Tongues of Fire Read Free Page B

beans from Colombia, Brazil, Kenya, and Java. Rehv kept a jar of instant on the top shelf.
    They sat on the polished pine floor drinking black coffee from ivory-colored Rosenthal cups. The dirty white light turned the bad side of Harry’s face into lunar crust. Rehv saw his hand tremble slightly as he raised the cup to his lips, and wondered how old he was.
    â€œIt’s very good coffee, thank you,” Harry said after one sip. He placed the cup carefully on the floor and didn’t touch it again. Little concentric waves of coffee pulsed across the surface of the cup, back and forth, colliding, diminishing, dying. Rehv looked up to find bright blue eyes gazing at him thoughtfully.
    â€œSo,” Harry said. “You’ve decided to assimilate, is that it?”
    â€œOh shit.” Rehv waved the back of his hand at the four booths in the center of the room to show Harry how wrong he was.
    â€œWhat are those?”
    â€œArt.”
    â€œI see.” The blue eyes ran their gaze over the exhibit. Then suddenly a glitter broke through their surface, as if Harry were about to smile. He didn’t smile, but he said, “I do see. They’re the portable toilets Americans use at construction sites. What a funny idea.”
    â€œYou should get yourself a grant.”
    â€œI beg your pardon.”
    â€œNothing.”
    Harry shifted slightly. He wasn’t comfortable on the floor. “I’m afraid we don’t know much about you, Mr. Rehv.”
    But you knew where to find me, Rehv thought. He said, “Why don’t you tell me what you want? It won’t be long before the owners come to open the gallery.”
    Harry inched closer on the floor. His breath smelled of mint toothpaste. “We want you to do one little job. It will be very simple, but a very big help.”
    â€œTo what end?”
    The gentleness dropped away from Harry’s voice like a button from a fencing sword. “For the cause,” he said angrily. The good side of his face went scarlet. The bad stayed the way it was. The word Israel hung in the air unsaid. It always did.
    â€œI’ve had enough of hopeless causes.” Rehv was surprised to feel himself becoming angry too. “Blowing up buildings won’t turn back time.”
    â€œIt worked for them.”
    â€œThere’s no comparison and you know it.”
    â€œAnd it worked for us before that,” Harry added more quietly. “I know. I was there.”
    â€œIn the forties?” He didn’t look as old as that.
    â€œThis is the second Haganah for me,” Harry said.
    Rehv wanted to tell him that it was Hitler who had given Israel to them, that they had bought it with six million lives; that the Americans hated them, the American Jews hated them, the Russians hated them, the oil companies hated them, the Arabs for some reason still hated them; that the reason Harry and his friends kept fighting was not because there was hope but because if they stopped there would be nothing to do but blow their brains out, the way a few refugees did every day—you could read about them in the back pages of the newspaper. Instead he stood up and said: “I’m sorry, Harry. The answer is no.”
    Harry didn’t look at him. “Very well,” he said. Rehv held out his hand to help him rise, but Harry ignored it. Rehv heard his bones crack as he slowly got to his feet. “I’m sorry too,” he said, slightly short of breath. He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the knob. “It was about a man named Fahoum.”
    â€œI’ve never heard of him.”
    Harry spoke without turning. “Abu Fahoum. He led the Palestinian commandos during the attack on Mount Carmel.”
    Rehv did not speak. Harry still stood facing the door. Someone knocked lightly on it. Harry turned the knob. A man’s head, no, a boy’s, with pimples and a yarmulke, poked into the room.
    â€œMr. Nissim. Are