“I have to go,” he said, turning to Madam Khatib. “If anyone asks, I came here intending to rape your daughter. That’s important. Do you understand?” He drilled a hard glare at her.
She nodded. Though confused, she decided if questioned she would comply with his request. The way this foreigner held Rachael convinced her to trust him.
Abruptly Ari hurried into the main room. He couldn’t bear to be near the girl; every second in her presence was a reminder that she’d probably been arrested because of him.
Mrs. Khatib followed.
“Will she get better?” she asked tearfully, begging for a comforting reply.
“I don’t know.”
He moved toward the door and stopped. “Remember, if anyone asks, I came to rape her.”
She nodded.
He placed his hand on the doorknob, hesitated, then turned back. “Do you know Saliha Maaruf? She says she’s a friend of Rachael’s.”
“Saliha Maaruf.” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t remember Rachael ever mentioning her.”
“Are you sure?”
Madame Khatib nodded.
◆◆◆
Ari arrived at the Café Teyrouzi in the northern Chouhada district, across from the Syrian Parliament, forty-five minutes early. Standing in the entranceway, he pushed his shoulder against the wood casing, trying to support what little energy he had left. The incident in the alley, the man in the lobby, and the arrest of Rachael all suggested that the Syrians were onto him. And now there was the possibility that Saliha was a Second Bureau agent, that he’d blown Operation Goshen. His mouth was dry. He felt the beating of his heart. Sweat clung to his clothes.
After glancing around the room, he settled into a corner table to wait for Lieutenant Barkai. The café was located in a better area of town than the one in which the two Israelis had first attempted to rendezvous; it was essential that Ari move around, that no pattern be ascribed to his activities. The Colonel had chosen Teyrouzi for no reason other than it had little in common with Café Shaam in the Christian quarter. Teyrouzi, large and well illuminated, with Formica tables and white plastic walls lined with photographs of famous Arab personalities, was a particular favorite of Damascus’s intellectual elite.
Ari ordered sweet coffee and a plate of shakshouka, vegetables fried in spiced tomato sauce. When the food arrived he ate slowly, occasionally glancing around the room. Barkai would show this time, Ari told himself as he chewed on a piece of makrouk bread. He was sure of it. If not, the Mossad would send somebody else or somehow get in touch with him. By now they’d received the message about his losing the transmitter, sent in the specially packaged backgammon set.
Without radio communication all he could do was wait for the Colonel’s next move. He was sure it would be made this afternoon. It had to be—time was running out. The children were to be lowered into Damascus’s sewer system in four days. There could be no delay: either Operation Goshen was executed according to the preset timetable or the children had to be abandoned. Those were his orders.
Soon Ari ordered a second cup of thick Turkish coffee. Barkai was late again. Ari looked at his watch—the second hand crawled unceasingly across the white dial. He flipped the band so that the face pointed away from him and he couldn’t see what time it was. A simple crutch, but an effective one.
The minutes slowly fell away. Ari was not a particularly philosophical man and he resisted the opportunity to pass the time by pondering such abstract notions as man’s fate and the reasons for the suffering he’d seen. Instead, he replayed the events of the last three weeks over and over in his mind, searching for something he could not put his finger on—the answer to a question he was yet unable to formulate.
If Barkai didn’t turn up he didn’t know what he would do. Getting the children out of the ghetto was futile if the lieutenant was not prepared to transfer the youngsters to the boat that would take them to Israel. Ari could not carry out the entire operation alone, not with the Syrians on his back. Barkai had to show.
Just then he felt the need to urinate. “Too much coffee,” he mumbled to himself as he rose and shuffled toward the rear of the room.
When he returned from the bathroom, he saw a man looking out from the front doorway, his back facing the café. Ari’s heart skipped a beat. It was Barkai. Finally. As the adrenalin rushed through his veins he moved toward the lieutenant. Before he had crossed half the café, Shaul Barkai turned and gazed around the room. The taut hope inside Ari snapped. His eyes had been playing tricks on him. It wasn’t Barkai! The man standing in the doorway was about the same height and build as Barkai but the resemblance ended there.
