Dante's Equation Part 13

When she came back, he was weakly pulling off his T-shirt, which was damp with sweat. He collapsed back on her couch, his skin clammy and slick, looking exhausted, looking green. He appeared to have come close to losing consciousness-perhaps still might. "Hot," he panted. "Fan?"

"No, I'm sorry."

She ran to open the windows in the living room and kitchen, hoping for a cross-breeze. And although itwas a warm day, it did not seem unbearably hot to her. This thought scared her further and she ran into the bathroom and rifled for a thermometer. She took it back to the living room and knelt down by the couch. Nate's eyes were closed.

"We should take your temperature," she said, feeling awkward. She stuck the thermometer in his mouth and began wiping the pale skin on his face and arms with the cold cloth, the way her mother used to when she had a fever. His skin was radiating heat. He opened his eyes.

"Do you think you need to go to the hospital?"

"Just hot," he managed around the thermometer.

"No talking. You didn't touch your dinner. You haven't been eating at all, Nate! You're going to make yourself sick, and then how would we know if the experiment had anything to do with it or not?"

She spoke with annoyance to cover her fear, puttered nervously with the cloth, wiping and wiping at the long inside length of his right arm. It was so pale it glowed, skin taut against muscle. She wiped at his hand, which she held open for access, half noting its wide, creamy surface and dark rivulets of lines, the incredibly soft texture of his fingertips.

Why was time crawling all of a sudden, and how soon could she check the thermometer so she could get away? She reached up with her free hand to feel his forehead, but moving seemed to take an exorbitant amount of effort, and the distance to his forehead seemed endless. His forehead felt cold and wet. Hadn't he just been burning up? No, it was her own hand that was damp and cold. How could she tell anything?

She should feel relieved that he appeared to be recovering, lying there looking up at her with a gaze as pressing as a stone. But a heavy, nauseous, foreboding feeling was gathering in her groin. She was the one who was sick; she was sick.

He was staring, sunk into the dark couch as though he were floating on a velvet sea. With his black curly hair and bare chest he looked like some Greek boy nymph or something, and she could not get off her knees. She suddenly thought of a million things she should go check in the house while the thermometer did its thing and the seconds crawled by. A breeze from the windows stirred the hair at her neck. She witnessed the skin on his smooth chest attenuating into a field of tiny b.u.mps in that same breeze, and it seemed to have more clarity, more intensity of light, than anything she had ever seen. The cloth was leaden. Her hand lay heavily on his arm, immobilized.

He took the thermometer from his mouth, reached up to cup the back of her neck, pulled her down, kissed her.

At the first touch of his lips, an electric tide washed through her body. It was like being hit by a truck, the force of it; it was like being injected with hot and cold fluids at the same time. She could feel the chemicals rush madly through every part of her, from her tingling crown to the tips of her fingers and toes (suddenly numb), to her constricted chest, her trembling legs, her utter core of awareness, which was now located deep and low in her abdomen.

He surged up against her, urgent yet impossibly soft and fluid at the same time. It was as if she were melting into him, as if he were a river current sucking her down, his lips, tongue, soft and dangerous as the rushing tides. She couldfeel his pa.s.sion, so dense the heat of it burned in her mouth like a glowing sun. Or was that her own pa.s.sion? Her mouth was responding with a will of its own, seeking out every bit of him as if he were the air and she was dying with need of it. His fingertips grasped her arms, pulling her down and down even while his body arched up to meet her. It was a moment with a relentless, inescapable drive, a forward surge with only one possible end.

But. But. Her mind was strong. Her fear was stronger. She did what every human cell in her body was screaming at hernot to do: she pushed him away, fell awkwardly back on her rear, scrambled to her feet, ran to her bedroom, and locked the door, choking on a sob.

She did not hear him leave, but when she finally summoned the courage to check, perhaps an hour later, he had gone.

The next day she could not, would not, avoid the lab on Nate's account, though she'd rather have faced a firing squad. She had a speech prepared in her head and gave it, clumsily, about student teacher relationships, about age differences, about how they both knew that certain . . . physical propensities . . . seemed to be exacerbated by the experiment and that while she didn't blame him exactly, the important thing was to remain objective andobserve the effects and not contaminate this incredibly important work with even a whiff of impropriety, and blah de blah de blah.

He didn't look at her through most of it, held his shoulders stiff as a shield against her words. But when she was done, he turned and gave her a look of such regret and . . .pity that she felt herself break into a million pieces, as if her very ident.i.ty were fragmenting into nothingness.

Then he began to comment on the mice and it was over.

