Fracture Point

by T. D. Mandowsky

  “So now that you’re in the ISA, please educate me,” she said, blowing smoke in my face. “How will all this be resolved in the end?”

  “I have no idea,” I replied. “This entire semester I’ve been running from an armor-protected jeep to a Palestinian house, to the ISA facility and back to the jeep, and I’m no closer to understanding what is going on in this insane country.” I took the pipe and inhaled deeply. “I had opinions. You know me.”

  “Yeah,” she nodded “Opinions of a fascist,” she added, turning every word into a little cloud of smoke.

  “Not at all.”

  “Sure,” she said, and even after knowing her for 25 years, I still didn’t know whether she was being sarcastic or not.

  “Any intelligent person who works there for six months will rethink his opinions.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re not intelligent.”

  “Give me that if you’re not smoking it,” I said, taking the pipe from her. “Moron.”

  In fact, for the last six months, I’ve been thinking about it a lot (of course, when I was not running between classes at the university or after Hamas operatives in Issawiya). I haven’t been able to come up with a good solution, and it seems that nobody at the political level seems to really want to make a decision. Maybe one day some new hybrid creation will appear in the Middle East.

  “I picture you at university asking girls from Herzliya for their notes after a morning class and then at night you’re in an Arab village, yelling at local girls of the same age.”

  I raised my hand to deny what she was saying, as if it were far from reality when in fact it was not, my hand slicing through a cloud of smoke.

  Libby says that we men have been trained our whole lives to filter our emotions and bottle them up inside – which is why we have a limited vocabulary and unexpected outbursts of anger. She didn’t even know about the human chimpanzees from the Jerusalem district, who show their love for each other with pleasant gestures, like placing bricks from the nearby construction site into the bags of those in their unit. I say this as one of those guys. One morning I didn’t understand why my bag was so heavy until I reached the classroom and took out a brick that I found inside. Bitton couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. That same night, when he came out of the gym shower, he found his running shoes full of salt from the dining room.

  “The work we do there is no walk in the park,” I said to Libby. The bubbling sound of the hookah was a pleasant break in between my words. “When I’m there, I need to have thicker skin. I have no choice, just as a psychologist has to be pleasant and accepting. In the field I have to be . . . what should I call it . . .”

  “Unpleasant and unaccepting,” she said, smiling. “You just found the most complicated way of describing the word ‘mercenary.’”

  “Mercenaries don’t have ideologies; they only have power and money on their mind.”

  “What is your ideology?” she asked.

  “I don’t have the energy to get into that with you again.”

  “You see? All we have left is power and money.”

  I used to think it was hard to get a girl into bed. In the ISA I learned it is much harder to get a 17-year-old terrorist out of bed. Everything there requires strength. To close the door of the armored jeep you need strength. Even to cock my gun I need strength. The last time I needed to be gentle was several days ago, when I heard a song I liked on the radio. It was on the way back from an afternoon patrol in a Palestinian refugee camp located in East Jerusalem. We left the Shu’afat refugee camp, having responded to another false alarm that we received while monitoring the communications in the village. It had become a daily occurrence. Every community leader, (“mukhtar”) bragged that he knew where the Israeli soldier was being held. These all turned out to be false attempts to have a sense of control of the Palestinian streets.

  On the way out of the eastern side of the city we were attacked with a spray of rocks. There was a huge bang when a washing machine was thrown onto our vehicle from the fourth floor. At first I thought it was a bomb. I shouted to Billal to stop the vehicle and I jumped out and pushed my gun up against my cheek. I had to chase away the rock throwers and electric appliance droppers. The vehicle wouldn’t be able to take another hit like this. My aim was on the face of a Palestinian on the roof. The sun set early and dazzled me. I wanted to hurt him, but I was not sure that he was throwing. Captain Billal screamed at me like crazy. I fired at the light next to him, so he would think it was close.

  The tub of the broken washing machine spun for the last time, like a Samurai trying to obey his master until his last breath. I quickly returned to the vehicle in case the dryer was next. We sped out of the village, leaving a path of demolition, smoke, and a horde of teenagers overflowing with hatred.

  “How did you jump out of the car like that? How fucked up are you?”

  “Sorry,” I told him.

  “I like mad dogs like you. It makes missions more interesting,” he said, and let out a coarse laugh.

  At the headquarters, he got out of the vehicle and I moved to the driver’s seat and drove it to the vehicle parking lot. I heard the old Gidi Gov and Mika Karni bossa nova song on the radio. It was chilly outside, and a light rain started to fall on the left window. After the rocks that had fallen on us, the light rain was a welcome delight. Gov’s deep voice and the Brazilian melody blended into a magical moment. I tried to turn up the volume but all the energy I had been holding inside caused me to hit the radio too hard and the entire panel fell off. Gov’s pleasant voice was immediately silenced.

  I’m so fucked up.

  The road to my apartment was dark, probably a power outage in the streetlights or something. I set the alarm on my phone for after midnight.

