The English Girl: A Novel (Gabriel Allon) Page 39

  “What did you say to it?” asked Gabriel when they were driving again.

  “I told him you were sorry for being mean to him.”

  “But I’m not sorry. He was definitely the aggressor.”

  “He’s a goat, darling.”

  “He’s a terrorist.”

  “How can you possibly run the Office if you can’t get along with a goat?”

  “Good question,” he said glumly.

  The villa was a mile or so beyond the goat’s redoubt. It was small and simply furnished, with pale limestone floors and a granite terrace. Laricio pine shaded the terrace in the morning, but in the afternoon the sun beat brightly upon the stones. The days were cold and pleasant; at night the wind whistled in the pines. They drank Corsican red wine by the fire and watched the swaying of the trees. The fire burned blue-green from the macchia wood and smelled of rosemary and thyme. Soon, Gabriel and Chiara smelled of it, too.

  They had no plan other than to do little of anything at all. They slept late. They drank their morning coffee in the village square. They ate fish for lunch by the sea. In the afternoon, if it was warm, they would sun themselves on the granite terrace; and if it was cold they would retreat to their simple bedroom and make love until they slept with exhaustion. Shamron left numerous plaintive messages that Gabriel happily ignored. In a year his every waking moment would be consumed by the job of protecting Israel from those who wished to destroy it. For now, though, there was only Chiara, and the cold sun and the sea, and the intoxicating smell of the pine and the macchia.

  For the first few days, they avoided the newspapers, the Internet, and the television. But gradually Gabriel reconnected with a world of problems that would soon be his. The head of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, predicted Iran would be a nuclear power within a year. The next day there was a report the regime in Syria had transferred chemical weapons to Hezbollah. And the day after that the Muslim Brother who now ran Egypt was caught on tape talking about a new war with Israel. Indeed, the only good news Gabriel could find occurred in London, where Jonathan Lancaster, having survived the Downing Street Affair, appointed Graham Seymour to be the next chief of MI6. Gabriel called him that evening to offer his congratulations. Mainly, though, he was curious about Madeline.

  “She’s doing better than I expected,” said Seymour.

  “Where is she?”

  “It seems a friend offered her a cottage by the sea.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a bit unorthodox,” Seymour conceded, “but we decided it was as good a place as any.”

  “Just don’t turn your back on her, Graham. The SVR has a very long reach.”

  It was because of that long reach that Gabriel and Chiara kept a deliberately low profile on the island. They rarely left the villa after dark, and several times each night Gabriel stepped onto the terrace to listen for movement in the valley. A week into their stay, he heard the familiar rattle of a Renault hatchback, then, a moment later, saw lights burning for the first time in Keller’s villa. He waited until the following afternoon before dropping by unannounced. Keller was wearing a pair of loose-fitting white trousers and a white pullover. He opened a bottle of Sancerre, and they drank it outside in the sun. Sancerre in the afternoon, Corsican red in the evening—Gabriel thought he could get used to this. But there was no turning back now. His people needed him. He had an appointment with history.

  “The Cézanne could use a bit of work,” Gabriel said offhandedly. “Why don’t you let me clean it up for you while I’m in town?”

  “I like the Cézanne exactly the way it is. Besides,” Keller added, “you came here to rest.”

  “You don’t need any?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Rest,” answered Gabriel.

  Keller said nothing.

  “Where have you been, Christopher?”

  “I had a business trip.”

  “Olive oil or blood?”

  When Keller raised an eyebrow to indicate it was the latter, Gabriel shook his head reproachfully.

  “Money doesn’t come from singing,” said Keller quietly.

  “There are other ways of making money, you know.”

  “Not when your name is Christopher Keller and you’re supposed to be dead.”

  Gabriel drank some of his wine. “I didn’t include you on the team because I needed your help,” he said after a moment. “I wanted to show you that there’s more to life than killing people for money.”

  “You wanted to restore me? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s a natural instinct of mine.”

  “Some things are beyond repair.” Keller paused, then added, “Beyond redemption.”

  “How many men have you killed?”

  “I don’t know,” Keller shot back. “How many have you killed?”

  “Mine are different. I’m a soldier. A secret soldier, but a soldier nevertheless.” He looked at Keller seriously for a moment. “And you can be one, too.”

  “Are you offering me a job?”

  “You’d have to become an Israeli citizen and learn to speak Hebrew to work for the Office.”

  “I’ve always felt a little Jewish.”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel, “you mentioned that before.”

  Keller smiled, and a silence fell between them. The afternoon wind was starting to get up.

  “There is one other possibility, Christopher.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you happen to notice who was just named the new director-general of MI6?”

  Keller made no reply.

  “I’ll go on the record for you with Graham. He can give you a new identity. A new life.”

  Keller raised his wineglass to the valley. “I have a life. A very nice life, in fact.”

