Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 61 of a new online serial novel, Night Flower, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

For the fifth time, Pavel passed by the opening between the glass partitions and rubbed his chin. Josef Podernik had been sitting at his desk for more than half an hour already, in the same position. He was providing no entertainment or anything of interest for Pavel.

Josef was indeed sitting, wrapped in his thoughts, and he knew that something here was not right. Every mystery has two ends that eventually tie in to one another, while here, there were two seemingly separate issues. Yesterday once again, the hearing regarding Struk had ended with nothing. The Jew was being presented as having been tricked, while on the other hand, there were remarkable pieces of evidence linking him to the Mafia—pieces of evidence which he did not deny. Rather, he disputed their significance.
The problem was that it was impossible to prove that he wasn’t right, because not one piece of evidence that they had was one hundred percent airtight. It had taken a long time for him to figure out the real objectives of the regular informer, Ilya Antonovich. He was ostensibly a Mafia personality, but being that his brother, a journalist, had been struck down by the Mafia, he sought revenge and had became an informer on them. He’d been summoned to the CKP twice for a conversation; they’d spoken openly, and Podernik had questioned him, promising him maximum immunity. The man refused to testify at the trial, of course, but here, he’d said everything.
Josef suddenly shook himself out of his thoughts and then languidly pulled over the pages on which he’d taken notes during their conversation. Why was all the evidence that Ilya had found against the Mafia relating to the Jew Struk? Was it only because he hated Jews? Why wasn’t he able to do a complete job, once he was doing the job already? And where was the correspondence between Struk and Rosenberg that he had talked about so much? Of course, he had logically explained that this was all very risky business for him, and even what he had extracted had been at great effort. That was all true and clear and understandable.
And yet, why was it that Antonovich had failed to produce the juiciest pieces of evidence that Josef so badly needed?

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 60 of a new online serial novel, Night Flower, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Motza’ei Shabbos was short, as they always are in the summer. And as much as they tried to hurry, Chaiky only arrived in Bnei Brak at 10:30, while Rachel continued on with the two older children to Yokne’am.

Chaiky got out of the taxi that her father had paid for (“It’s out of the question for you to schlep Yisrael Meri on another bus; take a taxi!”), and climbed up the stairs to an old building, holding Yisrael Meir in her arms, and not knowing what to expect.

Racheli, the woman of the house, was a warm, energetic person who ushered her into the living room. Only one light was on, and there were two little girls seated on the couch, one at each side. Adi Milner, Noa’s friend, turned out to be a rather shy, pleasant ba’alas teshuvah. She couldn’t help much by way of information, because she simply had none. “I also hardly know Noa,” she said, a bit anxiously, “but she has a good heart—I know that much.” She handed Chaiky an opaque bag. “These are her things: the notebook, the computer, and the note on which I wrote down the code.” She hesitated for a fraction of a second. “And by the way, if you have any contact with her, tell her that I took it very much to heart that she didn’t call me to reassure me that she was fine. Doesn’t she care about how worried I was?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 59 of a new online serial novel, Night Flower, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“I guess I should start at the beginning,” Noa said.

She took a deep breath. “My mother was Jewish. My parents were killed in an accident when I was six months old, and I grew up with my father’s sister and her husband. When they moved to Israel, I came with them. I really believed them when they told me, back when I was in eighth grade, that I was not Jewish, and that’s why I totally cut off ties with your parents. And then eventually I ended up where I ultimately ended up…”

Chaiky frowned into the phone as she waited for Noa to continue her explanation.

“Less than a year ago,” Noa went on, “I got a job working in the computer department at the Culture and Community Foundation. I have a good head—you’ll forgive me for saying so—and over the years my grandfather liked to share with me some details about his business. And because I’m not holding back anything from you now, I’ll tell you that yes, I knew that most of his ‘business’ was not quite legal.”

Chaiky sat down absentmindedly on the chair that she hadn’t even noticed Rachel bringing over, still clutching an onion in one hand. Rachel took the knife away from her without Chaiky realizing, and in its place she placed a plate with a piece of cake, but Chaiky didn’t notice that either.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 58 of a new online serial novel, Night Flower, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Grandfather,

Forgive me for not calling to explain myself; I am afraid that your emissaries will once again find me and ruin everything. So I’m sending a fax. Don’t try to check the address from where this fax is being sent, because it is being sent to you from someplace very far from where I am right now.

I didn’t want to tell you this at first, because I was afraid of your response, but the notebook in which I wrote down all my operations…is lost. My problem was that when I planted the documents in Struk’s computer, I was afraid that his family would discover it too early and everything would be deleted. Therefore, I planned that the documents should remain concealed until the computer, or its contents, would be taken to Russia, and even then, they would only be unlocked after a certain code would be sent from a remote computer. It was very hard work, far beyond my programming abilities—and I have lots of abilities—and therefore, I sought assistance from the worldwide web. In order to make sure that there would be no fingerprints, I didn’t record anything in the computer. Anything I learned, I wrote in the notebook. Today, every beginner programmer knows that a pen or pencil and paper are the best protection against all kinds of hackers.

I had done everything. Now the hard disk in Russia was just waiting for me to send the signal from any computer that was connected to the internet. It made no difference to me what this hard disk would be contained in. I had built a smart program inside it that would go along with it wherever it went. The problem was that something serious happened: my notebook disappeared. Either that, or it was stolen. Bottom line, it’s in foreign hands. My secret code must have also fallen into those foreign hands. It’s a serious blunder on my part, I know, but did you want me to continue implementing the plan as though nothing had happened, when there is someone someplace that knows about all my activities and will know right away that the letters are forgeries, and that all the evidence against Struk probably also is?

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