Almost Dead

by Assaf Gavron

  Bilahl recruited a handful of others along with him. He went to Qibya and Rantis, the two villages closest to Ben Gurion airport, and met people who wanted to help. He went to Gaza again. When he returned he was already beginning to think in terms of a combined attack: one unit would proceed on foot from either Qibya or Rantis and attack the hangars and planes on the ground with Qassam missiles; a second unit would drive a booby-trapped car through the new terminal, which was under construction and (according to recently updated aerial photographs Bilahl had come across) not very well guarded; a third unit would consist of two Istishadin travelling on two separate buses–one from Jerusalem, the other from the Raanana Junction. The logistics were overwhelming, the number of people involved unprecedented, the risk very high. It’s easy now to point out Bilahl’s mistake, but it was understandable. For an operation of that scope you had to build hierarchies of command and responsibility, and so, when Omar Sharif made such a good impression and said he would recruit other people, Bilahl gave him his phone number.

  ‘…one of them in prison for the next four hundred years! And the other lying there like a cucumber!’

  ‘Stop it, Father. We didn’t come here to weep.’

  Why didn’t you come on your own, Lulu? You should have left him at home with his tears…

  ‘Please try not to shout like that near him, sir. Try to say only positive things.’

  ‘What did the nurse say to me, Lulu?’

  ‘She said to say positive things.’

  ‘How can I say positive things when my child is a murderer? He’s going to kill me–he’ll give me a heart attack! Two sons I had, and he was the good one. He promised to go to the—’

  ‘He will go, Father, you’ll see. Now, let’s have some music.’

  Yes, Lulu. ‘Amarein’. The two moons…

  On Channel 2 Danny Ronen referred to a warning the GSS had received concerning a major operation aimed at the heart of Israel. Every time he mentioned it, Bilahl became more convinced that we had a leak. We tried suspending all communications; we tried disinformation…but the reason Omar Sharif was picked up had nothing to do with the ‘warning’. A routine patrol rounded up all the men from his village (in plastic handcuffs and cloth blindfolds) and he was one of the ones detained. No particular reason. Maybe the soldiers liked his long lashes, or maybe it was recorded somewhere that he’d been in Al-Amari. They have ways to retrieve information like that. They also have ways to locate a mobile phone. They found Bilahl’s number in Omar Sharif’s mobile, called it, located the mast the signal had been sent to and dispatched dozens of soldiers in jeeps, armoured personnel carriers and on foot to scour the area in circular sweeps, turning every stone, entering each home. After an hour, the soldiers disappeared as if nothing had happened, everyone returned home, and things went back to normal, except for Bilahl Naji al-Sabich, apprehended on a mattress on the roof of his apartment.

  ‘What have I done to deserve this? How did I bring such a monster up?’

  ‘Father, stop! You promised. It’s not helping anybody, standing here and crying. Let him listen to the music. I know he likes it. I can tell.’

  Yes I do, Lulu. Yes I do…

  Murair had hardly changed since I was a child. There were no new buildings because there was no money. The village was getting drier, there was no work locally and any outside jobs were too far away for people to commute daily, at least in the current conditions. The few who worked in agriculture became fewer because of the lack of water and restrictions on movement. Anyone who could moved to the big cities, as I had. The others were waiting. So the frozen village was like a museum of my childhood, like travelling to the past. Lulu was like a mirror into the past too. When she talked to me I saw that her new experiences–her discoveries of hidden corners at the edge of the village, her need to be alone with her thoughts and the hills–were simply my old ones…After we’d drunk tea with Father and Aunt Lily, Lulu and I went for a walk in the village. I said hello to familiar faces and noticed how they’d aged. We visited Mother’s grave in the rocky, sandy cemetery where Sabres cacti grew and that plant with the meaty triangular leaves which I always loved to make crescent-shaped cuts in with my fingernails.

