“No!” she exclaimed, as her shoulders shook. “They aren’t, are they?” Her mirth subsided, and she touched one eye with a finger, inspecting a wrinkle in the looking glass. “Nor princesses,” she said. “I suppose it was better for you to be ignorant. I was that way too as a child.” She examined the other eye. “Then I discovered the truth much later, and I tried to make up for it, to compensate for his crimes. You can never do that, you know.”
Ruth realized that attempting to defuse Klump’s bottled rage only fanned the embers, so she held her silence. Yet more than that, she sensed a desire on the woman’s part to regain control, to sway power, if not physically, then with unsettling revelations. But what could this woman know about her father that she herself had not imagined at one time or another? That he had killed? That he had sent others to be lost, or captured, or tortured for their secrets? These were all notions she had suppressed, even while admitting their existence. She watched as Martina opened the zipper of a chest pocket, removed a box of cigarettes, and lit one up with a lighter. She assured herself that there was nothing the woman could really say to surprise her, until Martina blew a ring of smoke into the mirror and stunned her breathless.
“Your father,” she said. “I was fucking him while you were still in kindergarten.”
The words entered Ruth’s brain, bursting into a blaze that she immediately tried to extinguish by twisting their meaning. It is a rare child who can accept her parents’ sexuality, and even when her own adolescence reveals the nature of desire, somehow mother and father are forbidden carnality. Of course, her father was just a man, but he was not a sexual one aside from Eema’s bed, and even there she assumed their lovemaking to be clumsy and brief, an occasional renewal of their vows. So Martina had to mean something else, she reasoned, as her body held itself impossibly still. The woman meant that she had been outwitting him, defeating him, eluding him since the beginning of her career.
“Yes.” Martina turned from the mirror and nodded to her prisoner. “He was trying to turn me.” She looked around for a place to perch, then remembered that she had ordered the stool and every other loose item removed. She backed up to the entrance door and slid down to the floor, draping her wrists across her raised knees, the knife dangling from her right hand, the cigarette from her left. “It was in Paris. I was very young. Younger than you are now.” She took a drag and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. She was in no hurry. Her audience was not going anywhere. “I was very confused, inexperienced. I did not yet have any convictions. And you know how men are. They sense these things, like sharks when there is blood in the water.”
She is making it up, Ruth decided, even as a knot began to twist her stomach. It’s very good, sounds very real, but it is only a cruel game. You’re expected to protest, to deny it. Don’t jump in.
“I thought he was a wonderful lover.” Martina laughed at her own childish foolishness. “Until later, of course.” She smirked. “But it worked for him then, I admit it. That is why old men want the young girls. There is power in it, and of course a child such as I was has little with which to compare.” She looked at Ruth, savoring the young woman’s mesmerized stillness. “When I had doubts, he fucked them right out of me.”
Although Ruth’s chest was folding in on itself now, her sternum like an iron bar obstructing her heart, she refused to give Martina the gift of a reaction. With the strength remaining in her pained cheek muscles, she smiled, even as her lips trembled.
Martina waved smoke away from her face. “Oh,” she said as she lifted her chin. “You don’t believe me?” She shrugged. “Of course not.” She raised the knife and looked at the black blade. “Should I describe his cock for you? I still remember it well, and I assume you have seen it.” She lowered the weapon. “Or maybe not. Come to think of it, I never saw my father’s, though of course I was very small when he killed himself.” She placed the cigarette in her mouth and raised a finger as if an idea had struck her. “How about other things? Old wounds and such you would have seen.” She touched the finger to her right breast. “He had a small bullet scar here. I have heard he has another one in the belly, though he is fat now and it is probably difficult to find.” She put her hands to the floor and steadied herself, raising her ankles into the air and crossing them as she looked at Ruth through the open diamond of her legs. “I used to put them around his neck when he fucked me. He liked that.” She closed her eyes, smiling as she began to thump her head rhythmically against the door. “I can still see that hairy chest pounding at me like a train. Sometimes I thought he was going to kill me.” She stopped moving and opened her eyes. “He used to sweat so when he fucked.”
