by Yitzhak Nir
Then raising her voice and in a commanding tone she concluded: “Cabin crew, prepare for takeoff!”
From his window Joe could see drifts of frozen snow still piled up along the runways. Here and there between the drifts could be seen patches of grass heralding the arrival of spring.
The two flight attendants at the front of the plane now looked more alert. They fastened their seat belts and surveyed the rows of passengers to make sure nobody had left their seats.
Captain McCain returned the microphone to its place, grasped the two throttles with her right hand and began slowly pushing them forward. The two jet engines came to life. She taxied the small Boeing in a wide left turn to the center of the runway, nodded to the first officer seated to her right and declared: “Takeoff power!” Then she pressed with her thumb a button on the left-hand throttle. Both throttles rushed forward immediately and the roar of the engines increased at once. The rapid forceful thrust pushed Joe’s back in his seat.
As the plane left the ground, even before the wheels had retracted, the professor was already asleep, the sole passenger in business class.
A few drops of coffee from the paper cup in his hand spilled onto the gray carpet under his feet and a small brown puddle formed alongside one polished shoe.
He was still holding his cup when the chime in the cabin sounded twice, announcing that they had reached cruising altitude, and waking him up. He looked out the window:
The Manhattan skyscrapers emerged like toy buildings through the morning fog that still lay over the city. To the west, dividing the city and the pale green, gray and brown fields of New Jersey shone a blinding silver ribbon, the Hudson River.
“I hope Captain Barbara McCain won’t land us on the Hudson today, like Captain Sully,” he murmured. “It’s much too cold…” And with that thought he went back to sleep.
What Is Love?
On the other side of the wall, Igor Markovich was expertly playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, creating a romantic atmosphere in their room. The muffled roar of the light railway beneath Ben Yehuda Street and the faint hum of buses above did not disturb their delightful peace.
Gershon softly stroked Li-Lan’s face as she began waking up with a yawn. She turned over on her back hiding her nipples, slightly sunken due to the heat in the room, with the blanket, opened her narrow brown eyes and murmured softly, as if to herself:
“My father is coming to visit me. He wants to meet you, Jerry.”
Gershon raised himself up on his elbows.
“What did you say, my beauty?” he replied in a whisper, hoping he hadn’t heard correctly.
“My father is coming to Isalia to visit his daughter!” she repeated in Hebrew, raising her voice slightly, glancing out the window facing Nahum Street. The sky outside was already growing dark.
“What was that?” he asked again, still hoping he hadn’t heard correctly.
“I said my father is coming from America, to Isalia, to visit his daughter!” she repeated, pronouncing every word separately and precisely, her voice rising and hardening.
“Superb! Great! When is he arriving?” he asked, attempting to sound matter-of-fact and indifferent, although his heartbeats had suddenly accelerated. His senses were silently shouting: “Watch out! Something new is happening here that you can’t control!”
“In two days. He is arriving at two a.m., with El Al Flight 010, straight from Kennedy to your Ben-Gurion Airport.” she spat out in English, turning to face him and also raising herself on her elbows.
The blanket fell away, revealing her lovely breasts, still shiny from the traces of oil in the soft twilight penetrating from the window. “If there are no strikes of course…” slightly softening her tone, she smiled.
“Sure. Of course there are sometimes changes and also delays. Flights are also sometimes canceled,” he said, trying to gain time and figure out the meaning of this uninvited visit that had fallen on him so unexpectedly.
Their buttocks rested on the bed, while their backs were a bit raised as they leaned on their elbows with their thighs lightly touching. Li-Lan adjusted the pillow behind her back and sat up first.
“He wants very much meet you. And I want tour for my father in the five days he is here, you know, Haifa and Ashdod ports, high-tech Herzliya, your factories and industries. Also borders of Israel: Galilee, Negev, Dead Sea. I ask that you come with us, answer all my father’s questions. Everything! Also tell him what ideas you have for the future of Israel. You were a pilot and are now a Foreign Office diplomat. You are also intelligent. Smart Guy Jerry…”
“Have you told him about me?” he asked, feigning surprise, suddenly interrupting her fluent speech.
