Eli's Secrets

By DK Williams

In love and in Paris, Eli and Rachel are sitting at a quaint cafe in the Jewish district. Suddenly, someone tosses a bomb into their midst, critically wounding Eli and killing several. Was this an anti-Semitic attack? Who was the intended target?

 

Rachel is now alone and does not know who the enemy is or whom she can trust. She learns Eli has kept secrets from her, endangering them and their young child. How deep does the deceit go? Will their love survive?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: DK Williams
• Release date: Jan 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798985549645

DK Williams

DK Williams is a watercolor artist, and author of the new novel Burn Baby Burn. DK and husband, Jim—her biggest supporter, retired from the corporate world and now spend time between their Southern Indiana farm and lake house at pristine Dale Hallow Lake in Tennessee, which features prominently in this book. DK is a graduate of Indiana University with a minor in Journalism; she also edited and published a local print newspaper.  She spent her career traveling and working in Europe, Mexico, and India.  For the last five years, she and her sidekick toured the South-Eastern United States participating in juried Art Shows, selling watercolor originals and commissioned works. DK is currently illustrating and co-authoring a children’s picture book, which will be available soon, and has begun her next novel, based on Native American Healers.  It is a multi-generational matriarchal story beginning in the 1800’s to today.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Rachel tried to lift herself off the hard surface, when a hand pushed her down and shouted at her in a language she could not comprehend. Her back was hurt, her brain muddled, and cobwebs engulfed her. She could not understand the words hurled at her.

Where am I?  I have to get up.  With eyes still closed and trying to regain her senses, she mumbled and shook her head and body like a wet dog shaking off water. She hurt everywhere.

Struggling to open her eyes, her lids fluttered in the bright fluorescent lighting causing her pupils to constrict, as she roused. Each time she blinked, the room would spin. Her head pounded and ears rang, drowning out the hectic activity surrounding her. Her hand automatically swiped at the blood trickling down her face, her senses were amped and she smelled burned flesh. The smoke hung in her clothes and mingled with the fresh blood, she tasted the metallic salty substance in her mouth. She was trying to make sense of her surroundings and not succeeding.

One moment she and Eli were sitting at the sidewalk Café, Le Trumilou Bistro sipping a thick espresso while waiting on their lunch.

Today was a leisure Sunday, the two of them having lunch in the city of lovers. The trees lining the boulevard were showing off their spring blooms and the smells were wonderful. A mixture of florals and the smoky and baked goodness wafting from the café doors every time someone went in or out. The day was sunny and warm, and the tourist had not yet arrived to this area. Usually only the locals visited and dined here, it was a special gathering place for them.

They had been in Paris for almost a year, but she still found the city breathtaking. From the museums to the architecture to the food, it was like living in a beautiful dream. She still pinched herself to make sure she was awake and it was real.

The only downside she could find was the occasional  puff of cigarette smoke making its way on the breeze to their table. The French still loved to smoke before they ate, while they ate and after they ate. Parisians loved to smoke. She didn’t even mind the dogs people brought along to sit beside their dining table. They were usually well mannered and it was commonplace here. There were old men with beards, hats and scarves, and they could be heard talking loudly at one another. Shouting at times and laughing heartily at others. She couldn’t make out what they were arguing about. But usually it was politics or the economy or both. She tuned them out. Young lovers sat close together with arms draped around one another, one man cupping his lovers breast. After all, Paris was the city of love.

The waitress was coming out the door with their meal, when she heard the scooter rev its engine. She was puzzled, for this was a pedestrian ‘Paris Respire’ area. This area was closed to cars on Sunday’s and holidays, to enable everyone to enjoy traffic free and noise free streets. 

Why would there be vehicle noise here?  She thought.

Then nothing—but darkness.

The next moment she awoke and wailed while clawing at the straps holding her to the gurney. Eli, where is Eli?  Where’s my baby, where’s my baby, Sarah? 

Madame, you must lay down, you have a concussion and several injuries. We are tending to your husband. Madame, s’il vous plait, the woman said firmly in broken English with a heavy French accent.

Rachel could barely focus her eyes on the masked and green apparition before her, pushing her again onto the hard backboard. She realized she was in a hospital trauma center.

Why won’t they let me up?  What’s happening to me?  Where is my family?

Her mind flashed back to the attack. It was like a movie scene, one minute she was making a casual remark to Eli about the beautiful spring day, and how happy she was here. Life was finally perfect. She was looking at the outline of the Notre Dame Cathedral in the distance. Paris in the spring with her beloved, could life get any better than this?

