by Ragen, Naomi
“Bubbee!” Elise reached out for her.
“Oh, my, here, let me help you . . .” Julia said, alarmed. She grabbed the old woman’s soft arm, helping her into a chair.
Julia took a deep breath. “Look, Mrs. Helfgott, I understand why you are suspicious. I would be too in your circumstances. Reporters from this region tend to be pretty one-sided. But I’m not like that. That’s why I made such an effort to get your daughter interviewed. The only people on the air are Palestinians. They are only too happy to describe their suffering. I believe that journalism has to get to the truth. The world needs to see your granddaughter. To hear her pain. Please, help me do that?”
Leah looked carefully into the young woman’s eyes. But as hard as she searched, she couldn’t read anything in them.
“Look, Mrs. Helfgott, my name is Julia Greenberg. I’m also a Jew. I even had a Bar Mitzvah.”
Leah stared at her. “No.” She shook her head emphatically. “You didn’t.”
Julia lowered her eyes in confusion. How could she possibly know that she’d never finished Hebrew School . . .? “Well, I started Hebrew School . . .” She stammered, flustered.
So, maybe I’m wrong, Leah thought. Maybe my eyes are not so sharp anymore, to see into people’s hearts. A Jewish girl. I would never have guessed it. She looked at Elise and her heart ached. She wanted so much to be doing something, anything . . . And who was to say she wouldn’t convince someone that harming Jon and liana would be bad publicity that, at the very least, might gum up their funding?
“You had a Bat Mitzvah,” Leah sighed. “For a girl, it’s called a Bat Mitzvah.”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“No, you said Bar Mitzvah. Only boys have a Bar Mitzvah.”
“Right. Of course.” Julia nodded, smiling sympathetically into the face of the babbling old nuisance.
Leah squeezed Elise’s hand: “If you feel you have to do this, then do this. I’ll stay with you.”
“Great!” Julia exulted, then reined in her glee, seeing the startled looks on the faces of the two distressed women. “You are making absolutely the right decision. The world is so small, and our network goes to every Arab country, all of Europe and the Far East, as well as America,” she told them sincerely. “We have great credibility in the Arab world. Believe me, you couldn’t have made a better choice on how to bring your message to them. And I promise, what you say will be heard. We won’t touch a word of it.”
“Maybe someone will hear me, Bubbee. Someone who just wants to help. They say their Allah is merciful.”
“Yes,” Leah murmured, “yes, darling, that’s what they say.” And Hitler kept saying all he wanted was peace.
“There’sjust one little problem . . .”Julia hesitated.
“What?” Elise demanded.
“Well, Dr. Gabbay is going to be furious at me for sneaking in here. And he isn’t going to want the TV cameras barging into Elise’s room . . .”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Gabbay,” Leah said. “You get your cameras. Do it fast and let my granddaughter rest.”
“Deal,” Julia said, hurrying out the door. “Be right back.”
She took long strides down the hall. Downstairs, she high-fived the camera crew. “We’re on, guys. Let’s get moving.” She got on her cell phone. “Jack, don’t faint,” she said exultantly. “I’ve got an exclusive interview set up with the mother! Yes, the one they are keeping behind barbed wire at Hadassah! How?” She chuckled. “Charm. The grandmother is a tough old bird, though. And she hates reporters . . . Yeah, I’m setting up right now. I’ll get you the tape in time for the evening news.” She was suddenly silent, listening in disbelief, her eyes growing wide. “What!? You want to repeat that? Balance? But what does Elise Margulies have to do with the Sineh suicide bomber footage? Sean’s footage!? You’ve got to be kidding! You know how he got that? He threw coins into the garbage and got those Palestinian kids to dive for them! You said yourself we should throw it out . . . Pictures of Palestinian kids in the hospital? But how would you know if they were hurt by Israeli soldiers? What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Time saver? I don’t think so . . . What, is that an ultimatum? Yeah, I understand, Jack. I understand perfectly . . .” She slammed the phone down.
