The Twisted Wire

by Richard Falkirk

  ‘Why, is there anything particular happening?’ Yosevitz the spy wanted to know in case there was anything to report: Yosevitz the Jew wanted to know because of his involvement.

  ‘Not that I know of, sir.’

  ‘Much news today?’

  ‘Not a great deal, sir. An American businessman was shot dead in the Dead Sea.’

  Yosevitz glanced at the violin case containing his rifle. The shot had synchronised nicely with the burst of fire from the Jordanian hills. He would have to get the rifle back to Jaffa in the evening. Before the party.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Yosevitz said. He poured a cup of tea. ‘Can you see any end to all this?’

  The waiter shrugged, powerful shoulders pushing his jacket out of shape. ‘Not until the terrorists stop attacking us. How can there be? And they won’t stop because Nasser and Hussein aren’t in control any more.’

  ‘You mean the guerrillas are dictating to the Arab leaders?’

  The waiter looked quizzically at Yosevitz. ‘I said the terrorists. Of course they’re dictating. The Lebanese are scared stiff of them. And when Hussein was away El Fatah ordered the shelling of Eilat against his wishes.’

  ‘It sounds very depressing.’

  The waiter said: ‘There will be another war. Another victory for the Jews.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re looking forward to it,’ Yosevitz said.

  The waiter opened the door. ‘I am a soldier,’ he said. ‘We are all soldiers.’ He closed the door.

  Yosevitz put on his wide-lapelled jacket and tightened the knot in his thin tie. He thought of all the expensive suits and silk ties in the hotel. He looked around his fine room and thought of the poverty of the barrack-block of apartments in which he had lived when he was a student at Moscow University. Yosevitz the Communist strapped his pistol under his jacket with deliberation and picked up the violin case.

  But as he left the room he glanced at a copy of the evening newspaper on the bed. At the faces of two Jewish soldiers. Both dead. Yosevitz the schizophrenic walked wearily across the busy foyer to the street. Those who noticed the pale preoccupied young man in the gold-rimmed spectacles carrying a violin case presumed that he was mentally composing. In fact Matthew Yosevitz was debating whether or not to carry out his second killing of the day.

  A hundred yards from the floodlit tourist centre of Jaffa where the most ancient history seemed to be contemporary, Yosevitz sat with two Arabs in a cellar beneath a defunct brothel and listened to the voice of El Fatah broadcast from Cairo.

  Yosevitz understood a little of the broadcast. The two Arabs listened intently, talking excitedly, smoking incessantly. The voice on the radio, exhorting all refugees to rise against the Israelis who had driven them out of their homeland, stopped. A more furtive voice replaced it.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Yosevitz said. The senior of the two El Fatah agents signalled to him to be silent and lit another cigarette. An American cigarette, Yosevitz noted. The voice changed again and the Arab whose name was Hamid switched off the radio.

  Yosevitz said: ‘Well?’

  Hamid said: ‘It was in code. Part of it was addressed to me, Blue Lion, as I am known on these broadcasts.’

  Yosevitz lit an Israeli cigarette. ‘Was there any message for me?’

  Hamid was a powerful man with greying, fuse-wire hair and a Nasser smile. ‘I have been told to leave the Englishman, Bartlett, to you.’

  ‘Good. That simplifies matters.’

  Hamid lit a new cigarette with the stub of the old. ‘I am not too happy about it,’ he said.

  Yosevitz’s words froze into chips of ice. ‘Really, why is that?’

  The second Arab who possessed all the sycophancy of a dirty postcard vendor shrank into the shadows of the dimly lit cellar.

  Hamid said: ‘Because you are a Jew.’

  Yosevitz took out his pistol and fitted the silencer on to the barrel. ‘In case it has escaped you,’ he said, ‘I am also a senior officer in the KGB. I am here as a representative of the Soviet Union to assist the Arab nations regain their heritage. Do you really wish to question my role here?’

  ‘I do not question your ability. But it seems strange that you, a Jew, should be working for our cause.’

  ‘It is impossible to have a Russian national here since the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.’

  ‘Then why not let the Arabs do your work? Our organisation here has a good record. The explosion in the supermarket at Jerusalem – three hundred pounds of TNT and thirty pounds of gelignite – and the bomb at Tel Aviv bus station. All the time our organisation is gaining power.’

  ‘You did lose the war,’ Yosevitz said.

  ‘We did not. The leaders and armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria lost the war. We are the true representatives of the Arab people.’

  Yosevitz weighed the pistol in his hand. The act of killing had never bothered him. He didn’t enjoy it; it was his job – if he didn’t perform the execution then someone else would. In every killing he had perpetrated, the cause had been more important than the person. At the moment Yosevitz the Jew considered the cause of Zionism more important than the life of Hamid the Arab, although he knew he wouldn’t kill him.’Why then do you fight among yourselves?’ he said.

  Hamid spread wide his hands. ‘Every organisation has its disagreements.’ He showed his teeth – half smile, half snarl. ‘Even the Kremlin.’

  Yosevitz put down his gun and polished his spectacles. Once he had wounded a man instead of killing him because the lenses had been blurred. ‘Do you think you could do this job better than me?’

  ‘It is not difficult to kill.’

  ‘There is more to this than killing. The killing is incidental.’ He put his spectacles on again. ‘What is your opinion of the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine?’

  ‘Amateurs,’ Hamid said promptly.

  ‘And you really think that you can all operate as Fedayeem with so much disagreement among you?’