The bistro was located in the 4th Arrondissement which ran parallel to the Seine. A popular gathering place for the Jewish clientele in the neighborhood. A perfect spot to sit and watch the world go by. It faced a cobble stone alley with trailing ivy flowing down the front and corner of the building. Located in the Marais, known as Pletzl—Yiddish for little place, it was not far from the house they rented when they first arrived in Paris.  

This  area has been home to the Jews since the 13th century, and they were now living amongst their people. They were comfortable and felt safe. At least she did, until today. It was memorable, because it would be the last time in her life, she would feel safe. It was a normal spring day, but all that changed in the instant it took to detonate a bomb within a few feet from her. It became a lovely war zone.

Eli is a ‘Sayanim’, a helper providing logistical support around the world for the Jewish nation of Israel and the Mossad—Israeli secret service. As such, he is constantly scanning the surroundings, always facing outward, scoping the environment for approaching danger, watching, and waiting for the unexpected. She believed this was the result of growing up in war torn Israel, always on high alert, and under constant attack from the Palestinian radicals.

His service as a Sayanim was the main reason they were now living in Paris. The move came on the heels of a lot of anxiety on her part. She did not want to move.  She was firmly rooted in New York with her best friends and adopted family. She wanted their daughter to grow up surrounded with the love it took so long for her to find, and the family she never had. However, they needed him in Paris, and due to the nature of his work, he provided her no other details. She did not press him on this, relenting because she loved and trusted Eli. In retrospect, perhaps she trusted him a bit too much.

Many other things changed too though, in her college years, she was known as JW. When she converted to Judaism, as custom dictated, she changed her name to Rachel.

She was not the typical American ex-pat or Jewish woman and she tried her best to fit in and look like a Parisian. However, the locals knew she was American the minute she opened her mouth, but they could not tell by her looks. Try as she might, she had not been able to lose her southern accent.

She was born in the south as the only child of Sarah Jane and Samuel Walker, neither of them stuck around long.  It was in their genes to die young and leave her to raise herself.  She escaped her hillbilly life sentence by heading to New York on a Greyhound Bus fresh out of high-school.  She never looked back, until many years later when her aunt left her the family farm.  Something good did come from this, she met Eli—the love of her life, through those circumstances.

Now, she lay on the gurney trying to remove the fog out of her head from an explosion. 

A tall man in a dark suit pulled the curtain back from around her bed. He poked his head in, afraid to get closer until he saw her condition. She was one of the least injured victims. He walked into her curtained room.

He  bowed slightly as he entered and said, Madame, my name is inspector Louis Alexandre, with the French police. I need to get your statement. I am sorry for your loss. He said.

My loss—is he dead. Is Eli dead, no-o-o. She screamed.

No, no, Madame, I am sorry I misspoke, my English is not so good. He is injured very badly and cannot speak with me now. I need to hear from you what you recall. You two were the closest survivors to the blast site.

It took her a moment to regain her senses and she then began to recall trancelike, I remember hearing a scooter coming around the corner. I was puzzled because the road is too narrow, it is a pedestrian area there is usually no motorized traffic there. I saw a man dressed in all black, it was so strange. He had on a ‘scream’ mask. He tossed a backpack into the midst of the people sitting on the sidewalk, almost aiming right at us. It happened in slow motion. But Eli knew, as soon as he saw it airborne, he jerked me down onto the rough pavement, underneath him. Making himself big and bat like, enveloping as much of me as he could.  Her voice trailed and very quietly, she said, the blast was so loud.  Numbly she went on, I heard the horrendous explosion and felt the sting of metal biting into my legs, and scrapes from being pressed onto the concrete sidewalk. Then I regained consciousness  here in the emergency room.   

The inspector confirmed what she already knew, the backpack contained a bomb. They suspected a known terrorist cell targeting the Jewish people. Seven people died in the blast and many more were injured.

Her thoughts returned to Eli, how badly was he hurt?  Turning from the inspector, she said to the woman in green fiddling with her IV bag. I need to see my husband now.

They had not told her anything, and she had not yet cried. She then remembered Sarah, and she panicked.  Then she recalled leaving their daughter safe in the arms of Rabbi Rabin and his wife Miriam before going for lunch. She thanked God for that decision.

Her concern returned to Eli, she was finished answering questions, it was now time for her to get answers. She was usually too shy to ruffle any feathers. This was totally out of character for Rachel.  She always considered herself too much of everything, she was too tall, too gangly, her nose was too big.  She was just ‘too". She was introverted and felt everything bad that happened was her fault. But she was not shy today—not  when it came to her Eli being injured and needing her.

Rachel swung her long legs off the bed and barely managed to stand—all six feet of her, without toppling over. It was apparent there would be no stopping her, the nurse tried to sit her back down on the bed. Rachel pushed her away as she pulled the IV needle out of her arm, pressing hard to staunch the bleeding. She had to find her Eli.

