by Paul Briggs
The microphones caught them shouting over the singing. The song was some bit of Israeli pop that sounded almost as innocuous as “Had Gadya,” although Carrie couldn’t make out the lyrics. And judging by the humming, neither could Thel. From the way the men were reacting, it might as well have been something by, say, Rodomontade.
The one thing the headcams didn’t see was the rock. Instead, the image suddenly went from integrated-stereoscopic to one-camera, and went from the perspective of a girl standing erect to one who was gradually sinking to the pavement.
Someone else’s camera caught the rock. It was irregular in shape, and about the size of an apple. It didn’t hit her dead-on, but struck her right temple from behind and at an angle. From behind. Somebody hit her from behind. Somebody didn’t even have the nerve to confront a girl head-on.
The good news was that Thel didn’t just go limp—she sat down. Mama was under her right arm, helping lower her into a sitting position, but Thel’s own legs had to be supporting at least some of her own weight. She was just too big a girl for Mama to have done that otherwise. She can’t be that badly hurt. Right?
The footage from Leah Lemel’s firearm, which was supposed to be in police custody, had also leaked. That firearm was the latest model of Uzi pistol. As per security company rules, it was equipped with a camera—if she had to fire it, she also had to be able to show everyone the reason why. When she drew the gun, the camera turned on automatically and started recording. By this time, she was already through the crowd of women and facing the rioters directly.
Red lights blinked at the corners of the screen at the instant the shot was fired. The bullet went over everybody’s heads and buried itself in a sandstone block in the wall of a building across the street.
At the same instant, everyone in the image either ducked or froze.
Then Leah swept the laser sight of her pistol over the crowd at face level. For a split second, the laser went directly into the right eye of a young man holding a rock. He screamed silently and dropped the rock. She might have scorched his retina. Not that he wouldn’t have it coming.
The record from Nahida’s gun camera had also leaked, but it didn’t add any new information. She hadn’t fired, but she’d helped Leah hold off the rioters—if “hold off” was the right way of talking about men who were either sinking to their knees, hands in the air, or else fleeing in all directions. Carrie couldn’t help imagining the smell of loosened bowels and bladders as she watched them run away.
What took most of her and Roger’s time that evening was the hiring of the legal team for Leah and Nahida. Not a lawyer—a legal team. She owed them that much.
* * *
Dr. Zarzir was tan, baby-faced and couldn’t have been older than thirty. Carrie’s first thought on seeing him was who put this kid in charge of my baby?
“I’ll start with the good news,” he said. “There’s no skull fracture and no sign of whiplash. The rock broke the left head cam, so we had to pick some bits of it out of her scalp—there’s a few cuts from that. There’s a lot of bleeding under the scalp, so it’ll look pretty bad. Her pupils are the same size and not dilated, but she’s showing signs of dizziness, loss of coordination, slightly slurred speech… the bottom line is that this is a basic case of concussion, and we know how to treat it. I don’t like making promises, but I’ve seen less healthy people make full recoveries from much worse injuries.”
Carrie nodded. She’s going to be all right. She’s going to be all right.
“Whatever you’ve been told, the thing she needs right now is sleep, and lots of it. You can stay overnight if you like—I’ll let you know when she’s ready to see you. And I know it’s not my business, but can I just say this doesn’t normally happen here?”
“We know.”
“I’m not with the Department of Tourism or anything, but I’m an Arab myself—my family’s got a solar farm out in the Negev—and politics in Israel… it can get scary, but at least we have politics. That’s not common in this part of the world. And every time I think about moving to New York or London, somebody over there goes and elects some lunatic and those places stop looking so good.” Ouch. “Anyway… the best thing to do in a case like this is to let her sleep and come back in the morning.”
For close to a full minute, Carrie stood there holding her mother in her arms, Roger’s arms around them both. “Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam,” whispered Mama.
There had once been a time in Carrie’s life when she thought of tragedy as something that happened to other people. That had ended nineteen years ago.
It happened only a few days after her honeymoon with Roger was over. A phone call, out of nowhere, with no warnings. (Well, no warnings for her. Her father had gotten any number of warnings from his doctor, only to laugh them off.) “Big Bill” Exter, fifty-eight years old, too much in a hurry to even wait for an elevator, had collapsed on the stairs of his own office building from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. After a few days on life support, his heart had given out. We should have at least let them donate the organs. That man who had seemed so much larger than life was now small enough to fit in a coffin. Well, a large coffin. He was six foot five and weighed close to four hundred pounds.
And that had been just the beginning. George’s injury and death, Drew’s injury, Mike’s business failures… for a few years, it had seemed like there was a curse on her whole family.
And then, after immense pain and effort—child-bearing hips, my ass—a baby had come out of her. It was Roger’s idea to name her Thel, after a character in a William Blake poem he’d read back in college. Mama had been hoping for something a little more traditional for her very first grandchild, but she’d come to like it in time.
Little Thel seemed to lift the curse off everybody just by being around. Carrie and Roger had always meant to have more children, but their jobs kept them apart so often… and Thel was such a perfect child that trying too hard for another seemed like pushing their luck.
