by Hagai Dagan
What do you want? he asked in a hoarse, smoky voice.
What are you working on? Tamir asked. There wasn’t any time to pay lip service to seniority.
What I need to be working on! Sasson snarled.
Didn’t they send over an HTA summary to be urgently transcribed?
Someone brought over something, and she might’ve said something. But I’ve got something I need to finish here.
There’s an attack in progress! Tamir blurted out. He wasn’t sure of it, but this was no time for nuance.
Everything’s ‘in progress’ with you guys, Sasson answered in the voice of someone who’s seen it all and was not about to get caught up in someone else’s hysteria.
Sasson, come on, the whole world’s on my back over this, Tamir resorted to begging. I have to know what they said there. It’s a one-minute call!
Did the Syrian IAO approve this?
Tamir rushed over to the officer’s desk and urgently explained the situation.
Sasson, put that down for a minute and do his summary for him! The Syrian IAO called out without getting up from his seat, not before throwing Tamir a look which he understood to mean something like: Stop interrupting our important work with your odd Lebanese mumbo-jumbo.
Sasson sighed, looked for the relevant reel and inserted it into his device, put on his headset and listened for a moment. He ran the reel back once or twice, and jotted down a few words in embellished but clear Arabic on top of Ophira’s summary:
a: A/U, BB
b: ?
a: Is everything ready?
b: Yes, everything.
a: Inshallah, we will succeed. Stay low. Watch al-Darija.
Tamir’s jaw dropped. Is that what he said? Stay low??
Sasson looked at him scornfully. Of course that’s what he said! It’s what I wrote, isn’t it?
What’s al-Darija?
I think it’s a type of bird. Ask the translators. I’m not sure.
And the dialect?
Palestinian.
Tamir thanked him and rushed over to translation. In the corner of his eye, he saw Sasson going back to the conversation he was forced to abandon with the air of one going back from child’s play to real, adult work. Tamir placed the corrected summary before Mika the translator, and asked her what al-Darija was. She opened a dictionary and started flipping through its pages. Her languid tranquility drove Tamir up the walls, while at the same time evoked in him strong feelings of envy. Such laid back work suited him much better than the perennial turmoil he was subjected to as an intelligence analyst. From the corner of his eye, he saw producers piling up summaries on his desk. Zaguri came out of the reception room and said to Tamir: It’s chaotic in there.
Tamir said he knew.
Its sounds like something big.
Yes.
Are you sure you’ve got this under control? Zaguri asked with a slight air of contempt.
Don’t worry, Tamir raised his voice.
Zaguri lingered there for a moment, staring him down, before turning around and going back to the reception room.
It means stint, Mika said.
Stint? The bird? Tamir vaguely recalled nature classes in the kibbutz, and the descriptions of marsh birds and seabirds. The stint is a migratory bird, fairly rare, which lives in marshlands. Since the marshes were drained, it doesn’t have reason to come here anymore, Tamir remembered the words his nature teacher said, which suddenly sounded like a poignant elegy.
Wow, Tamir, I’m impressed… How do you know such things? Mika looked up at him with a pair of blue eyes.
It’s the kind of things kibbutzniks know, Tamir mumbled. Instead of teaching us calculus, they taught us about stints, coots, moorhens… He tilted his head as if he were straining to hear something in the distance. Something else stirred his memory, some tune, something from the formative years of his childhood, from when things were first given names, something… What was it? A lullaby? Something his mother would sing to him when he was sick? No… But, yes, it sounds like a song. A song in Arabic… The hoopoe forgets, the heron takes flight… The ibis hides in the thicket… Only the stint…
Tamir? The mesmerizing blue of Mika’s eyes opened up like a clear expense of wonder.
