Serializing a new novel.
Chapter 21: Belem—New York City, November 2001
— Part 3
Fay and Eli are back in New York City, after months and
months in the Amazon jungle. As Pedro had written on his
farewell note, "You have enemies in America." They narrowly
escaped a murder attempt as they were about to enter their
apartment, and managed to hide in a staff closet of their
apartment building.
*
Fay and Eli began to get used to the dim lighting. They saw
the uniforms of the cleaners hanging on hooks in the
cupboard. Some time later, when silence reigned in the
corridor, they went down by the service elevator.
Two men sitting in a car and watching, took little notice of
a woman in an old housecoat, her face hidden as she munched a
large chunk of bread, while a man next to her, wearing
stained blue overalls, walked beside her with a cardboard box
tied with string on his shoulders. The couple made for the
subway across the street and then disappeared down the
steps.
"Seen anything?" came the voice on the cell phone.
"Nope, not a thing," was the confident reply.
Eli and Fay found they had just enough loose change to buy
subway tickets. Some time later they were walking through an
area familiar to them.
"Why are we going to the shul?" said Fay.
"Well, I think it would be a good idea to bench gomel,"
said Eli. "Also I think I could have the solution to
where we can stay, where no one will think of looking for us.
Maurice said that the rent is still being paid by Dean on my
parent's old apartment. I didn't tell you at the time, but do
you remember that day I went with Dean to get rid of the
furniture and hand back the keys?
"Remember? That was the day I brought home my father's
siddur and tefillin and you took them from me.
I just couldn't get rid of everything and give up the
apartment. Instead I went with Dean to the real estate
offices and paid the rent for the following year. Then I
called my friend David who looks after the shul and
said they could use it for anyone who was in need of housing
for a short time. I hope that it is free at the moment."
The neighbors were used to people moving into number 18 at
odd times. They took no notice of a middle-aged couple
carrying only a small suitcase who moved into the apartment
late one afternoon accompanied by David from the little
shul down the road. David often brought people to the
apartment. They stayed for a period of time and then left.
Fay looked around as they entered. "Nothing has changed," she
said.
"We changed," Eli said.
"We were happy here with so little," Fay responded. "After
our time in the jungle this is luxurious, don't you
think?"
However she was remembering their companionship in those
early days of marriage, the way they had worked together and
planned together. She was thinking of the happy times when
they had sat together at the Seder table, when she had
listened to her husband making Kiddush when he
returned from shul and Havdalah to mark the end of
Shabbos. It seemed to her that in those days their life had a
richness that the later days of plenty took away, with little
except expensive furnishings and clothes to replace it.
In the jungle Eli had begin to regret the absence of wine and
tefillin and candles for Havdalah. Now that all
this was available, would he make use of it?
David watched as they spoke. He had watched years ago as his
friends had worked long hours in the small grocery shop. He
had watched as they made money and moved away from the old
neighborhood and changed their appearance and their way of
life.
Now he saw that they had changed once again. Their appearance
was close to that of the old days. In the jungle they had
both lost weight. Eli had a black kippah on his head.
Fay was dressed in a simple modest dress and her hair was
covered with a kerchief.
Little did any of them in the room realize that this changed
appearance had meant their safe passage from the airport. Two
men with guns and silencers had been waiting for them. They
had disabled the lawyer's car. They had a false taxicab
waiting. All they had to do was identify the couple on the
photo.
They were looking out for two well-endowed people. They were
seeking a fashionably dressed couple. They had ignored the
man with a beard and a hat covering his head walking next to
a woman with a simple modest dress and covered hair.
The bomb at the apartment had been part of a plan put into
action as a backup in case the first hit failed.
Eli and Fay spoke immediately to David of what was in the
forefront of their thoughts. David knew of their son's
disappearance. "Maurice told me," he said. "He knew he could
trust me."
Fay said, "We must find Danny," using his childhood name,
rather than the name "Dean" that Eli had insisted on at the
time of his birth. "I would be more than satisfied to live my
whole life in this apartment, if we can only find Danny. What
could have happened to make him leave Harvard? Where can he
be?"
