Before . . .

By Eva Fischer-Dixon

Before graduating from Yale Law School, Mira Chambers hoped for one thing and one thing onlyto have her mother, Jessica (Jessie), present when she received her law degree. However, Mira understood and accepted the reason behind her mothers absence; her mothers life depended on remaining in hiding. She was not certain why her mother hid her away in a boarding school in Switzerland and why she was taken from her hotel room in Barcelona, Spain, by someone who was trusted by her mother. Not knowing her destination, Mira relied on her escort, and after some treacherous endeavors including being rescued by commandos at sea, she was taken to the port city of Eilat, Israel. While under protection of Shin Bet, she receives a locked box with five notebooks written by her mysterious mother. As she read the notebooks, Mira realizes the shocking truth about her immediate family. Her escort, Moshe, whom she named the Trusted One, turned out to be more than just that when the two of them fell into forbidden love. Mira must find out what happened to her mother and why Mira was locked in the hotel suite with Shin Bet looking over her day and night. Was her life truly in danger? How long were they going to keep her isolated from the outside world? Would Moshe be able to save her and love her despite the circumstances? Mira could only hope and pray.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524541460

Eva Fischer-Dixon

I came into this troubled world during the early morning hours of June 17, 1950, in the city of Budapest, Hungary. I was the first and last child of my 41-year-old mother and my father who was 45 years old at the time of my birth. As I did not know any better, I could not possibly understand that we were living in poverty, as I was growing up with loving parents and there was always a bite to eat. My childhood was poor and saddened with tragedies. As a six-year-old child I witnessed the bloody 1956 revolution and received the first taste of true prejudice by those of whom I thought liked us, yet turned against my family. That tragedy did not match the untimely death of my beloved father when I was not yet seven years old, on February 14, 1957. My mother remarried in 1959 and our financial situation was upgraded from poverty to poor. After finishing elementary school I made a decision to earn money as soon as possible to ease our financial situation and I enrolled in a two-year business college (high school diploma was not required). I received my Associate Degree in 1966 and I began to work as a 16-year-old certified secretary/bookkeeper. During the same period I began my high-school education, which I completed while working full-time and attending night school. I discovered my love for writing when I was 11 years old after a movie that my childhood friend and I saw in the movie theater. We were not pleased with the ending and Steven suggested that I should write a different ending that we both liked. Voila, a writer was born. With my family’s encouragement, I entered a writing contest given by a youth oriented magazine and to my genuine surprise, I won second price. My desire to live in a free country and to improve my life was so great, that in 1972, leaving everything, including my aging parents behind, I managed to escape from Hungary during a tour to Austria, (then) Yugoslavia and Italy. I spent almost nine long months in a rat infested refugee camp, located Capua, Italy, while I waited for official permission to immigrate to the country of my dreams, to the USA. In 1975 I met and married a wonderful man, my husband Guy. Thanks to his everlasting patience, he assisted me in my task of learning the English language. He is truly my partner for life and I remain forever grateful to him for standing by me in some tough times. It is difficult for me to describe my love for writing. I cannot think of a bigger emotional joy for an author than to see a published novel in somebody’s hand and to see a story come alive on the screen. I yearn to experience that joy.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Eva Fischer-Dixon.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-4147-7

               eBook          978-1-5245-4146-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/19/2016

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Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOG

Also available from Eva Fischer-Dixon:

The Third Cloud

A Song for Hannah (Previously titled: Hannah’s Song)

For One Last Time (Previously titled: For the Last Time)

A Journey to Destiny (Previously titled: A Journey to Passion)

The Discovery

The Forbidden

Fata Morgana

Eighteen

The Chava Diamond Chronicles: The Shades of Love and Hate

The Bestseller

A Town by the River

Five ’til Midnight

Thy Neighbor’s Wife

The Roma Chavi (The Gypsy Girl)

My First Son

By the Book

The Angie Chronicles: Six Summers & One Winter

The Angie Chronicles: Angie’s Story

The Angie Chronicles: The Resurrection

Five Past Midnight

For Senior Officers Only (Prisoner # 170650)

The Price of the Game

What War May Bring

Dark Storm Rising

On the Midnight Train (My Journey to Freedom)

78 Spring Street (Tavasz Utca 78)

PROLOGUE

B EFORE I stepped onto the stage and shook the Dean’s hand that held my law diploma, it occurred to me that possibly I was the only graduate who did not have anyone in the cheering audience. I was not an orphan in the sense of the word, my mother was very much alive, but the question about her present location remained a mystery. I fully understood her predicament as she only had two options.

