The English Teacher

by Yiftach Reicher Atir

  “Goodbye, Dad, I’m going,” she whispered as she closed the door of his room behind her, remembering that this was what she said then, when she was nineteen, after she packed her bag and was about to go. He told her she needed to stay and finish her studies, find a job, otherwise nothing would become of her, as it had been with her mother, of blessed memory. “So nothing became of me, Dad?” she asked now, louder, and her voice resonated around the house. “I’m not a teacher, just like you?” And as soon as the house was silent again and only the racket of a passing car rattled the windowpanes and reminded her there was life beyond the walls of the house, she thought of the questions she hadn’t asked him, of the simple sentence she didn’t say to him, and he didn’t say to her.

  Through the glass of the back door the little garden was visible, neglected since her mother died. Everything so calm, as if through the silence her father, buried just a few streets from where he was born, from the place where he lived, is trying to tell her: only here can she have a home and a garden and a little boy running around outside.

  Rachel stood in her father’s study, facing the mirror that he hung there to check that his tie was correct and his hair was parted right. A long face, as if not belonging to her, was reflected back to her. The tousled hair, cascading over an old nightgown that she found in one of the closets, reminded her of when she was twelve, dreaming the usual dreams of a girl that age: to be the most beautiful woman in the universe, with a prince on a white horse waiting for her to return.

  Through a skylight window, the early dawn was paling and giving way to morning. She stood, arms folded on her chest, and tried to believe that this was an embrace she had long deserved. Then she dug her nails into her bare arms, tried to make it hurt, tried to open new paths for the sorrow that she could not summon. This was the time to cry, and she couldn’t. This was the time to hold on to memories, and she didn’t want to. Every corner of the house reminded her of something; no corner of the house reminded her of anything that she wanted to take with her. Everything too late. Even forgiveness was impossible to seek. No one left from whom to seek it.

  A first ray of sunlight fell on the bookcase, and it was only then that Rachel noticed something a trained eye like hers should have seen long before. No dust. No dust on the spine of the book that he had touched recently. She turned on the desk lamp and pulled out the book, a volume of an encyclopedia, and saw the box that her father had hidden behind it.

  SHE READ THE LETTERS THAT EHUD had sent her father. Her mistake blew up in her face. Everything now took on a different shape. Fragments of memory, excerpts from phone conversations. His ostentatious lack of interest in her cover stories, in the lies that she recited to him as if she’d learned them by heart.

  A new feeling was coming over her. Not anger. It was too late to be angry. Not sorrow either. She was too sad to let a new sorrow into her life. Even the sense of grievance, the knowledge that they had spoken to her father behind her back, she deferred for another time.

  Suddenly, clearly, she knew that she wanted no more of this. No more lies, no more cover stories, no more perfectly crafted tales piled high, like fortified walls built to separate her from the world; she wanted to let the outside world in, to let it touch her in a real way. She longed to uncover herself at long last, expose herself, until the truth seared her.

  The small fire in the garden didn’t attract attention, and it may be assumed that no one on the train passing close to the fence took notice of the slim woman sitting on a swing, watching papers burn.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Israel, Two Days Later

  THE PHONE RANG. EHUD COUNTED THREE rings and waited for the answering machine to ask the caller to leave a message. Only then would he decide whether to carry on tending the bushes that he had neglected recently or go into the house and answer whoever was daring to call him before six in the morning. The old machine kicked in but the anonymous caller didn’t say anything and hung up. Ehud shrugged and resumed trimming the recalcitrant branches. His back was hurting, and he reminded himself it was time to pick up the prescriptions from the pharmacy and not neglect the exercises and the diet.

  If it’s important they’ll try again, he thought, then turned the words over in his head and knew why he was thinking they and not he or she. Only they were in the habit of making contact at any hour and in any place, and they always expected him to follow standard procedure—lift the receiver after the third ring and hang up immediately and pick up when they call again only after the fifth ring. But all of that had come to an end many years ago, and it was only back pain and a troublesome bladder that kept him awake at night.

  All the same, he came inside, to be closer, to be ready next time. He washed his hands and watched the mud submit to the water and swirl around the sink and then disappear. The clock on the wall told him it was coffee time. Rina, who rejoiced in his retirement, used to tell him to leave the plants in peace and let them enjoy a little tranquility. But Rina isn’t here, and his sons are far away. His work recedes further from him, the phone no longer rings, and Ehud tries to convince himself that he’s content.

  Since his wife died he has made a point of going out every day to the little garden at the back of the house and working there until breakfast. The habit became a duty, the duty became a pleasure, an intermission, and a time to remember the things he loved. The flowers bloomed in their turn, the vegetation flourished, and life went on in its own way. His grandchildren used to frolic on the lawn, and Ehud loved to hear from his daughters-in-law how gifted a gardener he was, and he waited in vain for his sons to offer their help. The garden was green throughout the year. He would sit beside the bushes with the breakfast tray and watch the insects at work, the shadows that the sun pulls from one side to the other as it moves, the changing colors of the chameleon. Ehud kept quiet when he saw him lying in wait for his prey, admired the use of the long tongue, and couldn’t resist admonishing him aloud whenever he was slow matching his cover to his surroundings.

