The Marsh Angel

by Hagai Dagan

  Zaguri… Tamir thought. The accusation was wildly absurd, of course, and clearly intended for people who have no understanding of how the reception process actually works. If the transcriber Adika failed to make out the clip, then clearly no producer would have succeeded. Tamir wanted to derive some pleasure from Zaguri’s misfortune, but couldn’t; also, he knew that at the end of the day, the reproval meant nothing to Zaguri. He read on:

  Furthermore, it has been decided to demote the intelligence analyst who issued the dispatch which read ‘Link-up complete. The cage is in motion,’ for having failed to add an annotation instructing that ‘cage’ could mean watercraft. The intelligence analyst will remain in his post, but a mild reproval will be registered in his personal file.

  Jonny… They didn’t touch Harel, but they threw Jonny under the bus. Pricks… Tamir felt he should be pleased to have been exonerated. So, why did he feel guilty? He called Neta.

  How’s the lonely knight who fights beautiful amazon-terrorists at dawn? she asked.

  I was wondering how fast that story was going to spread, he replied.

  Oh, believe you me, it’s spreading fast, she said.

  Yeah…

  Why wouldn’t it? It’s got everything— sacrifice, romance, mystique… Great story, don’t you think?

  I guess you could see it that way. Are you coming to Tel-Aviv anytime soon?

  No, it’s gonna be a bit too tight.

  Tight? What do you mean?

  I’m discharging in a couple of days, and then I have to drive home right away to run some last-minute errands. Two days after that, I’m off to the airport. I doubt I can fit a visit to Tel-Aviv in there. That’s just the way things turned out… It’s my fault, though. I really just wanted to get the hell out of here already.

  Where are you flying to?

  Brazil. Then Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica…

  For how long?

  Six months. Maybe even longer, although I’ve already applied for a scholarship to Stanford. I haven’t heard back yet.

  Seriously?

  Yeah. I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer to finish what we started that night. Think you’ll hang in there?

  Without you? No way.

  You’re cute. But it’s no big deal, right? We’re on the same wavelength here.

  Yeah, of course, he confirmed, reflecting on the matter. Yes, he thought, no big deal.

  d. Transparent

  So, what followed, then? How did the days pass? They simply passed. A new department head arrived, steady and calm, authoritative, and a bit full of himself. He glided silkily down the corridors, and sat with an air of somewhat-ironic regality in his soft chair. His previous specialty was Egypt, but he learned the Lebanese and Palestinian materials with impressive ease and speed. In all his meetings with Tamir and other unit heads, he projected a kind of sophisticated apathy. He seemed to take very little interest in the department’s affairs, and was rarely if ever stirred, Tamir thought to himself. His top priority was running a smooth operation, appeasing the top-brass, and making as little waves as possible.

  In his first conversation with Tamir, the new department head told him that he knew all about what he termed ‘your buddies’ high-level attack.’ Clearly, we have no control over what they’re cooking up, he continued, and we need to do everything in our powers to stay on top of things, but next time… We need to try to be more in control and go about our business more quietly, to whatever extent possible. We’re only supposed to monitor the event, staying behind the scenes. Let the experts go out to the field and get shot at. That’s not our job. We need to do what we’re good at, and do it quietly and professionally. That way, we won’t have to bend over backwards later to evade investigation committees. We understand each other, right?

  Yes.

  No more private investigations. Agreed?

  Tamir remained silent. What else could he say? The department head gave Tamir his trademark soft, supple, self-indulgent smile, and said he was sure they we’re going to have a productive and successful relationship.

  And so it was. The relationship was indeed productive and successful, mainly because from that point on, nothing else happened. It seemed like the Front/Jibril had exhausted itself pulling off the intricate Iranian-backed attack, and was now a spent force. The organization’s networks were once again dozy and uneventful, and external sources ceased to report any unusual or significant activity. Tulip’s reports were confined to political meetings and the occasional transfer of operatives or equipment between posts, while Raspberry disappeared completely. Where have you gone, Raspberry? Tamir thought. What fate has befallen you?

  He wondered if she was being held in the country, but knew that was unlikely. The events by Hassan Bek Mosque— the cease-fire order, the fact that the Ultralight was hit only in order to incapacitate it but not kill its pilot, the car that whisked her away alive from the scene, and the people inside it who probably weren’t even really Shin-Beit operatives— all of that strengthened Tamir’s belief that al-Darija was Raspberry. But if she was indeed a source, if she collaborated with them, then they had no reason to incarcerate her. Could they have sent her back to Lebanon? Impossible. They know over there that she was either captured or killed, so how could they explain her sudden return? There were only two options: either they constructed a new identity for her to live a new life under somewhere else, or they debriefed her and got rid of her. He admitted to himself that the latter was the most plausible. Why would they go to the effort of constructing a new identity for her, investing time and money, if she no longer had any intelligence value? Out of the kindness of their hearts?

