Yuda didn’t even attempt to start anything with Laure. The entire brigade assumed she was his intimate partner, and that was convenient for her. It spared her a great deal of harassment; but, in truth, he was merely like a good father. The kind she had never had.
Yuda would never have allowed her to go up to Lebanon, but everything was different with Uri. Uri was a master cocksman. All the female soldiers at HQ knew it: the telegraph-operator girls, the 505 girls at the nearby base — not that it took much to get laid in the Israel Air Force’s 505th Command and Control Wing, since the ratio was two hundred women to five men.
Uri was going crazy trying to add Laure’s name to his list of conquests, but he had no chance. She didn’t want him bragging to everyone, particularly Eli, the ordnance officer, with whom he competed, comparing lists.
Uri would stand outside the women’s barracks, with a white T-shirt and a thin gold chain, trying to work his charms on her. He swore that he dreamed only of her, that she was doing awful things to him, causing his whole body to shudder. She knew that this was entirely a fiction, but the feeling was pleasant, even then, before everything, when the pain began.
She had left Leningrad at the age of ten. She has no Russian accent remaining at all. She has Slavic facial features, slightly slanted eyes and broad shoulders. A lot of men were attracted to her, but she always felt older than the other girls. Maybe because of Russia.
“Ten minutes later, you’ll be in the trailer with Rachel or Mali,” she told Uri, which usually would have happened too, but he got stuck on the principle of the matter. Maybe he realized that between her and Yuda, there really was nothing romantic.
"So who in the brigade would be good enough for you?” he asked desperately. “I’ll challenge anyone!”
She couldn’t think of anyone. Only Avieli, who was already dead.
"There’s one guy,” she said, “but that’s not for public consumption.” She was Queen of the Brigade, and she had no intention of relinquishing the protected status that unofficial title gave her.
When Uri invited her to come up with him, she willingly agreed. First of all she knew Yuda would never have allowed it, and even if this gave Uri the impression that she was his for the taking, she reserved the right to refuse him, and then he could screw himself. He would not be able to slander her.
She knew the road from brigade HQ in Metula to Marjayoun in southern Lebanon quite well. Dozens of times she set out to say goodbye to friends and all sorts of others who had to cross the border into the South Lebanon Security Belt. She recognized the songs of despair, the superstitions, leaning out the far side and vomiting out of fear.
This time, there were a dozen soldiers from the Ordnance Corps, loaded into a Safari truck. She asked if she could get on the truck, but Eli turned her down categorically, even if she had written permission from the head of Northern Command. So she went back to Uri’s jeep.
At the first checkpoint she gathered her hair under her baseball cap. The soldier at the checkpoint, who did not notice that it was a female soldier, who was violating the regulations by crossing the border, let them continue.
At Calf Gate, it was harder. The sentry on duty was from the Armored Corps, and he just stared blankly into the jeep and said that no female soldier would be allowed to pass; she had to return to Metula.Uri improvised, saying Laure was a welfare NCO who needed to interview several soldiers.
She began to worry. It was a little crazy. Why was she actually entering Lebanon? Was it really to see the soldiers? The soldiers would dream of her. She would receive letters and notes, even longing phone calls in the middle of the night. She had hoped to be able to bond with one of them, but had failed to make such a connection.
At least since Avieli had been killed. They’d made him deputy battalion commander, a month later promoted to the rank of major. Posthumously. His patrol had encountered an ambush. They had been together for three months. He had come from an agricultural settlement in Emek Hefer. He’d had another girlfriend in Hofit whom his parents hated, but he’d had a hard time breaking it off with her. Laure had insisted. He was a little wooden, but naïve and sweet. Avieli’s mother did not really know her. She’d visited his hometown only once, on a weekend pass to Ashkelon. But that was enough for his mother to give her his Seiko watch after he died. She has worn it ever since, and it only added to the legends surrounding her. In the first month she was stunned and broken.
After that she was no longer satisfied to be a proud widow. But no one serious was visible on the horizon. So why go up with Uri? To tease him? To antagonize Yuda, the father she’d never had? She was still unable to answer for herself, a decade later. What had pushed her that day to join the deputy brigade commander?
Uri had three speakers connected to the transceiver in the jeep. One for the command operations network, one for the emergency armored unit, and the third for the operations of the 12th Battalion, which held the line and the outposts. The transceiver transmitted only on the network of the Metula Regional Brigade.
For the umpteenth time, she tried to change radio stations in the Trans Am speeding toward Houston. The car was very comfortable, he was right. Why was she traveling with him back to Houston? Another Golani deputy battalion commander? Naïve and sweet? Maybe this trip was also doomed to disaster.
Barkat had said he couldn’t do without her. Did he truly rely on her? Or was he just using her? Barkat would never forgive her for this. Maybe so. All she wanted was quiet. To get rid of the pain. He couldn’t help her. Nor did he want to. Also, he was married. Maybe she didn’t want to?
Barkat had a brilliant and extraordinary mind, and he did not believe in the laws of flesh and blood. Just in the law of nature and the law of excellence. Nietzsche and M. Kroy. A combustible hybrid of infantilism and genius.
