Legends

“I am only asking the questions that we’re instructed to put to all the passengers.” She addressed Stella. “I see from your tickets that you both came to Israel from Athens. But your friend is flying to London and you are flying to New York. If you’re traveling together, why are you no longer traveling together?”

“I’m returning to New York to bury Kastner,” Stella explained.

“Who is Kastner?”

“My father.”

“You call your father by his family name?”

“I call my father whatever I damn well decide to call him.”

The young woman said, “So your father is dead.” She jotted something on the space reserved for comments.

“I’m not planning to bury him alive, if that’s what you mean.”

The woman remained unfazed. “You are traveling under an American passport but you speak English with a slight East European accent.”

“It’s a Russian accent, actually. I immigrated to the United States from Russia nine years ago.”

“At that period Soviet borders were not open to people who wanted to emigrate. How did you get out of the Soviet Union?”

Stella squinted at her interrogator. “My father and my sister and I went on vacation to the Black Sea in Bulgaria. The American CIA slipped us Greek passports and we joined a tour ship returning through the Bosporus to Piraeus.”

The two female soldiers exchanged looks. “Airport security is not a joking matter,” snapped the one searching the luggage.

“There was a time in my life when I was paid for being funny,” Stella retorted. “This is not one of them.”

The young woman with the clipboard raised a walkie-talkie to her lips and muttered something in Hebrew. “Wait here a moment,” she ordered. She walked over to two men in civilian clothing and, pointing with her face at Stella and Martin, said something to them. One of the men pulled a small notebook from his pocket and thumbed through it until he came to the page he was looking for. He glanced over at Martin and then handed the female soldier an envelope. The girl shrugged. Returning to the table, she passed the envelope to Martin. “You can close your valises and check in now.”

“What was that all about?” Stella asked Martin after they had presented their passports and boarding passes and gone up the escalator to the vast waiting room.

Martin slit open the envelope with a forefinger and unfolded the sheaf of paper in it. “Uh-huh,” he muttered.

“Uh-huh what?”

“My old Mossad friend, the one who fed me pot-luck supper, says the magnetic tapes showing incoming and outgoing calls from Kiryat Arba were erased, just as the rabbi said. But they weren’t erased by error. The Mossad did it as a favor for their CIA colleagues.”

“The plot thickens!”

“We knew the CIA didn’t want me to find Samat—my old boss told me as much when she invited me down to the Chinese restaurant.” Martin thought about the exploding honey that had killed Minh and the two bullets that a sniper had shot at him in Hebron. He led Stella to one of the rows of plastic seats out of earshot of other passengers. “How did things go with your sister after I left?”

“She tried to talk me into staying in Israel. What would I do here?”

Martin said, “Israel is also a pressure cooker—you could go around telling anti-Israeli jokes for a living.”

“Very funny. As a matter of fact I know a good one. The rabbi told it to me. Question: What is anti-Semitism? Answer: Hating Jews more than necessary.”

“That’s not funny,” Martin said.

“What’s funny about it,” Stella insisted angrily, “is that it’s not funny. I could kick myself for trying to make someone without a sense of humor laugh.”

“My pal Dante had a sense of humor,” Martin said, a faraway look in his eyes. “He left it in a room over a bar in Beirut.”

Stella decided to change the subject. “Samat’s uncle sounds like a real Russian mobster.”

“I thought he could give me an idea where to start looking for Samat. He said if he knew where to look he wouldn’t need me.”

“Do you think Samat really ran off with all that money? What will his uncle do if he catches up with him?”

A voice over the public address system announced that the flight to London was about to start boarding. Martin climbed to his feet. “What will he do to him? I suppose he’ll tickle him to death.”

Stella said, “You’re stepping out of character and telling a joke.” Squinting, she studied Martin’s face. “Okay, you’re not telling a joke.” Around them passengers were collecting their hand luggage and starting to head toward the stairs leading to the boarding gate. “I wish I were going with you. I’m getting used to your sense of humor.”

“I thought you said I didn’t have one.”

“That’s the part I’m getting used to.” She stood and grazed his elbow with the back of her hand. “I hope against hope you’ll call me from London.”

His eyes took in the triangle of pale skin on her chest. “I admire your ability to hope against hope.”

She toyed nervously with the first button on her shirt that was buttoned. “Maybe I can infect you.”

“Not likely. I’ve been inoculated.”