The next thing I saw was the fat, well-shaven face of a man in civilian clothes leaning over me and saying gently, "Simon? At last! I've been waiting for you all night..."
CHAPTER TWELVE
He looked like a pigeon specially grown for bringing pleasant messages. He was built in circles: his skull, his eyes, his nose, his fingernails, his paunch and even the sentences he uttered. From his place by the window in the captain's office, he cooed with pleasure at the sight of the new wall and at the same time gurgled regret at the suffering of the refugees who had been exiled. His case, which sat on the most comfortable chair in the room, was secured with a chain and a lock. A set of keys lay at the edge of the desk, next to a pack of low-nicotine cigarettes and a two-day-old newspaper he had obviously brought with him.
"You must have seen the Prime Minister on television," he said.
"We don't have a television," the captain said sharply.
"That's a pity," the man said sorrowfully, "he spoke about you, really about you. Even before he finished his speech I thought, he's talking about our boys at the front, the ones I'm going to see... So what do you say, Simon?"
I mumbled something. He gave me an understanding look. His concentrated expression, the apparently careless movements, the high voice were familiar. I had met him once before, but where?
"I've got something for you," he gestured towards the case and the bunch of keys. "Two turns to the right, one to the left."
I did not move. Not yet. It was all too unexpected.
"What precisely is this about?"
He spread two pink palms in wonder. "Your mission, of course. You didn't think that your job in Dura was over already, did you?"
Then I remembered him. He was one of the two men who had left the Head's office at the moment I'd gone in for my briefing. With relief I turned the combination lock. It was well-oiled and opened immediately. There were two cardboard files inside, emitting a wonderful fragrance of experience and secrecy. I looked at the man in civilian clothes and then at the captain.
"It's all right," the man said, waving his hand generously. "After all, we're all partners here..."
I cleared the desk of superfluous objects, the stapler, a carousel of rubber stamps, a pile of forms, a bottle of glue and a paratrooper's red beret. The two files came out leaving a trail of chewed paper.
"Mice." I established my fresh proprietorship over them with a complaint. The captain shifted uneasily in his chair.
The man in civilian clothes said, "We're going for something really big, wait and see..."
The files were spread on the desk. Instead of the usual photographs, reports, assessments, I found sketches which looked like building plans. A thin, mimeographed paper discussed the advantage of something called 'Plan 1' over 'Plan 3'.
“’Plan 2’,'" the man in civilian clothes hastened to explain, "wasn't appropriate for this place." He gave the impression that he was covering up for some injustice. Maybe he thought 'Plan 2' was the best of the three.
The captain stood up. "I'd prefer it if my sergeant-major were present..."
"Of course," the man in civilian clothes smiled. "Of course..."
"Scheckler!" the captain shouted.
He popped in so quickly that I assumed he'd been eavesdropping on the other side of the door. All the same, he looked at the files, examined the sketches and studied the maps.
Finally he declared: "This looks like we're finally starting to build houses!"
"Right!" the man in civilian clothes exclaimed. "Is there a map of the area here?" Scheckler rolled back the sheet that covered a map on the wall. A fat cockroach fled across the room.
Scheckler asked, "A Jewish settlement?"
The man shook his head, but one could see he might not be against that idea either.
"We're going to build houses for the refugees," he said.
The captain complained, "Who needs it?"
The civilian drew a black square around a section of the road at the edge of no man's land.
"Once," he lectured, "people fought for territory, trade rights, natural resources..." He filled the square with tiny rectangles, according to a design he copied from his notebook. "Today we know that all those things have no value. There is only one thing that is worth fighting for, and once you have it, you control everything..." He turned to the captain. "Do you understand?"
The captain shrugged his shoulders. "No."
"Minds!" he exclaimed. "Today we fight for people's minds. The true natural resource..." His fingers tapped the checkered area he had drawn on the map. "You," he patted the captain on the shoulder, "have paved the way. Now it's our turn to carpet it with flowers. We'll build a splendid neighborhood here, three hundred and fifty homes, a school, a kindergarten. We'll bring public figures, television, journalists, radio... Three hundred and fifty families will go into clean, new, spacious homes and the whole world will witness it right after the report on Syrian atrocities, Druse snipers, Palestinian bombers, Shi'ite mobs and Christian assassins, who are all killing one another..."
He went on to chatter about asbestos walls, reinforced concrete skeletons and steel foundations. Scheckler, who was already completely captivated, asked about the sizes of the houses, the method of construction and work for the refugees who would live there.
How had the bomb I was preparing turned into a crazy building company? I looked through the papers again. The civilian moved the captain gently to the door.
"In another two or three days the first houses will be up. They’re all ready to go. They simply have to be loaded onto trucks and sent off on their way..." He flicked his fingers to signify speed and efficiency. The captain groaned something, put his beret on his head and went out. Scheckler cast a last look at the map on the wall and hastened after him.
The man closed the door carefully behind them and came back to the desk. He pulled a chair over to it and sat down.
Something in the atmosphere changed. Like an old cinema when the lights have been switched on, the room resumed its former, shabby appearance. The civilian's expression relaxed into the visage of an aging man who has not slept enough.