A week later, Jill was in her office going over her mail and feeling particularly pleased by an expected and late tax rebate check. She got a cramp of genuine hunger, the first in days. She was suddenly voracious.

She crossed the campus, heading for the restaurants on University Street . . . and saw Nate. He was under a tree on the lawn with a girl, a student by the look of it, and they were lying side by side. He was kissing her, with great care, their bodies not touching. But the whole world existed where their lips met; anyone could see that: infinitely deep, infinitely sweet.

A gasp of pain and longing stabbed through her. She steadied herself, as if she'd been physically struck, then turned around and went back to her office, where she sat for an hour, arms wrapped around her stomach, trying to subdue the physical and emotional rampage wreacking havoc inside her body.

After that she saw less of Nate in the lab. He was always there when it was time to go over the day's results, but at other times, when she'd normally find him just hacking around or watching the subjects, he was gone.

After a while, she was able to look back on the situation with relief. She'd avoided a nasty and highly unprofessional entanglement. She even called it courage. And when they reached the 50 percent differential in their experiment, Jill, who should have stopped there, did not. She felt reckless and a little wild. She wanted . . . needed . . .more .

She told Nate to turn it up.

6.2. Aharon Handalman

TELAVIV.

It was only a sixty-two-kilometer drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, but Aharon came here as little as possible. Tel Aviv was a beach town, a secular city. Here one saw few, if any,haredimin the streets, but there was an abundance of bikini tops and torn-off shorts. In Aharon's opinion, which he would happily relay should anyone ask, it was a modern-day Sodom. He'd chosen a Sunday to make the trip. He did not tell Hannah where he was going. Wasn't today going to be bad enough without his wife making a fuss?

It was with a very glum face that he approached the apartments for the elderly on Ben-Gurion Street. It was not a cheap place, these apartments. Someone must be doing well. As he took the elevator up to the third floor, the sight of an old woman shuffling along with a mangy cat and the distinctive odor of the elderly did little to cheer him up. From dismal to more dismal-and he hadn't even spoken to the man yet!

Steeling himself, like Joshua going into battle, Aharon knocked on the door. He had to look down on the man who answered. He was under five feet tall and frail-looking. What was left of his hair was so thin you could see the mottled scalp beneath. The face was pale between the discolorations, the lips slackened into a watery consistency.

The man blinked looking up at him, as if trying to place his face. "Rabbi Kaufman?"

"No. This is Rabbi Handalman. I called about coming today. Is it Karl Biederer?"

The old man held out a trembling hand. "Yes. I forgot a little, that's all." Then, "It's not a crime."

"May I come in?" "Yes. Come in; come in." Biederer shuffled back into the interior and Aharon followed. He watched as Biederer looked out into the hallway-both ways-then shut and locked the door, putting on two dead bolts. Biederer headed to what Aharon a.s.sumed was the kitchen. "Tea?" "Herbal?" "Of course, herbal." "Then, yes, I would like some. Thank you." While Biederer puttered in the next room, Aharon removed his coat and outdoor hat, placing them carefully on a chair. He put an automatic hand to the woolkippa still on his head, to check that it was in place. He looked around. The room was a plain but modern apartment with white textured walls. The furniture was old, dusty, out of place in this architecture. The sofa looked continental, with faded silk brocade and ornate carved wood that was chipped and dull. Nothing else matched this eyesore, and the general air was one of clutter. The air was rancid.

The closed, smelly apartment did nothing to inspire comfort in an anxious soul. There was a large window on the far wall and the day outside was sunny, but Biederer had the blinds drawn tight as a fist against the light.

"Here." Biederer brought in two cups of tea on a metal cookie sheet and put them ungracefully on the American West wagon-wheel coffee table. "So sit," he offered, lowering himself into a Biederer-shaped hollow on the sofa. Aharon was at the blinds. "Would it be a bother if I . . ." He motioned to the window.

"No," Biederer said in a reasonable tone. "If you don't mind killing me." Aharon smiled faintly and took a seat. The tea smelled all right, but some crusted bits on the side of the cup put him off. He sighed.Just get it over with.

"Mr. Biederer, I wanted to speak with you about Yosef Kobinski. You were in the same barrack at Auschwitz."

"So you said on the phone. See, I remember."

"Yes. I'm looking for information about his work."

Biederer studied Aharon with a pained expression. "What's so important that I should dredge that all up again? What do you want with Kobinski?"

Aharon hadn't expected the question, but he was a truthful man. Telling alittle truth, however, as opposed to spilling one's guts, was also perfectly acceptable. "I teach at theAish HaTorah in Jerusalem. I also do Torah code research. You have heard of the Torah code?"

