Bless the Child (32 page)

The future enters into

us, in order to

transform itself in us,

long before it

happens.

Rainer Maria Rilke

T
he Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, or the Ha Mossad, le Modiyn ve le Tafkidim Mayuhadim, does not officially exist in Israel, or anywhere else. Yet, there are few people in any civilized nation who do not know the Mossad is the best secret service organization in the world. Espionage, antiterrorist activities, clandestine operations, intelligence gathering and a great deal else fall within the province of its expertise. It is an expertise for a less than perfect world. Occasionally, an Entebbe happens . . . an incident in which highly skilled antiterrorists must pull off an impossible rescue. Sometimes, a Klaus Barbie must be found and brought to justice. Sometimes, an Iraqi nuclear plant is mysteriously sabotaged, or the plans for a Mirage bomber are lifted out from under the nose of a government. At such times the word Mossad always surfaces.
“By way of deception, thou shalt do war,”
is said to be its motto. To kill only those with blood on their hands, is said to be its credo. All that is really known for certain, is the elitist quality of its workmanship.

In September of 1951, Prime Minester David Ben-Gurion allowed the creation of the Mossad as an intelligence agency that would always remain in shadow. There are no references to it to be found in Israeli budgets, and the name of its head has never been exposed to the public. Yet no one doubts its existence or it efficiency. Raphael Abraham was one of only thirty to thirty-five case officers, or
katas,
operating worldwide. When the head of Tsomet, the Mossad’s recruiting department, had met the young Zionist, in 1961, he had been struck by certain characteristics in him that he felt had unusual potential. Abraham was of large and sturdy construction, and there was a certain bull-like quality to his physicality, that was echoed in his psyche. He stood his ground implacably, no matter what the stress level he was subjected to; in fact, the greater the stress, the more stalwart he became. And, he was very smart; in academics and in life, he had been blessed with unusual and astute intelligence.

Abraham had a gift for language and a photographic memory for details. Whether it be maps, charts, columns of figures, or the nuances of discussion—he was capable of stockpiling any information he contacted, like a computer. But more useful than this mechanistic gift was his ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Even as a young recruit, he’d had singular common sense.

Abraham considered himself a soldier, nor more, no less. He considered himself a very good soldier. He was not alone in this judgment.

He found this newest operation he had been given, a puzzlement. The head of his section, Uzi Eisenberg, was no man’s fool, and he had made it clear to Abraham that he intuited more to this Amulet business than met the eye. In fact, an astonishing conversion had taken place with him during the briefing. Abraham replayed the dialogue in his head, word for word:

“This Isis Amulet, Rafi,” Eisenberg had said musingly, “what a fascinating notion, that a
thing
could embody the power of Good or Evil. And, how ironic that the legend places this wonder in the hands of a child and a gentile girl child, at that. God must surely have a sense of humor.” He was far too much of pragmatist to believe in magic, of course, but it was apparent the story intrigued him.

“We must find out what part the woman plays in all this,” he’d said. “Is she acting for any of the other interested parties, or is she an innocent?”

“No one is innocent,” Abraham had responded definitively.

“From a philosophical standpoint you are right, of course, but in a practical sense, she may be merely a pawn in someone else’s game . . .” or she may be playing a game of her own.

“Look, Rafi, I’ll be honest with you. When the Prime Minister handed me this mission, I laughed out loud.
Goyisha bullshit!
I told him.
Boubameisa.
Magical Amulets, magical children . . .” He shrugged eloquently.

“Then I read the legend in the dossier, and realized the PR value for the Egyptians, if they could allege to have such a creature and her Amulet on tap. Besides which, we need to know the whole thing isn’t just camouflage for something else. So . . . you must find me the truth. And the child. And her Amulet, should there be one. The Prime Minister thinks Tel Aviv would be a better place for it than Cairo.”

“What do we know so far?” Abraham had asked, tapping the barely skimmed dossier he’d been handed.

“A lot of hearsay, garbage, legend, innuendo,” Eisenberg had replied. “A woman, not bad-looking . . . a three-year-old, currently in Greenwich . . . a lot of money and power. And maybe some gun running and drugs.”

“And this Vannier?” he’d asked, flipping through the papers on his lap. “And, Sayles?”

“Both up to their high-profile balls in armaments and heroin. All Cossacks have the same face, Rafi—but as yet, we don’t know how all these faces tie together.”

They had spoken for the better part of an hour about the intended investigation before the
katsa
rose to leave. “So, Uzi, I ask you man to man,” Abraham had asked as he neared the door. “Do you believe in this Isis Amulet and its mystical powers? Stones that work miracles? Amulets to rule the world?”

