by Amy Wilentz
“He was a real fighter,” Ahmed said.
“Yes, he was,” George said. Was Ahmed reproaching him?
“It will end, it will end,” Ahmed said. “The struggle will end. Soon.”
“Do you think?” George asked. “Oh, I doubt it, Ahmed, I highly doubt it.”
“We will end it. But we have to get there, George. You know that. I thought you were the one who believed that we were still at war, no? We can’t just throw up our hands. The peace talks are the last best way to continue the struggle, that’s what you don’t see. Every moment has its own strategy. And we have to pull the Israelis by the balls to bring them to peace.”
Ahmed looked at George, who was shaking his head.
“You’re just a visitor, George,” Ahmed said. “Visits don’t count, habibi. You’ve been away a long time. You don’t understand what’s going on here. This is the final conflict.”
This?? George wanted to say. But he chose to maintain a friendly tone.
“I’ve been watching you, though,” he said to Ahmed. “I’ve had my eye on you, Salah al-Din. You all make a lot of declarations. You talk a lot. And talk is fine, I know, I agree. But you don’t need to use everything that comes to hand.”
Ahmed shook his head.
“We’ve always used whatever tools were available to us, George.”
“What does that mean? It sounds sinister.” George flipped through the index of the book, looking for his own family name, for Ahmed’s, for Wa’il’s. But he wasn’t concentrating.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Ahmed said. “When we had only knives, we used knives. We got guns, we used them. TNT, then plastics, Semtex. We used raids, actions, operations, hijacking, explosives, and when that stopped working, we used the intifada. Every mistake they made, we exploited for every ounce of usefulness, and we must keep doing that. Until the end, we must keep doing that.”
“I think I know what you’re trying to say,” George said, after a minute. “But you have enough weapons at your disposal. You have enough bargaining chips. You don’t need to use my grandson to spur on the masses. He’s not a blunt instrument, Ahmed.” George looked down. He riffled through the pages of his book.
“We use the tools that are given to us, George.”
George raised his eyes.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Raad. Don’t be so angry with me. I’m only doing what you would be doing if our roles were reversed.” Ahmed fixed him with those bright, penetrating eyes. “I want you to join forces with me.
“Listen,” Ahmed said. “I mean it, really listen, George. Right now is unfortunately when the rest of us—and that means me, too, no matter our connection—right now is when the rest of us have to keep pushing. We have to. Hamas bombed those buses to stop the Israelis from negotiating with us. And it worked, too, of course. Hamas is our enemy. Now, the Chairman wants to put a little gentle political pressure on the Israelis to bring them back to the talks.”
“Go on,” George said. He wanted to hear the whole bloody rationale.
“You know it all already, George.” Ahmed shut his eyes for a second.
Was he showing exasperation? George wondered. How irritating.
“We need the boys to come out to the checkpoints and stir things up again. As usual, riots at the crossings will be the one thing that convinces the Israelis we mean business. You know how they hate seeing Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian kids on CNN.”
George nodded.
“To get the boys to come out,” Ahmed said, “the Chairman needs something to fire their imagination. He has to push with whatever he has—whatever incident—and I think you and I both know just what it is he has right now.”
Ahmed looked at George’s face. What did he expect to see there?
“Don’t hate me, George,” he said. “Just listen to me. A violinist who’s a soldier can’t say as he marches onto the battlefield, ‘Well, my bow arm is too valuable, too sensitive—I’ll just fight with my left arm.’ He’d be cut to bits in a matter of moments. Or he’d lose his left arm: No more music in any case. If you’re serious, you have to use what you have, no matter the cost. I’d like to have you on board. It matters to me, and it would help. It would help very much.”
George looked back down at the open book that was balanced on his lap.
“I hate it, Ahmed,” he said in a low voice. Wa’il looked up at him with large innocent eyes.
“George, what can I do?” Ahmed asked. “I can’t promise you anything. The Chairman is not going to see it from your point of view, that much I can say. The Chairman rarely wastes a political opportunity.”
