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Daniel joined the only minyan still forming, a mixed quorum of Lubavitcher Hassidim and American Jewish tourists whom the Lubavitchers had corralled into praying. The tourists carried expensive cameras and wore brightly colored polo shirts, Bermuda shorts, and paper kipot that rested upon their heads with the awkwardness of a foreign headdress. Affixed to some of their shirts were tour group identification labels (Hi! im barry siegel), and most seemed baffled as the Hassidim wound phylactery straps around their arms.
Daniel's own phylacteries lay in the smaller of the velvet bags, his tallit in the larger. On a typical morning he'd recite the benediction over the tallit and wrap himself in the woolen prayer shawl, then draw out the phylacteries and unwrap them. Following a second benediction, the black cube of the arm phylactery would be placed on his bicep, its straps wound seven times around his forearm, over the scar tissue that sheathed his left hand, and laced around his fingers. After uttering yet another braha, he would center the head phylactery over his brow, just above the hairline. The placement of the cubes symbolized commitment of both mind and body to God, and thus consecrated, he would be ready to worship.
But this morning was different. Laying the bags down on a chair, he pulled the drawstring of the larger and drew out not the tallit but a siddur bound in silver. Taking up the prayer book, he turned to the Modeh Ani, the Prayer of Thanks Upon Rising, which Laufer's call had prevented him from reciting at bedside. Facing the Kotel, he chanted:
Modeh ani lefaneha, melekh hai v'kayam,
"I offer thanks to Thee, O Everlasting King."
Sheh hehezarta bi nishmati b'hemla.
"Who hast mercifully restored my soul within me."
To the Hassidim and tourists standing near him, the prayers of the small dark man seemed impassioned; his rhythmic cantillation, timeless and true. But he knew otherwise. For his devotion was encumbered by faulty concentration, his words baffled by an unwelcome hailstorm of memories. Of other souls. Those that hadn't been restored.
At ten he drove up El Muqaddas to French Hill, past the cluster of towers where Yaakov Schlesinger lived, and down to National Headquarters. The building was half a kilometer southeast of Ammunition Hill, a crisp, six-story cube of beige limestone, banded by windows and bisected by a flag tower. To the front sprawled an expensive apron of parking lot, half-filled; the entire property was hemmed by an iron fence. At the center of the fence was an electric gate controlled by a uniform inside a guard station. Daniel pulled up next to the observation window.
"Morning, Tzvika."
"Morning, Dani."
The gate opened like a yawn.
A steel revolving door provided access to the lobby. Inside, all was cool and quiet, the white marble floors spotless. A solitary woman in jeans and T-shirt sat on a bench kneading her fingers and waiting. Three uniforms stood behind the shiny black reception counter, joking and laughing, nodding at him without interrupting their conversation. He walked past them quickly, past the bomb display and the burglary prevention exhibit, ignored the elevators, swung open the door to the stairs, and bounded up to the third floor.
He stepped out into a long hallway and turned right, stopping at a plain wooden door. Only a strip of tape with his name on it distinguished it from the dozens of others that checkered the corridor. Ringing telephones and the white noise of conversation filtered through the hall in tidelike waves, but at a discreet level. Businesslike. He might have been in a law firm.
So different from the old Russian Compound, with its green copper domes and cold, dingy walls, the ancient plaster crackled like eggshell. The constant press of bodies, the eternal human parade. His cubicle had been noisy, cramped, bereft of privacy. Suspects rubbing elbows with policemen. Vine-laced leaded windows offering views of manacled suspects escorted across the courtyard, bound over for hearing at the Magistrates Hall, some shuffling, others fairly dancing to judgment. The bitter smell of sweat and fear, voices raised in the same old cantata of accusation and denial. The working space of a detective.
His Major Crimes assignment had meant a move to National Headquarters. But National Headquarters had been built with administrators in mind. Paper blizzards and the high technology of contemporary police work. Basement labs and banks of computers. Well-lit conference rooms and lecture halls. Clean, respectable. Sterile.
He turned the key. His office was spanking-white and tiny-ten by ten with a view of the parking lot. His desk, files, and shelves filled it, so that there was barely space for a single guest chair; more than one visitor meant a move to one of the interrogation rooms. On the wall was a framed batik Laura had done last summer. A pair of old Yemenite men, brown figures on a cream-colored background, dancing in ecstasy under a flaming orange swirl of sun. Next to it, a pictorial calendar from the Conservation League, this month's illustration a pair of young almond trees in full snowy blossom against a backdrop of gray rolling hills.
He squeezed behind the desk. The surface was clear except for a snapshot cube of Laura and the children and a stack of mail. At the top of the stack was a message to call Laufer if he had anything to report, some Research and Development questio
He put the report aside, picked up the phone, dialed the main switchboard, and got put on hold. After waiting for several moments, he hung up, dialed again, and was answered by an operator with a cheerful voice. Identifying himself, he gave her three names and left messages for them to contact him as soon as possible.
She read the names back to him and he said, "Perfect. There's one more, a Samal Avi Cohen. New hire. Try Perso
"Okay. Shalom."
"Shalom."
The next number he tried was busy. Rather than wait, he left and climbed to the fourth floor.
The office he entered was one-third larger than his, but it housed two people. A pair of desks had been placed in an L. On the wall behind them, a single shelf held books, a collection of straw dolls, and a sachet that emitted a light aroma of patchouli.