Ruth’s chin quivered and her eyes were squeezed shut, but she would not cover her assaulted ears. She had gathered the blanket in her balled fists, and she summoned images to drown the pain: the purple perfume of bougainvillea in Jerusalem, the pastels of her summer dresses. Her brothers chased a soccer ball through Independence Park, and she kept up with them, even though she fell and scraped her shins, and they were proud of her. She smelled the smoke of a scout campfire mingling with the pines of the Jerusalem Forest, and she and Gabi were alone on a soft blanket, the stars peeking through the branches, and though it was the first time and they were only sixteen, it was not ugly, it was not coarse. It was so sweet, so beautiful, the softness and warmth and the wonderful cry of melding souls.
She heard the awful woman coming to her feet, the heavy boots clunking as she began to pace. And still Ruth fought to keep the images, to fight off the attack as a tai chi master might, absorbing and dissolving it with the better sides of life.
“Of course, the penis has no real power,” Martina announced as she ground some form of desert insect with her boot. “It is a retarded thing that answers to the basest stimuli. Don’t you agree?”
Ruth heard the gentle hush of the Mediterranean waves in summer, the comforting pok-pok of beach paddleballs. She felt the cold of a lemon Popsicle on her lips.
“It is uncontrollable,” Martina continued with sarcastic pity. “Anything can send it flying—coarse underwear, a child’s body, even the hanging of its own master.” She stopped moving and lifted her arms, as if preaching to a congregation of militant feminists. “All of the true strength is in that which grips the penis, because a vagina is a part of a woman’s brain. Men know this, my dear, and they fuck with fear and anger, because they realize that in those moments they are puny servants, clutched by fingers that wield the power of the universe.” Her blade and the burning ember of her cigarette nearly touched the ceiling. “They are in creation’s cauldron. They are lost.”
She remained in this pose for a moment, then placed her hands to her waist. She cocked her head and looked at Ruth, surprised to find her soliloquy unappreciated, the young woman’s eyes open and full of fire.
“Du verdammte Fotze,” Ruth snarled.
Martina took a step backward, opening her mouth in feigned shock. “Cunt?” She clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Shame on you. Apparently you missed the point of my sisterly lecture.”
“You stupid bitch.” Ruth touched her wounded mouth now, as if to show that her only pain was physical. “You expect me to believe that drivel?” So what if her father did have such a scar on his chest? That fact was probably recorded in the dossiers of ten intelligence services.
“Believe what you wish.” Martina shrugged.
“Go to hell.” Ruth shifted, moving her back to the side wall and turning her face away. “You know nothing. Ten minutes of research, and I could make up a fantasy about your father.”
Martina sighed. “I suppose.” She flipped the knife in the air and caught it by the handle. “Yes, of course. You are correct.” The blade spun again. “Research.” Now she tried for two spins. “Research told me about that dog you had when you were little. A dachshund, I think. Schatzi was his name? He was killed by a milk wagon.” She looked for a new trick, trying to balance the blade on the tip of her index finger. “And r
esearch told me about your mother, Maya, and about Yosh and Amos. I also found out quite a bit about your house in Abu Tor—in the files, of course. Two floors, very Turkish and medieval. It once belonged to a pasha, I remember. Very pretty.” She caught the toppling knife and suddenly smacked her forehead with the other hand. “Oh, no,” she exclaimed. “That was not in the files! Your father drove me by it. Twice. Very unprofessional of him, a terrible breach of security. But then, he was still in the recruitment phase with me. Flowers and fucking and trust-building and all that. You know.”
“I’ll kill you!” Ruth screamed as she leapt to her feet on the bed, her fists clenching and her eyes wild.
In one quick stride Martina had her right boot on the mattress and the knife point pressing into Ruth’s chest, just a millimeter short of breaking skin and piercing flesh.
