“It turned out I was right. She was highly motivated and an outstanding pupil, but there was a big difference between a course under laboratory conditions and a long stay in Rome, playing the tourist and working as an English teacher. We were together for three months and traveled all around Europe. She established her cover and practiced again and again all the tricks she had learned in training, and I stayed in the background. At a distance, but close enough to see how she was performing, to question her afterwards and make evaluations, and then send her off for further practice until she was satisfied. She and I both knew this was her last opportunity to get feedback from someone standing right behind her and being able to see how she was coping. In the Arab country she would be alone and we would know of her only from her reports. I made a point of involving myself in everything she did. I explained to her that she didn’t only need to know everything about the personality she was adopting, she had to project it too, to create a situation where some questions won’t need to be asked, where someone looking at her will automatically understand who she is.
“So what did I do? I’ll give you an example. I sent her to get her hair styled because I thought that with a straight cut she would look more stern and assertive, the kind of woman not many men would want to have an affair with. I told her to give up the murderous diet she had imposed on herself after all the cookies and sandwiches that they ate during the training period, and she looked at me as if I was intruding on matters that were not my concern, but she did as I asked. And once she realized I wasn’t threatening her, and I realized she wasn’t falling in love with me, I dared to ask about her menstrual cycle. At first she blushed, and then her face went blank and turned a new color, as if she were putting on armor. I suppose that today no one would dare to have such a conversation with a subordinate, for fear of being accused of sexual harassment, but then things were different, and I explained that her health wasn’t just a personal matter; it could affect her work and her ability to function. She had a way of talking about intimate things, which gave me the impression that she was exposing the facts to me but not her feelings. This worried me, and I asked her again and again what she was feeling, and, in her particular way, she tried to reassure me while continuing to be evasive.
“And so we came to the evening before the flight. We were in Milan, in her hotel room facing the towers of the Duomo. In the morning I had sent her there to pray for the last time, which amused her. We were speaking English. I insisted on that, and of course for her it was no problem. French is my mother tongue, so speaking English was more of an effort for me. I knew the next day she would be going there for the first time, and she must not, simply must not, even think in Hebrew. She laughed at my accent, and this was good. It’s important to laugh. A year later, when she was already coming and going from the Arab capital the way you fly to London, she told me all these precautions seemed stupid to her, but she wanted so much for me to be satisfied with her and to be sure she was ready, so she didn’t try to stop me from struggling in English.
“Rachel sat and looked at the clothes piled on her bed. The television was switched on so we wouldn’t be overheard and I checked everything she had and threw on the floor anything that looked to me too new, or too old, or not right for what she was supposed to be: a young Canadian woman who was born in England and who went back with her father to a remote place in Canada where he could spend his retirement years fishing and she could be bored to death. And now she’s twenty-six and she’s on her way to the Arab capital city to teach the natives English, to save enough money to travel the world and to defer her postgraduate studies a little longer. ‘Don’t turn up there as if you’ve been out shopping,’ I said to her. ‘You’re the one who sent me out shopping,’ she said and smiled one of her tired smiles. ‘You implied this was my opportunity to upgrade my wardrobe.’
“I had no choice but to give her the kind of send-off that soldiers get when they set out on operations. According to her story she didn’t leave Canada until she decided she had to make changes in her life, and then she spent half a year in Europe before taking on the teaching job. But in reality, she arrived here from Israel after a vacation that I opposed. ‘I have to say a final goodbye to my boyfriend,’ she said, and explained in very few words that he found hard to understand why she was about to go away on such a long-term assignment to Russia. Why it will be impossible to contact her by phone, and why all this secrecy she was wrapping herself in. I tried to explain to her that she was breaking the continuity of the operation and could lose focus, but she screwed up her nose and shed a few tears and got what she wanted. I was glad they were separating. I thought she needed isolation and the awareness that no one was waiting for her in Israel. Her friends were going to be there, and there would be where she must feel at home. I didn’t know then even one percent of the things I know today. It seems that age has positive aspects after all. She flew to Israel, broke up with her boyfriend, said goodbye to her few acquaintances, and came back to me after collecting her old things from the baggage repository at the railway station. It was terrible, and I wondered again whether I should postpone the flight once more. But now it was already too complicated. She had the invitation from the language school, but they wouldn’t hold the job for her indefinitely, and she had a plane reservation the next morning.
“I looked at the pile of things she had scattered on the bed. Rachel was disorganized almost on purpose. I think she thought this was an asset, it was hard to suspect someone so slovenly, someone who lost things and missed appointments and forgot people’s faces. But there, in the hotel, before traveling, lack of order was a hindrance, because a few moments after she arrived in the room all the items were mixed up together and I had to check that nothing from Israel had infiltrated her gear and that everything looked exactly as it should.
“And there were some who said this wasn’t important, and there was no likelihood of anyone in the capital city checking every detail, and if despite this they took the trouble to do a meticulous check, they would always start with simpler things than these, like passports and the references that we prepared for her. I insisted that the preparations she was making were part of her transformation, vital for her sense of security, and they were as important as anything else. She has to feel that everything will be in order, and then everything will be in order. She mustn’t hesitate to show everything she’s bringing with her, she mustn’t hesitate when she’s explaining where she bought everything and where she was yesterday and where she’s going tomorrow. Just like anyone else.