“You ask me if I believe in miracles, Rafi?” he’d responded. “I believe in leaving no stone unturned.” Both men had chuckled a little, and Eisenberg had added, “Is not all Judaism built on miracles? Moses and the Red Sea . . . the Tablets on Mount Sinai . . . the burning bush. Tell me, Rafi, are there no mystics in your family to make you a believer?”

Rafi had smiled at that, memory surfacing. “My Uncle Schlomo was an impoverished rabbi, Uzi . . . he was also a great scholar and expert on Kabbalah. But he married my Aunt Sarah, the meanest woman ever to draw breath in Israel. I figure if he really knew anything about magic he would have been rich and had a different wife.”

Eisenberg had laughed aloud.

“We won’t argue this point, my friend,” he’d replied easily. “You know what they say—the only thing two Jews can agree on, is how much a third Jew should give to charity.”

They had walked toward the door. “Whatever our personal opinions on this subject,” Eisenberg had said, as he turned the knob, “our Egyptian friends must not be the ones to retrieve this Amulet. We do not need an Arab government possessing a talisman that people believe has power to rule the world. Psychology is power, too.”

“Rule the world?” Rafi had replied with a derisive snort. “They couldn’t even hold on to the Sinai.”

It had been a good curtain line, but it didn’t’ mean Raphael Abraham would get cocky. Eisenberg hadn’t become head of a section of the Mossad because he was stupid.

That was where it had begun a week ago for him. So, Abraham had set a team to watch and wait. In his work, the ability to do these two tasks well and patiently was the key to all success. His was a job of painstaking attention to details of the kind that drove others to boredom, or insanity; to Abraham it was an endlessly interesting game. Had he been given the Gordian knot to unravel, he would have settled in to do so, with relish and enjoyment.

By now the dossier he’d been given had grown geometrically. He now knew a great deal about Eric Vannier and Nicholas Sayles. The Mossad, like MI5 and the CIA, had used the Vannier Foundation and their banking network for various undercover operations over the years since its establishment. Abraham no longer made moral judgments about the existence of such organizations; they were useful, or they were not. That was all that concerned him and his work. The Black Magic aspects of the two men’s backgrounds had been flagged in their files, long ago, but it hadn’t interested Mossad overmuch until now. Every man had an Achilles’ heel by Abraham’s reckoning; some were womanizers, some were homosexuals, some gambled, some drank, some liked to cause pain—all had a secret that could be used to the Mossad’s advantage. So, these two liked to dress up like children and call upon long-dead Gods for assistance that would never come. It was interesting information for a dossier, but up until now had little real use to the Mossad.
Now,
he would rethink its possibilities.

Then, there was the Egyptian, Hazred. Another man with a secret. Abraham pulled out the Hazred dossier from the pile, and studied the arrogant, pharaonic face. The sneer of power, the hooded eyes of an aristocracy that never saw farther than the nose on its face . . . such a face as this must Ramses have had, when he tortured the Israelites, and built his pyramids over their broken bodies.

An interesting case, this Abdul Hazred, Rich, brilliant . . . a doctorate at nineteen. The life of a gentlemen scholar, until now. Do not underestimate this one, Rafi, he told himself. Behind that face is intellect and cunning; this is a man with a purpose.

He opened the final folder. Inside, were pictures of Maggie, Jenna, and Cody. He stared a long while at the cherubic face of the child on everybody’s wish list. She had spirited gray eyes . . . unusual eyes; steady and unchildlike. But beyond that, she looked like any other three-year-old. Chubby-cheeked, with long shining blond hair, caught in twin pony tails. He sighed. His own Leah had looked much like this when she was three, but that had been long ago. She had children of her own now.

Abraham frowned at the picture of Jenna. Such a perfect gentile face and body. Flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, coltish. But what was under the surface was another story. Any woman who would put her own child in danger . . . what difference what she looked like? She was beneath contempt.

He held Maggie’s picture in his hand, studying it carefully. There was strength in this face, and womanliness. It bespoke character, of the kind that doesn’t give up easily. What would the owner of such a face do to save a beloved child, he wondered?
Something
unexpected, perhaps. The owner of this face would bear watching.

Raphael Abraham put the folders back in the locked cabinet, and left the room.

C
ody looked furtively to right and left; no one was watching. She snatched three oatmeal cookies from the supper tray, along with the lone apple, and tucked them surreptitiously into her backpack, under the table. She looked speculatively at the milk, but she could think of no way to transport it without the glass—and that would be missed by the cook or Ghania. So, with a sigh, she drank it herself. Tonight she would try to help the Screamers.

