by Yishai Sarid
”Where are they?” he thrust his head into the car, as if I had destroyed them and hidden them in the trunk.
“They stayed at the hotel. I was called urgently to Jerusalem for work,” I said.
“Where do you work that you were called on a Friday evening?” asked the nosy reservist, as if we had all the time in the world.
“The secret service,” I said.
For some reason, that made him laugh. “Maybe you’ll bring me something to eat when you come back, what do you say?”
“No problem, brother, just let me through now.”
I went up from the desert on the empty road and got to the city, which was very quiet. Orthodox Jews in Sabbath coats were striding calmly with their sons, ancient pines were waving in the evening wind. The walls of the Old City were lighted up nicely for the tourists who were nowhere to be seen. Silhouettes of the border patrol were walking along dimly lit streets. The serene calm of a silenced city. The explosion was far from here, on the other side of town.
I showed my ID to the guard at the gate of the Russian Compound. An army vehicle unloaded two detainees in handcuffs, their heads covered, who were shoved into the door of the installation. I passed through the corridors and in all of them there was the tumult after the attack, cell phones were coughing, and blindfolded people were shoved and monitors flickered new information. I was glad I had come, I felt comfortable in this tumult.
Haim stood in his Sabbath clothes behind a Formica table and issued orders. When he saw me, he stopped. “What are you doing here? I told you to go rest.”
“I came from the Dead Sea,” I said. “I can’t just sit on my ass.”
“You shouldn’t have left your wife.” Haim gave me a tired look.
“I’m here already,” I said.
“They took me away from my spiced fish,” grumbled Haim. “There’s a lot of pressure in the system. The chief asked me to come direct things myself. So why did you come?”
“I want to interrogate,” I said. One of the young men looked at us with curiosity.
“Come here a minute,” said Haim, he hopped behind the table and hugged my shoulder. He was a whole head shorter than me. We stood in the corridor in the midst of a convoy of prisoners being shoved inside. “It’s not good,” said Haim. “I don’t want you to interrogate today.”
“Haim, don’t do this to me,” I said. “I know you need me. I’ve got to correct what I messed up. You leave me alone with my thoughts. Don’t retire me at the age of forty. You know there’s no going back from this.”
“You feel good?” he asked me. We were standing so close I felt his breath blending with mine. His mouth smelled pleasantly of the Sabbath.
“I’ll be fine, Haim,” I said. “I screwed up. You know I can’t be condemned for that.”
Haim looked up at me, he had good warm eyes like those of a Turkish singer. “We’ve brought two of his relatives here,” he said. “The two of them were in touch with him in recent days, with that little shit. His film has already made the rounds on the network, with the Kalashnikov and the flag and the parting speech. I know that synagogue. I’ve got friends who worship there. He put tsitsis on his trousers and looked like a good Jerusalem boy. It drives me nuts that he’s been walking around under our feet for three days and we didn’t catch him. We didn’t put a finger on them, his agents. They know the work.”
“Who do you want me to take?” I asked.
We were in Jerusalem, so the interrogation rooms had more character. The ceilings were high and the walls were cut from handsome stones. Haim again assigned me one of the young men with a shaved head and greasy skin. Before they brought the prisoner in, we laid out the course of the interrogation, we divided our roles; this time, I tried to go by the book, even though the book never brings results.
The guy they sat in the chair across from me was altogether different from the one I had killed. A trimmed, stylish beard, precise clothes, hair smeared with something shiny. I didn’t like him, he looked like a pimp. I figured out immediately that he understood Hebrew from the way his ears were turned to my conversation with the young man. I looked at the papers. In the nineties, when he was young, he spent two months in jail for illegal organizing and hadn’t been heard from since.
“We’ve been looking for you,” the young man began in Hebrew.
“Why were you looking?” asked the detainee. “I didn’t do anything bad.”
Beyond the thick stone walls now came a shout of dread from the other room, and our fellow twisted awkwardly on the chair. For the time being, only his legs were bound.
“Do you know Meroan?” asked the young man.
“Which Meroan?”
“Meroan who blew himself up, who ascended, Meroan with the tsitsis,” said the young man. His walking back and forth in front of the detainee’s face was professional, and managed to make me nervous too.
“I won’t tell you no,” answered the detainee. For a moment it looked as if it would be easy work with him, maybe I could get back to Sigi tonight.
“Where do you know him from?”
“He’s my cousin’s son,” answered the detainee. “I know him from the village.”
“But you haven’t lived in the village for years,” said the young man. “And he’s much younger than you. What do you have to do with him?”
“Nothing special,” replied the detainee. His head followed the back and forth movement of the young interrogator, and his eyes rolled nervously. “We’d meet at weddings.”
“Great wedding you made for us today,” said the young man. Then he waited a moment, as if he were making room for me to get into the interrogation.
I was silent. So far, he was doing fine, why spoil it.
“When was the last time you talked to him?” asked the young man.
“I really don’t know, maybe a month ago, two months.”
“And if I tell you you talked with him the day before yesterday? You know what is the day before yesterday?” the young man approached the seated detainee, and almost rubbed his belt buckle on his face.
