Survival Of The Fittest

35

Daniel watched the two of them drive away through a slit in the living-room drapes.

He'd kept up a bland front during the meeting. Taken things in, given very little out.

Could Delaware see through it?

The psychologist seemed more agreeable, but with psychologists you never knew.

Another meeting. How many had he attended over the years, leaving with those same feelings of frustration?

Like Sturgis, he preferred working alone.

Like Sturgis, he was seldom able to.

Coating himself with the veneer of reason, when he itched to be as negative as Sturgis.

Dead children…

He seldom showed his feelings to anyone, even Laura.

Sobbing about Daoud and his fat wife, twice, both times alone in the cool, dark privacy of a tiny, cavelike Yemenite synagogue near the Mahane Yehudah market. An empty synagogue, because he'd chosen the dead time between the morning shaharit service and the afternoon minhah.

Reciting a few psalms, returning home that evening presentable for Laura and the children.

Why expose them to even a hint of the pain?

The Bethlehem hatchet wielders would never be punished.

Not in this world, anyway.

Now, this. Irit, the other kids. Maybe a blind man. What could be more hideous?

Would this Meta thing lead anywhere? Probably not.

One walked the desert sands, sank shafts, hoped for oil…

So he and Sturgis were probably feeling similar emotions- hey, let's have a discussion group, like the ones the department organized when a sapper got blown up or one of the undercover guys took a knife in a back alley of the Old City.

Daniel could just see it. Sturgis and him, sitting in a circle, each daring the other to be human. Delaware in the middle, the… what was the word- the facilitator.

Sturgis grumbling. An ill-mannered bear, that one. But smart.

Zev Carmeli was feeling better about the guy.

Like most diplomats, Zev didn't forgive. Forced to put on a polite front all day, he was judgmental, essentially a misanthrope.

Daniel remembered the call.

“Guess who they've given me now, Sharavi. A homosexual.”

Daniel had sat in a rear room of the New York embassy, listening as Carmeli complained. Carmeli reiterating his opinions of the “moronic L.A. police.”

“A homosexual,” he repeated. “Who he screws is his own damn business but it makes him an outcast, so how can he possibly be effective? I ask for the one with the highest solve rate and this is who they give me.”

“You think they're playing with you?”

“What do you think? This is some city, Sharavi. Every group hates the other. Like Beirut.”

Or Jerusalem, thought Daniel.

“Maybe he is the best, Zev. Why dismiss him before you know?”

Silence.

“You?” said Carmeli. “A guy with a yarmulke and you approve of that kind of thing?”

“If he's the one with the highest solve rate and the right kind of experience, then you're doing well.”

“I'm surprised, Sharavi.”

“About what?”

“Such tolerance. The orthodox aren't known for their tolerance.”

Daniel didn't respond.

“Well,” said Carmeli, “that's why I'm calling you. You come out here and check things out, whatever it takes. If you say keep him on, I will. But ultimately, it's your responsibility.”

Then he'd hung up.

Poor Zev.

Years ago, they'd both been students at Hebrew U. Daniel a twenty-five-year-old senior with three years of Army experience, Zev, younger, one of the few whizzes exempted out because of high test scores and family connections. Even then Zev had been serious for his age and openly ambitious. But you could talk to him, have a discussion. Not anymore.

The man had lost a daughter.

Daniel knew about fathers and daughters.

Zev could be forgiven just about anything.

Alone in the house, he finished his sandwich, though it might as well have been dust on plywood, then phoned an attorney in New York who received half of his income from the embassy, and asked him to quietly investigate Meta and fellow lawyer Farley Sanger, the one who'd written that retarded people weren't human.

Two more hours at the computer earned him nothing but a sore hand.

Carpal tunnel, the police doctor at French Hill had announced. If you don't watch out you'll have no hands. Ice it and don't use it so much.

Expert advice; Daniel had suppressed laughter and left the examining room wondering what it would be like to have no hands.

At 8:00 P.M., he drove to a kosher market on Pico and stocked up on groceries, putting on his yarmulke in order to blend in. The woman at the register said, “Shalom,” and he felt more at home than he had since arriving.

At ten he called Laura in Jerusalem.

She said, “Darling, I couldn't wait to hear from you. The children want to speak to you, too.”

His heart soared.