The Critical Offer

by Yitzhak Nir

  “Ah, yes. I understand. But all this is done without military power?”

  “No! No military power! No occupation. China doesn’t conquer others’ lands, like you in Isalia. But carefully guard the sea, the sky and our ports around the world. China exerts only soft power, as you say, exactly how you’re hugging me, Jerry.” Suddenly indulging herself. “Now do you really understand?” She smiled mischievously, or so it seemed to him.

  Hmm… this story is familiar to me: Belt and Road New Silk Road, String of Pearls, Soft power takeover infrastructures through debt traps, long-term loans that can’t be returned and other tricks. They’ve been widely discussed in recent years…

  As part of his responsibilities, he received copious information about China; he subscribed to research institutes’ publications and received reports from experts in China and Israel. …In the past few years I’ve heard about all of this several times from the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, the heads of the Shin Bet, the police commissioner and others, and of course from the media like everybody else… he mused, but continued pretending to be curious.

  He was convinced that in the present generation China would become the strongest and most influential power in the world. “In the next generation China will control the world’s economy and will also determine world peace. While the American dream sinks into self-destruction, the great Chinese dream will become the mechanism driving the new super-power!” he told his listeners in his strategic briefings. He was also well aware of the fact that it was China, not Iran or Russia, which had reconstructed Syria after the civil war, in order to strengthen its grip on the Eastern Mediterranean. Like many in Israel he shared the fear of a Chinese takeover of infrastructures, energy, food, under-ocean communication cables, and high-tech technologies as well as cyber-espionage, and asked themselves: Why? He did not believe that the soft-power strategy would not be replaced sometime in the future by a hard-power strategy to back up the economic takeovers. …They are not building the world’s largest army only for parades...he thought.

  But meanwhile here, above the seacoast, he decided to continue playing the part of a low-level diplomat and sensitive potential wooer.

  “And what about Israel? What are your plans for us?”

  “In Isalia,” she continued excitedly, “in eastern Mediterranean we must have you as our strategic logistics center, a hub you know. Huge ships, gigantic planes and supersonic trains!” She smiled with gentle ease and returned to hold his hand inside his jacket, and he, enjoying the moment, stroked both her hands. “I only aim towards win-win situations…” She smiled.

  She also told him that she had become the jewel in the crown of the Chinese Embassy at economic conferences and Israeli gala events, and that her name appeared on every guest list.

  …Interesting huh, so that’s the reason why I met her at that event at the president’s house. It wasn’t totally by accident… And maybe the encounter at Falafel Momo wasn’t a coincidence either? Strange… Then he remembered Adam Ben-Ami’s warning, but didn’t stop her narrative, enchanted by her beauty and their close embrace.

  What she didn’t tell Gershon was that at the embassy they were suspicious of her rise to stardom, and the security guards were ordered to keep an eye on her movements: whom she met, where she was invited, what she wrote, whom she received, and other Big Brother-type questions. However, until now her loyalty had not been questioned.

  The sea raged in an eye-catching turquoise blue. Waves pulling behind them plumes of whitish foam and sparks of light became avenues pushing towards the shore and crashing into it with a muted roar, making their conversation unnecessary, sparing them the need to talk.

  It was growing colder. Her lovely face, her hair tied back by a purple ribbon, reddened slightly. Her raven hair was blowing in the wind and her lips glowed under transparent rose-red lipstick. Gershon hoped that his toupee with the gray temples wouldn’t disappoint him at this crucial moment.

  “And where do you live, pretty woman?” he asked softly, longing to hug her and yet not calling her by name.

  “I’m in Argaman Towers, opposite your sea. Jogging in morning on the beach to Herzliya Marina and in evening - CCTV Chinese television, broadcasting both in Chinese and English. Other diplomats live there, too. It’s quiet, no disturbances, no ‘balagan,’ as you call it,” she ended in a kind of whisper.

  The silence was only disturbed by the monotonous murmur of the waves.