Biederer made a dismissive "of course" gesture.

"As it happens, I found some references to Rabbi Kobinski in the code, so I want to learn more about him."

Biederer was plundering his lower lip with his tongue. Aharon resigned himself to a long list of questions about Kobinski and the code, but the old man only shrugged, "Nu," as if he was not surprised, and began to talk.

"I was entombed in Auschwitz on September 18, 1942. That's what I call it-entombed. My family was from Nuremberg. My father was a banker, a rich man, but even this couldn't save us. Now, my son is also a banker." Biederer waved a hand at the room. "He pays for all this."

"I'm sorry, who?" Aharon had brought a tape recorder, in case the man said anything important about Kobinski, and he was fumbling to get it started.

"Myson ."

"Oh. Yes. He must be a comfort."

Biederer shrugged, but his eyes were warm. The warmth didn't last. "I was only fifteen when I arrived at Auschwitz. You would not believe how old you can be at fifteen."

The tape recorder safely churning on the wagon wheel, Aharon sat back a bit, breathing hard from the effort or from stress. He hoped Biederer wouldn't go on too much about his own experiences.

"Didn't Rabbi Kobinski also arrive at Auschwitz around that time?"

"He was in the barrack when I arrived. He and his son, Isaac." Biederer had a distant look in his eye, his lips turned down. "Well, if it's going to be like this . . ." He got up from the sofa, with clever positioning of strengthless limbs, and went to a little table. From a drawer he took a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an ashtray.

"So open the window," he said to Aharon as he crossed back to the couch. "But just crack it at the bottom; don't open the shades."

Aharon cracked it as much as he thought he'd get away with and pulled the closed blinds up an inch to free them from the draft. The room was a little lighter as a result, and there was a tiny bit of fresh air. The effect was soon ruined by the pall of cigarette smoke.

"Want one?" Biederer offered.

"No thank you," Aharon said, stiffly enough to show his disapproval.

"Now. Kobinski." Biederer pulled hard on his cigarette. "I was only fifteen and my family was not so religious. But even I knew that he was a greattzaddik- a saint. You should have seen the man. . . ." He rolled the tip of his cigarette in the ashtray. "He looked different from the rest, like there was a kind of peace over him, you know? Like he was strolling down the nicest street you could imagine, as if there weren't bedbugs the size of grapes infesting the urine-stained mattresses we had to sleep on, all crammed together, as if . . . "

Biederer's voice shook. He stopped himself, was quiet for a moment. "Everything,everything, he took in stride. It helped. You cannot imagine how it helped. You could look at that man, and while you saw his face, you could pretend there was still a G.o.d."

Aharon shifted in the chair. He was warm in his long sleeves and black vest, and the apartment was getting warmer as the sun grew in strength in the sky. He was sweating. The mental effort of keeping his brain like a fortress, only letting in the information he wanted to hear, didn't help. "Is there anything specific you remember about his background, maybe something he said about his work? Did he ever mention . . . Did he say anything about a weapon?"

"Who's telling the story here?"

Aharon frowned. "I do understand the general conditions of Auschwitz. I'm only interested in Kobinski."

Biederer squinted at him appraisingly, the way a father does, trying to figure out what his son has done that gives him such a guilty look.

"Uh-huh." Biederer's face melted into a knowing and not particularly friendly look. "In our barrack we had something like two hundred to two hundred fifty prisoners. We slept three in a bunk, with bunks three stories high."

"Yes, I know," Aharon said futilely. The old fool was going to insist; what could he do?

"We had lice, we had bedbugs, and we had typhus. Food we didn't have. Water we didn't have. A place even to wash ourselves-soap, just plain soap-we didn't have. You think I didn't mind because I was fifteen? Had I ever had as dirty a day in my life before that? Never!"

Aharon felt a burning swatch on his back where the light from the bottom of the window struck him, scorching like a brand. "Rabbi Kobinski's work . . ."

"Some thought he was mad, you know. There were two kinds: the kind who thought he was mad and the kind who thought he was a saint. Myself, I went for the saint. Why not? What else did we have to hope for? In the evenings, he would pray and people would gather to hear him. Thecapogot tired of beating him for it-he never seemed to mind being beaten. He scared thecapo-a nastySchwein named Groding. The rebbe scared a lot of people."

"Scared them? What do you mean?"

