Hatchet

by Israel Levy

  Her half day at work flew by. She had a meeting with Rami, then another with Michal, some coffee, followed by more coffee and then some more.

  Again the team met outside the camp gate, everyone looking a bit worn. Within ten minutes of arrival they were on the running track. At first Naomi found it hard to move her cramped muscles. Yael noticed, and had them start with an easy walk, slowly increasing the pace to a light jog. Gila, Aaron and Yaniv were still straggling behind but now the gap was not significant. After five minutes or so Naomi was warmed up and feeling a bit looser. Running the same route helped too. There were teams of soldier on the tarmac, practicing climbing down from the helicopters hovering in midair. Another group of soldiers, wearing t-shirts that read ‘Team Amiram’, passed them by in a quick run.

  She was greeted in the orchard by a pleasant, cool breeze.

  “Today we’ll be learning techniques that form the basis of all offensive and defensive moves.”

  Their Krav Maga session began with a series of basic ‘kihon’ drills, as Effy referred to them in karate lingo. The lesson progressed with all manner of kicks and punches, defensive moves and choke holds, but most importantly, with assuming the ‘kill mode’, as Effy put it.

  Like the day before, Naomi chose to change back into her work clothes and rush home to her own warm shower.

  She slept as soundly that night as she did the night before. She caught the end of an episode from a show she liked (“I missed so much”), fell asleep on the couch, then woke up and dragged herself to bed (“Mmmmm… I love my bed”), remembering that she’d forgotten to call Moshe (“Maybe tomorrow, I’m just too tired now”).

  The next morning, after a refreshing shower, she decided to phone him. She dialed the cell number he’d given her but must have gotten it wrong. A female voice answered, speaking Arabic.

  “Sabah el kheir, min?” said the woman.

  “Sorry. Wrong number,” she said before hanging up. She tried calling again but got the same result. (Shit, I forgot his number. So much for my phenomenal memory…”).

  As she drove to work her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number on her screen.

  “Yes?”

  “Naomi, is that you?” To her surprise she heard Moshe’s voice.

  “Hey, what’s up? What’s this number?”

  “My phone got stolen two weeks ago so I got a new phone and number.”

  “Oh, ok. You know I just called and someone answered in Arabic.”

  “Really? Well, never mind, it’s covered by insurance anyway. Want to meet up? I miss you.”

  “I do too, actually. Why don’t you come over to my place tonight, around ten?”

  “OK.”

  She’d grown accustomed to the pleasure of having her own private parking spot. Michal and Nirit from the legal team pulled up next to her.

  “Morning.”

  “Morning.”

  They walked to the elevator together but then Naomi stopped. “You guys go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute,” she told the other two and instead of taking the elevator she chose the stairs, mounting them two steps at a time. She got to the her floor just as Michal and Nirit were coming out of the elevator and explained to them that she was feeling out of shape and that this was her only chance to exercise during the day, to which the two responded with a shrug.

  “Hi, Yael.”

  Naomi entered her office and there was Reuben, sitting on her chair at the desk.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked sternly.

  “I saw your car and thought we could have a serious talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Look, you know I was the one who recommended you to Leibowitz. I could just as easily have put in a good word for Rami, but I thought this would be good for our relationship.”

  Naomi could feel the blood rushing to her head. She decided it was best to cool off and not respond straight away. She went to the window and stared out. Cars were passing by, people hurrying to get to work, traffic lights. She looked further out, to the cloudless blue sky and tried to calm down. Then she turned to him.

  “I want you to look me straight in the eyes, Reuben, and listen carefully.”

  This was the first time Reuben had ever heard this tone of voice from her, and he sat up straight without even realizing he was doing it.

  “I am where I am today thanks to no one but myself. If you’re insinuating, even in the slightest way, and I do hope I’m wrong and you’re not, that I wouldn’t have gotten this job without you, or if you’re trying to say that I somehow owe you anything, then pay close attention: if you were the last man on earth, and the entire existence of the human race depended on me sleeping with you, then that would mean the end of the human race. And now before I get really angry, get up!” She moved closer to him, hovering over him, “get your fat ass out of my chair, leave this office and never speak to me again. If you have anything work related you need from me, see Yael, otherwise you’ll have a hard time getting a date once I’m through with you. Are we clear?”

  Reuben got up apprehensively, his hands gripping the armrests, his expression one of absolute shock, and left the room without so much as a word. He passed Yael on his way out. She stood in the doorway, stunned. Naomi gave her a hard look which was instantly replaced by an ear-to-ear smile.

  “Oh my god, Naomi! What you just did to that creep is what every girl in this office wishes she could do! You’re amazing!” she walked up to her, glowing, and hugged her before leaving the room.

  “Close the door behind you please, Yael.” She could still hear her laughing as she retold the whole story to other secretaries.

  The door opened once again and Leibowitz popped his head in. He didn’t say anything, just smiled.

