To Kill a Shadow

by Ronen, Nathan

  Arik smiled at Michael and couldn’t help but wonder if he had failed in nurturing their relationship simply because Michael resembled Rachel, his ex-wife, in his appearance. His features and expressions were very similar to hers, as were his intonation and body language. Arik knew it was a dubious excuse, that the resemblance wasn’t the real reason for his failure as a father; it was the constant need he felt to protect his comfort zone, his freedom.

  He rose and threw his arms around his son. “I love you, my boychik,” he mumbled.

  Michael hugged him back with embarrassment.

  The sound of falling rocks from behind them made them turn their eyes toward a couple of female tourists who rose from the wadi, chatting in Aussi English. One was tall and wore a pair of tiny shorts. Her ample bosom threatened to burst out of her shirt. The other one was chubby, bespectacled, and full of smiles.

  “Hi, good evening. Do you mind if we set up our tent next to yours?” they asked in an Australian accent.

  “With pleasure,” Arik answered. “We’ve got some cold beer for you, if you’d like, and we were just about to put some juicy steaks on the fire. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

  “We’d love that,” said the handsomer of the two. “Can we use water from the jerrycan in your SUV to wash ourselves a little? It’s really hot and humid today and we’re very sweaty.”

  “No problem,” said Arik and handed them the jerrycan. The two girls unabashedly took off their clothes and washed themselves naked, glowing like fireflies under the light of the full moon.

  Arik looked at Michael, who examined their bodies. He had never thought of his son as a man. He’d always pictured him in his mind’s eye as the little boy still riding his rocking horse in the living room of their first apartment. What happened after that? Had he become too absorbed in his work to notice his son had become a man?

  “She’s pretty hot, isn’t she?” said Michael, eying the tall one.

  “She sure is.” Arik tried to go along, even though he felt increasingly uncomfortable.

  He took the charcoal grill from the SUV and lit it. Michael took two cold beer bottles from the refrigerator. The smell of cooked meat attracted the two Australian girls who joined them, wearing light tunics, towels wrapped around their heads. Michael handed them the beers and they smiled gratefully.

  Arik gave the three a dreamy look.

  “Dad, I think it’s time you left girls that age for me and concentrate on women your age. I saw Eva at Nathalie’s wedding; I’ve spoken with her as well. She’s a very impressive woman, if you don’t mind me saying that.”

  “You two have spoken?”

  “Yes. She asked me about my life and my future plans. Don’t worry; we haven’t spoken a word about you. Even though I have a feeling she knows a lot more than you think she does. She offered me her help in getting admitted to the Berlin or Heidelberg Universities.”

  “Why in Germany? Why can’t you go to the Hebrew University, like I did? Like Nathalie?” Arik asked.

  “Because there’s no veterinary medicine department in Jerusalem,” answered Michael. Then he teasingly added, “But of course, you had no idea what I want to learn.”

  Indeed, Arik didn’t.

  “But there is a veterinary department in the Hebrew University branch at Rehovot.”

  “Rehovot is not Jerusalem. I can’t stand that boring city.”

  The thought of Michael was travelling to a far-off country again sent a wave of depression through Arik’s mind. “And you think German cities aren’t boring?”

  “Berlin is a thriving cultural city, and Heidelberg is beautiful and peaceful. I like the idea of living in both of them, in spite of our family history. But I haven’t decided to settle down yet. Maybe I’ll end up studying international relations and business administration in Jerusalem, just like you did. Who knows?”

  Michael rose to turn the steaks and offer the tourists more beer. He stayed with the girls. Arik continued to sit by himself, munching on a piece of steak without really being hungry.

  An hour later, Arik napped on the SUV’s backseat. In his ears echoed noises coming from the girls’ tent. He recognized his son’s laughter and felt old, but not so lonely any more.

  Chapter 37

  Specialists Clinic—Tzrifin Military Base

  Arik returned from the desert exhausted. His pelvis kept sending waves of pain that pierced his back. He thought of David Fischer and the backaches he had had due to constant pressure from the prime minister’s office. Fischer’s ailing back had eventually brought about his retirement. Was he now suffering psychosomatic pains as well? He recalled the terrible weakness he had felt before the beginning of Operation Flower Bud and decided he shouldn’t continue to ignore his pains.

  His doctor referred him to the Department of Urology, where he described to the military physician, who was about Michael’s age, how he woke up several times at night to go to urinate and how tired he felt during the day. “I’ll have to perform a rectal examination,” the doctor told him and motioned toward the bed at the other end of the room. A few minutes later, Arik was sprawled on a paper sheet, an oiled finger stuck up his backside. “Your prostate is fine, slightly enlarged, but that’s only to be expected for a man your age. Still, I want you to undergo a urinary tract CT scan and run blood tests to check your PSA levels. Have you been suffering involuntary cramps and muscle spasms?”

  “Yes.”

  “How severe?”

  Arik shrugged.

  “From one to ten?”

  “Nine,” Arik admitted. “But I’ve read on the Internet it could just be the result of prolonged sitting or overexertion of muscles during sportive activities.”

  “I see you’ve successfully graduated from the Google Academy of Medicine,” the doctor joked, and Arik smiled in appreciation of his gesture.

