The righteous men

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Friday, 8.20pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

The hand left his shoulder only to be replaced by two more on each of his arms. He was flanked by two men who he guessed were no older than twenty but were both taller, and stronger, than him. One had a reddish beard, the other just a few wisps of chin hair. Both looked straight ahead as they frogmarched him away through the crowd. Will was too shocked to shout; no one would have heard him anyway. In the crush, he knew people would barely take a second look at a trio of men jammed together, especially since two of them were now singing along with enthusiasm.

He was being led away from the throne, back towards the library area, where the crowds were marginally thinner. Will was no good at guessing numbers — not enough experience covering demos — but he reckoned this room must have had two or three thousand people crammed into it, all of them chanting so furiously that his captors could have killed him there and then and nobody would have noticed.

Suddenly his handlers turned behind some shelves and down a narrow, scuffed corridor. The redbeard opened one door, then another until finally they were in what seemed to be a small classroom: more of those dark-wood benches and tables, more shelves lined with leather books, whose titles were in gold-lettered Hebrew. He was deposited firmly in a stiff, plastic chair in the middle of the room, the Hassidic heavies planting him to the spot by taking a shoulder each.

'I don't understand what's happening,' Will said weakly.

'What's going on here? Who are you?'

'Wait.'

'Why have you brought me here?'

'I said wait. Our teacher will be here soon. You can talk to him.'

The Rebbe. At last.

The noise from next door was still throbbing. Maybe the Rebbe had finally made his entrance; perhaps he was working the room before he came in here to work over Will. The clamour was certainly thumpingly loud; the ground was moving like the walls of a club, shaken by bass. But whether it had suddenly got louder, as if the Rebbe had arrived while Will was dragged out of the room, he could not tell.

'OK, let us begin.'

That same baritone voice, again from behind. Will tried to turn around, but the hands came down to clamp his shoulders tight.

'What's your name?'

Tom Mitchell.'

'Welcome Tom and good shabbos. Tell me, why do we have the pleasure of your company in Crown Heights?'

'I'm here to write a story for New York magazine about the Hassidic community. It's for a new slot: "Slice of the Apple".'

'Cute. And why have you come here this weekend of all weekends?'

'They only commissioned me to do it this week so I came the first weekend I could.'

'You didn't call ahead, you didn't want to make an arrangement maybe?'

'I just wanted to look around.'

'See how the natives live in their natural habitat?'

'I wouldn't put it like that,' Will croaked. The force of two men pressing their hands down on his shoulders was starting to take its toll. 'I hope I'm not being rude, but why are you holding me like this?'

'You know, Mr Mitchell, I'm glad you asked me that because I wouldn't want to give you the wrong impression of Crown Heights or its people. We welcome guests here, we really do.

We invite visitors into our homes. We are not even hostile to the press; reporters have come here often. We have had no less than The New York Times pay us an occasional visit.

No, the reason for this,' he paused, 'unusual reception is that I don't believe you're telling us the truth.'

'But I am a reporter. That is the truth.'

'No, the truth, Mr Mitchell, is that somebody has been prying into what is strictly our business and I am wondering if that somebody is you.' The voice, briefly raised, paused to recover its equilibrium. 'Let's relax a bit, shall we? It's shabbos, we've all had a hard week. We've worked hard. Now we rest.

So let's take it slow and calm down. Back to my question.

You've been talking to Shimon Shmuel for a while, so I'm sure you've picked up a few things about our customs already.'

They've been following me.

'You're an intelligent man. You've realized by now that observance of the Sabbath is one of our strictest rules.'

Will said nothing.

'Mr Mitchell?'

'Yes, I understand that.'

'You know we are forbidden from carrying on the Sabbath, don't you?'

'Yes, Sandy told me. Shimon Shmuel.' He regretted that late addition of Sandy's Hebrew name: it sounded like an attempt at ingratiation.

'He may not have mentioned that on the Sabbath, we are forbidden to carry but not only to carry: we are also barred from using electricity of any kind. The lights that are on now were switched on before shabbos began and they will stay on all day until after shabbos ends tomorrow night. Those are the rules: no Jew is allowed to turn them on or off. Moreover, you'll have noticed that there were no cameras out there just now. And there have never been cameras out there, not on shabbos. What you saw just now has never been photographed or filmed. Never, and that's not through lack of requests. Do you see where I'm heading, Mr Mitchell?'

Now that he had heard the voice speaking for longer, he began to form a picture of the speaker. He was an American, but his accent was not the same as Sandy's. It was more, what, European? Something. Will could not quite identify what it was: certainly more New York, almost musical. It contained a kind of shrug, a recognition of the absurdity of life, sometimes comic, usually tragic. In split, fractional seconds he saw the face of Mel Brooks and heard the voice of Leonard Cohen. He still had no idea what the man speaking to him looked like.

'Mr Mitchell, I need to know whether you understand what I'm saying.'

