Peter Decker 3-Book Thriller Collection

Halfway to the study hall, Rina excused herself, claiming she had to check whether she’d locked her front door. It was feeble, she knew. She should have come up with something better and the skeptical look on Chana’s face confirmed it. But it was too late now. Let the woman’s tongue wag; this wasn’t the first time Chana had used it against her and it wouldn’t be the last.

She found him waiting by the side of her house. He looked terrible. She unhitched the deadbolt and let him inside.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I need sterile gauze, a bottle of aspirin, any leftover antibiotics you might have, and a sterile, sharp knife.”

He struggled with his coat, but gave up. “Help me with this, Rina.”

She took off his jacket.

“Where are you hurt, Peter?”

“My right arm.”

She rolled up his sleeve, unwrapped the sopping wet dressing, then brought her hand to her mouth and gasped.

The flesh had turned brown except for a protruberance of mottled green pus.

“I’m fine, just get me a knife,” Decker said.

“Peter, you must go to an emergency room.”

“Just get me a knife.”

“Forget about Shabbos, Peter. This is life threatening. I’ll even drive you if you can’t drive yourself.”

“I’m not going,” he said loudly. “Just get me a knife.”

“By not going you’re committing an avayrah. Halachically, you have to go.”

“Rina, I don’t give a damn about halacha right now. I just need some relief.”

“Wait here,” she said. A few minutes later she reentered with a knife and a bowl full of steaming towels. “Come to the table, Peter. I’ll take care of it.”

“Rina, just give me the knife and get out of here.”

“You can’t excise the wound yet. It hasn’t formed enough of a head.”

He looked at her.

“Since when do you know about lancing pus pockets?”

“Come to the table,” she repeated firmly.

He followed her and slumped down in the armchair, grateful for the help.

“Stick out your arm.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to apply heat to bring up the head.” She dipped a towel into the steaming water, then wrung out the excess. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Can’t hurt any worse than it hurts now.”

But it did. It seared his flesh.

“How’d it happen?” she asked wrapping the arm.

“I was repairing the floorboard in the barn and an old plank of jagged wood cut into my arm.”

“I saw bitemarks,” she said.

He paused.

“Okay, I was bitten by a dog.”

“What happened, Peter?”

“I was chomped on by a whore in the line of duty. Are you happy now?”

Her eyes met his, but she said nothing. She unwrapped the first cloth, palpated the swelling, and wrapped it again in a newly heated towel.

“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked.

Rina noticed his face was drenched with sweat and mopped it with a dry towel. “Yitzchak and I moved to Israel a year after we married. To Kiryat Arba—a settlement in Hebron.” She stroked his hand. “We were in hostile territory and there were no Jewish doctors handy. You learn to do things.”

“You never told me you lived in Israel.”

“For three years. It was a phase of my life that I’ve tried to forget. Except for the year of Yitzchak’s death, I don’t think I was ever more miserable. I was stuck behind barbed wire fencing with two small infants of my own, and in charge of the group’s nursery which—baruch Hashem—had forty-four kids.” She paused a moment. “All the men carried guns with them. It was open warfare out there.”

“Including Yitzchak?”

“Yes.” She took off the old towel, wrung out another, and wrapped the wound a third time.

“But you didn’t?”

“The women never left the compound. We were guarded twenty-four hours a day. What would have been the purpose of learning how to shoot? Though now I wish I had.”

“Why’d you live there?” he asked.

“Idealism.” She shook her head. “When Yitzchak announced that we were going back to the States, I cried tears of joy, then immediately felt guilty about it. I was leaving the Holy Land and ecstatic about it.”

She laughed softly.

“Then I read in the Talmud that a Jew who passes up a permissible pleasure is a fool. I was very foolish in those years.”

“Why didn’t you put your foot down and tell him you wanted to leave?”