Later on the ride, Karni was praising me for leaving New York. Again she mentioned how happy she was to have left the foreign service and its fake and terrible lifestyle. She then asked me what I was up to. “Why don’t you come work for the NBC bureau? With your English and your energy, I think you could go far. Let’s see if we can set something up for you. Call me tomorrow.”
I promised I would, but all I could think about was the end of the trip. When we reached Rupin Street, I went up to the fourth floor with Ronny to help him with the cameras.
“I am tired,” I said. “It’s been a long day. I am tired and feel filthy.”
He pointed at the shower with a tiny smile.
As if it was the most natural thing we took a shower together, like the soldiers on the Golan Heights. But then we went to his bed together.
I loved to watch him for hours as he took furniture out to the roof. He would sit and smoke, looking at landscape albums, and furrowing his brows. During that summer we made love on the roof in the soft hours just before the dawn, and on the beach after midnight, in the one-bedroom apartment in the afternoon sunset glow, and in the studio before lunch. He was a fantasy God, gentle and considerate, who unfurled my loins with infinite patience before leading me to provinces of sweet insanity. He devoured me with the hunger of a wolf. We made love like squirrels and like cats, like snakes, and like bears. I loved him when he was quiet and strong and I loved the sweet taste of a calmness that I had never experienced before.
I stopped attending university classes without too many regrets. After three weeks without Amparo, I became Ronny’s assistant. “She has tenure with one of the company commanders,” Ronny reported without much remorse. “A good guy from Hatzor. He’ll be good to her.”
I would print his photos, carry his equipment, and sometimes shoot. We toured the whole country for six months. We met people on faraway settlements and in army bases, in government offices and in development towns. But then it came to an end.
One evening, relaxing on the roof at twilight time, just like that, Ronny told me that he was about to leave for Somalia. He had a contract with NBC as backup crew to cover the American involvement in that country. I was firmly based at CNN by then, after Ronny had recommended me to Stanley, the head of the office, and most probably with some help of Danny from New York.
“What about me? What will happen to us?” I was in a panic.
“Today you are in a much better place,” Ronny replied. “And if what we have is real, you will wait for me.”
From Somalia he continued to New York and then to Haiti, to cover another American involvement. When he returned he didn’t call me. I really was in a much better place. I got completely sucked into my work and tried hard not to think about him.
Once again, I drew some comfort from Karni. One Friday afternoon, as I was walking down Ben Yehuda Street towards Nordau Avenue, at an outdoor café under the winter sun, I saw Karni sitting with Haggay, who had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.
I gladly joined them and we looked at the girls walking by in their army shoes and black stockings and at the boys with their earrings and shaved heads.
“Have you heard from Danny?” asked Karni.
“Mom calls him every week; I’m not interested in talking to him.”
“Are you still mad at him since that day?”
“Not since that day. Every day anew. I kick myself for still caring. Maybe you can explain to me why he stays with my mom all these years.”
Haggay concentrated on his drink.
“Danny is special. He is different,” Karni said. “There was a time when I loved him very, very much because he was open-minded and curious and charming. He’s still open-minded and curious, but he has sucked all he could from each and every one of us and anyone else that he has met along the way, and then he spits out the shell and moves on. He will go far; as far as he can. But every person that he chews and spits out along the way destroys something inside him. I know this for sure. He is becoming more of a monster with each passing day, which is why I worry about your mother so much. You see, he really did suck out everything he could from your mother. But he can’t bring himself to throw her aside. I can’t tell you what exactly it is that keeps him with her, but I sense that he owes her a lot. She tells him something that none of us tells him.”
“But he destroys her nonetheless?”
Karni looked at me sadly and said, “That last trauma in New York actually empowered her; maybe you too. At any rate, he can’t destroy her any more than he already has.”
A new group of diners came into the café and joined another loud group celebrating something inside.
“I know that I am in a better place now,” I agreed with Karni after a long silence.
* * *
Chapter 22
The Mercedes slipped through the Shalom gate without being noticed by the journalists pushing against the fence. The two dusty military jeeps, escorting the car, came to a halt, and the gunners sitting next to the drivers took the opportunity to get up and stretch their legs. The Mercedes went on and came to a stop between the runways and the front of the terminal. Two figures came out of the car and on their way to the restricted area attracted the attention of the journalists roaming the runways. Trying to enter the narrow staircase, the reporters blocked their way.
It appears to be a mother who was in her mid-thirties, wearing traditional Arab clothes, a wide dress and a white scarf covering most of her face. The daughter was wearing blue jeans and a scarf on her head, but her face was uncovered. She was about eight years old. Her strong, sharp blue eyes stared at the reporters with astonishment and defiance. They were saying something like ‘don’t even try me.’
The reporters started talking in English. When there was no reply they switched to Arabic, “Are you connected to the hijackers? Are you going to talk to the hijackers?” The girl stopped for a moment. Her mother’s grip on her hand tightened.
“Don’t talk,” said the mother in Arabic, which even I could understand.
