Just People

by Paul Usiskin

  Irit’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘Time. SA works well when there’s time to create a checklist amalgamating other checklists from the team. OK when the hierarchy rejects team challenges and contributions, and the team is scared to challenge the hierarchy. Right?’

  ‘In a nutshell.’

  ‘It’s management speak with group psychology at its heart.’

  ‘I’m also developing SA techniques with a couple of companies where effective team function is essential.’

  ‘So, I’m the hierarchy?’

  ‘Yes, and we’re the team and…’

  ‘You’re worried there’ll be error avalanches. OK. So here’s what I see. First priority is rescuing the seven Palestinian kids. Second is to take out TNT2. And all before the election.’

  He stared through her as more thoughts came and he shared them. ‘Deadline’s twenty-nine days time; the government will want it done well before then. It’s like Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostages. They don’t ever want to fail and face the release of abductees after they lose the election and a new leader is being sworn in. The Man couldn’t recover from that; right now his reputation’s on the line with national security being trashed by a bunch of settler terrorists. Whatever TNT2’s deadline is, halve it cos in the other half the Man will bask in our success and centrifuge it for the electorate.’ He looked at her directly. ‘Such arrogance.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Man, his party. No policy debates, no new future vision.’

  ‘And complacent.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve been criminally complacent.’

  ‘All right, and complacent. They’re arrogant and complacent,’ and Dov asked spontaneously, ‘but what have they ever done for us?’

  Irit, dead pan, said, ‘increased our paranoia?’

  ‘Yes, we’re more paranoid than ever, but what have they done for us?’

  ‘Isolated us from the international community?’

  ‘Right, apart from being arrogant, complacent, making us more paranoid, and isolated from the world, what have they ever done for us?’

  They were laughing so much at their Python parody, heightened because neither knew the other knew the famous sketch.

  ‘How about Situational Awareness now?’ He asked.

  ‘You haven’t been challenged yet.’

  ‘Isn’t your presence my first challenge?’

  Still smiling he called Hisham and left a voice message.

  He knew he was attracted to her, and imagined them having sex. Whether that would become making love, whether the trust implied in a reciprocal relationship would follow, he didn’t know, yet. He smiled to himself, at least I’m consistent, and who else is there just now? Talia was a lost memory.

  24

  Yosef Hassid was in no mood to argue and Dov was in no mood for orders. He was still sore at the release of Ron Calev, but decided this wasn’t the time for that skirmish. It was 19.35 and the Minister looked weary. ‘The Prime Minister and I have agreed that you’ll formally head the investigation into the kidnaps of the seven teenagers,’ he paused for Dov’s reaction.

  Dov gave him the blandest look, ‘They’re Palestinian,’ as Hassid continued ‘...and I’ll be announcing that to the committee meeting you’re about to chair.’

  ‘Next time ask me. I’m not chairing any committee. I need to be on top of the investigation, preferably out there,’ he gestured to the world at night beyond the window. ‘You run it, set up whatever frameworks, chains of command, Situational Awareness tests you want. And when you’ve got anything valuable, pass it on to me.’

  ‘You’re being given enormous powers to complete this investigation Dov.’

  He bristled. ‘Power isn’t in committee meetings.’

  ‘I think you should be grateful we have such faith in you. You need all the help we can get you. We’ve recalled Aviel Weiss, and he’ll be here early in the morning.’

  ‘Look I am grateful. Here’s what I need: A shortlist of known TNT2 supporters, that’s police officers, soldiers, army and security officers, Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria. I know that’s a big ask, but there’re ways of finding those suspects, programs that can be written to speed up personnel searches, start with potentials in the settlements, we’re rich in programmers, and don’t tell me no one’s got that information, they all do, they’re just not sharing it.’

  ‘This sounds like too much make-work,’ Hassid managed through gritted teeth.

  ‘That depends on how you pitch it, and you’ve got way more committee-management experience than me.’

