On May 14, 1948, the family was celebrating Shalom’s twelfth birthday when the Jewish Agency proclaimed independence, naming the country Israel. The following day the armies of five Arab countries — Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq — attacked Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia also sent troops to assist the Arab contingent. After a year of fighting, an armistice was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. These acts of aggression towards Israel angered Ben Shalom very much and he vowed to one day retaliate. He was inspired by the then leader of the Labour Zionist Movement and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion who welcomed the Holocaust survivors and the Jews who were fleeing from Arab Land pogrom.
On culminating his education with Bagrut matriculation exams in 1953 he joined the present day Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he studied political science and later law. Since he had schooled in a state religious school, Shalom had learnt the Bible and Christianity. His father, half-Jewish-half Arab, let him decide for himself what was best for him, and this not only brought Christian faith to the family in Neve Tzedek but also shaped his future life.
He was in his third year when he met his teenage love who was later to be his wife. Daliah Jonina was an adulterated Jew living in the ma’abarots, the temporary camps that housed the Jewish immigrants fleeing to Israel from the Nazism holocaust and persecution in Arab land.
She had a soft ovate Jewish face, wine-black hair, sparkling black eyes and a smile like a blessing. It was this smile that caught him during his research for his thesis that made him go back to the ma’abarots to look for Daliah. Within no time they were lovers and she taught him the other side of life he had ignored all along because he wanted to see that he someday was the Israel prime minister.
With her surprisingly lovely body, firm young perky breasts, impeccably rounded hips, a small waist and long shapely legs she taught him practical biology and anatomy of the female body; and he taught her the legal jurisdiction of such passion and the consequences of being a political prisoner to his fervour.
On 13th May, 1980 they wedded and a year later they were blessed with a bundle of joy – Hanan. Eight years later his family was to be full – two sons, three daughters.
In 1977 he entered politics under the ticket of the Labour Party. Though the Labour Party was defeated, he was on the opposition Knesset and in 1984, together with the former prime minister, friend and schoolmate, Yitzhak Ben Harzav, was on the Foreign Affairs committee. By the end of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s term, Shalom was appointed the Minister for Justice where he continued to serve under Prime Minister Shimon Perez up to 1992.
When, in 1992, Yitzhak Ben Harzav was elected the Chairman of the Labour Party and won over the Likud of the incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Ben Harzav and Ben Shalom fused as two armies joining forces in forming the first Labour-led government in fifteen years, supported by a coalition with Meretz, a left wing party, and Shas, a Mizrahi ultra-orthodox religious party.
The 1976 religion-related party crisis that had led to the resignation of Ben Harzav as the Prime Minister and the defeat of the Labour party had not influenced Ben Harzav in his vision. With Ben Shalom as the Vice Chairman Labour Party who was a Christian, worse still an RC, Ben Harzav thought that his dream of a peaceful state where nothing divided the people was almost fulfilled. This led to the signing of the Oslo Accords which created the Palestinian National Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
This divided the country into two factions. With some seeing Ben Harzav as a hero for advancing the cause of peace and some seeing him as a traitor for giving away land they viewed as rightfully belonging to Israel, many Israelis on the right wing opposition often blamed him for Jewish deaths in terror attacks, attributing them to the Oslo agreements.
At the same time Ben Shalom was getting monumental popularity by being an ardent supporter and defender of Ben Harzav. It was evident that he was the one to succeed Ben Harzav once Ben Harzav’s term ended. In what came to be known as the Ben Shalom belief of ‘One Man Can Make a Difference’ attributed to Ben Harzav, the Israel society knew of no one else better to succeed Ben Harzav than Ben Shalom. Little did they know that the opposition Knesset was orchestrating a conspiracy that would sweep them off their feet.
The opposition Knesset became vociferous against Ben Harzav’s government and struggle for a peaceful society where he allowed Palestinian Liberation Organization thirty per cent of West Bank’s Arab population leaving paltry seventy per cent for his country.
Despite promising the Knesset that Israel would continue to have ‘freedom of action’, hostility towards him became leprous. His accommodation of liberal and secular Jews in his government led to him being accused of being alienated from the Jewish traditions and values. His life was under threat.
As fate would have it, on Monday 4th December, 1995, Rabin Ben Harzav met his untimely demise outside the Kikar Malchei Yisrael Plaza. He was shot five times in the chest by a right-wing Zionist gunman. The gunman meant to kill both Rabin and Shalom. Shalom sustained serious injuries in the head that put him in a three day coma, the time which he was being operated on at the Ichilov Hospital at the Tel Aviv Medical Centre.
Rabin Ben Harzav never made it; he was pronounced dead on arrival. The Labour Party’s spokesperson announced it to the public an hour later. He was buried three days later with over a hundred heads of state attending his obsequies.