“Of course I know, but that’s not so,” answered the detainee, as he started playing the game with us.
The young man grabbed his collar until it made a ripping sound, and picked him up a little with one hand. He was a strong fellow. “I’ll screw you,” he said, “if you don’t tell me the truth immediately.”
The detainee coughed, fluttered his hands, and said: “Truly, that’s the truth,” and mumbled something in Arabic.
The young man looked at me again, but I sat and looked on as if I were in a theater. I couldn’t get into it. He opened the door and called the soldier waiting behind it, asked him to cuff the detainee’s hands in back. Here it comes again, I said to myself.
Meanwhile the young man came to me, his face glowing, and whispered: “I need you now, I feel he’s part of the big picture, maybe he knows about the others who are walking around in the area.”
The first time was with Haim. He was my guide. I was impressed by his elegance, how he drew close and then moved away, how he applied pressure and let up, hovered before the prisoner like a butterfly, and got everything out of him without ever laying a hand on him. At the climax, there was a sense that he had extracted a cork from a bottle of good and expensive wine.
Elegance has died, I said to myself.
The prisoner was now stretched back like a banana. I felt bad. Wake up, they’ve been sitting like that here for years, those clients, it’s part of the show, that’s why they pay for tickets.
The young man scratched his head, looked at me with disappointment, and approached the detainee again. Over and over he asked him about the last conversation, kept shouting he was a liar, but the interrogation didn’t get anywhere.
“I should take him downstairs for a few hours, let him cook a little in hell,” the young man whispered to me. “But there’s no time. That guy is ticking.”
“Give me a minute,” I stirred and moved into the
arena. I pictured the child’s happy face in the pool. A heavy price to have to pay for this moment.
“We know you talked with him,” I said quietly. He looked at me strangely, almost disparagingly. I had no respect for that pimp; he would rip my heart out without a second thought, if he could.
“A few days ago, a person sat across from me, just like you’re sitting now, and I asked him questions. He didn’t want to answer. In the middle of our conversation he died. You don’t want that to happen to you. So come on, let’s talk.”
“We talked about the holiday,” the detainee blurted out. “He said he was looking to buy a lamb for the family. That’s what we talked about.”
“I don’t think that’s what you talked about.”
“By my children’s lives,” said the prisoner. “I’m not involved in those things. I’m careful.”
We didn’t get anywhere with him and he was starting to control the situation. The young man felt it, too, and stood next to me. If only we could have waited a few hours, we would have broken him with a bag on his head and trance music in the cellar to keep him from sleeping. But there was no time.
“I saw a picture of your wife in your wallet,” my partner smiled at him now. “She’s a looker, your wife. Let’s see,” and he shoved a passport photo of a girl with thick lips and long hair in front of his face. “I’d fuck your wife. I can do that tonight. I can ask them to bring her here.” We had that now too. We were like a bad theater that puts on a show night after night after night.
A strange expression appeared on the detainee’s face. His mouth opened a little, his head was stretched at an angle. It made you want to straighten it, put all the parts back in place.
“So what do you say, Ahmed, me and your wife spending the evening together? She likes to get it hard from behind?” I felt my bile rising, even though I had heard those words countless times. I could see the interrogator next to me changing places with Ahmed, and Ahmed threatening to screw the interrogator’s plump wife in the ass. The vision started disintegrating into pixels before my eyes, slivers of a picture, and then I heard the spit and felt it dripping thick on my face, toward my mouth, my fist went out automatically, and the next sound was the crushing of the front teeth of the detainee, Mr. Ahmed. He screamed.
“Why did you do that?” wailed the young man. His image was scattered in pieces before my eyes. “Now we’ve got to waste time filling out reports, and all those headaches. We were getting ahead with him fine, what came over you?”
“Call the medic,” I said. “Then call Haim. Look, I was wounded too.” I showed him signs of blood on my knuckles.
I thought of asking his pardon, but that wasn’t done. Not far from here they were already gathering up the limbs his little cousin had blown up. He didn’t stir any affection either, with his bloody mouth, his whining in pain, the ugly expression on his face. I went on with those thoughts until the medic came in along with Haim, poor Haim. Why did he have to move instead of sitting with his wife and children at the Sabbath table.
We stood outside. The big square of the church was lighted as if they were making a film there. Armored jeeps kept bringing in detainees. “Now it’s official,” said Haim. “You don’t approach detainees anymore. You shouldn’t have come here today. I made a mistake when I put you in. Go to your wife now. Be gentle with her. We’ll find somebody good you can talk to. I’ve seen people destroyed in those cellars, I don’t want that to happen to you.”
I stood before him and was silent. The fist was bleeding a little from the blow. I hit a manacled man. I couldn’t even gain any pleasure from the idea that I was fighting for my life. I wanted to go back to the room, release him, give him a fighting chance. Then I could kill him without any pangs of conscience.
Now the streets around the square were silent and the alleys seemed to be presaging something bad. The enormous interchanges out of the city were deserted. I was banished from Jerusalem.
