Read Online Blood Rules by John Trenhaile - Free Book Online Page A

rose, towering over Raful until the other man actually felt himself to be in shadow. He, too, stood up. He tucked the envelope under his arm. The fingers of his right hand traced their way down a chain leading from his waistband into his trouser pocket, and there they sought keys. He led the way out of his office and set off down the north corridor. At the far end was a door with a number on it. When he inserted a key and opened it, the hinges creaked. Evidently this place was not often used, for the two men left traces in the dust on the floor as they entered.
    Raful watched his friend’s face, seeking a reaction. Any reaction would have done: reproof, contempt, sorrow, pity. But nothing scratched Avshalom’s slatelike visage. He looked around slowly, like the good intelligence officer he was, taking in the whitewashed walls, the desk and table, the man-high safe.
    There was scarcely room for both of them in this cupboard, with its single tiny window. Avshalom approached the table, perhaps noting how neatly arranged were the teddy bear, the brush-and-comb set, school yearbook, and graduation certificate. And the photograph.
    Neither man spoke for perhaps five minutes. It sounds so little; when we want to indicate a brief, barely noticeable interval of time we say, “Oh, five minutes,” but three hundred seconds from now can be a long, long time.
    “Some people believe … “ Avshalom had picked up the photo of Sara, taken on her graduation day, and was examining it. Now he turned to face Raful, as if he too needed to record a reaction, any reaction. “Some people believe that you keep a woman in here, Raful.” His attempt at good-humored laughter was a dreadful failure. “Some say, We need the office space, the Director has no right to keep it locked up, him having the only key.”
    “Some say this is where I make my nightly broadcasts to Baghdad and Damascus.”
    “But we checked. And you don’t.”
    It hit Raful to know they had actually checked. Hit and hurt him. Such an unprofessional reaction. But then, preserving this room in the heart of the Mossad’s nerve center was in itself so unprofessional that perhaps the implications it carried for others had passed him by.
    “Why not keep it all at home, Raful?”
    Because he had tried that, and it hurt too much to have her paraphernalia around him while he ate, when he slept or tried to sleep, and he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. Perhaps Avshalom guessed at least part of this answer from Raful’s haggard expression, for he said, “You can’t go on living it forever. There must come a time …”
    “Never.”
    “A time for letting go, Raful. Not for forgiveness, but—”
    “She was blown apart, Avshalom.” Raful swallowed. He could feel moisture on his own cheeks and he hated himself for that weakness, but the other man’s austerity, his coldness, somehow drove him on. “Nothing left. Nothing you could identify.” His voice rose to a wail, fell silent. He tried again. “She was twenty-two, she was lovely.” He took the photograph from Avshalom and stared at it, shaking his head from side to side, as if by doing that he could somehow stem the tears that by now were flooding down his cheeks. “And they drove metal splinters through her face, her stomach, her legs…. ” He raised his eyes to Avshalom, a child pleading to be let off the rest. “They butchered her. She went to a party, a friend’s engagement party, and they cut her up. She’d had no life to speak of. It was all starting for her. Avshalom, Avshalom …
what if they’d done it to your Yigal?”
    Avshalom Gazit turned away, saying nothing for a while. At last he expelled a heavy sigh and said, “Open the envelope. Open it.”
    Sharett sat down at the small school desk. He had to wipe his eyes several times. At last he broke the red seals.
    The envelope contained some fifty sheets of paper, typewritten, single-spaced. He skimmed through, finding the report to be in two