Page 130 of The Cellist

Despite the subject matter, Chiara thought the painting was of sufficient quality for hanging, but Gabriel consigned it to the storage facility where he kept his mother’s paintings and works by his first wife, Leah. Near the end of April, as Israel’s aggressive national vaccination campaign allowed much of the country to reopen, he was allowed to visit her for the first time in more than a year. The hospital where she resided was atop Mount Herzl, near the ruins of the old Arab village of Deir Yassin. Afflicted with a combination of acute post-traumatic stress syndrome and psychotic depression, she had no knowledge of the global pandemic, or of Gabriel’s near-fatal shooting in Washington. Seated beneath an olive tree in the cool of the walled garden, they relived, word for word, a conversation they had had on a snowy night in Vienna thirty years earlier. Sheonce again asked Gabriel to make certain Dani was strapped into his car seat properly. Now, as then, Gabriel assured her the child was safe.

Emotionally drained by the encounter, he took Chiara and the children to Focaccia on Rabbi Akiva Street, the Allon family’s favorite restaurant in Jerusalem. Their photographs were soon trending on social media along with a lengthy discussion of Gabriel’s order, chicken livers and mashed potatoes.Haaretz, Israel’s most authoritative daily, felt compelled to publish several hundred words on the sighting, including quotes from two of Israel’s most prominent physicians. The general consensus was that Gabriel was starting to look a bit more like himself again.

The next night they made a long-delayed pilgrimage to Tiberias to celebrate Shabbat with the Shamrons. Over dinner, Ari upbraided Gabriel for allowing himself to be shot by an American congresswoman—“The indignity of it! How could you have been so careless?”—before turning his attention to the future. Not surprisingly, he had been talking to the prime minister about Gabriel’s succession plan. The prime minister was intrigued by the idea of appointing a woman but was not sure whether Rimona was ready for the job. Shamron reckoned it was a fifty-fifty proposition at best, though he was confident that, with dogged persistence, he would be able to drag her across the finish line.

“Unless...”

“Unless what, Ari?”

“I can convince you to stay for a second term.”

Even the children laughed at the suggestion.

At the conclusion of dinner, Shamron asked Gabriel to join him on the terrace overlooking the Sea of Galilee. After settling into a chair along the balustrade, he ignited a foul-smelling Turkish cigarette with his old Zippo lighter and returned to the subject of Gabriel’s brush with death in Washington.

“Another first on your part,” Shamron pointed out. “You are the only chief in the history of the Office to have killed in the line of duty. And now you are the only one to have been shot.”

“Do I get a citation for that sort of thing?”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.” Shamron shook his head slowly. “I hope it was worth it.”

“It’s quite possible I saved the new president’s life. He won’t forget that.”

“And what about the other members of his administration?”

“They’re only Democrats, Ari. It isn’t as if Hezbollah is going to be running the State Department.”

“But can we count on them?”

“The president and his team?”

“No,” said Shamron. “The Americans.”

“The president has assured his traditional European allies that America is back, but they’re not yet convinced. Not after what they went through the last four years. And the attack on the Capitol has made them even more skeptical.”

“As well it should,” replied Shamron. “Who were these creatures who vandalized that beautiful building? What do they want?”

“They say they want their country back.”

“From whom?” asked Shamron, incredulous. “Have they not read their history? Do they not know what happens when anation tears itself apart? Do they not realize how lucky they are to live in a democracy?”

“They don’t believe in democracy anymore.”

“They will if it vanishes.”

“Not if their side is in control.”

“An authoritarian regime in the United States? A ruling family? Fascism?”

“These days we call it majoritarianism.”

“How polite,” remarked Shamron. “But what about the minorities?”

“Their votes won’t count.”

“How will they manage that?”

“You know the old saying about elections, Ari. It’s not about the voting, it’s about the counting.”