“Her eyes narrowed when I opened her toiletries bag and when I examined the labels on her bras and panties. I asked her if she was offended. She said she was embarrassed but she understood why I was doing this, and she reminded me that at Ben Gurion Airport they do exactly the same checks, and if a customs officer at an Arab airport were to examine her possessions and find something inappropriate, the problem would be a lot bigger.
“When the suitcase was packed I opened her hand luggage and saw the book on top. ‘Why are you taking a book by John le Carré?’ ‘Why not?’ she asked, and explained she was actually reading it for the second time. The first time was before we recruited her, and reading it now it’s hard for her not to make comparisons between herself and the heroine. I didn’t want to get into an argument with her. This wasn’t the time to explain to her, again, that she’s an Israeli combatant going to an Arab country undercover, whereas the eponymous little drummer girl was a British woman recruited as an agent and deceived by her handlers all along the way. I remembered the time when le Carré was going around Israel and interviewing anyone who could tell him about the working methods of the Mossad, and I almost told her about the discussions in the department whether to cooperate with him and come out of it as the invincible good guys. I felt I wanted to tell her about my own experiences in my operational past, and my ambition to write a book myself someday. There was a real temptation to sit her down
facing me and say to her, Come on, listen to me, and hear about some real operations, not the fictional ones. You should listen to me not only because I’ve been appointed your case officer but also because I too have done things in my life, and I can be trusted. And at the same time I knew this would be too much of a distraction from the assignment facing her; she was the operative here and I was just the bag-carrier, and I forced myself back to reality. ‘And what will you say when they ask why you’re interested in the book?’ ‘No problem,’ she said to me, sitting on the end of the bed and flicking through the poetry book that I hadn’t commented on. ‘It’s about the Middle East and about the interminable war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and it will be useful for comparative purposes when I get around to writing my postgraduate thesis.’ ‘And what will you feel when you give them this answer?’ Rachel put the book down and looked at me. I knew what she was seeing. I was older than her and she knew I was the boss. Bosses don’t ask about feelings, and bosses aren’t told about feelings. You have to make an impression on them and never hesitate. ‘I’ll know that I’m lying,’ she said, and I saw something stirring in her face. ‘But I’m used to it, and besides, it’s impossible to check. Perhaps I really will use my latest job as thesis material.’ ‘What did they tell you in training, Rachel?’ I asked, and she could see I was angry. ‘Why tell a lie unless you have to? Why invite trouble if it’s possible to avoid it? You want to read the book? Fine, I’ll keep it for you until your next vacation. You don’t do things like that, just as you don’t take the translated poems of Yehuda Amichai with you, even though it’s allowed, even though it’s possible, even though an innocent Canadian tourist can take along anything she likes.’
“A long time after this, when we were already friends, she told me at that moment I sounded exactly like her father, who used to call her to his room and check what she was reading with that critical, dismissive look, and tell her she could read what she liked but he at her age had already read . . . and he would reel off a whole list, just like the required reading list that she received when she arrived at university.
“‘Are you nervous?’ I asked after we finished checking the luggage. Rachel stretched out her legs in the jeans and looked at me. ‘What have I to be nervous about?’ she said. ‘I’m going to look into prospects for work, the opportunity to earn a little money.’ ‘And the journey? How are you financing it? And where do your parents live? And who can be contacted if we need to ask questions about you?’ She knew all the answers, but she knew something else. That I would be here when she came back. That I would wait for her to call on reaching the hotel, and I would never sit behind a desk, embalmed in a suit, far from her.
“‘No, I’m not afraid,’ she added, ‘I just want everything to be done right. I already want to be on the way back.’ I looked at her hands, clasped around her knees, at the delicate bracelet on her right arm, the thin and bony wrist. Tomorrow she’ll be like a pilot flying solo for the first time, except that the pilot goes out for about twenty minutes, and she’ll be there for many weeks before she sees me again. Up to this point I had been close to her in all the exercises. I waited for her on the other side of the border, played the part of her friend when she was interviewed at the language school in Rome, and it was only when she went to the enemy’s embassy to apply for a visa that I stayed behind and waited for her in a nearby café.
“I felt the tension gripping me too, the feeling that I was putting her under pressure. ‘Come on,’ I said, and made an effort not to hold her hand. ‘Let’s go and eat. We’ll take a break. We can talk over a meal, nothing is running away, and anyway the shops are closed. What you haven’t bought you probably don’t need.’ Rachel put on her shoes and moved toward the door as if obeying an order. She was tall, and slim, and she knew this made the right impression on me. The short and straight coiffure framed her face and gave it the forceful look that I wanted to see, and I admit I couldn’t stop my eyes wandering over her, and I hoped I wasn’t annoying her. I’m twenty years older than her, and even back then I had a small paunch and a respectable bald patch.