  Dov credited Hassid for not rising to the bait. He decided to be generous. ‘I’ll meet with the Prime Minister whenever he requests it.’

  ‘Such uncharacteristic largesse,’ said Hassid, not mollified.

  Back in his office Dov’s cell rang. It was Hisham. He listened, tapped on his iPad, said, ’Thanks, I’ll set it up.’ To Amos he said, ‘Can you get someone to look over Irit’s laptop? Maybe it’s been hacked.’ He watched Amos’s face. Inscrutable. He tried, ‘Trust but verify.’

  ‘Reagan on Russia now? Set it up already.’ Dov wasn’t surprised. ‘You worked with her before.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘She told me. But I have a hunch it wasn’t, she wasn’t, straightforward. And now you’re going to say hmm.’

  ‘Hmm. Here’s what I got from Nabulsi.’

  Dov reversed his iPad screen, so Amos could read the one word he’d written, ZAKA. He told Amos what he needed.

  Dov found Irit waiting outside his office .

  ‘So where will you sleep tonight?’ she asked.

  Ah well, Dov thought, what’s a guy to do when he can’t go home to his own bed, all bloody from a murder he didn’t commit?

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, getting up.

  And out they went, she raced him to the hillside spreads in the north of the city, of villot, realtor jargon for not quite villas, and apartment blocs in the Ramot neighborhood, to old Ramot. Old was a relative term for Occupation construction, early was better, on land annexed after 1967.

  The road curved around a ridge with banks of apartment blocs rising out of the dark, Jerusalem-stone clad towers like castle keeps, their bases haloed by sodium street lights, missing only wisps of green smoke to make them haunting. Irit turned into a parking lot and waited for him at the steps to a small plaza, and took his hand in hers, warm, dry, her thumb stroking his palm. She led as they climbed tiled stairs, the glimpse of her legs as enticing as they’d been those years back. Along a passageway overlooking the plaza, she opened a door and stepped inside. Light through balcony windows from the streetlights below and the moon above, created soft shadows in the wide living room.

  Irit stood in the middle of a rug and beckoned to him, and she took his fingers and slid them under her skirt deep inside her, her other hand at the back of his neck pulling his mouth to her probing tongue as she rode his fingers.

  In moments they were exploring everything, motion increasing, time fading until after their explosions and tremors, both panting and breathless, she not letting him go, laughing softly across her shoulder up at him as she started gently again until his fists drummed on the base of her spine telling her there was no more and he rested across her back, then she slowly relaxed her arms and knees and lowered herself onto the rug, and Dov slid out of her and down next to her and slept.

  His cell woke him with a message tone. He read Amos’ text. ‘Irit switch on your TV.’

  She scrabbled about, then worked the remote. ‘Channel One?’

  ‘I guess.’ The text said, ‘watch the news.’’

  The newsreader was saying ‘… anonymous voice message we received just before this broadcast.’

  Over a portrait shot of Dov came a voice he rec
ognized. He had a gift for voices, but this couldn’t possibly be…

  ‘It’s me, grandpa Dudik. I can’t believe you’re involved in this witch-hunt. It’s like after we hanged the two traitors. You’re making us turn in our graves, me and your father, and for what? You want to track down Zionist patriots who want justice for Palestinian crimes. Unless you stop, the seven will be executed. Stop your investigation. If you don’t, they’ll be saying Kaddish for you,’ and the voice of Dudik Chizzik recited the prayer for the dead.

  Irit went away and came back holding a two-tone automatic.

  ‘Just in case,’ she said.

  ‘Great. It won’t be too long before there’s a knock at the door and a special forces unit comes crashing…’

  It was daylight bright, from a helicopter hovering opposite the living room windows, its engine whistling and roaring, blades thumping the air, the building shaking and through the front door swarmed a squad of armed men in black combats, peeling off down the corridor, doing room searches and shouting ‘Clear!’ as others did bug-detection sweeps, ignoring the naked couple. The officer said through his face-mask, ‘Is that gun on safety?’ Irit looked at it as if she’d never seen it before.

