So far Lessing had had an easy time of it. His captors did indeed strip him, search him, and issue him the inevitable blue jogging suit. They then put him into a comfortable cell — more like a room in a college dormitory — which contained a bed, a toilet, a washstand, a table that folded out from the wall, and a chair. The food was edible, and he had no complaints about his treatment. A Spartan might have griped about too much luxury!
He did have a bad moment at first, trying to hide the Khalifa’s zombie pill; yet it turned out to be simple. The Izzies weren’t expecting him to be carrying anything. A dentist inspected his teeth for suicide capsules, and the body search was humiliating, but that was all. He easily wiggled his tiny treasure out of his head bandage and into a seam in the jogging suit without anyone seeing. Later he transferred it to the hollow metal tube of the toilet-paper fixture in his cell. It was still there the last time he had looked.
No one suspected him of having anything to do with Pacov — no one here in Israel, anyway. Of this he was certain. Through Sonny and his guards, Lessing kept track of the influenza that had struck Israel recently, but he had no way of telling whether it was the first kiss of Pacov-1 ‘s silvery scythe or just the usual winter blahs. When two weeks passed without incident, he began to think that Pacov-2’s black cylinder had not ruptured — or was ineffective — or had been found and neutralized when Richmond’s corpse was prepared for burial. Perhaps they had planted it with him. What irony: bloody-minded old Richmond pushing up Pacov-scented daisies!
Why weren’t the Izzies curious about the contents of Richmond’s pockets? Few people carry around a glassine envelope containing shards of mirror-bright plastic and an eroded-looking black cylinder. In this post-Pacov age it was impossible not to be suspicious of such bric-a-brac! Had both containers decayed beyond recognition? Perhaps some hapless sailor had stolen the black cylinder, thinking it was valuable — or a morgue attendant — or one of Richmond’s relatives to whom the body had been handed over?
Where was Pacov-2?
A related puzzle: why weren’t Richmond’s superiors asking questions? Whoever had sent him must believe that the mission had failed — that the kikibird had never found Lessing’s Pacov — otherwise they’d already be here. Still, wouldn’t they send out some other poor sucker — a martyr or an unwitting human sacrifice — to check?
Sonny did ask about Richmond, the pit dug in Lessing’s living room floor, and the execution of Bauer. Lessing had aplausible story ready: Richmond had been greedy, working for himself as well as his handlers, and Bauer had tried to buy his life with a cache of SS documents — and Lessing’s cash reserve for Club Lingahnie operations. Sonny ingested this without blinking. Whether he believed it was something else; the man was no fool.
The zillion-dollar question was Pacov-2 itself. If the tube were intact there was no immediate problem. Not now. But later? Ever? If it had ruptured, the possibilities were dreadful. In spite of his earlier resolve, Lessing found he had no stomach for genocide. From Sonny’s window hecould see men, women, and children. Most were Israelis, but some were Arabs or foreigners. He had no feelings for them, neither love nor hate; yet he did not want them to die because of him.
What choice did he — and they — have anyway? If Pacov were truly loose, he couldn’t save them. They would all be infected by now. Any person who didn’t swallow a zombie pill — who knew when! — and assuming the stuff worked — was dead. Running wouldn’t help, even if there were some place to run. Why cause a senseless panic? Let Pacov ‘s customers enjoy their last days in happy ignorance.
His logic gave him no peace. He couldn’t sleep. The prison doctor prescribed sleeping pills.
Sonny seemed genuinely concerned. “What’re you scared of, Lessing? You haven’t been hurt… and you’re a lot safer here with us than with your Nazi buddies. In a month or two, after the excitement about Ponape dies down, we’ll let you go, and you can rejoin your old mere unit. Colonel Copley’s working for us now, up near Sverdlovsk Did you know?”
Lessing did not enlighten him. He decided that Pacov — Death, God, the Devil, Mother Nature, the Tooth Fairy — whoever or whatever — must take its course.
He also discovered that his own private grief came first. The fate of the world no longer concerned him. All he wanted was to mourn Jameela, secretly, alone, down in the innermost sanctuary of his soul.
Jameela….
She was always there. He never saw her as the vivacious girl he had loved in Lucknow, nor even the out-of-place housewife she became later on Ponape. No, she appeared always as a silent huddle of silver and ice-blue on their bedroom floor. Over and over again he felt the limp, lolling looseness when he raised her head, and he smelled her sandalwood perfume mingled with acrid gunpowder and the reek of blood. He dreamed— he couldn’t help it— and he awoke with his cheeks wet with tears.
Real men don’t cry? Bullshit! It’s the real men who do cry.
Sonny wouldn’t talk about the raid on Club Lingahnie. An Indian woman? Who could say? The Izzie commandos kept no tally of enemy casualties, he said. They struck efficiently, thumbed any who got in their way, and left again. Sonny wouldn’t even admit to the existence of other prisoners, although Lessing had seen Abu Talib and thought he had glimpsed Mrs. Delacroix back on the destroyer. No, Sonny preferred to talk about golf, glitter, and girls instead.
This morning the two taciturn guards ushered Lessing to the “visitor’s chair” in Sonny’s office and departed. He immediately got up and went to look out of the window, his sole contact with the external world. People, cars, vans, army vehicles, bicycles— everything appeared normal. But weren’t there too many soldiers? And why was that convoy of military ambulances and medical trucks travelling north, toward Jerusalem’s new Kahane Airport? Nablus, Ramallah, and the highway eastward to Syria and Iraq lay in that direction, too. Was the convoy going to join Israel’s forces in southern Russia— or was it racing toward a sudden outbreak of a disease no one dared name?
He was being paranoid. There was nothing wrong down on the street. People smiled, talked, argued, hawked their wares, and bustled or dawdled as they saw fit. The newspaper peddlers squatted idly beside their bundles; no mob clamored to read of disaster . The boy with the boom-box on his shoulder was swinging along in time to some catchy rhythm, not listening to emergency reports of spreading death. The twoblack-garbed Orthodox rabbis were debating theology — or dinner — and not the end of the world.
Sonny came in scowling. Behind him was another, white-haired man, a dignified bureaucrat in a blue-black suit and conservative, charcoal tie.
Lessing knew at once that this was no Israeli; this was trouble.
His stomach sank.
“Mr. Shapiro, Alan Lessing.” Sonny said. He sat down and pointed the newcomer to a chair.
Shapiro didn’t sit. He walked around behind Lessing, looking at
him from all angles.
“Want to see my tail?” Lessing inquired mildly. “That s where I’ve got my swastika tattooed… right up underneath it.”
“Shut up, Lessing,” Sonny ordered. “This is no joke.”
“Why isn’t this man classified as a Section Six?” Shapiro spoke over Lessing’s head. His flat, nasal accent was American: probably New York City.