The first option, which I am certain was the most appealing to her, was to attend her only child’s graduation from Yale Law School and cheer me on for achieving my ultimate goal. Her second option was to attend my graduation in a low profile scenario, just being there for me. There was only one problem, a big problem with both options. Those who put a high price on her head would have killed her.

No, my mother was not a mobster, bank robber or serial killer, my mother was once an employee of the United States Federal Government.

CHAPTER ONE

B EFORE graduation, my best friend and roommate throughout my Yale years, Lucy Winters, an avid traveler, managed to talk me into going to Barcelona, Spain with her for a much needed and long talked about vacation. She was the only person who I truly and completely trusted, yet, I was still unable to share my full life history with her. Sometimes knowing, nothing specific, but just knowing could be rather dangerous and I most certainly cared not only about her safety, but mine as well.

Lucy always asked me about my parents and I told her that my mother was a diplomat living overseas, and my father died when I was very young. It was only partially true. She considered my mother not loving as she put me into a boarding school at age six, which I did not leave until I graduated from high school. And yes, the school was located in Switzerland, tucked away in a small town nobody ever heard of and which I am not going to name for security reasons, but it was located not far from Lausanne.

While I attended Yale, I was never certain who paid for my tuition or who deposited certain amounts each month into a checking account that someone established in my name. As I was growing up, I learned to accept a great many things in life without questioning. It was not from lacking of making inquiries, I actually made them often after I was informed that there was no need for me to apply for a student loan as my tuition was paid in full for all the semesters as long as I remained in school. Once I even went to the Dean’s office to inquire about my mysterious benefactor and I was informed that they were not at liberty to release the person’s name. I was also instructed to try to refrain myself from further questioning and accept the things as they were. My benefactor asked one thing and one thing only from me; it was that I do a good job with my studies as repayment. So I did.

Long months, and at times, even full years passed by without seeing my mother. Somehow, even at a young age, I understood that she had a job that was very dangerous and that it was better if I didn’t know any details. When my mother dropped me off at the boarding school, she assured me that she loved me very much and she asked me to always remember that. She told me that she loved me more than anything in this world, that is why it was so important that I remain safe, as I was the reason for her wanting to stay alive.

I had not seen my mother for almost two full years, although she kept in touch by letters that were mailed from all over the world, when unexpectedly she came to spend my fourteenth birthday with me. She took me to the famous ski resort town of Lausanne for two days and it was then that for a very first time she talked to me about my background, especially about my father whom I did not have any recollection at all. I already knew some of his background she told me about, and she hardly mentioned anything that I had not yet suspected.

I was told that my birthplace was Cairo, Egypt and my parents were Jessica (Jessie) Chambers and James Chambers, both Harvard graduates. That is where they met and eventually married after their graduation. My father graduated with a degree from Harvard’s International Business School with such high honors, that the Federal Government immediately recruited him, more specifically, the State Department. His first assignment was at the American Embassy in Cairo, and because there was another opening at the Embassy for a legal aid position, my mother also got a job there, fresh out of law school, passing the bar exams only days before their departure of what they considered a working vacation.

My mother had a much appreciated and uncanny talent for languages. She never explained how she learned them, and I will never know. She was fluent in eight languages, including Arabic, Russian, German, Chinese and even Hebrew, among others. In many aspects, she became even more valuable to the US Government than my father, although, without a doubt he was important.

I came along as a surprise as the subject of having children was never discussed. It was my understanding from the bits and pieces of information my mother and nobody else told me, that she was pregnant with me at the time of my father’s death. He never knew that I was a girl. However, as much as my memories allow me to recall, I was a pampered child. They still lived in Egypt and she was pregnant with me when my father was abducted by Muslim extremists who demanded huge sums of ransom that was impossible to raise. Even after a formal request from the US Ambassador that was delivered to the Egyptian Justice Department, they made very little effort, if any, to find my father’s captors. After many ransom notes and empty promises about his release; his tortured and bullet ridden body was discovered in the trunk of his car which someone drove back and parked in front of my parent’s apartment building located in the Garden City District of Cairo. At least that is what my mother and a State Department employee told me later on.

She flew back to the United States with his body where my mother as quietly as was possible buried him without any prompts and circumstances. My mother was a very strong woman; I don’t remember ever seeing her cry about anything, and she told me later that she was not even able to cry when she was informed that my father’s remains were found. I clearly remember seeing her face when she talked about it later, and at that young age when the last time we talked about my father, I was around six years old, I did not fully comprehend the concept when she said that when my father’s body was found, it showed signs of torture prior to his execution. I never forgot her eyes; I never forgot the hatred in them against those who took an innocent man’s life for what?

