is still falling, down to 995 millibars. I heard the radio, too. There was a warning from the Coast Guard that Hurricane Ginny was a category two now. That means winds over 100 miles an hour.”

  “Did they say where it was? Do you remember?”

  “Well, they had a picture of it on TV, they said. They used the new satellite to take a picture of it from space. It’s the first time. It covers half the ocean.”

  Jef paced impatiently. “I don’t care about a goddamn picture from space. We don’t have a television, and it wouldn’t help if we did. Just tell me where it is.”

  Mitch stood next to Wasserman and told him to go on about what he knew.

  “Okay, at 18:00 GMT it was at 35.1 degrees north and 71.5 west and the pressure in the eye was only 968 millibars. 968!”

  Jef shook his head in disbelief. “Does he remember everything to three decimal places?”

  “That’s all they gave,” Wasserman answered. “They only gave three decimal places.”