Stateless (51 page)

It was when she entered the garden that she knew instinctively something was terribly wrong. The door to the kitchen, which led into the back rooms, was ajar. An agent of Anastasia's pedigree would never have done something so careless. Judit weighed up the situation; she could leave immediately, but then she'd never know how things were; or she could enter the house and risk whatever might be waiting. She drew out a knife from inside her coat and held it by her side, ready to strike upwards into a body.

Judit pushed gently on the door. Hiding behind the doorpost,
she looked into the darkened maw of the kitchen. The moon only illuminated part of the room, but she could see sufficiently well to know that the room was empty.

And then the smell hit her. It was the smell of death, of decay. It was accompanied by the buzzing of dozens of flies. She had heard that sound, smelled that stench, a hundred times passing dead bodies on the streets of her childhood in a Moscow summer. It was the acrid smell of dried blood, of body fluids that had leaked out of wounds, of trousers or dresses stained in piss and shit that had seeped out from terror.

But Anastasia's safe house always smelled of flowers, of roses and irises and lilies or whatever was in season. Judit walked into the kitchen, gripping the knife more tightly, and the further she walked into the house, the worse the smell became and the louder the buzzing of the flies.

Keeping the lights off, her back close to the wall, she inched forward, feeling her way along the hall and into the front room. She knew all too well that there was a dead body in here. She knew all too well how death smelled.

She stood stock still on the periphery of the lounge room, looking around, trying to get her eyes used to the darkness. The heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. There was no warmth in the room, no living presence, just the reek of decay. Hearing no movement, Judit hoped it would be safe to turn on the light. She felt for the switch, and the moment she pulled it down, she saw a gargoyle sitting in the armchair. Dead eyes staring perpetually at the drawn curtains, mouth – what remained of a mouth – just a gaping wound. Dried blood, once bright red now a dun-coloured brown, had dripped onto the woman's chin and breast and stained her yellow dress.

Anastasia Bistrzhitska's dead body sat in the armchair, her hands were tied at the back and her body was tethered. She didn't appear to have struggled. Somebody had placed her there
and shot her upwards through the mouth, the bullet exploding in her head and splattering her brains and skull over the back of the chair and onto the ceiling and floor behind her.

Judit looked at the woman she had once loved as a friend, as a mother, and felt suddenly sick. She felt the gorge rise in her throat and ran towards the kitchen, banging her shoulder on the doorpost as she rushed down the hall. She vomited into the kitchen sink once, then again, and finally retched nothing but bile.

She ran the cold-water tap, and washed her mouth, face and hands. She gulped volumes of water, and threw up again. And then her training kicked in. She had to remove herself immediately. Any thoughts she had of untying Anastasia, laying her friend to rest in the cold earth of Jerusalem, was for another time and place. Now it was her own survival.

Judit's mind raced over the possibilities of who had done this to Anastasia. Arabs? Unlikely. They were known for random attacks and sniper fire, not strategic assassination. British or American? Possibly. If Anastasia's cover was blown she could well be a target for Allied forces looking to leverage the self-same influence in the region after the war to come. But who else could it have been? Israelis was the only answer left. Had the Irgun leadership uncovered their plot? Had Berin ordered the assassination? If so, it would only be a matter of days before they found and tried to eliminate her.

She had to get in touch with her Russian control, to find somewhere to disappear. And then it suddenly dawned on Judit that Anastasia had deliberately kept her as her sole protégée. She'd never once introduced her to any other people in the MGB hierarchy. It was a weakness they'd once discussed, but Anastasia had dismissed it with a casual wave of her hand, assuring her that she'd always be there for her special little dove.

Anastasia was Judit's one and only direct link with Moscow, but suddenly, since the moment she was plucked from her
Hebrew school, she was disconnected from the people running her mission. She was now alone, with nowhere to run and no one to call for help. Her only move now was to see the mission through, to kill Berin before he killed her.

