Hostage (24 page)

“But why … how come? What about Ahmed?” Shaltiel asks foolishly. “What’s he going to do? And you? You’ll be punished …”

“Don’t worry about me.

“All this is for your father,” he said, and walked off into the night.

Shaltiel thanks all the guests around the table for their presence, for having been there all along; he says thank you for having freed him, for having restored his concern for dignity, for having rallied around Blanca. Blanca, even on this day of liberation, looks sad and melancholic.

Her sadness reminds him of the things they found out about each other and their inner selves. Their bitter arguments about having a child. He was afraid. Having lived through what he had lived through, he no longer trusted history or humanity. Blanca would answer, “You’re forgetting that even in the ghettos, and later in the camps for displaced persons, Jews continued to love one another, become engaged, marry and have children. On the eve of being evacuated, they gambled on the future, vowing to stay united for eternity. If your parents had had the same thoughts as you, there would have been no love between us. We would have missed out on a great experience.”

Shaltiel, overcome with remorse, thinks to himself: I have been foolish and irresponsible. Children, that was the problem that remains. Was it because we grew apart that we didn’t have children? No, of course not.

He could see it now. He looked at Blanca with newfound tenderness; a dazzling white light was in front of him.

I was mistaken, he thinks. It isn’t because we grew apart that we don’t have children; it is because we don’t have children that our estrangement was possible, if not inevitable. Will the terrorists have had the last word? When I die one day, will it be without heirs?

Shaltiel looks at his father, his cousins, his friends. He thinks of the person missing at the table. He’ll find the words to tell Blanca that his convictions have changed.

“Mysticism gone astray is more dangerous than heresy,” Shaltiel says.

“Who are you referring to?” asks Rachel.

“To my abductors.”

“I understand,” says Ryan.

“The Italian is in jail, you say,” says Shaltiel.

“Yes, of course,” says Saul. “He’s being questioned. It’s essential for us to find out everything about his accomplices, here, everywhere. He’ll be tried, of course.”

Shaltiel takes a deep breath and says, “I’d like to attend the trial.”

“Of course,” says Saul. “You’re the most important witness in the case.”

Shaltiel nods his head. “Yes, I will testify. I want to express my gratitude.”

Blanca is the only one to smile at him.