“There might still be someone out there looking for you, so you and Niki should hide in the toilets until boarding time,” said Udi, and just before he walked away without any further ado, as if we’d just had hot dogs at a stand in Tel Aviv, he added, “Glad the two of you survived. See you in Paris.”
I didn’t like the idea of a Mukhabarat man with pictures of me, and perhaps of Niki as well looking for us in the departures hall, and when the call for our flight came over the loudspeakers almost immediately, I hurried to the gate, where I was greeted by a huge smile of relief from Niki. She jumped on me and hugged me as if I’d come back from hell, without even knowing how close I’d come to being there, or how close it still was. Later on I realized that she’d feared that despite everything I had left the airport to carry out my own private mission.
As we stood in line, I wondered why Udi hadn’t joined us. Then an Algerian Airlines flight to Paris was announced, leaving at the same time as ours. I saw the line forming for that, and there was Udi, large, heavy, and slightly stooped. No one could have guessed that minutes before this big bear of a man had killed with his bare hands. Just as no one could have imagined the same about me.
As Niki and I handed over our boarding passes, and the stewardess tore off the stubs, a jarring, hysterical voice, speaking in Arabic, came over the public address system. I could only guess what it was saying but the stewardess motioned to us to continue towards the plane. Suddenly there was a lot of activity all over the terminal, with police and soldiers dashing around. Then an announcement came over in English saying that all boarding should cease immediately. The slain Mukhabarat colleagues had clearly been found.
In a minute Niki and I would be on French territory, in the Air France plane, but what about Udi? He was still in a queue with other passengers. It needed nerves of steel to book a flight on an Algerian plane when you are running for your life from Algeria. A moment before we were swallowed up by the gangway I glanced back and saw that he was nearing a welcoming Algerian Airlines stewardess, looking calm.
Niki and I were shown to our seats by a good-looking flight attendant. Udi had decided to pamper us: we were in business class. A smile of childish glee spread over Niki’s face and right away she tried the comfortable seat that reclined almost all the way down and switched on the TV facing her. She knew nothing about what had happened minutes before or that the pandemonium outside was certainly connected to us. She couldn’t guess, as I was assuming, that at that precise moment the pictures of Udi and me were being replicated and rushed to all the departure gates. I decided not to tell her anything until we took off, if we took off.
Our stewardess was charming, and when she asked if we’d like a drink, I ordered a double scotch and a glass of water with a lot of ice. She smiled and said, “Water, right away, but whisky after take-off. As long as we’re on Algerian soil, alcohol is forbidden.” Niki ordered orange juice, two glasses if possible. She was very thirsty.
I dipped my fingers into the glass of iced water, up to my knuckles. Niki’s eyes opened wide. I sighed with a mixture of pain and pleasure, smiled to myself and closed my eyes. Niki was shocked to see how swollen my four fingers were. “He truly deserved it,” I said with a half-smile when I saw her expression.
The ice eased the pain, but the story wasn’t over yet. No other passengers had followed us on board, and clearly something was happening at the airport. The minutes went by as slowly as Chinese water torture. We were close to the cockpit, and when the door opened from time to time I heard the captain in angry exchanges with the control tower or airport authorities. I kept stealing glances at the entrance to the plane, where Mukhabarat men were likely to appear with our pictures. Perhaps the Air France ground stewardess had already identified us and reported we were on board. I debated with myself whether I should go to the captain and ask for his protection but realised that would have been a panicky, weak-nerved move. Time to grit teeth and wait.
Take-off time had come and gone. Through the window I saw the Algerian Airlines plane being towed onto the runway. Had Udi been arrested, and was that why they had okayed the plane for departure? Or did they assume that no foreign agent, especially a Mossad man, would leave the country on an Algerian airline? Something else that I wouldn’t know until we reached Paris. If we reached Paris.