'No, I don't have a camera, if that's what you're asking.'

'As it happens, I wasn't thinking about that. More on the lines of a recording device.'

Again, Will was in the clear. Despite his age, he did things the old-fashioned way: notebook and pen. This was not down to some technophobic Luddism on his part, but sheer laziness.

Transcribing recordings was just too much hassle: you did an interview for half an hour, then spent an hour writing it up.

The mini-disc recorder was saved only for set-piece interviews where every word was likely to count: mayors, police chiefs, that kind of thing. Otherwise he opted for paper and ink.

'No, I haven't recorded anyone. But why would it be a problem-'

He suddenly felt himself jerked forward and then up, the darker, younger man at his left side apparently taking the lead. The pair of them had looped their arms under Will's armpits and levered him upward, ensuring he did not turn around. Next, the dark man swung around to face him, avoiding Will's eye while he first stretched Will's arms up and out, then reached under his jacket, moving his hands over Will's shirt, around his back and under his armpits. He was like a zealous airport security guard.

Of course. Recording device. They weren't looking for a reporter's Dictaphone. They were looking for a wire. They were worried that he was the police or the FBI. Of course they were: they were kidnappers and they feared Will was an undercover cop. The questions he had been asking, the snooping around with no warning.

'No wire,' the dark man was saying, in an accent that confirmed him as at least Middle Eastern if not Israeli.

'But there is this.' It was the redbeard, whose task during this two-man body search, which had continued up and down Will's legs when it was not focused on his back, had been to examine the captive's every pocket — including the one on the inside left of his jacket. His secrets offered little resistance: his Moleskine notebook always made a neat bulge in his left breast pocket. Redbeard took it out and offered it to the unseen hand behind. Will, shoved back down into his seat, could hear the pages being turned.

The blood seemed to drain from him. His mind rewound back to Sandy's house, when his host urged him to leave his bag behind. And Will thought he was being so clever. He had left his bag behind all right — but only after he had slipped out his notebook and zipped his wallet into what he liked to think was a concealed compartment. He had not wanted Sara Leah prying. Now the book was in the Rebbe's hands. What a fool!

Will girded himself for the explosion. The longer the silence lasted, punctuated only by the sound of turned pages, the slicker the moisture on Will's palms.

His mind was racing, trying to remember what was in that book that might give him away. Luckily, he was not organized enough to have written his own name on the first page or anywhere else. Walton did that, a neat inscription on the cover of each pad he used. Some reporters even used those nerdy address labels. On that score at least, Will was saved by his own inefficiency.

But what about the reams of words inside, including the copious notes he had taken today, right here in Crown Heights? Maybe those would be OK; they would at least confirm his Tom Mitchell cover story. But had he not scribbled down all that computer stuff at Tom's earlier? Surely he had written down something about the kidnappers' email?

The seconds lurched by, like a record playing at the wrong, too-slow speed. A hope took root. Could it be that his bastard shorthand, his unique speedwriting scrawl, was about to rescue him? He had developed this hybrid non-system of note-taking first at Columbia and then at the Record. It worked for him, though he always feared the day he was asked to produce notes for the editor, or worse still a judge in court.

He imagined a defamation trial, turning on the accuracy of his written account of a conversation. He would need teams of graphologists to verify that he was as good as his words.

The upside, at least at this moment, was that Will knew his notes would be all but indecipherable.

'You've broken our rules, Mr Mitchell. I don't mean our rules, as in us, the people of Crown Heights. What do we matter in the great scheme of things? We are ants! But you've broken HaShem's rules.'

A sentence surfaced that instant in Will's head. Thou shalt not bear false witness. It was, Will realized, as if he was the mere recipient of the thought rather than its source, one of the ten commandments. He knew that Jews and Christians had those in common — and that was surely what the Rebbe had in mind. This was the preamble to an accusation of lying.

He was undone.

'I think you know that we're serious about these rules: no carrying on the Sabbath. No carrying. No wallets, no keys.

No notebooks.'

'Yes.'

'We take these rules very seriously, Tom. They apply to our guests as much as they apply to us. I'm sure you understand that. Yet here you are, with a notebook.'

'Yes, but that's the only thing I took. I left the rest of the stuff behind; I left my bag.' Will was addressing a book case: his interrogator was behind him, his captors at his side.

'Besides, I'm not Jewish. I didn't think, you know, that these rules applied to me.' That sounded much more lame out loud than it had in Will's head. It sounded like schoolboy special pleading: the dog ate my homework. But it was the truth.

Sure, he should be respectful to others while he was in their community, but this was crazy. They could not be this angry about a Sabbath infraction, could they? He was almost relieved: if this was the charge, it meant the Rebbe had found nothing to pursue in the notebook.

'You're not Jewish?'

'No, I told Sandy, Shimon that already. I'm not Jewish. I'm just a reporter.'

'Now that surprises me. I've got to admit, that I did not expect.'

