Authors: Naomi Ragen
“Kayla, the bus is here,” Judith said, touching her shoulder lightly, peering into her face, concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really sleep much last night.”
“Sometimes that happens to me too after Rav Natan’s lectures. My mind just keeps running in circles, trying to absorb everything.”
“It’s that too, but… My mother is here.”
“Yes. I heard.”
“She wants me to leave.”
Judith pouted, making a funny “sorry” face. “And what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” Kayla shook her head. “I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t made a terrible mistake.”
Judith seemed disappointed. “Kayla, it’s not a question of a mistake. Nothing is lost. You can leave anytime. I told you that. As long as you think the time is right for you, that you’ve taken all you can, all you need. As long as you don’t go back to the old life.”
“If I leave here, I don’t know what other life I
can
go back to, Judith. It’s the only one I’ve ever known. I have no idea what another life would even look like.”
“It would look like this.” She spread out her arms.
“Not in Brookline… Not in America.”
“You can make changes. You can make it look any way you want. It’s up to you. But if you are still unsure, then you shouldn’t go. At least not yet.”
“But my parents need me. I’m abandoning them.”
“Is that what your mother said?”
“Yes, more or less.”
“Or is that just what you heard? Do they want you to go back to help
them
? Or do they want you to go back because they think
they
are helping
you
? It’s not the same thing, you know.”
Kayla thought about it, winding her way thoughtfully toward the bus.
Daniel was waiting for her.
“How did it go? How is your mother feeling?”
“She wants me to go back with her.”
His face fell.
They sat down side by side on the rickety seats.
“Daniel, I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, leaning against him. The strong young bones of his shoulder held her up.
He leaned his head toward her, kissing her forehead. “I know,” he whispered back.
Abigail felt the sun warming her eyelids. She sat up, a smile on her face as she looked around her at the small, dismal room. Who would have ever thought
she could be happy in such surroundings? My real wants are so small, so basic, she realized suddenly. A roof over my head. A bed. A bathroom. Clean clothes. Simple food prepared simply. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, then opened the door. The glorious view of the mountains and the sea filled all her senses.
She would call Adam. She would explain this to him. She would explain that their daughter Kayla had found something precious and real and that she should be left alone to reap all the joys of her discovery. She would tell him that he mustn’t pressure Kayla to come back. That it would be a selfish thing, not a kindness, not to her benefit. They mustn’t push her back into the old life. It wasn’t going to make her happy.
It hadn’t made them happy.
He wouldn’t like it, she considered. He might even be a bit sad at first, at the thought of his daughter having chosen so different a path from their own, from what they’d envisioned for her. But he would get over it. After all, he really did love Kayla, and all he had ever wanted for her was a good life. Talking her into coming back now would only fulfill a selfish need for companionship, someone with whom they could share their misery. Why would he want that? After all, he had sent her, Abigail, away, willing to live in that house all by himself, for Kayla’s sake. He had prevented Shoshana from coming to visit for her own good. Why would he insist on having Kayla there if it wasn’t in her best interests? That wasn’t like Adam.
She would straighten this out with him today, then she would talk to Kayla. She would tell her how she really felt, that she mustn’t go anywhere. That she must explore the things she had discovered and her relationship with this Daniel. Just the fact that she had formed another romantic relationship so quickly meant that her feelings toward Seth did not have the depth and passion needed for a long, happy marriage. It was a blessing Kayla had realized it now rather than after ten years of miserable married life filled with innocent children who would have been damaged beyond repair by their parents’ incompatibilities, no?
She smiled at the mountains, the green treetops, the sparkling sea. “
Boker tov,
Brothers and Sisters!” she called out to passing strangers in sandals and long skirts and knitted skullcaps, who waved and smiled back.
She didn’t know anyone here, and no one knew her. There was nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to explain or justify. She put one foot behind the other, improvising a little dance, twirling in the cool mountain air. Maybe it was all that bromide that was acting like tranquilizers, but she suddenly felt fantastic.