  After weeks of planning operations or sprawling in front of TV, it was pleasant to hear about the real world. There isn’t really a normal life in Palestine, but there are places where private life is a little less distorted by history, where friends, family, work, school predominate. Lulu talked to me about her friends from the neighbouring villages, about walks to caves near by, about a guy from Duma who rode around on a horse and took her for rides along the ridges. ‘How old is this kid?’ ‘Sixteen.’ I tried to look at her through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old boy, but managed to see only my little sister with her straight brown hair and little girl’s smile.

  ‘Lulu, I don’t know if you should ride around on a horse with a sixteen-year-old guy.’

  She laughed. ‘Nothing happens. My friends ride with him too.’

  It sounded slightly weird coming from her. I said, ‘What do you mean, “nothing happens”? How do you know something could happen at all?’

  ‘You think I’m still ten? All my friends have already been kissed.’

  ‘What? Lulu, stop meeting the cheeky bastard. What’s his name? I’m going to talk to him.’

  ‘Relax. It wasn’t with him.’

  ‘It? What’s “it”?’

  She led us on an expedition to the place she went to to be alone. ‘You should feel special,’ she said. ‘I don’t bring anyone down here.’ I told her I always felt special with her. It was true. If I ever turned into a teacher, or the imam, or her horse, she was always on the same wavelength. She was talking about her friends; I said, ‘But why didn’t you do your homework today, Miss Sabich?’

  ‘I did in all my other classes, master teacher. Fahmi?’

  ‘Goddammit, soldier! What did you call me?’

  ‘I mean Lieutenant, sir!’

  ‘Goddam right, soldier!’

  ‘Sir, yes, sir!’ It was idiotic, but it made us laugh.

  ‘I was visiting Mother’s grave once,’ she said, ‘and I sneezed on it, and I just couldn’t stop laughing.’ She started again with her contagious laughter, like a water sprinkler, like a machine gun. She couldn’t breathe. I laughed too, like a horse; huge, liberating laughter which set her off again–we couldn’t stop. We laughed, in fits and starts, not knowing why, all the way to her secret place.

  ‘Now I know that you’re my sister,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because this is my place.’

  ‘Yours? It’s mine!’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t me who showed it to you?’ She was sure. It was mine and Rana’s place: a little plateau behind the Sneina family’s house, halfway down the slope descending from the edge of the village. There’s kind of a small clearing, and smooth rocks you can sit on or lie on in complete solitude. If you’re not a member of the Sneina family, it takes almost ten minutes to get there from the road, which makes it even more private. I hadn’t been there for years. I might even have found a pack of my old condoms if I’d looked for it, but I wasn’t going to with Lulu around. We sat next to each other, brother and sister, and we didn’t say a word for a long time. Rana was in my head and in my ears, our conversation that morning, our latest meeting. ‘What are you thinking about?’ my sister asked. ‘Nothing.’ She gave me an inquisitive look. ‘This place reminds me…Do you know how long it is since I was here?’ ‘Was it really your spot?’ ‘Really.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad. It’s a good place, right?’ ‘The best,’ I replied. ‘I wish I had a place like this to run away to where I live now.’

  When we returned Father was in a state. Someone had called and hung up, and then called again and said nothing. My mobile had rung too, he said, several times. I ran to the holdall and fished it out. I had voice messages. Two of them said nothing. The third was a short message: ‘Bilahl has been arrested. They’re cal
ling all the numbers on his phone. Turn off your phone and get rid of it. Call in a few days if you can. Be careful.’

  I turned off the phone. Lulu saw the fear in my eyes. I steered her out on to the terrace, trying to appear calm in front of her and Father.

  ‘Take the phone,’ I said. ‘Hide it in our hiding place, and don’t turn it on. You mustn’t turn it on, OK?’ She nodded.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  I looked at her, my little sister. How much I loved the little girl in front of me! ‘Nothing,’ I said, ignoring her sceptical look: I had to leave immediately. How long had I been here? Two hours? Three? The soldiers might already be on their way. If they had Bilahl’s phone, it would only be logical to send troops to Murair. I didn’t know anything–not how or where Bilahl had been caught nor what he’d told them, nor whether they realised who he was, what he’d done, what he was planning, who was connected to him–and when you don’t know you have to assume the worst. Bilahl had been arrested and I was in real danger. I had to disappear. I didn’t have a clue where to go.