Will was baffled, but also distracted. Redbeard had vanished.

Will's sole custodian was now this Israeli: he looked young.

The Times magazine had run a piece about the Israeli army only a couple of weeks back. With a half-memory of that as his source, Will knew that an Israeli man needed only to be aged twenty-one to have done a full three years in the Israel Defence Forces. God knows what he had learned there: this guy might look like a kid, but chances were he had steel in his veins. Why else had the Rebbe picked him to turn the screws on Will? He vaguely remembered from the same piece that many ultra-orthodox eighteen-year-olds were given exemption from army service so that they could devote their lives to studying the Torah. But not all of them: something told him this was one of the guys who swapped his prayer book for a rifle.

'You know, Mr Mitchell — or should I call you Tom? — I'm not sure we're making that much progress here. Something is missing from this encounter.'

There it was again, that sardonic, world-weary inflection, as if there was humour in every situation, even this one. Will could not get the measure of this man at all: his voice was warm, avuncular even. Yet the room was humid with menace and it was all coming from him, from behind Will's back.

'I propose that we relocate.'

Clearly he had given some kind of nod, because the Israeli swiftly placed a blindfold on Will; not like the childhood variety, where some light always leaks through, but a complete cover, one that seemed to choke the eyelids, stopping them breathing. He felt himself being yanked upward again, out of the chair. Except this time it was not for another standing search, but to be led away.

Will decided he would not panic. He would not give in to the feeling that, with each step, he was leaning into a dark, empty space, plunging off a cliff into an abyss. He would focus on the ground beneath his feet; each time he lifted one leg, he would remember how near the ground remained. Perhaps he should scrape his shoes along, to maintain constant contact? Maybe that was why you always saw handcuffed prisoners shuffling: it was not because they were depressed, but because they needed the reassurance that the earth was still there, right under their shoes.

He was aware of passing through another corridor, getting further away from the clamour of the synagogue which, Will realized, had begun to fade into a loud hubbub a while back.

He chided himself for not having noticed exactly when; that detail was surely important in tracking the Rebbe's movements.

What was truly strange, though, was the feeling of dependency on the Israeli now gripping his right arm with painful force. Will was relying on him as a guide, aware that he must now look the way blind men always look: Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles, his head moving randomly, untethered to logic.

This man was his captor but, Will thought, he was also his carer.

Now he felt the cold. They had moved outside, but only for a few steps. He heard the creak of a swing door, like a garden gate, and then felt the change of temperature. As if they were in an enclosed space, though not quite outdoors.

There was an echo.

'No one likes this, I'm afraid, Mr Mitchell. Tom. But I'm going to have to take a look at you.'

It was in the next few seconds that Will decided that this was not some ghastly incident that would soon resolve itself, but actually something rather terrifying. until now, he had clung to the idea that this might be an error or even an ironic send-up of the interrogation scene from a thousand movies.

He had been hoping that it would all be revealed as a hideous mistake; or that, at least, he would soon know the identity of his inquisitor; or that he would make progress; or that this would simply stop. Now he felt sure these strange people who had stolen his wife were about to torture and kill him, probably in a way so sadistic as to chill the blood. Worse than that, and this thought turned his bowels to mush, they had doubtless already done whatever they were going to do, or worse, to Beth.

'No!' Will shouted, but it was too late. He felt his arms being pinned back while someone unbuckled his trousers.

There was a hand over his mouth, too. This could not be the work of the Israeli, all alone. But where were these extra hands coming from? Who did they belong to? And then, without warning, his underpants were down.

'Stop.' He heard the word and was shocked to discover the voice was not his own. The Rebbe had spoken. 'You're telling the truth. You're not Jewish.'

Will could only guess what was happening: the Rebbe must have been standing in front of him, looking at his penis and concluding, rightly, that it was not circumcised.

'You're not Jewish,' the Rebbe repeated. And then, to his assistant or assistants: 'Cover him up.' A pause. 'Well, this is good news, Mr Mitchell. I now believe that you are not a federal agent or a law enforcement official. I suspected you were, prowling around with all your questions. But I know those people and, first, they would have had you wired and, second, they would have sent a Jew. Not only that, but they would have considered themselves very smart for doing that.

Oh, yes, regular geniuses for giving Agent Goldberg a call and saying "This is a job with your name on it." That's how they think. Send an Arab to infiltrate a Muslim terrorist gang, send a Jew to us. But you're not a Jew, so you're not working for them. That I now believe.'

Will's trousers were back on, his belt was buckled up and he was off a hook if not the hook: he was not an undercover federal agent. All that combined to reduce the terror of a few moments ago. His body, the pounding of his heart, the moisture on his palms was at code orange, rather than red, where it had been seconds earlier.

'You look relieved, Mr Mitchell. I'm glad. The trouble is, if you're not a fed, you must be working for someone else.

And that, I fear, is infinitely more serious.'