Pattern Crimes (46 page)

Later he stood in the center of the plaza and
gaze
d at the buildings all around. The golden dome of the Dome of the Rock caught the dying fire, held it a while, and glowed. Beside the shelter on the top tier above the rabbinical tunnel he made out soldiers, and, on a ledge within the Mount, several men, garbed in cloaks, staring down. He turned, looked up at the apartments just behind, found Gati's great window, and saw that it was black. It was from here the general would have viewed his spectacle of destruction: the bomb floating down to meet the Dome, the explosion, the fire, and then the beginning of the Holy War. Except that Gati hadn't cared about Armageddon, or the rebuilding of the Temple, or even recapture of the "high ground," the Temple Mount. What he had wanted was a provocation that would ignite a War of Wars. His dream was of a final decisive war of conquest, in which all Arabs would finally be driven from the land, and the borders of the Jewish State would become those of the biblical "Greater Israel."

A mad scheme. It would never have worked, and it would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Three fanatics, each with his own horrible agenda, conspiring together in a van....

He left the plaza, ascended into the Jewish Quarter. Here, on this cool autumn night, the narrow pedestrian streets were still. He passed a soldier in battle dress, submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, kissing his girl in a quiet corner.

Lights burned in apartments. He peered in and saw families, people talking, children playing, women preparing meals. These domestic scenes filled him with a great longing to be home.

He rushed through the maze of alleys, then out through the Zion Gate. Descending Mount Zion, there came a point when he caught sight of his own apartment across the valley of Hinnom. His window was lit, which meant that Anna was home. He strode faster, and, on the descent, began to run. The air, scented with an intermingling of pine and rosemary, parted easily before him. He was barely winded when, a quarter hour later, he arrived in Abu Tor.

En Rogel: a special street of old Arab houses and new apartment buildings and gentle dogs that communicated with savage barks. Hinnom was all blackness now. The Arab town of Shiloah sparkled in the east. The Jerusalem of Gold Folklore Club was empty, and the street lamps projected shadows upon the cars parked along the curb.

The moment he entered number sixteen he heard the music. Faintly at first, as he passed the doors of apartments where people
were listening to radios and TV news, then more clearly on the second floor.
He thought:
It the sonata. She finally gotten herself a record.
But as he climbed to the third floor he realized this wasn't true. There was no piano part, which meant that the music was live. But played by whom? Could another cellist be working with Anna now?

Whoever this cellist was, he was playing the sonata well, David thought. Playing it very well. He paused outside the door and listened. Then he thought:
Is it possible? Could it be?

He opened the door quietly. Anna was perched on her stool facing the window. Her back was to him, her body was swaying; the music swelled up and filled the room.

She was playing, and when she sensed his presence she turned to him. He saw the triumph on her face. And then he realized that even as he had entered the building he had known that the music could not have been played by anybody else.

He walked to the couch, sat down, and listened. Her eyes glistened with pleasure and a glow of conquest reddened her cheeks. She bowed and swayed and her expression said everything. She had it now—every phrase, every nuance. She'd mastered it. Now the music was hers.

Later he thought:
Perhaps now too this city belongs to me.

It was past midnight. Anna was asleep. The sound of her breathing filled the room. David sat before the large window staring out at Jerusalem. The buildings were the same—the hills, the lights, the shadows and silhouettes. On a thousand clear nights like this he had gazed upon them. But now, on this particular night, at last he was seeing them whole.

It was the pattern of Jerusalem finally revealed, the pattern he had been seeking and which until now he had not permitted himself to see. He recalled the events of the afternoon: the way the light had struck and made perfect all the domes and minarets, the look of sad pride in his father's eyes, the nod of shared acknowledgment with the rabbi, and the satisfaction on Anna's face when he had come upon her at the moment of her conquest. He knew that each of these events was a part of some inexpressible whole, and that his embracing of this whole meant that at last his fractured world had cohered.

Staring out at the moonlit city he trembled at the lucid power of this vision. It was as if, until this moment, there had been no design. But now, like iron filings suddenly organized in the presence of a magnet, everything, every person and place he knew, came together in a pattern demarcated by the city spread below.

It was a beautiful pattern, moral too: Everything was connected, every life touched every life, and he himself was part of all of it.

As he gazed out marveling, he knew that this vision was one he would not forget. And he knew too that if one day he confronted chaos again, worked a case again that would perplex, obsess, and taunt, he would be able to look back upon this night, recall that he had seen the pattern, and then his world would become orderly again.

"PATTERN CRIMES": Q & A WITH WILLIAM BAYER

Q:
 
How did you happen to write this novel?

A:
 
My wife, a cookbook author, was invited to join a food press tour of Israel and I tagged along. The food wasn't particularly good, and though I found the country interesting, I didn't get excited until we got to Jerusalem. It's an incredibly beautiful and romantic city, and one of my first thoughts was that it would make a great setting for a crime novel. After the food tour was over, I stayed on, exploring the city and surrounding area and working out a plot. It took me several weeks to figure out the basic story. After that I went back to New York, started work, then returned to Jerusalem a number of times, sometimes for long stays, all the while continuing to write. I wanted to capture the sights, sounds and smells as background for my story. In the end I wanted the city to become an important character, not just to enhance verisimilitude and mood but also to suggest the many ways a special place can impact the lives of the people who live there. I felt (and still do) that Jerusalem is one of the most powerful cities in the world in terms of the effect it has on residents and visitors alike. And I think that's evident by the passions it continues to stir up.