25
Adam opened the door to his study. Thick, open folders covered his once-pristine work space, and boxes of legal documents were piled high on the floor. Just the sight of it made his heart sink with misery. And yet, what choice did he have?
He had been targeted by forces he had not known existed in the world, forces that wanted to destroy him, everyone he loved, and all he had worked to achieve over a lifetime of honest toil. For what purpose or possible benefit, he could not imagine.
But then, he had never been a man with a prolific imagination, preferring nonfiction to fiction, history and biography to novels. He was a man who, until recently, slept well at night, untroubled by visions of mysterious disasters lurking in the shadows that kept more sensitive souls awake. He had actually always been rather proud of that. Now he thought that perhaps such a life and such a temperament had not prepared him for the world he lived in, a world in which the suddenness of change had replaced the slow, incremental buildup of transitions made naturally from one state to the next, a life where rewards and punishments flowed inevitably from one’s own choices and actions.
Now the world seemed hopelessly muddled, good and evil mixing together like paint, producing hues of neither color. Accusations and innuendos ruled the airwaves, and the people most talked about were those least admired. No
one cared about guilt or innocence anymore, just consequences. Would the murderer sit in jail, or be playing golf when his lawyers got him off? Would the famous, useless party girl arrested for DUI face lockup, or community service? Would the rock star arrested for assault, pedophilia, or indecent acts sell more or fewer records?
He could not accept that. Whatever the consequences, what was most important to him was his good name. He was willing to sacrifice almost anything to protect that. Reluctantly, he pulled back his chair, confronting the documents as one would face off with an enemy with whom one was in mortal combat.
He had gone over them again and again, reading the carefully constructed lies meant to convince the world of his culpability in the worst crimes imaginable to a man of his character and position in life.
It had been so hard.
His lawyers had ascertained that everything Dorset had told Adam was untrue: He and Van weren’t old college buddies, nor did either of them have children in Harvard Law. So what
had
they both been doing there?
The answers had been brewing inside him, rising up slowly from deep within his consciousness. And then, one morning, he had opened his eyes and found the solution staring him in the face: It had not been a chance meeting at all. Both Van and Dorset had been there simply because they knew
he
was going to be there. The whole thing had been a careful, lethal, setup. He was simply the “mark”—as he knew con men like to call their victims.
This idea, so long resisted, overwhelmed him with fury and fear.
Why? he asked himself a million times. What had he ever done that Christopher Dorset, with whom he had had only brief, cordial relations, and Gregory Van, who was a complete stranger, would want to ruin his life? What possible good had come to Dorset from A. J. Hurling’s money being transferred to Van? There was proof that Dorset had known Hurling, even worked for him. Why would he want to hurt Hurling? Dorset’s bank accounts had been examined. He had not received anything from Van. What malice, then, what benefit or self-interest could such a plan serve? Adam couldn’t imagine it. And neither, so far, could his lawyers.
In fact, they weren’t even searching for the answer. All they wanted, they
told him, was to prove that Dorset and Van knew each other before Adam’s involvement. Such evidence would destroy the prosecution’s most damning witness, and more or less decide the case. Adam had wracked his brain to no avail. As far as he could see, the only one who could possibly answer that question was Gregory Van himself, and he—despite the considerable efforts of British law-enforcement agencies to lay their hands on him—was still missing.
The only person who had really been any help in all of this was, surprisingly, Seth. He had brought up an intriguing topic no one else had yet touched upon.
“Listen, Adam. Who’s the one person in all of this that is deeply involved that no one has investigated, or even accused?”
Adam shrugged. “Who?”
“A. J. Hurling.”
“Please. He’s the victim. I feel badly enough already.”
“Hold on a minute! Don’t you think it’s a bit convenient that he contacted you out of nowhere, then soon after—out of nowhere—Dorset introduced you to Van? I’ll tell you something else. I have information about Mr. Hurling that is not widely known. Did you know that he was arrested for drug possession? He did time.”
