by Iddo Gefen
“You’re charged with breaking three rules,” Sakal announced. “Entering the company commander’s room without permission, eating cheese, and the unauthorized use of a toaster. Are you ready to be tried before the higher court of rookie affairs?”
Yanai nodded.
“Excellent. And do you plead guilty?”
“No,” he stuttered, still staring at the floor as Korczak had told him to.
Sakal smiled.
“Then let’s move on to the witnesses,” he said as he turned to the seniors on the couches.
“Who here was near the canteen and saw a soldier leave this room with a grilled cheese?”
Three soldiers raised their hands.
“And can any of you point to the perpetrator?”
The three of them pointed at Yanai. Sakal, who seemed amused by the entire situation, shrugged.
“Three against one,” he said, and waved the stick in the air. “Off with his head!” he yelled.
Yanai whimpered, recoiling as if a stray ball was heading in his direction. He tried to shield his face with his right hand.
The soldiers on the couches started laughing.
“We’re just fooling around, cupcake,” Sakal said with a smirk. “Don’t worry, we’ll knock you around for half a minute and call it a day.”
“Sakal, you’re fucking brutal, man, cut him some slack,” one of the seniors called out. “He’s about to piss his pants.”
Sakal took two steps back. “You’re right, twenty-nine seconds,” he said, and grabbed Yanai’s neck. “And remember it’s only ’cause I got a soft heart, you know you deserve worse.”
Yanai looked up.
“Wait!” Korczak roared. “I’m his advocate, right? Give me one minute and I’ll prove to you he’s innocent.”
“It’s the fatty who ate the grilled cheese!” Bejo parroted Korczak’s British accent. Everybody started laughing again except Sakal, who seemed intrigued by the suggestion.
“A minute and you’ll prove he didn’t do it?”
“Korczak, knock it off,” Yanai whispered to him. “It’ll just make them angrier.”
“Cut it out already,” I said, backing Yanai.
“I don’t want it!” Yanai yelled, but Sakal wasn’t interested. “You should’ve thought about that before you chose him,” he told Yanai and sat on the couch with the other seniors. He picked up the megaphone that lay on the floor beside him and announced: “One minute, advocate, give it to us.”
“You’re a fucking screwball,” Yanai hissed at Korczak and looked at me helplessly.
With one hand behind his back, Korczak took a few steps toward the seniors.
“Who saw him leave this room?” he asked.
The three raised their hands again.
“And you were sitting outside the canteen, right? So what you saw was in fact his back?”
“Sweetheart, we may be old but our vision’s still twenty-twenty,” Bejo said.
Korczak took a step back.
“Okay.” He stood next to Yanai without saying another word.
“That’s it?” Sakal’s voice blared through the megaphone.
“Yup, that was my only question.”
“Wow, they got real geniuses at Oxford, huh?” Sakal said, and the rest of the soldiers behind him snickered like a well-rehearsed choir.
“Now if you could only open the door and turn off the light,” Korczak added casually.
“What did you say?” Sakal asked.
“Turn off the light and open the door,” Korczak repeated in a slow, clear tone. “It’s really rather simple actions. I can do them myself if you’d like.”
Bejo raised his hand in protest.
“Enough, he’s turning this into a circus,” he said. Sakal persisted in his silence, looking at Korczak with curiosity.
“Give me one more second, I’ll prove it to you.”
Sakal leaned his weight against the seniors’ stick to pull himself up, then walked toward the advocate.
“I’m giving you one chance. But so help me God if either of you try to make a run for it,” he said. It was only when their faces were inches from each other that I realized there was more than a show of kindness there; that maybe Sakal was seeking validation from Korczak. He wanted the company’s intellectual to acknowledge his status.
Before any of the seniors managed to protest, Korczak had already turned off the light and opened the door. A streetlight from the other side of the outpost cast a faint glow on the two blurry figures that entered. Korczak closed the door, and the room was filled with complete darkness. I felt a pair of hands pulling me forward.
