SIXTEEN
Valbonne, Provence
The morning was clear and chilly, sunlight streaming over the hillsides. Jacqueline pulled on a pair of full-length riding chamois and a woolen jersey and tucked her long hair beneath a dark blue helmet. She slipped on a pair of wraparound sunglasses and studied her appearance in the mirror. She looked like a very handsome man, which was her intention. She stretched on the floor of her bedroom, then walked downstairs to the entrance hall, where her Bianchi racing bike leaned against the wall. She pushed the bike out the front door and wheeled it across the gravel drive. A moment later she was gliding through the cold shadows down the long gentle hill toward the village.
She slipped through Valbonne and made the long, steady climb toward Opio, cold air burning her cheeks. She pedaled slowly and evenly for the first few miles while her muscles warmed. Then she switched gears and increased the cadence of her pedaling. Soon she was flying along the narrow road, head down, legs pumping like pistons. The smell of lavender hung on the air. Beside her a grove of olive trees spilled down a terraced hillside. She emerged from the shadows of the olive trees onto a flat plain of warm sunlight. After a moment she could feel the first sweat beneath her jersey.
At the halfway point she checked her split: only thirty seconds off her best time. Not bad for a chilly December morning. She circled a traffic roundabout, switched gears, and started up a long, steep hill. After a few moments her breath was hoarse and ragged and her legs burning-too many goddamned cigarettes!-but she forced herself to remain seated and pound up the long hill. She thought of Michel Duval: Pig! One hundred yards from the crest she rose from the saddle, angrily driving her feet down into the toe straps, shouting at herself to keep going and not give in to the pain. She was rewarded with a long descent. She could have coasted but took a quick drink and sprinted down the hill instead. As she entered Valbonne again, she looked at her watch. A new personal best by fifteen seconds. Thank you, Michel Duval.
She climbed out of the saddle and pushed her bike through the quiet streets of the ancient town. At the central square she propped the bike against a pillar, purchased a newspaper, and treated herself to a warm croissant and a large bowl of steaming café au lait. When she finished she collected her bike and pushed it along a shadowed street.
At the end of a terrace of cottages overlooking the town parking lot was a commercial building. A sign hung in the window: the entire ground floor was available. It had been vacant for months. Jacqueline cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the dirty glass: a large, open room, wood floors, high ceiling. Perfect for a dance studio. She had a fantasy. She would quit modeling and open a ballet school in Valbonne. It would cater to the local girls most of the year, but in August, when the tourists streamed into Valbonne for their summer holidays, she would open the school to visitors. She would teach for a few hours a day, ride her bike through the hills, drink coffee, and read in the café on the square. Shed her name and her image. Become Sarah Halévy again-Sarah Halévy, the Jewish girl from Marseilles. But to open the school she needed money, and to get money she had to keep modeling. She had to go back to Paris and put up with men like Michel Duval a little while longer. Then she would be free.
She mounted her bike and rode slowly home. It was a rather small villa, the color of sandstone with a red-tile roof, hidden from view by a row of towering cypress trees. In the large terraced garden overlooking the valley, rosemary and lavender grew wild among the olive and drooping pepper trees. At the base of the garden was a rectangular swimming pool.
Jacqueline let herself inside, propped the bike in the entrance hall, and went into the kitchen. The red light on her answering machine was winking. She pressed the playback button and made coffee while she listened to the messages.
Yvonne had called to invite her to a party at the home of a millionaire Spanish tennis player in Monte Carlo. Michel Duval had called to apologize for his behavior at the shoot the other day. The bruise was healing nicely. Marcel had called to say that he had spoken to Robert. The shoot in Mustique was back on. “You leave in three weeks, angel, so get off the cheese and pasta and get your beautiful ass in shape.”
She thought of her bicycle ride and smiled. Her face might have looked thirty-three, but her body had never looked better.
“Oh, by the way, a fellow called Jean-Claude came by the office. Said he wanted to talk to you personally about a job.”
Jacqueline set down the coffeepot and looked at the machine.
“I told him you were in the south. He said he was on his way there and that he would look you up when he arrived. Don’t be angry with me, angel. He seemed like a nice guy. Good-looking, too. I was insanely jealous. Love you. Ciao.”
She pressed the rewind button and listened to the message again to make certain she had heard it right.
“Oh, by the way, a fellow called Jean-Claude came by the office. Said he wanted to talk to you personally about a job.”
She pressed the erase button, hand trembling, heart beating against her ribs.
Jacqueline sat outside on the sunlit terrace, thinking about the night she was recruited by Ari Shamron. She had used some of her money from modeling to buy her parents a retirement present: a small beachfront apartment in Herzliya. She visited them in Israel whenever she could get away for a few days. She fell completely in love with the country. It was the only place she felt truly free and safe. More than anything else she loved the fact that she did not have to conceal her being Jewish.
One evening in a jazz café in Tel Aviv an older man appeared at her table. Bald, rather ugly, steel-rimmed glasses, khaki trousers, a bomber jacket with a tear on the right breast.
“Hello, Sarah,” he said, smiling confidently. “May I join you?”
She looked up, startled. “How did you know my name is Sarah?”
“Actually, I know a great deal about you. I’m a big fan.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ari. I work for an organization loosely connected to the Ministry of Defense called the Institute for Coordination. We just call it the Office.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad we cleared that up.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “We’d like to talk to you about a job. Do you mind if I call you Sarah? I have trouble thinking of you as Jacqueline.”
“My parents are the only ones who call me Sarah anymore.”
“No old friends?”
“I only have new friends,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness. “At least people who claim to be my friends. All my old friends from Marseilles dropped away after I became a model. They thought I’d changed because of my work.”
“But you have changed, haven’t you, Sarah?”
“Yes, I suppose I have.” Then she thought: Why am I telling this to a man I just met? I wonder if he gets under everyone’s skin so quickly.
“And it isn’t just a job, is it, Sarah? It’s a way of life. You hang out with fashion designers and famous photographers. You go to glitzy parties and exclusive restaurants with actors and rock stars and millionaire playboys. Like that Italian count you had an affair with in Milan, the one that made the newspapers. Surely you’re not the same little girl from Marseilles. The little Jewish girl whose grandparents were murdered by the Nazis at Sobibor.”
“You do know a great deal about me.” She looked at him carefully. She was used to being surrounded by attractive, polished people, and here she was now in the company of this rather ugly man with steel glasses and a tear in his jacket. There was something of the primitive in him-the rough-hewn Sabra that she had always heard about. He was the kind of man who didn’t know how to tie a bow tie and didn’t care. She found him utterly charming. But more than anything she was intrigued by him.