“Jerry, you are a very charming man. I already loving you long time. Don’t you think maybe I feel serious to you? Maybe I have deep feelings for you?” she repeated with some anger in her voice. She studied the look on his face with eyes narrowed to dark slits. “It is my father, Jerry!”
“I know. Sure. I am also in love with you, I am ‘me’ohav’…” he hesitated. The words came out of his mouth with an effort. He was not accustomed to making such statements often, not only due to the deep commitment implied by them.
“‘Ohav’? What is ‘ohav’, Jerry?”
“‘Me’ohav’! I fell in love with you, darling, when I first saw you at Falafel Momo… it’s a Hebrew word for ‘to be in love.’” He relaxed somewhat.
Suddenly he felt that their thighs were no longer touching and despite their affectionate words, a distance loomed up between them, and not only a physical one. Li-Lan pulled the cover up to her chin, dispersing the twilit magic.
“Jerry, look, after our meeting today I’m going to the gynecologist to remove my IUD. Do you understand?” She looked at him questioningly. “Afterwards I asking that you and I make love like first time. Also drink wine and put on music, good music, you know. What I see on Mister Ben-Ami’s shelves: maybe Platters, maybe Sinatra...We make our son’s birthday celebration. Maybe daughter…” she continued in a pensive tone.
…Ah, not only is her father arriving, but she wants me to get her pregnant! He was now really getting worried. At that moment their secret, comfortable romance was becoming a kind of threat that he was unprepared for. …And maybe… a contradictory thought occurred to him: …Maybe this would be a wonderful opportunity to finally change my life?
He tried to organize his thoughts and determine how to reply. In order to gain time, he asked:
“Birthday? What kind of birthday?”
“Jerry, you’re not very educated about China, although we both know you’re very bright. In China the child’s birthday when its mother becomes pregnant, not when, like you - child comes out. The Chinese nation has a five-thousand-year-old culture. It is much more logical like so. The Chinese are no less smart than Israelis or Americans!!”
“Sure! Okay. Now I understand, my beautiful woman,” he said, attempting unsuccessfully to introduce some softness into his voice. “So you want us to have a child together? You and me?” he asked. And after a slight hesitation: “Does your father know about this plan of yours?”
“My father wants to meet you, Jerry, and to tell his daughter that he left in Shanghai thirty-eight years ago if Jerry is the right person, good enough to bring Professor Joe Yang his first grandson,” she announced. “And also if Israel is a good and proper place for his daughter and his new grandson and for the future of the children of that grandson!”
Her Hebrew is really improving. Too bad it’s showing up in this particular situation… he mused coolly. “But I’m elderly, Li-Lan, I’m an old man,” he declared in a crude attempt to avoid a straight answer.
“Look, Jerry, you say that you love me too. I was forty-four last summer. Now is my last chance to have a baby! I can’t wait any longer!” She took a deep breath and continued, “If you love me like you say, I want a b
aby, now! If you don’t agree, I look for different future… We are very educated people, Jerry. We do all the tests doctors say we need to do. Afterwards we decide, okay?” she concluded softly, as if trying to make his decision easier.
“We have maybe two, three weeks until we make love in a big celebration. And we say to everybody: We are together! a couple, you know!”
“I need some time, my love. Let me think about it. Next time I’ll give you my answer,” he said wearily, ashamed for using such a worn-out excuse. “Maybe it is a good idea for me to meet your father. I would also like to know who might be the grandfather of my new son or daughter,” he added, not really believing what he was saying.
“Okay, Jerry, but before we meet my father, I want to know your real name!”
“But you know it already! I told you that a long time ago: it is Jeremiah Stark.”
“I don’t believe that’s your real name. Until now I accepted that name, but no more! You tell me your real name right now!” she said loudly, rising from the bed and beginning to get dressed. Gershon felt annoyance and anger creeping into her voice and a new sense of alienation settled in his heart.