The soldiers quickly made way for the two on the staircase, almost brutally, and they disappeared inside on their way up the stairs. I went back to the restricted staircase and from there to the tactical headquarters. The mother and daughter were already sitting there in a transmission room off to the side, where preparations were being made for contacting the plane and the Intelligence Tactical HQ where the translator was waiting. I found Harel sitting at the communications console, holding tight to a microphone, “Deir Yassin from Control, Deir Yassin from Control.”
The voice that spoke in English with an Arabic accent responded immediately, “Lod Control, what news do you bring us?”
“Can Abu Shahid hear me?”
A moment of silence and then we heard the cell commander in a low, raspy voice, “Na’am, ya sidi,” in mock politeness. “Yes, sir.”
I looked through the glass partitions of the transmission room. The daughter understood what this was about and held the microphone with a trembling hand. She pressed the transmission button for a long time and then said, “Abui?”
The intelligence translator’s voice came on, unnecessarily, “Father.”
The girl placed the microphone on the desk and stared at the consoles. The line went quiet.
After a long while, we heard his voice. The intelligence translator repeated his intonation, “Rahma?”
“Father,” she went on immediately. “Where are you? What are you doing? What’s going to happen? Why are we here?”
The mother bit her lips and turned away, trying to hide her tears.
“Where are you?” he asked in a metallic voice.
“I am at the airport in a room with radio equipment. Are you coming here?”
“I cannot.” Abu Shahid sounded embarrassed and out of focus. “How are things at the village?”
“I am with mother and grandfather and grandmother… Will you come later?”
“I need to go somewhe
re else.”
“Where are you going now?” her voice was faltering.
“I am going on a long journey.” Abu Shahid sounded hesitant, making an effort to connect his words into a sentence. “A long and arduous journey. A good journey. It will solve many problems… for you… for all the children and the adults.” He hesitated as if he sounded unreal to himself too.
The girl’s eyes darted around the room in a panic.
“You know that we, my friends and I, we have fought together for many years.” He cleared his throat once and again. “We never broke down. We never surrendered. I can see the end of the journey from here.” His voice steadied and rose. “The last leg of the journey is always the hardest, but we cannot stop.”
“I don’t understand anything!” the girl burst out crying. “I want to see you!”
“You can’t,” he said sternly. “When you grow up you will understand and you will be proud of me.”
“I want to be proud of you now! I want a daddy like all the girls have.” She dropped the microphone in a heart-wrenching sob.
The mother pointed with a harsh look at the microphone and said, “Pick it up!” She seemed determined to save the man and stop him. There was a kind of quick understanding between mother and daughter which reminded me for a moment of the conversations I had with Pnina, my mother.
“It’s working!” Ehrlich pointed out with satisfaction and lit himself a cigarette.
Harel looked suspiciously at the battery of nine monitors, picked up the microphone in front of him, and said, “I see two inside the plane moving towards the back. Comms, do you hear anything?”
“Nothing from the inside communications. Could be someone going to the john,” the loudspeaker nearest to him chirped in reply.
“Rahma.” The loudspeaker from the plane came to life again. “Binty!”
The girl’s eyes were dry. Once again they had the sassy and provocative look of a bright eight-year-old.
She blurted out a short and hostile, “What?”
“Now that I’ve heard your voice, it is easier for me to go.” He sounded apologetic. “You are a mature and wise girl and your mother is at your side, she will watch over you.”
“You can talk to her if you want something from her.”
“No, you tell her that I said she should watch over you.”
The girl replied, “She isn’t here, she can’t hear you, and I won’t tell her. She will only hear you if you talk to her yourself.”
Abu Shahid’s voice became very soft, “Put her on. I will talk to her.”
The girl had a faint smile as she passed the microphone to her mother.
“Taysir?” the mother whispered
After a long silence, he replied, “We are not alone. You know I can’t talk to you this way.”
The woman asked again, “Taysir?”
He said, “The girl will be alright.”
“Nothing will be alright,” she said in a whisper. “You be careful out there. You’ve gone a long way. Don’t go one step too far. We are keeping a room for you at the village.” There was supplication in her voice.
“That’s good,” he said, then went quiet for a while. “But it’s more important that you watch over the girl. The people who brought you here have to take you back to the village and take care of you.”
“They won’t take us back,” she said. “They will rip us apart if you make your move.”
“They are Jews,” he tried to hide the concern in his voice. “We are not alone here. There are people listening, there are people who will look after you. My guys, you know.”
The girl grabbed the microphone as if she had just come to a grave decision. “Father!”
“Yes.”
“I want to see you one more time.” Her voice was hard and commanding.
He replied, “You can’t. You will see me in your dreams.”
“I don’t want you in my dreams. In my dreams, you scare me.”
He said, “I kiss your eyes.” His voice was trembling.
She looked at the microphone for a moment, then threw it down and clung to her mother. A shrill whistle came from the radio and deafened us all.
The accompanying soldier led them very gently towards the passenger terminal. Harel turned his gaze back to the thermal image monitor and said, “Abu Shahid is taking a seat next to Taylor. I want audio!”
