The Jerusalem Inception - By Avraham Azrieli Page 0,4

leaving a dark trail of blood. The car wreck must have injured her.

“Shoot her in the leg,” Elie ordered. “Pain will make her talk.”

“She’s bleeding already,” Abraham said. “A lot.”

“Do it!”

She raised her hand to stop him, shut her eyes, and recited, “Shmah Israel, Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.”

Elie was shocked by the words of the ancient covenant. A Jewish woman travelling with a Nazi general? Shedding tears for the dead monster? He ignited the cigarette lighter. In the small flame, her face was shockingly beautiful, the angelic features of a woman-child, her green eyes wide and moist.

Abraham stashed the gun in his belt, dropped to his knees, and took her hand. His face was fresh, cheeks red from cold, chin marked by the shadow of a beard. His blue eyes sat large in his face, filled with compassion under the shock of blond hair. “Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God.” He pulled out a dirty handkerchief and wiped her forehead. “But there’s no God. No Adonai. If only He existed!”

She touched Abraham’s lips, silencing him, and Elie killed the lighter.

“What’s your name?” Abraham slipped his hands under her and lifted her up effortlessly.

“Tanya.” Her eyes turned to the dead Nazi lying in the snow. “Tanya Galinski.”

Grabbing her arm, Elie said, “You grieve for him? Why?”

“Leave her alone,” Abraham said.

“Where is his ledger?” Elie pointed to the corpse. “He kept a record!”

“Enough with the questions.” Abraham turned, carrying her, and stumbled. But he regained his footing and kept going. “She needs a doctor.”

“Did he give it to you?” Elie felt up the fur coat. “Tell me!”

Tanya rested her head in the small of Abraham’s neck, and he carried her through the snow back to the road and down toward the village. It started snowing again, and the ground quivered under the distant bombardment. The Battle of the Bulge lit up the western horizon with a glowing, man-made dawn, as if the first day of 1945 was eager to begin.

Four months later …

Chapter 2

Tanya woke up warm. She felt Abraham’s breath on the back of her neck, found his hand, and guided it to her breast. The morning sun filtered through the pitched tarp they used as a makeshift tent, the light accentuating the printed swastikas that lined the edges. The forest around them was quiet after an early spring storm had left a thick, white layer that buried all sounds.

The night at the border seemed to belong in another lifetime. The tumbling Mercedes had left her with a badly slashed thigh. The bleeding would have killed her, but Abraham had brought her downhill to the village and found a doctor, who cleaned the wound and stitched it up. For several weeks, the three of them had hidden in the forest while a feverish Tanya teetered between reality and delusion. Abraham nursed her while Elie kept his distance. One day, when she was well enough to wash in a stream, two armed German deserters happened upon her, grinning at the sight of a young woman to be had. Elie cut one’s throat while Abraham broke the other’s neck. Their ruthlessness left Tanya both shaken and reassured.

Once she had recovered, Abraham and Elie resumed their daily hunting for vulnerable Germans and scraps of food. She stayed in the forest, scouring for edible plants. Her past life of Nazi upper-crust luxury had become a distant memory, replaced by a struggle for survival. The occasional longing she felt for Klaus and his calm affection grew rare while an overwhelming passion ignited between her and Abraham, who treated her growing belly as lovingly as he treated the rest of her body.

Tanya reached back, found his head, and caressed the blond hair, which had grown long enough to curl at the ends. He purred, his mouth against her nape, making her shiver. The air was cold, and she blew through rounded lips, her breath making saucers of steam.

Abraham pulled the blankets back over their heads, pressed his naked body against her back, and kissed her ear. He capped her breast with one hand while the other went down and began to pleasure her. She surrendered to the rhythm of his touch, focusing on this utter joy that filled her world, and groaned with delight as he entered her.

Elie Weiss bit his fingernail, tearing it off with a length of skin. He listened to their lovemaking with a mix of fascination and fury. After so many mornings like this, he knew