  Lulu was standing watching me as I was thinking all this. I took her face in my hands and said, ‘I have to go. I’m sorry, I was planning on staying a few days. But I have to go now.’ ‘Because nothing has happened?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Can I come with you?’ I actually laughed. ‘What do you think?’ She shrugged, disappointed. ‘Soon I’ll come for longer, I promise,’ I said and kissed both her cheeks. ‘You be a good girl, OK? And watch out for that guy from Duma with the horse.’

  Lucky, I was thinking as I left, with the holdall slung over my shoulder, no phone, no way of contacting the world, not knowing where I was heading or where I would sleep, you’re so very, very lucky. Why had I made the decision, on the spur of the moment, on this day of all days, to call Lulu? Someone up above had taken me out of Al-Amari today. Grandfather Fahmi was protecting me, I was sure of it. And he would keep watching over me. And then I told myself in Bilahl’s voice, for the second time that day: stop looking at the full half of the glass, little brother. Pull yourself together. Be careful.

  31

  Shuli died on a Wednesday, thirteen weeks after the attack. I’d come to Jerusalem for my thirteenth and last group therapy meeting. The doctors were unsurprised. The machines, they said, could maintain a certain amount of body function, but they couldn’t make the brain live. ‘What about the ones who stay in comas for years?’ I asked. I was in shock. I seemed to be sitting on the floor. ‘The ones who wake up after seventeen years and ask for a Pepsi?’ ‘That’s a different story,’ they said, and didn’t elaborate.

  The night before I hadn’t been able to sleep and the morning had passed slowly and foggily. When I stepped on to the Little No. 5 I felt a hideous breaking wave of nausea and stumbled off and threw up on the pavement. For a long time I sat on a bench and sipped water with a head full of noise and then I took a taxi to Jerusalem. The air was heavy and not easy to breathe. The machine didn’t have Twixes. On the top floor, Shuli’s bed was not in its place. I asked the nurse what had happened, but I already knew that she was going to say what I’d been imagining for months. The nurse said, ‘Shuli? I’m sorry. She passed away.’ I went down on my knees and cried without stopping, until doctors came, and then I felt hands on my shoulders. They were the hands of Alon, the chef from the King David Hotel. He walked me to a bench outside the hospital and we sat there for a long time, silent, smelling the pine trees, looking at the Jerusalem hills. I didn’t say a word in group therapy either, and no one tried to make me. The next Wednesday I didn’t bother to come at all. I only came back to Jerusalem for the funeral. The Mountain of Rest cemetery, where we’d first met on a stormy day three months earlier. I felt as alone as I’d ever felt in my life. It was a bright spring day, and between her grave and Guetta’s there were two rows of fresh graves, marking the weeks that had passed, the unostentatious, steady labour of death. I didn’t make it more than halfway through the ceremony before running out of the cemetery, carrying in my ribcage a leaden mass of grief which would make breathing an effort for weeks afterwards.

  In the mirror: a man aged thirty-three and a third, beginning to recede. Some grey hairs. A small paunch, scarcely there, really, actually not a paunch but a temporary bulging of the stomach. Hairs in the ears and nose. Red eyes with heavy lids.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Duchi’s voice from behind me. I shifted my eyeline to an angle where I could see her in the mirror. She was standing in the doorway in a white robe, her wet hair darkened almost to black. Her eyes were smirking. ‘At this handsome man?’ She came and hugged me from behind. ‘Not so handsome,’ I said. ‘You’re still cute,’ she said, and nuzzled her soft cheek against my back. ‘You think so?’ I frowned my eyebrows down and gave myself a glance in three-quarter profile. It looked a bit better that way. ‘Obviously unbearable sometimes,’ she said, ‘but I still remember the cute Croc, and I know he’ll be back.’