Tamir gathered his wits, rushed over to Old Faithful and quickly typed in the corrected conversation. He emphasized these were airborne-unit elements, so it’s safe to assume ‘stay low’ pertains to an air craft’s altitude. Tamir knew that air crafts flew low in order to evade radars, but didn’t say anything since his recipients were more versed on the subject than him. He added that the expression ‘the stint’ could refer to one of the relevant operatives in this context, but that he had never encountered that term before. To make sure he wasn’t misleading his recipients, and also to deflect some of the heat directed at him, he added: Pending check by Jibril unit of Department 195.
That was a mistake. The phones kept ringing. The relevant bodies demanded an authoritative answer, and told Tamir that he’s the authority at the moment, as far as they’re concerned. At the same time, they did not hesitate and immediately issued warnings to forces deployed around Har Dov, as well as a general warning to all forces in the South Lebanon sector. Tamir looked for Eli Nissenbaum’s home number, rang the operator asking for a civilian line, and called him. He sounded half asleep. Tamir hesitated for a minute, for field security concerns, but Nissenbaum replied that general security is more important than field security. Unless you take into consideration instances like Coventry, in which case….
Alright, alright, Tamir interrupted him. al-Darija.
What’s that?
Have you ever come across that term?
After an extended silence on both ends of the line, Nissenbaum finally said: No.
What about any other bird nicknames for those up north?
Those led the son of…
Yes, Tamir said. It was clear to both of them who they were talking about. The person who stood at the head of the organization’s airborne unit was Ahmed Jibril’s eldest son, Jihad Jibril.
I’ve heard them being called birds in general before, Nissenbaum said, and once they even called the boss, the son of, al-Bashik, the hawk. But that’s it.
Okay. Check in tomorrow. It’s gonna be interesting.
Tamir hung up the phone, turned to Old Faithful, and issued a clarification that the nickname ‘the stint’ was indeed unfamiliar.
As soon as he sent his clarification and the screen cleared, an initial report by the Operations Branch at Northern Command popped up:
Spotter units in the Har Dov area reported the possibility of three to four small air crafts passing overhead, appearing manned. Fire was opened in their direction. No hits were reported.
Tamir’s pupils dilated as he read the report. A panting producer rushed over and dropped some more summaries on his table. He read them quickly, recognizing a couple of Hezbollah stations in the eastern sector of the strip. They were clearly on the move and coordinating linking-up. He reported it, first over gecko, direct to Northern Command, and then over Old Faithful. As he was sending his report, Astra and Gladiola outposts reported having been attacked with mortar fire. Balut outpost reported suffering two direct hits by anti-tank LAW rockets, after which radio communication was cut off. Attack helicopters were urgently deployed but hadn’t reached there yet. Ophira emerged out of the reception room and placed another summary from the same network on Tamir’s desk.
From: ?
To: A/U, BB.
We’re in. Clearing under the brothers’ fire. Yasser was killed.
Tamir looked up from the summary in disbelief.
She just nodded her head. They spoke very clearly, she said. In fact, they were yelling.
He nodded his head, and asked her to get it transcribed any way. He hurriedly typed in an initial report.
Simultaneously, Northern Command reported:
The Har Dov outposts were hit by heavy fire, apparently by Hezbollah elements. Balut outpost was infiltrated using small aircrafts of a motor-glider variety. The infiltration was supported by cover fire from the ground. Combat engagement ensued in the base. One of the terrorists was killed and two others managed to escape in their aircrafts with the aid of cover fire. Attack helicopters did not locate the aircrafts. Our forces suffered seven causalities in different degrees. None fatal. One soldier claimed there was a woman among the terrorists. This hasn’t been confirmed by other sources.
The phones kept ringing. Northern Command requested a detailed report of the event and further surveillance of relevant organizations’ networks. Tamir’s department head, who had just come in to headquarters, said that it looks like Tamir did well under pressure and that he appreciated it. He asked to see a detailed intelligence analysis report, as well.
Zaguri came out of the reception room. He looked at Tamir with a grim smile. Well, he said, did we save the homeland?
Sort of, Tamir said. In the end, his warning did little to help. They arrived at the outpost and attacked it. As far as they are concerned, they were successful.