His speech became terse: "What's he like, that captain?"
"A soldier..."
"Tough?"
"Enough."
He scratched his scalp roughly, then cleaned his fingernails with the clasp of a pen. "What have you managed to prepare?" he asked.
"Nothing," I smoothed the plans on the desk. "This is the first time I've seen..."
"I'm talking about what you came here for. I was told that you'd already prepared something."
And had he not been told how the suitcase had been substituted for the kitbag? "Napalm, a tin of five kilos."
He took a cigarette from his packet and lit it without offering me one.
"It's been lost," I added.
"How?"
I felt some sort of shame and did not answer. The man in civilian clothes smoked in silence. Then he said: "You're experienced enough to realize that I'm here, in a manner of speaking, to give out jobs..." He stubbed out the cigarette. "You were given your job back in Tel Aviv, so why don't you go on with it?"
For a moment I thought I understood what he meant and how concerned he was behind his quiet appearance. But the next moment I was no longer so sure.
"Go on?" I hesitated.
His head moved slowly up and down. "As if nothing has happened."
Nothing connected yet. No reality met my apprehensions, they were even bigger and more alien.
"Where is it, the stuff you've prepared?" the man questioned me patiently.
There was only one course left. "In the wadi," I said. "In a rabbit warren..."
He got up immediately. "Let's go there."
I let him lead, but he was too clever to be taken in by my obvious play. He walked ahead of me until we got to the guard hut, then stopped in the street to wait, looking at the last few neighbors returning from their night out.
"Where to now
?" he asked when I was standing next to him.
I led him down the path and stopped again in the riverbed. He stopped too, waiting patiently until I resumed walking. At that moment I wanted to forget the exact site of the rabbit warren so that that roly-poly man would have to make his own way there and reveal his involvement. But as usual, professionalism overcame logic and I turned up the riverbed to the rock I had used as my marker.
The sand at the bottom was clean and sifted, as if it had been swept. The bushes I had placed over the opening of the warren were in place. I gestured and he leaned over to help me, with the clumsiness of someone who was there for the first time. As I cleared the soil away I examined his face out of the corner of my eye. It remained expressionless.
After a few moments of digging my fingers touched the fabric of the kitbag.
I pulled it over to the rock. A lizard scurried away as soon as my shadow fell on it. The layer of glycerin in the tin was fatty and had spilled onto the books in an incandescent wave. The man in civilian clothes bent down to sniff it. Then he read with interest what was written on the box of antibiotic ointment.
"What did you intend to do with it?" he asked.
"Refine it until the Butyllithium is left."
He clicked his tongue. "There isn't time. I'll get hold of some prepared Butyllithium and a few empty tins which you can scatter around."
"It has to be planned, the charge has to fit the size of the target."
He calculated something under his breath. "Three tins together with yours should be enough."
"What am I going to blow up?"
"You'll see."
I pushed the kitbag, which rolled off the rock and landed on the sand with a soft thud.
"Don't you think it's time you began letting me in on the plans? What jobs are you giving out? For what purpose? What's the connection between the explosion I'm preparing and the idiotic plan to build houses for the refugees?"
He put the kitbag with the mixture of metal, napalm, glycerin and paper over his shoulder and began to walk back. For a moment I thought to walk in the opposite direction. I checked the priest's house, high above us, the pine wood and the tip of the church tower. Then I turned to walk behind him up the steep path.
When we reached the top I said: "You still haven't answered me."
"I prefer it to remain confidential for the moment," he panted.
"This isn't my first day in this business..."
"I know. I also know that your behavior in the last few weeks hasn't been, how shall I put it, appropriate..."
"Not appropriate?" I exploded. "You organize it, send me here to stage an explosion, at the same time instruct me to arrest a foreign agent in broad daylight, promise me the cooperation of the local agent and don't bother to check whether he's still on our side, take my kitbag out of its hiding place in the wadi in order to put someone else's suitcase there..."
He put a calming hand on my shoulder, but his short, strong fingers gripped my flesh.
"I don't know about the foreign agent you arrested," he said in a low voice, "nor is the subject of the local agent clear to me. Maybe it is like that, maybe not. At any rate, it's of no importance now." As we passed the guard hut the kitbag bumped against the chain at the gate with a merry sound.
"But the suitcase in the hiding place that turned into a kitbag - that sounds a little delusory, doesn't it?"
I glanced at my watch. Ten a.m. The knowledge that in another ten hours the suitcase would be in my hands gave me back a grip on reality.
"You see," he continued, pointing to a large field kitchen which had been arranged under the awning that remained of the garage, "everything is ready. The cooks are out and all that's left in the kitchen is what you need. Prepare your concoctions and leave me to run the rest. In another day or two it will all be over and by then the unpleasant little things will be forgotten..."
And would the broken vessel be consigned to a remote shelf or thrown away? I had to gain time, at least until after tonight when I would have the suitcase.
"It's a dangerous process," I said, "and a long one. It'll take..."
