57 – Brooklin, Maine
Debra Reuben ran toward the kitchen window when she heard the crunch of a car on the gravel driveway leading to the cottage. She saw the same Honda Accord pull to a stop and watched as Levi got out of the car, waving to the driver. The car backed around and drove out the driveway. Reuben ran to the front door, shoved it open and stopped, catching her breath. Only the remnants of her anger at Levi for not calling remained. She was prepared to scold, but was so relieved to see him that her anger evaporated and, instead, she opened her arms wide. He walked into her embrace and, as she tilted her head back, he placed his lips on hers and they kissed, deeply and long. Neither wanted to be the first to let go. For the minutes they held one another, neither thought of atom bombs, past, present or future.
“I was so worried,” Debra whispered, her lips an inch from his ear. Then she released him, placing her hand on his chest and pushing, not too hard but neither too lightly.
“Why didn’t you call?” she asked. “Do you have any idea how scared I was? What if you’d been arrested?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I apologize. OK?” Levi said. “I’ll tell you everything but, look, this isn’t a good time to be using the telephone. We have to be careful. Things are going on, well, things are about to happen and we need to talk.”
They sat on the living room sofa.
Levi told Reuben everything from the past twenty-four hours, and everything that was about to happen. He related the facts to her without comment. He wanted to see her reaction before letting her know his feelings about Goldhersh’s plans. When he finished, Levi looked at Debra Reuben and asked, “So, what do you think about that?”
“Another bomb,” she said flatly.
Instead of speaking further, Reuben stood and walked through the house to the porch overlooking the ocean. She leaned forward against the railing, her arms crossed in front of her chest, staring at the water. Levi trailed behind her and stood silently, watching her back, waiting for her to speak first. They held these positions for five minutes, neither moving, neither speaking.
He realized how confused he was about her. He was a man who loved women, women in general, in the abstract, beautiful women especially, the more beautiful they were the more abstract, the more idealized they were to him. He’d made love to a hundred women but never been in love with one.
Debra was different. He was understanding that what he felt for her was more than simple sexual frustration, weeks of living with this gorgeous woman and barely more than a casual touch or, once in a while, a mild kiss. He was understanding that this was a person suffering anguish of a magnitude to match the deed responsible for that anguish. He realized he had a role to play in her life. He was there to ease that pain. He, who’d seen all women as interchangeable, disposable, saw Reuben as the reason he was where he was when he was. Not the bomb, that wasn’t the reason. It was her. His role was not to deliver a bomb, but to ease the bomber’s pain. That was a worthy role, he’d decided, and probably the more difficult one.
Yet he was lost in uncharted territory. He knew how to compliment, how to charm, how to tease, how to seduce a woman. Comfort was something new. Scary. Unknown.
So he stood, watching her back. At a loss as to what was supposed to happen next. Finally, Reuben turned to face Levi. She opened her arms wide, inviting him to approach. He walked up to her, placed his arms around her, drew her close, holding her silently, waiting for her to choose the time, and the words, to speak. He expected her, as she usually did, to sob, then struggle to gain control.
Instead, she simply held him tightly, leaned into his chest and dropped her head to his shoulder. After several minutes, she sniffled twice, lifted her head from his shoulder and took a step backwards.
“Chaim, I know I am responsible for terrible things,” she said, speaking gently. “While I’ve been by myself I dared to think about all those poor people in Damascus, all those people who died and I thought that I am responsible for their deaths and how could my heart, my soul, carry that burden.
“To tell you the truth, I even thought about taking my own life. I thought I could fill my pockets with stones from the shore over there and jump into the water from that rock, jump in from that rock right there.” She pointed at a boulder at the water’s edge. “I could take one step and sink and all this would be over.”
Levi opened his arms to invite her to him. He wanted so much to comfort her, to protect her from her demons. She shook her head from side to side and continued speaking, strength in her voice this time.
“Obviously, I didn’t do that. I’m still here.” She inhaled deeply and slowly, then exhaled, letting her lungs empty just as slowly, shedding, it seemed, much of her emotion with the air that left her body.
“I didn’t do it because I’ve come to appreciate that I did what had to be done, not for me, not for revenge, but for Israel. There will come a time, God willing, when there will be another Israel, when Jews will have our land again as our home. And, if history is any guide, in that time Israel will have enemies who will swear to drive us into the ocean if they can not annihilate us first. It has always been that way for us Jews, somebody has always sworn to wipe us from the earth.
“I came to understand why the plans that I carried through were made in the first place. Because when that next time comes, those enemies are going to remember one word and that word will be ‘Damascus.’ And maybe when they remember that word, just maybe they’ll hesitate. And if they do hesitate, if they do step back and another million or more Jews live who they would have killed, well, then those Jews will have lived because of what I did. That was why the plan was made and that is why I followed it.
“So, Chaim, I accept what I did. I can live with it. I’m not a monster. I’m not evil. Shit, Chaim, I’m still just Debbie Reuben from Long Island, just grown up a bit, right? Is that OK? Can you understand that?”
Debra, please don’t say those words, Levi thought, saddened. Don’t tell me your excuse is that you were following somebody else’s plan.
Debra, don’t say you were just following orders when you killed a hundred thousand people.
Following orders.
Like a good Jew.
Or a good German.
He could not tell her that, of course. He could not hurt her that way, devastate her that way. Instead, his answer was to take a step to her, put his arms around her, squeeze her tightly, then lift her feet from the porch floor and carry her into the house, down the hallway, and into the bedroom, where he placed her gently on the queen sized bed covered with its wool blanket custom-woven for the cottage on nearby Swans Island. He climbed onto the bed and slid on top of her, lowering his mouth over hers, slowly letting his entire weight rest on her, anchoring her, holding her, shielding her from the demons of her past and the demons soon to come.
Later, he thought, later we’ll talk about C4 explosive and National Park Service vans, and about the other demon, the one in the wine cellar twenty feet below where we lay.
For now, right now, let’s not talk at all, he thought, reaching down to open the buttons on her blouse. Throughout, she said not a word, but as he let his weight fall on her, she sighed, and soon she moaned and kissed him hard, thrusting her tongue deeply into his mouth, dueling with his tongue. She rushed to place him inside her, desperate to replace her grief, her guilt with mindless passion as she grabbed his buttocks and crushed him against her.
Levi, the soldier, gently retreated, wanting not to conquer her but to heal her. He softly stroked her breasts and slowly circled his fingers around her nipples, feeling them harden as she moaned and surrendered to his pace, his rhythm, letting him bring her to her peak at his choosing. She relaxed her frantic thrusting at him and placed herself under his control, under his spell, letting him take her where and how and when he chose, realizing she could not run from her demons, but could replace them with something else, something tender rather than brutal. At least for a short while.
When she could hold off no longer, when the waves of her orgasm rose from between her legs, she had a few moments of happiness all her own, all other thoughts driven from her mind.
Levi’s orgasm was almost an afterthought, which was fine with him. For the first time in his life, lovemaking had been giving, not taking. They fell asleep in one another’s arms, thoughts of atom bombs and C4 explosive, of FBI agents and detention camps, absent, for the day, for the moment, at least.