She’s going to be all right.
Why did I bring her here? What was I thinking?
She’s going to be all right.
I sent her to China by herself for two semesters. She spent the war scare in Beijing wondering if she was about to get nuked by her own country. And she came out of that no worse for wear, except for the phoenix tattoo on her back. Which is actually very good as tattoos go. Even better than Lexi’s roses.
She’s going to be all right.
Of all the places I’ve been in the past year, this is the one I was willing to bring her to. This is the place she was supposed to be safe.
She’s going to be all right.
* * *
It was morning. “I think we can release her tomorrow afternoon,” said Dr. Zarzir, “but for the next few days you’ll have to make sure she doesn’t strain her brain too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“No heavy reading. No hard puzzles. I’d say no schoolwork if this weren’t summer vacation. If she watches a movie, make sure it’s a dumb one.” At any other time, Carrie might have responded with that will definitely not be a problem. Now she just nodded. “Would the three of you like to see her?”
“Yes, please.”
It took Carrie a split second to recognize her daughter. For most of her sixteen years of life, Thel had been a slender shape with a big copper mop on top. Now, just when Carrie was getting used to the girl’s new figure, that mass of hair was gone—cut off and stuffed into a cardboard box on her nightstand. There was nothing left but a red-gold sheen on her scalp in the morning sun. Her head looked so much smaller, and her shoulders broader, without it.
But as Thel sat up in bed, her freckled, beautiful face was still the same as ever. Seeing her mother’s shocked look, she smiled a little, the familiar dimples forming on both cheeks. There were neatly stitched cuts above her left ear, and fresh, swollen bruising from there down behind her ear halfway to her neck.
“Yeah, they had
to shave part of my head just to get at it,” she said. “My hair wasn’t… cooperating with them. I didn’t want to spend three months with a chunk of my hair shorter than the rest… so I said ‘take it all.’” She waved at the box on the nightstand. “They’re gonna… give it to the hair donations guys. Wigs for children in chemo or whatever.”
“That sounds wonderful. How are you feeling?”
“Kinda toilet,” she said. As far as Carrie could tell, “toilet” as an adjective was modern slang for “better than terrible but not as good as mediocre.” “Hey… did anybody else get hurt? Nobody’ll tell me.”
“Just you,” said Carrie. She stepped forward and brushed her fingers over the stubble on the right side of Thel’s head. Then, on a sudden irresistible impulse, she pulled Thel up into a hug.
She patted her mother on the shoulders. “Uh… Mom, you know it grows back, right?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Just so you know, I’m gonna do something different with it this time. Make it a little more manageable.”
“That’s fine, honey.”
Roger got out a tablet and contacted Drew. The face of Carrie’s youngest brother was hard to read, but there was a distinct look of shock on it when he saw Thel.
“Hey, Drew,” she said. “This time, you’re the good-looking one.”
“Nah, still you. How’re you feeling?”
“I’ll live.”
“So what’s the story?”
Thel ran a hand over her scalp. “The shepherds of Israel were having trouble meeting their wool quota, so I chipped in,” she said. “Please tell me it’s not like… three a.m. or something over there.”
“Just after midnight,” he said. “I wish I’d been able to come along. I should’ve been there.”
“It was supposed to be a women’s march, but I bet we could have found a dress in your size.”
Drew chuckled. “I should cut this short—I have to get to work early tomorrow.”
“Tell them you were up all night talking to a sixteen-year-old girl online. They’ll understand.” She managed a wink. “Good night.”
About this time, one of the orderlies arrived with breakfast. It was scrambled eggs with toast and orange juice. Thel drank the orange juice, then examined the pieces of toast as if trying to decide which one was closest to edible.
“I know,” said Dr. Zarzir. “It’s hospital food. But we need to make sure you’re willing to eat something. TBI cases often suffer from nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.”
“I think I’ve figured out why,” said Thel, poking at the scrambled eggs with her fork. “Hey, Grandma, is there a thing in kashrut where if somebody gives you burnt toast and runny eggs, you get to dump it down their shirt?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“There should be. Somebody work on that.”
“You know what?” said the doctor. “I think you’re going to be all right. That said, you should wait a few days before undergoing air travel.”
“I can’t leave just yet anyway,” said Mama. “The authorities need me to make a deposition first. I’m one of the witnesses.” She looked down. “I am so sorry I got you into that.”
“You didn’t get me into anything,” said Thel, spreading eggs onto toast with the air of one determined to make the best of things. “I wanted to be there.”
Just then, Carrie’s phone let her know she had an incoming call.
She checked it. It was from Ruth Terna. It was accompanied by check marks from two different ISPs confirming that this was indeed the prime minister and not some prankster.
* * *
The meeting wasn’t in the prime minister’s office, but in a conference room somewhere in Kiryat Ben-Gurion, the main government complex. Terna, of course, was sitting at the head of the table, the expression on her face a little softer than normal. There were several tough-looking Shin Bet agents around her.