“Sit down,” she ordered. Yet Ruth’s grief and rage kept her frozen at the point, unsure if she wanted to break Martina’s wrist or pull the weapon into her already wounded heart.
“Sit!” Martina yelled, and the force of her voice trembled the light fixture. A frantic pounding at the door added to the din, as Youssef had become alarmed for his mistress. “Hör auf!” she yelled, and the knocking stopped. She looked up into Ruth’s eyes. “Unfortunately, I have to keep you alive for now. But there is nothing in the rules about carving my name on that pretty face.” She angled the blade, pressing forward and down until Ruth was forced to lower herself or bleed. Ruth’s bottom met the bed, and their heads returned to more proper positions of warden and charge.
“Take off your pants,” Martina commanded.
Ruth could not meet the woman’s eyes. She stared at the midriff of her flight suit, slowly shaking her head. Her tears overflowed and rolled off her cheeks.
“No,” she whispered. “No.”
“Take them off.”
“No.”
“I am not going to rape you, you silly shit!” Martina shouted. “You are simply far too arrogant for me. Now take them off.”
Ruth’s fingers trembled as she untied the drawstring of the sweatpants, then slipped them down to her knees. Martina dragged them over her feet, tossing the bundle onto the tattered dress in the corner, as Ruth covered her face with her hands.
Martina straightened up, keeping the blade extended in warning.
“Now, tell me which of us is the stupid bitch,” she said quietly. “Me, a simple woman who did not even finish her schooling. You, the great student of psychology. And still, a plain fact of nature turns you into an unthinking, quivering worm.”
Ruth dropped her hands and placed them on the bed. But the tears still dripped off the end of her nose, and her chest shuddered.
“Those are the simple facts, my dear.” Something like pity colored Martina’s voice. “That is the truth of your father’s legacy. I should have learned it long ago, but I trusted him, allowed him to betray me, to send me into a den of thieves and murderers, to live like them, to become one of them.” She shook her head. “And then I trusted him again, just once more, and he proved his character and tried to finish me.”
Ruth sobbed once. She turned her hands upward, her fingers contracting in small twitches.
“You should have learned it too, my dear.” Martina sighed. “A girl like you, raised in a society like yours. They bring you up to be so strong, so independent, while blinding and paralyzing you with foolish, idealistic poetry.”
Martina held the knife in position, while she looked around to find her cigarette. It was burning on the floor, and she crushed it with her boot. Then, with her free hand, she took the box from her pocket, extracted a fresh cigarette with her lips, and lit it. She plucked it from her mouth and held it out.
“Go ahead,” she offered. “You smoke. I saw you in the restaurant, with your detective.”
After a moment, Ruth accepted the smoke with fluttering fingers. She inhaled and coughed.
“He is not for you,” Martina said. “Handsome, yes. Perhaps gallant. Maybe you would even have married such a man, but it would not have worked. That kind of passion is fleeting, my dear. Believe me, I know. We should stick to our own kind.”
Ruth’s breathing had slowed to a shallow rhythm. She no longer sensed the physical pain in her face, for the injuries of her mental violation were far more serious. The woman’s words ran through her now like a slowly drawn coping saw. She took the cigarette from her mouth and tried to focus on the ember.
“And please don’t try anything with that,” Martina warned. “I’ve been burned before.” Even so, she backed up a step, for her tactical instincts were always tuned. After all, she was a smart Catholic girl trained by Jewish warriors. She placed her left hand on her hip.
“So,” she said. “You are enlightened now. But you must still be wondering what this is all about.”
Ruth’s head was so heavy, as if it had been pumped full of liquid mercury. She looked down at her bare legs. The sweater was not long enough to cover her, and she saw the white triangle of her underwear and pressed her forearms over it, holding one hand steady with the other as the smoke from the cigarette rose into her face.
