The Marsh Angel

by Hagai Dagan

  al-Darija, he said, or maybe just whispered, incapable of taking his eyes off her.

  She nodded, slowly, in confirmation. Her eyes nearly shut momentarily. His eyes were wide open, more than ever before. He couldn’t dream of closing them now.

  God, she’s beautiful, he thought.

  Two jeeps veered in, tires screeching, stopping some ten yards away from her. Several soldiers jumped out, crouched beside the jeeps and aimed their weapons. Only now did he close his eyes— but he heard no shots fired. He opened them again. A black sedan zoomed past the jeeps and pulled up next to her. Two men jumped out, grabbed her, dropped the gun from her hand and pulled her into the vehicle. Tamir recognized one of them. It was the young man in the mahogany-colored dress shirt who was there during his interrogation at GHQ. He now wore a short army-style windbreaker. Another man who sat at the passenger seat rolled down his window and surveyed Tamir with a cold but not uninterested look. It was the mustached man with a receding hairline who had intervened during the interrogation and ordered Tamir to drop his investigation. He did not wear a black polo shirt this time, but a kind of drab, gray jacket. The car sped away. More soldiers emerged from jeeps who were coming in in droves now.

  Buddy, are you okay? a young captain asked. Tamir assumed he was a special-forces officer.

  Yeah, I’m fine.

  I saw you. From over there. In my binoculars. You looked at her like you knew her.

  Really? No, I-I don’t know her, Tamir said, hoping he didn’t sound too pensive.

  You can never know with you guys, the captain said. No one really knows what you’re doing in there, he gestured towards the Mole, which slowly inched its way to the scene.

  Yeah, Tamir said, you never know with us.

  So, who was she? Why did they tell us to hold our fire? the captain wondered.

  Tamir remained silent, lost in thoughts.

  What’s her name? the captain asked, looking at the place where the black sedan disappeared from view.

  Tamir must have mumbled something.

  What was that?

  Polnochi, he said. You can call her Polnochi.

  * * *

  18. Kaze Café — A café located in Sheinkin Street which operated during the 1980’s and 90’s. At that time, Sheinkin was the beating heart of Tel-Aviv, and the name of the café is a reflection of the period: As Tel-Avivian culture grew increasingly unique, distinct lingual innovations developed in the city, among which were words of vague or unassertive effect, such as kaze and keilu, equivalent to the English “like…”

  19. Yekke — A term for Austrian and German Jewry (and their descendants) who immigrated to Israel primarily in the 1930’s and 40’s.

  4. TWILIGHT

  I saw a bird of exquisite beauty.

  The bird saw me.

  A bird of such exquisite beauty I’ll never see again

  until the end of me.

  I felt the quiver of a sunray.

  I uttered words of peace.

  The words I uttered yesterday

  I won’t repeat today.

  — Nathan Zach, “A Second Bird”

  a. The Wrath of God

  By the end of the affair, five soldiers had died and twenty-five more were wounded. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command claimed responsibility for the attack. They released the following statement:

  Yesterday, on Thursday, the thirteenth day of Rabi‘ al-Akhir, our courageous soldiers carried out a heroic operation against the superior forces of the Zionist occupation army at the shores of Yaffa and at General Headquarters in the heart of Tel-Aviv. Our forces attacked the Zionists from the sea and from the air, inflicting massive casualties. 45 soldiers of the occupation army perished and 87 more were wounded. Of our forces, 5 soldiers became martyrs. The ingenious operation and the high level of execution, including advanced collaboration among different branches of the organization, sewed confusion and wreaked havoc among the enemy’s lines. The operation targeted enemy military forces exclusively. It aimed at the heart of the Zionist entity, at the general headquarters of its army, with the objective of sowing chaos among its complacent inhabitants and to demonstrate that no place is outside the reach of the long arm of the Palestinian resistance. Historic justice does not stop at the Lebanese border. Yaffa, Haifa, Tiberius, we have not forgotten you.

  Eternal glory to our dauntless martyrs. Revolution until liberation.

  A different edition of the statement, published in Arabic media outlets, mentioned the names of the soldiers killed and their affiliation— seaborne or airborne. All in all, five names were listed, all of whom were men. No woman was mentioned.

  None of the claims-of-responsibility mentioned any word of collaboration with the Iranians, nor did the Israelis suggest any such thing. The Iranians, for their part, remained silent. The Sunday Times published a piece, claiming that according to ‘insider sources,’ the operation was conducted with Iranian support. But the article made little impact in the Israeli media, which focused on other aspects. For a whole week, the media did not relent in its coverage of the ‘murderous attack’. Reporters tended to ignore the fact that the operation had targeted military forces rather than civilians; the terminology employed in the newspapers, on the radio, and on television consisted of terrorists, murderers, and heinous terror. The media lamented the fallen soldiers and covered their funerals extensively.