  “You’re a hired gun. You’re a criminal.”

  “I’m an honorary bandit. There’s a difference.”

  “Whatever you say.” Gabriel added a half inch of wine to his glass.

  “Is this why you came to Corsica? To talk me into going home again?”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “If I let you restore the Cézanne, will you promise to leave me alone?”

  “No,” answered Gabriel.

  “Then maybe we should enjoy the silence.”

  62

  CORSICA

  Three days later the don invited Gabriel to drop by his office for a chat. It was not truly an invitation, for invitations can be politely declined. It was a Shamronian commandment, chiseled into stone, inviolable.

  “How about lunch?” asked Gabriel, knowing that Orsati was likely to be in a good mood then.

  “Fine,” answered the don. Then he added ominously, “But perhaps it would be better if you came alone.”

  Gabriel left the villa shortly after noon. The goat allowed him to pass without a confrontation, for it recognized him as an associate of the beautiful Italian woman. The guards outside Don Orsati’s estate allowed him to pass, too, for the don had left word that the Israelite was expected. He found the don in his large office, hunched over his ledger books.

  “How’s business?” asked Gabriel.

  “Never better,” replied Orsati. “I have more orders than I can possibly fill.”

  Whether the don was speaking of blood or oil, he did not say. Instead, he led Gabriel to a dining room where a table had been laid with a Corsican feast. With its whitewashed walls and simple furnishings, the room reminded Gabriel of the pope’s private dining room in the Apostolic Palace. There was even a heavy wooden crucifix on the wall behind the chair reserved for the don.

  “Does it bother you?” asked Orsati.

  “Not at all,” replied Gabriel.

  “Christopher tells me you know your way around Catholic churches.”

  �
�What else did he tell you?”

  Orsati frowned but said nothing more as he filled Gabriel’s plate with food and his glass with wine.

  “The villa is to your liking?” he asked finally.

  “It’s perfect, Don Orsati.”

  “And your wife is happy here?”

  “Very.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?”

  “As long as you’ll have me.”

  The don was curiously silent.

  “Have I worn out my welcome already, Don Orsati?”

  “You can stay here on the island as long as you like.” The don paused, then added, “So long as you don’t involve yourself in matters that affect my business.”

  “You’re obviously referring to Keller.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I meant no disrespect, Don Orsati. I was just—”

  “Meddling in affairs that don’t concern you.”

  The don’s mobile phone buzzed softly. He ignored it.

  “Did I not help you when you first came to the island looking for the English girl?”

  “You did,” said Gabriel.

  “And did I not give you Keller free of charge to help you find her?”

  “I couldn’t have done it without him.”

  “And did I not overlook the fact that I was never offered any of the ransom money you surely recovered?”

  “The money is in the bank account of the Russian president.”

  “So you say.”

  “Don Orsati . . .”

  The don waved his hand dismissively.

  “Is that what this is about? Money?’

  “No,” the don admitted. “It’s about Keller.”

  A gust of wind beat against the French doors leading to Don Orsati’s garden. It was the libeccio, a wind from the southeast. Usually, it brought rain in winter, but for now the sky was clear.

  “Here on Corsica,” the don said after a moment’s silence, “our traditions are very old. For example, a young man would never dream of proposing marriage to a woman without first asking her father for permission. Do you see my point, Gabriel?”

  “I believe I do, Don Orsati.”

  “You should have spoken to me before talking to Christopher about going back to England.”

  “It was a mistake on my part.”

  Orsati’s expression softened. Outside the libeccio overturned a table and chair in the don’s garden. He shouted something at the ceiling in the Corsican dialect, and a few seconds later a mustachioed man with a shotgun slung over his shoulder came scampering into the garden to put it back in order.

  “You don’t know what your friend Christopher was like when he arrived here after leaving Iraq,” Orsati was saying. “He was a mess. I gave him a home. A family. A woman.”

  “And then you gave him a job,” said Gabriel. “Many jobs.”

  “He’s very good at it.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Better than you.”

  “Who said that?”

  The don smiled. A silence fell between them, which Gabriel allowed to linger while he chose his next words with great care.

  “It’s not a proper way for a man like Christopher to earn a living,” he said at last.

  “People in glass houses, Allon.”

  “I never realized that was a Corsican proverb.”

  “All things wise come from Corsica.” The don pushed his plate away and rested his heavy forearms on the tabletop. “There’s something you don’t seem to understand,” he said. “Christopher is more than just my best taddunaghiu. I love him like a son. And if he ever left . . .” The don’s voice trailed off. “I would be heartbroken.”

  “His real father thinks he’s dead.”

  “There was no other way.”

  “How would you feel if the roles were reversed?”

  Orsati had no answer. He changed the subject.

  “Do you really think this friend of yours from British intelligence would be interested in bringing Christopher back to England?”

  “He’d be a fool not to.”