  Ehud began to prepare salad for one. Tomato, two cucumbers, green onion, a pinch of basil, olive oil, and a few black olives. At lunchtime he will eat soup and in the evening prepare himself something else. And so it is day after day, as retirement demands, as his older colleagues recommended, as his sons insisted. Everything was ready on the antique wooden tray that he bought with Rina in Florence: the plate of salad, a little white cheese, half a buttered roll (the other half he kept for the ten o’clock snack), and a glass of water with ice and lemon. Coffee from the machine that his children bought him for his sixtieth birthday he’ll drink later, when he opens the paper. The phone rang again.

  He recognized the voice right away. The soft accent, the fear that perhaps he won’t remember her, the hesitant mode of speech. It was all there. All those years she had talked to him and he understood what she meant. All those years when he needed to measure every word, in case an enemy was listening, because every word is important, because her life depends on this. And then, after she returned from there, and after she left the Unit, they continued to talk from time to time. He would contact her as if on a casual basis, just to know how she was faring, and he sensed the nervousness in his voice, the anticipation and the hope that perhaps she’ll tell him to come. This didn’t happen—as it shouldn’t have. So long as Rina was alive. So long as he needed to abide by the rules. But the rules say what they have to say, while the heart says what it wants. And when Rina fell ill it was over. And now he’s standing in a corner of his house, holding the receiver with a trembling hand, and listening to her. “My father died,” she said, and before he could answer she added, “He died for the second time.” The broken, truncated sound told him the conversation was over. He waited another moment and tried dialing caller ID and was told the line was blocked. He looked in his old contacts book and phoned her home and her cell phone. Despite the early hour there was no response.

  Ehud took the tray outside and ate
slowly, as if he knew how long it would be before he could sit here again and eat breakfast in solitude. He glanced at his handiwork, as if assessing what he stood to lose, and then he phoned the Office and went to pack a small suitcase.

  THE UNIT COMMANDER LEANED BACK IMPATIENTLY and his powerful body filled the chair that had been specially adapted for him after the injury. His back was definitely hurting and Ehud, who had read in the paper about the exchange of fire between unknown assailants and the bodyguards of the Iranian banker, was impressed by the commander’s return to work just a month after the foiled assassination, but he didn’t say a word. If the commander wants, he’ll tell him about it himself. Ehud remembered the rules. The need to know is what counts. On the wall facing him hung pictures of former unit commanders, and he moved his glance from one to the other and compared them with the young man who sat before him. The commander was different from them, fruit of a different era. At the time of the Six-Day War he was a child, and Eli Cohen was for him just the name of a street and a painful chapter in the history of the Mossad.

  “I need Joe,” Ehud said when he saw they were all waiting for him to speak. “Which Joe?” asked the commander, and his assistant fiddled with the personal computer in front of him. “Yakov Peled,” said Ehud. His eyes moved toward the photo on the wall and the Unit commander also turned to look at it, his eyes narrowing as he noted how many years ago Yakov Peled had sat at the head of the table. “And he knows her?” the commander asked, nothing in his voice showing whether he remembered anything besides the name and the nickname. “To the best of my memory he was outside the service years before she was recruited.” “Correct,” said Ehud, “but he knows me.”

  Aware that they had no choice, Ehud waited patiently. When he talked about Joe they didn’t know who he was referring to. Only the real veterans, those who turn up even in wheelchairs at retirement parties, knew his nickname and had been privileged to work with him. The younger ones heard lectures from Yakov Peled on the establishment of the Unit and of those glory days, and jealously read accounts of the successes of the master spy who gave up the role of chief of the Mossad to go into business. If there’s a need for it, Ehud will explain to the commander on a one-to-one basis that Joe was his mentor in the Unit, that he needed someone he could rely on. It was clear to him that the commander didn’t want to broaden the circle of those who were in on the secret, and to him this whole episode was a pain in the ass. Rachel left the Unit before he arrived and he hadn’t heard of her until this morning. But this was a mission like many others, and no harder than finding and bringing in Vanunu, the traitor who revealed Israeli nuclear secrets. This was what the commander said at the start of the discussion, and although Ehud was offended by the comparison he knew that it was hard to argue with.

  “All right,” said the commander as he noted something on the pad of yellow paper familiar to Ehud from the old days. “I agree, I’m giving you a free hand, and you’ll be liaising with the war room.” The commander turned to look at the head of the operations department, who nodded his assent. Ehud wondered about their working relationship, and he assumed that the veteran department chief had already submitted the plan and that the meeting was a display for Ehud’s benefit, a respectful gesture to someone who was once a part of the organization and might now be indispensable.

  The commander looked at him, his lips curling cynically. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I trust that you want her to come back in one piece.” Ehud felt a stab of pain and suppressed the impulse to respond. There would be time for that. For now, he was satisfied with how things were working out.

  “I’ve always believed that the paved road isn’t necessarily the right one to take,” the commander continued, pleased with the image, and then he told Ehud that the war room was operational and all special measures had been activated. There was an all-out search for this one woman who threatened to become a loose cannon.