  Over the next few days, Arik’s fatigue and pains worsened. His entire body ached with the pain. Ten days later, he returned to the urologist’s clinic. “I’m concerned about the high levels of protein in your urine,” said the doctor while examining the test results.

  “What does it mean?” asked Arik with concern.

  “It means that you may have a problem with your kidney function. I’ll refer you to a nephrologist; he’ll give you further tests to perform.”

  Arik needed to wait a whole month for his nephrology appointment. Eva took advantage of her semester break and travelled to Warsaw, where the Jewish Museum in Poland recruited her to serve as its advisor. He remained alone in the large house on the cliff. During the weekends, he tinkered with his motorcycle collection. Now and then, he took one of the motorcycles to the beach and roam the dirt roads between the cities of Ashkelon and Rishon LeZion. During those Saturdays, he felt the experience of existence like he’d never felt it before.

  He roamed the orchards of abandoned, nameless villages that disappeared between the dunes, collected flattened figs dripping with honey, and picked prickly reddish sabra fruit, whose taste reminded him of yesteryears. Three such weekends later, Eva returned to Israel. He promised he would pick her up from the airport.

  “What happened to you?” she asked when they met in the arrivals terminal. “You look sick.”

  He wanted to tell her he felt burdened by his life, but as usual, avoided exposing his sadness and distress. “I’m all right. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

  She narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “You’re hiding something.”

  “I’m just tired,” he grumbled. “I’m under a lot of pressure at work. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  She pulled her suitcase from the baggage carousel. “We’re going to your place,” she said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good—”

  “Your place!”

  At night, every time he got up from bed to go to the restroom, or twitched in pain from leg cramps, she lay next to him in bed with her eyes open and attentively listened to his distress. She did not bother him with
questions, and every time he got back to bed, she hurried to place her hand around him and her leg on his hip. They fell asleep spooning and snuggling together. Toward dawn, she whispered, “I don’t want to lose you. What’s going on? Please tell me.”

  Arik straightened up in bed. “I don’t know. Something is happening, and it scares the hell out of me.”

  “I love you, and I want to have your child,” she whispered longingly.

  To her surprise, Arik did not erupt in anger. Instead, he turned to her and buried his face in her neck, weeping like a child.

  “Love is the firm ground on which we tread,” she whispered a line from an old German folksong in his ear and caressed his head, taking him to her bosom. Arik turned to her, and they joined in the act of love. Later on, they rested side by side, satisfied and thoughtful.

  After preparing breakfast together, she joined him for an especially fast motorcycle ride on the beach. Before getting back into the military base, he stopped, turned and looked at her. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “I enjoyed your enjoyment. I hate fast driving.”

  “I’m always embarrassed by your empathy.”

  She laughed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Learn to accept things, Arik. It might just help you give from yourself to others.”

  “Enough with your psychobabble,” he protested.

  She patted his leather-bound shoulder and smiled. “Just go.”

  Chapter 38

  Hematology Ward—Sheba Medical Center

  The next morning, Arik went to the nephrologist’s clinic. The doctor, a middle-aged man with an Argentinean accent, looked at the medical examination results. “The protein in your urine indicates some sort of kidney dysfunction. I’d like you to see a hematologist.”

  “What does a hematologist have to do with the fact I get up several times at night to urinate?” Arik wondered aloud.

  “I want you to do some more blood tests to rule out the possibility of other problems,” the nephrologist explained with a straight face.

  “Such as…leukemia?” Arik asked with concern.

  “No, no, if you had leukemia, it would have been discovered in the first round of blood tests,” the doctor answered reassuringly. Arik wasn’t convinced.

  The referral form for the Sheba Medical Center’s hematology ward stated that he should arrive following thirteen hours of fasting and accompanied by another person. Eva demanded to come with him, but he adamantly refused and headed to the hospital early in the morning before she even woke up. When he waited in the polished corridor for his bone marrow examination, his mind was preoccupied by the latest incidents with Cornfield rather than his own health issues. The lack of trust demonstrated by his superior, along with the discovery he had been under surveillance while in Paris, made him feel like a stranger in the organization he loved so much. Thoughts of retirement rose in him again.

  He began to feel pangs of hunger, and just as he thought of heading to the first-floor cafeteria, the door in front of him opened. A skeletal, yellow-faced girl came out, leaning on the shoulder of a man, perhaps her father, who looked older than Arik. A handsome, full-bodied woman with black hair followed. She was dressed in a green gown, and a stethoscope dangled around her neck. With a warm smile, she invited Arik to come inside the room.

  “Good morning, my name is Dr. Alice Ben David.” She motioned to the chair facing her desk. Arik sat and watched her closely as she examined the bundle of test results he had brought with him. He felt very lonely and didn’t know how to shake off that burdening feeling. Sharing his pains and anxieties with others seemed like admitting defeat in his eyes. Ever since his first asthma attacks as a child, he had never demonstrated pain or weakness in front of strangers. The fact he had exposed his fears and weaknesses to Eva was a constant source of embarrassment.