As she stood and began to walk, she wobbled, the room was in chaos around her. People were moaning and screaming and the stench of death mixed with antiseptic hung in the air. She regained her footing and stumbled limping into the hallway, shouting for him....Eli, Eli.  Each time she yelled his name, her head pounded harder, she could feel her blood pressure beating in her ears.  Double vision made the room appear foggy. The sounds around her were muffled, as if she was in a barrel. Her ears must have sustained damage in the blast and were still ringing. She looked at her watch and it had only been 30 minutes since their world exploded.

She heard sounds from behind a curtain. Wrenching it open, she saw Eli and her heart spasmed. She ran to him and flung herself across his chest, trying not to dislodge the tubes coming out of his still bloody and battered body.

Oh God, why my love?  She raised her head toward the sky and cried to no earthly person.

She looked deep into his eyes, they were the same soft brown she loved and trusted. He was still in there, even though he did not speak. He looked cloudy and dazed, but he was alive and he recognized her. He slightly nodded his head acknowledging her presence and opened his fingers to take her hand. A machine was forcing air into his lungs, as he was intubated and could not speak. Bloody bandages wrapped his exposed areas, where the shrapnel had been plucked and the divots in his flesh not yet sewn shut. She removed the sheet covering his body and looked him over, like checking a newborn for a finger and toe count. He had all his arms and legs but the gashes looked deep and covered a large percentage of his body. She knew he would have a long recovery with much pain and suffering.

He motioned to his lips, like he was thirsty.  She commanded the nurse, get him something.  There was no argument, she reappeared with a sponge filled with liquid and moistened his lips and then swabbed them with petroleum jelly. He motioned for Rachel to bend close and with his free hand he mimicked he wanted to write something. She asked for a pen and paper, and it appeared.

Holding the paper for him, and his hand in hers, he tried to write. It was difficult, but he wrote ‘key’ in a shaky hand. Then he wrote ‘trust no one’, that’s all he could get on the page.

Cradling his head in her arms, she patted and soothed his hair, looked deep into his eyes and whispered, I love you Eli, I love you for all you are, and all you’re yet to be. Hold to life Eli, I need you. Sarah and I need you.

As she held him, the alarm on the machine wired to his chest sounded, Eli gasped once and passed out. She heard screams, and then realized they were hers.

Help him, help him, she yelled and the room suddenly filled with more people in green.

Someone pushed her outside into the hallway. She glanced back to see a nurse hop onto the table straddling Eli. The nurse pounded on his chest with her fist, as others shouted orders to the team racing to save him.

She found a chair in the waiting area, and began to shuckle as she prayed the Mi Sheberach for Eli’s healing, May the One who blessed our ancestors—Patriarch Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.....  She didn’t care who saw or heard her speak to her God, she only wanted Him to hear and answer her. He did.

Unaware of the time she had been praying, she felt a soft touch on her shoulder from another green apparition. Eli survived the code, and was transferred to the ICU for further observation. The next 24 hours would be critical for his survival, she made sure they had her contact information at the nurses station. She did not want to leave the hospital, she wanted to remain close by. She believed Eli could feel if she was near, and he needed her now more than ever. But, she had to think of their daughter, who was at the Rabbi’s home. She couldn’t lose her father and mother both at the same time. The nurse persuaded her to go home, there was nothing she could do for him here and she had been injured as well.  She needed to rest and recover.

She knew Eli was in the best place for him right now, and she couldn’t get into his room, or see him. She had no other choice, she must go to Sarah. But, she was filled with doubt on top of her sorrow and grief. How would she explain her papa’s absence to a toddler, when she could barely make sense out of it herself?

When she got to the Rabbi’s house, the news of the bombing had already reached him. Many of the dead and injured were members of his synagogue. He was unaware Rachel and Eli had been among the casualties, and appeared visibly shaken. Rachel held Sarah in her arms and without emotion, being careful not to scare her, calmly explained Papa had a boo-boo. He needed to stay in the hospital with a doctor to take care of him for a few days. Unfazed,  Sarah quickly squirmed out of her arms and scampered away chasing the Rabin’s dog. She wished she could believe the lie, she  told their daughter.

Eli adored the child their love created and Rachel knew what it felt like to have her heart outside of her body. Sarah had her father’s dark features and slim build. Her large brown eyes framed by the longest dark lashes, curly brown hair, strong brow, and olive toned skin. There was no doubt she was her father’s child and she was solid, emotionally and physically.

Rachel was the happiest she had ever been, with all her dreams seeming to come true. She had a loving husband, a beautiful baby and large