by Naomi Litvin
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Two weeks had gone by and the kidnapped boys were still missing. I heard that there was going to be a rally in Rabin Square which I wanted to attend. At first I was fearful, as I knew that Rabin Square was where the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had taken place. My fear was not as strong as my desire to be in solidarity with my people, so I walked there from my flat, which was not far from Rabin Square and I got there quite early.
I was near the stage, able to stand right behind the fence that was set up to separate the crowd from the chairs for the families of the boys and dignitaries that would attend. Within a short time, the Square filled up with thousands of people. I was boxed in but I didn’t care. I felt no claustrophobia or anxiety, just unity.
The music began with the IDF chorus singing Ha’Tikvah, the national anthem of Israel. I was taking pictures and looking around. The rally was called ‘Bring Back Our Boys.’ I was wearing my yellow, rubber bracelet with those words, given to me by some kids, the night before, near Gordon beach where Israeli dancing took place.
Giant TV screens flashed slide shows with the kidnapped boys and their favorite music. The boys’ lives, their families, and their friends were so real; we all had hope that they were still alive. One by one the kidnapped boys’ mothers got up and spoke about their children and begged for all children to be left out of the conflict.
There were many important people there and the tens of thousands of supporters with Israeli flags united in supporting the three families. A lot of speakers participated and I recognized the American Ambassador to Israel sitting not far from me.
After it was over, I realized that I was hungry and thirsty. I stopped into a bar on Ben Gurion Boulevard and ordered a hamburger and a beer. The bartender offered me a free shot of Arak.
I said, “Only if you join me.”
He seemed pleased and we toasted to the safe return of the kidnapped boys. The Arak, an anise-flavored liquor, was a traditional alcoholic drink in the Middle East. I drank it down in one gulp and it burned my throat and made my eyes water. The bartender, of course, was gorgeous and we got into a conversation about the kidnapping. I didn’t stay long after finishing my meal, as I had plans the next morning to return to Masada.
Originally, the plan was to meet Arthur and Dalia Goldin at the Dead Sea National Park for a picnic. I called them and told them that I needed to go to Masada first and would call them from there. This time I wouldn’t take a tour bus. I’d planned to get a #5 bus from Tel Aviv’s Alozorov Station to Jerusalem Central Bus Station via one of many choices of buses, and from there get the #444 directly to Masada.
It would be a long trip but I figured that I’d be welcome to spend the night with the Goldins in Jerusalem. I didn’t have a specific plan, but strongly felt the need to see Masada one more time to look at the five locations and see if I felt like I missed anything.
Now that I knew that Saul was Hershel the Kapo’s son and that the conspiracy was real, I could possibly see something that I missed. Arthur had told me to be careful of being followed. And Dalia was especially concerned. They decided to pick me up at Masada instead of meeting me at the Dead Sea and would arrive at 1:00 PM. We agreed to stay in touch by phone or text before that.
Looking around for someone that might be following me made me very nervous. My timing had been pretty good in getting to Arlozorov Station, but it was crowded. As I waited for another bus to Jerusalem I saw someone who looked like the German Arab. He was in normal Western style clothing and wearing a baseball cap, so I couldn’t be sure if it was actually him.
Fear was gripping me and as I got on the bus I decided to find a soldier to sit by. They always had their automatic weapons with them on the buses. I sat down next to the first soldier I spotted that had a window seat. The fellow I thought was Tajir got on and went to the rear. I pretended not to notice him and smiled at the soldier.
When I got to Jerusalem I didn’t see the German Arab. He must have gotten off from the rear door. There was about a half hour before the #444 was leaving for Masada, so I went around to where the Ne’eman Bakery was on the first floor to buy some pastries, coffee, and water for the rest of the trip. I wanted to get a particular coffee cake that I knew Arthur loved, to surprise him. I packed it into my backpack leaving a pastry out to eat while I waited for the next bus.
When I boarded the #444 I looked around carefully in the bus and did not see the German Arab. I breathed a sigh of relief, settled into a seat further back this time and drank my coffee.
It was a little after 1:00 PM when I arrived at Masada. I felt relief that the weather was cooler than it was the last time I was there. I texted to Dalia that I had arrived at Masada, and she replied that they had been delayed but were on their way. I texted back that I would wait for them at the top of Masada.
The cable car was starting to fill up and I got on. Suddenly, I realized that the German Arab was right by me. He stuck a gun in my ribs and put a finger to his lips to signal me to be quiet. The three minute ride seemed to take much longer. I noticed that he was licking his lips.
I was trying hard to breathe. There wasn’t much time to think. As the door slid open he pulled me back to the rear. The other riders got off. The cable car conductor also stepped out and then the German Arab somehow slammed the door shut and jumped into the driver seat and let the brake go. I was jolted to the floor and the cable car went in reverse.
