Vanished in the Dunes Read Online Free Page A

and dark pants. The likeness is actually flattering. His age barely shows.
    â€œAre you Jewish?” she asks after they have settled in the car’s front seat.
    He doesn’t hear such a question often. Certainly not in New York. It is, however, not a new sensation. He is a Jew and Jews are integrated into the fabric of American life, yet there is an uneasiness that sits there. His family has been here for more than a hundred years, but nothing is settled. The Nazis had no qualms about killing Jews who had lived in Germany for centuries.
    The woman’s words are innocent enough. He answers, “Yes,” and she goes on, oblivious to what flicks through his mind.
    â€œMy family is Muslim,” she says, “But I practice nothing. If religion is about morality and ethics, you can certainly have that without any ritual. Do you agree?”
    He nods. His slight unease withdraws into a corner and all but disappears. Yet he is reluctant to let the matter rest.
    â€œWhy did you ask if I was Jewish?”
    â€œOh, there are so many Jewish doctors at the hospital, and you are somehow like them—friendly, certainly intelligent, but also a bit reserved and cautious. They often talk about Jewish guilt. Is that something all Jewish men feel?” She smiles at her own words, almost daring him to explain.
    Perhaps she is now the psychiatrist playing games, he thinks. He shrugs, yet feels the onset of guilt as she speaks. The woman is flirting with him, but he knows that no matter how appealing, he could never sleep with her, even kiss her, without torment. She is right—he has become cautious.
    â€œHow often do the buses go back to New York?” she asks. The segue releases him for a moment from thoughts about guilt. The question doesn’t surprise him. They have only been together a bit more than thirty minutes. He is likely boring her. It’s time for him to get home. A part of him feels relief. He checks his watch.
    â€œThere’ll be one in about forty minutes. They have them all the time.”
    â€œI like that,” she says. “Do you have the time to give me a short tour of the area?”
    He feels trapped. “I guess I could do that,” he answers with a tug of regret, as if he should have feigned some imaginary appointment, a technique years of business deception had ingrained.
    â€œOh, that would be very nice,” she says in her clipped, very correct English.
    â€œSo I guess you speak Farsi and German as well as English?” he asks.
    â€œWhat do you know about Farsi?” She raises one brown eyebrow.
    â€œI’ve done business in Iran. I’ve been to Tehran, I think at least three times. And once to Khoramshahr to check on a cargo of steel pipes we sold. Business with NIOC, the National Iranian Oil Company.”
    â€œWhile the shah was still there?” she asks.
    He nods.
    â€œAll the senior people there were tied to the shah’s family. Everyone had a chance to make money.”
    â€œExcept the traders who sold to them,” he answers, but it is a throwaway line. Everyone made money then. Still, he has an urge to verbalize one of his memories of those days. “Every time we had a contract they would keep coming back and ask us to adjust our terms so there would be more graft to share. I remember one time when they said our sales price was actually too low. Can you imagine a state company telling a supplier to raise its price?”
    She doesn’t answer. He wants to ask her what her father did in Iran, but he says nothing. Obviously her family has some money. Vienna is an expensive city and she’s gone to medical school. Perhaps her family was even one of the many he assisted in illegally transferring assets out of the country. There were strict rules against cash transfers, but Posner and his associates devised a scheme that enabledrich Iranians to buy commodities for export—copper, aluminum or steel scrap, it