The idea made her afraid, but something inside her was insistent that she try. The plan had been growing and growing within her. The Screamers had been everywhere in her mind, since Ghania had dragged her to the cellar. She saw their faces, heard their sobs,
felt
their hurts . . . She had collapsed, after the awful night, lying in her bed, crying, terrified, trying to forget. Then the face of one of them had drifted back to her, its eyes bright with fever, its hurt so clear, in the clenched mouth and sunken cheeks . . . and suddenly she had remembered her
gift.
Hurt things, sick things—she could make them well again! Maybe if the Screamers felt better, they could run away. And Ghania would not be able to make them scream anymore.

What would Ghania do to her, she wondered, if she caught her? Cody didn’t think the Amah would kill her. She’d heard Ghania and the Daddy-man talking about something called the Ceremony. “No harm must come to her before the Ceremony.” He had said. And Ghania replied, “There are only three weeks left.” Cody thought that meant they wouldn’t make her a Screamer, yet. She wasn’t exactly sure how long three weeks would take, but maybe if she helped the Screamers get away, they would help her, too. Maybe they would even take her back to Mim.

The maid took the tray without a word, and Cody waited holding her breath, until the girl had left. Then she transferred her new acquisitions to the small hoard of similar items, under her clothes in the dresser drawer.

Everyone was sleeping, Cody could hear the silence all around her. Not that she was watched closely at night. Ghania’s rooms were down the hall, and far past where the other servants had quarters, but no one expected a small child to go prowling after dark, so no one watched her very carefully.

The house was so still and dark, Cody almost changed her mind, but the fruit she had collected for three days was starting to smell funny, so she knew she’d have to make her move tonight.

She eased the nursery door open and peeked into the hallway. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, and had no great trouble seeing in the dim light. She put her small burden of food in her knapsack and zipped it softly, then took the trouble-light from the wall outlet near the door; the one that stayed lit, even when unplugged . . . it wouldn’t do to bang into things and make noise.

Soundlessly, the child crept to the stairs, and holding the banister, carefully made her way to the floor below. No one was around. She sped to the kitchen, and saw with dismay that the bolt on the basement door was too high up to reach. Cody pulled the step stool over to the door, slowly and fearfully, trying not to make a sound, then with trepidation, she let herself into the staircase.

The dark basement was disorienting; there was only a dim yellow light burning somewhere ahead. Cody stood very still at the bottom of the stairs to make sure no one was watching. The soft moans of the Screamers told her which way to go. Her hands had begun to tingle, the funny way they always did in the presence of hurt or sick things. She could feel the fiery energy filling up her fingers and arms, in an almost-ache.

She stopped at the edge of the cages to gather courage, then crept forward on tiptoe.

“Hello, mister,” she said softly to the occupant of the first cage, but he didn’t answer her. He was very, very sick; she could tell by the increased tingling in her hands. She reached into the cage and touched the man’s mangled right arm; it lay useless and crooked on the floor of the cage beside him, swollen and hideously discolored. The other arm was strapped to the blood bottle tube. Cody felt the transfer of energy begin in the instant she touched him; like a torrent of water through a drainpipe, the flood always started when she touched the sick or the hurt ones. She waited patiently for the flood to abate.

The man opened his eyes and stared in disbelief at the small child’s face, then at the tiny hand that was pulsating “something” into his arm.

“How did you get here?” he whispered, his voice barely human. “The witch’ll kill you if she finds you.”

The
witch!
So
that’s
what she was. Of course. Cody hadn’t even thought of that because Ghania didn’t have a witch’s outfit on. But witches were the only ones who did horrible things, like put people in cages . . . just like in Hansel and Gretel.

“Her name is Ghania,” she whispered back. “I brought you a cookie.” The improbability of the whole scene made the man laugh dementedly; he began to cough and choke.

“Shh!” Cody admonished with real fear; she pulled the cookie from her knapsack and pushed it toward him. “I don’t want Ghania to come or she’ll hurt me. I have an apple, and an orange, and a banana. We could give them to your friends.”

Others had awakened and were murmuring.

“Quiet!” the first man reprimanded sharply. “The kid’s here on her own. The witch’ll kill her if we make any noise.”

Cody started to hand out the food she’d hoarded, but she could see it wasn’t nearly enough. Some people couldn’t move their arms to take the food, so she had to break off a piece of cookie and try to reach their mouths through the bars, but it was hard to do.