  It was nice to hear that Billal liked me, and it was hard to refuse him when he asked me to join him on a night arrest operation that same night. I wouldn’t mind. I had no plans anyway, and money is something I definitely need nowadays.

  “Happy birthday!” Donna jumped on me. Heart-shaped balloons were scattered on the floor, and two large ones floated in the room in the shape of my new age: 25.

  “I couldn’t find a recipe for beet cake, so I made you a carrot cake,” she said and led me to the wooden table in the kitchen, where a cake with orange-pink glaze and six sweaty beers were waiting.

  “You’re perfect,” I told her.

  “I wanted to buy you a washing machine so you would stop taking dirty clothes to Afula,” she told me, “but there’s no room to put one here. Oh, and I also don’t have the money for it.”

  I wanted to tell her I already got one today, but I didn’t.

  “You’re too rough with me!” she complained as we moved to the bed. She saw that I was scared − either of her, or of myself.

  “Do it gently,” she said. “Make believe I’m a puppy.”

  She took my hand and showed me how to put my hand through her hair. Slowly, without any force.

  “Just put your hand here,” she said, placing her open hand on her head, “and let your hand slide down.”

  I did exactly what she said, several times. I felt gravity and her curls on my skin, creating the perfect caress.

  It is indeed a difficult duality, but I don’t mind. What I do mind is that I can’t seem to . . . do it. I have no idea why Donna is still with me. When I asked her, she scolded me and said that if I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I would be able to connect to myself and get over the problem. Tears were rising up in me, so I ended the conversation. Donna called my name, twice, but I ignored her.

  “Sorry,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. I caressed her and we hugged. I tried to connect to myself, although I don’t know how to do that. Donna caressed my head, and I put my hand under her shirt, on her feminine thighs and her full breasts. I have no excuses − she has the most beautiful breasts I hav
e ever seen. Round and firm, with pink nipples that are always up.

  “Come inside,” she said.

  “Not yet,” I said and continued rubbing myself up against her, hoping I would come without penetrating her. She turned me over on my back, grabbed my dick and put it in her. The moan she let out was as sexy as she was wet.

  The second time she moaned, she stuck her fingernails into my back. This was farther than we had ever gotten. The third moan had a different tone − desperate and higher. The one after it also scared me. I took her thighs and pushed her back, but Donna stopped me and forced me inside her with a force I didn’t know she had. It was like the force that threw me on the ground when the bullet hit my vest. Buchnik’s bloody shouts echoed in the room.

  “Get out! Get out!” I screamed and I felt that after each scream, I was inhaling a cloud of black smoke. The blackness gradually dispersed.

  “It’s okay, honey.” Her soft hand patted my wet chest. “You’re great.”

  Her hand went across my head as though she were smearing blood. I wiped my face with the white sheet; it was just sweat.

  She caressed me and made an effort to smile, but it came out a little bitter.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing with me,” I said for the second time that day. “I really don’t.”

  Chapter 18

  The alarm clock woke me at 00:50. When I stopped the beeper, I saw a text message from the university. I failed the exam on The Politics of the Schengen Countries. Damn it!

  Donna was sleeping next to me in her small blue tank top. Her warm lips were close to my shoulder, as though she had been watching me before she fell asleep. She lay there without moving or making a sound. I couldn’t even hear her breathing. She was sleeping silently and peacefully, like a mannequin in a clothing store window. Donna’s sleep was always unplanned. A blanket thrown by her feet, an open book face down near her hair, as if she were afraid of committing to sleep, that it was an obstacle between the end of one day and the beginning of the next. For her, dreaming was a natural continuation of the day, or of the novel she was reading.

  I stood up slowly. I sat on the bed for a moment until the blood flowed to my head. I looked over at my guitar, Yemima. The street light shone through the window and illuminated her, showing the long crack.

  A cold breeze blew through the room despite the closed window. It was bliss. The wind caressed my bare shoulders and sent a refreshing, slight tremble through my body. I could only enjoy it for a short time. I had to get ready.

  Night arrest operations are no time for mistakes, and preparing for them begins with getting dressed. I knew the order by heart: black thermal clothes, a warm layer over this, thin gloves that enable you to fire a gun, and a thick leather belt. Calling the control room to notify them of the mission is a must; otherwise no one will call in back up when your jeep overturns. The smallest mistake by a field guard can cause an intelligence mission to fail, bringing down the entire plan. One time, the failure of an intelligence mission resulted in a major government crisis.

  I continued getting dressed, not forgetting anything on the checklist: black shirt, green pants, a gun, bullets, covert ID, and handcuffs. I looked at my phone. It was not quite 2:00. I had a new text message. Instead of a number, the caller was identified as “CONTROL ROOM.” They asked for my address in case of emergency − what a strange request. Human Resources has no tact. I replied and put my phone down because Donna made a sound. She turned to the wall and fell back into a deep sleep in complete silence. I would have packed her up and taken her with me if I could.

