by Paul Sussman
Despite such speculation, no-one has come any closer to discovering the truth about al-Mulatham. And now I am sitting in front of him. The new Saladin. The Devil incarnate. The most dangerous man in the Middle East. He asks if I would like some tea and a biscuit.
From outside there came the clatter of a bin lid. Layla rubbed her eyes, stood up and went over to the window, looking out at the street below. Two men were loading freshly baked bread into the back of a van; further down the hill a small group of people had already started queuing outside the Israeli Interior Ministry office in the forlorn hope of getting their city residency permits renewed. A little beyond them, on the other side of the road, a battered white BMW was parked in front of the entrance to the Garden Tomb, with yellow Israeli number plates and, just visible inside, a shadowy figure sitting motionless in the driving seat. She had seen the same car parked there a number of times before, and although the rational explanation for its presence was that it was a Shin Bet vehicle keeping tabs on the Palestinians queuing opposite, she couldn't shake a carping suspicion that its driver was in fact staring directly up at the windows of her flat. She looked down at it now, more intrigued than discomforted, then, with a shake of the head, went back to the sofa and picked up the article again.
She skimmed the rest of it – basically an extended series of quotes in which al-Mulatham justified his campaign of violence and vowed to continue it 'until the soil of Palestine runs red with the blood of Jewish children' – before slowing again for the final few paragraphs, which always sent a slight shiver down her spine.
And then suddenly, as abruptly as it started, the interview is at an end. One minute we are talking, the next I am heaved to my feet and led downstairs again, the blacked-out goggles still over my head. As I reach the ground floor I hear his voice from above.
'There are many who will question whether this interview actually took place, Miss al-Madani. To silence any doubters, please inform the Israeli security services that at precisely 9.05 p.m. tonight one of our operatives will martyr himself in the name of a free Palestine. I wish you a safe journey.'
Two hours later I am abandoned on a roadside just south of Bethlehem. I inform the Israeli authorities what has happened. That same night, at the time specified, a bomb goes off in Hagar Square in West Jerusalem, killing eight people and injuring ninety-three. It says more than any interview could about the nihilism of the man known as al-Mulatham that those killed and maimed were attending a Gush Shalom peace rally.
'He has done almost as much damage to my people as the creation of the State of Israel,' Sa'eb Marsoudi has said. 'More, perhaps, for where once we were seen as victims, now, thanks to him, we are regarded as murderers.'
I suspect al-Mulatham would regard this as a compliment.
She laid the article aside and picked up the curious letter again, reading through it one final time, brow furrowed. There was definitely something about it, something . . . compelling. She was too tired to do anything more about it now, however, and, leaving both the article and the letter on her study desk, she went to bed, falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, the initials GR echoing at the edge of her mind like distant rumbles of thunder on a dark winter's night.
EGYPT, THE SINAI PENINSULA, CLOSE TO THE BORDER WITH ISRAEL
It was a mystery. That was all the old man could say about it. Like so many things in the desert. Lights where there shouldn't be lights, shadowy figures that came and went with the darkness, a neatly furnished room in the middle of the wilderness. In seventy years he had never seen anything like it. A very great mystery.
It had started a year ago, as he searched for one of his goats amid the shallow, twisting wadis that wound along the border with Israel. Night had fallen, and he had been about to abandon his hunt when, coming to the top of a gravelly ridge, he had noticed a faint light glowing below inside an abandoned army border post. There had been no soldiers in this part of the desert for decades, no people at all aside from occasional Bedouin such as himself, and then only passing through, for it was a barren, lonely place, inhospitable even to those used to the harshness of the desert. Yet now there was a light where there hadn't been light before, and people too, just visible inside the low stone building.
He had crept downwards, his goat forgotten, approaching the building and coming up on tiptoe to peer through the window. Inside, illuminated by the oily glow of a kerosene lamp, were two men, one with a cigar wedged into the corner of his mouth, a long scar running down his right cheek and a white skullcap on his head, such as was worn by the yehudi-een; the other younger, handsome, with thick black hair and a checked keffiyeh slung across his shoulders. They were hunched over a collapsible camp table staring at a map, talking together in a language he didn't understand, their fingers tracing patterns across the crumpled paper. To their right, two comfortable armchairs were set side by side against the wall; on another table sat a thermos flask and a half-eaten plate of sandwiches.
He had watched for a few minutes, then, fearful of being spotted, moved away, wrapping his schal around him against the cold and crouching down behind a rock, waiting to see what would happen. At one point he heard angry shouting; a little later the younger man came out and urinated against the wall.
All night he had stayed there, watching, listening, until in the chill hour before dawn the light had gone out and the two men emerged into the night, moving off around the side of the building. He counted to fifty and followed, weaving among the scattered boulders, keeping his distance, eventually coming round a high shoulder of rock just in time to see a large helicopter hoisting itself into the air, its down-draft enveloping him in a choking cloud of dust. It had hovered overhead for a moment, then swung off into the greying eastern sky.
