City of Secrets by Stewart O’Nan

up, overflowing the hole. It had missed the jugular. He stanched the wound with the keffiyeh and made Lipschitz hold it in place.
    â€œI can’t see,” Lipschitz said.
    His glasses were intact, a few feet away. Brand hooked them over his ears. Lipschitz looked around, dazed, as if he were just waking up.
    â€œGo back to the truck,” Brand ordered, then had to steer him in the right direction, pointing at Fein to take him.
    Something must have gone wrong with the charge. One wall of the car was gone, and part of the roof, giving Brand a view of steamer trunks and packing cases and shipping crates piled like a child’s building blocks. With all the smoke he didn’t see Asher, and, backing around, keeping the gun trained on the hostages, made his way up the berm. The floor was at eye level, and, like the crates, badly splintered. He could see only the rear of the safe, a lacquered black box taller than he was. From inside came a busy rustling, like someone stuffing a mattress with leaves.
    â€œAre you all right?” he called.
    â€œI’m all right,” Asher called.
    Brand still didn’t see him. He sidled around to the other side of the hole for a better look, all the while eyeing the hostages. The door of the safe was open.
    â€œDo you need help?”
    Asher peered around the door. He was still wearing his keffiyeh. “Here.”
    He slid a canvas bag across the floor to Brand, then followed, carrying another over his shoulder. Miraculously, he was untouched, his kaftan pristine.
    â€œWhere’s Lipschitz?”
    â€œHe had a splinter.” Brand nudged the gun at the hostages. “What do we do with them?”
    â€œLeave them. Come on.”
    The bag was heavy, jostling against his back as they ran. It was farther than he remembered. Passing the coaches, he felt the blonde watching them. Eva probably had them in her binoculars. Everywhere, observers. Fein and Yellin covered them, then retreated.
    Lipschitz was sitting in the truck, listening to the radio. There’d been no word. Brand jammed the shift in gear and aimed for the highway, leaving behind the wheelbarrows and shovels. The bags sat at Asher’s feet. They hadn’t fired a shot, only blown up a railcar on His Majesty’s Service.
    The temptation was to gun it, but Brand was careful, aware of Fein and Yellin in back.
    â€œThank you,” Lipschitz said when they were on the main road. “I thought I was going to die.”
    â€œI thought you were too.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Asher asked, and Lipschitz told him, making it sound like Brand had rescued him.
    â€œYou saved us,” Asher said.
    â€œI wouldn’t say that.”
    â€œYou did,” Lipschitz said.
    Back at the kibbutz, Fein and Yellin agreed, Brand was the hero.
    â€œYou should have seen him,” Fein told Eva as she swabbed off their makeup.
    â€œI did,” she said.
    The take was twenty-eight thousand pounds. It barely fit in the compartment. Asher would stay behind and get rid of the truck. He saw them off in the shed, leaning in the window of the Peugeot as he had that morning.
    â€œWell done, everyone. Jossi, good job.” He squeezed Brand’s arm and stood back.
    Later, going over the day with Eva asleep beside him, it was that moment he returned to, not his decision to leave his post and help Lipschitz. That had been a reflex. Anyone would have done the same, except the Brand who claimed to be Koppelman’s friend and then let him die. The camps had made him selfish and doubtful. To have someone think well of him now was uncomfortable, because he knew the truth. He’d come to Jerusalem to change, to reclaim himself. Like Eva giving him her babushka, Asher squeezing his arm gave him hope. After being an animal for so long, he didn’t think he’d ever be a man again, but if they believed in him, maybe it was possible.
    The other memory he revisited was picking up the Sten and