  Finally, Naomi sat in her chair, trying to catch her breath and figure out where all that assertiveness came from. Apparently, everything that had happened to her recently had a far greater impact than she might have thought. She picked up the phone and called her sister.

  “All good here, Naomi. Mom’s got everything under control. I know you’re super busy. I’m doing really well and have lots to tell you.” Naomi promised she’d stop by as soon as she had the chance.

  “Yael, can you please ask Rami and the rest of the team to come in here?”

  She was immersed in work and before she knew it, it was midday. To her surprise she found she was feeling restless, anxious to get to the base.

  Chapter 5

  To their surprise Yael did not greet them for their usual running exercise, but instead they were met by Shahaf.

  “Today we’re going to start with shooting practice,” he said. They followed him, running, and after about twenty minutes of laps entered the building next to theirs. They descended one flight, then Shahaf pushed open a heavy door and showed them into a classroom.

  “Everyone take a seat.” Shahaf remained standing, his back to them, facing a screen.

  “We’ll go over a quick presentation of your pistols before practicing live shooting.” There was a handgun resting next to each chair. “Do not touch your weapons yet.”

  He turned off the lights and screened an educational video, demonstrating the shooting process accompanied by explanations. When the short movie, ended a powerpoint presentation was displayed showing the gun’s technical features and mode of operation. Naomi could feel her eyes closing and was startled awake by the lights that came back on. The rest of the team looking blurry eyed as well.

  “Good, everyone take hold of the gun next to you. What you have here is a Smith and Wesson, black, made in the U.S. They traditionally made revolvers but this is a nine millimeter, double action trigger, weighing 794 grams, with a ten bullet magazine and one in the chamber. From this moment and until the course is finished this gun is your personal piece. You will do everything with it, it ne
ver leaves your side. You take it with you on your run, you have it on you when you exercise, it never moves from your line of sight. At the end of each day, store it on your personal lockers until the following morning. Understood?”

  Naomi grabbed her gun. She only trained with a handgun once during her army service, but had never forgotten its feel.

  “Let’s move on to the next room,” said Shahaf and as he opened the door Naomi was surprised to find herself in a room surrounded entirely glass, on the other side of which were shooting chambers with human shaped targets hanging from a wire that stretched all the way to the opposite wall.

  Soldiers were training in the shooting chambers, but no sound could be heard on her side of the room. A table in the middle of the room was laden with magazines, boxes of bullets, holsters and headphones.

  “Everyone grab a headphones, a holster and your gun and let’s start.”

  They spent the next several hours shooting at the targets facing them.

  “At this point we’re aiming for the biggest vulnerable part of the human body, the torso. It’s marked with a white square and that’s where you need to aim.”

  He passed between them, correcting their posture and grip.

  “Pay attention, the gun needs to become a natural extension of your hand.”

  Naomi’s right hand was growing used to the gun’s metallic touch. Slowly but surely she became less apprehensive at the blast which accompanied the shooting. She failed to hit the target on the first round so Shahaf corrected her grip.

  “Try to imagine pointing a large finger at the target. That finger is the gun. Don’t attack the trigger, squeeze it.” They continued with the training, took a short break and then resumed practice. It wasn’t a physically taxing training but it was something new and exciting.

  She was home by nine p.m. Her place was fairly tidy and she took a quick shower followed by a generous lathering of body lotion and added a touch of perfume on her neck. She thought about ordering Chinese again but then decided pizza would be better. (“It’s a good thing I’m still on the pill”) As soon as she paid the delivery guy and shut the door the buzzer rang again and there was Moshe. She gave him a hug and a kiss. She was happy to see him and even more happy to be feeling happy. He had a bottle of wine in his hand and she could hardly close the door behind him before pulling him in by his shirt collar, putting the wine next to the pizza and unbuttoning his shirt. They let their clothes drop to the floor, helping one another undress, kissing and grabbing each other in a frenzy, making their way to the bedroom and falling onto the bed. She was not in the mood for foreplay. She grabbed his member and directed him inside her, feeling him filling her from the inside as he penetrated her.

  They stayed there, lying next to each other, for several long moments, trying to catch their breath.

  “My god, I missed this feeling of you next to me so much,” she said.

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  She got up and walked to the kitchen in the nude (“I’ve never walked around naked like this without feeling embarrassed”). She grabbed a corkscrew, two wine glasses, and the pizza and came back to bed. Moshe was lying on his stomach, pretty much taking up the whole bed. She relished the sight of his tanned, muscular body.

  “Move over. Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

  He opened the pizza box as she uncorked the wine, and they tucked in right there on the bed.

  “Looks like you’ve been working out,” said Moshe.