He also got up hesitantly, pulling on his white undershirt and sitting back down on the bed, noticing that the sky outside had become completely dark. The bedroom was also devoid of light.
Li-Lan finished dressing. The gray jacket and black high-heeled shoes still awaited her at the foot of the wide wooden bed; she walked to the bathroom barefoot.
He dressed quickly, put on his shoes, went out to the small living room and lit the lamp above the dining table. He ensured that his toupee and mustache were still in place and adjusted the position of the pistol under his jacket.
Why is she so insistent on checking if I have another name, my real one?
Afterwards he put up water for coffee and peeked out of the window facing the boulevard. He verified that the two cars were in place and checked for classified messages on his high tech nightingale wrist phone. Not finding any new messages, he paused in front of the large, unfinished painting:
The eye of the shrieking swan seemed suddenly to be mocking him: “There are no free lunches, Gersh. You had a pleasurable, casual love affair, you fell in love and now the moment of truth has arrived…”
“Well, Jerry, so you decide telling me your real name?” she directed at him matter-of-factly, entering the living room on her high heels, fastening the buttons of her jacket.
“Li-Lan, my lovely woman, as I told you before, I have no other name, only Jerry, Jeremiah Stark!”
“Okay, Jerry, then I’ll tell you what I think: I think you’re from the Israeli Secret Service. I think you don’t simply love a high-ranking Chinese diplomat. I think maybe you want me to work for you. Not in my regular job, but for information you want to know about our government leader and the Chinese Communist Party!” she said, regarding him with some hostility, or so it seemed to him.
“Are you crazy? Where do you get these ideas? I’m a foreign office courier, a diplomat like you! I love you and want to continue loving you. You are the true love of my life,” he immediately replied, attempting to grasp her hands in his.
She pulled her hands away and dug them into the pockets of her gray jacket. “Then I’ll tell you what your ‘beautiful Li-Lan’ knows,” she said ominously. “Every time we meet, you ask me arrive at Adam Ben-Ami’s after you, and leave half an hour before you. Why? First of all, I don’t like it! I don’t want to feel like a bimbo! Like an ‘escort girl,’ as you call it in Israel. Why don’t we meet at Jerry’s beautiful home, huh?” she snapped. “And secondly, I saw you!” She pointed at him accusingly.
“You saw me? Where did you see me?” his voice sounded a bit uncertain and weak. …Damn it, what’s going on here? Maybe she recognized me from photos on the media when I was appointed?
“Jerry, the last time we meet here, make love and have talk, I don’t go back my office at the embassy, but hide among the trees in the garden under this building, where concrete pillars. I want to see how darling Jerry gets home,” she began. “And what do I see? Good-looking Jerry, American film star, comes downstairs half an hour after I leave, waits near the green metal gate until Skoda arrives with two guys like bodyguards inside and Jerry gets quickly into back seat. After them, is another big, black American car, with dark windows, so you can’t see anything. They travel very fast, not the way everybody drives in city of people.” She narrowed her eyes to two black fire-slits and declared in a voice sounding full of venom:
“Very interesting, Jerry darling! Apparently Jerry darling is very VIP in Isalia!” she added, smiling her splendid porcelain smile that suddenly appeared angry, bitter and sad. Her flow of words abruptly ceased and he thought he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.
He was then struck by a realization that he had been trying to suppress for the past two weeks:
Apparently she is a Chinese temptress! Maybe it was no coincidence that she responded to my attentions so easily. Somebody must have informed her who I really was. Maybe they have plans for me at the Chinese Embassy, maybe even in Beijing itself! Gershon became annoyed with himself for having pursued her. …Maybe she also suspects that my wig and mustache are not really growing out of my head. I must take control of myself immediately…
“I think that things are exactly the opposite, Li-Lan,” he said, shifting from defense to offense. “I think you might have deliberately tempted me after our first meeting at Falafel Momo.” His voice was low, measured and forceful. “And maybe you,” he raised his voice in his responsible commander’s tone, while looking directly into her brown eyes, “want to turn me, a low-ranking Israeli diplomat, into a double agent for you!” And after a long pause, he added:
“Somebody among your people has seen too many James Bond movies or is reading too many books by John le Carré. Somebody might be paying you overtime to recruit me, Jerry, who really loves you, for your own people’s interests.”
