Ten Years Gone полностью

To my mother and father

Ten Years Gone

The Dead Sister

The Auschwitz Violinist

A Debt of Death

The Unlucky Woman (short story)

The Payback Girl

The nightmare tore me out of sleep before dawn.

I opened my eyes, but all I could see were fragments of the dream. Snow flurries floating in the freezing Polish air. Uniformed men with evil faces and cruel laughs. Guard dogs straining at their leashes, foaming at the mouth. A huddled mass of frightened, disoriented humanity on the train platform.

With me among them.

What brought me out of the nightmare and into the present was the heat.

July in Tel Aviv was murder, with blazing temperatures and stifling humidity. Nighttime brought only minor relief. It was a favorite topic to grumble about among Tel Avivians.

As hot as it was outside, my room was even hotter. And stuffier. Which was to be expected, I supposed, since I slept with all my windows closed.

I was probably the only person in Tel Aviv to do so.

Or maybe I wasn't. After all, I wasn't the only person with nightmares. Maybe other people were also worried their screams would wake up the neighbors.

Faint echoes of my scream still reverberated in the dark room. My jaw hurt, a sure indication I'd been clenching my teeth during my sleep. I blinked twice, consciously slowing my breathing, until all I could hear was the deep silence of the enclosed room, and all I could see was the darkness around me.

Groaning, I rolled to a sitting position, lowering my feet to the cool floor tiles. Working my jaw from side to side, I stood, stepped over to the window, and pulled it open.

Night air flowed inside, chilling the sweat on my skin. I looked three stories down to Hamaccabi Street below. No people were about. No cars were moving. Somewhere a night bird hooted. Across the street, a baby howled for its mother. The number tattooed on my left forearm itched, and I absently scratched it. I tapped a cigarette out of the half-empty pack on my nightstand, struck a match against the sill, and lit up.

By the time I crushed out the stub of my cigarette, dawn was beginning to paint the sky gray. The nightmare was gone, but it had left its mark. The memories were there, just below consciousness, trying to dig through like burrowing beasts and infest my mind. I had to work hard to keep them away, where they couldn't hurt me.

And I was tired. Dead tired.

Too many fractured nights. Too many nightmares.

I glanced at my bed, at the sheet I had dampened with the sweat of my night terror, at the thin blanket I had twisted around me. I needed sleep badly, but I feared the nightmare would return. There was only one way to keep it at bay, but it wasn't possible tonight.

And I needed my sleep.

With a sigh, I closed the window, got into bed, and pulled the thin blanket over me.

I shut my eyes and waited for the nightmare to reappear.

"Adam Lapid?"

I looked up from my chessboard at the woman who had said my name.

She was a small woman. Five foot five and thinner than she had any business being. Lackluster blond hair pulled back from a high forehead. A faded yellow dress that had been made with a fuller woman in mind. She held her bag in front of her pelvis, worrying the handle with both hands. I recalled that my mother used to hold her bag like that sometimes.

It was half past four and I was seated at my regular table in Greta's Café. Greta's was a homey café located near the center of Allenby Street, on the block between Brenner and Balfour Streets. Bar and kitchen on the left. A dozen small round tables scattered about the rest of the square space. Above, a lazy ceiling fan rattled with each slow revolution, but did little to dispel the heat. Some of Greta's other customers groused about the rattling, but I hardly noticed it anymore. I frequented Greta's nearly every day. It was more than a place to eat and drink. It was a second home to me.

"Yes," I said and gestured to the chair on the other side of my table. The thin woman lowered herself onto it, setting her bag in her lap. "And you are?"

"My name is Henrietta Ackerland," she said in the tentative Hebrew common to those speaking a new language. She had a pronounced German accent, and for a moment I was about to suggest we conduct our conversation in that misbegotten language. The impulse died fast. Her accent was grating enough as it was.

"Want some coffee?" I asked. "Greta makes the best coffee in Tel Aviv."

Henrietta began shaking her head, but changed her mind when I told her I was buying. Greta had been watching us from her post behind the bar. I raised two fingers in her direction.