At the other end of the table was a tiny, wizened man cradling his hat in wrinkled hands. Is that who I think it is? No question—it was Rabbi Eliav Rubin, a well-known scholar and the most prominent leader of the ultra-Orthodox. The burly man next to him was his translator, although he looked more like a bodyguard.
“Have a seat,” said Terna. Carrie took a seat in the middle, where she could see everybody.
“Once again,” Terna said, “I’d like to say—and in person this time—how very, very sorry I am that someone did this to your daughter. I wish to apologize on behalf of my country. We will make every effort to track down and punish whoever did it.”
“Thank you. What about Leah and Nahida?”
“Personally, I wouldn’t bother pressing charges, but that decision is in the hands of the city authorities.”
“I understand.”
Terna gestured toward the other end of the table. “The rabbi also has something to say.”
The rabbi spoke in Hebrew, sounding rather flat. Carrie’s last Hebrew lessons had been some thirty years ago, but there was definitely an apology in there somewhere.
“I must apologize for what happened on behalf of my community,” said the translator. Carrie nodded. Neither he nor the rabbi would look her in the eye, but Carrie happened to know that this was because they weren’t supposed to look a woman in the eye unless they were married to her.
Unfortunately, the rabbi kept talking. “You must believe she was never the target,” came the translation. “If we’d had any idea your family was there, we never would have allowed things to get so out of hand.” Carrie’s mood, which had been starting to improve, suddenly turned unpleasant. Seriously? That’s your excuse? You’re going with that? Two days ago I would have considered it an honor to speak with you, Rabbi. Now here you are lying to my face.
“How the fuck,” she said, keeping her voice even, “do you look at a crowd of women and not notice the six-foot redhead?”
Terna winced. That was not the most diplomatic thing she could have said. The translator would probably soften it—if nothing else, Hebrew had been a strictly liturgical language for a long time and had to borrow most of its profanity from Arabic. Even so… The most famous Jewish American politician since Bernie Sanders is going to be ending her first trip to Israel on a sour note. That’s already bad. Don’t make it worse than it needs to be. Was that the cold thing speaking, or just her own instinct to make no needless enemies? How separate were they?
“We were all trying not to look at them too closely,” said Rubin via the translator.
“Nobody should have been throwing things at anybody,” said Terna, sounding like an angry kindergarten teacher.
“We didn’t keep the crowd under control the way we should have. Some of our young men are… reckless. They feel that our way of life is under attack, and… well, you must admit your daughter was rather provocatively dressed.”
“I must admit nothing of the sort,” said Carrie. “You must admit you’ve got some animals that belong in cages.”
Terna nodded. “Compared to a lot of women you see out there, she was quite modest.” This remark was aimed more at Rubin.
That cold part of Carrie didn’t always offer advice. Sometimes it made observations the rest of her was too upset to make. Now it was telling her this: They’re not even trying to look like a united front. Or, maybe, they’re trying to look like a disunited front. Or rather, Terna is trying to look like she’s keeping her distance from Rubin. Even though parties representing the ultra-Orthodox are a part of her coalition.
And this makes sense. For all she knows, she’s talking to the next president of the United States. She doesn’t want you going away angry—or at least, not angry at her.
“You understand,” said Terna, “that this is all strictly personal. None of it should be taken as a sign of policy changes on other matters.”
“I understand,” said Carrie. She hadn’t really held out much hope that this incident would shame Terna into changing her government’s position on underground heat shelters in
the occupied territories.
At the other end of the table, the translator was sitting, eyes pointed at a spot on the table, biting his lip. As for the rabbi, Carrie had never seen a man that old fidgeting in his seat before. She clenched her teeth. Sorry about all the girl cooties in the room. Go rinse yourself off in holy water or whatever the fuck you need to do. With a mighty effort of will, she said nothing. At times like this she envied politicians like Rep. Darling, who’d built themselves a public persona that let them say whatever they felt like in public and get away with it.
* * *
The house where Carrie had grown up and Mama and Drew still lived stood on the crest of a hill northwest of Newport News. Carrie sat on the northeast side of the wraparound porch, looking out at the York River in the distance, a tall glass of homemade mint iced tea in her hand. It was the middle of the morning, and the day was already getting hot—the horrible muggy heat of Virginia, not the searing dry heat of Israel. The chair was one of the big, solid, comforting, old polished hardwood chairs that her father had bought because they could support his weight.
The house felt strange and wrong with Mama not here. She wouldn’t be back until the authorities in Jerusalem made up their minds on whether they needed her as a witness.
Roger came out, a glass of homemade lemonade in his hand. He sat next to her and looked out at the water. For a long time, he was quiet, but she could tell there was something he wanted to say.
Then, finally, he spoke. “The thing about Antarctica—”
As soon as she heard the name of the continent, Carrie had to suppress a groan. “Not this again,” she said, almost overlapping the second half of his sentence. “Honey, have we not talked about it enough?”
“Yes. We have. And what you said at the time was that going there was too dangerous. But the thing about Antarctica is, nobody ever tries to hurt you there.”
“Of course not,” said Carrie. “It’s the one place on Earth where other people aren’t your biggest problem. And speaking of other people, why should it be you that goes there?”