After that he had seen the two mysterious figures many times. Sometimes they would appear once or even twice a week; sometimes as much as two months would elapse between visits. Always, however, they came in the dead of night, and always they left with the first hint of day, as if afraid of the sun's revealing light. He mentioned it to some of his fellow Bedouin, but they laughed and said his brain had been softened by the sun, and after that he did not speak of it again, which was fine by him, for he rather liked the idea of being privy to a secret no-one else knew about.
'One day you will be involved in great events,' his grandmother had once told him, when he had been a child, before the yehudi-een had come and there had been war. 'Events that will change the world.'
Squatting there behind his rock, gazing at the ghostly flickering light and listening to the men's voices, he felt sure that this is what she had meant. And he was happy for that, because somehow, deep down, he had always known that his life would amount to more than simply tending a flock of scrawny desert goats.
PART TWO A WEEK LATER
JERUSALEM
They walk close to the front of the procession, arm in arm, singing with the others, each holding a flaming taper so that the evening is freckled with a thousand points of flickering light. She has long brown hair gathered into an untidy bun on top of her head, and wears a thin spring dress of yellow cotton, the contours of her young, slim body echoing through the flimsy material, a rumour of veiled shapeliness. He is taller than her, and broader, a bear beside a gazelle, his face huge and craggy, like something crudely hewn out of wood, ugly and handsome at the same time. He keeps looking down at her, shaking his head as if unable to believe he is with someone so beautiful, so fragile and so gentle. She reads his thoughts and laughs. 'It's me who's the lucky one, Ari-yari,' she says. 'I'm going to be the happiest wife in the whole wide world.'
They come to an open space and the procession breaks and spreads, rearranging itself in front of a makeshift stage where speeches are made beneath a banner bearing the word PEACE. They hold hands and listen, applauding, cheering, glancing at each other constantly, eyes bright with love and hope.
After a while he leaves her, saying that he wants to get something to drink. Instead,
chuckling to himself, he slips into a late-night florist's and buys her a flower, a single white lily, her favourite. He is on his way back, smiling at the thought of her delight as he sweeps the bloom out from behind his back, when he hears the explosion. At first he is uncertain from which direction the sound comes. Then he sees the plume of smoke and breaks into a jog, then a sprint, stomach tight with foreboding.
In the square there are bodies everywhere, and parts of bodies, and people screaming. He stumbles around yelling her name, feet slopping in blood, the trill of unanswered mobile phones echoing in his ears, eventually finding her beneath a shattered cypress tree, her dress blown away so that she is almost naked. Her legs have been torn off and are lying nearby.
'Oh my darling.' He chokes on his words, cradling her in his arms, her warm blood pumping over his shirt and jeans. 'Oh my beautiful darling Galia.'
Somehow she manages to raise her arm and, clasping a blistered hand round the back of his head, pulls his face down towards her own. She kisses him, her mouth broken and bloody, like a crushed crayon, and whispers into his ear, faintly, words that only he can hear, words that will stay with him for ever. And then her head flops back and she is dead.
Bewildered, empty, lonely beyond any loneliness he has ever known, he gazes down at her torn body, the lily still clutched in his hand, its petals red now. All around him the night fills with the wailing of sirens, as if the air itself is screaming in despair.
'Arieh!'
Sirens everywhere.
'Arieh!'
Lights, shouting, people running.
'Ben-Roi, you stupid cunt, what the fuck are you doing?'
Arieh Ben-Roi jerked awake, banging his head on the car window. His silver hip-flask had slipped from his hand, spilling what was left of the vodka into his lap, soaking his jeans. Sirens were blaring. His earpiece was going berserk.
'Go, man! For fuck's sake go!'
For a moment he sat there flummoxed, suspended between past and present; then, realizing what was going on, he flipped open the glove compartment, snatched his Jericho pistol and stumbled out of the taxi. In front of him a steep tarmaced road ran up towards the Lions Gate, where a black Mercedes was frantically trying to reverse, its tyres screeching. Behind, a phalanx of police cars had come skidding to a halt, blocking any escape from the Old City, their flashing lights throwing psychedelic patterns across the old Muslim cemeteries ranged across the slopes to either side. He broke into a loping run, ripping the keffiyeh from his head and casting it aside.
They'd been planning the bust for over a month. An informer had tipped them off about a big dope delivery to the Old City dealers. No definite date, just a time and place: midnight, the Lions Gate. They'd been staking it out ever since, working undercover as vagrants, refuse collectors, tourists, lovers. For the past three nights Ben-Roi had been parked on the hill leading up to the gate disguised as an Arab taxi driver, waiting, watching, swigging from his hip-flask. And now, finally, the balloon had gone up. And he'd been asleep.
'Fuck it,' he muttered, blundering on up the hill, the car in front of him roaring and skidding like a cornered animal. 'Bloody fuck it!'
To his right, marksmen were stalking forward through the undergrowth of the Yusefiya cemetery; ahead, inside the Lions Gate, three men were spread-eagled, face down on the cobbles, surrounded by police.
'Take out the tyres!' screeched his earpiece. 'Shoot low!'
