Moscow Rules

will kill you with his bare hands.”
     
     
    The doctor looked at Shamron, who had managed to watch the entire proceeding without offering a single piece of advice.
     
     
    “Is it true what they say about him? Was he really the one who kidnapped Eichmann?”
     
     
    Gabriel nodded.
     
     
    “Is it all right if I shake his hand? I want to touch the hands that grabbed hold of that monster.”
     
     
    "It’s fine,” said Gabriel. “But be careful. He bites.”
     
     
    He didn’t want to wear the patch, but even he had to admit he looked better with it on than off. The tissue around the eye was still distorted with swelling and the new scar was raw and hideous. “You’ll look like yourself eventually,” Chiara assured him. “But it’s going to take a while. You older men don’t heal as fast.”
     
     
    The doctor’s optimism about the pace of his recovery turned out to be accurate. By the next morning, Gabriel’s vision had improved dramatically, and by the morning after it seemed almost normal. He felt ready to begin work on Elena’s request but confined his efforts to only one small task: the fabrication of a stretcher, 38 ¾ inches by 29 ¼ inches. When the stretcher was finished, he pulled a linen canvas over it and covered the canvas with a layer of ground. Then he placed the canvas on his easel and waited for it to dry.
     
     
    He slept poorly that night and woke at four. He tried to fall asleep again, but it was no use, so he slipped out of bed and headed downstairs. He had always worked well in the early morning, and, despite his weakened eye, that morning was no exception. He applied the first layers of base paint, and by midday two small children were clearly visible on the canvas.
     
     
    He took a break for lunch, then spent a second session before the canvas that lasted until dinner. He painted from memory, without even a photograph for reference, and with a swiftness and confidence he would not have thought possible a week earlier. Sometimes, when the house was quiet, he could almost feel her at his shoulder, whispering instructions into his ear. Watch your brushwork on the hands, she reminded him. Not too impasto on the hands. And sometimes, when his vision began to blur, he would see Elena chained to a chair in her husband’s warehouse of death, a gun pressed to the side of her head. You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady, because Ivan is never getting those children.
     
     
    Chiara and the household staff knew better than to watch him while he worked, but Shamron and Gilah were unaware of his rules and were therefore never far from his back. Gilah’s visits were brief in duration, but Shamron, with nothing else to occupy his time, became a permanent fixture in Gabriel’s studio. He had always been mystified by Gabriel’s ability to paint—to Shamron, it was but a parlor trick or an illusion of some sort—and he was content now to sit silently at Gabriel’s side as he worked, even if it meant forgoing his cigarettes.
     
     
    “I should have left you at Bezalel in ’seventy-two,” he said late one night. “I should have found someone else to execute those Black September murderers. You would have been one of the greatest artists of your generation, instead of—”
     
     
    “Instead of what ? ”
     
     
    “Instead of an eccentric old restorer with melancholia and mood swings who lives in a villa in the middle of Umbria surrounded by pigs and crucifixes.”
     
     
    “I’m happy, Ari. I have Chiara.”
     
     
    “Keep her close, Gabriel. Remember, Ivan likes to break pretty things.”
     
     
    Gabriel laid down his brush, then stepped back and examined the painting for a long time, hand pressed to his chin, head tilted to one side. Chiara, who was watching from the top of the stairs, said, “Is it finished, Signore Vianelli?”
     
     
    Gabriel was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally. “I think it is finished.”
     
     
    “What are you going to do about the signature?” Shamron asked.
     
     
    “I’m not sure.”
     
     
    “May I give you a small piece of artistic advice?”
     
     
    “If you must.”
     
     
    “Sign it with the name your mother gave you.”
     
     
    He dipped the brush in black paint and signed the name Gabriel Allon in the bottom left corner.
     
     
    “Do you think she’ll like it?”
     
     
    “I’m sure she will. Is it finished now?”
     
     
    “Not quite,” Gabriel said. “I have to bake it for thirty