I was howling, “Stop, stop, let me out!” He didn’t answer, but then the cable car stopped. I got up off the floor and looked out, we seemed to be halfway between the up and down route. He jumped off the seat and faced me.
“Don’t you see what you have done?” He was angry, and I didn’t respond. I was looking for his gun. I didn’t know where he put it but it wasn’t in his hand at that moment.
“What do you want from me?” My voice was hoarse from yelling. I needed a drink of water.
He started bellowing, “Shut up Jew! You think you can come here and stop our plans?”
“What are you talking about, I am just here to live my life! Who are you and what do you want from me?” I didn’t know what to expect, but I stopped talking in order to let him speak.
“You may as well know that my name is Tajir, and I am the son of Joachim. My father was a proud German soldier who worked with Millie’s grandfather in service of the Fuhrer. We have known of you for a very long time and we have been waiting for you to come to Israel. There is nothing you can do to stop the plan.”
“You mean I was in your scope? How dare you!” My anger was not getting me anywhere and I made a conscious effort to slow my breathing.
In the meantime, Arthur and Dalia had arrived and must have noticed that one of the two cable cars was stopped at the halfway point. I heard the notification sound on my smart phone that I had a text message. When I didn’t answer, Arthur would had alerted the Masada security. I hoped.
I was trying to keep Tajir talking. “Why do you think I am here to disrupt your plans? What plans are you talking about? Who do you think I am? I am your friend’s roommate, that’s all.”
“At first I only thought you were an annoyance, just the stupid daughter of a stinken Jewess from slave labor. You must be punished for what you did to me in Haifa and also for your idiotic snooping into our affairs.” Tajir was clearly agitated and out of his crazy mind.
“Come on Tajir, you are going to kill me anyway, why don’t you tell me who you are and what The Masada Faktor really is?” I was torturing myself trying to think of a plan.
Tajir had a faraway look in his eyes. “I am the eldest son of Joachim. My father was a very important man in the Third Reich. He moved to Egypt after the end of the war, converted to Islam and married my mother, a good Arab woman. I was groomed to continue the important work that Germany had started. When the time came, I was sent to Haifa to be with the German Templar community and to await my orders.”
I didn’t want him to stop talking so I ask
ed, “Where is your father?”
“My father is sick, he had a stroke in 1976 but he is still alive in a care facility.”
I continued, “Who else is involved? Weren’t there six Nazis?”
Tajir was shouting and his English was becoming mixed with German and Arabic but I was able to decipher some of what he was saying, that Bruno and Wilhelm were dead.
At that point he became angrier. “Why am I telling you any of this?” He started to rant about the devotion of the group to exterminate the Jews once and for all, and was waving both hands at me. His spittle hit me in the eye.
“What about Saul? Where is he? Do you know who Absalom is?” I was on a need-to-know basis, and really needed to know. But he didn’t answer any of my questions, as the cable car abruptly moved with a jolt.
It appeared that Masada security had been able to begin to pull the cable car back up, but slowly. It was moving upward possibly inch by inch. The movement made him turn around and I took my backpack and hit him in the head with it. That didn’t do anything, really, except enrage him further and he pulled his gun from his waistband.
Thinking that I had a second or two until the hand holding the gun came back to pointing at me, I decided to try an axe kick on him. A front axe kick requires more flexibility than a real axe kick, but I didn’t want to telegraph my intentions by rotating my hip to increase the height of my kick. Besides, he wasn’t taller than me so I quickly brought my right leg straight up, and leaning back slightly, brought my leg down with full force, aiming my heel on the wrist of his hand that held the gun.
The hard bone of my heel knocked the gun from his hand. This caught him completely off balance and I jumped toward him sticking two fingers directly into his larynx as hard as I could.
Before he could recover I had the gun pointed on him. “I will kill you, you stinking Nazi,” I was yelling and crying and then we were back at the top. Masada security and Arthur and Dalia were there. Arthur took the gun from me and handed it to security.
Dalia came to me and comforted me as best she could by hugging me and whispering in my ear. “Hacol beseder, everything will be all right. Natasha, you are not in danger now.”
I was questioned by Masada security with Arthur and Dalia interpreting for me. I told them about the other confrontations with Tajir. He was arrested and I was to be summoned back for questioning at a later time.
Arthur had taken care of the situation for the time being. He said that we really didn’t have enough evidence to present the entire story of Mother’s mystery to the authorities yet. But he had promised that he’d bring me in the next day to give a more detailed statement to Israeli police.
We drove to the Dead Sea in Arthur’s car to get some ice cold drinks, relax in the mineral hot tubs, and then float in the Sea. Dalia had brought a beautiful picnic lunch. I pulled out the coffee cake which was totally flattened after hitting Tajir in the head with my backpack. We had a good laugh out of that. We could not allow what had happened at Masada to ruin our afternoon. Being Israelis, all three of us agreed on that.
