Monday the Rabbi Took Off

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The explosion was not loud. Save for the gaping hole in the wall of the Memavet apartment and a few broken windows property damage was not great. But unlike the explosion in which Professor Carmi had lost his life a couple of months earlier, because it was early in the evening, a large crowd had gathered, drawn by the noise of the fire engines, if not by the sound of the explosion itself, and the police were hard put to cordon off the area.

Again, the reaction to the death of the old man was quite different from that to the death of the professor. After Carmi's death, there had been speculation in the press about why he in particular had been selected. And after a few days, it had come out that he was engaged in important agricultural research which might have resulted in a remarkable increase in the yield of certain types of ground crops. The papers had been vague about the precise nature of his research, and while one paper had announced authoritatively that he was engaged in investigating a new miracle fertilizer, another announced equally authoritatively that his work involved using brackish water to open up for cultivation thousands of acres that were now considered useless. In any case, it was generally accepted that he was an important scientist whose death was a major blow to Israel.

But Memavet was not anyone important and was not engaged in anything that could either help or hurt Israel. And this was all the more infuriating because it meant that the bombing was a senseless and meaningless taking of life.

There were other reactions stemming from the irony of the situation as revealed by the statement of the doctor who had visited him just shortly before the explosion. Dr. Ben Ami's statement to the police was widely quoted in the press:

"He was a new patient who had chosen me from the Kupat Cholim list because I lived nearby. I suppose. I had a full schedule of patients for the day even though it was the Sabbath. Sickness keeps no Sabbath, you know. But I was able to squeeze him in since I had another patient in the next street and I was early for my appointment. It was just luck that I was able to see him at all. I got there a little before seven. I rang the bell, and he called to me to come in. that the door was open. He had a bad cold and had been coughing a great deal. He had not slept, for several nights, he said. I gave him something to relieve the irritation in the throat and a hypodermic to let him get some much-needed sleep. I saw to it that he went to bed, and then I turned off the light, locked the door and left, planning to look in on him again in the morning. But evidently he did not fall asleep immediately. He must have got up a little later to get a glass of brandy from the bottle on the living-room shelf. Had he stayed in bed. he would have been alive today, I'm sure, since the main force of the explosion occurred in the living room and his bedroom window was not even broken."

"Imagine, he calls the doctor, gets treated right then and there, and the doctor even sees to it that he goes to bed. Believe me. my doctor wouldn't take the trouble. He looks at you and writes a prescription, and he's gone. You want to talk to him. to ask him some questions? He's too busy. Five minutes— that's his limit. And where you’re going to get a prescription filled on the Sabbath, or any night after seven, that's no concern of his. So after all that, the poor devil gets up to pour a drink for himself— and bang!"

"How do they know he got up to get a drink?"

"That was in the papers. I saw it in Hamaariv. He still had the bottle in his hand when they found him. The way they figured it, the force of the explosion knocked him against this marble shelf he had in the living room. So he must have been standing near it. Smashed his skull."

A shaking of heads and a moment of silent reflection on the tragedy of the human condition.

On the other hand, in certain cafes in East Jerusalem where young Arabs were wont to gather for coffee and cards and heated political discussions and where the report of any Israeli mishap, however trivial, was received with considerable joy, a joke was gleefully circulated that the name of the victim of the explosion should have been Lamavet rather than Memavet— that is. "to death" rather than "from death."

Of course, the terrorists immediately claimed full credit. All the various groups did. in fact. Al Fatah, based in Jordan, issued a statement: "Our brave commandos have demonstrated that they can penetrate the very center of the Jewish stronghold and that no Jew living in Palestine is safe from our vengeance. There will be no letup until the United Nations resolution is implemented and the Palestinian is given justice."

Intellectuals for Arab Independence, based in Lebanon, pointed out that the Israeli government was up to its old tricks of trying to enlist world sympathy by pretending that the victim of the bombing was a harmless civilian. It was well known that Memavet was connected with the Jewish Agency and had been on a secret mission to Zurich only a few days before.

The Palestinian Committee, based in Syria, explained that 1 Mazel Tov Street was a secret Israeli Army installation, an electronic nerve center which their brave commandos had destroyed and that Memavet's death had been purely accidental.

Cairo's Al-Ahram asserted that the Israeli government was concealing the true facts of the incident. It quoted the head of the Palestine Liberation League who said that a secret strategy meeting was being held at 1 Mazel Tov Street at the time, that it had been attended by a number of high Israeli officials and that the death toll might reach fifty.

The Anglo-Arab Friendship League in its newsletter suggested that there was ample evidence that the bombing had been done by Israelis for the purpose of enlisting world sympathy as they had attempted to do by planting bombs in commercial airliners and blaming the Arabs for it.

The rabbi heard the news on the late radio newscast. The first shock of realizing that the man killed was someone he had been with, spoken to. only that very morning was immediately translated into the feeling that he should take some action. He called Stedman.

"Yes, I heard the news earlier around the lobby here. Shocking!"

"I think we should go to the police." said the rabbi.

"To the police? Why should we go to the police? What can we tell them that will be of any earthly use. Rabbi?"

"We could tell him what he told us. You could play that tape for them. About his enemy—"

"Forgive me. Rabbi, but you just aren't thinking straight. If it had been whatsisname— Rasnikov— who had been killed, then our story of Memavet's enmity might be of some use to them. But it was Memavet that was killed."

"Still, I think they should know."

"Believe me, they know. Or if they don't they'll know soon enough. They'll just inquire at that shop where he had his desk and—"

"How do you know he told the story there?"

"Come now." said Stedman. "you heard what the mechanic said. He said he was a crazy old man who'd tell you his troubles— how did he put it? Oh, yes— at the drop of a hat. You don't suppose we were the first to hear that story, then, three perfect strangers? If he told it to us. you can be sure he's told it to anyone who would listen."

The rabbi was uncertain. "But still. I think— I mean it would do no harm if—"

"Rabbi." Stedman said with assurance. "I’ve done a lot of traveling in foreign countries, and there's one thing I’ve learned: You don't get involved with police if you can avoid it. I know in Israel you think it's different, but take my word for it: Police are the same the world over. Now there's nothing we can tell them except that we saw him on the morning of the day he was killed. There may have been any number of visitors after us. That doctor saw him just a little before it happened."

"Still. I'd like to talk to you about it. Perhaps we could get together sometime tomorrow—"

"I'm sorry, Rabbi, but I'm off to Haifa first thing in the morning. I'll be away a few days. We'll get together when I get back."

The rabbi hung up, but he was troubled. Everything Stedman had said was true, but he still felt that they ought to go to the police. And yet, he could not go alone. It might raise questions of why Stedman had not similarly reported, and that might make for the very involvement his friend was trying to avoid.