After the funeral, my mother returned to Cairo where she still had a job at the American Embassy. Naturally, I had no recollection of my first few years of my life, but when I turned six years old, unexpectedly my mother enrolled me in a private school in Switzerland where I basically grew up, and where I lived until I was 18 years old. She told me that it was necessary because her job required her to be away for longer period of times on business. She promised that she would visit as often as she possibly could. My teachers and my school friends told me later that I always threw a fit each time my mother departed again, despite the fact that she assured me that she would be back. It took her months to return, but during that time, this is also according to my teachers at school, I became a very quiet, very subdued child. I truly miss those people whom I always considered more than just teachers, many of them were elderly even then and they passed away before I graduated from Yale.

Each of those times when my mother visited, instead of feeling joyful I was nothing less than devastated and even angry. I always understood that my mother’s job required secrecy and I tried real hard to be understanding, but I missed her very much because she was the only family I had and that I could claim. I had a good life at the boarding school and I had friends, I even liked the teachers, but it was not home and they were not my blood relatives whose number was getting less and less.

My mother always reminded me of the reason why I was hidden away at that boarding school outside Lausanne. According to her words, because of her job, there were a lot of people, a lot of bad people who did not like her and they would do anything to hurt her. She said that they knew that she had a daughter but they did not know where and that it is why she wanted to have it appear that we have lost contact. She said that she would rather not see me often than to have any harm come to me. So I lived with that knowledge until the present days.

Sure, I wanted to know more about my family, but it was virtually impossible to find anything out. From my father’s side there was no one I could contact, he was an only child to parents who passed away while he was growing up. He basically grew up in foster care, but luckily he had good and kind foster parents, an elderly couple who actually loved him and his two other foster brothers.

My father was a straight A student throughout his high school studies and he was able to get a full scholarship from Harvard, although he had to work after classes just to keep up with some of the additional expenses. He met my mother while he worked at one of Harvard’s libraries. He was simply a brilliant man whose life was cut way too short.

I was not sure why suddenly I thought about my parents, perhaps because I wished that my travel to Spain was a trip to my mother, to meet her, but I knew that it was virtually impossible. There was so much I did not know about my mother, but I hoped that someday, someone would tell me something about their lives. Everything I knew and mentioned above was what I placed together, piece by piece, from stories that I heard here and there. I was never able to confirm any part of what I knew and what I heard, but I very much wanted to know who I really was, however, without hearing from my mother herself, it was virtually impossible.

Are you ready? Lucy asked standing half way in the slightly opened door of my room. We rented a two-bedroom apartment together in Hartford, Connecticut as we were both hired at the same local law firm as junior lawyers. It was just like in our college days, trying to make a difference and help those who were in need. Yes, but first, there was vacation time. I nodded that I was ready to go. Lucy smiled.

Ole, she said cheerfully.

CHAPTER TWO

B EFORE the longest part of our flight began, after changing planes in New York, we killed time by walking all over the airport. During the flight, between napping, eating and going to the rest room, we managed to review our itinerary that Lucy worked up for us. Since neither of us were outdoor types, we decided to stay in the Renaissance Hotel located near the Barcelona Airport, which was a brief ten minute drive from the hotel, just for the purpose of convenience. In many ways it was not a very good choice, not because the hotel was not nice or accommodating, rather, because it was a long drive from the downtown area where all the action and activities were taking place.

After checking into the hotel, we both crashed on our beds and slept most of the day and afternoon until hunger came knocking in our stomach. Taking quick showers, we got dressed and went downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant to have something decent to eat. After dinner, we asked the hotel clerk to call a taxi for us, which he did and within minutes we got into the cab and headed for the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona.

Lucy and I concluded that we both liked Barcelona from just seeing the buildings, the statues, and the squares with or without water fountains. Since Las Ramblas was a walking street, the cab dropped us off in front of the Hard Rock Café. We both agreed to visit that restaurant on one of the following days. During the day, the entire length of Las Ramblas was full with small kiosks and stands, selling everything from worthless souvenirs to tourists, to painted hand fans. Of course, I must mention flowers because there was so many flower stalls that fragrance permeated the entire long walking street. There were live performance artists who were dressed up in interesting outfits, or were painted from head to toe and who stood there motionlessly for long periods of time hoping to make a living from their supposedly artistic work.

We walked the entire street and collapsed at one of the water fountains and sat there for a while watching people mingling and listened to the classic guitar players who sat not far from us. The weather cooled off and we enjoyed just being there, being young and so far, carelessly free. Eventually, Lucy unceremoniously began to yawn, which of course was contagious and very soon we were trying to hail down a taxicab to drive us back to our hotel.