  Gershon mused about how close his office was to where she lived. He told her what he could about himself, while concealing what he couldn’t share with her: his childhood in the kibbutz, his love for aircraft and the day he got his wings. A description of the night of the accident had caused her to dig her nails into his palm. The slight pain gave him increasing pleasure and he related anecdotes from his cover story, but hardly answered her questions. Like a circus acrobat amazing his audience by walking on a tightrope without a safety net, he evaded her questions. Especially for their encounter he invented a cover story about being a courier at the foreign office, as he had expected from their first meeting. He thought with a smile that during the ‘captivity exercise’ during his flight course, and even more so during his training as a spy in the Mossad, he had never been prepared for falling in love. And especially not with a beautiful Chinese diplomat who spoke muddled Hebrew with such a funny, charming English accent - “Hebrew-Chinglish...”

  Shauli lit a cigarette, watching them from behind the cover of thick bushes on the brow of a sandstone hill, fifteen yards from the memorial. The nightingale on Gershon’s wrist vibrated and a small question mark appeared on its tiny screen. He caught a glimpse of Shauli in the corner of his eye and with an imperceptible nod verified: “Everything under control” and continued gently hugging her.

  “And you, nice guy, are you married?” she suddenly asked, wondering.

  “Ah, yes, I was…” he replied hesitantly.

  He spoke and she listened, watching him silently through her stylish sunglasses. His suspicious nature enveloped by his personal charm, his fictional tales and half-truths in good inquirer style, didn’t stand up in face of her presence that overcame his senses and his imagination. Thus, wrapped in her jasmine perfume, he allowed himself to be conquered.

  She surveyed the crashing waves at their feet, raised her eyes to the white clouds sailing through the deep blue sky and stopped at the wings of the steel seagull. Suddenly she transferred her beautiful, scrutinizing gaze from the monument to his eyes. For a moment, the world stopped turning. Only the humming of the waves and the screaming of the distant crows broke the silence.

  And then, slowly, he approached her face, his lips closing onto hers and their noses rubbed together. Li-Lan did not retreat. She allowed him to explore her closed lips with his tongue, enjoying the long anticipation before allowing him to taste hers.

  Their kiss seemed to last forever. With closed eyes, their tongues slowly exploring each other with parted lips, their hearts were beating rapidly like sixteen-year-olds who feel they are all alone in the world. Gershon recovered himself first:

  “Win-win situation,” he whispered in her ear, gently stroking the breast hidden under her jacket. She smiled with closed eyes; the rosy-red lipstick on her moist, parted lips had almost vanished.

  * * *

  In his room with its eight screens, Chun Chang released an admiring whistle and shoved his hand deeper under his trouser belt, probing in the darkness. He had formulated his plan for just such a spectacle as this one, which had begun yielding its forbidden fruits.

  The white dragon hovered silently above the memorial for a few more moments. Then it turned soundlessly eastwards towards Gordon Elementary School, losing altitude below the Grand Beach Hotel and crossing Ben Yehuda Street towards the waving red flag with its golden stars, on the Chinese Embassy’s rooftop. It hovered a bit, then descended gently and performed a
perfect, silent, automatic landing.

  Broken-Hearted

  March 12th, 2025

  The tempestuous frame of mind in the country calmed down.

  The security situation and the national mood gradually stabilized as the terrorist attacks and suicide bombing ceased almost at once, without any explanation.

  Gershon and Li-Lan had been celebrating their acquaintanceship and secret meeting for two and a half weeks now. He was not prepared to reveal their liaison to anyone or disclose his true identity, and had no intentions of inviting her to his large, empty house, observed by his bodyguards, neighbors and hidden cameras. So meanwhile, Adam Ben-Ami’s small apartment served as their love nest.

  Her secret lover, Jerry, “for the time being,” she would tell herself in coming days, was an unplanned, uninvited work-accident. But her heart was brought back to life!

  “I love to love you at Ben-Ami’s place, better than openings in Tel Aviv, where diplomat must show up in evening dress, you know,” she would whisper in his ear. But she still didn’t dare call him “my Jerry,” even to herself.