  On a couple of occasions, Tamir tried to see if Yaki could help shed light on the matter, but he just brushed him off and told him to keep him out of it. It’s way over my head, he explained, it has nothing to do with my unit, and anyway, I don’t know anything about it. Tamir contacted Amalia again, and asked her to let him know if she popped up somewhere again. He knew that he could get in serious trouble for keeping his nose in the matter, but he took the risk anyway. Either way, it didn’t help. Amalia never heard of her again. Slowly, he gave up and let go of the idea that she might play another part in his life again.

  His life. What became of his life? It stabilized, slowed down, became routine. Nothing notable happened at work, as if the rogue organization under his watch adjusted itself to the expectations of the new department head. Other units took center stage. The Hezbollah unit became the hottest unit in the department, while the Palestinian units slowly receded into obscurity. Keren called it terror-retirement. There were times, she recounted, when my guys hijacked airplanes, stirred up real messes, captivated hearts and minds around the globe with sexy freedom fighters like Lila Khaled… And now? What have we got now? A couple of geezers sitting around in camps, bickering over the budget of a youth movement in Sidon. I can’t recall the last time something ‘immediate’ came up on my network, let alone something ‘urgent’— that’s about as wild a fantasy as a visit to the Playboy mansion.

  You want to visit the Playboy mansion?

  No, but I know boys fantasize about that, she laughed.

  Neta went off to bounce her curls in faraway lands. No new women appeared in Tamir’s life. He didn’t quite know why. Until then, he had always had long periods of solitude, but one way or another, someone eventually came along. But now, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and nothing seemed to happen. Sometimes, it felt as if nothing could happen. All around him, the city bustled in a flurry of hormones; painfully beautiful girls dressed in all black strutted proudly down the sidewalks between the dog turds, utterly untouchable, perhaps even themselves untouching. At the very least, they didn’t touch Tamir. Their gazes passed through him as if he were transparent. Maybe he really was transparent? It looks so, he thought to himself, looks like I’m transparent.

  e. Ne
w Zealand

  The days crawled by slowly. The only exciting things to happen in the department concerned change of personnel: Keren discharged and went to study English literature at Cambridge. Ilay left for officer training, and afterwards to intelligence-officer training, at which point he stopped by the department to say hello. He looked tan and even thinner, his second lieutenant rank insignia shimmering on his slightly hunched shoulders. His smile was still as sheepish as ever. Tamir asked him why he was doing all of this. Ilay answered that he didn’t really know, just some kind of absurd urge. Tamir asked whether he was thinking about pursuing a military career, to which Ilay replied he was pretty certain that he wasn’t— he was going to sign on for one year of additional service, and then travel to New Zealand to herd sheep. He always dreamed of herding sheep in New Zealand, spending his afternoons looking over the endless expanses, taking in their vastness, knowing that there was no enemy at the gate, nothing but sheep and expanse, rivers and skies.

  And in the meantime, you’re sentencing yourself to a whole year of all sorts of slavish exercises, field-navigating at night, memorizing maps, bad food, and little sleep, Tamir said.

  Yeah.

  That doesn’t add up.

  Right.

  So, why then?

  I don’t know. It’s not a rational decision.

  I see. So, New Zealand, then?

  New Zealand, Ilay repeated. He bid Tamir farewell and left. Tamir stared at the door for another moment. He felt all alone in the department.

  f. Backlog to Be Taken Care Of

  Over time, Tamir sank into his routine, and his routine sank into him. His days became increasingly monotonous: he would wake up, go to work, and do his job with steady, uneventful professionalism. A part of him had always yearned for the stability and security of routine, but another part of him was slowly receding, withering, fading away. He had no friends in his life anymore, nor women. He would drift through the streets of Tel-Aviv feeling weightless, as if his feet never touched the ground; as if he was hovering above the mounds of dog shit; as if when Dallal was dragged into that black sedan, all the moisture and mass which comprised his being were sucked in with her, leaving nothing but a hollowed vacuum inside him.

  Was it even really Dallal? She was so different. Perhaps he merely imagined it was her? He hadn’t seen her since that day long ago, when she soaked up the blood drawing from his head and made him a cup of strong, sweet tea. He was only a boy, and she was only a girl, but her hands were steady and her voice was settled and soothing, almost dreamlike. He had felt as if he were in a dream. Perhaps he really had been dreaming? Was there anybody else there? Her sister, perhaps? Her parents? Possibly, but he didn’t remember anyone but her, no voice but her dreamlike voice. He was exhausted, and her voice put him down like a lullaby. What did she say? He couldn’t remember. Her words transformed in his memory into a spellbinding, numbing incantation.

  Was it her? That fire burning in those deep dark eyes, he recalled. That rage behind which lay an endless, invincible tranquility. Was it her?

  His life had become all but automated: he went through the motions at work. He exchanged basic pleasantries with his colleagues, but nothing more. Gradually, he lost all interest in his surroundings. When he finally realized that he had lost interest in his long-time object of research, the Front/Jibril organization, it felt like a forgone conclusion. Even worse, the closer the day of his discharge came— and it crept along in a sluggish, protracted manner— the more he realized to his embarrassment that he had started to forget things he once remembered, things he had memorized; that as he was staring at his index cards and papers, he was comprehending less and less of what he was reading, as if he were gripped by a subtle dementia, as if his critical thinking and analytical skills were draining from his mind.