Ari stopped in the middle of the room and forcibly tried to calm himself. He was slipping farther than he’d realized. He went back to the table, fighting an internal war of nerves he had fought before and lost. He ordered a bottle of arak. When it came he gingerly unscrewed the cap, poured himself a glass of the clear liquid, and drank it quickly.
There was an unwrapped toothpick lying on the table. Ari hesitated for a moment, thinking that it might have been used, then laughed at himself. He took the thin piece of wood and began working his back teeth. It seemed silly to worry about other people’s germs when he chose lovers so haphazardly, without any concern for hygiene. He supposed everybody at times, unable to wait, made urgent love to a partner whose health was questionable. He remembered that when he was sixteen he and a German girl named Anna spent an entire summer with head colds. They were infatuated with each other and kept passing the cold back and forth. They couldn’t refrain from kissing long enough for both of them to get well. Angrily Ari spat the toothpick on the floor, poured himself a glass of arak, drank it, then poured another. Why was he thinking about that German girl now?
He directed his thoughts elsewhere, concentrating on a still lake in the Bavarian Forest outside Regensburg that always soothed him when he walked along its shores. He could almost smell the scent of the pine trees climbing the nearby hills. Suddenly Rachael’s face appeared on the surface of the water. She stared up at him without a sign of recognition. He closed his eyes. The image held in his mind for a moment, then dissolved into blackness.
Barkai never showed.
◆◆◆
Before returning to the New Ommayad Ari stopped at a falafel stand across the street from the hotel. For fifty piasters he received a sandwich consisting of a round of pita bread, slit, and filled with discs of ground chick peas and pieces of tomatoes, pickles, and cabbage. He ordered his without the usual yogurt sauce. Eating the falafel as he walked, he hurried into the hotel and up to Kim’s room. He would make a decision about what to do later. At the moment he needed to relax; to divert his thoughts away from the Service, his assignment, and the absent Israeli Intelligence officer.
When he entered her room, Kim literally exploded into his arms. “They printed my pictures of Khan esh Shih in the International Herald Tribune!” she said, excitedly waving the newspaper in her hand as she let go of him.
“Let me see.” He looked at the paper, wanting very much to be part of her happiness. There were two pictures at the bottom of the page: one of a shelled building, gaping holes gouged out of its side; and the other of a cemetery with gravediggers readying the earth for the dead. Under the pictures was the by-line: K. Johnson. If Ari had any trace of doubt about her being who she said she was, it was now erased. Though he found himself unable to share in her success, he kissed her. At least it might help reduce the tension within him.
“But you haven’t heard the best part,” she said, pushing him away. “Somebody from the Foreign Ministry called and asked if I would like to take pictures of Israelis captured in border skirmishes since the October ’73 War. It seems the American government has been pressing the Russians to get the Syrians to let the Red Cross in and visit the prisoners. It’s a little complicated, but the man who called was very impressed with the coverage in the Tribune. He’s invited me to photograph the Israeli
prisoners to show that they are being treated within the confines of the Geneva Convention.” She took his hand and held it in hers. “Newspapers and magazines all over the world will be beating at my door just to get a chance at printing the pictures. I’m so excited, this is such a lucky break.” She rested her head on his shoulder, then jerked it up again, too agitated to settle in one place for more than a few seconds.
Ari sat down, marveling at her exuberance, vaguely jealous that he was never able to get excited about anything.
“When are you going to take these pictures?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. But it sounded like it would be soon. He told me he would call tomorrow morning.”
“Who was it that phoned?”
“I don’t know. He mentioned his name, but I was so excited I forgot to write it down.” She frowned. “Do you think it matters?”