The Chairman, George wanted to say. I don’t think this is about the Chairman.
• • •
ANOTHER SECOND OF it and Marina thought she would collapse absolutely. Female relatives kept coming into the kitchen and looking at her expectantly, as if she were supposed to say something kind and sympathetic to them. She pushed her chair away from the table and walked out. They were all looking at her, she knew, and when she was gone they would start to discuss her.
She went into the bathroom. She loved the bathroom, her refuge. The closed seat of the toilet was hard, but at least private. The fluorescent light zipped and hummed and flickered. It was her noisy but undemanding companion. And there was something about tile: smooth, white; it had an appealing blankness. She let her eyes drift over it, and then occupied herself in the study of the arabesque border design, whose repeating pattern could be fiddled with mentally for minutes at a time, to distraction. The pattern had endless possibilities, and no meaning. She locked the door with the key and removed the key from the keyhole.
Everything you could possibly need was here, Marina thought. Water. A small window, through which you could see a single tree. Reams of tissue paper. A place to sit. A place to lie down—the bathtub. Pills and razors.
She was still living only because going on living was what you did. But she had no interest in it. Her heart felt dark and empty. She couldn’t suppress the feeling that she was responsible. She was his mother. This bathroom was the little prison cell where she came to hide her guilt. She ran a finger around the rim of the sink. She put her feet up on the toilet seat and wrapped her arms around her knees. She leaned her head against the cool white tiles behind the toilet. The evening breeze blew over her. In the mirror, she could see her tree swaying in the light of a streetlamp.
CHAPTER FIVE
YIZHAR’S RUBBER SOLES MADE A spongy noise as he walked past the yellowing, grime-stained, malfunctioning Xerox machine toward his office. At this hour, the hallway on the fifth floor of The Building was always nearly empty. That was one reason why Yizhar liked to keep late hours, free himself from the watchful if unobservant eyes of the human beast. You needed privacy for his kind of work. Yizhar’s beat was scandals and fuck-ups and security lapses. He had a reputation for handling things. The Prime Minister was always praising Yizhar for fixing the things—the very simple things—that the Prime Minister had somehow fucked up. Like last year. Last year, Yizhar took Israel’s failed assassination of a Hamas official and spun it into an attempt by Israel to save the guy from assassination. Not bad, not bad.
When he arrived finally at the wall-to-wall carpet that marked off his office from the hallway, Yizhar smiled at last year’s coup. Even the Hamas guy, formerly certain that he understood and could explain every little thing that happened in this chaotic, random, inscrutable universe, was no longer—and Yizhar knew this for a fact—no longer really sure whether the Israelis had been his saviors or his assassins. Yizhar imagined the guy fiddling with his beard.
“Packaging problems”—that was how the Prime Minister liked to put it.
So of course, the minute Yizhar heard that the boy at the Shuhada checkpoint had died, he had asked to be put on it. Naturally. Yizhar did not like to push for things that would come to him anyway, simply because of the army’s colossal bureaucratic inertia, but for this one, he pushed. He was a
fraid to miss it. He had to admit to himself that he had his own personal interest in what had happened, but then, as number two in charge of West Bank security, he was also someone to whom they would naturally come. Packaging this “problem” was a perfect job for Yizhar. It was high profile, and delicate. It needed a proper army investigation, and thorough army spin.
If a situation demanded a straightforward treatment, entirely aboveboard, Colonel Daniel Yizhar was happy with that: he could be direct and open. But also, he had no problem with the little distortion, the white lie, the stretching of truth to fit necessity. He could look quite honest and innocent with that kind of situation, too. He had a law degree. He had military standing. He cared about the army, thought it was an institution that was probably worth respecting. He was a lifer, as far as the army was concerned. He had gone to them and asked for this one, and he knew why they had chosen him. He was glad.
The main thing was to get the story out there, Our Way.
Irit brought him the file. Why did she always have to have that piece of white stomach sticking out between her tight little sweater and her tight pants? It was all he saw when he considered her from behind his desk. She must be under the impression that it was appealing in some way. He should send her home soon.