  One day, someone who’s name meant nothing to Tamir called from Kidonit— Jonny and Harel had discharged already— and asked a seemingly trivial question, concerning the use of certain code names on the Front/Jibril networks. He knew that he should know the answer to the question, that he had always known it, but at that moment, his mind drew a blank. He muttered something about an urgent matter that suddenly popped up and asked the intelligence analyst from Kidonit to call him back. He then turned to his papers and tried to reconstruct his lost knowledge. He found the process excruciatingly draining, as if something inside him resisted the search; it was then that he realized that his mind was rejecting the corpus of knowledge he had toiled to amass, signaling to Tamir that this story was as good as dead.

  He drifted through the remaining few months like a zombie. He would come into the department late, and leave early. In between, he mainly sat idly at his desk. Summaries accumulated, logs piled up, his incoming messages folder became desperately backlogged— but he remained motionless at his desk. No one in the department seemed to have noticed Tamir’s indolence, since the Front was no longer an organization of any consequence. Thus, a strange correlation emerged between Tamir and the organization’s operatives themselves, who kept on attending meetings in refugee camps in Lebanon merely to chat their regular idle chat about operative wage-bill and representation in different Palestinian resistance committees. Tamir likened these operatives to dilapidated mummies, crumbling into dust. He felt his own hands were wrapped in green shrouds that had to be removed quickly before they adhered to his skin forever, before the death encapsulated therein engulfed him as well, before the doom into which they pulled sucked him in completely and closed its ravenous, antennas-toothed mouth over him for good.

  When his replacement arrived at the department to start his training, Tamir scrutinized his avid, buoyant demeanor and felt like an old man looking at an exuberant youth. But I’m young too, he thought to himself, and it’s not like I’ve even been here for that long. How did this happen? His replacement looked at him with anticipation and enthusiasm, almost in adoration. He was lively and eager to learn. Tamir said little, opting for dramatic pauses and silences which he secretly felt were utterly ridiculous; he pointed at the towering stacks of papers on his desk and said with some embarrassment that there was some backlog to be taken care of.

  Two weeks before his discharge, he was summoned to see the department head for a concluding conversation. Tamir knew that the department head was halfway out as well, and that he will soon be transferred to another position before being promoted to arena head. The department head greeted him with a typically enigmatic smile. So, I assume there’s no point in discussing additional service, right?

  No, Tamir said. Even if he did ask to sign on, there was no guarantee he’d be obliged; he knew that his neglection of his duties in recent months hadn’t escaped the eyes of the department head— he just didn’t find it important enough to intervene. Both me and the Front are of zero interest to him, Tamir reflected.

  Okay, the department head said, so what do you plan on doing next?

  Study.

  That’s nice. Middle Eastern studies?

  I doubt it.

  Economics? Computer science?

  I’m more of a humanities person.

  Oh, so you want to be poor?

  Tamir shrugged his shoulders.

  Okay then, best of luck to you. Maybe we’ll see you around here when you come for reserve duty.

  Reserve duty, Tamir mused, that thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until then. He bid the department head farewell and went home.

  g. Bad Boy

  A week before his discharge, Tamir was summoned to a meeting at a branch of the Prime Minister’s Office— a well-known euphemism for the Mossad. He went to the address he was given and entered an office in Dubnov Street which seemed like it was thrown together ad hoc just a few minutes before he arrived. It was an empty room furnished with nothing but a single desk and two plain chairs. The man who interviewed him introduced himself as Danny Shiloah. There was a writing block placed on th
e desk before him at which he glanced occasionally. He told Tamir that he wanted to inquire whether he had any interest in continuing serving his country as he’s done so far, but in a slightly different framework.

  What kind of framework?

  Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations— the Mossad, the man said, staring at Tamir with a pair of icy-blue eyes. The allusion to the Mossad juxtaposed with those arctic eyes reminded Tamir of the Sailors book series by Avner Carmeli, an author he adored when he was about eight years old. All of the heroes of the Sailors series were tall and strong, many of them endowed with piercing blue eyes. They were given names like Givol and Gilboa, reflecting the flora and geography of the homeland, and their dedication to their country knew no bounds. Tamir asked, out of curiosity, what position they had in mind for him.

  Similar to what you’ve been doing in the army, Danny Shiloah said, but you’ll be stationed in a different country.

  Tamir told him he thought about enrolling to study.

  You can do that afterwards, the man said. We’ll even fund it. But first, work for us for a few years.

  Tamir shook his head to decline. It’s a generous offer, he said, but I want to start studying now. I feel a strong urge.

  Urges can be tamed, Danny Shiloah said in a critical tone. Besides, sometimes you have to think about the needs of your country.

  Yes, Tamir agreed, sometimes you do. He studied Danny Shiloah inquisitively. Can I ask you something?

  Shoot.

  Why am I suddenly being wooed? My last encounter with you guys wasn’t exactly friendly.

  Danny Shiloah smiled. He seemed to know very well what Tamir was referring to. What they told you at that point, he said, was what you needed to hear at that point. And what I’m telling you today is what you need to hear today.

  You’re going to have to try a little harder than that, Tamir said.