Judit returned to her home and arrived at the outside of her apartment building after midnight. The journey by foot from the safe house to where she lived normally took less than half an hour, but after what she'd seen of Anastasia, she was more cautious than she'd ever been before.

Certain that there was nobody outside or inside her building who would do her harm, she unlocked her front door as quietly as she could, and with the door just ajar, she listened for any sound from within. It was as quiet as a grave, but she walked in wearing only her socks, turning on no lights, and tried to sense the presence of anybody hiding in the dark. She clasped her knife tightly in her sweating palm.

The door to her bedroom was open, and she saw Shalman lying in their bed, fast asleep, with Vered's cot close beside him. She watched him silently in the darkness, feeling an unfathomable sadness, the deepest imaginable regret that what could have been such a happy life with a lovely man and a beautiful child in a new and exciting country should have come to this. It was at that moment, looking at him peacefully asleep beside their innocent daughter, that she understood how much she had cost those she loved: her mother, brother and sister by her absence, her husband and daughter by the neglect which resulted from her actions.

Judit suddenly felt giddy. She grasped the handle of the door to steady herself, and felt that she was on the edge of madness. Not even tears would come to relieve the dam inside her head, a pressure about to burst.

She breathed softly, but deeply, using her training to control her thoughts. To think logically, to see the big picture, and
not the small inconveniences. But nothing could prevent her looking at Shalman and seeing his innocence, his openness and goodness. It was what had drawn them together, and what had torn them apart.

She saw him stir, and then heard his soft, sleepy, half awake voice.

‘Judit?'

‘Yes,' she whispered. ‘Sorry it's so late. Look, darling, don't get out of bed. I have to go somewhere urgently. It's a big deal. We're all mobilised. I have to take some clothes with me. I hope to be back in a week, when I've sorted out what's happening.'

‘But a week . . . what is it? Are the Arabs –?'

‘Yes, shush now. Don't wake Vered. Big attack. We've got early intelligence. Big meetings tonight.'

She walked into the bedroom, and in the darkness opened a suitcase and threw into it some underclothes, a couple of dresses and a hairbrush.

‘Shalman, I have to go immediately. I'm so sorry. I love you. I've loved you from the moment we were on that stupid roof together. You were such a
nebbish
; you were so innocent and unworldly, and clean and pure, and I loved you to bits. And I love Vered. Tell her that when she wakes. Tell her Mummy loves her with all her heart. Tell her –'

‘Judit? What's wrong? You're almost in tears. What's happened?'

‘I told you. There's a big –'

‘Judit. Stop it. Some men were here tonight, asking about where you were. These men had guns and were very serious. They told me they needed to find you for a mission, but I didn't believe them. What's going on? What are you up to? Vered was crying because of the men. They wouldn't tell me who they were or where they were from, but –'

She sighed. She sat on the bed. ‘I have to go, Shalman. I can't
tell you anything, but I hope we can see each other again. Don't ask me questions. Just accept that there's more to me than you know. And the less you know, the better. But one thing I have to tell you. Tomorrow or the day after, the Irgun is going to go into Mustafa's village. They're going to shoot the place up. They're going there to teach the villagers a lesson. People are going to be killed. I'm telling you this because Mustafa once saved your life, and now you can save his. Don't tell him the details; just get him and his parents out of there for a couple of days. Just do it. Don't ask questions – just do it.'

And with that, she left the apartment without another word, without kissing him, touching him. She left Shalman sitting in bed, wondering how his life had suddenly become such a minefield of unanswered questions.

He looked over to Vered, who was stirring. It was as though the little one had sensed that her mother had been and gone, had suddenly left their apartment, departed her life.

And Shalman was suddenly wracked with an overwhelming feeling that something monumental had just happened; that despite the intensity with which he loved his wife, their brief, extreme, passionate, insane marriage was over; that he'd never ever see her again; that despite her vows and commitment, she'd walked out of his life, and from that moment onwards, he'd never know her touch, her softness, her strength, her smell, her taste ever again. He closed his eyes in a sudden torrent of grief, and realised in his darkness that he couldn't remember her face.