Q:
 
Your main character, David Bar-Lev – was he based on someone you met?

A:
 
He's fictional, but some aspects of his character and his life are based on three Israeli detectives I met and interviewed in depth. I knew I wanted David to be a peace-loving Zionist, which is what I am, and, also like me, a secular humanist as opposed to an observant Jew. He's one of my favorite detective characters – totally honest, incredibly perceptive and intelligent, a man who takes police work very seriously and yet has a complex and often troubled personal life.

Q:
 
His girlfriend, the Russian cellist, Anna – is she also a fictitious invention?

A:
 
Totally! As are Avraham (David's father); Gideon (his deceased brother); Rafi (David's boss); Dov, Uri, Shoshana and Micha (David's team of investigators); Stephanie Porter (the American agent) – in fact, most everyone.
  

Q:
 
The bitter old man, Gutman, who steals and sells Torahs –how did you come up with him?

A:
 
I discovered there really were people who did that.

Q:
 
What about Peretz?

A:
 
There's a bit of Ariel Sharon in Peretz, at least in Sharon's younger days. But Peretz is far more right-wing and extreme.

Q:
 
What about the two old Russian artists, the world-famous Targov and the broken Sokolov whom Targov betrayed?

A:
 
Fictitious. But I have to add that I love that subplot. I had great fun working with those two characters and their weird twisted relationship.

Q:
 
One gets the feeling that you loved Jerusalem?

A:
 
I did and still do. It's a magical city. Of course some terrible things have happened there in the name of this or that ism. It's a place that attracts crazies, self-proclaimed messiahs, religious fanatics, political agitators, and also artists, writers, scholars. I was lucky enough to go there when it was still possible to venture safely into most every corner of the city, East and West. I'm not sure that's still the case.

Q:
 
Where did you stay?

A:
 
Mostly in hotels. I particularly liked the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. Later I was fortunate enough to be given an apartment in a marvelous artists' housing called Mishkenot She'ananin, situated below the famous King David Hotel with a wonderful view of the old city. I set several scenes there. Saul Bellow had stayed there, as had John Le Carre. While I was there, Jeanne Moreau was in the next apartment. The staff there would do most anything to help the residents, but when I asked to meet detectives, they shook their heads. They offered to introduce me to the Minister of Justice, the State Prosecutor, etc., but a real working detective was too far down the status totem pole. So I ended up making my own contacts through friends and acquaintances.

Q:
 
Music plays an important role in the novel.

A:
 
I had this old tape cassette Walkman then and I used to play a terrific tape of James Levine and Lynn Harrell playing Schubert's "Arpeggione" and Mendelssohn's Sonata For Cello And Piano as I walked around. I decided to make the Mendelssohn piece central to the story, a piece Anna kept rehearsing, working to get it right. Finally, near the end of the novel, she does. I remember walking to the apartment building I'd chosen as David and Anna's, with that music playing, and I was able to time it just right so that when I arrived at the front door, the Mendelssohn would be just at the point at which I wanted David to hear it in the final scene when he came through the door, and, hearing it, to know that Anna had finally conquered the piece. I love that musical motif.

Q:
 
 
David Bar-Lev is a great character. Did readers ask you to reprieve him in another book?

A:
 
 
They did. But I have a prejudice against series characters, at least in my own work. There’re only two cases where I used a character in more than one book: NYPD Frank Janek, and San Francisco-based photographer Kay Farrow. Even so I was tempted to employ David again. I got an idea for a novel that would be titled “The Street Called Straight,” which is the actual name of a famous street in Damascus, Syria, alleged to be the oldest street in the world. The idea was that David would meet his Syrian counterpart at a crime-solving conference in Switzerland, and although their two nations were technically at war, they would get talking and realize there was a serial killer (the same guy, a foreigner) at work in both countries. So they agree to work together, David in Jerusalem and the Syrian detective in Damascus. My plan was that they would solve the murders together, and the climax would take place on The Street Called Straight, which would mean that David would have to go to Damascus, quite a daring proposition. I went to Damascus to do research, but I can’t get past the political problems. Both Israeli cops and Syrian cops told me that such a collaboration could never take place. The Syrians were very clear that the only way an Israeli official could enter Syria would be under a false identity, and that then if he were caught he’d almost certainly be hung as a spy. So as much as I liked my concept, I realized that it was too great a stretch, and that no one in either country would believe it.

Q:
 
 
David's father, Avraham Bar-Lev, is a retired psychoanalyst who in his retirement is studying Kabbala. You seem to have a number of psychoanalyst characters in your books.

A:
 
I'm fascinated by that profession and the people who practice it. To put it another way, I'm interested in writing about psychoanalysts who, though they may be superb therapists, have deeply troubled personal lives. Avraham is such a character, and his and David's relationship is quite tormented.

Q:
 
How would you sum up "Pattern Crimes"?

A:
 
I'd say that first and foremost it's a detective story. In fact, while I was working on it I made up a little sign and tacked it above my desk: "Never Forget You're Writing A Detective Story." But even so I feel it's a multi-layered book: part murder story and part political thriller, a novel about Israeli life during the very specific period when I was writing, a novel of a great city at a very stressful time in its history, and a novel too about art and music. Because of all this interweaving I view it as one of my best novels, one of which I am still very proud. I set out to use a strong detective story plot to explore a lot of things that interested me. It's up to readers to decide whether I brought the project off.