Murder Under the Bridge

by Kate Raphael

  “Fii jesh fok.” The army is up there, pointing toward the road.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Watching.”

  “How long have they been there?”

  “A long time.”

  That was typical for this time of morning. The border police knew that men crossed into Israel here every morning, and they made it their business to hang around and wait.

  “Inshalla,” hopefully, “they will leave soon.” She strolled away toward the road. She would park herself at a safe distance and watch the watchers.

  “Hey,” the man called after her.

  She turned.

  “Can’t you make them go away?”

  She smiled, though from the distance they probably couldn’t see. “Laa, asfi.” No, I’m sorry. She started walking again.

  “Then what can you do?” The man’s scornful voice rang out across the fields. The other men with him laughed.

  “Not much,” she muttered. Her eyes burned, and she was glad they couldn’t see her blushing.

  She reached the border police jeep. Top Killer was there, with two of the others, including the one who told her to go to Iraq. They were lounging by the side of their jeep, smoking. They seemed relaxed. She didn’t even see the young man kneeling behind the jeep until Top Killer sauntered over and kicked him in the head. The young man flopped over on his side from the force of the kick. His hands were cuffed behind him so he couldn’t right himself. Top Killer walked away, leaving the prisoner writhing on the ground.

  Chloe’s fury got the better of her good sense. She walked quickly to the young man and helped him sit up.

  “Thank you,” he said softly in English.

  Chloe was relieved. Ordinarily she would ask a Palestinian man before touching him, but she had reacted on instinct.

  “It’s nothing,” she replied. “What are they holding you for?”

  “They say I am wanted.”

  She wondered if he was. She wasn’t sure how to ask without being completely inappropriate. If he was, she would definitely not be able to help him. If not, she probably still was unlikely to have any influence over these border police, but one of her Israeli friends might be able to call a higher-up to have him released. She took a few pictures, close up enough to show his bruises.

  “You didn’t go to Iraq yet?” She looked up to see Iraq and Top Killer coming toward her.

  “What is your name?” she asked the young man. At least if she knew his name, she could try to find out what happened to him.

  “Mohammed.”

  Before she could ask his last name, Top Killer had grabbed her by the hair.

  “You don’t speak to him!” He was dragging her by her hair. She tried to remember what she had learned in her long-ago nonviolence training. Lean into him. She did so, and the pain in her head lessened. He threw her against the jeep.

  “Give me your ID,” he ordered.

  “Why? You know who I am,” she said.

  “Give me the ID now.”

  Chloe figured she was damned no matter what she did. She reached into her back pocket and brought forth a green plastic folder. She held it out to him, trying not to show her trepidation.

  “What is this?” He almost spat the words.

  Chloe concentrated on keeping her voice quiet and even. “Open it and you will see.”

  Top Killer stared down at the little plastic folder as if he suspected if he opened it, it might blow up in his hand. Finally he opened it and ripped the copy of her passport out from between the flaps.

  “This is shit!” He threw the paper down on the ground. Chloe quickly bent and retrieved it. She tucked it back into her pocket before he could tear it up. It might be only a copy, but it was all she had right now.

  “Give me your passport!” Top Killer screamed in her ear.

  “I’m sorry, that’s all I have,” indicating the empty green folder he was twisting between white-knuckled hands.

  “It’s shit,” he said again. “Where is your passport?”

  “I don’t carry it with me. It might get lost or stolen.” That wasn’t the whole reason she didn’t bring it with her, but it was a good enough one.

  “If you don’t have your ID, you know what that means?”

  “No, what?”

  “It means I have to treat you like a terrorist. Only wanted terrorists don’t carry ID. And do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are going to blow themselves up anyway.”

  That didn’t make much sense to her. If they were going to blow themselves up, why would they care who saw their ID? But she had a more immediate problem.

  “You know I’m not a terrorist.”

  “How do I know?”

  “Has there ever been an attack by a middle-aged foreign woman?”

  Iraq laughed, which made Top Killer angrier.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But you have to come with me now.”

  “Come with you where?”

  “To the police.”

  He grabbed her arm in a vise-like grip. She tried to break free, but Iraq grabbed her other arm. She thought about sitting down, but the ground was rocky and pocked with thorns. Iraq twisted her arm behind her back, not too hard, but hard enough to prevent her from struggling.

  Top Killer snapped the handcuffs from his belt—metal ones, not the plastic ones Mohammed wore—and jangled them in her face.

  “Give me your hands,” he said.

  When she didn’t hold out her hands, he grabbed both her wrists in one hand and cuffed them in front, to her surprise not too tightly. Iraq prodded her into the back of the jeep and got in next to her, while Top Killer jumped in front with the driver. The driver gunned the engine fiercely before taking off. They seemed to have completely forgotten about Mohammed. As they drove into Israel, she peeked out between the doors and saw the men who were waiting starting to trickle up onto the road. At least her arrest did two good things. Hopefully someone would have a knife to cut Mohammed’s cuffs off.