Niki saw that I was troubled, but I didn’t tell her any more. Not even who I’d meant when I said he deserved being punched. Suddenly the jet engines started up. This was strange, because clearly the dozens of passengers who’d queued behind us hadn’t boarded the plane. What was going on? I restrained myself from asking the attendant, but Niki did not.
“Algerian intelligence is searching for someone and wants to search all the aircrafts that were boarding but our captain, and those of British Airways and Lufthansa, who are also waiting to take off, have refused. After consulting IATA, the international airlines organization, they decided that if the local authorities stop the boarding process, they’ll take off with whoever is on the planes.”
The cabin attendant was staring at my hand in the glass. I realized how dumb I’d been: like pinning a sign on myself.
“Caught it in a taxi door,” I volunteered without being asked, and she offered to bring me another glass.
“No thank you. It’s not so bad,” I said, trying not to catch Niki’s eye.
Just then more passengers began entering the plane, the attendants hurriedly ushered them to their seats, and our gallant French captain began taxiing to the runway. Our attendant went through the standard safety routine and I closed my eyes. All I wanted was to feel that we’d taken off. From the air no one would get this proud Frenchman back on the ground.
The stewardess sat down, and the pilot accelerated. When the plane lifted off and banked to the north, I felt Niki’s hand pressing on my left, uninjured hand. Through the slits of my eyelids I saw her staring out of the window as we flew over our mountain and, I knew, trying to identify the spot where we’d been. When the seat-belt sign went off, and we were over the Mediterranean, I got my whisky. I swallowed it in two gulps and ordered another.
“Are you sure you need it?” Niki asked. “Yes, so I can tell you something,” I said. “And I’d like you to get one too, so you can tell me about last night.”
The attendant served the drinks with a light take-off snack, and then proceeded to tourist class. We were left alone. “I’ll drink yours,” Niki surprised me. And she told me. Quietly, detached, as if it wasn’t she who had gone through the horror.
When she refused to spread her legs, the interrogator had ordered two soldiers to hold her. He wrenched down her trousers and shoved his brutal, invasive fingers into her.
“When I stopped resisting, the soldiers loosened their grip. His head was right between my legs. I knew that with one kick, maybe two, I could do him irreparable damage. I needed all the strength in the world to remain the innocent Canadian tourist, and not an operative.”
Then she told me in the same quiet, detached way what had happened when he came back after questioning me, how he told the soldiers to take her blouse and bra off and how he stood and laughed, and they all laughed with him, at the sight of her inverted nipple.
“He’s dead now,” I whispered, and she sat up and asked me to say it again.
I took my bruised and swollen fingers out of the glass and held them up to her. “His jaw did this to me,” I said.
What, how, when, Niki wanted to know.
I told her.
Only then did the weight on her heart lift, and she hid her face in my chest and sobbed.
“I know this may sound out of context,” she said when she was calmer. Her head was still on my chest, her small hand gripping my arm. “I love you so much that you can’t even begin to imagine. Everything I have done, even when I didn’t agree with what I was doing, even when I knew you didn’t like it, I did for you. In the days before this mission, when I didn’t know what was happening with us, when I thought I’d lost your
love, I wanted to die. I came here with you out of a readiness to die. If I had lost your love, I thought, at least I would die for the sake of a goal that you believed in and that I believed in for you.”
Niki, my loyal Niki. With her unparalleled devotion. Complete devotion. Something I had never ever experienced, something that I did not believe even existed in the culture I came from. I’d never had a woman who was ready to die – in so many words – for a goal that I believed in, even if she had lost my love. And I, your common, everyday macho guy, insensitive, dull witted, had been ready to give up this sublime gift. Was I at all worthy of her? And how could I atone? What could I do for her that could compare with what she had done for me? What could I sacrifice that could compare with what she’d been prepared to sacrifice? Would giving up on Middle Eastern vengeance, infantile and idiotic, be enough?
At that moment, I knew. And when I knew, a part of me died and another part came to life.