Shalom Ben Zeev, on recovery, was on the opposition Knesset. The new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, formed a predominantly right-wing coalition government publicly committed to pursuing the Oslo Accords, but with an emphasis on security first and reciprocity. Shalom Ben Zeev found himself in the foreign affairs committee, but he joined two other politicians in forming an alliance – One Israel – with his Labour Party where he was the Chairman. He was the alliance’s candidate for the May 1999 elections but he stepped down for Ehud Barak.
In 2001, the Likud won the elections led by Ariel Sharon and Ben Shalom’s Labour Party was in the new government coalition. Due to political differences Ben Shalom differed with the coalition government of Sharon and in 2003 his Labour Party pulled out of the coalition. A year later, two other parties followed suit.
Ben Shalom decided to retire from politics in 2009 when the Likud won the vote of confidence and support for leadership by the Knesset over all other parties. It was then that he decided that he was tired of playing the dirty political game. After all he had a home to go to.
It was evident that he was never going to be the Israel’s prime minister. His first dream of doing something for his country, his people, he told himself, had manifested itself through other people whom he had worked with.
He couldn’t spend the whole of his life pursuing political dreams that seemed elusive. Maybe his son, Shamir, would succeed in where he had failed.
CHAPTER 88
Nairobi, Kenya;
Denise Mwajuma was about to leave the Imperial Media Centre early this day. At least it was early for her. She drove her Subaru B3 Auto that she had bought, without a loan, three years ago after six years of saving.
Her house was at the Nairobi’s Westlands locale. She clenched and unclenched her fists hitting the car horn hard as though she were the only one on the road at this hour. She was caught in a boot-to-bonnet traffic jam which was caused by a minor accident involving a family saloon car and a KEBS bus near the Kenya National Museums. She hated procrastinations, especially now when she was hurrying to finish up her article. The article had to be presented by the following day to the editor so that it could be published on the Monday’s paper. It was one of her best – she had taken too much risks to come up with what she was about to tell the world. Apart from her secret informers no one else knew about it.
Two hours later she climbed out of her car outside her house. She unlocked the front door and went inside. She couldn�
��t wait to be inside her study where she worked from while at home while sipping her favourite beverage – coffee. She did not bother to cook. She had no appetite today. She always lost appetite when she had work to do of which she did not like having unfinished work lying on her desk.
Before she locked herself in her study she checked that everything was okay – whether the windows were all closed and locked, the kitchen door and the security lights in the foyer. When she was satisfied and had turned on the security alarm, she lost herself in the final re-editing of her article before she handed it over to the editor Moonbeam the following day.
As she typed on her CQ60 Compaq Presario laptop she listened to the neighbourhood preparing to sleep, others to go out to party and others to lose themselves in the most romanticized shenanigans she did not want to think about for long lest she found herself calling her Friend with Benefits, her oh-so romantic fuck buddy she was tempted to promote to boyfriend.
In the dying cacophony of the night she was aware of a strange creaky whine nearer than the frail guttural sounds of the dark night. She was in some kind of a trance, journalism trance, the rare and special creative writing state where the environment has no impact, time no meaning and mind’s engaged in the fluency of writing; every word falling in to place poetically and logically.
‘The Secret World of Black Market’ was a story with incredulous truth, political implications, religious insinuations and life repercussions. It was going to affect many people, and change the lives of many still. She was sure she was to take the world by surprise. In her inner eye she saw careers being ruined – politically and religiously, an explosive exposé of the secret government dealings and the big names behind the illicit trade, of secret cartels, organised crime, criminal cabals and the intricate and complex world of black market that, according to her, led to economic dwindling by almost fifty percent, precisely 48.9875% in the country, and above all, expose Carol’s killer.
It was her story.
No one else had been closer to this but the slain Carol. Denise imagined it being read by nine people out of ten as the Imperial Media Services boasted of the readership of their newspaper, the Moonbeam. She imagined striking a bargain with The Standard and the Daily Nation and perhaps going freelance, working for the highest bidder, just for the mere fact of selling her earth-shattering story; and then the book, her book, ‘Black Market Turns White’ and the sequel ‘Government Criminal’. Perhaps Hollywood would see potential in her books and make her the first African to sell her work’s movie rights to Hollywood.
She drained her umpteenth cup of coffee. It was almost two in the morning and she did not seem lethargic in the least.
She heard as though her front door was being attempted to be jimmied. But she always, like a ritual, left the keys in the key lock so that nobody would be able to jimmy the lock while she was inside. She decided to go and check. She was already late.
“Be quiet, Denise. Do exactly as I say,” said a man’s voice. An unmasked figure stood at the door of the study with a menacingly fierce looking gun. Denise Mwajuma exhaled the air she had breathed in a moment before. All her muscles went slack. Although she had basic taekwondo training for self-defence in close quarter battle nothing had prepared her on how to deal with a situation like this when the enemy was armed with a Glock 18C machine pistol, looking at you as though you were an alien and smiling as though the whole world belonged to him.
She squelched the compulsion to scream. She decided to play by the rules and maybe she would live through this. Something told her that she was not going to, though. Her story will never be published.
