The Last Testament

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

J ERUSALEM , F RIDAY , 3.11 AM

At first she wasn’t sure if she had opened her eyes. The room was in complete darkness. She raised her neck, a reflex, to check the clock, but immediately felt a spasm of pain. Only then did she remember what had happened. She had come out of the lift, ready to tell Uri what she had discovered; she had opened the door and then, in a second, she had been struck.

Where was she now? Flat, the palms of her hands detected the cotton softness of bedclothes. She squinted, just making out the outline of curtains ahead. She was, then, still in her room. What the hell had happened?

Suddenly there was a voice, alarmingly close to her ear.

‘I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry, Maggie.’

Uri.

She tried to haul herself up, but the pain shot through her again.

‘I woke up and saw the bed was empty. I thought maybe something had happened to you. I waited by the door and then-’

‘And then you hit me.’

‘I didn’t know it was you. I’m so sorry, Maggie. How can I make it better?’

Maggie decided to push through the pain barrier and sit up. Uri instantly propped her up on some pillows, passing her a glass of water. She took sips, then felt a gentle pressure on her hair-a hand, stroking the side of her head. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see that Uri was kneeling by the bed, and now his warm hand cupped the side of her face.

‘Everything I touch gets hurt. Everything I care about ends up hurt…’

Maggie could feel the water sliding down her throat; it seemed somehow to unleash the pain in her neck, letting its sore redness radiate outward. ‘Fuck, though, where did you learn to hit like that?’

‘You know the answer to that.’

‘You don’t mess around, you Israelis, do you?’ she said, rubbing at the pain.

‘Here.’ At his side was a towel, the edge of which was soaked. He balled it up and placed it at the back of Maggie’s neck. First, though, he had to lift up her hair, so that her nape was unguarded, naked. She felt her body register the confusion, an ache and a surge of renewed desire, at the same time. The towel was cold, soothing the redness.

‘Uri!’ she said suddenly, grabbing the towel from him so that she could face him while she spoke. ‘Pass me my jacket, on the chair.’

Unsure whether he had been forgiven, Uri hesitated.

‘Uri! Now!’

He got up and brought back Maggie’s coat. She patted through the packets, ignoring the pain, till she found it: the Post-it from Rosen’s office.

‘Turn on the light. OK. Listen. Your father said, “I can tell you only that this search begins in Geneva, but not the city everyone knows. A better, newer place, where you can be anyone you want to be. Go there.” Remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think I know where that is.’

‘It’s Geneva.’

‘Yes, but not the city everyone knows.’ Maggie scanned ahead, looking at her last, scribbled line. ‘Then he said, “And if I am gone from this life, then you shall see me in the other life; that is life too”. Now, tell me, Uri, as precisely as you can, what were his exact words. In Hebrew.’

‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

‘You will. Just tell me what he said!’

Uri began speaking in Hebrew. ‘OK, he said, “Im eineini bachaim ha’ele, tireh oti ba-chaim ha-hem.”

Maggie looked down at the Post-it. ‘And that means, “If I am gone from this life, you shall see me in the other life”, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. Go on.’ Maggie could feel the adrenaline coursing through her system, dulling the pain.

‘Then he said something odd. B’chaim shteim. Which means, I guess “in life too”.’

‘As in “that is also life”.’

‘No, no, you heard me wrong. Not “too” but “two”. Shteim is the number two.’

The excitement was growing now. ‘So what he was actually saying was “you shall see me in the other life; that is, life number two”.’

‘Right.’

‘And that’s the literal translation, Uri?’ Maggie knew she was sounding like some kind of lunatic, but this was not unprecedented behaviour on her part. She had done this at a negotiation once, in the very last hour before a signing, when a dispute broke out between the two sides over the English translation of the accord, which would serve as the binding text under international law. She had to go through the relevant clause word by word, with two interpreters, to make sure one side didn’t try to steal a march on the other. No dinner conversation among mediators was complete without someone telling the Menachem Begin at Camp David story, how the Israeli prime minister had succeeded in making the Hebrew version of his agreement with Egypt much less demanding on his country than the English text Jimmy Carter took home to Washington. So pressing Uri like this was not a first. Though she had never done it in bed, with a towel on her neck, before.

‘Well, the phrase is weird, but he said “chaim shteim”. Life two.’

‘Or to put it another way,’ Maggie said, her eyes brightening, ‘Second Life.’