The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,51

and Jericho there was jubilation. Another martyr, another dead Jew. God is great. Soon Palestine will be free again.

Ten miles south of Caesarea was Netanya. New apartment towers, white and balconied, rose from the dunes and cliff tops along the edge of the Mediterranean, conferring upon the city an outward air of Rivieran opulence. The interior quarters, however, retained the khaki Bauhaus grit of pioneer Israel. Dina found a space on the street outside the Park Hotel, where a Hamas suicide bomber murdered thirty people during Passover in 2002, and walked with Natalie to Independence Square. A squadron of young boys played a game of tag around the fountain, watched over by women in ankle-length skirts and headscarves. The women, like the children, were speaking French. So were the habitués of the cafés along the edge of the esplanade. Usually, they were overrun in late afternoon, but now, in the fading tawny light, there were plenty of tables to be had. Soldiers and police kept watch. The fear, thought Dina, was palpable.

“Do you see them?”

“There,” replied Natalie, pointing across the square. “They’re at their usual table at Chez Claude.” It was one of several new establishments that catered to Netanya’s growing French-Jewish community. “Would you like to meet them? They’re really quite lovely.”

“You go. I’ll wait here.”

Dina sat on a bench at the edge of the fountain and watched Natalie moving across the esplanade, the ends of the blue hijab dancing like pennants against her white blouse. Blue and white, observed Dina. How wonderfully Israeli. Unconsciously, she rubbed her damaged leg. It pained her at the damnedest times—when she was tired, when she was under stress, or, she thought, watching Natalie, when she regretted her behavior.

Natalie walked a straight line to the café. Her father, lean, gray, and very dark from the sea and the sun, looked up first, surprised to see his daughter coming toward him across the paving stones of the square, dressed as an Israeli flag. He placed a hand on his wife’s arm and nodded in Natalie’s direction, and a smile spread over the old woman’s noble face. It was Natalie’s face, thought Dina, Natalie in thirty years. Would Israel survive another thirty years? Would Natalie?

Natalie swerved from her path, but only to avoid a child, a girl of seven or eight, chasing down a stray ball. Then she kissed her parents in the French fashion, on each cheek, and sat down in one of the two empty chairs. It was the chair that, perhaps not coincidentally, presented Dina with her back. Dina watched the older woman’s face. Her smile evaporated as Natalie recited the words Gabriel had composed for her. I’m going to be away for a while. It’s important you not try to contact me. If anyone asks, say I’m doing some important research and can’t be disturbed. No, I can’t tell you what it’s about, but someone from the government will be coming around to check on you. Yes, I’ll be safe.

The stray ball was now bounding toward Dina. She captured it beneath her foot and with a flick of her ankle sent it back toward the girl of seven or eight, a small act of kindness that sent a stab of pain down her leg. She ignored it, for Natalie was again kissing the cheeks of her parents, this time in farewell. As she crossed the square, the setting sun on her face, the blue scarf fluttering in the breeze, a single tear streaked her face. Natalie was beautiful, observed Dina, even when she was crying. She rose and followed her back to the car, which was parked outside the crumbling hotel where thirty had died on a sacred night. It’s what we do, Dina told herself as she shoved the key into the ignition. It’s who we are. It’s the only way we are going to survive in this land. It is our punishment for having survived.

PART TWO

ONE OF US

21

NAHALAL, ISRAEL

NEXT MORNING THE STAFF OF Hadassah Medical Center was informed via e-mail that Dr. Natalie Mizrahi would be taking an extended leave of absence. The announcement was thirty words in length and a masterpiece of bureaucratic murk. No reason was given for the sabbatical, no date of return was mentioned. This left the staff with no option but to speculate about the reasons for Natalie’s sudden departure, a pursuit they engaged in freely, for it gave them something to talk about other than the stabbings. There were rumors of a serious