by Dov Nardimon
Reuben’s funeral took place later that day. Ronit returned home from the graveyard with her parents, her brother, and his family. Eddie came to the funeral from his parents’ house, and his parents came as well. As they exited the graveyard, he said good-bye to Ronit and promised he would come to shiva the next morning. They looked at each other for a moment. There was an overwhelming sadness in her gaze, but he thought he saw a touch of anticipation in there as well—the same look Ronit would give him when they would part after dinner at her and Reuben’s house, what now seemed like a thousand years ago. On the way home, he tried to push aside the so-obvious thought: the road was now clear for them to be together. He shuddered at how immoral it would be to even entertain the notion at such a time. He tried unsuccessfully to push down the urge that floated around in his head, telling himself how natural it would be and how much sense it would make.
Eddie went to Ronit’s home every evening of the seven days of mourning. He spent the days trying to pick up the pieces of his broken company. He met with his former employees and tried to conduct a personal battle with Shlomo against the insurance company that refused to acknowledge this criminal offense as an event that justified coverage and compensation. He did so with no energy feeling that returning to the troubles of routine and petty struggles against insurance clerks was beyond his powers. He left his apartment in Be’er Ya’acov and moved temporarily back in with his parents. He had no desire to stay where all he was reminded of was Ebocell-Tech. Eddie no longer wished to resume the Ebola enterprise that had brought so much disaster and pain.
He was burdened by Reuben’s death. Rationally, he knew it was in no way his fault. He reminded himself how he tried to convince Reuben not to cooperate with Isabella, but how Reuben was driven mad with greed. Really it all started with Mickey who worked his charm on Reuben with his extravagant wealth and led him to his death like the Pied Piper.
On one of the shiva nights after he got home and turned on his computer, Eddie found an e-mail from Nir. It was a scan from a newspaper article that was going to be published the following morning.
Newly released!
An Israeli citizen holding an American passport has been arrested in Belgium and transferred to Washington. He is suspected of cooperating with Al-Qaeda.
Tel Aviv-born Mickey Rush, a lawyer who had been disbarred following his involvement in criminal enterprises and who is a known capital venture angel, has been arrested by the FBI and is suspected of selling sensitive security information to research facilities belonging to Al-Qaeda. Israeli intelligence provided the information that led to his arrest in Belgium. Israel and the United States deny any active involvement of the Mossad in Rush’s arrest and transfer to Washington. Our reporter has discovered that advocate Dromi—a well-connected lawyer—is representing Rush’s family and has petitioned the Department of State to have Rush extradited to Israel and tried before an Israeli court. The State Department’s legal advisor has commented that the evidence regarding Rush’s activities against US interests is firm enough to reject any demand of extradition and that in any case Rush has American citizenship.
Rush’s wife, Suzy, refused to be interviewed, but our reporter learned she has no intention of flying to the States to be near her husband. Suzy’s American family, residing in Connecticut, also refused to comment.
“We have every faith in our judicial system,” said Suzy’s brother laconically as he left his office in New Haven.”
He got what he deserved, thought Eddie to himself, and he went out to the veranda for some air. He tried to think of the next day and the days that would follow, but all that filled his mind was Ronit, alone in her home and in her grief. All he wanted was to be beside her. He looked at the late May night sky—clear, black, and studded with stars. From the south Rose’s star twinkled at him, sending signals of her loneliness and anticipation for his response to her letter, but Eddie never even noticed. Ronit was all he could think about.
About the Ebola Virus
The first documented outburst of Ebola happened in 1976 in the small village of Yambuku in the heart of Congo.
The first patient who died of the disease had been mistakenly diagnosed with Malaria.
It took several more days and dozens of more casualties before it became clear the cause of the disease wasn’t malaria, but an unknown factor. The disease vanished from Yambuku and its surrounding area with the same mystery and speed with which it appeared.
In 1995, after almost twenty years of peace, the epidemic broke again in the city of Kikwit, about three hundred seventy miles east of Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire,(Kongo new name) and about twelve hundred miles south of the Ebola valley. Within several days three hundred fifty people died before the source of the epidemic was identified as Ebola. Here too the epidemic vanished just as it appeared, unexpectedly, leaving behind it several hundred deceased and one large mysterious question mark.
Panic took over all of Africa as it became clear that the virus from the far remote Ebola valley that had been believed to have disappeared traveled a long way south and no longer satisfied itself with what had been considered its original nesting ground. Due to the mystery surrounding the appearance and disappearance of the disease, the fear of its reoccurrence always exists.
The Ebola fever, which had been the plague of the African people alone, made headlines in the western world after being added to the list of diseases and epidemics that can someday be used as a biological weapon of mass destruction.
The threat caused governments and the World Health Organization to allocate resources to the research of Ebola, but so far had no results. As of today Ebola continues to pose a threat to the world. Between 2014 and 2015, the epidemic erupted in a few African states, predominately in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Guinea. Almost a thousand people died .A few international passengers arrived in the United States and Europe and were identified as carriers of the disease. A cure for Ebola has not yet been developed. To this day, the only means to stop the epidemic is to isolate those who are infected, but sadly, the unfortunate patients can rarely be saved.
The Ebola virus is a parasitic virus. A thousand times smaller than bacteria, it can only be detected with an electronic microscope with a resolution factor a thousand times more powerful than normal.
The Ebola virus makes use of its thorny exterior, attaches itself to the walls of a live cell, and sucks its core. The Ebola virus inserts its DNA chain into the cell, disguises itself as the actual cell, and stops the body from identifying it as an enemy and from building antibodies against it. By the time the body identifies the Ebola virus as the enemy, it is already too late: the Ebola virus grows, spreads, and causes the vascular system to collapse, usually with no chance of recovery. The victim dies of suffocation as all the internal systems of the body shut down.
Most viruses are parasitic and require live tissue to sustain them, so they leach on to animals and humans. The source of the Ebola virus in nature is unknown, so it is equally unknown how it was first transmitted to humans. Once the first person was infected, the virus can travel from one person to another via infected blood and bodily fluids. The assumption is that monkeys from the Ebola valley in east Congo were the carriers that first infected humans with the virus. The virus got its name—Ebola—after the river on the northeast border of Congo that flows west to where it meets the Congo River, which crosses Congo all the way to the Atlantic Ocean in the West.
There are four strands of Ebola: three are named after the areas where they were discovered—the Congo Ebola, the Ivory Coast Ebola, and the Sudan Ebola. The fourth strand is the unique Ebola Reston, which originated in Southeast Asia in the Philippines. This last strand is not lethal and people who have been in contact with infected monkeys from East Asia have come down with a fever, but developed antibodies to the virus and survived the disease. Until this day there is no known experiment that combines the Ebola Reston with one of the other deadly strands to develop a cure or vaccine that can elimina
te the threat Ebola has over mankind.