Over and over again, I kissed the head resting on my chest, her fingers tightening on my arm. All her love was expressed in that grip, all her concern, all her anxiety about what lay ahead. As for me, my heart melted for the marvellous woman at my side and my feelings welled up inside me. Would this emotion, this part of me that had come to life for a new possibility that wasn’t new at all, which we had discussed and dreamed of, would it manage to contain and carry the part of me that had died?
We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in the early evening. It had occurred to me that the Algerians might have asked Interpol, or their friends in France, to detain us, but even if that did happen, I thought, the Office would surely get us off the hook. Be that as it may, I really didn’t want to have to cope with thoughts like this right now.
Waiting by the baggage carousel, arms around each other, we heard a familiar voice behind us, saying “Bienvenue en France.” Udi, who had landed just before us, had no suitcase, only a carry-on bag. I guessed that he had dismantled the mini-Uzi and hidden it on some Algerian hillside. He shook Niki’s hand and I apologized that I couldn’t do the same, showing him my swollen fingers. Addressing Niki, Udi said unsmilingly, “The other guy looked much worse last time I saw him.”
“You’ve got tickets for an Air Canada flight to Toronto, leaving in two hours,” he told us. “If you decide to use them, Niki won’t have a problem. You, Ron Friedlich, can pick up Israeli documentation from Rafi, who is with our Paris station, in the transit hall. If you decide to come to Israel, there are seats for you on the El Al flight three hours from now. In that case, briefings start at the base at ten a.m.” He allowed himself a little smile at last.
When we separated, Udi hugged Niki warmly and kissed the top of her head. Then he gave me a bear hug, letting me understand that he knew it wasn’t clear if and when we’d meet again. As he headed for the transit hall, a sudden warmth enveloped me, as I watched the man who’d been so important to my life – for both good and bad – for almost all the last three years.
“Wait a moment,” I called out after him. He turned back, and I said, “I don’t know what we’ll decide, but I do want to know what happened that night, before and after we were detained on the hill.”
Udi let his carry-on bag drop to the floor. “For one moment, when you and Niki were holding onto one other, and were still apart from the patrol, there was a possibility of hitting all four of them. I was a few dozen yards behind you, about the maximum range of the mini-Uzi. But after they separated the two of you, and you were mixed together with the soldiers, it was over. I couldn’t get any closer because they’d heard something. After they put you in the truck, I went to the spot where you’d had the picnic, took the gear and got rid of it. HQ directed me to the nearby base, and I kept it under observation until I saw you leave. You know the rest.” Udi took a step towards me and patted me affectionately on the cheek. “You’ve done your bit, Mickey. I’d be happy if you came back. But if you decide not to, you can go on living with a good feeling. And by the way, there are already results.”
Once again I was astonished at the way Udi accepted that I had options, and by the freedom he was giving me to decide. He didn’t mean that now that I’d done this job, I wasn’t needed any longer, “the Moor has done his work — the Moor may go.” This was a reward. The ultimate reward. I watched him going up the escalator. A big man with an even bigger head, and a small bag.
We, too, made our way to the transit hall. A large electronic board showed that the Air Canada flight would be leaving from gate 35 and the El Al flight from gate 24. We waited in a café in the centre of the hall. I ordered an espresso, and Niki asked for a hot chocolate, with additional melted chocolate. She called it a Belgian chocolate, and the French waiter made a face. We both laughed.
“There’s something I want to say to you, Niki. I made the decision on the flight and I’ve had two hours to think about it, to weigh it up and to change my mind, so now I am quite sure.”
Niki eyed me, somewhat expectantly, somewhat amused.
“J’écoute,” she said.
I took a deep breath. I knew that after I had spoken, there could be no retreat. The ball would be in Niki’s court, for her to do with it whatever she wished.
“Do you remember when you were happiest?” I asked, thinking I knew the answer.
“With you?” she came back.
