The Jerusalem Inception by Avraham Azrieli Read Free Book Online

left you defenseless. And for what? To hunt down Germans—an infantile revenge when the ultimate payback would have been us! ”
    “Us?”
    “A family. Children. A new life. Isn’t that what the Nazis had set out to destroy?”
    She looked at him, finding traces of her Abraham under the untrimmed beard and premature wrinkles.
    “When I saw those boots, the blood,” he cleared his throat, as if the memory was choking him, “I lost hope, felt like I was dead, but still alive.”
    “So you rediscovered God?”
    He sneered. “There’s no God.”
    “But—”
    “You of all people should know. You saw their assembly-lines of death, the factories of extermination, whole families, whole villages.”
    She nodded.
    “You saw the innocent children. Pregnant women. Rabbis whose lives had been dedicated to worship, to the glory of God. How could He exist? It makes no sense, unless He is ruthless and evil and a menace, a graceless Almighty, who deserves neither undue recognition, nor unanswered prayers!”
    Tanya glanced at the volumes of Talmud and other holy books lining the bookshelves.
    He waved his hand in dismissal at the wall of books. “The Holocaust proved God doesn’t exist. No God worth His divinity would allow it to happen.”
    “So why are you here?” She touched his beard. “I don’t understand.”
    “After the war, Elie and I went to the camps. We saw the gas chambers, the crematoria, the skeletal survivors. I realized there was a purpose to my survival. I must prevent another Holocaust.”
    He raised his hands in surrender. “My life belonged to the dead, to their legacy.”
    “And to Elie Weiss?”
    “To the Jewish people.” He showed her the palms of his hands. “I lost my faith, it’s true, but I had been raised to be a rabbi, and those were useful skills.”
    She nodded, smiling sadly. “You’re a mole among the fanatics.”
    “An agent of peace among Jews.”
    “How would this prevent another Holocaust?”
    “A strong Jewish state is a national shelter and deterrence against our enemies. As rabbi of Neturay Karta, the most extreme fundamentalist sect in Israel, I fight internal strife among Jews, which has caused the destruction of every Jewish state in history. It’s the biggest risk to our sovereign continuity. No one could do it better—I possess the rabbinical skills, but I am a realist, a secret atheist, a devout nationalist who’s willing to do what it takes to control Jewish fanatics from destroying Israel. It’s my destiny! Don’t you see it?”
    Again she saw a biblical prophet, not her Abraham. “And what’s our destiny? You and I. To be apart?”
    “That’s our private tragedy. Yes.” He sighed. “Where did you hide all these years?”
    “I went where Elie wouldn’t find me. Berlin.”
    Redness spread from his eyebrows upward through his forehead, the sign of anger she remembered from the snowy forests in 1945. “How could you go back? To them? ”
    “It’s easier to hide in ruins.”
    “Did you find another Nazi lover?”
    It felt like a slap in the face. “I gave birth at an American field hospital and helped them interrogate SS captives. Later, I joined Aliyah Bet , then the Mossad.”
    He sat on the cot, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the right to judge you.”
    She noticed he didn’t ask about the child. “I’ve been happy, considering. I work with terrific, idealistic colleagues. Israel is stronger because of our clandestine work.”
    “How smart, to hide within the secret service. But Elie found you eventually.”
    “Took him twenty-one years.”
    “How?”
    “I earned a citation for a successful operation. He saw my name at the prime minister’s office. A stroke of bad luck, I guess. But we can turn it into good luck.” She watched his expression. “We can defy his manipulations, start all over, together!”
    Abraham smiled. “Oh, how I wish we could.”
    “We’re still young enough to start a new family, raise kids