“Look at these,” she said. Of course Colonel Daniel Yizhar would have to have a secretary with a stripe of white stomach who felt it was her right as a citizen to look at—and probably memorize, and probably recite for her friends over morning coffee while also making time to discuss her boss’s waistline and hairline and extreme lack of social life—who thought it was her right to peruse every little secret scrap of paper that blew across her desk. She had to have seen the stamp that said CONFIDENTIAL on the soldier’s file, on the checkpoint file, on Hajimi’s file. She had probably stamped them herself, when you came down to it. And there she stood, not going away. Yizhar considered pinching that piece of flesh.
“Coffee, by any chance?” he said. Irit knew he needed the hourly fix.
“Right.” Her tone was sullen, but she went. She wanted him to let her go home. That’s why he was keeping her here. This was one of the sorry things that constituted his life’s daily amusement. He couldn’t help it, it did. He enjoyed this petty toying. He suspected she did too, in her negative pouting way.
He opened Lieutenant Doron’s file. So the boy was handsome. A handsome, open face. He looked nice. For a fleeting second, Yizhar thought, I wish I had a son like that. But he quickly folded up that thought and put it away. Futile fantasy. Business, business. Yizhar wondered about the boy’s character. Doron came from a good Labor family with a father who had been a career officer. The father grew up on a kibbutz, fought in the ’67 war, died of his wounds years later. Good man, good fighter, faithful army stock—Yizhar hoped the boy was made of the same mettle. How would a boy like this react to what had happened? With too many feelings, probably. But army loyalty would dominate. He thumbed through the rest of Doron’s papers: copy of identification card, a résumé with very little on it other than army, army, army, a Xerox of an old photograph of the father being decorated, medical reports—a boy in the pink of health.
Inside the checkpoint file was yesterday’s report from one of Yizhar’s Bethlehem men. Someone down there was scribbling on the walls: FIND THE SOLDIER, the scribbling said. A couple of angry guys with a can of spray paint. Another report came from Ramallah: the same graffiti on the walls near the checkpoint. Using stencils. Stencils, hmmm. And stencils in Jenin, also, before today’s big demonstration there. The same stencils, he could see from the Polaroids his men had taken. Stencils, hah! That degree of uniformity could mean the long arm of the Authority, trying to milk the dead baby for everything he was worth. Or it could just be some fundamentalist jerks attempting to rile up the rabble.
But Yizhar wasn’t worried. He was indifferent to violence. Sure, since the kid’s death the shabab had seriously upped the slingshot ante—and the Authority’s policemen were backing them up with gunfire. But fortunately, those guys didn’t have what they call “muzzle discipline” in the army. Which is to say, they couldn’t shoot straight, so they didn’t inflict much intentional damage. Mostly got their own guys in the back. The violence could escalate many notches before it would crease Yizhar’s brow, despite all the complaining and whining of the usual politicians. He knew that the Israelis could keep things reasonably in check. As long as Doron behaved. If the soldier fucked up, then things could spin out of control, although even in that case, it was hard for Yizhar to imagine losing the reins of this thing. And headquarters had already warned Doron not to talk to anyone but Yizhar. That was the first thing they told him: keep a low profile.
• • •
IRIT BROUGHT IN his Nescafé, plunking it down on its usual spot with particular vehemence. He watched the milky brew slosh from side to side in the cup. He needed a pick-me-up—he’d been working too hard on itty-bitty cases. The little things bothered him. Like crumbs at the bottom of a box of cereal, they couldn’t satisfy a man’s appetite. Yizhar was itching for something big. With Israel’s usual bad luck, this Hajimi thing could turn into a manhunt for the soldier, a sort of fatwa, which was not a tiny thing. Yizhar looked forward to the fray. If the Palestinians decided to make an issue of the child, they’d go looking for Doron—the Authority might join the hunt, along with the child’s family, freelance terror artists, other factions, who knew? And the Chairman probably would make an issue out of it, since the Palestinians, Yizhar had noticed over the years, had a natural flair—was that the word?—for drama and p.r., if not for negotiating or self-government. Everyone would be trying to find poor Doron, Yizhar’s little lamb.