  She watched the road signs fly by, excited in spite of herself. She should be beside herself with worry; what if they deported her? She was not ready to go home yet. But this was a new experience, and she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like. Would she be interrogated? What would they ask? What should she say?

  They would probably take her phone away when she got to the police station. She better try to let someone know she where was. She wondered who she could tell. She didn’t want to bother any Palestinians, and she didn’t know any Israelis well. She flashed on Tina, even the fleeting thought making her pulse rise. What would Tina do, if a woman she had just met once suddenly sent her a message saying, “I’m in jail, you have to get me out”? Tina had only been here a short while. Would she have any idea who to call? Would she have any interest in calling them if she did? Better not chance it.

  She took out her phone surreptitiously, cradling it in one nearly closed hand and shielding it with the other. She must look like she was petting an egg, but fortunately neither of the police were looking at her. She flipped through phone numbers with the barest flick of a fingernail. Avi’s was the second number. They weren’t friends, but he respected her and she was starting to think she had underestimated him. Plus he had been arrested a million times. He’d know what to do. She spelled out “I arrested need lawy,” before Iraq saw her and grabbed for the phone. She just managed to hit send before he got it out of her hand and stuck it triumphantly in his pocket. A minute later, the jeep screeched to a halt in the parking lot of the Ariel police station.

  “Get out,” Iraq ordered her when he opened the door. She followed him and Top Killer into the station. He uncuffed her and ordered her not to move from the hard wooden bench next to the door. A woman cop took her into a little room and went through all her things. When she found Chloe’s passport copy, she stared at it for a long moment.

  “San Francisco,” she read.

  “Yes. In California
.”

  “I know where it is. I was there once.”

  “Really? You have family there or something?”

  “No. I went with a school trip. To play soccer. It’s very beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is.” Chloe tried frantically to think of a way to use this little bonding encounter to her advantage. She couldn’t really think of one.

  “You live in San Francisco and you came to Israel? You must be nuts.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly in Israel.” Chloe knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth she had blown it.

  “Take your things and follow me.” Chloe scooped up all her belongings into her jacket and followed the policewoman back to the same wooden bench. Top Killer and Iraq were talking excitedly with the police in Hebrew. She didn’t know what they were saying, but she could tell it was about her: “HaAmerikayit. Deportatsia,” Top Killer kept saying.

  The border police finally left, and she sat around more hours with no one talking to her. She hadn’t even brought a book, which was like a religion with her. Here or at home, she almost never left the house without one, but just today, because she wasn’t planning to be out long, she had brought nothing to read or to eat. There was nothing in the station with one word of English on it. She had not had breakfast, and was starting to get hungry and cranky.

  It was early afternoon when a brusque policeman finally summoned her from the bench to which she had nearly become welded. He showed her into an office that was covered from wall to wall with stacks of manila folders. There were two chairs parked opposite a big desk. Both contained piles of folders. She waited for the man behind the desk to suggest what to do with them, but he was yelling into the phone at someone. Finally, she added the stack from one chair to one on the floor. She doubted there could be much order to this chaos, but if there was, she could only hope to upset it a little. She sat down and studied the guy on the phone.

  He was the big, bald policeman she had seen the day before at Abu Anwar’s house. The nameplate on his desk reminded her that he was Benny Lazar. His main modus operandi appeared to be yelling at people; Chloe wondered if he had gotten to the top by drowning everyone else out. But when he turned to her, his manner was mild.

  “So,” he said, eyeing her over the top of his glasses. “You know you’re going to be deported, right?”

  Her stomach lurched at the words, but she made herself answer calmly. “Am I? Why?”

  “You broke Israeli law.”

  “Well, even if I were in Israel, which I’m not, I don’t think I’ve broken any laws.”

  “In the first place, you were interfering with the police. And in the second, the law says you have to have ID, and you don’t have any.”

  “I have ID,” she said, gesturing to the green folder which sat in front of him, next to her telephone, and the small bag in which the policewoman had put the contents of her pockets.

  “That is not valid ID,” he said. “I’m going to read you your rights.” Her stomach turned over again. The rights he read, translating from a page in Hebrew, were pretty much like what she had heard on Law & Order, except that there was a kind of catch-22 that said that if she exercised her right to remain silent, her silence “along with other evidence” could be taken as an admission of guilt.

  “Your last name is Rubin. Are you Jewish?” he asked.

  “Is that a crime?” she retorted.

  “Where are your people from?” he tried again.

  “North Carolina,” she answered. “What about you?”

  “I’m from Duluth, Minnesota.”

  “I didn’t know there were any Jews there,” she said.

  “That’s why I moved to Israel,” he said with a wry grin. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know if I want to live in Israel. I don’t even speak the language.”

  “If you move here, the government will send you to ulpan,” he said. Ulpan meant the language schools that were free to Jewish immigrants. A minute ago, he was telling her she was going to be deported. Now he was making plans for her indoctrination into Israeli society.

  “What were you doing in Azzawiya yesterday?” he asked suddenly. So he had noticed her at Abu Anwar’s house.

  “I live there,” she said.

  “Why there?”

  “I just ended up there.”