"Walking around immune to it all. You cannot imagine how frightening this is. Because the reality," Biederer held his fingers together in a strong gesture, "thereality . . ." He bounced that hand, looking for words. "It was like walking on a tightrope. You had to be alert every second. You let down your guard for an instant, and you're dead. And here was someone who was oblivious! It was a miracle or a terrible danger; no one knew which. And he did this chanting. The first time I noticed Kobinski he was chanting under his breath and making signs all around the room-first on the wooden posts of the bunk where he and Isaac slept, then in all four corners of the room, in the center, on the doorways leading out."

Biederer stopped deliberately and took drag after drag on that stinking cigarette.

"Thecapo barks at him, 'What are you doing there! Stop it at once!' and Kobinski ignores him. Groding tries to pull his arm, to pull him away, but Kobinski is atree . He doesn't budge, not even his arm, not evena little . And Groding was not a weak man! So everyone whispers-'the rebbe has magic,' 'he's got supernatural strength,' 'G.o.d won't let Groding disturb him.' Groding gets red in the face, says loudly to everyone that the man is insane-a simpleton-and then he leaves like he can't be bothered.

"After that, you couldn't see those letters Kobinski had written with his bare finger, but everyone knew they were there. People rubbed the posts of his bunk, the doorways, anyplace he'd marked."

Biederer smiled. It was a brittle, miserly thing. "I'm telling you, it didn'talways go so easy with Kobinski as that bit with Groding, but many people believed he had magic."

"He was a kabbalist," Aharon said, clearing his throat.

"Yes, a kabbalist. Of course, typical Jews, some of the men pooh-poohed kabbalah, even some of the religious. But not to hisface they didn't!"

"What did he say to people? Did he just make marks in the air or what?"

"Say?" Biederer looked at him as if the concept were foreign. "He talked to his followers, but I never dared go over. I was afraid of being noticed. But I did hear him say-and people would quote him- he'd say, 'The world is a balance of good and evil. It is a physicallaw . So it can only get so bad before things have to get better.' Of course,they made sure to teach him otherwise."

Aharon wiped his forehead. So hot! "What about his work? Did he ever mention a weapon? Or talk about physics?"

Biederer glared at him dully. He finished his cigarette and lit another. "He was writing a book. His followers would bring him anything they could find: toilet paper, butcher's paper, even dry leaves he would write on. This, too, the men in the barrack fought about. Some thought he endangered all of us with such things. But his followers would always defend! There was one-Anatoli, a Russian Jew. The man was a fanatic. He followed Kobinski around like a dog.

"As for myself, I thought they should leave him alone, let him write. Even though he didn't have the strength, who did? He worked all day, and in the evening he would write, always, like a madman, as if all day he had been writing in his head and this was his only chance to put it down on paper. If there was moonlight, he would go sit by a window or the crack of a door after lights-out, long after I fell asleep. I don't know why, but Groding always turned a blind eye to this."

"What happened to the book?"

Biederer shrugged. "Anatoli was in charge of that. I think he buried it; I don't know. Only he and the boy knew where it went."

"The boy?"

"Kobinski's son, Isaac."

Aharon took a breath, wanting to get it over with. "Isaac died in Auschwitz, too."

Biederer nodded. For some reason this, specifically, brought tears to his eyes, incapacitated his voice. Aharon waited. Biederer dragged on his cigarette.

"In the end," Biederer said at last, "not magic, not kabbalah, not the greatest rabbi in Europe meantthis against the n.a.z.is." He snapped his fingers.

"Well," said Aharon weakly. "If there's nothing you can remember about his work . . ." He got up.

"Siddown." Biederer's voice was menacing. "You started this." He pointed at Aharon with his cigarette. "Now youlisten."

"But if there's nothing more specific about-"

"You don't know what I know," Biederer said, tapping his temple. The frail old man had suddenly become very hard, dark with anger and other undefined emotions. Aharon found himself shaking, not out any real fear, of course, but from a sense of impending ruin that hovered over him, as it had at Yad Vashem. He felt confined, harried, like a turtle being poked with sticks. Weakly he sat.

"You think this is bad, this little nothing?" Biederer's watery lips hardened in disdain. "You people! You've heardmakkes , my friend,nothing !This story . . ." he trailed off, as if not able to find an expletive large enough. "You wait." He pointed again at Aharon with his cigarette. "You wait."

Biederer stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette, lit another. By now the room was not only hot but also hazy with smoke. The six-inch gap in the window was not letting the smoke out fast enough. He had a fuzzy cast to him, as if viewed through Vaseline. This only added to the impression that time was becoming thinner, that the past was closer. Even the taste of smoke in Aharon's mouth could have been any smoke, even that of the ovens.

"There was this guard; Wallick was his name. He and Kobinski . . . it was a battle between them, a battle to the death."