Yes, she had been wondering, through every sleepless minute since being tossed in here like a rabid pet. What else was she to do? They offered her nothing to pass the time. No radio, for a local broadcast would tell her where she was. Lebanon? Syria? Libya? And nothing to read, for perhaps they thought her resourceful enough to effect a lethal paper cut. Like most fresh prisoners, she had spent the first few hours pacing, resisting, trying to reason it out. And then the temperature had forced her into bed, although sleep was not even a remote hope. Without a clue to the woman’s plans, there was no way to guess how long she would be here. A week? A year? Five? Her fear of execution had settled into a bearable ache, for she knew the histories of many war prisoners and hostages. If you were kept alive for a day, then the chances were good that you would be spared, used as leverage. I’m young, she told herself. I can survive this. I will recover when I am free again. They won’t give up until they find me.
In the emotional agony of the last few minutes, she had nearly crossed the breaking point, wanted to die. But that was gone now. She wanted to live to smell the flowers of home, feel the sun on her cheeks, be touched by a cherished kiss. If for no other reason, she had to survive and discover the truth.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I was wondering.”
“Well,” said Martina, pleased to have a receptive audience again. “It is not very complicated, and there really is no reason why you should not know.”
Ruth was not heartened by Martina’s willingness to confide. When terrorists took off their masks, it did not bode well for their hostages.
“Your people are very anxious to conclude a prisoner exchange with Hizbollah.” Martina had taken to flipping the knife again. “I, of course, do not work for either side. I am my own woman.” She failed to mention a third party, for her own inability to identify her employer weighed heavily on her today. “My mission is to destroy that exchange. Which I will do, believe me.”
Ruth nodded as she kept her focus on her cigarette. A prisoner exchange. She struck the curiosity from her mind. She needed to be responsible only for her own life now.
“I took you merely as an insurance policy,” said Martina.
Something drove Ruth to speak now. Maybe it was her army training, the tradition of challenging the status quo, the Israeli habit of questioning all statements that failed to satisfy. When terrorists took a hostage, the prisoner’s compatriots were temporarily immobilized. You could secretly kill a hostage and still buy yourself weeks of time.
“Why am I alive?” she asked.
Martina stopped toying with the knife. “I told you,” she said, as her eyes darkened. “A bargaining chip.” Yet she also realized the balances and rhythms of these kinds of gambits. Her timetable was very short, the final action nearly in play. She could have killed the girl upon arrival at Skorpion, while her unknown status still
maintained its effect. Yet she had spared her, and did not know why. The girl sensed the weakness, and that brought the bile into Martina’s throat. Now the relayed message from Fouad had paralyzed her ability to act. She began to pace again, barely taking a full step to the right before she turned to the left.
“I would have let you go,” she snarled. “But your fucking father thinks he is so smart! The bastard has no respect. He will stop at nothing. My mother is an old woman. She is frail. She is ill. She knows nothing.”
Ruth slowly raised her head. Now she understood. Now the pieces dropped quickly into place as her hope began to simmer. Your mother’s life for mine! she wanted to scream, even as she held her peace. Oh, Abba. You will stop at nothing for me! She watched the woman losing control again and carefully turned up the fire.
“As I said,” Ruth whispered. “A father’s love . . .”
“Don’t flatter yourself!” Martina shouted as she spun on her, the blade leaping out close to her nose. “With him it is merely a tactic!”
This time Ruth did not flinch. The fear jackhammered in her heart, but she knew that for every scratch inflicted on her face, her father would find this woman and rend a triple vengeance upon her. He loved you? she challenged silently. Used you, yes, and threw you away when you proved to be the trash that you are. She was unarmed, half naked, yet all the arrows were in her quiver.
“If you harm me,” she warned, “he will kill her.”
Martina screamed, cocking her left hand back. Yet Ruth did not duck, only closed her eyes to take the blow. They were forced open when, instead, the woman’s fingers gripped her jaw, crushing her cheeks against her teeth. The still-fresh wound shot lightning into her skull as Klump’s face came in very close.
“I shall deal with him,” she promised, in a hiss like a steam valve. “But don’t expect to get out of it alive.”
The Nylon Hand of God Page 48