  Three hours after the organization had claimed responsibility for the attack, the Israeli air-force bombed a PFLP-GC base in al-Na‘ameh, south of Beirut. The base contained some light artillery, ammunition storages, and a few old tanks, but all of these were burrowed deep within the Chouf Mountains, and the bombing failed to inflict anything more that superficial damage. Tamir knew that PFLP-GC operatives were well aware that al-Na‘ameh would be targeted after any successful attack that they— or sometimes even other organizations— carried out. It was routine. So they burrowed in and prepared in advance. Still, a driver and a quartermaster were killed in the bombing.

  A couple of days after the attack, the media started hinting at a case of intelligence failure. Several politicians were quick to demand an independent investigation into the affair. The Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Defense pursued a two-pronged approach to the matter: officially, they announced that the matter will be looked into with due care and attention, and that the IDF is aptly equipped to scrutinize its own conduct. The message was clear: they would wait for the affair to peter out. Newspapers and opposition politicians cried out against the government’s inaction, but sure enough, the media soon found a new story to feature and the wave of outcry dissipated.

  Internally, however, the system reached boiling point. The chief of staff was summoned to see the minister of defense; he was firmly rebuked, and told that he’d better wake his intelligence services up. The minister issued a thinly-veiled warning that he was not going to protect him from the media for long, and that the last thing the chief of staff wanted was a blight on his record so close to the end of his military career— especially if he harbored any desires to pursue the fast-track from his office to national politics. The perturbed chief of staff immediately summoned the director of the Military Intelligence Directorate to his office. He made it clear to him that if he had any designs on being promoted to deputy chief of staff, or one day even to land the main job itself, he had to demonstrate that he’d shaken up the system and drawn the necessary conclusions. Most importantly, he had to point the finger at someone— or the finger would be pointed at him.

  Tamir read all of that in a column by Haaretz newspaper’s military correspondent. He had no idea how the correspondent knew all that he did, but he was impressed by the depth of the intelligence probe. He sat in his balcony, overlooking the serene Simon Thassi Street, resting lazily under a pleasant Saturday afternoon’s winter sun; he sombe
rly thought to himself that if the military correspondent was right— and why wouldn’t he be right— then it wouldn’t take long before the steam venting from above would find its way down to the corridors of the futuristic fort where he plied his trade. That’s a shitty metaphor, he thought to himself, steam rises, it doesn’t compress downwards. What heats at the top and bursts downwards? he mused. The wrath of God, perhaps.

  b. The Best Interest of the Matter

  The following day, when Tamir arrived at the base, Moti wasn’t there. He didn’t come in for the rest of the day either. The other unit heads conducted their business as usual, and Tamir tried to do the same. But it was merely a charade: business was anything but usual for Tamir and his unit ever since the attack. Some colleagues carefully congratulated him, some tried not to bring it up, but it was clear that everyone was walking on eggshells around him and no one really knew what to say. He wasn’t sure what any of them actually knew of what transpired during the attack.

  Tamir submitted a detailed report to Moti, which he knew would make its way up to unit’s director at least, if not higher. In the report, he relayed the chain of events leading up to the attack, but omitted his own contact with Al-Shajara, the interrogation at GHQ, and the matter of ‘Ali the Yellow. He also omitted many of his insights regarding al-Darija, and tried to stick as much as he could to the communications funneled through the unit’s channels. Moti accepted the report with a sealed expression; he thanked him with a slight nod of his head, and Tamir quickly left his office. What could he say, anyway? In general, considering the scale of the event, very little was said on the matter: outside, the nation was in great tumult, but here, inside, in the space in which information is compressed and processed, analyzed and funneled to the desks of top-level decision makers— or, alternatively, overlooked and missed, neglected and buried— here, in these rooms, an eerie silence prevailed. Tamir felt he was gliding across the rooms, covered in a desensitizing layer of cotton wool laced with screws and nails. The only question was— where were the plastic explosives, the fuse, and the detonator?

  At 11 a.m. a short, bald, dark-skinned lieutenant colonel walked into Tamir’s office. His eyes were alert and restless. Tamir and Ilay gawked at him. There was something unsettling about his demeanor. Tamir thought that perhaps he should get up to greet him, so he rose from his chair. Ilay scratched his head in confusion and followed Tamir’s lead, shifting his lanky, awkward body upward into a semi standing position. Even half-crouched, he still towered above the diminutive lieutenant colonel, who might have preferred him to have remained seated. The man looked at Ilay with a short-tempered, sullen gaze and asked if he would clear the room for a couple of minutes. Go fix yourself a coffee, you look a little dozy, he snarked. Ilay mumbled something unintelligible, glanced longingly at his computer screen, as if reluctant to part with it, and left the room.

  Shalom Abuhab, the lieutenant colonel introduced himself to Tamir, head of Branch 40.

  Branch 40… Tamir struggled to recollect.

  Never mind that now, Abuhab cut him off. I wanted to bring you up to speed about the story you’re involved with. It probably wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you if I told you we’re under a lot of pressure from the director of the MID’s office. They wanted to conduct an external investigation…

  External?