  Duchi tried so hard to be good to me. She was patient and solicitous and accepted the sleepless nights and the jumpiness and lack of concentration they left in their wake. We hardly argued. It was so strange, so unsettling, that I had this weird feeling something was missing. I asked her whether she’d taken anything out of the flat, changed the furniture around or something. But it was the arguments. In bed one night, when I asked her why it hadn’t been like this before, why she was suddenly so nice, she gave me her profound look and let out a brief bark of hollow laughter.

  ‘Dimwit. You really think I’ve changed?’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’ve stopped arguing about every petty thing, and looking for reasons to fight because you’re under pressure all the time…’

  ‘OK, OK, I get it.’

  ‘Like, now there are other things.’ She didn’t conceal the expression on her face. ‘You’re…difficult. You can be cruel and self-centred and you don’t sleep, and I still don’t see how the cigarettes can be helping.’ I looked at her. ‘OK, not cruel,’ she said. Some seconds elapsed. ‘Maybe a little,’ she said.

  Since September 11th the word ‘wedding’ had resurfaced only once. Duchi’s brother Voovi had mentioned it during a dinner at ours. It sort of fell out of his mouth like a fledgling falling out of a nest, just toppled off his tongue on to the floor, where it collapsed.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to abandon the Guetta investigation. I recruited Bar to help. I call it an investigation because I have no other word for it, but it was hardly that–Inspector Almaz had in fact classified it as ‘a case not worth investigating’.

  The first thing you notice when you meet Bar is his loose posture. He’s a loose guy: thin, not so tall, always wearing a shabby baseball cap, a size too big, on his shaven head. He has small ears and these incredibly bright blue eyes. He wears a permanent five o’clock shadow to compensate for the premature baldness. The timing was good for him. Work bored him and even the numerology was starting to pall. He’d served in military intelligence, I don’t know in exactly what capacity, but I trusted him. And besides (I discovered later) he’s a big Hercule Poirot fan.

  He transferred the contents of Guetta’s Palm to his computer and started scanning it. After about an hour he sent me an email with these details:

  On the morning of his death Guetta had a meeting at eight: BMW. Coffee Bean, Yehuda Maccabi Street. A mobile phone number.

  In Guetta’s address book under B, Binyamin Warshawski is listed next to the same mobile phone number listed for the meeting above. Almost certainly, the ‘BMW’ mentioned in the note about the meeting is Warshawski’s name.

  That number is disconnected. The phone company says the number is not in use. Under pressure from this investigator, the customer service representative told me it was a withheld number, but admitted that it was cancelled by the customer. The date of cancellation was a few days after the meeting.

  The phone book lists three Binyami
n Warshawskis. One on his own, two with a partner. One lives in Tel Mond, two in Tel Aviv.

  Giora Guetta’s nickname was ‘Gigu’.

  Two days after his death, Guetta was supposed to collect a new credit card from his bank in Jerusalem.

  In numerology, Giora Guetta from Jerusalem = a very dark and complicated affair = a meeting in Tel Aviv. I swear this is true: the sum is 845 for all three sentences.

  The guy’s a genius, I thought. All this after an hour’s work. I made an investigation team appointment in ten minutes’ time at the falafel stall downstairs.

  ‘Not bad for an hour,’ I said in admiration.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s easy. When you’re scanning soft material, you find ninety per cent of the good stuff quickly. The problem is finding the remaining ten per cent.’

  ‘Soft material?’

  ‘Soft material’s the stuff you don’t expect to be searched or examined. Normal citizens, like you and me, accumulate stuff and lists and diaries without worrying about security. The opposite of coded or classified material you get in organisations.’

  We bought falafels and fruit shakes from the next stand, and sat on wicker chairs on the pavement. Hamelacha Street in the Rosh Haayin Business Park is not one of Israel’s most glamorous locations. ‘OK,’ I said, going over a print-out of Bar’s email, ‘Binyamin is the guy’s name. Shuli called the number, and he answered and said he was Binyamin. She asked him about Guetta and he hung up.’

  ‘You remember the date?’ asked Bar.

  I certainly did. ‘A couple of days after Shaar Hagai.’