  Thankfully, his phone rang. Amid a torrent of Hebrew she heard him say “Azzawiya.” Was the call about her? Or about events in the village? If only she understood more Hebrew. He covered the telephone mouthpiece with his hand and turned to her.

  “I have something to do,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  “You mean I can go?” Had he just been passing time with her, because he had nothing else to do?

  “No, the other police want to talk to you about your ID. They are busy now too, so you need to wait.”

  “Anywhere special you want me to go?” she asked.

  He yelled for a dark-skinned man, who came running and showed her into an empty office. “Stay there,” the man ordered, pointing to a chair near the door. He left her alone.

  She saw no reason to sit in that particular chair. She wandered around the office, where there were two empty desks. One of them held a stack of manila folders, like the ones that covered Benny’s office. She glanced at them, for no reason other than boredom, and started puzzling out the Hebrew labels.

  Each folder seemed to bear the name of a Palestinian. Marwan Abu Rahma. Salam Hakim Mahmoud Shuafat. None of them meant anything to her. Were these the infamous files of information the Israeli police collected from collaborators in the villages? Would they just leave them lying around where anyone could see them? Of course, they knew she didn’t know Hebrew. Well, did they really know? Were they hoping she would read something and repeat it to someone, or was she being paranoid? Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me, she thought. That old saying had never seemed so relevant.

  “Jaber Murad Haddad,” she sounded out. She racked her brain, trying to remember if Jaber’s long-dead father had been Murad. She didn’t think there could be another Jaber Haddad. She eased the door nearly shut before flipping the file folder open. There was a large sheaf of papers inside, some scribbled notes, some official-looking reports. She could not understand anything on any of them, hard as she tried. If she made it out of here, maybe she should take Benny up on the ulpan idea.

  Frustrated with herself, she closed the Jaber file and glanced at the one below it. “Fareed Jaber Murad Haddad.” This one contained only a few sheets of paper, most of them handwritten. She supposed it made sense that the Israeli police would keep a file on Jaber, who had been a fighter and was in prison. But his son, a student, who was only nineteen and had never been in trouble? She needed to tell Avi. She needed her phone.

  She went to the door and stopped the first policeman who happened by.

  “What’s going on? I’ve been here for six hours and no one even knows where I am. I demand to make a phone call.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said and walked away. She was sure she wouldn’t see him again. She paced the empty office, getting increasingly agitated. She heard a noise and turned around with an angry protest on her lips.

  Ali, the policeman who had been at Abu Anwar’s house yesterday, stood there with her phone and other possessions in his hand. He handed her everything except the ID folder, which he opened and looked at, she was sure not for the first time.

  “Btihki Arabi?” he asked her.

  “Schwei.” A little.

  “W ana schwei Inglizi.” And I only speak a little English, he said, an expression of apology on his wrinkled, friendly face.

  “Njarrab bil Arabi.” Let’s try in Arabic, she said.

  He held out the ID to her.

  “This is not good,” he said. “From now on, you need to have the original passport on you.”

  Then, just like that, she was free to go. He took her downstairs, opened the door for her, and pointed to where
she could catch a bus back out of the settlement.

  “Azzawiya is dangerous these days,” he added. “Maybe you should stay somewhere else, in Israel.”

  “It’s not dangerous for me,” she said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said.

  Chapter 14

  “Benny wants you to go with him to Elkana,” Captain Mustafa said on the phone.

  “Okay.” Rania hoped she sounded nonchalant.

  Perhaps she had convinced the Israeli policeman she could confront the military bigwigs in ways he could not afford to. Or maybe he just found her reactions entertaining. He picked her up at the Qarawa blocks. They sailed through all the checkpoints and arrived at the Gelenters’ promptly at seven-thirty. Mrs. Gelenter, dressed for work, admitted them. The children were already at her mother’s, she said in answer to Rania’s question. As soon as she showed them into Nadya’s room, she departed, reminding them to lock the door when they left.

  “She’s in an awfully big hurry,” Rania observed.

  “Well, if she teaches at the elementary school, it’s about to start,” Benny replied.

  “She didn’t seem as sick as Nir implied.” Rania could hazard a guess why Gelenter didn’t want them talking to his wife about Nadya. But why was she so anxious to be away from the police? She looked around for evidence of a late-night cleaning spree, but not having seen the room before put her at a disadvantage.

  The room was small but pleasant enough. The battered wooden desktop was littered with pictures: Nadya with other young women at the sea in Eilat; people standing in snowdrifts, wrapped in every kind of woolen garment, presumably her family in Uzbekistan. Nadya holding a bundle of blankets that might have been a baby. In a couple, Nadya stood with men, arms entwined. She looked happy enough, Rania reflected. If they were clients, Nadya was a good actress.

  The few clothes in the closet were old. They didn’t find any of the outfits Nadya was wearing in the photos. No phone book. No official papers, no ID card or passport, but that they didn’t expect to find. They also didn’t find a suitcase or bag of any kind she would have used to carry her clothes from Eilat. So either she had come with nothing, or she took some things with her when she left the house.