“Don’t move,” Korczak whispered, turning me around and positioning me somewhere in the room.
When Korczak switched the light back on, all I saw in front of me was the white wall nearly pressed against my face. There were people beside me, but I couldn’t make them out.
“What is this shit?” one of the seniors cried out.
“You said you recognized Yanai from behind,” Korczak replied. “So let’s just make sure you’re right.” At that moment, with nothing to cling to but his voice, I realized the audacity of his tone, of his insistence not to grant even a shred of respect to those he deemed undeserving.
“I’m not going along with this shit,” someone yelled. “In any other company they’d have had their asses whooped by now.”
“Bejo, calm the fuck down,” Sakal said. “You know what? The guy has a point. Tell him who you saw and we’ll be done with this.”
The room went quiet. I tilted my head forward so that my nose touched the cold wall. I heard the quiet, strained breathing of one of the guys standing beside me. It was Yanai, I was sure of it.
“So I’m acquitting him,” Sakal announced.
“What did you say?”
“If you can’t point out the person who stole the grilled cheese, I’m acquitting him,” Sakal said, raising his voice.
“Fuck that,” Bejo hissed and took two noisy steps in our direction. The figures around me tensed. I heard buzzed whispers, but I didn’t know what they meant.
“That’s him,” Bejo finally said, and I froze.
“You’re sure?” Sakal asked.
Another round of whispers followed. “Absolutely,” Bejo replied. “It’s the left one, I know it.”
“Turn around,” Sakal ordered us, and we instantly obeyed. Once again Yanai let out a yelp that echoed throughout the room. Only this time it wasn’t a fearful whimper but a sigh of relief. He was standing in the middle of the row, next to the outpost’s cook. On his left was an ordnance soldier who had been sent to the outpost for a two-week detention. Their faces bore no resemblance to each other, but Yanai and the ordnance soldier were more or less the same height and had the same skin tone. That’s when I finally realized the whole stunt had been planned down to the last detail. Korczak had even managed to get the ordnance guy the same buzz cut.
* * *
Yanai and Korczak exchanged a brief glance, trying their best not to smile, but ultimately failing. The momentary solidarity made me a bit jealous. Stunned, the senior soldiers rose to their feet and stood in front of us, struggling to understand. Sounds of protest resumed, but Sakal soon silenced them with a shout.
“Okay. I have to admit it isn’t too clear who did it,” the judge said, and sat down on the couch. Yanai held his chest in disbelief, while Bejo shot him a murderous glare. Sakal picked up the megaphone again and turned up the volume.
“Due to these recent findings, I have no choice but to issue a new verdict,” he announced, then paused for a moment. “The four of them will get their ass whooped, and we’ll make it a full minute, so no one will feel left out.”
“But you don’t know who did it!” Korczak screamed.
“That’s right,” Sakal replied with a triumphant smile. “You may be some kind of genius but you still couldn’t figure out that it never mattered.”
Korczak’s cry was swallowed up by the seniors
’ whistles and cheers. Before I managed to understand how I had turned into one of the defendants, Bejo and the other seniors were charging at us. Yanai pushed me back, trying to protect me. It didn’t really help. I felt the first punch land above my stomach, in the lower rib. I tried raising my hands to shield my head, but I couldn’t. The punches intensified.
I’m not sure how long it lasted. Probably not that long.
7.
I DIDN’T SEE him snatch the gun. But there was Korczak, standing with his back to me, holding a short-barrel M16 inches from Bejo’s forehead. Two other soldiers drew their weapons at Korczak, and the room became as still as if we were all playing red light, green light.
At least four guys were yelling at Korczak to drop the weapon. He didn’t respond.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Bejo said.
“I really don’t know,” he replied, and something about the uncertainty of his answer was more unnerving than an explicit threat.
Bejo closed his eyes. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said. His balding forehead gleamed with beads of sweat.