“Everybody knows that. It’s part of the A. J. Hurling legend: Convict becomes community leader, millionaire software technology genius, businessman, and philanthropist.”
“Did you ever look into how, exactly, he did it?”
“His company, Survivor Systems Technology, is privately owned. There is not much out there.”
“There are a number of people on the board with Islamic names.”
Adam caught his breath, leaning back in his chair. “Are you serious?”
Seth nodded. “Right after 9/11, their V.P. of sales went to the FBI in Boston and said he thought there might be a connection. Their software is installed in everything. It lets you forage for information, and it lets you change codes…”
“Who gave them security clearance?”
“That’s a question, isn’t it?”
“What else?”
“Their main stockholder is Muhammad Al Mafouz, who is the director of
the Saudi Cooperative Relief Organization, which gave Survivor Systems Technology over $50 million in loans, and another $50 million in investments.”
Adam’s face paled. “Where did you find this out?”
“That’s not important. The point: It’s true. The FBI raided Survivor Systems a few years ago based on the information. But they didn’t make any arrests. And there’s something else. About the same time he founded Survivor Systems Technology, Hurling converted to Islam.”
Adam leaned back, drained. “Really?”
“He doesn’t advertise, but it’s a fact.”
This information intrigued Adam’s lawyers, who said they would check it out with the feds. Miraculously, it had all turned out to be true. His lawyers were in the process of working out a much more effective defense strategy. But in any case, Marvin ordered him to come up with character witnesses, people willing to testify to his blameless life and activities.
He had imagined that that would be easy. After all, how many people had reached out to him over the years for help, free financial advice, loans, charity, letters of reference, referrals? How many people had been guests in his home and his family celebrations?
He went down the list of the many who had been eager to take his hand when he was on top of the world. Very soon he found himself reduced to humiliation and self-abasement as he begged those same people to reach down and help pull him up now that he—through no fault of his own—was down at the bottom of a pit.
“May we never need the help of our fellowman”
went the prayer. Only now did he understand its full meaning. The cautious to outright-cowardly responses of people he knew and had considered friends, people he had not only helped but sincerely admired, had been downright shocking, ripping the mask off the world he thought he knew. And no matter how many times it happened to him, the terrible necessity of having to beg and abase himself, the shock and disappointment of being refused, seared his soul, making him realize that the world as he thought he knew it had never been real.
Eventually, he had become more forgiving. No matter how good you have been, he discovered, however righteously you have lived your life, however
generously, no one wanted to get involved with a court case. No one wanted to be called to the witness stand to be badgered by an accusing lawyer.
There had been some exceptions, people who had said, without hesitation and most willingly: “Of course. How can I help you?”
Their simple decency, more so for having been so rare, had brought him to tears. It was what he himself would have done, he knew. But at this point, it felt like a miracle. It was something he would never forget, or cease feeling grateful for.
The only bright spot in all this darkness was the thought that soon Abigail would be bringing Kayla home. A shiver of loneliness passed through him. Abby. He missed her scent on the pillow next to him when he woke in the morning and went to sleep at night. He missed slipping his hand around the small of her back as they sat next to each other sipping their morning coffee. He missed looking into her eyes when he spoke to her. He missed her small, ladylike hands, with their familiar engagement and wedding rings, curling around a book as she leaned back on the sofa in the lamplight in the evenings.
They had been married close to forty years. And yet, his feelings for her were still the same as they’d been when as a young college student he had crossed a crowded room to make a beeline to her.
Sending her off had been a considerable sacrifice. But more than a husband, he was a father. Whatever the personal cost, whatever happened to him in the end, at least his daughter would be all right, her life back on track. You can deal with much suffering as long as your children aren’t harmed, he thought. If all this had irreparably destroyed her life… He slumped down in his chair, his bones liquid. He could not bear to even imagine it.