by Danny Bar
“Shh…” people will hear you,” he whispered to her.
‘”What do you want?” she asked in panic and retreated to the corner of the room.
“I just want to talk to you.”
“Jamil, leave me alone. I don’t have any patience for talking.”
“But I have to talk to you,” he ignored the distress in her voice.
“Then sit over there!” she pointed at a chair standing in the corner, “ I’ll make some tea.”
Jamil sat down, leaned his elbows against the armrests and looked at her.
The pleasant scent of herbal tea spread in the room. Yasmina poured tea into two thin glasses, added sugar and stirred with quick movements. Jamil did not take his eyes off her for a second, following the soft movements of her hand as if hypnotized.
She served him the tea and he grabbed the wrist of the hand wielding the glass.
She froze and stared at the opposite wall.
“Yasmina,” he whispered and pulled her to him.
“No, ya Jamil. You mustn’t!”
“Why?
“I didn’t bury my dead husband yet,” she whispered in panic.
“Your dead husband is already having his fun with the virgins in heaven.”
“No, ya Jamil, don’t talk like that,” her voice cracked.
“Why not? Everything is allowed now, you too.”
“What about my a’rd, my honor?” she cried out mournfully.
“You no longer have any honor. You are no man’s wife. From now on, many men will frequent your house, and your body will be like a honeycomb everyone could come and suckle themselves from.”
“I haven’t even finished mourning him, don’t you have any fear of Allah in you?”
“Allah was the one who claimed Issam and gave you to me,” he told her and pressed her to him. His entire body ignited when he felt hers.
“For shame! You call yourself a man of faith. You sent my husband to his death on the wings of that faith. I pray that Allah will never give you his blessing,” Yasmina sobbed, but her continued resistance merely served to inflame Jamil’s passion. He tried to press his lips on her neck. Yasmina pushed him away and diverted her face from him.
“Halas, ya Jamil, enough. Please honor my dignity,” she begged, but rather than arouse his pity, her words merely served to further inflame his desire. He stormed her, with both hands grabbing her hips. A sharp pain pierced his wounded arm and blood spread on the white bandage wrapping it.
“Damn you!” he cursed her with fury and grabbed his painful arm.
Yasmina fled to the center of the room, she fell to her knees and buried her head in her hands. Jamil followed her. “It’s drenched with blood now.”
“Sit here!” she ordered and sat in front of him. Jamil placed his hands on her legs and Yasmina removed the bandage from his arm with quick movements.
“Straighten your arm,” she asked him, and wrapped it with a clean bandage.
Even before she was finished, he moved his hand up her leg to unroll the edges of her dress.
Yasmina froze, “Jamil, enough!”
“You are driving me insane,” he whispered to her.
“Shame on you! Your uncle is sitting here beyond that door, mourning his son. Respect him,” she tried to appeal to his heart, but to no avail. A spark of madness twinkled in his eyes, he knelt beside her and buried his face in her neck, her hands trying to push him away.
“Leave me,” she screamed, but Jamil wouldn’t let go. He forcefully pulled her to him, pulled down the straps of her nightgown and tore them off, exposing her breasts. Yasmina shook him off her and crawled on all fours toward the door, but Jamil clung to her body and pulled her to the mattress.
“I will scream,” she threatened him.
“Scream all you like. What will you tell them when they come?” he laughed wickedly.
“What you have done to their son’s wife.”
He snickered with contempt, “Will it make any difference when they find another man in their own son’s house? What good will all your explanations be? Either way, they will throw you out in disgrace for the shame you have brought them.”
She knew how right he was and her heart ached because of it. In her distress, she tried to reason with him a little.
“Wait, let’s talk.”
“Your tongue offers me butter, but your body forces bitter wormwood down my throat,” he replied.
“Let me finish the mourning period and then we’ll see.”
He did not heed her pleas. Yasmina struggled, but felt his hands lifting the edges of her dress and invade her body. She wailed with pain as he penetrated her. Then, she lay motionless and looked at the ceiling with ashen eyes until Jamil climaxed and let go of her. After that, she rose, went out to the yard and washed her hands with cold water from the clay jug. She felt sorry that the stream of Ein Balut was far from her home. She would have liked to have washed her body in its cool water, perhaps it could have cooled some of the burning hatred she felt toward him and the stinging sense of humiliation.
“The day will come when I will have vengeance on you,” she swore that night.
Her entire body ached, she wanted to cry, but the tears stood in her throat, refusing to come out. I will not let him see me cry, she decided and clenched her lips, stifling the sobs that sought to escape. The early dawn call of the Muezzin, summoning the male villagers to come to the mosque and pray, found her awake in bed, her body cringing with pain and her eyes red with tears.
On failing legs, she stumbled from her bed to the water jug in the yard. Her consciousness dimmed, she collapsed and sat on the stone floor, curled like a fetus, her knees pressed against her chin. At that moment, she deeply loved the darkness enveloping her, closing on her like a wall.