Besides, she had another commitment.
She slid to the corner of the car seat, pressed her feet to the floor and tried to straighten her back.
Mickey had the magic. She felt her heart pounding frantically and the chills and the pain weakening. The sex on the stairs was wild. When was that? Just two days ago. And she had thought she would go back to Barkat. But she was not returning with him.
Mickey was her Sir Lancelot, a knight on a white charger rescuing her. An information officer in a Trans Am. And maybe it was just a mirage, a butterfly’s brief lifespan.
She relaxed her feet and the pain hit her again. And now the hand, too, as it began to fall asleep.
From the Calf Gate into Lebanon, the lead jeep had taken point; the Safari followed, every one of the soldiers aboard holding his weapon at the ready and looking apprehensively at the hills above; bringing up the rear was the deputy brigade commander’s jeep. Uri’s radioman was in the Safari, while she was in his place in the backseat. The driver was Bentzi, her classmate from Kiryat Motzkin, who looked after the cats on the base.
“They can keep on looking until the cows come home,” Bentzi had observed. “But that won’t stop an IED. Your only chance is to jump.”
That’s exactly what Bentzi did, and it saved his life, when the shockwave of the blast blew the jeep back and on its side. Uri, crushed beneath the jeep, died immediately. Laure remained trapped inside, unable to move her legs and with an idiotic laceration on her forehead. Still, she did not lose consciousness and watched the horror, eyes wide with pain, stinging with blood, lanced by the brilliance of the flames. Smoke filled the air, burned soldiers trying to stagger away. The screams had not yet begun. Only when they moved the jeep did she finally lose consciousness.
Her head resting on his thigh, Mickey seemed tranquil and confident.
“I love you,” said Laure, smiling as a warm light came into her sad eyes.
“I’m driving to Johnson Towers,” I told her.
“I’m with you.” The light in her eyes was now hot enough to melt steel. “I’m fine now. It doesn’t hurt s
o much anymore.”
We were tired and dirty from the long day. I stood by the bed, and she ordered me not to move. She pushed me onto the bed, undressed me and warned me again not to move. She straddled me, big and wonderful, and began to explore, with great patience, what exactly would drive me crazy. She kissed my eyes, bit my earlobes, licked my neck carefully, and began to descend to the nipples, which she spent a long time concentrating on. When she got down between my legs, I wanted to tell her that I call my good friend Jacob; but I didn’t say anything, because she was getting along great with him anyway.
"So that’s all?” she whispered in a low voice and teased after the first time I climaxed, almost breathless. “So this is the King of Houston?”
"You hardly know him. The King has a lot more to show you,” I replied with a smile. I felt happy and fell asleep on the spot.
In the middle of the night I woke up, and now it was my turn to do a mapping job. Laure took off slowly and with subdued sighs, but toward the end she achieved momentum and finished with a soft cry, hugging me and not letting me out. “Tonight you sleep inside,” she told me, and to my surprise she was right.
Finally, in the morning, we took a shower together for the first time, to start anew.
45.
Hector Frenkel sat in the recliner next to Yehezkel Gelber’s desk, trying to shrink.
“So where is Porat after all?” Gelber used a more cynical tone. He had no grievances against Hector, who faithfully carried out his commands, yet the rage in the deputy director general’s voice stifled his chief of staff.
"The GSS is not willing to say, but I think they are just covering up a mistake.”
Gelber wore a new light gray suit, and Hector was sure Gelber had purchased it in Bulgaria when he visited the previous weekend — twenty-five dollars for a suit! — but he preferred not to ask.
Gelber sighed and dialed the secretary’s extension, asking for a light snack from the cafeteria. He was in a foul mood. In the afternoon, a meeting of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce was scheduled to convene.
"What can I tell Taylor?” he asked, referring to the political adviser at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv, who for the third time had demanded details about those involved in the Houston affair.
"That the issue is under investigation?” Hector tried, unenthusiastically.
"What else?” Hector worried that Gelber was beginning to think that he might have chosen the wrong man to be his confidant. On second thought, he rejected the chilling idea. There were already too many petty and nasty secrets between them for Gelber to get rid of him just like that.
"Tell him the truth. Porat has finished his job in the United States.”
"You know that’s not enough for the Americans. They want blood. Porat left without being able to get his hands on it. As far as they’re concerned as well, he runs the system. I understand that the Harris County District Attorney has already issued a subpoena. These prosecutors have no respect. And now we don’t even know if he really came back.”
"His wife and daughter returned."
"That’s something too.” Gelber sighed. “I wonder what else can satisfy the Americans?”
“Maybe the truth?
“Don’t make me laugh. What does that have to do with anything? Who, in your opinion, would give you the real story?”
Hector smiled as the server arrived with a platter of five sandwiches, cut diagonally into ten triangles. Gelber picked up one slice and examined it with curiosity, moved on to the second, and found what he was looking for with the third: cold cuts with avocado. He delicately picked it up and began nibbling on it. "I am convinced that they approached Almog in a friendly manner and he did not cooperate, so then the ambassador in Washington received the official request to interrogate our people. I just want to understand how we knew nothing about it.” He wiped the remnants of the sandwich from the corners of his mouth and moved on to the next one. Yellow cheese with thin slices of tomato. “Take one,” he begged Hector.