Those sons of bitches, Zaguri muttered angrily, did they come down on them with motor-gliders?
Yeah, it seems so. And there are soldiers wounded.
Poor guys, I tell you, lying out there in those outposts… Why don’t they just conquer the whole fucking country and kill them all?
Well, they tried something like that, Tamir remarked.
They didn’t try hard enough. If it was me, I’d nuke the place and end it.
Tamir decided not to spoil the surprising sense of comradery between him and Zaguri, and just nodded along. For a moment, he wondered whether Zaguri actually believed what he was saying, or if he just liked getting under the skin of leftist kibbutzniks like Tamir.
Zaguri looked at him in amusement of a moment, and said: Alright, I’m bushed. I’m off to sleep.
Tamir nodded. I’ve still got a lot of work to do, he said.
You analysts, you’ve got nothing better to do, Zaguri concluded and left. Tamir thought he might have heard a trace of empathy in his voice. He sighed and went to the kitchenette to finally fix himself that coffee he was going to make before Ophira interrupted him and the event started unfolding. His throat was parched the whole time, he suddenly noticed. His temples throbbed and he felt drained, emaciated, almost transparent. He felt a tingling sensation in his temples and the tips of his fingers. He grabbed his coffee and slumped back into his chair which was burning hot, despite the perpetual frost in the bunker. He started writing his report.
It was 2:30 a.m. when he finally left the bunker. The air was chilly and, oddly enough, seemed perfumed. Traces of adrenalin were still flowing in his veins; he felt both famished and utterly exhausted at the same time. He wanted to eat and sleep, and perhaps to masturbate as well. Sex was such a far-fetched option that it didn’t even cross his mind. Despite all this, he did not head directly to the living quarters. He felt the need to wander around aimlessly for a while after hours of constricted movement in the tiny space between the IAO desk and the transcription station. His legs carried him of their own volition through the winding paths of the base. The base didn’t seem as ugly in the small hours of the night. It shed its material form and was reduced to clusters of shadows receding from pools of pale light cast from the scant streetlights above. Tamir’s eyes were opened wide and he saw visions of the night, the sort that visited prophets in dreams and in mirrors. He saw snowy deserts, the moon emerging above frozen lakes, silver-furred wolves springing from spellbound misty forests. Inside the fog, in the thick of the spellbound forests, echoed a single line from Northern Command’s report: One soldier claimed there was a woman among the terrorists. A woman, the thought flickered in Tamir’s mind, a woman who descended from the skies, Princess Polnochi, snow and starlight weaved in her hair, clutching a Kalashnikov.
You’re not supposed to be here, you know.
He looked up and saw Ophira, standing in a partly-undone pink plaid shirt, revealing a deep cleavage, her head wrapped in a green towel wound like a turban. He didn’t say a thing, just stared at her in awe. The night reconfigured around her, and was suddenly delightful and staggeringly beautiful. She giggled and gestured with her towel-covered head to the structure behind her. Girls’ quarters, she said.
Oh, I… I didn’t notice where I was going.
Is this how you unwind after shifts like these? You get lost and end up in the girls’ quarters?
Maybe, his mouth contorted into a cautious smile.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to just smoke a cigarette or something?
Do you smoke? He didn’t recall ever seeing her smoke.
After shifts like these, of course. How can you not?
Okay. Do you have a cigarette here?
No.
Too bad.
Hold on a second. She approached a near-by window and called in a hushed voice: Ronna! A buzz-cut head popped out of the window. Do you have a cigarette?
The buzz-cut woman slunk back into the room and reemerged a moment later, clutching a cigarette and a lighter. Here, she said. And Ophirchuk, don’t bring him into the room. I don’t need my weekend ruined over another one of your flings.
The head disappeared back into the room. Ophira giggled, slightly embarrassed, and lit the cigarette.
Doesn’t anyone sleep around here? Tamir wondered.