  “All right,” said Ehud, though he didn’t know what the commander was referring to.

  “And another thing,” said the commander, and he pointed to a young man wearing a blue T-shirt, in contrast to the collared and buttoned shirts of his superiors. “Yaniv will be liaison between you and the war room. He was her contact man in the Office.” Ehud didn’t say anything. It seemed strange to him that these young people barely out of diapers were assigned to look after operatives who had left years ago. But times had changed and he was on the outside now; eons had passed since he was part of the inner circle.

  The commander added, “Update me directly if you find anything, and don’t stay up too late working. It isn’t healthy at your age.” Yaniv smiled. Ehud felt sorry for him. He still needs to curry favor with his boss. His career depends on it.

  “Since you contacted us we’ve had time to do some checks.” The commander opened his laptop, turned it toward Ehud, and took him through a well-prepared PowerPoint presentation. He assumed it had been designed for the Mossad chief and perhaps for the Prime Minister too. And all to explain to them how this ex-operative, holding some of the most important secrets of the State of Israel close to her heart, had simply disappeared after attending her father’s funeral. Of course, the commander isn’t under any pressure, and he’ll only do the maximum, yes, the maximum, to bring her back home. “Dead or alive,” he said to Ehud, and laughed.

  And why shouldn’t he laugh? Why not try to stay loose even as they were all pissing in their pants? Why not create the impression that things are under control? This didn’t happen on his watch. It isn’t his responsibility. He’s just come to rescue the commanders of the past from the mess that they caused when they enabled Rachel to live her own life and paid no attention to what their operative had been doing after leaving the service. “I don’t even know who she is,” said the commander, as the screen showed two pictures of Rachel taken from old passports. Ehud looked and kept silent as the commander’s words reverberated in his head: “Wanted: Dead or Alive.”

  “Of course, everything is open to you,” the commander added, “the archive, operations room, communications center, everything you ask for. This operation is Priority A, and if you need additional personnel for surveillance, kidnap, or something more drastic . . .” He left a deliberate pause, and Ehud realized he had already reported to the Mossad chief and the Prime Minister and obtained the authorizations needed for any appropriate action.

  AT AROUND TWELVE O’CLOCK YANIV AND Ehud entered the archive. Ehud glanced at his watch impatiently and scanned the shelves. Yaniv asked how they were going to get through all the material and what were they actually looking for. “How long has she been missing?” Ehud asked instead of answering. “A week at least,” Yaniv replied. “We know she left this country with her Israeli passport, and after the shivah there’s been no trace of her. We sent someone to the apartment with the estate agent. He went from room to room and found an up-to-date tourist brochure for India. Hard to draw conclusions from this, but perhaps that’s the direction. We also checked the call that you received. It was on a Belgian phone card. The phone was apparently bought at the airport, with calls prepaid. Then the people we approached”—Ehud noticed that Yaniv was holding back whatever he could—“established that she used her British passport to leave England. We asked certain associates of ours to check out the airlines, where she went to, and with whom, and then it turned out she crossed the Channel by train, but they don’t keep any record of onward destinations. We checked for transactions on her credit card and bank account. We’re not sure how she got her bank to clear it, but she transferred close to a hundred thousand dollars to England, and the money was withdrawn from the Western Union office in Leicester Square. We sent our representative there, but needless to say they don’t remember anything. That’s what we have up to now.” Ehud suppressed a smile. She hasn’t forgotten, he told himself. She still knows the job.

  They lingered beside a low shelf. Gray files filled to bursting were lined
up, tied together in pairs with ancient string and covered in dust. Obviously no one had touched them in years, and only firm regulations going back to the last century had deterred some efficient clerk from sending them away for incineration. At the end of the row there was an apparently new file, noticeably slimmer than the others. Yaniv pulled it out and proudly showed Ehud how they were keeping in touch with former operatives. Ehud glanced at reports of medical exams that the department asked Rachel to undergo every year, and at letters politely declining invitations to retirement parties.

  Someone had numbered the files and marked in black felt-tip the years they had been opened and closed. “Here you’ll find the answer,” Ehud said to Yaniv, and he pointed to the files that documented her service in the Arab country. Yaniv nodded. Despite his age and his lack of experience, he also knew these were the crucial years of her life. Fifteen years had passed since Rachel came back from there, and in the archive there were also files documenting her handling since she left, but only there, at the country of destination, were the real clues to what would later be revealed. Ehud thought of the astonishingly small number of operatives involved in that mission, of the “perfect” people, individuals capable of spending many years in a hostile country, constructing their cover stories and living them when in action and between assignments. Who knows what happens to the solitary operative, all those days and nights in a strange and tough environment? And what he will do if one day agents of the opposition’s counterintelligence approach him and offer him a deal that will save his life? Betrayal? Ehud didn’t dare say the word aloud, but it had haunted him since the moment he noticed the looks exchanged between the commander and Yaniv. And if she had betrayed, he thought as he looked downward to hide his now-tearful eyes from Yaniv, then she betrayed him, Ehud, who was like a father to her, the one who loved her secretly, the one who perhaps turned his back on her.