  I got into my Hyundai and started the engine. It was a cold night, exactly how I liked it. I drove fast the entire way. The only time this was possible in Jerusalem was at this time of night. The music was on, and the only sign of life on the street was a couple sitting on the stairs outside their building with their faces close to each other, two bottles of beer beside them. I arrived at the office’s parking lot right on time, just as the song “Air” ended. It was a song that Donna had introduced me to.

  Arik was waiting outside. “Hey, man,” I said, shaking his hand, but he didn’t smile back as always. “You idiot! Where have you been? We’ve been trying to call you for half an hour!”

  I checked my pockets, damn it! I forgot my phone at home. “Why? What time is it?” I said, trying to understand what was wrong. Arik said it was 2:20, which I thought was okay, but apparently they had changed the operation to an earlier time.

  Billal ran down the stairs with two paper cups. “Mr. Evron, how are you? Did you sleep well? Great, I don’t care. In 10 minutes we’re out of here. Do you drink with sugar or without?” I tried to reply but he was already gone. Damn these captains.

  The jeep’s engine roared as we sped southward on route 60. Billal was driving and I was sitting next to him with my M-16 between my legs. Gush Etzion is the most beautiful and quiet area, but it can turn into hell within seconds.

  “We’re going to get Mussa Sidawi.”

  “What’d he do?” I asked, but he was focused on changing radio stations.

  “Anyway, what is relevant to you is that they sit in the living room of the house until very late. The family is all together: sons, nephews, even his brother is there. I bet there’ll be a mess when we go in.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” I asked him.

  “Aren’t you being paid per punch?” Billal asked me, as he called the desk with one hand and turned down the radio with the other while steering the wheel with his knee.

  “Why did you want to leave earlier?”

  “We got information that they want to transfer the ‘autist’ to somewhere else. We don’t know where from or where to, so we started the operation earlier to cut off their transportation routes.”

  “Who are they transferring?” I asked, thinking I hadn’t heard correctly.

  Billal stopped at a red light, opened the window, and spat out.

  “The autist,” he repeated.

  “Say ‘on the spectrum,’” I said, trying to teach him something new. Billal turned towards me with his tired gaze.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” he said, and hit the gas when the light turned green. The roar of the engine ended the silence.

  “Who do they want to transfer and where?” I couldn’t help myself.

  “Seffi Keinan.”

  “Autistic?” I asked him, still hoping it was a mistake, “How is there a soldier on the spectr— an autistic solider in the ISA?”

  “He’s the nephew of the regional director’s wife. So the director is in real trouble. His promotion to deputy director of the ISA is in danger and so is his family. So far, Seffi’s parents are obeying the spokesman’s instructions, but if it was anyone else, the press would be all over it.”

  “I don’t understand. The regional director’s nephew is autistic and serving in the ISA?”

  “He’s not very autistic, just borderline. Sperger, or something like that. The regional director’s wife did everything possible to get him into the service.”

  “It’s called ‘Asperger’s.’ What’s his job?”

  “He’s an HR clerk. It’s under gag order, right? So keep it with you. This guy… he has perfect memory, so management loved him. Always did his job, never complained that he was bored. He took care of the payments that workers who changed residences received. He remembered everyone’s names, positions, and addresses.”

  The jeep was driving too fast for the road it was on and the weight it carried. I wanted to tell Billal to slow down but I was more interested in hearing about corporal Seffi Keinan.

  “So why is everyone so hysterical? He’s a low-ranking soldier.”

  “First of all, he’s autistic. That means his price in the prisoner exchange market is very high. There’s a chance that Jonod Al-Takhrir still don’t know that,” Billal said, squinting as we approac
hed the military base. “That’s not the worst part.”

  “What is the worst part?”

  “He also knows the names and addresses of all the operatives in the region. Everyone’s going crazy over this.”

  It’s a good thing he didn’t have the chance to get to know me yet, I thought.

  “We don’t know what he told them, if he said anything at all, and if they even asked him. We don’t know if he was abducted intentionally or if he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe they killed him already. Who knows? Our interest is for no one to know about it right now.”

  “That’s the opposite of the abductor’s interest,” I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. The more public this gets, the higher the cost.

  “Surprisingly, their interest also is for it to be kept under the radar.”

  The jeep sped towards the gate of the base, as if it were about to run it down. The soldier at the gate indicated for us to stop with his flashlight.

  “Then why? Don’t they want to release hundreds of terrorists?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did they kidnap him?”

  “Jonod operates outside the Palestinian Authority’s radar. Even Hamas is not in contact with them. Practically, it’s a branch of terrorists from Gaza who trained in Iran. Their objective is to screw us, I mean the ISA workers personally. This is part of a major plan. Their main goal is to execute a coup in the Palestinian Authority.”

  “What do we know about Jonod Al-Takhrir? How’s the investigation going?”

  Billal let out a long sigh, as if I had asked him about his marriage. On second thought, he’s kind of married to his work.

  “We don’t know anything,” he said. The embarrassment in his voice was clear.

  Captain Billal was in his early forties. He was short and thin with more gray hair and wrinkles than he should have had at his age. He, too, had been in the Unified Security Course, albeit 20 years ago.