The following morning we talked to the hotel concierge and he patiently explained to us all the sights that we should be seeing, and how we were supposed to get to them. He asked as if we liked flamenco dancing and when we nodded in unison, he suggested that perhaps we could go to a dinner and flamenco dance show at the Tablao de Carmen. Lucy gave him her sweetest smile and asked the middle aged balding man if he was kind enough to make our reservation. He was more than pleased that he could help us and he assured us that by the time we returned from our sightseeing, our reservation for the dinner and dance show will be secured. Lucy leaned over the counter and landed a light kiss on the concierge face that probably made not only his day, but also possibly his entire week.

We got lucky by catching a taxi right in front of our hotel and we told the driver that we wanted to go to the Old City part of Barcelona that was called Ciutat Vella. The driver, a woman began to talk to us in rapid Spanish. Lucy, who was primarily raised by a nanny, originally from Mexico, managed to understand parts of what was said to us. She was actually making recommendations on what we should see and warned us to stay away from Barri Xines, which was a famous red light district. We giggled and we promised that we would try.

We spent most of the morning and early afternoon walking around the Raval District where we passed museum after museum. There were several art galleries and because both of us were fans of modern art, we actually visited one gallery and spent over an hour just trying to figure out what we were seeing. I tremendously enjoyed the Gothic District and also the Cathedral in the middle of it. I could not decide if I liked the Cathedral as it left the impression on me that it was still unfinished, and that observation was confirmed from some brochures that we picked up from a small table at the entrance of the Cathedral.

We had a late lunch that we picked up from a street vender and by the time we managed to return to the hotel, it was time to shower, to get dressed and take a taxi to Tablao de Carmen, located in the Spanish Village, to enjoy an evening of authentic Catalan food and flamenco dancing.

Under normal circumstances we would have had to pay entry fees to the Spanish Village, which by the way was made out of houses built in Catalan style, filled with small shops of various kinds and many different restaurants. The area included churches as well. It was most definitely a tourist destination by itself. We had a computer printout, courtesy of the concierge who made our reservation and we were able to pass through the gate to enter the Spanish Village. We received a small map that showed us the direction to Tablao de Carmen, a five-minute walk away from the entrance gate.

I was not sure what I expected but the place was smaller than I first imagined and it gave the impression to the audience that in some ways they were part of the performance. Our table was right next to the stage, I wasn’t certain that it was really a good thing or not, I thought that perhaps the dancers would kick up some dust, but it turned out that it was not the case of all.

Lucy and I were almost the first ones to arrive and we sat next to each other with our backs against the wall. The table seated four and knowing the European traditions, I told Lucy that I wouldn’t be surprised if strangers would take the two vacant seats across from us. At the table to our left an American couple were seated and across from them another couple from Australia was squeezed in. It was too good to be true that we didn’t have to share our table with anyone by the time the lights were slightly dimmed.

The four-course meal was served with precision and quickly, from soup to dessert, without anybody urging us, we finished our meal in no time. Lucy and I ordered the same from the menu, Cream of Vegetable Soup with croutons, Lentil Stew with chorizo, Roast beef with smoked mash in a Port and orange sauce and the divine Catalan Cream Brulee.

We almost finished with our meal when we noticed the tall man with dark sunglasses coming through the tight space between the neighboring chairs and tables and he took the seat across from me. He nodded and murmured something that we were unable to understand as the restaurant was filled with patrons and everybody was chattering after finishing with their meals and before the show was scheduled to begin.

Our tables were cleared rather quickly and we ordered a bottle of red wine that Lucy and I intended to share. We began to feel a little bit silly and when the waiter returned with the wine and poured for us, we pointed at an empty glass in front of the strange man and offered him wine. He shook his head to which Lucy remarked, More for us.

The lights were turned down and the spotlight above the stage came on. There were four chairs by the wall on the stage and the first performers to appear were two singers without any instruments. The man singing was very impressive but when the woman began to sing, my hands began to tremble and I put my glass down on the table so I would not spill any wine. Although I could not understand the words she sang, I understood the anguish of a woman who lost the love of her life; her voice sang desperation and pain. I knew that it was not the wine, as I barely took a couple of sips, my tears began to roll down on my face.