She stared at the man. He had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. But one thing bothered her – the intruder had let her see his face. Bad omen! And... She had seen him, she knew him.
“You can take everything you want, please, but don’t kill me please. I won’t say anything.”
“That’s quite romantic of you, Denise,” the man said. He had the deepest, hoarse voice she had ever heard. Her name was like music to the ears as he said it. “But I do not think I am here for money, sweetheart, though I will take what I have come for. I can’t leave it here for police to find.”
Fear shot through her. Were adrenaline rocket fuel she would have been halfway to mars.
“I’m I supposed to know what you want?” she tried to hide her fear as much as possible. Show no fear, co-operate.
“No, Denise, but you know. Only that you don’t know I know what you know. It’s nothing important but ‘The Secret World of Black Market’.”
Now that got her heart thumping to the point of bursting her whole body. How was she discovered? For Chrissake, who had blabbed? But that was not important at this minute. She had to live.
“You know more than you’re supposed to. You leave us no choice,” the intruder said. “And you figured out who Carol’s killer was. Three years down the line, you should have let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Please….” Denise tried to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth.
“What use is justice for the dead? Do it for the living.” The intruder was toying with his gun, not the way they do it movies.
She heard no sound but a soft whisper. The Glock had a silencer, but she saw the bright flash behind her eyes and then everything dissolved in the flash. All her fears, thoughts of how to tackle the intruder, fears of bodily violence, defilement and assault; all her fantasies, dreams of the implications of her exposé – all, the whole caboodle – came to an abrupt end.
The national security reporter never knew that a bullet blew her brains away and shattered all her intellect and knowledge to nothing but dust and worms.
“I hope that didn’t hurt, Denise,” Urbanas said to the already lifeless body. “Try journalism in hell, it’s not a promising and safe career in the world.”
CHAPTER 89
Friday, 5th February;
Within a fortnight I was fully at home with the Shaloms. I used to accompany Hanan when he made his rounds of the estate every once in a week checking on the orchards and the flower gardens, the wheat and corn fields and workers.
As it had become the custom of Hanan and me, this day we made the familiar circuit of the estate and when we were done he told me that there was going to be a dinner party in an hour’s time.
“Dinner party?” I asked. “Don’t tell me I’m supposed to be there.”
“Dad has invited some of his old political friends. Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres would be there, so would be the Minister for Defence and other key members of the Knesset. We’d be whole family, too; Shamir is coming over with his wife and my sisters have already come.”
“Oh God,” I groaned.
“A stimulating conversation for a change, don’t you think so? Plus a chance to interact with Israel’s who’s who.”
“I don’t think…”
“There is no absconding this, my frien’. Dress for the occasion.”
I did not argue. There was no need to. “OK then, see you in an hour’s time,” I said.
“I’ll pick you up ten to the hour. Is that OK with you?”
“Yeah, it’s OK. I’ll be ready.”
At my house, I shaved quickly, took a cold shower and dressed. Yitzhak, my valet, had laid out dinner jacket in the dressing room and put golden cufflinks into my dress shirt.
When I was dressed I crossed the wide corridor strewn with oriental carpets to the parlour downstairs. At the head of the staircase I came to an abrupt halt and drew in a deep breathe like a diver. I had a guest, the last person I expected to see. Shirli was there, seated on one of the two-seater sofas sipping wine as though she had no worry in life, or was in her house. Well, technically she was. I gathered my nerves and composed myself, ready to pounce on her like a lion.
She was much better value than I had expected. She had changed in those several days – her hair was now bob-ish, long enough to reach her shoulder blades, and benign, and she had decorated her face w
ith a fade bindi giving her an Indian face. I had not expected this visit from Shirli. She was this catch-me-if-you-can kind of a woman I wondered why the hell she had decided to come to my house.
“Have you ever killed anything in ya’ life, sweetie?”
“Can’t stand the sight of blood, Mr. Flirt,” she said indignantly and before I could say something she continued, “Is that how you talk to strangers? I thought I was meeting the opposite of what Shirli said. She’s right after all.”
Shirli... said?
“Wait a minute? Am I missing something here, Shirli? Stop this miss-tough-lady bullshit. I just meant to lighten the moment before dinner, Shirli. Furthermore, you look as though you can kill. You look more beautiful than...”
She stopped me with a wave of her hand. “My goodness! I now see. I’m sorry; it’s not your fault. You’ve met my sister, Shirli, but you haven’t met me.” Holy crap!
“Shifra, nice to meet you.” She offered her hand for me to shake. I took it nonchalantly.
I was astounded. I need an explanation, or something of sorts. She offered one.
“I am sorry, but Shirli and I are twins. No. We’re actually triplets. We look alike. It’s hard to differentiate us from each other. I am Shifra, but wait and see Meira; you’d actually think she’s my clone.”
“I’m sorry then,” I said shamefacedly.
“For what? It isn’t your fault,” she said and took a sip of the wine she had served herself with. “Shirli told me about you. I decided to come and say hi before dinner. I don’t like surprises.”
Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) Page 20