We have a noon shift tomorrow, Ophira explained. She took a long drag of the cigarette and passed it over to Tamir. He put his lips where Ophira had just put hers, and sucked the sweet smoke. He felt a bit dizzy and intoxicatingly light-headed. His gaze cut across the thick cloud of smoke and found her eyes. They silently passed the cigarette from one to the other. It’s late, she finally said. It was a tough shift.
Yes.
But you were… okay.
So were you. You were more than okay.
When you say it like that, it almost sounds like a compliment, she smiled.
Yeah, I don’t know, since I’ve been in the army, the words just… don’t come out. Sometimes it feels like I’ve become mute. Like I forgot how to talk.
Really? Weird.
Yeah, but what I really meant to say was that you were…
What?
Wonderful.
She laughed. Okay, now you’re exaggerating.
No, really, you’re… Listen, what I told you last time…
Forget about it, I didn’t take it personally.
Somehow, it came out distorted. What I really wanted, I…
Words aren’t coming out again?
He sighed. Something like that.
Maybe it’s better this way. You might say something you’ll regret later.
Or that I’ll regret not saying it.
Well, we’ll have time to talk later. Cigarette’s finished, anyway. She took a final drag.
He swam and swam, his arms and legs flailing, but the sweet muddy earth in her eyes poured into the night and he writhed in it helplessly. What makes him be so hesitant?
She stomped the cigarette butt and stared at the floor. When she lifted her eyes again, her gaze had gone cold. The warm muddy earth clotted. Peat and volcanic stone covered the face of the primordial swamp. Good night, she said, I’ll see you in the bunker. She turned her back to him, her green turban towering to unimaginable heights, piercing the night sky.
c. Black Material
There was no getting around having to go back to the base at the end of leave periods. Tamir waited outside the kibbutz for the bus to come, which then started climbing its way up to the Acre-Safed road; the olive groves at the foothills of Dir al-Assad opened out, the shoddy gas-stations and roadside restaurants of Rama came into view, and the pine for
ests crowning the settlement of Amirim protruded into view through his window. Tamir felt the inevitability of this ascent, that it was necessary, that he was trapped in some kind of railcar-of-destiny slowly chugging along, pulling him away from his mother’s apple pie, away from the roads whose touch his feet no longer felt, away from everything that dissipates and retreats towards what is real, definitive, and absolute; to what resides in the heavens, awaiting him, destined for him.
Joseph Arbeiter, known as Jonny, waited for him in the bunker. Jonny was untroubled, laid back, and a bit scattered, as he tended to be. He told Tamir that nothing unusual had happened over the past couple of days. There was some mortar fire by Hezbollah towards three South Lebanon Army outposts. Two soldiers suffered mild injuries, and one moderate. SLA, Jonny quickly added, to clarify no Israelis were hurt. There was some increased activity on the Lebanese Army network— there’s some flare-up between Christians and Sunnis around Tripoli, and they must have transferred troops from the southern sector up there. You can go over the material, Jonny said, but it’s pretty dull. Somehow, he managed to enjoy his work, despite never taking any kind of interest in any of it.
Zaguri came out of the reception room, winked at Jonny, and told him he’s going home soon.
Didn’t you just come back? Jonny laughed and patted Zaguri on the back.
Don’t tell anyone, Zaguri laughed. The best Tamir ever got from him was a courteous nod.
Good guy, Jonny said, as he watched Zaguri walking away. He’s not here often, but he’s a hell of a producer, and he knows how to hold a shift.
Tamir didn’t say anything. As far as he could see, Jonny thought that everyone was a ‘good guy.’ He envied how easy-going Jonny was, but knew that there was no point for him to even try and act that way himself. How did he become so high-strung and uptight? What made him this way? His father’s prolonged silences? The heavy fog blanketing the fish ponds in the early morning hours?
So, I’m off, Jonny said chirpily. Hang in there, don’t take things to heart— take’m to the lungs. You know what, scratch that, smoking’s bad for you. Say, is it true you want to transfer to headquarters?