Ben-Roi dropped to his knees and raised his pistol. His hand was trembling with the vodka, and before he had time to steady it three cracks echoed around him, two from the cemetery, one from the wall above the gate. The Mercedes' front tyres exploded in unison, slewing the car into a wall. There was a pause, then the doors opened and three Palestinian men emerged, arms raised above their heads.
'Udrubu aal ard! Sakro ayunuk!' came an amplified voice. 'Hit the ground and close your eyes!'
The men obeyed, going down on their knees and then their bellies. A swarm of police flew from the shadows and descended on them, yanking their arms behind their backs, slapping handcuffs on their wrists, searching them.
'OK, guys, we've got them,' echoed the earpiece. 'Good work, everyone.'
Ben-Roi remained on his knees, breathing heavily; then, with a sigh, he flicked on the Jericho's safety catch, got to his feet and plodded up the hill towards the stricken Mercedes, fingers playing with a miniature silver menorah hanging on a chain around his neck.
'Kind of you to join us,' said a wiry man who was squatting beside one of the prisoners, hand clasped tightly around the back of the man's neck.
'Bloody radio,' muttered Ben-Roi, tapping his earpiece. 'Couldn't hear a thing.'
'Yeah, right.'
The man threw him a sceptical glance, hoisted the prisoner to his feet and marched him away towards a nearby police van. Ben-Roi considered going after him, arguing his case, but couldn't be bothered. What was the point? What was the point of anything these days? It was all a waste of time. Let Feldman think what he wanted. He didn't give a shit.
He stood watching as forensics officers in plastic gloves and white body-suits gathered around the Mercedes, then turned and, removing his earpiece, started back towards his car, alone, useless, unable to share in the general sense of satisfaction at a job well done. He remembered the time when, as a kid, he'd been sent out of class for wetting his shorts and felt the same sense of isolation now, of awkwardness and embarrassment and shame. Always he felt ashamed. That he should be like this. That he'd let himself go so badly. That he'd gone to buy the lily. That he'd lived.
Reaching the car, he threw a forlorn glance over his shoulder, then got in, started the engine and idled downhill, swinging out onto the Ophel Road. To his left, the shadowy, tree-filled well of the Kidron Valley dropped away below him; to his right, a three-metre walled embankment ran alongside the road, with above it the overgrown slope of the Muslim cemetery sweeping upwards towards the floodlit line of the Old City walls. He pushed down on the accelerator and changed up to third, covering a hundred metres before slowing again and, keeping one hand on the wheel, leaning down to retrieve his hip-flask. Most of its contents had spilled away, but there was still a trace of liquid in the bottom and, slowing the car still further, he put the flask to his lips, arched his head back and drained what was left, grimacing at the fiery taste in his throat and the sharpness of his self-loathing.
'You disgust me,' he mumbled. 'You're pathetic. Pathetic.'
He held the flask until the last few drops had splashed down into his mouth, then threw it over his shoulder into the back seat and depressed the accelerator again, jerking the steering wheel round to straighten the car, which had started to drift into the opposite carriageway, attracting a furious honking from an oncoming lorry.
'Fuck you!' he shouted, hammering his own horn. 'Fuck all of you!'
The lorry flashed past to his left. At the same moment something seemed to drop from the embankment to his right. It happened in a flash and, fuzzed as he was with vodka and weariness, his first, incoherent thought was that a large animal had leapt from the cemetery above. He slowed and glanced in his rear-view mirror, travelling a further fifty metres up the road before it registered that what he'd actually seen was a man jumping down from the embankment onto the pavement below, where he was now squatting, clutching his knee, which he seemed to have injured. Again, Ben-Roi's mind struggled to deal coherently with the information, and another fifty metres rolled by before it occurred to him that the man must be one of the dope pushers who'd somehow slipped through the police net. He swung into the kerb and grabbed his walkie-talkie.
'There's still one out here!' he shouted into the mouthpiece. 'Do you read? There's still one out here! Ophel Road, top of the Kidron path. I need back-up. Repeat. Need back-up.'
There was a cough of static, and a crackly voice acknowledged his request. He jammed the walkie-talkie into his pocket, grabbed his pistol and clambered out of the car. The Palestinian, aware that he had been spotted, had by n
ow hobbled over the road and onto a broad stepped path leading down into the Kidron Valley. Ben-Roi broke into a lumbering sprint, dodging a truck full of aubergines coming from one direction and a pair of taxis from the other as he too crossed the road. A year ago the adrenalin would have been pumping through him. Now he was overweight and out of shape, and all he could think of was why the hell was he bothering to do this.
'Come on!' he urged himself, his lungs already starting to burn. 'Come on, you fat cunt!'
He reached the top of the path and saw his quarry limping along below him. He raised his Jericho, but the man was now too far away to be sure of the shot so he resumed running, down and down, a vicious stitch cutting into his side, his breath coming in short, painful rasps. The Palestinian was clearly in distress with his knee, and had he been fitter Ben-Roi would have swiftly narrowed the gap between them. As it was, he gained on the man only slowly and was still a good forty metres behind by the time they reached the valley floor, where the path started to level out, running alongside a row of ancient rock tombs cut back into the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives.