The English Teacher

by Yiftach Reicher Atir

  Rachel didn’t forget to light a candle and cross herself, and she took photographs of the ancient building from every angle. The ops officer will be glad to have these pictures too, she thought. Then she bought a small rug in a souvenir shop, and it was only when she came out that she remembered she should have gotten a receipt. The accountants always groaned when they saw the expenses she submitted, and they didn’t like declarations instead of receipts. “I don’t see why I should collect receipts from the supermarket,” she told them, and Ehud signed off on all of it for her; there was no arguing with his signature. But things like souvenirs were different, and any addition to the apartment needed clearance from the start.

  Okay, I’m ready, she decided after leaving the grimy toilets of the big empty café opened opposite the church in better times. There was no one to notify that she was on her way. Ehud didn’t even know she was planning to travel that day. She looked around her. They all seemed to sense she was up to something. Men stared at her, children asked for coins. One man tried to sell her fruit and then offered her hashish. She refused, although that might have been worth considering at another time. She looked at her watch again. Time to move. She got into the car and started it up. A Volvo in good condition. A bit conspicuous around here, but so is she, a young foreign woman traveling alone. It isn’t against the law. On the Sabbath there’s no teaching and this is her day off, she can go anywhere.

  There was no need to unfold the note with the recorded distance on it. She stopped for fuel as planned, then went to the air pump to check the pressure in the tires. Then she slipped the camera into her handbag, attached the cord to it, and fixed it to the buckle of the carrying-strap. She secured the camera in place with the special strap provided by the technical department. She was ready. She had rehearsed this many times, and now it took less than a minute. If someone disturbs her she knows how to pull the cord and detach it from the camera, and release the camera from the strap so it looks completely innocent.

  A glance in the mirror. Her hair is combed and parted. Her face clean of makeup, blouse buttoned, and sandals buckled. On the way.

  And again her heart is pounding. She turns the distance gauge to zero. She has an explanation for this too, it’s her way of monitoring fuel consumption. She sees the base in the distance. The sun is at a good angle. She approaches the gate, checks that the distance is right, and uses the gap between two cars to cross to the other side of the road and stop as close as possible. If she’s challenged she’ll point to the narrow shoulder and comment on how dangerous it is. No one challenges her. She sees the sentry and gets out of the car, her handbag slung on her shoulder, and immediately starts photographing on her way to the back wheel. After removing the plastic bag that she wrapped around the axle in the filling station, she knows she has an excuse for washing her hands, and the sentry, who has walked over, is standing beside her, sees her bending over the wheel. His attention is focused on the young woman, not on her intentions, not on her handbag or on what she’s doing. “No stop,” says the scruffy young soldier. “One moment,” she says, and smiles at him, glad that he’s younger than her and his eyes are studying her body. “Problem?” he asks, and points to the car. “No, no. Okay, okay,” she says while scrutinizing the gate and the barrier and the wire fence that could be opened out quickly to block the entrance, and the well-camouflaged watchtower. The soldier smiles at her and she smiles at him. Nice day today, she wants to say to him, and knows he won’t understand. Everything seems to have been too easy, and after weeks of preparation she’s collected in half a minute all the information that Ehud authorized her to look for. She knows the ops officer wants more. They always want more, and before her departure the ops officer made a point of telling her that if he had more confidence in her experience he would be asking for more.

  One gesture. For this you don’t need to know Arabic. This was enough to convey her particular problem to the sentry. He smiled and said, “No problem,” and she walked with him to the guard post, taking more photographs on the way. He rang someone and then someone else and when his back was turned she detached the cord from the camera and released it. Everything in order. Even if he checks her handbag and finds the camera he’ll have no reason to suspect anything. It was only when she finally made it to the john and sat down that she realized just how tense she was.

  The commander of the base was pleasant and affable. Rachel was glad he was making an effort to speak English and she told him it was excellent. The conversation flowed and she memorized every detail she could take in from the map on the wall behind him. When the coffee was late in arriving he went out and shouted at someone and she resisted the impulse to reach out for one of the documents on the desk. He returned with the tray and poured for her himself, and she felt she could even tempt him to reveal his own secrets. “Sorry,” she said, and pointed to her watch. He apologized for taking up her time and said he was busy too, because of the big exercise starting tomorrow, and he walked with her to the gate of the base.

  RACHEL PARKED THE VOLVO IN THE enclosed parking lot, went up to the apartment, hid the film, and then realized her legs were shaking. She made it to the bathroom just in time and sat on the toilet, regaining some of the freedom that had been stolen from her during the day. She was sweating, she had a bad case of the runs, and was in tears, and, still sitting there, she reached out for the sink and splashed water on her face. She stayed where she was, half naked, her elbows on her knees, head between her hands, and tried to relax. It isn’t over yet, she told herself. I still have to write the report and pass it on, I must get the film to the drop-off, there are still a lot of things to do. She isn’t a pilot who returns from a sortie and gets home an hour later—she’s in enemy territory.

  The phone rang, she didn’t answer it, and waited to hear the message on the answering machine. “Hi, it’s me. I know you’re there, you can’t get away from me. The Sheraton, as usual? Contact me. ’Bye.” She liked Barbara, and Barbara loved her. Rachel recovered some composure and took a hot shower, washing her hair slowly and carefully, combing it out under the water.

  “Barbara is all right,” she reported to Ehud during her first vacation. “A bit inquisitive, as a girl has to be, but all right. I have to invite her. I have no choice.”

  “Why?” Ehud asked, although he knew the answer.

  “She’s my friend. All strangers are regarded as friends, that’s the way it is there.”

  “And the equipment?” He wasn’t reassured. With men it’s different. They don’t pry into the business of others.

  “It’ll be all right. She wouldn’t understand anything.”

  Ehud asked again and again, and didn’t rest until he was sure Rachel was prepared for any eventuality, Barbara switching on the radio or the cassette player, for example. He asked her to send him more information about Barbara. Rachel went to the school administration office and offered to help with the personnel files of the teaching staff and got him her passport number and national insurance number, and succeeded in persuading Barbara to tell her all her secrets.

  “And you have other friends?” he asked her delicately, and she, knowing what he was driving at, told him about the other teachers, about poetry evenings and field trips with the students. When he asked who they were, she mentioned his name too and left it at that.

  She got out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and switched on the answering machine. Her aunt in Provence asked how she was and reported on the health of the uncle. This was a signal from Ehud, telling her to get in touch, report if everything was okay and if the mission had been accomplished. “This will only complicate things for me,” she told him before they parted in Milan. “Why do you need this? I’ll report everything by coded telegram, all together.” But Ehud insisted, and she knew if she didn’t call him and report the operation using the code words they agreed upon before, he would inform the Unit commander and perhaps even phone her according to
the set emergency plan.

  She wondered if she really wanted him to look for her. Although she knew it was childish and irresponsible, she wanted him to worry, to fret about her. She was postoperational, and hungry, and emotional, and wanted someone to confide in, someone who understood what she was doing, and instead she was going to call Barbara and arrange to meet her in the lobby of the Sheraton, think of what she was going to say, decide what to write in her report, and carry on alone, living, alone, with all that she had seen and done.

  “Pity you didn’t tell me you were going out,” said Barbara over the tall glasses of lemonade. “I’d have been glad to join you.”

  And this is the price of friendship, Rachel was thinking, the price of deceit, the need to prepare for this too, and have a story to tell about everything. “Okay, maybe next time,” she replied, and put on a sour expression. Don’t be too sympathetic. It isn’t good. Barbara could become a good friend, but the more she knows, the more trouble she’s going to be. Rachel tried to focus.

  “And how was it?” Barbara was genuinely interested, and Rachel figured she could tell her about driving on the narrow road, the truck that tailgated her on the approach to the army bases. “How did you come to be there?” Barbara asked, and was amazed when she heard Rachel had chosen such a winding switchback road for her journey. And Rachel knew she had no choice, she couldn’t pretend she’d opted for a different route, that was against the rules. It was only the purpose of the journey that had to be concealed. That’s the way it is. She couldn’t sit down with Barbara, or with him, and pour out her heart. She’ll always need to choose her words carefully and think about what she’s saying. But Barbara could be a true friend in the other world, and Rachel didn’t want to lie to her more than she really had to. So she told her about the early morning rising she forced on herself and the excitement she felt when she stopped to photograph the exotic blooms that proliferated only in the mountainous terrain. “Bring back any nice posies with you? Any chance of getting something to decorate my boring flat?” Then, “Something not all right?” Barbara asked when their salad arrived. The swarthy handsome young waiter, wearing the traditional costume that the hotel required him to wear, hovered close and waited for them to order drinks. “My stomach hurts,” said Rachel, who suspected he was listening to their conversation. She wasn’t lying. It still felt like there was a metal ball in her gut, impeding her breathing. The film, cached in the perfume box, was in her handbag, and she was supposed to go and “lose” it under a bench in the public park. Ehud didn’t tell her who would be picking it up, and she knew it was better that way. But still she felt uneasy, knowing that anyone following her was likely to see the film drop-off. Ehud too thought that the film could wait until she came home on leave, but the intelligence branch was hungry for information and they insisted, as usual, and stressed the urgency, and Ehud agreed to modify his stance and relax the security guidelines. “Make sure you’re not followed,” he said to Rachel, though he knew if they were doing their job, she probably wouldn’t know that she was being tailed.

  And Barbara carried on talking about their weekend recreations and the little traditions they had invented. Rachel agreed with her. Routine is a curse, and in training they taught her not to slip into the fixed habits that will make life easier for those who want to follow her and intercept her. But no one can do without routine. There have to be some regular patterns, like getting up in the morning, going to work, resting on the weekend. “I can’t go out there in the middle of the week,” she told Ehud. “I’m a working girl, don’t forget.” And in the evening when her friends went out to have a good time, she sat in her room and watched the lights in the Defense Ministry building that were never extinguished, and the cars constantly moving. I have no strength left, she thought, and she explained to Barbara that pills wouldn’t help and she just needed to rest. “A pity we came,” said Barbara, and that wasn’t what she meant.

  BARBARA WAS SHORTER, AND PLUMP AND cheerful, and she claimed to be absolutely without morals. “Morality won’t get me anywhere. Morality has no part in what I’m doing.”

  “And what are you doing?” Rachel asked after getting to know her.

  “I’m looking for a rich Arab. I want a big house, cars, servants, the whole lot.”

  “And for this you’re prepared to marry someone you don’t love?”

  “If there’s no other choice, that’s what I’ll do. There are other things besides love.”

  Maybe she was right, Rachel reflected.

  “I want economic security,” Barbara said emphatically. “Life doesn’t revolve around a partner. You need to know what you can do without, and I can do without love.”

  They became friends from the first day. Rachel was early arriving at the school and went to the bathroom to freshen up. After closing the door she heard a voice from one of the cubicles and thought for a moment she’d gone to the men’s room by mistake.

  “Fucking hell,” said the voice. “Someone’s used up all the paper again and I’m stuck in here with my pants down.” And then: “Hey, SOS, Houston, Houston, we have a problem.” Rachel pushed a roll of toilet paper under the door.

  “You’ll see, “Barbara said to her after she’d helped her with the registration procedure and sorted her out with discount coupons for the local supermarket, “to them we’re strangers, the kind of creatures who can be used and exploited. This is a Middle Eastern state in all the worst senses. Not like in Israel. Things are different there.”

  “You’ve been to Israel?”

  “Yes, certainly, I taught there for a year. And you?”

  “No, I haven’t had the chance yet,” said Rachel, thoroughly alarmed and wondering how Ehud would react to this.

  Barbara showed her around the city, took her to the market, helped her to learn to shop, familiarized her with the strange names, and took her into her heart. Rachel loved walking the streets with Barbara, going with her to the few tourist attractions that they were both bored with after one visit, and spending time with her in cafés. Rachel invited her to her apartment and went to parties organized by Barbara. It wasn’t hard rejecting Barbara’s idea that they should live together and save on the rent, on the grounds that with a bit of luck she might find herself a boyfriend soon, although she didn’t respond to the discreet advances of one of the teachers, or to the unsubtle hints dropped by Barbara whenever some foreign tourist met them on one of their strolls. And so she went on lying to her and using her and enjoying her company, and she wondered what would happen if all this suddenly came to an end, and Barbara found out who she was and how she had been deceived.

  BARBARA CAME BACK FROM THE BATHROOM and Rachel saw how she’d adjusted her makeup and added eye shadow.

  “Somebody new?” Rachel asked.

  “You won’t believe it. Blind date with a rich Arab. Exactly what I wanted.” Barbara put a hand in her blouse and adjusted her bra, and asked Rachel to inspect her cleavage and advise on buttons. “You think I should leave one button closed? At least for the first meeting?” she asked. She told Rachel that Mustafa would be arriving soon and she had no idea what he looked like. She asked her to stay with her at least for a few minutes.

  “Exploiting me a bit, aren’t you?”

  Barbara didn’t hide her smile and said she had no choice.

  “You wanted backup for your assignation and you sold me a cover story. That’s why you suddenly started taking an interest in dried flowers,” Rachel said, and realized how the professional jargon suited this situation too.

  “You wouldn’t have come if I’d told you.”

  Rachel felt relieved. Everyone lies a little or a lot in the subjects most important to them, she reflected, and wondered what Barbara would say if she told her about Rashid, and what Ehud will say when she finally reports to him about what she should have for quite some time by now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rashid
>
  “IN HINDSIGHT I UNDERSTAND HER,” SAID Ehud, as if to himself. “She wanted to camouflage the story of Rashid in the report. That’s the rule. Every contact has to be logged.

  “‘I’ve made another friend at school,’ she told me.

  “‘He or she?’ ‘He,’ she answered, and I noticed a slight tension in her voice.

  “‘Foreign or local?’ I asked, and I hadn’t started taking an interest yet.

  “‘Local,’ she said, as if he were one of many.

  “‘Student?’ I asked, and when she said yes I just advised her to be careful. Obviously she couldn’t be expected to live there without making some friends, and I already knew about Barbara.

  “She looked at me as if she hoped this would be the end of the conversation—she’d done what was required of her, and the subject was closed. And then I felt that something strange was happening to her. Even her posture, her body language, was different. Usually she sat forward, on the edge of the chair, like someone needing to make an impression, and she had the manners of an upper-crust boarding-school girl in a British movie. I remember asking her where she got that; as far as I knew she came from a simple home.