by Uzi Eilam
“Go back to business as usual, Yudke, but keep your eyes open and be aware of what’s going on around you. Don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know if you notice anything unusual.”
Yudke left the meeting feeling calm but felt it was only the beginning of something threatening and unknown.
***
Nurit was already sitting at her piano, floating on the light flap of wings in Chopin’s polonaise. She was seeking refuge from the tidal wave she’d been swept up by and which, she felt, might drown her. The threatening letter she’d found on the windshield, Gideon and their love for each other that was blossoming again, and her home, where she felt almost like a stranger—something strange and threatening was hovering in the air, and she couldn’t quite pinpoint it. She felt that music was the only thing that could relax her and give her balance.
She heard the key in the door and stopped playing. Yudke seemed tense, but that was how he usually looked at the end of a long day at work.
“Good evening,” she said, trying to sound cheerful and welcoming, “you look exhausted.”
“Yes, I am, but I’ve also got something on my mind.” He answered so softly, Nurit was taken aback.
“What happened? Something wrong at work again?” she said, encouraging him to talk.
“The house was broken into last night.”
Nurit paled and, for a moment, couldn’t say a word. “You’re kidding! They came inside? I didn’t notice a thing…”
“It was a professional job. At least that’s what the security officer at work thinks.”
“Was anything stolen?”
“Apparently they only broke into my laptop.”
“It was at home? You always have it with you… Over the last year, it looked like you were married more to it than to me.”
“I left it at home.” Yudke ignored the sting. “I swung by before going out with the team for a drink.”
“That’s scary.” Nurit shuddered, after Yudke filled her in on all the details. “Are we safe at home?”
“I don’t believe they’ll come back here.”
“Still. They managed to break into our house!” Nurit continued. “Anyway, what hiding places could you possibly have come up with? You can hardly find your belongings without calling me for help.”
Yudke didn’t respond. He just looked at her somberly, poured himself a bourbon, and sat down in his armchair, disappearing into his own world in front of the television.
This only agitated Nurit more.
17.
As usual, the cool cafeteria was full for lunch, so Nurit was glad she’d come early and found a free table. She hadn’t touched her coffee or croissant yet. The yellow legal pad lay unopened on the table. She was holding a pen but staring into space.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the two days she’d spent with Gideon. For the first time in a long time, she thought, I felt loved and full of life. She found Gideon’s colorful and optimistic descriptions of his research work captivating. Comparing them to the crumbs of information that Yudke threw her way only made her angrier and more frustrated over their relationship, which was just about dead.
She bit into her croissant and remembered how harshly Francois had criticized their quality. A shadow fell on the legal pad, and Nurit looked up to see him carrying a tray holding an espresso cup and a glass of water. He was looking at her through the thick lenses of his glasses.
“Sorry, can I sit here?” he asked her, his voice going up at the end.
“Sure, it’s not taken,” she answered. “Feel free…”
I didn’t call him, she remembered awkwardly. Is this a coincidence? Maybe not.
“I’m so glad to run into you again,” she said brightly, trying to hide her embarrassment.
“Me too. You were going to call, but here we are—fate is working overtime.” He didn’t sound disappointed. “You seem to be engrossed in your research. How is it going?”
“Pretty well, but I still have my seminar paper to deal with before I can write the dissertation. How about you? How are you getting along?”
“We have a few problems with the team…”
“Well, that’s expected when people have to cooperate.”
“Yes, and it’s legitimate for different people to have different opinions, but our problems lie deeper.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a misperception of the basis for the social processes we’re studying. We must accept that there’s a cultural gap between the West and the countries we’re analyzing, but quite a few of the staff don’t get it. I find it terribly frustrating,” Francois concluded with a slight sigh.
“How would your famous lawyer deal with it? What’s his name?”
“Jacques Vergès. I guess he’d let everyone express themselves and then do what he believed was best. I saw him do this many a time while we were in exile.”
“What did he actually do during those years of exile?” Nurit asked curiously. “And where did you live? In the desert? In army camps?”
“At first, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi invited him to be his guest. Gaddafi would accommodate his guests in magnificent well-maintained tents, not in palaces. Today, in retrospect, I realize that Gaddafi welcomed Vergès as his guest because he wanted to help the freedom fighters of Ireland who founded the IRA and the Palestinian freedom fighters who were members of the PLO. Both those organizations received media exposure, thanks to the support of such a well-known figure. And Gaddafi may have had an ulterior motive—an investment in legal aid if he needed it in the future. By then, Vergès had earned himself quite a reputation with freedom fighter organizations by defending Carlos the Jackal.”
Nurit noticed that he refrained from using words such as terrorist organizations but decided not to push him at this stage. This man interests me and intimidates me at the same time, she said to herself.
“But Francois,” Nurit insisted, “I still don’t understand—what does one do in a tent for months on end?”
