24

On the morning of his first day back at Aish HaTorah, Aharon arrived early. The hallways and office were quiet as he went to work. He gathered up his binder of code printouts and then Binyamin’s. He ripped off the binder covers and threw them in the trash. He took the two-foot stack of printouts that remained and carried them down the hall to the school office, where he set the papers on the floor and began to shred them. Feeding them to the machine was like feeding one’s own children to a dragon. But when it was over a huge burden had been lifted. He gathered up the heaps of shredded waste and went back down the hall.

Binyamin was inside his office. He was standing over the trash can holding the torn binder covers and wearing a look of sheer panic. His jaw dropped farther when he saw the confetti in Aharon’s arms—and Aharon’s bare face.

“Come!” Aharon said. “And bring the matches.”

They went down to the back alley. There, to the consternation of the passersby, Aharon lit the paper scraps. They went up quickly, making a frightening fire against the cobblestones before it faltered into ash.

“I don’t get it,” Binyamin said, picking at the scraggly hairs on his chin.

“Listen…” Aharon put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Lord, he had missed even Binyamin! The smell, no; the spirit, yes. “Do you know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think that it just might be possible that some of God’s secrets, Binyamin, some of them are supposed to remain secret.”

Binyamin stared at him suspiciously.

Aharon clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Swear to me one thing. Swear not to say the name Kobinski to anyone, not ever.”

Binyamin hesitated, then looked at Aharon’s beardless chin, at the ashes swirling around on the stones. “If you say so, Rabbi. I swear.”

“Good! Now I believe I will attend to some very neglected students, if I even have any left.”

When they came for him that afternoon, Aharon went willingly. He was escorted to the office of Shimon Norowitz, a place he had never been invited to before. The man who belonged in that office was a Norowitz he had never seen before, either—hard and angry, an enemy.

Norowitz wanted to know where he had been, what he had found out about Dr. Jill Talcott, and what had happened in Auschwitz.

“Dr. Talcott is an old friend,” Aharon said, pretending surprise that Norowitz was interested in his actions. “I heard on the news that she was in trouble, so naturally, I had to go see if I could help.”

Norowitz’s eyes were like ice. “And you just happened to help that old friend escape the FBI and then, coincidentally, you took her to visit Kobinski’s closest follower in Auschwitz.”

“No. I had contacted the old man earlier. I wanted to interview him about Kobinski. So when Dr. Talcott needed to get away for a while I decided to kill two birds with one stone and take her with me. It was no big deal.”

“ ‘No big deal’?” Norowitz shouted. He took a deep breath, calming himself down. “I want to know what happened, Rabbi. You shaved. Why?”

Aharon rubbed his cheek. “A bad rash. It happens. Look, about Anatoli, the old man had a terrible memory. It was a wasted trip.”

Norowitz’s lips were pinched so tight they made a white, bloodless line. “You went to see Talcott because she’s in the Kobinski arrays. She’s working on something close to Kobinski’s research.”

“Jill Talcott? In the arrays?” Aharon pretended astonishment. “You know,” he shook his head sadly, “I’m beginning to think you can find anything in the code.”

Norowitz got up and went to the window, looking out. His hands were fists on the window ledge. Aharon could almost feel sorry for him.

“I can’t believe you’re going to do this to me,” he said, without turning around. “You’re going to leave me high and dry. You, Rabbi, who came to me.”

“Look, I can’t speak for you, but for me, I think it’s time I let Kobinski go. There’s only so long a grown man can look for meaning where there is none.”

“Ha!” Norowitz turned, eyes blazing. “You won’t let go. Oh, no. And I—I won’t, either.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Aharon gazed into Norowitz’s eyes, for a moment letting his own determination shine through. “The sages say, ‘Don’t ask a lion to talk. You might not like what he has to say.’ ”

“Don’t patronize me, Rabbi. You know I could have you arrested.”

“Nu? Well, I can’t stop you from wasting your time.”

Aharon got up to leave. “I should probably tell you, I may not be staying in Jerusalem. My wife has wanted to move back to New York for some time. To be honest, I think that might not be such a bad idea.”

“You won’t get away from me like that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of trying.” Aharon paused. “…Have you ever considered the possibility that Kobinski was simply a great kabbalist sage, and nothing the state of Israel needs to worry about?”

Norowitz shook his head slowly. “Not on your life.”

“Let’s hope that it never comes to that, Shimon Norowitz. For you or any of us. Shalom.”

Rabbi Schwartz was standing when Denton was ushered into his office in upstate New York. His fingertips were on his desk, his face deeply disapproving.

“Mr. Wyle. Your message this morning took me by surprise. I must say, you have a lot of nerve showing your face here again.”

“True, but I thank you for seeing me anyway.”

Denton sat in a chair and waited for Schwartz to do likewise. For a moment he hesitated, as though his disdain were much better shown on his feet, but gravity won over and he sat.

“So?”

“I wanted to apologize for that break-in. I guess I had built up some fantasy in my head that we were enemies and that I had a right to use any means at my disposal. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Schwartz made a gesture of disinterest. “You can’t get out of this with an apology, Mr. Wyle. I intend to prosecute.”

“That’s up to you. I just came to drop something off.”

Denton pulled a document from his bag. It was a reproduction, 200 pages thick, bound neatly in a blue report cover. He put it on Schwartz’s desk.

Schwartz picked it up. He leafed through it once, then again more carefully. The tension in the room changed; Schwartz’s entire body language changed. He finally put it down, neatly lining it up with the edge of his desk, his fingers bronze, with long, scholarly nails.

“Where did you get it?”

“It’s not important. But it’s The Book of Torment, in its entirety.”

Schwartz picked the manuscript back up and turned a few pages. “It’s been doctored.”

“All of the math has been removed. And a few other things, here and there. But the majority of it, Kobinski’s philosophy, is there.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why was it doctored or why have I given it to you?”

Schwartz pressed his lips together for a long moment, then shook his head. “Never mind. The one question I don’t think I should ask, and to the second I already know the answer. You want me not to prosecute and you probably want money, too. Very well. How much?”