  They continued entering the old building half an hour apart, climbing the thirty-eight steps of its beautiful Bauhaus staircase. Gershon would open the wooden door with the sign saying “Ben-Ami” with his key for emergency use and await her in anticipation. And when she arrived, they would make love and chat like small children. Although he had told her that he was a courier for the foreign office, she had serious doubts and her own opinions on the subject.

  Beautiful Li-Lan, who had sworn to distance herself from men since she had been abandoned in America by “one high school javelin-throwing champion,” suddenly found herself in a foreign country in the arms of this silent, cautious man.

  But what would one not do in order to mend a broken heart? And her heart needed mending...

  Whereas he, for whom this originally meant nothing more than a secret little flirt with uncommitted trysts before he would be forced to make a decision, felt his soul, exhilarated, gradually being drawn to her, and also bit by bit - being trapped...

  He continued suppressing the strength of his emotions and telling himself: “I really only come alive in those stolen moments, and I too deserve some love.” And also: “How long do I have left?” And so on, as usual pussyfooting around the issue.

  But deep in his heart, on lonely nights in his bed, he knew that he couldn’t continue lying to himself for much longer. Gershon Shalit was in love, whether he admitted it or not. The white calla lilies tied with a purple silk ribbon that he would bring to Ben-Ami’s flat expressed his feelings better than he did. He still couldn’t believe that it was his charming personality that had caused this beautiful forty-four-year-old Chinese woman to fall in love with him, with the stranger she called “Jerry,” who had long ago passed the age of sixty-four.

  At their meetings he tried to speak as little as possible. He would survey the area with a sharp eye and always sat with his back to the wall. But when he emerged from Adam Ben-Ami’s ascetic bathroom like a stage actor, with his silver-edged wig and trimmed mustache, like Tom Hanks as ‘Captain Sully’ in the film about the forced landing on the Hudson River, he would smile at her with his teeth that were good despite his age, and would trumpet: “Tadaaamm!!”

  Then he would spread clean sheets on the bed without pangs of conscience and wait for “his Chinese girl,” hopeful that his loins were still up to love-making at his advanced age, as befitting a guy who once was desired by the women soldiers at Tel-Nof Air Force Base.

  “The blue diamond has never disappointed me,” he encouraged himself in anticipation. But her ivory skin and small breasts with their upward-pointing nipples soon dispersed his anxieties.

  Smiling, she would enter the bedroom with its old wooden ceiling, slowly remove the blue silk robe with the golden dragons covering her nakedness and throw the robe over his face with childish yelps of delight. He would burst out laughing and peek through its folds at her shapely legs approaching him, secretly glad that her love mound had never known a razor.

  His heart began to calm down, but it speeded up when his mouth met her small, full lips. His arms embraced her slim, smooth back, and hugged her to his chest, whose sparse hairs had already gone gray. Then she would slide down and bury her face in his neck, kissing and lightly sucking his skin, perhaps leaving behind youthful signs of passion.

  The power of love, and perhaps also the power of the blue diamond, served them well. Thus they would continue embracing for a long hour in the silence of the approaching evening, while only the sparrows’ tweets coming from Nahum Street announced that their act of love would soon end, as day faded into evening.

  Through the wall, Markovich could be heard playing Debussy’s Preludes, creating a romantic atmosphere for their rendezvous.

  He remembered that the French composer had died of cancer a few years before reaching his sixtieth birthday. …Life is short and won’t return. … We won’t have another life. Every stolen moment with her is adding new spice to my life…He would tell himself. But he never removed the nightingale from his wrist.

  She always left first.

  She would walk down several streets with a measured step towards 222 Ben Yehuda Street, the Chinese Embassy in Israel. She would nod to the guards and ascend by the staff elevator to the seventh floor, to her large office facing the sea. Then she would place the calla lilies in a crystal vase filled with fresh water, open the window wide and close her eyes for a long moment, taking deep breaths of sea air - facing the slowly darkening horizon.