“Talk,” he responded. “Mainly talk. What fascinated me at the time was the special connection that existed between the various organizations that sent their people to training camps. We weren’t in tents all the time. Sometimes we went out to camps in the southern desert of Libya. The IRA really shone there. They were experts at using weapons, explosives, and they had developed various methods of attack. The German Baader Meinhof gang, the Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, and Palestinian organizations—they were all there.” Francois’s eyes misted over in nostalgia. “Gaddafi was a perfect host, and his chief cook was ordered to take good care of us. A large herd of sheep was put at the cook’s disposal. I never ate so much rice with fat lamb meat…”
“Lots of cholesterol.” Nurit shivered.
Francois chuckled. “Cholesterol was our smallest problem. After Gaddafi made the worst decision of his life—to blow up the US Pan Am passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988—he was forced to close the camps in Libya. That was when the activities were moved to the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. Yasser Arafat himself invited Vergès to be the PLO’s guest of honor there. Later, I think I told you the last time we met, we moved to Afghanistan. Vergès was received with honor by the Taliban fighters, but what impressed us most was the volunteerism spirit of the young people from all over the world. Both Vergès and I saw their passion and belief in the need to achieve justice as admirable.”
Nurit didn’t know where to put herself. Francois was talking about blatant terrorist activity, but on the other hand, maybe it was just a rebellious stage he went through? The life story of the person sitting opposite her made her feel a mixture of magic and repulsion. “When did you return to France?” she asked.
“In 1989, about a year after the Russians withdrew in disgrace from Afghanistan, and the Taliban had other problems to focus on. Vergès decided he
’d had enough of being in exile, and the political sensitivity against him dropped.”
“And then you returned to academic life? You conformed?”
“Yes. Or maybe not really,” Francois answered quickly. “I was accepted to the University of Paris as a researcher and a lecturer. I could teach students there what I’d learned during my travels with Vergès. I married Francine, who’d just completed her doctorate in sociology. She wanted to study women’s rights in Muslim countries. Her parents were Jewish Polish immigrants. Her father bought and sold shmaitess. Rags.”
The Yiddish word sounded foreign and wrong coming from Francois, and Nurit corrected him. “Shmates.” Francois saw this as a sign of encouragement and continued.
“We had a son, but very soon, we discovered that we weren’t suited, and there were so many areas that we didn’t agree upon, so we decided it was better to separate. We have a good relationship, and our son has gone his own way with excellent genes from both sides.”
“And are you still friendly with your lawyer buddy?”
“We had a good relationship, and we were close while he was in exile, but when it no longer suited him, he distanced himself from me, and I accepted it. I have no complaints.” He stopped talking and grimaced as Nurit bit into her croissant.
In the ensuing silence, Nurit sensed how fascinated with Francois she’d become, but she was still left with unanswered questions and concerns over what kind of relationship they could have. Francois charmed her with his soft voice, his singsong French accent, and the warm and wise look in his eyes. She’d been living in an emotional desert with Yudke, and suddenly, there were two men she would willingly deepen her relationship with. She knew Gideon was her anchor from childhood, and she shouldn’t get too involved with Francois.
“I hope my stories weren’t too much for you,” Francois said. “Now—I’d love to hear more about you.”
“Well! I don’t have adventure stories like you,” Nurit told him. “I was born in a kibbutz, and when I grew up, I was enlisted in the army, like most eighteen-year-olds.”
“You were born in a kibbutz! And you told me you didn’t have a fascinating story! I read a lot about kibbutzim in Israel, but I never visited one. What was it like, growing up in a commune?”
“There were different kinds of communal life in Israel,” Nurit explained. “The movement that my kibbutz belonged to—Hashomer Hatzair, which means the Young Guard—is a movement that believed in raising children together, away from their parents.”
“With no contact at all?” Francois asked, wide-eyed.
“None, except an hour in the evening,” Nurit confirmed.
“How did you feel?”
Nurit hesitated for a moment. Should she tell him about all the nights she longed for her parents? How her mother wasn’t there to stroke her head while she choked on her tears? “We didn’t know any other way of life, so we accepted it.” Nurit chose, in the end, to reveal a little, after Francois had been so open. “Only years later, we realized that we’d been deprived of a family unit. But on the upside”—she decided she had to show him the positive side too,“we studied in what we called the ‘educational institution’ where we received a thorough, broad education. Most of my social values were formed then.”
“Your movement was close to the communists, if I’m not mistaken,” Francois said, hesitating.
“In the first few years, it was almost communist, but after the Stalin era, and the disillusionment that followed, we were left with a purely socialist world view,” Nurit explained.
“So how did you get from there to the center of global capitalism?” Francois suppressed a smile.
“It’s a long story. There was a conflict between what I wanted to do with myself and what the movement dictated. And leaving the kibbutz for the army also exposed us to other things, sometimes enabling us to choose other directions in life.”