  By the MID. They said that only a thorough MID investigation would quell the calls for an outside investigation.

  Outside?

  By the chief of staff’s office, conducted by a major-general from GHQ— the works. MID’s desperate to avoid that scenario because they don’t want to be subjected to an outside investigation. We, on our part, want to avoid an MID investigation— we don’t like outsiders looking under our hood, and so far we’ve done a decent job of keeping them out. We don’t want the status quo to change because of your story.

  My story… Tamir pondered, listening with a mix of curiosity and incredulity to the lieutenant colonel’s blunt and direct elucidation of political struggles within army ranks. Maybe it really is my story, he thought to himself. The thought appealed to him.

  This time’s going to be more complicated than in the past, Abuhab said as he sat down in Ilay’s chair, absentmindedly glancing at his computer screen. But we managed to convince them to let us run our own investigation first, and only then, if they’re not convinced, have them conduct their own investigation. At the end of the day, they want to keep a lid on the commotion as well, they’re just not sure whether our own investigation would be enough to satisfy GHQ.

  Tamir stared at him in silence.

  Time isn’t on our side, and we obviously need to… keep damage to a minimum. Now, listen. I read your report. It’s fine, but a bit too chatty. So, we’re not going to send it out. Me and you, we’re going to sit down and come up with… a softened version, you might say. That will also be your official stance in front of the committee.

  Tamir nodded along, even though he didn’t fully understand. So, I need to face the committee? he asked.

  Yes.

  When?

  Starting now.

  Now?

  Yes.

  Where?

  We can start here.

  The committee will come here??

  It’s already here.

  You?

  Me.

  And besides you?

  No one else needed. I just need to know that you understand how these things work, and that you’re going to keep the best interest of the matter and of the unit in mind. I hope you understand that sometimes, the best interest of the unit is also your own best interest. It would not reflect well on us if a unit head was found culpable. An IAO would be better, but even that we try to avoid. A unit head is too much. We won’t give them the satisfaction. Besides, you yourself are in somewhat of a sensitive position at the moment, aren’t you?

  I am?

  Of course. You were interrogated by F.S.D.2, weren’t you?

  You know about that?

  My job is to know things. The whole point is that other people won’t know. That won’t be good for anybody.

  Of course, Tamir nodded. Now he got it.

  c. No Big Deal

  Over the next two days, Tamir met lieutenant colonel Abuhab several more times. Abuhab could hardly be characterized as possessing an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth; he more than willingly bent the facts to support the narratives he chose to espouse. Tamir thought to himself that in terms of schools of philosophy, Abuhab would probably fall into the category of Greek Sophists or 18th century Utilitarianists. His phrasings were neither elegant nor particularly lucid. He favored ambiguity. He told Tamir that Moti was on extended leave until things cooled off a bit, and that even when things do cool off, it wasn’t at all certain that he’ll be back in the department. In cases like these, he said, it’s often best to transfer some of the concerned parties to some other position. At the end of the day, it’s for their own benefit. And also, we can say that we drew our conclusions and brought in a new broom. It makes a good impression.

  Tamir rationalized that based on the information intercepted from the networks, he provided the best intelligence possible. Abuhab said it didn’t even matter: there is always better intelligence to be provided. No one really cares what was or wasn’t intercepted. That’s why we need culprits.

  After they finished drafting Tamir’s report, Abuhab shook his hand and bid him farewell. Tamir gathered the courage and asked who they were planning to pin this on.

  As insignificant a cog as possible, Abuhab said as he left the room clutching a small black executive briefcase, and disappeared into the corridor.

  Three days later, a report summarizing the proceedings and conclusions of the unit’s internal investigation committee landed on Tamir’s desk. The whole report was concocted in vague and general terms, the kind favored by Abuhab. The repor
t concluded that although at no point during the information collection and processing process did any clear negligence or misconduct transpire, stern disciplinary action will nevertheless be taken, in reflection of the unit’s unyielding commitment to excellence, which has distinguished it since its establishment. Subsequently, since the only possible fault could be found in the work of transcriber Yishai Adika in Kidonit base, it has been decided to remove him immediately from his post, register a stern reproval in his personal file, demote him, and transfer him to a non-intelligence post. The reason: the transcriber failed to ascertain the phrase ‘the distance isn’t great’ in a conversation between the seaborne-unit station and the airborne-unit station.

  That’s not right, Tamir thought. If he couldn’t make it out, then he couldn’t make it out. If anything, it was Harel’s fault for not having called Sasson in. And more than anyone else, it was my own fault for not realizing it was going to be a joint attack based out of the Iranian tanker, rather than a joint attack launched from two different positions.

  He kept on reading. A stern reproval was also registered in the personal file of the team commander of the reception room in Kidonit for having failed to assign better producers to man the stations, despite knowing there was an attacking unfolding.