"...Three hours, over a medium flame," he nodded at me. "Don't think I don't understand you." The sympathy in his voice sounded like an aberration. "But Tel Aviv is surprised. They expected you to act more sensibly." He took out his packet of cigarettes and, as usual, lit only one, for himself. "So don't give them another chance, Simon. Do what you have to..."
***
By the afternoon the four tins were cooling on the counter. The civilian, with the same wizardly timing which had characterized his previous appearances, popped up the moment I left the kitchen. He was with the captain and four paratroopers, who would guard the door, the window and the serving hatch. "Write down here everything you need for the detonating devices," he said.
I quickly scribbled letters and numbers on the notepad he gave me.
"Good," he said, encouraged by what looked to him like cooperation.
I added another five letters to the formula. He folded the notepad up and stuck it into his back trouser pocket.
"Tomorrow morning you'll have the material," he said, getting into his little car.
As he drove off I suppressed a smile. The formula in his trouser pocket contained an invention of my own: the five letters represented a special liquid which would slowly break down to give the Butyllithium solution a chemical stability which would continue to increase. Whoever prepared the solution would have to ascertain how many hours were left until the planned explosion. From that moment, with the precision of a stopwatch, the color of the material would reveal how much time was left. During the first twelve hours of its life it would be blue. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth hours it would be emerald green. Around the seventeenth hour it would start turning yellow, and from the twentieth hour a transparent eddy would spread through it, starting at the bottom, to where the dead molecules would flow constantly. By approximately the twenty-fourth hour the matter in the container would lose its flammability, becoming merely a lazy, colorless solution.
The small control of time which I had managed gave me a sense of power and achievement. In the evening I would have the suitcase. But without additional proof it would become a two-edged sword: together with the bribe that Scheckler had taken it could be said that it was nothing more than war booty.
If I could only find one unequivocal scrap of evidence to indicate that Anton had been handed over to the detention camp. Once more, I went through all the facts: the strange letter he had left, full of puzzling hints, the vague testimony of the soldiers who had taken him to the camp and who had long since been dispersed to other units, a crossed-out entry in the storeroom book; a reprimand in the file of an anonymous army doctor who had administered tests to a prisoner...
Almost like a vicious reminder of my powerlessness, the blind girl passed in the street, her hand tied by a rope to the arm of the old man leading her. The man in civilian clothes honked his horn as his car overtook them. He seemed to nod to the old man in greeting. From the church tower came the priest's six dull, metallic clangs. The blind girl and her guide stopped to listen. Perhaps, with her sharpened sense, she could discern in the uncoordinated chimes the despair, pain and self-hatred of someone who had betrayed his neighbors, cheated his flock and collaborated for years with the people who had eventually taken his best friend away.
I remembered the first night of the curfew, his vehement denial, the disappearance of the transmitter from the boot of his car. My mind wandered to the other figure, the one I had seen twice through the window. For the first time it occurred to me that it might have been the man in civilian clothes. I remembered the two-day-old newspaper that he had had with him the day before, when I had seen him for the first time. Where had he hidden if not in that isolated house, the house of our local agent? How had he known about the kitbag I had hidden in the rabbit warren if he had not watched me from there? Who, if not he, knew about my discovery of the transmitter and
made sure to remove it from the boot of the Morris?
I wondered what the priest had received for his services and whether now, in the shadow of events about to happen, there was still a chance that a desire to cleanse his conscience might fit in with my need to clear my name. I turned to the command car, parked in the corner of the courtyard, under a plastic cover. There was no longer anyone to forbid me using it. I took one sheet off, then another. The touch of the painted metal aroused memories of distant nights on the top of the mountain. The keys were in the ignition. I turned them, put the car into gear and rolled slowly across the courtyard. The captain watched me in silence from the entrance to his tent. The guard at the gate removed the chain as a matter of routine. The people in the street had long since stopped staring.
In the priest's house there was the usual light as well as the bent figure at the table who could be seen in the window. I looked through the hedge until I had no doubt that this time it was the priest, wearing a woolen habit without a collar.
As before, I ran along the path and called him. He did not answer. Perhaps he hoped to escape through some secret door to perform his miracle of the emergence from the wood. I stood on my tiptoes and tapped on the window, which opened gently inwards at my touch.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," I called out. "I must talk to you."
He still did not answer.
"About Anton. It's urgent..."
No reply. By what crazy vow had he undertaken to remain silent in this fashion? It would never absolve him. I leaned on the stone windowsill and pulled myself up with an effort.
"There's no time," I called to his back. "This time you must speak to me."
The wind which came in from outside ruffled the pages of the book in front of him. He did not set them straight. I threw a leg over the windowsill and landed on the floor.
"Excuse me," I touched his shoulder.
He collapsed.
It was more than a collapse. It was a disintegration accompanied by an unusual and loud noise: the clatter of five or six wooden sticks which had been nailed together. The habit lay on the floor like a deflated tent, and a squashed cushion, which had created the illusion of a head, rolled into a corner. For a moment I experienced a sense of satisfaction. In such circumstances I preferred tricks to mysteries.
The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance Page 21