He concluded like a teacher chastising a beloved pupil: “You might be a very clever, beautiful woman holding an important diplomatic job, Li-Lan, but you are very naïve girl!” With that he raised his left hand, checking that the nightingale was still in place.
Silence reigned in the room. The kettle was boiling, emitting jets of steam and whistling shrilly. Gershon poured hot water into one of the cups of coffee waiting near the kettle.
“Maybe the story about your father is very nice, as well as the one about having a child together. But maybe your dad’s coming here from China, especially to check this Jerry out, and see how your special overtime project is progressing,” he said, breaking the silence. And then regaining composure like someone who had just shouted “Check-mate!” He asked with the nonchalance of a theater actor used to changing roles: “Would you like to drink coffee with me?”
“Yes, with two sugars. ‘Sugar is poison for a man’...I know,” she imitated his tone. “But today I don’t give a shit!”
They sat in silence, far from touching, each sipping their own coffee, staring straight ahead and lost in thought, he in Hebrew and she in Mandarin.
Gershon felt trapped: his loyalty to his principles and duties was absolute. His analytical brain refused to allow him to disclose his true identity. The idea that all this was nothing more than a Chinese plot to trap him both alarmed and intrigued him, even if he had suspected that possibility from their second encounter. On the other hand, love had suddenly invaded his life and he had no intention of giving it up.
His active brain suggested a genuine solution that was not according to the Mossad’s protocol: to postpone deciding in order to preserve what existed, ostensibly agreeing to the other’s demands, while at the same time planning an escape route if anything went wrong…
“Li-Lan, my love,” he began in a low voice after a few moments of silence: “We are both tense and angry, but I really do love you. I am real
ly only Jerry Stark, not some spy… Believe me. And I also think that you are an honest, hardworking diplomat, not someone who wants to let me down. I would like to meet you father but I beg you, please: Cease fire! No more quarrels!”
He folded his hands in the Buddhist prayer posture and smiled at her with his most indulgent and ingratiating smile: “I have to travel abroad tomorrow, but I’m sure Adam Ben-Ami would be happy to tour the country with you. He will also be able to explain in detail about the Israeli-Palestine conflict and you can get to know him. He’s a great guy. Okay, my love? What do you say? Do you agree?”
But she remained silent. Her gaze was fixed on her coffee cup and she twirled a lock of black hair around her finger.
“Give me a kiss,” he whispered, approaching her gently. He removed the empty cup from her hand and placed his mouth on hers. She didn’t resist, but didn’t respond either. Her lips remained firmly closed.
They left the flat without saying another word, not knowing whether they parted as lovers or as adversaries. They walked downstairs and waited near the green gate. And when the silvery Superb arrived, he gave her a quick peck on the cheek, lightly tapped her on the shoulder, threw out “See you!” and “Zài-jiàn!” in unconvincing Chinese and entered the vehicle. She waved her hand limply and remained standing there for a long moment, alone in the darkness.
* * *
When he got into the car Shauli and Guy didn’t say a word. They turned into Hayarkon Street and joined the usual heavy Tel Aviv evening traffic.
He dialed Adam’s number: “Hi, Ben-Ami, location and altitude?”
“Aha’lan, Gersh! Why don’t we hear from you? I’ve just returned from a long voyage back from Hong Kong. My ship is anchored outside the Port of Ashdod. The taxi is transporting my crew to the Hilton hotel and bringing me home.”
“How long will the ‘library’ be occupied, Adam?”