  Dov asked him to take his men outside and withdraw the chopper, while they showered.

  Irit said, ‘They’re good with locks,’ and Dov said, ‘Also with cell-phone tracking. I’ll need an analysis of that broadcast. It was uncanny. Amos is probably on to it.’

  He asked if she’d taken off her panties in the Justice Ministry toilet, ‘Just curious.’

  She smiled mystically. ‘I’ll make us some food. You go talk to the officer.’

  Outside in the passageway Dov asked, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Dov.’ They agreed he’d be Dubi, another version of Dov. ‘I guess you’ll be with me for a while?’

  Dubi nodded.

  ‘So I don’t need to request a chopper for tomorrow?’

  ‘Amos Yerushalmi already did that, and we’ll go from the vacant lot behind the Ministry.’

  ‘Sure.’ Dov wouldn’t refer to how he and Irit had been caught in flagrante delicto, though it wasn’t a crime and it had definitely been blazing.

  ‘We won’t be disturbed again tonight?’

  ‘I can guarantee it. But you’ll be under permanent surveillance.’

  Dov and Irit ate sandwiches she’d made, drank chilled wine and chatted. For the first time since he could remember he needed a cigarette and she produced a pack and a lighter.

  ‘Well,’ he blew a thin line of smoke up into the air, ‘How’s this for Situational Awareness?’

  She expertly blew smoke rings, then asked,‘What’s this about your Grandfather?’

  ‘He’s dead. Died a long time ago. But that voice was his. I can only guess that was done electronically but I don’t know what sources they found to model it.’

  ‘Do you know anything about his past? Any association with the Irgun?’

  ‘You mean the hanging of the two British Sergeants, that’s the reference to ‘hanging two traitors’. I got to know him quite well in the last few years before he died, but he never mentioned the Irgun.’

  ‘You got on well with your father too?’

  ‘Picasso said that in art you have to kill your father. That applies in life, too; it’s metaphorically what you do if you’re going to be your own man. Mine wanted me to be a businessman, and he kind of plotted for that. So when I decided to be a police investigator he was shocked. I had a vocation; very old fashioned but I did...still do. I was lucky in the end and though it was hard for him, he was still proud of me. He was a right-winger, hated seeing this country deteriorate. I didn’t have to do what Picasso said. Together with my mother’s Alzheimer’s, my father lost the person and the place he loved the most.’

  Dov was drained. He didn’t regret the sex; they’d shared their bodies so why not their thoughts. She put her arm around him and held him. Then she led him to her bedroom. They didn’t make love. Her body warmed his heart.

  There was music, wonderful music from her CD player, Mozart’s magic, the Andante from the Sinfonia Concertante, exquisite and from a secret Jewish place in Wolfgang’s soul Dov was sure, to write such pain and yearning.

  ‘Shhhhh, Dov, shhh, it’s OK, you’re OK, I’m here,’ her fading voice promised him.

  He struggled slowly up into the morning, a vivid day-mare holding him back, bizarre and real, a big suitcase, which he opened and inside was his father, dead, but still warm, dressed in a smart dark suit, white shirt and tie, an inanimate smile on his lips, not as Dov had seen him in reality, when he’d arrived too late, the nurses hadn’t had time to close Dan’s half closed eyes, one more open than the other.

  He didn’t share that with Irit.

  She read him a poem:

  ‘Dawn’s early sighs,

  Morning’s labored gasps,

  Dusk’s gentle breaths,

  Night’s muted whispers.’

  ‘That’s very … it’s … beautiful. Who wrote it?’

  ‘I did. For you.’

  He couldn’t find anything appropriate to say, so he smiled and kissed her with his eyes.

  ‘It’s not too cold for breakfast al fresco,’ she said.

  He washed and shaved and walked out onto her balcony with a beautiful view.