“I think you’re overreacting a bit, don’t you?” Sakal called out in a calm, almost cordial tone. He was sitting alone on the couch, seemingly indifferent to the situation. “It’s a shame, we were having such a nice time.”
Korczak kept aiming his weapon at Bejo, shifting his gaze toward the judge on the couch.
“Let them go.”
Sakal got up and walked toward the door.
“No problem,” he replied. “I’ll let everyone out of here, just calm down and drop your weapon. It’s all good.”
Korczak must have felt that Sakal’s instant surrender was suspicious, because he drew the barrel even closer to Bejo’s head. Then he looked at the four of us and nodded toward the door, signaling us to get out.
None of us moved.
“It’s all good, guys,” Sakal said while opening the door. “Go, don’t worry about it, it’s all good.”
The ordnance guy and the cook ran outside. I didn’t move. Yanai walked toward Korczak and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You took it too far, man,” he said, making sure the whole room knew he had nothing to do with it.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said to me while moving toward the door, but I didn’t budge.
“Hey, get the fuck out of here,” Sakal grumbled and pushed me. I tried to stand firm, waved my hand in protest, I think I even shouted. But it was all for show. The truth is, all I wanted was to get out of there. I managed to look back one last time before the door shut. I saw Korczak cave, his hand slowly letting go of the weapon, which fell near his feet, and Bejo leaping at the tall Brit who collapsed onto the floor.
I waited for the door to be locked before trying to open it. So someone there would think I tried to help. Then I turned around. Yanai was no longer there. No one was there. I fled to my room, almost running. I lay on the bunk in my uniform, didn’t even take off my shoes. I covered myself with the blanket, wrapping it as tightly around my body as I could, like my mom used to do when I was a kid. I looked up at the metal frame of the bunk above me. I tried counting sheep. I failed.
8.
I GOT OUT of bed at the break of dawn and started packing my weekend bag. Then I went to Korczak’s room and stood by the half-open door. I pushed it an inch farther and peeked inside. The few rays penetrating the piece of cardboard against the window landed on Korczak’s body. I heard him snoring. He had a big scratch on his cheek that sent shivers through my body. I didn’t notice any other marks. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at him. At some point he started coughing, and I flinched, taking two steps back.
When I left his room I called Waxman, without knowing what I was going to say. He didn’t pick up. He didn’t answer the second time either. I sent him a text saying that it was urgent and started wandering around the base, watching the sun take over the desert. I had to tell someone. I had to make sure the details made it out of Neptune and reached the real world, somewhere out there.
* * *
So I called her. I had the feeling she’d understand, but it didn’t really matter to me anymore if she didn’t. I wanted to talk to her. She picked up after the third ring, with a fresh morning voice. I pictured her waking up in her house up north, on a bed covered in snow. I told her everything. About the grilled cheese and the trial; Sakal and Korczak; the beating and the weapon. She asked me to slow down, to explain. She lingered on the details, led me inside my own words, and I gave into the softness of her speech.
She listened until I had nothing more to say, and then reassured me almost without words. With gentle breaths. She said she’d look into it, that she knew people who would do something about it, that they wouldn’t let this kind of behavior just blow over.
“If I have to, I’ll even call Carmela Menashe, the military reporter,” she announced. “The fact that Yanai’s an idiot doesn’t mean he deserves this.” She made it clear it might take her some time, but she promised to do whatever she could.
“Can you hang in there?” she asked, and I almost said that for her I could do anything.
“Yes,” I replied.
“You’re brave, that’s good.”
And despite all the horrible things that had happened the previous night, I found myself boarding the bus with a smile that couldn’t be wiped off. I took a seat in one of the back rows and put in my earphones without listening to anything. I imagined her voice while falling in and out of sleep. About an hour before we reached Tel Aviv, Sakal appeared at the front of the bus and sat down beside me.
“That old woman won’t stop talking.”
I felt my blood coursing faster and faster through my veins. I tried to appear indifferent.