She sat down, weary, feeling sick to her stomach.
“So, what’s happening? Don’t you want to put on some makeup? Because if you want the footage in time for the evening news, Julia, we have to get cracking,” the cameraman urged her.
She looked up at him. If you want the footage. It was her decision. Slowly, she opened her compact. Her eyes stared out at her. She didn’t look into them. Instead, she concentrated on her mouth, slowly putting on her lipstick.
“Okay,” she said.
If it went smoothly, she wouldn’t even be late for her date with Milos.
Chapter Nineteen
American Colony Hotel, Fast Jerusalem
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
8:30 P.M.
“MOVE OUT OF the way, darling, will you? Your bum is blocking my view of the telly.”
She had a nice body, he thought, in spite of himself, even if her thighs were a little on the heavy side, and her calves had a sturdiness that reminded him of Eastern European Olympic skiers. And the long blond hair was pretty, and her face lively, with even features that altogether would make someone look up and say of the overall woman: attractive. Only . . . there was something missing in her eyes, a warmth. They were like two little bluish ice floes. He turned over, sitting up in bed and lighting a cigarette.
Although a jury of his peers would have found it difficult to believe, the truth was it had not been Milos’s intention to go to bed with Julia Greenberg. From the moment he’d glimpsed the supercilious lift of her jaw, heard her plummy British enunciation, he’d had only one thought: to enlist her as guide through the media labyrinth.
But the realization that he’d stumbled serendipitously into an incredible source of vital information, and that it could be his only if he reciprocated her obvious sexual interest, had put him into a bit of a moral bind. For the first time he thought he understood what his grandmother had gone through during the war. It was kiss Julia Greenberg or kiss good-bye to any hope of proving useful in the search for Dr. Margulies and liana. What he found most strange, though, was that acting like a lover made you start feeling like one. At least, he wanted to believe that. His conscience demanded it. He blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “Only Eastern Europeans and the French still smoke. What is it about you people? Are you pollution junkies?”
He grinned. “Do you know they used to have commercials for cigarettes that said: ‘Four out of five doctors smoke Camels.’ One day it’s bad for you—like butter. And the next it’s good. Golda Meir was still smoking three packs a day when she was eighty. She said: ‘One thing is for sure; smoking isn’t going to be the death of me.’”
“Yeah, but how many of her friends were still alive?” she said, waving the smoke away irritably. She saw his eyes smile. She smiled back.
He was a wonderful lover. Not overeager, mind you. But what he lacked in passion, he more than made up for in skill and considerable charm. That was fine with her. She didn’t like grasping adolescent sex. And British men were so predictable. He fit her vision of someone stylishly Third World. There was something a bit thrilling, she thought, about taking on a refugee from the gray slush of the thawing communist regime. Almost like a project. And his accent was so charming . . .
“Has anyone ever told you that you are a difficult woman? Why do you have to be so difficult?” he said, putting out the cigarette and snuggling back beneath the covers. He put his arms around her.
She smiled, kissing his ear, then reached behind his back and grabbed the remote. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Beautiful and full of surprises. Just the way I like my women . . .” He rubbed his hand over her bare stomach.
/> “Be serious for a minute.” She took a deep breath. “I got an exclusive interview with Elise Margulies! You know, the mother . . .”
He sat up. “Of course I know who she is. How did you do it? They weren’t letting anybody inside . . .”
“I bribed one of the orderlies to give her this note from me. It wasn’t easy. He made me swear I was going to help the doctor and the little girl.”
“Congratulations,” he forced himself to say, pitying the orderly.
“Thank you very much!” she exulted. “This has got to earn me some kind of prize. Maybe the same one Suzanne Goldenberg got.”
“Ah, the famous Ms. Goldenberg and her heartstopping pieces on museums honoring suicide bombers . . . I don’t know. It’s asking a lot,” he murmured drily.
But the sarcasm was lost on her as she focused intently on her own flickering television image. “Shh. Watch.”