  Ten minutes later, Dubi came in to say that the Minister was on his way to see him. Dov groaned inwardly. Wasn’t it enough that he had Irit keeping an eye on him, well much more than an eye, but anyway? Couldn’t he leave him alone to enjoy this briefest of time out with a sexy woman, in the clean morning air, eating breakfast she’d prepared for him, after a poem that spoke of so much more to come? First steps towards love and happiness. And then there he was, Yosef Hassid, with an usually mournful expression on his face, asking Irit if she might give him the balcony.

  ‘Hi Yosef, what’s going on?’

  ‘I’m sorry Dov, sincerely, to have to be the bearer of sad news.’

  The range of what he meant, threatened to cause a pile up in Dov’s thoughts: Lana? Yakub? Yaniv? Yael? Liora?

  ‘I have to tell you of the tragic death of your former wife Liora.’

  All thoughts froze. Dov went cold, then hot, then cold again. He tried summoning images of Liora, any single one would have done, but nothing came to him and that was as shocking as the fact of Liora no longer in the world. There was no shred of the anger he’d quelled at Liora’s slurs about Lana. What did well up was guilt; guilt at how he’d betrayed her and their marriage with Sophia, despite that being part of a trap set for him, he saw himself as a willing participant; guilt that he hadn’t repaired the damage properly, indeed for too long he’d refused to take any responsibility for his participation in the trap, so obsessed had he become with Sophia’s body; guilt that he hadn’t compromised more with her over his career path; most of all guilt that he hadn’t been able to save her, protect her, however long they’d been divorced. That lasted no more than milliseconds though he didn’t realize it and before he could ask the obvious, Hassid said, ‘It was an accident, with no criminal involvement. She stepped off the sidewalk outside her office, involved in a cell-phone call and was hit by a bus.’

  ‘Oh...fu... God...was she...?’

  ‘It was instantaneous. We’ve contacted your daughter and your son. We’re flying them both home. They’ll be here tomorrow.’

  More milliseconds before Dov emerged from the freeze and recognized the names of his children.

  ‘We hope to have the funeral soon after they’re here. We’ll help in any way we can Dov. Take some time for yourself. May I offer you my deepest sympathies?’

  Dov could only nod.

  ‘Amos will drive you home now.’

  ‘What about...?’

  ‘I’ll manage things for the time being...

&nb
sp; ‘No...I...’

  ‘Amos is waiting for you. And so is your friend Gilad. Aviel will be here later. Go home Dov.’

  Well before Dov surfaced in Irit’s bed, life in a village in the forested hills south of Haifa had begun with the call to morning prayers.

  The Imam found the body.

  He’d arrived before the Fajr dawn prayer, and went up to check the loud-speaker at the top of the Minaret because the call to prayer had sounded muffled. With the sun rising behind him he saw the body lashed to the Minaret windows blocking one of two loud-speakers. The face was a mask of dried black blood. He descended quickly to the prayer hall and asked some of the men to help bring the body down, urging them to do this calmly and carefully out of respect for the dead; their anger could come later. In his office they lay the body on the table used for meetings. With warm water and a cloth, he gently washed some of the blood from the face, trying to see who it was. After some minutes he stopped. The eyes had been shot through but he knew the young man, Qassim, a student at the Jews’ university in Tel Aviv. His emotions collided, the waste of a young life, another loss to his people, no question that the Jews were the murderers, may Allah curse them.

  He halted those thoughts; there were sad practicalities to manage. He had to tell the parents, and he called Qassim’s uncle and begged him to come to the mosque immediately and afterwards accompany him to the parent’s house. Then he called the police.

  TNT2 posted a photograph of Qassim on Facebook. It was a close-up, and accompanying its horror was a caption:

  ‘The God of Israel is vengeful to his adversaries and reserves hostility for his enemies.’

  Below that was a statement:

  This man has been punished for carrying out the attack on the innocent Biderman family.

  He subjected good Zionists to terrible humiliations.

  TNT2 is the avenger of the God of Israel.

  We will bring justice to His people that this government has failed to give.