  “So, tell me how you are feeling.” The doctor’s pleasant voice dispersed the heavy cloud of his thoughts.

  “I’m fine,” he said with confidence.

  “Are you sure? After all, you suffer from painful muscle spasms, bone pains in your hands, feet, and lower back…”

  “How do you know?”

  She gestured at the bundle of test results. “Based on your results, I know all about the symptoms.”

  “What do I have?” a question verging on a panicked sigh escaped from Arik’s chest.

  “It’s too early to tell. Have you been fasting?”

  “Since zero two hundred hours yesterday.”

  She smiled. “Are you a military man?”

  “I used to be.”

  She didn’t let go. “Where do you work?”

  “The prime minister’s office library.”

  She looked at his muscular body. “You? A librarian?” she asked with disbelief.

  “I’m an information specialist,” Arik lied. “I’m looking for researches, crosscheck data, statistics, information…”

  The doctor leaned toward him. “I can recognize you people a mile away,” she said in a low voice. “My dad was a department manager.”

  Arik didn’t reply.

  The doctor rose and opened a door that led to an adjoining room. A nurse in a white robe led him to a small dressing room. “Please, take off clothes,” she asked in a heavy Russian accent.

  “All of them?” Arik asked, shocked.

  “All clothes,” came the answer. “Then wear gown.”

  It was the twin brother of the hospital gown he had worn after getting injured at the Temple Mount. Once more, he felt very embarrassed as he came out of the small dressing room. The nurse was busy stretching a plastic sheet on a bed that looked like a small operating table with a large lighting fixture above it. “Please lie on side. Now give contrast agent. Just little pinprick.”

  Arik wanted to tell her he could take much more than a little pinprick, but kept quiet. It was indeed just a little pinprick. “Now the epidural.” He heard the doctor’s voice. The fact she had entered the room without him noticing enhanced the feeling of discomfort caused by the fact his buttocks were bare, and his testicles were crushed between his thighs.

  “Why an epidural?” he tried to joke. “Am I about to give birth?”

  The doctor didn’t laugh. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re just going to feel a little sting. After that, we’ll wait a few minutes for the local anesthetic to take effect and take bone marrow fluid and tissue samples, as well as a pelvic bone sample—”

  “Then we’ll finally know what’s going on?” Arik cut her short with an impatience that concealed his great concern.

  “Not yet. I’ll need to send everything to the pathology department. We’ll have an answer in about a month. Perhaps a little longer with all the holidays on the way.” Her touch was gentle and professional. He felt his legs drifting away from his body until they finally disappeared. “I’m going to insert a pressure-drilling needle into your pelvis. You can sigh or even scream if it helps.” Arik felt something digging into his body. He didn’t utter a sound and bit into his wrist. “I want you to rest a little before leaving the room,” said the doctor and left the room. The anesthesia gradually wore off, and Arik felt intense pains in his lower body. He perspired and clenched his teeth. “We are not weak.” His mother’s voice echoed between the walls of his skull. “We mustn’t show anyone that we’re scared or frightened.”

  Half an hour later, the Russian nurse came inside and announced, “Now I help get up.”

  “No need,” Arik grumbled. He tried to get up and fell back into bed.

  “Perhaps you should rest a bit more. Strong anesthetic. Can’t run your age.”

  Now he felt he simply must get up. He sat in bed, brought his feet down to the floor, and wobbled to the dressing room, expecting applause that never came. When he turned his face to the nurse, he saw that she was already busy with replacing the instruments on the tray next to the operating table.

  He still found it difficult to walk and went out into the corridor and steadi
ed himself against the wall.

  For the first time, he thought he should have obeyed the medical instructions and brought Eva with him. He also immediately realized he could never have exposed himself to her in such a way.

  He reached the cafeteria by limping painfully. With the last ounces of strength remaining in him, he bought himself some cheap coffee and a tasteless croissant and devoured them. When he tried to walk to the parking lot, he realized he’d never be able to drive in his condition. He decided to leave his car at the hospital and order a taxi. When it finally arrived, he dropped into the backseat, tired and hurting.

  “I’m sick at home,” he messaged Claire. “I left the car in the Sheba Medical Center parking lot. Level negative-two. Could you send someone to pick it up?”

  Claire called him immediately. “What were you doing in the Sheba Medical Center?”

  “Forget it. Is there anything important going on?”

  “No, just a message from Alex. He says… Hold on…” The rustling sound of paper sounded. “Ruth the Moabitess…” She read with the acceptance of someone who had read hundreds messages that held no meaning to her. “…says that the time has come.”

  When he entered his house, he found out it was empty. Eva returned to the Jerusalem University and her apartment in the Belgium House on the campus, the guest house for guest professors.

  Arik made a few calls in his secure line. He couldn’t find the strength to climb to the bedroom floor and simply dropped on the living room sofa, curled up like a fetus, and covered himself with the quilt his daughter knitted him in better times.

  Before falling asleep, he thought he was one of the few people in the country who could actually predict the next day’s headlines: An Iranian ship full of weapons intended for the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon has sunk under mysterious circumstances off Port Sudan in the Red Sea.

  Chapter 39

  Division Heads Meeting at Mossad’s Director’s Office