“And now we bring you a special report from BCN’s ferusalem correspondent, fulia Greenberg, who has arranged an exclusive interview with Elise Margulies, wife of Dr. fonathan Margulies, and mother of five-year-old liana Margulies, kidnapped and being held hostage by Palestinian activists.”
“Activists? Aren’t those people who save whales?” Milos asked incredulously.
His protests were background noise to her as she studied the screen.
“Shh. I look good. That white blouse was a bit too predictable maybe, but I had no time to change. Still, damn good. Don’t you think?”
“Damn good,” he repeated tonelessly, watching her performance with growing dismay.
“I’m here with an Israeli settler who has paid the highest price of all for choosing to live in the Occupied Territories: the kidnapping of her husband and child. On the other side of this door, she is waiting to give her statement. This is a BCN exclusive, the first time that Israeli authorities have permitted her to speak during this news blackout.”
The camera focused on Elise’s soft, pale face, keeping her body hidden, Milos noted. The result was all the viewer would see was a tired but healthy young woman only moderately distressed. “Why did you have to call her a settler? Why not mention she’s a pregnant woman hospitalized in intensive care? Why not tell them that keeping reporters away was a health precaution, not a ‘news blackout’?” he protested.
“I think my hair could have used a washing. And maybe a trim. Is it noticeable?” She was speaking more to herself than to him. She hardly noticed him. She ran her fingers through the long strands.
“Mrs. Margulies, what would you like to say to the kidnappers?” Right look of concern in the eyes, yet the right firmness of tone, she noted, congratulating herself.
Milos got up and crouched down by the set.
“I would like to appeal to the kidnappers. My husband is a doctor. A good man, who saves lives. Many of his patients are Muslims. And my child is just an innocent baby. Whatever your grievances, please don’t hurt innocent people. To kill unarmed prisoners is a sin according to Islam. Allah is merciful. I ask you too to be merciful.” Her voice became choked. She cleared it with a deep breath: “I appeal to Chairman Arafat, please. The Oslo Accords—which you signed—forbid the use of violence; I appeal to the United Nations: the UN Convention on Human Rights calls the deliberate killing of noncombatants a crime against humanity.” She was openly weeping now. With great effort, she composed herself. “I would like to ask good people everywhere to light a candle and pray for the safe return of my husband and child, fon, if you’re watching this: I love you. And liana, baby, Ima is waiting for you, waiting to take you home. I beg you, please help send my family home to me safely.”
He got up, wiping his eyes. It was gut-wrenching. It couldn’t help but win the sympathy of viewers. He reached out to touch Julia’s hair. Beneath her callousness and ambition, did there beat a womanly heart after all? “People will need a heart of stone to ignore such words.”
She nodded vaguely, the touch of his hand, his praise making her shift uncomfortably.
“There’s more.”
“More what?”
“Shhh. You’ll see.”
The tape went to herself, with the hills of Jerusalem in the background, and the wind blowing through her hair: “A moving appeal from an Israeli settler. But on the other side of the Green Line, the wives and mothers of Palestinians, who have lived in these hills for centuries, are equally in pain. Mrs. Sineh sits and keens at the newly dug grave of her twenty-three-year-old son, Mohammed, who died as a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus last week.”
“I am also a mother”, the heavy Arab woman gestured heatedly, speaking in her native Arabic as someone translated into heavily accented English, which somehow managed to retain the flavor of the native inflections. “This kidnapped man, they say he is a doctor. But he is also a soldier. The Zionist occupation brings the Israeli soldiers into our villages. What we see every day—massacres, destruction, bombing of our homes—strengthened in the soul of my son the love of Jihad and martyrdom. Our land is occupied by the Israelis. The women and children my son killed, they are also Jews and settlers. And I want to tell Jewish mothers—take your children and run from here because they will never be safe. We believe our sons go to Heaven when they are martyred. When your sons die, they go to Hell. I am proud of my son. I hope my other sons will be martyrs also.”