She continued to sit like that for a while, curled up into herself, until a faint light began to chase the darkness and expose the marks on her body. She took off the tattered remains of her nightgown, lit some twigs she had gathered in the yard for baking bread and set them on fire. She was relieved a little, just enough to rise, wash her body and get dressed for the workday awaiting her.
Jamil was awake by the time she was ready to leave. As if nothing had happened, he asked her to deliver a letter for him in Halhul. Without a word, she took the letter, averting her eyes from his.
It was only at noon that she arrived at the butcher shop in Halhul and handed the letter as instructed. Five minutes later, the butcher came back and handed her a sealed envelope.
In the evening, she gave the envelope to Jamil.
“In the name of Allah the great and merciful.
To our dear brother.
Our Jordan headquarters had received the news of Rafik’s death during the heroic battle against the Zionist enemy.
I am the man whom the Sheikh had asked to keep in contact with you and assist you with any request.
Who is the woman you sent to me?
Eid”
Yasmina spent her evenings in the family house, helping with the hosting of the numerous visitors flocking to the mourning tent and drowning her agony in endless dish washing and cleaning. She did not speak with anyone, heard the whisperings behind her back and kept her distance from Issam’s sister who had already begun to check whether Yasmina intended to leave her home and return to her parents’ house.
The sisters tried to tease her for not having brought Issam an heir. Yasmina wasn’t intimidated by their words. Issam’s end does not mark the end of my way in this place, she thought, my house will remain my own. Jamil will get out of it and out of my life, even if I will wither and my fruit will never be plucked again.
7
The Operations team commander sat down with “The Magic Flute.” Electric detonators and forty RDX demolition blocks were placed on the table in front of them. These had been
filled with fine sand mixed with wood glue and resealed by the demolition squad.
From the hiding place, they drove down a dark and deserted road to a quarry close to the Palestinian town of Sa’ir. An observation squad already sat there in watch and scanned the area.
“We’ll be with you in a moment,” the team commander told them on the radio.
“Green light!”
“Got it!”
The car stopped and the two came out and went straight to the spot.
The Magic Flute dug a large hole and placed the package inside. Then he covered it, broke a coke bottle and scattered its fragments to mark the spot.
“Tamat almuhima.” Mission accomplished, reported The Magic Flute the next morning to the organization headquarters in Jordan.
From that moment on, the Operations unit continuously observed the dead letter box point in an attempt to spot the man who would arrive to collect the explosives.
The first day passed without any unusual incidents. All they saw was a shepherd from the nearby village wooing a girl walking with her goats near the water trough. They had no idea that there were witnesses to their forbidden love affair and they held hands for a long time. When they were about to come closer and expose the surveillance position, one of the team members emitted a loud jackal’s howl.
The girl froze, then turned on her heels and took off as fast as she could with her goats running after her.
The observation squad passed the night in desperate attempts to warm themselves in the freezing cold of the Hebron area. They could not move for fear of being discovered. Only the morning brought relief to the squad and new hope, as an orange transporter vehicle drove down the road.
“Get ready! Get ready!” They reported on the radio.
The surveillance team members, waiting close by in their cars, immediately tensed up. They dropped the coffee cups from their hands and started the cars.
The vehicle stopped at the quarry. The door opened, and a chubby man came out of it and slid down the steep slope leading to the quarry. Small stones rolled under his feet and he nervously looked around.
“The guy is digging at the opening of the quarry,” the observation squad continued to reported, “he’s taking out the bag. Getting back to the vehicle.”
“Got it.” answered the team commander.
“He’s off.”
“We have a visual,” the surveillance team reported and drove after the suspect down the winding road.
At the junction, the vehicle turned to the town of Halhul, three miles north of Hebron, then stopped.
David, wearing the clothes of an Arab farmer begun to follow him.
The driver went to a nearby pharmacy. He met with the pharmacist and handed him the car keys. The two went out and sat on small stools next to the pharmacy entrance. A youth holding a long-necked hookah came out and placed it before them. The older man lit the coals and blue smoke began to bubble inside the water container, swirling and cooling itself, thus providing that characteristic taste that hookahs offered their smokers.
David emerged in front of them, lingered a moment, then passed them by.
“I took a picture,” he reported to the team commander.
“Did they suspect you?”
“No. They’re busy with their conversation,” David answered and joined the patrons of a coffee shop across the street to watch the pharmacy. He ordered a cup of sweet tea and politely rejected the hookah pushed into his hand by the proprietor, a burly man wearing a dirty apron who was constantly breathing hard.
The hour was still early, only a handful of elderly men sat in the coffee shop, smoking hookahs. Suddenly, he noticed the suspect standing up and shaking the pharmacist’s hand.
“They’re parting ways!” he reported and hastily asked the proprietor for his check. He placed the money on the table and hurried outside, “Bhatirkum,” he said the customary parting words and turned to the exit.