Ari lit a cigarette, slowly waving the match in the air until the flame went out. “No, as long as he intends to call you again, it shouldn’t make any difference if you remember his name or not.” He hesitated for a moment, then looked up at her. “Did he mention where the Israeli prisoners you’re to photograph are being held?”
“Yes, but it was something in Arabic. I don’t recall it; those names are hard to remember.”
“Does Tadmor or Sigin al-Mazza sound familiar?”
“Al-Mazza prison, that’s it!” she said excitedly. “How did you know?”
“There was an article on the Syrian penal system in Le Monde a few days back,” he lied. “It said Israeli prisoners are usually kept in Tadmor in the north or al-Mazza, just outside Damascus.” He knocked a bit of ash from his cigarette into the wastebasket near the dresser. “The Syrians obviously don’t know you’re half Jewish.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been involved in any Jewish activities, my name’s not ethnic, and on my visa application under religion I put down Unitarian.” She smiled. “I’m not quite sure what a Unitarian is, but I figured the Syrians wouldn’t know either and probably wouldn’t bother to ask.”
If she expected him to laugh he disappointed her.
“Are you going to be able to talk to the prisoners in addition to photographing them?”
“I don’t know. I assume there will be a translator and some sort of communication.”
Ari thought about Dov. The Nazis had been less than anxious to discuss the details surrounding his penetration of the German colony and subsequent arrest. He doubted he’d be able to get much information out of them; they seemed embarrassed by the whole affair. But, if Dov was at al-Mazza, there was a possibility Kim could contact him and find out how much he had told his interrogators.
“There’s a specific prisoner I’m interested in who very likely is at al-Mazza penitentiary,” he said, weighing his every word for the effect it would have.
“Then you were lying to me about the Le Monde article. You knew about al-Mazza before we came to Syria.”
He nodded.
“How? Why are you interested in Syrian prisons?”
He recalled the Colonel’s casual, last-minute request for information about Dov, realizing again how important an accurate report would be. It was worth the risk. The mission was falling apart; he had to salvage something, and there was good chance Kim could reach Dov. He took a deep drag off his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long time before exhaling. “I know about al-Mazza because it holds more than a dozen of my countrymen,” he said. “I’m an Israeli. My real name is Ari Ben-Sion.”
She stared at him in disbelief. But after a few seconds the surprise in her eyes faded. “Ari Ben-Sion.” She repeated the name. “Now everything makes sense: why you were in Jerusalem, why you’re so secretive, so distant.”
She rushed toward him.
“Don’t,” he commanded, halting her in place. He didn’t know why he threw up a barrier after having told her so much. Maybe it was because he was vulnerable now, both as a spy and as a man; and men, when vulnerable, tend to retreat behind harsh exteriors.
She dropped back on the bed, a shadow of pain clouding her face. “But I don’t understand, if you’re an Israeli then…”
“Then what?”
“Then—we’re both Jews.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Oh Hans,” she said. “I mean Ari. Now I understand. You came to Damascus because of this Israeli in al-Mazza prison.” She paused, suddenly excited. “I’ll probably be going there in a few days. Maybe I can help. Maybe I’ll see him or can get a message to him via one of the other prisoners. I’m not afraid. I’ll try anything. Just tell me what to do.”
He moved toward the window and looked out at the sun-scorched city. “The Israeli’s name is Dov Elon but I did not come to Damascus because of him.” He was stalling; he didn’t want her to realize the only reason he’d told the truth about himself was to use her.
“I don’t understand.” It seemed to Kim that he had offered to let her help, then abruptly snatched the opportunity away. “If you’re afraid you can’t trust me, why did you bring up Dov Elon in the first place?”
“I said Dov is not the main reason I’m in Damascus, which has absolutely nothing to do with trusting you.”
“Then you’re in Syria on some assignment for the Israeli government.”
“I’m a spy,” he said matter-of-factly, the way other men stated their profession as a doctor or lawyer.