  “But he might say no,” the don pointed out. “And by raising the matter with him, you might endanger Christopher’s position here on Corsica.”

  “I’ll do it in a way that poses no threat to him.”

  “He is a man of trust, this friend of yours?”

  “I’d trust him with my life. In fact,” said Gabriel, “I’ve done it many times before.”

  The don exhaled heavily in resignation. He was about to give Gabriel’s unusual proposition his blessing when his mobile phone rang again. This time he answered it. He listened in silence for a moment, spoke a few words in Italian, and then returned the phone to the tabletop.

  “Who was that?” asked Gabriel.

  “Your wife,” replied the don.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “She wants to take a walk into the village.”

  Gabriel started to rise.

  “Stay and finish your lunch,” said Orsati. “I’ll send a couple of my boys to keep an eye on her.”

  Gabriel sat down again. The libeccio was wreaking havoc in Orsati’s garden. The don watched it sadly for a moment.

  “I’m still glad we didn’t kill you, Allon.”

  “I can assure you, Don Orsati, the feeling is mutual.”

  The wind chased Chiara down the narrow track, past the shuttered houses and the cats, and finally to the main square, where it swirled in the arcades and vandalized the display tables of the shopkeepers. She went to the market and filled her straw basket with a few things for dinner. Then she took a table at one of the cafés and ordered a coffee. In the center of the square, a few old men were playing boules amid tiny cyclones of dust, and on the steps of the church an old woman in black was handing a slip of blue paper to a young boy. The boy had long, curly hair and was very pretty. Looking at him, Chiara smiled sadly. She imagined that Gabriel’s son Dani might have looked like the boy if he had lived to be ten years of age.

  The woman descended the church steps and disappeared through the doorway of a crooked little house. Then the boy started across the square with the slip of blue paper in his hand. Much to Chiara’s surprise, he entered the café where she was seated and placed the paper on her table without a word. She waited until the boy was gone before reading the single line. I must see you at once . . .

  The old signadora was waiting in the door of her house when Chiara arrived. She smiled, touched Chiara’s cheek softly, and then drew her inside.

  “Do you know who I am?” the old woman asked.

  “I have a good idea,” answered Chiara.

  “Your husband mentioned me?”

  Chiara nodded.

  “I warned him not to go to the city of heretics,” the signadora said, “but he didn’t listen. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “He’s hard to kill.”

  “Perhaps he is an angel after all.” The old woman touched Chiara’s face again. “And you went, too, didn’t you?”

  “Who told you I went to Russia?”

  “You went without telling your husband,” the signadora went on, as though she hadn’t heard the question. “You were together for a few hours in a hotel room in the city of night. Do you remember?”

  The old woman smiled. Her hand was still touching Chiara’s face. It moved to her hair.

  “Shall I go on?” she asked.

  “I don’t believe you can see the past.”

  “Your husband was married to another woman before you,” the old woman said, as if to prove Chiara wrong. “There was a child. A fire. The child died but the wife lived. She lives still.”

  Chiara drew away sharply.

  “You were in love with him for a long time,” the old woman continued, “but he wouldn’t marry yo
u because he was grieving. He sent you away once, but he came back to you in a city of water.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He painted a picture of you wrapped in white bedding.”

  “It was a sketch,” said Chiara.

  The old woman shrugged, as if to say it made no difference. Then she nodded toward her table, where a plate of water and a vessel of olive oil stood next to a pair of burning candles.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she asked.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Please,” said the old woman. “It will only take a moment or two. Then I’ll know for certain.”

  “Know what?”

  “Please,” she said again.

  Chiara sat down. The old woman sat opposite.

  “Dip your forefinger in the oil, my child. And then allow three drops to fall into the water.”

  Chiara reluctantly did as she was told. The oil, upon striking the surface of the water, gathered into a single drop. The old woman gasped, and a tear spilled onto her powdery white cheek.

  “What do you see?” asked Chiara.

  The old woman held Chiara’s hand. “Your husband is waiting for you at the villa,” she said. “Go home and tell him he’s going to be a father again.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  The old woman smiled and said, “One of each.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The English Girl is a work of entertainment and should be read as nothing more. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in the story are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The version of Susanna and the Elders by Jacopo Bassano that appears in the novel does not exist. If it did, it would look a great deal like the one that hangs in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims. There is indeed a small limestone apartment house on Narkiss Street in Jerusalem—several, in fact—but an Israeli intelligence officer named Gabriel Allon does not actually reside there. The headquarters of the Israeli secret service are no longer located on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv; I have chosen to keep the headquarters of my fictitious service there in part because I have always liked the name of the street. The bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 is historical fact, though Arthur Seymour, the father of my fictitious MI5 officer Graham Seymour, did not actually witness it. There is no exhibit at the Israel Museum featuring the pillars of Solomon’s Temple of Jerusalem, for no ruins from the Temple have ever been discovered.