Later they took me back to their place where we worked on what I would tell the Masada police. At least Tajir was in custody and I was relieved and safe again.
Arthur and Dalia took me back to Masada in the morning to answer questions from Masada security. Then they drove me to downtown Jerusalem to catch a bus back to Tel Aviv.
I arrived back to the horrific news that the three kidnapped boys had been found dead. It was June 30 and it was all over the news. The entire country was in mourning and people everywhere were talking about the possibility of a major conflict.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There had been two Palestinian teenagers killed outside the Ofer Prison a few weeks earlier at a riot during Nakba Day, the anniversary of Israel’s independence, from the Arab point of view. They were calling it the Beitunia killings and it was fueling unrest and fear of more violence.
Israeli forces were arresting hundreds of Palestinians and conducting searches in the West Bank for the boys’ murderers. Massive rocket attacks from Gaza began in southern Israel. Not that it was anything new; since I had arrived the rocket launchings and terrorist attacks had been continuous: 136 in March, 112 in April, 116 in May, and 136 in June.
During the first eight days of July, 250 missiles were fired. An IDF airstrike killed seven Hamas militants in Khan Yunis. Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks coming from Gaza. There was talk of Hamas having new types of weapons that could reach Tel Aviv.
Everyone was talking about a war starting. The people on the street agreed that we had to strike back. There were just too many rocket launchings. The people in the south were scrambling for shelter many times a day already.
During the first week of July I was getting very worried about staying in Tel Aviv. Not only was the fear palpable but I didn’t know about Millie and what she had planned. She had been away on an extended assignment and I didn’t know when she was returning.
I had to accept that my life might be in danger when Millie returned. And if she didn’t get me then I thought the rockets from Gaza might.
You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. It just so happened that I had a friend named Lior, who had rented a large house in the town of Hadera and needed a roommate. I simply had a gut feeling to get out of Tel Aviv as soon as possible. As much as I loved Tel Aviv, I felt like my life depended on getting out of there. The thought of leaving Tel Aviv was breaking my heart.
I planned to leave without telling Millie. I was now sure that she was part of the plan to get rid of me before I had more information to go to the authorities. I would make sure to leave while she was out of town. I hired the movers and was all packed. They would arrive at 8:00 the next morning.
I was about to go to the bar downstairs and have a cold beer but when I tried to leave the flat the lock on the door jammed and I could not make it work. After running around the entire building looking for someone to help me fix the broken lock, one of the neighbors gave me the phone number of the building owner.
I didn’t want to sleep with the door unlocked and also, though I felt like Millie was a murderer, wanted to lock the door on the way out so she couldn’t accuse me of a burglary.
I phoned the owner of the building and he told me he was sick and would send his son over to fix the lock. His son’s name was Jami and he would be there soon. I answered the knocking on the door to see Jami, the sexiest man I had seen yet. We looked at each other without saying a word, then I let him in.
It took Jami over two hours to get the locking mechanism fixed. He had to call a professional locksmith as it appeared that the lock had been tampered with. Jami was puzzled about the thought of someone purposely sabotaging the door lock and asked me if I had any idea why it could have been done.
Jami also wanted to know who I was, as he said that Millie Stone had specifically been told that if she took a roommate it must be disclosed and the roommate would have to fill out an application. I wanted to confide in Jami, not about The Masada Faktor, but about not trusting Millie. Since I would be leaving in the morning anyway and would probably never see Jami again, I made the decision to get some things off my chest. But then I started to cry, and lost control of my emotions.
He was concerned and put his arms around me. He started to rub my back and then my neck and then his hands were on my face. We kissed briefly and then went into my room.
I closed the door and told him about Tajir, the German Arab. And I told him of Millie’s German roots without mentioning exactly what it might be about, just that my fear was connected to Millie and that Tajir had been arrested for attacking me.
Jami thought I was exaggerating but still, he was sweet. I wanted to forget everything for a few minutes and laid down on my bed. I asked Jami to go to the kitchen for a bottle of sparkling cider that was in the fridge. While he went, I became lightheaded and felt the spinning vertigo coming, so I closed my eyes.
J
ami came back with the cold cider and put it between my legs, which woke me up and made me laugh. We started playfully wrestling in the bed, and I looked at what was a hard on in his pants. I felt it.
“Is that for me?” I certainly hoped it was.
“Yes, it is. Are you sure you want it?” Now he was teasing me.
I wanted it. That was for sure. “Yes, please.”
I removed my tank top and shorts, bra and panties. “Your turn to strip,” I instructed him firmly, and while he did I started putting lavender oil between my legs.
He was quick about getting undressed and we got right to the sexual act which was like the Sea crashing in waves. I came very fast and Jami acted surprised and said that it turned him on even more. He was much more excited and then he climaxed. We continued kissing deeply for a long time, then fell asleep entwined in each other’s arms. I woke a few hours later to find that he was gone.