She looked up at him, fear reflected in her eyes. “That means if you’re caught, they’ll execute you.”
“Precisely.” He ground out his cigarette with the same casual indifference the Syrians would display in snuffing out his life if he were captured.
“Ari, I’m scared.”
He slowly took out a fresh cigarette, tapped the butt on the armrest to pack in the tobacco, and lit it. “I’m scared too.”
“What is it?” she asked nervously. “Why are you in Damascus? If you’re arrested and hung I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it unless I know. It must be something important or you wouldn’t risk your life like this.”
“You will be much safer if I don’t tell you. No interrogator can extract information you do not possess. I prefer not to involve you any more than I need to—it’s too dangerous.”
“What do you mean not involve me!” she said angrily. “You talked me into traveling here with you. I’ve been seen repeatedly in your company. Everybody in the hotel knows we’re together. I am involved!”
“Kim, I can’t tell you anything else.”
“Then get out of here,” she said coldly. “I’ll take the first available flight to Europe.”
Her sudden harshness stunned him. He sat there, on the verge of losing her, unable to do anything about it. At a loss for words he rose, not wanting to leave, but he had no choice. He couldn’t tell her about the children.
“Damn it, where do you think you’re going?”
“You told me to leave.”
“So now I’m telling you to stay.”
“Kim, I just can’t tell you anything else; you have to trust me.”
She stood and faced him. “Okay, okay. I’ll trust you. I’ll just stand here like a little china doll. I won’t ask questions or learn too much about anything—that way we’ll be sure I won’t break. Of course upon request I’ll spread my legs, that is if you’re sure your penis won’t shatter me.”
He slapped her across the face, the crack of his hand against her cheek slicing through him like a knife. He stood there, his arm hanging awkwardly at his side.
“Kim, I’m sorry…” Apologizing made him feel even cheaper; his words were so inadequate.
Tears tumbled from her eyes. “That’s all right,” she said, forcing a smile. “The china doll didn’t break.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her against him. “You mean so much to me,” he said, reaching down to kiss her.
She let his lips meet hers, but that was all; she didn’t respond. He kissed her harder. She drew
back and looked at him. “Why do men always try and make love to a woman after they’ve hurt her? Do you really believe the pain will dissolve at the touch of your lips?”
He dropped his hands. “I guess it’s a way of hiding, of escaping from guilt.”
“But you are really arrogant enough to think that you can slap me across the face, then kiss me, and I’ll feel better?”
“I guess I’d like to fool myself into thinking that.”
“Can you?”
“No.”
“Your slapping me hurt you more than it hurt me; it showed on your face. Every time I got close to what’s locked inside you, you erect a barrier between us and crouch behind it. Even when we’re in bed, when you’re deep inside me, you hold back, as if you feel guilty about making love, or loving itself.”
He fidgeted uneasily.
“You remind me of a lion cub who wants to be petted, but who lashes out at everybody with his claws before they can touch him. And I don’t know what you’re afraid of or what it is you want from me. But we can’t go on like this, I’m certain of that. Either you let whatever is inside you out, or I’ll leave. And this time I won’t come back.”
He bit his lower lip. There were so many things he wanted to tell her about his past, about the Service, about what it was like existing inside a hostile community, living year in and year out with the fear and the strain and the isolation. He hesitated, took out a cigarette, then returned it to the pack.
“Kim, it will take time.”
“I have plenty of time,” she said, sitting on the bed.
“But I don’t. At least not now, not until we’re out of Syria. I have a mission to complete here and I must channel all my energy into it. Afterward there will be time to explain, as much time as we want. I’ve decided this is going to be my last assignment, but I’m here now and I can’t be diverted by personal considerations. I’ve got to see it through successfully and I know my limitations. I won’t be able to function efficiently if I crack myself open and show you what’s inside. I’m just too tired. I don’t have the strength to do both at once.”
The Damascus Cover Page 14