“Ma’asalama,” goodbye, the coffee shop patrons answered in a chorus and returned to their own affairs.
David followed him in the narrow streets of Halhul.
“He’s holding a blue plastic bag and is heading towards the main street.”
Based on the way passersby amicably greeted him, it was evident that the suspect was a local.
“Sabah al khair,” good morning, ya Abu Latif, the shoe store proprietor called to him.
“Sabah al ful,” he called back kindly and took a set of keys from his pocket.
“There is a key in his hand,” David said.
“Very good. Narrow down the distance, we can’t lose him now,” the team commander instructed him.
The man turned into a side alley, knelt beside a corrugated metal shutter, opened its two heavy locks and pushed it up. A few moments later, he wore an apron and stood behind the counter.
“He works in a butcher’s shop, probably the owner,” reported David and moved away before the inhabitants of the alley might suspect him.
“Well done, David, take a picture of the place, we’re leaving.”
In the evening, Yasmina returned home and gave Jamil the letter she had received from the butcher. After a series of greetings, the letter mentioned the fact that the butcher had emptied the dead letter box and hid the explosives in a large chunk of meat in his shop’s cold room. After he finished reading the letter, Jamil left the house without another word.
Yasmina hurried to lock the bolt and got into bed. Now that Jamil had gone, she finally felt a sense of tranquility. She put her head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.
She was overcome with yearning for Issam, her husband, the man who used to safeguard her honor and security. She desperately needed him now, he was the only one who could have comforted her and ease her suffering.
But Issam is dead, she remembered sadly, even Allah himself ‘wouldn’t be able to bring him back.
Yasmina felt lost.
She remembered a television program she had seen in her uncle’s house in Hebron many years ago and how she dreaded to discover that women in India used to burn themselves with the bodies of their dead husbands. That thought returned to haunt her now. She suddenly realized what drove these women to perform that desperate act, but she had different intentions for herself.
I will survive! I will cling to life with my nails, no matter what price I will need to pay for it. I am tired of leading a life of ignorance. No one will imprison me anymore between four walls separating me from the world.
But Jamil… she suddenly remembered, what will I do with him if he returns?
He will be the victim of his own doings, she decided with determination, he has brought disaster upon my head twice. First, he took my husband, then he took my honor. Your day will come, Jamil. Patience comes from the merciful God, for the holy Quran promises us that Allah repays those who wrong us by doing them wrong as well, and no one can avoid their fate..
I will simply wait.
She was suddenly filled with joy and a mysterious smile appeared on her face.
8
“We have a lead on Jamil. If we act wisely, we’ll get to him before he manages to carry out the next attack. Right now, he’s two steps ahead of us. If we try to make any shortcuts, we’ll lose him.” In his words, the head of Judea and Samaria hinted at the great pressure put on him by his superiors to act quickly and get immediate results.
“What do you suggest that we do?” he asked the other participants in the meeting.
“Arrest the butcher and interrogate him.”
“If we do that, Jamil will instantly vanish without a trace,” he warned them.
“This could also endanger The Magic Flute,’ said Amos who feared for the fate of his agent, “the butcher would ask himself how we’d reached him a day after he’d collected the agent’s dead letter box items. He needn’t be a g
enius to immediately realize the answer.”
“Perhaps I could offer a way that would allow us to have the cake and eat it too?” the head of the Operations team turned to those present, then relayed to them the idea he had thought of.
“How long will you need to get ready?” asked the head of Judea and Samaria.
“Three days.”
“We don’t have that time,” he leaned toward him and lowered his head.
“In that case, we will start working this very day.”
He wasted no time. That very same evening, the ops team set out to follow the butcher and study his daily routine.
David and Saul surveilled the butcher shop and when it closed continued to follow the butcher to the Al Auda Cafe at the center of the village.
Dressed as locals, the two sat in one of the cafe’s corners and began to chat with each other in Arabic. It was impossible to notice any difference between them and the rest of the Al Auda Cafe patrons. It was only after they had watched from afar the butcher going up the stairs leading to his house that they left the place.
From the information gathered thus far, they determined that Ayed, the butcher, finishes work at six in the evening, then regularly goes to the cafe to smoke a hookah and meet the other townspeople. At eight, he returns by foot to his home, going up the stairs winding their way up to the Alian Neighborhood. During that early night hour, the place was barren and few passersby roamed about the darkened street.
“Now’s our chance,” determined the team leader and reported the results to the ops’ head, “so sit down and plan everything down to the minutest detail. I want to see your operation plan at 7 am sharp.”
The team leader glanced at his watch, there wasn’t much time left. “Let’s make some coffee and get to work,” he told his men.
Maps of Halhul were spread on the table and drafts of the operation plan passed from hand to hand. The empty Styrofoam cups piled up on the tables and by the time the morning rose, everything was ready.