  “You don’t look too bad yourself, I can tell you stay fit, your body looks great,” she said, unable to stop blushing (“Kind of idiotic, blushing now”). She told him she started going to the gym. “But wait, I wanted to ask where you disappeared to the night of the attack. I mean, it’s okay that you did, it’s not like we’re in a committed relationship or anything, but I haven’t even had a chance to tell you that my sister was hurt.”

  Moshe stopped eating his pizza and looked at her anxiously. “What do you mean ‘hurt’?”

  “She was injured. Nothing too serious, luckily, but she is hospitalized and has some rehab ahead of her. But where did you go?” she tried to revisit her question without pestering or starting an argument.

  “To be honest, when you were late getting back I thought you must have your hands full with something more important than me, and I knew you had my number so I just waited for you to call, I didn’t want to bother you, but then I had that business trip and time got scrambled.”

  “OK, that’s alright, I get it” (“The best thing right now would be to keep things casual, that really suits me actually”).

  He told her about his Europe work trip. He went with the contractor to a tiling factory, and toured some construction sites, boring.

  She decided not to mention her trip to Belgium and told him about the case she’d been assigned. He did not seem very interested and they spent the entire night in bed, munching on the pizza, talking and making love. Fresh air came in through the open windows and dried the sweat off their naked bodies, but she still regretted not being able to share with him what she was going through.

  Before the night was over he suggested they greet the new day at their beach. They wrapped sheets around themselves, turned on the lights and descended the stairs as quietly as possible so as not to risk waking the neighbors. The streets were empty apart from the city’s trash collectors and some late partygoers. She felt like a high school kid sneaking out of the house for the first time.

  They stood together on the cool, damp sand, embracing each other, wrapped in their sheets, as the sun, just starting to rise behind them began to warm the air. A slight mist rose from the sea and bit by bit the waves were revealed by the light of dawn.

  They kissed like it was the end of the world, or its very beginning, then returned to the car and went back upstairs quickly before someone saw them and called the police.

  “You clearly need this, look at the state of you,” said Yael, placing a cup of coffee on Naomi’s desk. “Rough night?”

  Naomi responded with a smile. She felt like she weighed two hundred pounds. She spent the day struggling to keep her eyes open during her office meetings.

  Running practice felt like an eternity. She tried her best to stay close to Yael and when the run was over she nipped to the bathroom and stuck her head under the cold water to freshen up.

  Then they moved to the Krav Maga training hall. They were receiving instruction about traditional weapons.

  “This is called a Bo,” said Effy, showing them a long, brown staff that looked like the stick of a broom. “This is a traditional weapon from Okinawa. I want you each to grab one and let’s start practice. You’re not going to become experts - that would take years - but I want to use the Bo to show you that any object can be used as a weapon.”

  “Naomi, you’re not focused, you keep getting hit,” Effy scolded her a few minutes into the practice. “You need to be alert or you can seriously get hurt. Don’t come to practice if you can’t manage that, are we clear?”

  “Absolutely, Effy. I apologize.”

  She barely made it through Krav Maga class and next was the shooting range. Naomi’s target remained empty even after an hour of shooting.

  “Naomi, please come see me before you leave,” said Shahaf.

  She walked up to him, knowing she was about to be told off.

  “You clearly haven’t slept. Don’t let this happen again.”

  She felt she’d received the scolding she deserved, but also that it was worth every minute of it, and smiled to herself.

  By now Shuli was doing a lot better, walking about with her IV pole. She told Naomi someone from National Insurance had been to see her, and from the Terror Victims Department.

  “No doubt they have a lot of experience dealing with terror victims, sadly.”

  Her office sent large bouquets of flowers.
“I’m fine, all in all, but what will be the end of all these suicide bombers?”

  “It’ll be solved.”

  “Yeah, right,” Shuli shook her head.

  A month went by without her noticing it. She met with Moshe every few days, at their beach or her place. They watched movies, talked, read the newspaper just sitting there quietly next to each other, made love (“We’re starting to act like an old married couple”).

  On a Thursday night, lying in bed, Moshe’s body wrapped around hers, she turned to him and asked “Why can’t I come over your place sometime? You must be settled into your new apartment by now.”

  He said nothing and simply held her tight. “Let’s go to sleep, we have an early day tomorrow.”

  Friday was a day off from work and from the ‘Yodfat’ training.

  “Naomi, wake up, I made breakfast,” she was surprised to hear Moshe calling her. She checked her watch (“OWow, it’s nine already, what a lie-in”), got up to use the shower and then, cloaked in her white bathrobe, joined Moshe in the kitchen where he was standing with nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist. There were four fried eggs in the pan on the stove, cheese toast on the set table (“Mmm… so that was what smelled so good”) and a bowl of finely chopped salad, as well as two cups of steaming black coffee.

  “Well done!” she hugged him from behind and kissed the back of his neck. “I’m impressed.”

  They sat down and ate their breakfast. “Say, what are you doing today?” he asked.

  “Nothing much. I told you, I have the day off.”

  “Then let’s go by my place.”