Nurit didn’t tell him how hard it had been for her to always put the group first. How even a gift such as a new dress would become public property for all the girls to share. Their clothes were communal, their showers communal, their meals communal. She didn’t tell him how she was still making up for lost time. She’d even taken out a loan to cover her spending and had not told Yudke, who’d never understand her constant need to buy new things.
“Your story is fascinating, Nurit. I have a feeling that you have a lot more to tell…” He didn’t finish the sentence, distracted by a bearded young man who passed by and stopped when he saw Francois.
“Excuse me, Francois.” The student hesitated. “We set up a consultation meeting today, did you forget me?”
“I didn’t forget, Henry,” Francois said, louder than necessary. “I was held up. Go to my office, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Did I distract him, Nurit asked herself, or is he just an airhead?
“That’s one of our research students, and to be honest, I really should have been in the office by now,” Francois answered Nurit’s unasked question.
“Next time, if you’ll allow me,” Francois ventured, “I’ll invite you to a good French dinner.”
This man is so interesting. And intriguing, Nurit thought, and he’s only just started his story. “I’d love to see you again,” she said warmly, “when that’s possible. Here’s my card.”
They shook hands, for a few seconds longer than required, and then Francois got up and quickly disappeared, swallowed up by the crowd filling the square in front of the cafeteria.
18.
It was late. Most of the researchers had finished their day’s work, and the hallways of the institute were quiet. Gideon sat transfixed by the computer screen, working on the development of a new algorithm. He’d raised the idea in the daily meeting he had with Bill and Bob. They said it was a bold idea, but they were enthusiastic.
Deutsch startled him with his usual impatient, loud knock at the door, and he remembered that they’d arranged to meet over a beer at the end of the day.
“Come on in,” he called out.
“Hey, Gideon. Ready to go? I think you’ve earned your beer. I have a couple in my office. Let’s have a drink before we go to the restaurant,” Deutsch said enthusiastically.
“Give me five seconds to save the file.”
Gideon was looking forward to Deutsch’s war stories and reminded himself that he had to pay with his own. But, most of all, Gideon hoped that in a relaxed and informal meeting, the institute director would be willing and able to lift part of the security fog surrounding the project.
“We’ll take my car,” Deutsch suggested after they drank a beer down, knowing of Gideon’s fondness for his bike.
“You’re in charge this evening.” Gideon smiled.
“There’s a nice, quiet place, not far from here, called Douce France—Sweet France,” Deutsch said after they got in the car. “They’re well-known for their French baker from Alsace. He makes the best croissants and Danishes.” The all-knowing Deutsch also knew of Gideon’s weakness for pastries.
“I’ve never been there.” Gideon smiled, obviously looking forward to it. “I’m happy to give it a shot.”
Finding parking at Town & Country Village wasn’t difficult. The atmosphere was quiet and intimate, with small round tables, just like in Paris, and tall candles on the tables.
The baker himself came to their table carrying a tray with coffee and a small basket of croissants and mini brioche cakes.
Gideon couldn’t resist and picked up a slice of brioche to take a bite. “Delicious!” he said, his mouth still full.
“Thank you. Our secret is in the egg-to-butter ratio,” the baker said with a smile.
“I was wondering how you combined your scientific career with your military history,” Gideon said after finishing his mini brioche.
“I combined the two just as you did,” Deutsch replied dryly, “
but you’re the interesting one here. Tell me about that rescue mission you received the decoration for.”
“It’s ancient history, Gerald. Do you really want to know?”
“I learned all I could about you from the internet, which is quite a lot, but I really want to hear about it from the horse’s mouth.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you briefly—but remember—you owe me your Vietnam story! When I was serving in the commando unit, we’d send teams of fighters across the border on intelligence missions,” Gideon began. “A patrol team from my platoon ran into an ambush by Jordanian soldiers. All the Jordanians were killed, and the commander of our team was seriously wounded. There was no way we could have carried him back across the border before daylight, and he decided to stay in a cave so he wouldn’t endanger the unit.
“We planned to go back and rescue him the following night, and that’s what we did. I was appointed commander of the rescue team. We arrived at the cave just before midnight with a fire team, and we found signs that he’d been there. Including bloodstains. Using a flashlight, we found footsteps around the niche where he lay, and we knew without a doubt that he’d been taken prisoner.”
“And what did you do to free him?” Deutsch asked, transfixed. “Did you contact the Jordanian army? With UN observers?”
“We used special intelligence,” Gideon responded, “and we learned that the injured soldier was being held in the refugee camp and that the Jordanian army had no idea. The camp mukhtar—the leader—was an esteemed refugee from the Arab village near my kibbutz, and he was holding the prisoner, taking care of his wounds.”
Gideon took a sip of coffee, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in sharp contrast with the table manners he’d worked so hard on since leaving the kibbutz. “I remembered the man well. He was my childhood friend Nimer’s father. I sent the information to the intelligence officers, and a large part of our preparations were based on a dissection of the mukhtar’s personality and his way of doing things.”