The camera switched to a young woman: “My brother was a victim. He was murdered by the Zionist occupiers, who forced him to give his life to free his homeland.”
His chest tightened at the savage words of the Arab women. It was sickening and primitive. Yet the visual image of the modern, educated, western Elise speaking perfect English pitted against the native women in their native dress speaking the native language couldn’t help but weight the piece against her. It was cowboys versus Indians. Natives versus interlopers. White woman gets what’s coming to her. Also, the repetition of the terms “occupied land,” “occupation,” “soldiers,” “martyr” worked almost like a mantra, making one forget the historical facts of the Jewish history in the area, the successive defensive wars fought against five Arab armies, the displaced people from all sides who had suffered as a result of decades of conflict. Most of all, it helped to gloss over the fact that a man and child had been kidnapped and were being tortured. That unsuspecting bus riders had been blown to bits on their morning commute. It made you forget that real crimes that had no justification in the moral universe of the civilized world had been committed in the name of imagined grievances for political ends.
The screen switched to the children’s ward of a Palestinian hospital.
“Some have said that the kidnapping of a five-year-old child by Palestinian activists is a new low. However, here in the Middle East, the pain and suffering of children is not limited to any one side.” The camera focused on the bandaged head of a toddler.
“Palestinian children have often been the victims of Israeli Defense Force raids into Palestinian cities. Two days ago, a bomb blast ripped through a building in downtown Jenin, killing four and injuring dozens. Wltile an Israeli Defense Force spokesman was quick to label the tragedy a ‘work accident,’ caused by Palestinian militants who callously housed a bomb factory inside a residential building, Palestinian sources claimed that the only factory in the area makes chocolate-covered biscuits, the kind children love to eat. But these children won’t be eating any. Not today. This is Julia Greenberg reporting from Jerusalem.”
There had been no picture of Jon and liana held hostage. So what the viewer was left with was wounded Palestinian children in hospitals, and others searching for food in garbage dumps. It was a masterpiece of propaganda. My God! Elise mustn’t watch it! His heart sank. It was already too late.
She switched it off.
“So, what do you think?” She smiled.
“Oh, this is so slick . . .” He got up, walking around the room, furious.
“Why thanks . . . ” she said doubtfully.
“Goebbels did that kind of thing all
the time . . .”
“What did you say?!” she asked him, shocked.
“Julia, how could you do this?!” A flicker of pure hatred licked his heart. He was angry at her, and disgusted with himself.
“Do what?” she said, avoiding his eyes, feeling strangely vulnerable to the words of this man, her lover. She wanted him to understand, to condone, to see her in the kind, rosy light in which she saw herself.
“Skewer the facts like this? You’re a journalist!”
“And I did my job bloody well,” she shouted at him. “How dare you!?”
“Mohammed Sineh, beloved son and brother, butchered eighteen people and wounded forty-nine, including a six-year-old schoolgirl and her seventy-five-year-old grandmother. But you neglected to mention that because that would make him look like a monster; it would ruin his image, make him and his darling, ethnic mother less sympathetic, right? And that would ruin the ‘balance.’”
“I don’t know what you are talking about . . .” She looked away.
“And those children you showed in the Palestinian hospital. The fact is, they weren’t hurt by Israeli soldiers, were they? You just photographed a pediatric ward in some hospital . . .”
“Plenty of Palestinian kids have gotten injured by Israeli soldiers . . . the specific pictures aren’t so important . . .” she cried passionately, feeling almost like crying at his attack. She had opened herself up to him, given him entry, and he was clumping around in muddy boots, slamming doors. He had no right!
“But to put that footage and the clip on kids scavenging for food together with a piece on the kidnapping of liana Margulies makes it look like tit for tat . . . and that’s a lie.”
She colored, remembering how Sean had gotten the garbage-dump footage. “It’s complicated. It’s not enough to show the victims of terrorist attacks. You have to show where the hatred is coming from. The other side. The occupation, the settlements . . .” She almost pleaded with him, trying to turn up the temperature of the cold stare that was chilling her.