Yizhar let his eyes stray over the pictures on his desk. Like everyone else in the army, he had the famous photo of the three exhausted generals walking side by side the day the war ended, on their way to claim the Old City of Jerusalem. He also had a more recent snapshot of himself bringing in Farouz Gara, an infamous freelance terror artist from the Hebron area. But dearest to his heart was the group photo of his old company. Fresh faces, bright eyes, everything you expected to see in young soldiers. There was Yizhar, second row, third from left, standing, second in command. He had his rifle barrel shouldered. Fourth from left, Shimon Gertler, bright-eyed too, a shock of hair falling over one eye. Yizhar’s commander. It was a fierce company, but when Yizhar looked at it, he didn’t see a group of men. He just saw Yizhar and Gertler, as if their two faces had been circled with red crayon. A mere memento, people thought, just like the other photographs sitting there on the desk of a middle-aged officer. But Yizhar knew its historical significance. Let others think it was a simple souvenir. He picked it up to scrutinize it more thoroughly. He and Gertler looked like brothers.
Irit worshipped Gertler.
“That’s Shimon Gertler, there, next to you, isn’t it?” she’d asked him once, when he came upon her examining the picture one evening. She pointed with a purple nail.
“Yes,” he said. Didn’t she know the story, he wondered.
“He was such a hero,” she said.
“He’s a naturally brave man,” Yizhar said. He looked at Shimon. Shimon was smiling, unlike the rest of the company, who had on their manly, brave faces, himself included. He and Shimon had just come from giving the boys a big pep talk: the country, the challenge, the menace, And We Shall Prevail. After all, he and Shimon had been in charge. They said what they had to say. The boys went into battle that afternoon, fateful day for all of them.
“Poor fellow,” Irit said.
“People don’t usually say that about someone who’s been prime minister,” he said.
“I know,” she said, looking at the picture again, tenderly. “But still.”
Yizhar recalled that conversation in detail: the tender voice, from beneath the bluish sheen of mascara. Oh, she knew, she understood.
His gaze wandered from the picture he held in his hand to the surface of his old metal desk. The desk depressed
him. It was the only desk he had ever heard of that was rusting. The turned metal edges and the rolling parts of the drawers were orange, and flaking, like the fenders of an old car. This was where he was supposed to work, and interview people, and appear to be important. It was something that no working person would ever dream of complaining about. My desk is rusting. Your desk is rusting? What?
He took a sweet sip of coffee and ran a finger over a rusty spot. The dust came off like pollen on his fingertip.
A knock, and Reuven popped his head in.
The sergeant’s whole entire large body followed slowly through the half-open door. God, he was a presence. When he stood in front of it, the door was barely visible.
“What,” Yizhar said, looking up briefly.
“I’m leaving,” Reuven replied. “That okay?”
“Why not?” Yizhar said.
“You okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The Hajimi thing . . .” Reuven looked at him, his head cocked to one side—like a friendly dog.
“Yes?” Yizhar said. It always took Reuven a long time to get to the point. Yizhar realized he was still holding the company’s picture in his hand. Well, he’d just have to go on holding it. To put it down now would surely spark Reuven’s slow-burning but inexorable curiosity.
Ah, damage already done. Here he comes. Reuven lumbered toward the desk, and came around behind it. He looked at Yizhar to see if he would be stopped or scolded, then peered over Yizhar’s shoulder.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. The picture was a familiar one to Reuven, who spent about half of every working day in Yizhar’s office. “Gertler.”
Yizhar put the picture back down on his desk.
“Irit’s got a thing for him,” Reuven said.
“Does she?” he asked.
“She’s weird.”
Reuven was so insightful.
“Lots of women like him,” Reuven went on.
“He was always very attractive,” Yizhar said. “Especially in uniform.”