And the feeling of bottomless sadness stayed with him as he sat up in bed all night, staring into the black void.

Foothills of Jerusalem

1099

N
imrod the doctor and Simeon the new and anxious treasurer stood stock-still in the burning heat of a Jerusalem summer. The tympani of insects flying through the air, gripping onto the bark of trees and feeding on the dry grasses, was deafening. It was a cacophony that had begun the previous year and had accompanied them on their slow progress south ever since. The incessant noise had diminished at the sea port of Joppa, but as the army walked inland and began to ascend the hills which led to the city of Jerusalem atop the ridge that was the King's Highway, the noise of insects became louder and louder until it was, again, deafening.

Nimrod and Simeon stood amid the parched bushes and dead grasses of the foothills of the holy city of Jerusalem and stared. Like a crown on the head of a monarch, the city of David, of Solomon, of Judah the Maccabee, of Herod the Great, of Jesus of Nazareth, and now of the Fatamid Muslims, stood proud and eternal. Crescents of mosques, crosses of churches and stars of David atop synagogues were the rooftops of the city. And the buildings of worship stood side by side with unadorned, white stone houses, where the population of the holy city lived.

The two men gazed upwards in wonder at the white walls and neither moved, neither said a word. Their breath came in short and shallow gasps, as though they were confronted by the most beautiful vision they'd ever seen in their lives.

And they were not alone. Thousands and thousands of crusading soldiers, the barons, earls, chevaliers, archers, lancers, foot soldiers and peasants, all were awestruck by the city that had woven itself into their dreams night after night through the long march from Paris.

The vast host of men wept, even as the tears running down their cheeks dried in the arid air. Some of the men stripped off their tunics and stood naked, beating their heads and chests in expressions of an emotion none had previously experienced. Some of the men fell to their knees and wailed into the ground, incapable of finding words or actions to express their feelings.

Henri Guillaume, Duke of Champagne and Count Palatin of Meaux and Blois, sat astride his charger and surveyed the scene. He, too, was strangely affected by the sight of the city of Jerusalem, though not moved to tears. When he'd first set eyes on Constantinople, a beautiful city set above the shining blue waters of the Sea of Marble, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, he'd been moved by its beauty but nothing more. When he and the other barons and dukes laid siege to Antioch, he hadn't even noticed the splendour or antiquity of the city; it was simply a citadel to be overcome by force for the wealth it contained.

Even here at the foot of Jerusalem, Duke Henri felt none of the emotion of his army but he did experience the ghosts of its history. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and when he opened them again, Henri saw a city housing an enemy to be captured; a city to be wrested from the hands of the infidel Jew and Mohammedan, and reclaimed for its rightful owners.

Yet he couldn't help but feel some mystery about the place. There were voices in his head that drove him, and visions in
his eyes that confronted him, he knew he had to remain silent, keeping his hallucinations to himself.

The duke kicked his horse's flanks to move forward and drew level with Nimrod and Simeon. He pointed to the prostrate and weeping men arrayed before him.

‘What is this? What is this that seizes my men and makes them wail like women?'

Nimrod, ever patient but still surprised by the question, looked up at the duke and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘The Greek doctors of old believed that a woman's womb, her
hysterika
, moved inside her body. This led to an excess of emotions, which philosophers called hysteria . . .'

Nimrod turned his eyes back to the huge walls before them. ‘While these are men,' he said, pointing to the prostrate army, ‘perhaps something similar is at work in those viewing the holy city for the first time, a kind of hysteria which spreads from one to the other until it affects all the men who are here.' Nimrod finished the thought with a simple shrug.

Simeon, ever watchful as if living on borrowed time, looked around at the army and shook his head. He had been to the city before, knew its walls from his youth, knew many of its secrets, but had little time for religious fervour. In his travels as a merchant, he had seen many faiths, and none had served him well. The business of trade put food on his table and he was baffled by the response of the Christians around him.