“She stood by the door with her back to me, and I thought, Despite all the time we have spent together I know too little about her, and even with all the training and the preparations I’m not sure it will all go according to plan. Just a few months ago I told headquarters she wasn’t ready, she didn’t know the assignment, was incapable of telling her life history without mistakes and she would stumble the moment she arrived at enemy territory, and tomorrow she’s going to board a plane, fasten her seat belt, look around her, and when the plane takes off on its way to the capital city she’ll know she’s alone. She’ll know she’s going to a place where those who are caught are hanged. If she falls, only God can lift her up.
“I led her to the corner table. Rachel sat facing the door, as she had been taught, so she could see anyone coming in, and she put on her gloomy expression, the look that says: I’m here because you asked me to come, because you told me to go out with you. I knew it, that look, she used it several times in the course of training, and it grieved me each time. I thought perhaps I was forcing myself upon her; perhaps I was deviating from what’s allowed between a case officer and his operative. With a man the situation is clear. You go out with him, socialize with him, and the conversation never digresses from the subject of the operation that he’s responsible for. With her it was different, and it looked that way too. There were other couples in the restaurant, and some of the men were much older than the women they were with. I was afraid that to them it was clear I was spending money on this young woman before taking her to a hotel, and I wondered what she thought of me and what I was to her besides her case officer. You know what I wanted? I wanted her to see in me a father’s authority, and someone she could turn to as to a mother. I also hoped she might be secretly in love with me. Of course I wanted her, but I knew where the boundary was. I don’t suppose she guessed what I was thinking about. Rachel was an operative just starting out. She had known me for several months and we had spent many hours together, but I never spoke about myself, nor did I ask her what she thought of me. I was an experienced professional, and I knew I was preparing her for her first time, her baptism of fire, solo, and she needed to be treated like a war machine.
“The waiter came over and she turned and addressed him in her deep and warm voice. I said to her, like a judge in a talent contest, that her voice, ringing out with a perfect British accent, was a weapon, something inspiring confidence and generating the sense that it is directed wholly toward the listener.
“She nodded her head with a movement that seemed to me a gesture of gratitude, and took a sip from the glass of wine that she allowed herself. It was a moment in which she seemed to condescend and to accept what was due her, like a queen responding to her subjects. And I was convinced again that for women this is easier. Easier for them to gain trust, easier to play the dependent card, ask for and receive help, and be thought of as innocent. But what good will this do her if she is caught, if she falls into their hands? For women it is also more dangerous. At the end of the day this is a man’s world, and if she is jailed, she will be at the mercy of men, and men only.
“I spoke to break the tension, I spoke to infuse in her, and in me too, a bit more confidence. I went over everything we had done together, over the language school in Rome where she had worked for a month, and how easily she was accepted, and how she succeeded in convincing everyone of her Canadian identity, despite her British accent and although some of the other teachers were themselves Canadian. I reminded her of her fine achievement in obtaining the references that they were happy to provide for the language school in the Arab city, and of the trip we took together through Europe. I tried to convince her that crossing the border from Turkey into Greece was more difficult than getting into an Arab country, and I got a smile out of her when I reminded her how the joke she told the Greek customs officer, about bird food, persuad
ed him not to confiscate the sack of Turkish coffee that she brought with her, thereby missing the imitation plastic explosives that we had planted in the sack. Then I talked about the beautiful places we had visited, and insisted that suffering is not obligatory. On the contrary, the job should be enjoyed and done happily. She’s young, beautiful, and free, and she’s traveling for fun, and to earn some money. ‘You’ll stroll around the markets, see all the beautiful mosques, and you’ll get to visit the most famous ancient sites. Everything as it was in training. Just don’t make a pass at anyone, and don’t let anyone make a pass at you,’ I added with a smile.
“I saw the anger in her face. ‘And if I were a man, would you say the same thing to me? Don’t make a pass at any girls, don’t smile at any women in the street? Why can a man get away with it? What are you afraid of, that I’ll fall in a trap?’ She took a gulp of wine and I wondered what was coming next. ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said, and I knew she wasn’t looking for an answer. ‘Have you ever asked one of your male operatives what he does when he finds he can’t restrain himself any longer, or is it just me you dare ask, as if I’m made from different flesh and blood, as if with me it’s allowed? In this respect too you’re just like my father. He also warned me about boys, they’re only after one thing.’ She was incensed, and her fingers clutched the wine glass so tightly I was afraid she was going to break it. I didn’t say anything. I had nothing to say, except to ask for her forgiveness. She went on talking and reminded me of all the things we allow ourselves to say about women. Then we were quiet. There are silences that draw people closer together, because you don’t feel the need to say anything, and there are silences that drive people further apart, when you know that you have nothing more to say to each other.
“And then she told me not to worry. ‘It’s going to be all right. I’m leaving tomorrow, and you’ll see, everything is going to work out the way we planned. I also know they will try their luck with me, and this time it won’t be like in training, when you had men pretending to fancy me. This time it will be for real, and I’ll know how to deal with them. Every girl knows that things depend on her, and you’ll see that I won’t mix business and pleasure. I know my business.’”
The English Teacher Page 5