“With me,” I replied, slightly deflated. Of course she could also have been very happy without me.
Her eyes lit up from a memory that seemed very far away now, like something taken from another era. “When you were painting and I was editing. In Toronto, in Tel Aviv, in Stockholm, even.”
“Well, I’m willing for that to be our life from now on, Niki.”
She narrowed her eyes and studied me. Her face was serious, and pale.
“We’ve already had this discussion,” she said. “You can’t.”
“Things have changed. You made me choose, and I’ve chosen you. You deserve it, and so do I.”
“Where?”
“Trans-Atlantic distance is the minimum that I need to overcome the enormous attraction of the Mossad.”
“And your parents?”
“The same as yours. And I’ll visit them often.”
“Your sisters?”
“The same as your sister.”
“And your past?”
“The past will not change. It will always be there for me.”
“And will you also be there for it?”
“After we satisfy the present, and build a little bit of the future. The past will definitely go on whispering to me, inside me.”
“And the Mossad?”
“It will also whisper to me, inside me.”
“And burn you up, inside you?”
“Not if you’ll be there all day long, to put the fire out. And not if I’m painting.”
“Let’s order another coffee and another chocolate, and this time I also want a slice of chocolate cake and ice cream.”
“You’ll put on weight.”
“I want to, but not from chocolate.”
We ignored the dozens of passengers waiting in the transit hall, locked together in a kiss full of promise.
“Jewish, Christian and Shinto wedding ceremony?” I asked.
“Or just the Toronto City Hall. In a simple white dress, holding a bouquet of white flowers.”
And again our lips sealed the deal.
I’d taken into account that from his corner of the hall, somewhere near gate 24, Udi was watching us, and grasping which way the wind was blowing. I had no great regrets about our decision. Only great joy at what was about to be born now, long before our children.
After Niki had eaten her chocolate cake we moved out of the small café and sat on chairs at the centre of the hall. A young man with an Israeli look gave us a nod, and I understood that he was Rafi, who was there to give me an Israeli passport for my entry into Canada. I signalled that I’d seen him as Niki gripped my arm and drew my attention to the news on one of the TV s
creens located around the hall.
The image was one of a long line of burnt-out, blown- up trucks. A Lebanese government spokesman was speaking in fluent French, saying this was a grave violation of Lebanese sovereignty. He denied the Israeli claim that the convoy was carrying Iranian missiles from Beirut airport to Hezbollah. The Israeli foreign minister said in response that Israel was ready to give the UN unequivocal proof that the shipment had originated in Iran. The Israeli minister of security added that Israel would not allow this channel for the supply of missiles to exist, just as it had done in the case of other channels.
Niki’s tight grip on my arm didn’t weaken even after the news presenter moved on to report on calamities in other parts of the globe.
“Our buddies in Beirut also did their job,” I told her and I felt a mixed sense of pride and of giving up something of great value.
“They didn’t waste too much time, did they?” Niki whispered. No, they didn’t waste time. “They” being “we”.
“You know what,” Niki said after some reflection. “It’s possible to be a literary agent and a painter in Tel Aviv too, isn’t it?”
“It’s possible,” I drew the words out. “But no.”
Niki understood and said nothing.
Over the Atlantic, something else occurred to me: “You know, I don’t want Tel Aviv to be our default option, and then there’s something else. We owe a debt to Mr and Mrs Friedlich. Once we’ve paid it, I’ll also know that I’m not a default option for the Mossad. If they want me, or us, they’ll have to choose us again.”
Epilogue
Leo’s Story
OUR RENTED APARTMENT in Toronto was cold – we’d shut down the heating when we left – and there was nothing to eat there. I suggested we drove out to Niki’s parents. They’d be happy to know we were back, and for good, but Niki put the visit off for some other time. Her acute senses had picked up my restlessness.
“You don’t feel at home,” she said.
Final Stop, Algiers: A Thriller Page 40