  Shauli and Guy would be waiting for their boss in the car chewing portions of falafel, drinking cola and maintaining public order, while the men in the black Chevy looked on from across the street.

  The white dragon was also on duty, observing the lovers from above.

  * * *

  The ringing of the doorbell was loud and rasping. Gershon rushed to the peephole in the door. In the darkness of the stairwell he saw Li-Lan staring back at him. He hurried to the window facing the corner of Nordau Boulevard and Ben Yehuda: …Yes, the silvery Superb was parked at the corner and the black Chevy Savannah was resting nearby, facing Falafel Momo… He peeked at the nightingale: “Fifteen hours and thirteen minutes and no messages. Very good. We’re on time. Okay, everything is under control... Clear to open!” smiling, he ordered himself in a low voice, pilot’s style, returned to the door and opened the old, creaking safety lock.

  She stood before him erect and smiling, her left and right feet angled in a ballet position, on her lips rosy transparent lipstick and her black hair tied back and resting on her neck. Dressed in a youthful gray pants suit with a blue silk tie embroidered with golden cranes around her neck, she seemed taller than usual. A quick glance at her long, shapely feet revealed shiny high heels - above which she rose to her full height. At least four inches high, he estimated, continuing to smile.

  “Ni-hao, Li-Lan, my darling! Come here! mey-nu,” he grinned broadly, attempting to pronounce the few Chinese words he knew. “I thought you would never get here,” he said holding out his two hands to grasp the pale hands emerging from her white shirt cuffs. He drew his right cheek towards her left one, inhaling the jasmine perfume he loved, stroking her earlobes, closing his eyes and offering his mouth to hers.

  They shared a long kiss, tasting one another’s tongues and murmuring softly, each in their own language...

  She broke away first, fixing her brown eyes on his and pulled back from him, saying: “Jerry, my love, today there isn’t much time our meeting. I must leave at six p.m., to the Dan Hotel, on your seafront, you know.”

  He gently led her to the old sofa, aware of the unhidden tension flowing from her palms.

  “Li-Lan my beauty, tea, coffee or me? He tried out the old clumsy joke, hoping to soften up her stiffness somewhat.

  “Jerry, not too many jokes today. I’ve got muc
h work in my office, and I have my period today. Sorry. And I also have a very important meeting this evening” she said, freeing her hands from his and glancing around the gloomy apartment.

  “Do you think there any wine in your friend refrigerator?” she blurted out, stepping inside. Then she turned to look at the large unfinished painting, estimating what changes had been made to it since last time. She examined the painting for a long time, released a low “Wow” and immediately added:

  “Jerry, half glass for me and lots of cold mineral water, if there is any.”

  Water is always a good idea. A glass of wine won’t make me drunk and might relax Li-Lan. It wouldn’t hurt either of us to loosen up a bit…

  He brought in what he found in the fridge and placed it on the wooden table in the living room, sinking down next to her on the worn sofa. They linked arms and clicked their old-fashioned wine glasses half-filled with Merlot wine from Adam Ben-Ami’s open bottle. The pitcher of water and bowl of ice cubes that he had retrieved from the freezer waited their turn.

  “Le’chaim! Called Gershon, smiling into her eyes.

  “Le’chaim,” she replied, testing the unfamiliar Hebrew word on her tongue.

  They sipped slowly in silence.

  With his free hand Gershon began gently massaging her back through her jacket. Through the layers of cloth he could feel the stiffness of her back muscles. He placed his palm on the back of her neck for a long moment, trying to relax her with its warmth.

  “Ahh… that’s good. Please continue, Jerry,” she said indulging herself, her lips leaving a scarlet imprint on the wineglass from which she continued to sip at long intervals.

  “You are very tense today, Li. Come to bed, my beauty. I’ll give you a genuine ‘Jerry massage.’”

  “It’s cold here, Jerry, and I’m bit nervous today. I also have the period of women today. Maybe your massage is a very good idea,” she added pensively.