The audio came on as Danny was saying, “Not so simple, is it?”
Abu Shahid didn’t react. His thermal signature froze too.
“Let her see you,” Danny urged.
“It’s too late.”
“Nothing is too late. You hold all the keys. You pull the strings. You can set the rules of the game. The explosions you guys set up, the explosive charges, the foreign minister, me; it’s all just a show. You know it’s one big show because you want an audience, isn’t it?”
“Leave me alone. Let me think.”
Danny didn’t let go. He was whispering but sounded very confident in the loudspeaker. “You want to go with a big bang. You want to be useful. Everybody heard you, but if you go now, you’ll find yourself in the waste basket of history.” There was silence on the communications network.
“On the other hand,” Danny could be heard once again, unrelenting. “If you get a TV crew in here, your daughter will see you. You’ll be able to talk to her again and she will see what you look like. She won’t see you as a mutilated and emaciated corpse. There’s a difference.”
“If you bring a TV crew in here,” Abu Shahid sounded hesitant. “It will be an Israeli commando squad who will start shooting and the whole place will blow up.”
“That was your plan in the first place, so what’s the difference?”
The thermal signature of Abu Shahid moved away from Danny and started wandering up and down the plane. The man was contemplating. After a while that seemed like an eternity, he shouted, ‘Hassan!’ A figure moved on the thermal monitor from the cockpit towards the two men.
Taysir spoke in rapid and agitated Arabic. He explained to Danny, “You’ll go with him to the cockpit now, and you’ll be the one to coordinate a TV crew for us. You are not to agree to anything without my approval. I want to know exactly who is in the crew, where they will come through, and what they will be bringing in. Anyone who tries to trick me will be sorry. Just you wait and see the show we will put on for them. People will be talking about it for years to come!”
“Don’t you dare move as much as a finger without coordinating with us!” Harel broke the silence in the room, giving a warning to Micko who was talking quietly with Raus in the corner. Raus’s face was red with excitement. He nodded his head repeatedly. When Micko was done explaining, the two left the room in a hurry. I had to go with them. As I hurried after them, I saw the prime minister rise from his seat in the corner with a bitter look on his face, and say in a hiss, “so far so good. Now start working on the real thing.” And then left the room. I stopped at once.
“The real thing?!” I turned to Harel, on the verge of hysteria. “The real thing?! What’s that supposed to mean?!”
Harel looked around him.
“Take her place and stick with these clowns,” he said to Dagan, “I need to rush to Tel-Nof Air Force Base to see how the alternate terminal is functioning, and you,” he turned to me. “You come with me.”
“Am I going to receive an answer about ‘the real thing’?”
“Maybe. We have a twenty-minute ride. We can talk and discuss. And if we don’t, you won’t come with me?”
“I might, but I don’t like to be dragged around like a ragdoll all over the place just because you guys drafted me into the army and only because you are some big shot in the military.”
Harel gave me a bemused look through his farmer’s mustache. “Alright, alright, it’s just me. Don’t forget it.” He sat next to the driver of the military blazer jeep and I was pushed deep into the back seat as the driver pulled off wildly. “I wouldn’t dream of pulling rank or
military discipline on you,” Harel went on. “It’s time that you got the full picture. Let’s just pick up Haroush first; he’s waiting for me.”
“Haroush?” I didn’t understand. What did he have to do with Haroush, my right-hand man at the office?
“Yell, without him it won’t work,” he added matter-of-factly.
Surely he can’t be referring to my Haroush, I thought to myself. “Do you mean Haroush David?” I asked, amazed. “The Haroush who works for me?”
“Yes,” Harel confirmed, ignoring the shock in my voice. Good old Haroush that I had known so well. What possible connection could there be between them?
The jeep drove past the TV vans and continued on the road behind the Civil Aviation Authority offices. A thin figure emerged from the shadows and quickly entered the car.
Haroush sat in the corner of the rear seat, trying to keep as far from me as he could, and said nothing. The driver pressed the gas pedal hard and the car sprinted onto the road towards the city of Rehovot.
“What’s this supposed to mean?” I asked.
“My honey pie,” Haroush’s voice was placating and soft. “I would have told you a long time ago if I could.”
“Don’t honey pie me now. Tell me what?” I felt totally out of touch. “What the hell are you doing here? Who’s running the bureau right now?!”
“There’s no problem with the broadcast. Stanley called from New York and asked me to tell you that they are proud of us. The rating for our coverage of the hijacking is better than average. More people are turning to us after Martin came on the air.”
“But what are you doing here?” I asked angrily.
Harel came to his rescue. “Haroush wasn’t exactly a sergeant major at Schneller Base. For twenty-eight years he was responsible for safe houses for intelligence officers in the Jerusalem District.”
“So what?” I was fuming.
“UN officers and Arab turncoats, even before the Six-Day War,” Haroush added his own explanation. It was no good. I still didn’t get it.
“It’s a bit surprising,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with me?”