“What are you listening to?” he asked while shoving his bag beneath his seat. I pretended I didn’t hear the question, and after a few moments he gave up. Sakal tilted his head to the right, looking at the old woman sitting in the opposite row. She was rummaging through two overflowing grocery bags, mumbling that she couldn’t find her glasses. He bent forward, lit up the floor with his cell phone screen, and reemerged from the abyss with a pair of black-rimmed glasses, handing them to the woman.
“Bless you,” she said. Sakal smiled and went back to staring at the seat in front of him.
“I’m not the giant asshole you think I am,” he said.
“What?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“I know what you think of me. I used to be like you once.”
“Like me?”
“A kid. I didn’t think these kinds of things happened.”
I didn’t respond. We made eye contact for a brief second.
“He’s fine, just so you know. Got some bruises but nothing serious,” he said. “Bejo checked him when it was over to make sure we didn’t accidentally break any bones. Trust me, it’s nothing compared to what the regiment commander would have done to him if he had found out he threatened another soldier with a weapon.”
I felt like making a snide remark about the senior platoon’s kindness, but I didn’t dare.
“You’ll turn out the same,” he said, closing his eyes again.
“No, I won’t,” I quickly retorted, taken aback by his bizarre claim.
“You just wait,” he said. “A few more months in Neptune or any other shithole outpost, and you’ll get it. Believe me, you’ll get it.”
* * *
I wanted to argue with him. To explain how wrong he was, that I was nothing like him. But suddenly I was afraid that if I tried arguing, he’d somehow prove I was wrong. So I didn’t say anything.
When we got off at the central bus station in Tel Aviv he told me he was going straight to an afternoon concert at a music club, and asked if I wanted to join him. I appreciated his attempt to appease me without making an official apology.
“This whole thing is going to blow up,” I told him. I felt it was unfair not to warn him after all the times he’d been kind to me. I told him that I’d s
poken to the soldier from the military newspaper. I said that she knew a reporter from Kol Yisrael. “I don’t want to screw anyone over, Sakal, least of all you. But someone’s got to take care of this.”
Sakal smiled. It was that same mischievous smile he had when issuing his verdict.
“You really are a kid,” he said, then paused as if considering whether or not to elaborate. “You think this was a coincidence? That Yanai hits on the CO’s girlfriend and three days later we beat the shit out of him?”
I tried to grasp the full meaning of what he was saying, but I couldn’t.
“Whose girlfriend? Waxman’s? What are you talking about?” I asked him, but he didn’t answer.
“What are you talking about, Sakal?” I shouted at him. He put his hand on my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
Sakal wouldn’t say a word. He turned around, cut in line, and entered the station. I stood still, trying not to think. I started to wander aimlessly outside the station. So many thoughts were racing through my head that I almost stepped on a kitten. I tripped. The kitten crossed the road, almost getting run over twice. I sat down on the curb and took my cell phone out of my pocket. I stared for a few moments at the name I’d given her in my contacts, “Girl from the north.” Then I tried calling her again. She didn’t answer.
9.
IT WASN’T UNTIL SUNDAY, when I returned to Neptune, that I had heard about Korczak’s disappearance. The last person to have seen him was the ordnance guy who slept in the same room; he said that before he fell asleep he saw Korczak reading in his bunk. When he woke up, Korczak was gone. Six other soldiers heard the shot. They spent the entire Saturday looking for him. The only evidence they found was a cartridge near the canteen and a few feet away, a puddle of blood soaked into the sand.
They didn’t find Korczak. Neither his body nor his weapon. Soldiers from the criminal investigation division arrived, investigated, and came up empty-handed; they declared him a missing person. I told them about the rookie trial, said it might have had something to do with that, but they didn’t seem too interested. Rumors began to spread. A soldier who was on guard in the watchtower that night claimed he saw a tall figure hitchhiking from the bus station, and Bejo said that a friend of his from the adjutancy couldn’t find Korczak’s records on any computer. In a matter of days, a strange Neptunian thought started creeping in that maybe Korczak was simply a figment of our imaginations. An outpost apparition.