“Hey, kid!” the first man whispered. “What was that thing you did with your hand? My arm feels better . . . I haven’t been able to move my fingers since they broke it. What’d you do?”

“I can fix hurt things,” Cody whispered, not knowing how to explain the gift.

Murmurs of “help me, help . . .” rose all around her dizzyingly. The small child moved from cage to cage, letting the energy run through her to the desperate ones. She could feel it come into her body through the top of her head and the soles of her feet, then flow out through her hands. She did it for a long time, until she began to feel woozy and drained.

“Can you get us out of here? Can you get the key?” they asked over, and over.

“I don’t have any keys,” she said sadly, wondering if she had the strength even to get back upstairs. “I’m really sorry but I have to go now. I’ll try to come back again.”

She backed away from the cages wearily, and turned toward the stairs.

“God bless you, kid,” the first man called after her softly. “God bless you,” they all said over and over. She wished they’d be quiet, so Ghania wouldn’t find out.

She made her way stealthily up the stairs, grateful to be going back to bed.

At the top of the cellar stairs, Ghania was waiting.

“So you don’t fear the night, my little one?” the Amah said in a syrupy voice that was sinister in its sweetness. “We shall see.”

Cody’s stomach lurched violently, as she felt Ghania’s iron grip close on her arm; she almost vomited with terror. She barely felt the stone stairs abrade her body, as she was dragged back down to the cellar, past the Screamers. She heard them curse at Ghania, but it only made the Amah laugh.

“You will not move from this spot!” Ghania commanded when she reached the far side of the room; and nothing in her voice was syrup now. “I will show you what happens to little girls who defy me.”

Ghania reached inside a small animal cage and yanked out a large white rabbit. Its pink nose and ears quivered, and Cody would have reached for its softness, if she hadn’t been so scared.

She watched Ghania strap the pretty bunny upside down on a metal table. The creature fluttered its legs in a futile protest and tried desperately to right itself.

The knife that glinted in Ghania’s hand had been secreted inside her dress, and seemed to appear by magic. It looked very old and had jewels on the hilt.

“Because of your disobedience, this rabbit will die in agony,” she said, her eyes glittering like the knife blade. “You have killed this poor little thing, you bad,
bad
child; you have made him suffer
pain.”
She slit the animals belly from neck to crotch and blood spurted up and out in every direction.

The rabbit squealed, an ungodly anguished scream, and nearly tore its own legs off straining against the leather straps that held it. Cody screamed, too; her little hands flew up to her own mouth to cover the scream but it got through anyway.

“You are responsible for this animal’s suffering, bad,
bad
child!” the Amah intoned brutally. “So you must taste its blood!”

She cupped her hand in the steaming red liquid that poured from the dying rabbit’s belly and smeared it over Cody’s mouth and face. The child fought like a caged beast, twisting her head away, but Ghania held her fast.

“Now, you must pull out the worms in its belly for your punishment,” the witch demanded, pushing Cody’s face so close to the sill pulsing intestines, she could see them moving.

Ghania forced the child’s hand deep into the steaming aperture. Bloody gray things slithered all around her fingers, as she tried to pull her hand free from Ghania’s brutal grip.

Screaming, vomiting, fighting, falling backward, back, back,
down, down, into icy darkness.
Dying.
I’m dying,
she thought.
It’s my fault the bunny died.
Now, I have to die too.
Mim! Help me!

That was when she saw the strange white Light for the very first time.

Ghania
sat next to Cody’s bed, stroking the feverish little forehead and crooning softly as she rocked. “Little one was bad,” she murmured over and over, “and she made the rabbit die. But Ghania understands . . . Ghania is her friend.”

Cody lay still as death, very sick and very, very afraid. Ghania was
not
her friend. Ghania was a witch. Ghania killed things and hurt things and made things bleed. But, maybe no one else was her friend, either. No one ever came to help her, no matter how hard she prayed . . . no matter how hard she cried and begged. Maybe nobody else cared anymore, and Ghania was all there would ever be.

No.
That wasn’t true! Mim would care if they made Cody a Screamer. Mim would do
something.
But why didn’t she come, ever . . . why didn’t she call on the telephone? . . . Cody had tried to call Mim one day, but the operator said she didn’t know how to find anybody named Mim.

The child lay very still with terrible, warring thoughts and hideous fears raging through her. She would try to hide out, here in the darkness inside her head, for a while.

At least she wouldn’t have to look at Ghania’s face.

She would scrunch her eyes shut and lie very still, and think about the Light. There had been comfort in the Light, and courage. And it let her get away from this hateful place. Cody went inward, and Ghania, knowing where she’d gone, smiled.