I drove slowly down the turns to the Dead Sea, my hand festering and closed off from the world by a blinding headache. Alone on the road, in the middle of the night, they could easily shoot me, and in my state I wouldn’t even get to a gun. An enormous moon shone over the mountains toward the Jordan and lighted the valley. Boston, I thought, I won’t ever go to Boston, I won’t give up those pleasures. I stopped the car at the side of the road, at the broad opening of the wadi, I got out of the car and yelled my soul to the sky, and the desert birds I startled awake answered me with a shriek.
“I’m done for, ya habibi,” Hani said to her on the phone. “I can’t sleep and can’t eat. Save me.”
I came to her in the morning. Somebody was sitting in her house. A man with glasses, looked like a literary man, in corduroy pants and sandals.
“This is my livelihood,” she said. “Meet him.”
Today she was full of self-confidence, wearing gray pants that suited her, a little make-up, arrogant.
“Well then, I’ll go,” said the man, disappointed. “We’ll meet at the party on Thursday. The refreshments will certainly be good. They’re always good at rich people’s parties. She doesn’t stint.”
She held out her cheek for a light kiss. “Good luck, Mr. Livelihood,” he said as he left. His face was familiar to me from somewhere, but not well-known enough for me to place it.
It won’t work, I said to myself. She goes around with a thousand men. The whole plan is fucked. She won’t be willing to sacrifice anything for that sick Arab.
“The etrog man has arrived,” she smiled at me. “Did you have a good week? Did you earn a lot of money in the stock market?”
“We’ve got to talk,” I said.
An expression of great disappointment rose onto her face. Her look was sharp and hostile.
“Where did you come from?” she asked angrily. “What do you want from me?”
Even though she hated me at that moment, I could have looked into her face forever. Not for nothing do they poison the faces of their women.
“You’re not an etrog man,” she said.
“Not completely,” I answered.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked.
“I want to help,” I said.
“Another one who wants to help,” she laughed briefly. “The one here before you wanted to help, too. I’m surrounded by little helpers today.” She quickly regained her equilibrium, didn’t let anger take over.
I couldn’t cuff her hands behind her, or put the stinking bag on her head. No hands. You’re a thug with bad Arabic, a coward, start reinventing yourself. Be a smart Jew.
“Tell me how I can help.” I suggested.
Daphna was assailed by a fit of laughter, as if she had smoked something before I came, and when she calmed down, she had tears in her eyes. “Why should I play your game?” Her eyes held me tight. “Maybe you’re a maniac, who are you anyway?”
I was silent, and she went on. “You’re not a maniac,” she said. “You’ve got the eyes of a poet, not a policeman. I don’t care, I’ll go on playing with you. Can you fill out any questionnaire I want?”
“Almost any,” I said and she laughed again.
“I once had a husband like that,” she said. “He was a miracle worker. He’s not around anymore, poor guy. What kind of miracle worker are you?”
“What do you want me to do for you?” I insisted.
Somebody in the next building was playing Frank Sinatra. The windows were open. I could have sat in her kitchen forever and looked at her wonderful face.
“You know what I want,” she said. “You’re gods, you know what a person wants before he says it. You’re an angel sent to me.”
“Tell me. I can only guess.”
“There are two urgent things,” she said, and her face became troubled and mature, a hidden line deepened in her forehead now. “I’ve got a very sick friend,” she said. “He lives in Gaza. I want them to take care of him.”
“At the Erez Crossing, an ambulance and an entrance permit will be wa
iting for him on Wednesday. They’ll take him from there straight to Ichilov Hospital. You can tell him.”
“What do I have to give you in exchange?” she asked in amazement. “Because I’m not willing to pay what I think you want.”
“Wait a minute, we haven’t yet finished with your wishes. What else do you want?”
“For you to save my son,” she growled quickly. “Don’t let them kill him, don’t let them put him in jail. Resurrect him. You can do that?”
I took a deep breath. That was more than I intended to offer. Talk to her now. “Yes,” I said. The reservations were on the tip on my tongue, and I suppressed them. I’m not a crappy lawyer. She nodded slowly and gravely. Her hair was tied on her head.
“You want me to make you something to eat?” she asked calmly, as if we had now signed a successful deal. “I meant to make something anyway. Do you eat tomatoes and Bulgarian cheese?”
She stood erect at the stove, cooked spaghetti in a big pot, deep in thought. I looked at her like a puppy. Then she mixed diced tomatoes with Bulgarian cheese and onion and horseradish, and poured the cold sauce on the cooked spaghetti, and put half a bottle of red wine and a pitcher of cold water on the table. “Eat,” she said. “Even people like you deserve to eat.”
For six years I had been married to Sigi and never had we eaten so intimately. We drank the wine from little glasses, like people who have lived in an ancient village from time immemorial.
“What do I have to do?” she asked at last. The dishes sat empty before us and so did the bottle of wine.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just go on working with me on the etrog dealer. A few times a week. I’ll call before I come, don’t worry. You’ll introduce me to your sick friend and say I’m a promising young writer. Or an idiot without any talent who’s trying to write, Mr. Livelihood, whatever you choose. I don’t care. Just don’t hate me.”