The man who sat across from me did not watch the show at all. I tried to find some Kleenex tissues in my small purse when I looked up at him just to realize that he was watching me instead of the performance. I did not care who saw my tears, I figured I would never see those people again, and turned my attention back to the stage as two guitar players joined the first two singers. The guitarists played their instruments masterfully and very soon, four female and two male dancers joined them on the stage. They danced and sang as a group and they performed individual solos as well. It was sheer delight to watch them and I began to wonder what was wrong with the man who watched me throughout the performance, instead any of the showpieces.

During the brief intermission that lasted only for about ten minutes, I tried to observe our strange tablemate. He had very dark, almost black hair that was cut short in a military style. I could not tell the color of his eyes because he was wearing dark sunglasses, which seemed somewhat comical as the restaurant was almost completely dark with the exception of the candles in the middle of the tables and from the lights directed at the stage. He had an incredibly handsome face with full lips that were closed shut. He didn’t smile, not even twitch. He was not drinking or eating anything and pretty much all he did was just staring toward my direction. At first I wasn’t certain if I was the center of his attention but behind us was a solid wall and nobody else stood between our chair and the wall. What is his problem? I wondered but said nothing. The show resumed and I was lost in thoughts while we watched the dancers’ feet that moved so fast that it was hard to follow with our eyes. I adored flamenco dancing all my life and I even watched it, although only on rare occasions on You Tube on my computer.

Lucy also noticed the stranger’s behavior and she nudged me under the table. I did not know if I should asked him why he was staring at me and what his problem was, but instead, I decided to ignore him. The show ended around nine thirty in the evening and there was another show scheduled for ten so we didn’t have much time to drink all the wine, we ended up leaving almost a half a bottle, but what else could we do, right?

We said goodbye to the American and the Australian couple whom we were chatting before the show and waited until most of the people left the restaurant. I turned around to see if the stranger was still sitting by the table, but to my surprise, he was already gone. How did he do that? How did he manage to leave when the only way out was through the same door where we were following the exiting patrons to the outside? He was certainly not among the patrons around us. I looked at the door where the performers passed through and I concluded that he probably left through that door.

We casually walked toward the Spanish Village exit door, stopping at one or two small shops that were still open; most of them were already closed by the time the show ended. Lucy and I were not big souvenir shoppers but we agreed that we would wait with buying things in Spain until our last days in that country.

Outside the Spanish Village we walked down the steps and hoped to catch a taxicab to take us back to our hotel. I turned around to look at a group of young people who began to sing some Spanish songs when I noticed a tall figure standing at the top of the steps that led inside the place. Without a mistake, it was the same man as he was still wearing dark sunglasses despite the fact that it was already dark outside. He was watching us and I began to feel not as much scared as to be more conscious about our surroundings.

It took us ten minutes to stop a taxi and to get going toward our hotel room, near the airport. I turned around as the taxicab pulled away from the curb and I saw the tall man watching our taxi’s departure. Lucy saw him too, so it became clear that he was not only a figment of my imagination.

CHAPTER THREE

B EFORE I became an adult, the word exhaustion was not part of my vocabulary, but that is the proper word to describe how we felt by the time we returned to our hotel. We staggered to the glass elevator and through the long and curving hallway into our room. Lucy kicked off her shoes and threw herself on the bed that was nearest to the window and just sat there. I am so tired that I don’t think that I can sleep. She remarked. Do you mind if I watch something on the TV?

I feel the same way, go ahead, I replied and just then the telephone on the nightstand rang. Lucy picked it up and listened.

It’s for you, she said and handed me the phone.

Hello, I made a face as I said it into the receiver.

I am very sorry to trouble you, I heard the voice of a young woman with a heavy Spanish accent. Would it be possible for you to come down to the reception?

What in the world for? I inquired not understanding her request.

There is a small discrepancy with your credit card and we would like to straighten it out as soon as possible, she told me. I must admit, her voice sounded rather nervous.

Can this wait until tomorrow morning? I am very tired at the moment, I replied, as I really did not want to go anywhere else that night.

Please come now, she said and hung up the phone.

What was that all about? Lucy asked.

I was a little bit confused. She said that there was a discrepancy with my credit card which is impossible as the card had zero balance. I was ticked off and put my shoes back on and headed to the door.

Do you want me to go with you? Lucy asked. I shook my head. If she was half as tired as I felt in those minutes, she had to be exhausted too. I must admit, despite our relatively young age and able bodies, we somewhat over did it for the day as we were on the go virtually all day, we also went out to that dinner and dance show in the evening.

I’ll be right back, I said and made my way to the elevator. As the glass elevator was descending to the first floor where the hotel’s lobby was located, out of the corner of my eyes, I thought I saw a tall man with dark sunglasses moving toward the staircase, but when I turned around to take a better