Hector shook his head. "We still don’t know anything.”
"What’s up with Almog?”
"We don’t hear much from him.”
"Please,” Gelber contorted his doughy face. “He’s a nonprofessional appointee. The man hangs out and wastes his time playing cowboy. It all starts from the top. You know, as they say, ‘the fish stinks from the head.’” Gelber snorted slightly and choked for a moment on the remnants of the penultimate sandwich. "And what about his affairs? An embarrassment, a shande für de goyim. Someone from the Jewish community in Texas told us about it, do you remember? Who was it? Who complained about the consul general’s wild affairs?”
"Sarah Cohan, from Peace Now. It was a long letter of grievance. But there is no point in going against him in this matter now. The minister will support him anyway. I also think he has toned it down a lot.”
"So what?” Gelber opened puzzled eyes and stopped chewing for a moment. “What’s the connection? You can always put out a story from the past,” he continued. “I think his behavior is disgraceful anyway. There is no statute of limitations on that.”
Gelber grinned again and Hector feared he would soon have another coughing fit.
“He knows that you’re the one who put out the story. The minister knows too.”
“You’re right,” Gelber conceded sadly. “All these women around him, for the time being, remain friends of the family.” He moved on to the last sandwich.
Hector looked at the deputy director general through humiliated eyes and decided that this little crisis between them had passed. He could not disappoint, neither himself nor Jeffrey. Jeffrey Gilead, his predecessor, had left him clear guidelines and explicit directives. With a small smile, he’d confided, “Yehezkel will not be an ambassador anywhere. He still has PTSD from the only time he was head of mission. He cannot manage people in large groups. Therefore, we have the responsibility to nurture him from now until he leaves the office. He will also be appointed director general eventually. Don’t worry. There is a way to do it. And he will serve all the foreign ministers who come. He already knows the method. Create a threat to the minister, admonish and instigate, then show up as the savior. The one indispensable person, who knows all the tricks. We’ll help soon enough. But you’re on the front lines now, Hector, with a finger on the pulse. You’ll put in more hours with Gelber than anyone else. That’s why we’ll all be dependent on you. You must gain his confidence. This is the key. At any price. Now it’s all on your shoulders.”
Jeffrey hurried to pack his belongings. “It’s all a matter of billiards. One ball hits another. A little strategic vision, that’s all you need.” Had Jeffery actually winked? He had been named head of the ministry’s strategic division, skipping over many better and more experienced candidates. “Strategic understanding. That’s the secret,” Jeffrey said again and disappeared.
“It’s all on me now,” Hector would recall, over and over, almost every day.
"And yet I am very uneasy,” Gelber continued. “This whole consulate worries me. Who is Michael Markovsky that I hear too much about? Since when has a local information officer been present in all sorts of sensitive places?”
"He’s a Markovsky,” said Hector.
“As in Markovsky Pencils?” Gelber sank into thought. “What is he looking for in Houston?”
“He’s a student. Employed as a local Israeli worker.”
“Tied to us? Tied to someone else?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hector. “At the consulate there, he is seen as a blessing.”
“He’s not leading us anywhere. So what about the press?” He began to carefully wipe his fleshy fingers with the tiny paper napkins on the tray. “It’s been long time since I’ve seen anything in the papers about this anarchy in Houston. So it does not have to be personal against Almog. You know the prime minister is only impressed
by what he reads in the newspapers.”
"You can’t pass anything on about it, nor about Porat."
"Certainly not,” Gelber agreed, running his finger along his teeth after a wayward crumb. “National security. Besides, they’d immediately know where it came from. Aren’t there any other things? I think the only one who can be trusted there is Arnon, the deputy consul. Maybe shake him up a little?”
46.
“Have you got a human-interest story for me? Local color?” I listened in to the indifferent voice on Noni’s extension; it was Avidor, New York correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth.
“Stories about the community and the like?” He had caught Noni at a bad time. The visit by the minister of science required a great deal of preparation. Almog wasn’t putting as much pressure on him, but that didn’t help much.
"Trust me, I don’t know myself,” Avidor assured him. “My editor assigned me a weekly column.” He snorted. “‘Dispatches from Uncle Sam,’ they want to call it. Human-interest stories from America. The problem with this country is that Israelis only care about what affects Israel. Quintessential provincialism.”
“The Elephant and the Jewish Problem,” Noni attempted to commiserate.
"Exactly. There’s no audience for more substantive issues. The most important American issues concern almost none of our readers. Try to explain to them about healthcare, try to explain to them about baseball. Nothing. Only tits and murder. Tits and murder! Everything is yellow journalism!”
Avidor, who had built a career on tits and murder, was lamenting the shallowness of media consumption. I smiled in my alcove.
"We want an Israeli connection, but what could be happening in the Israeli community in Houston? I’m yawning already. It’s all penniless students or expats trying to make a fortune.”
The Consulate Conspiracy Page 24