  Hamid said: ‘El Fatah is the true voice of the Arab people. And that is what they feel.’ He pointed to a poster on the wall. It said: This is the way to liberation of my homeland. And so, my brothers, I’ll fight on. Above the caption an Arab commando was disposing singlehanded of four Israeli soldiers.

  The poster, Yosevitz thought, was rather pitiful. He said: ‘First, Hamid – to quote a Western saying – you must put your own house in order.’

  ‘No,’ Hamid said. ‘First we must drive the Israelis into the sea.’

  Once again instincts as old as the prophets stirred within Yosevitz. Casually he pointed the pistol at Hamid’s head.

  Hamid said: ‘There was, by the way, a personal message for you over the radio.’

  Yosevitz lowered the pistol. ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was merely to tell you that your wife and two children were in good health and looking forward to your return to Warsaw.’

  Yosevitz slipped the pistol back into the shoulder holster. Sometimes, he thought, you couldn’t fault the Soviet system.

  He walked back to the tourist centre and caught a cab back to Tel Aviv. As the cab left behind the mosques and mildewed terraces and penetrated the neon aureole of Tel Aviv, Yosevitz the Communist sneered at such flamboyant prosperity; at the same time Yosevitz the Jew revelled in the self-sufficiency of the Promised Land.

  He leaned forwards and told the driver to take him to the apartment block in Gordon Street where the party to which Bartlett had been invited was taking place.

  SEVEN

  There was one bottle of whisky for the foreigners. Soft drinks and coffee for the Israelis. And on the roof terrace a huge hunk of cheese on a table.

  It seemed to Bartlett that there were three main occupations at the party given by some of Raquel’s friends. Dancing, necking, and arguing about politics and the Arab crisis.

  That evening first reports of an Egyptian commando raid across the Canal had been broadcast. There was a suggestion that the comman
dos had slit the throats of sleeping Israeli soldiers; on the terrace some of the girls discussed the raid with emotion approaching hysteria.

  Bartlett tried to talk to Raquel’s friends but after initial pleasantries they lapsed into excited Hebrew. He felt inadequate and unhappy. He took a glass of whisky and a piece of cheese.

  Raquel introduced him to an artist and an author of unspecified works. The author talked monotonously in laboured English about a revival of the stream of consciousness.

  Bartlett said with spurious interest: ‘Have you had any of your novels published?’

  The author said: ‘I am not interested in commercialising my art.’ He headed back into the crowded room where they were dancing to music from Hair.

  Bartlett leaned against the chest-high roof wall and gazed down at the traffic far below. He had spent the afternoon making statements about the killing in the Dead Sea. He had told police about the attempt on his life the night before but they hadn’t been very interested.

  A detective in an open-neck white shirt who reminded Bartlett of one of the original Israeli politicians said: ‘Have you any proof, Mr Bartlett?’

  Bartlett produced the bullet from his pocket.

  The detective examined it without interest and said: ‘Russian.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Israel is full of captured arms and ammunition. As if our young people did not have enough to cause trouble with. The other month some young soldiers robbed a petrol station with their Uzi machine guns. Last week a diamond-polishing factory was held up in Rothschild Boulevard.’

  Bartlett said: ‘I am not interested in your crime statistics. Last night an attempt was made on my life. Today an American was shot dead beside me. I believe that bullet may have been intended for me. And I don’t think it was one of the bullets fired from Jordanian territory because they were grouped together in front of me.’

  The detective put the bullet in an envelope, put the envelope in a pink cardboard folder and wrote Bartlett on it. ‘I ask you,’ he said, ‘why should anyone want to kill you?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Perhaps you would be kind enough to find out for me.’

  ‘We can’t do much unless you can think of a motive, Mr Bartlett.’

  ‘Jealousy?’

  The detective looked at him doubtfully. ‘Jealousy, Mr Bartlett. Why should anyone be jealous of you?’

  Bartlett shrugged. ‘I have been out with an attractive Israeli girl. Her fiancé, perhaps?’

  The detective looked amused. ‘I am telling you – if you go out with other men’s fiancées then you must expect to get shot. It is a Mediterranean custom, you understand.’

  Bartlett said: ‘Do I really look like opposition for a hot-blooded Latin?’

  The detective examined him. Finally he said: ‘You are different, Mr Bartlett. Our girls sometimes get a little tired of tough virile manhood.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bartlett said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Do not be insulted, Mr Bartlett. You are an intelligent man, an attractive man, perhaps, to a certain sort of girl.’ He stood up to indicate that the interview was over. ‘And you also have manners and money that young Israeli men do not possess.’

  Bartlett contemplated a scathing reply. But he did want the police to catch his pursuers. ‘You’ll do your best then?’

  ‘Of course,’ the detective said. ‘Just as Scotland Yard would do its best if an Israeli in London said that an attempt had been made on his life. Although, of course, the motive for such an attempt would be rather easier to understand.’ He pointed at his copy of Maariv.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Merely that there was an attempt to blow up the Zim shipping line office in London. Unfortunately at the moment I cannot think of any motive for an attempt on the life of a British geologist in Tel Aviv.’ He opened the door of his office. ‘Unless of course it is jealousy – and I think we can discount that. Provided of course you have told me all the truth, Mr Bartlett.’

  On the street below a cab pulled up and a man alighted. Another guest, Bartlett presumed. The sky was thickly smeared with stars; in the distance there was a steady drone of aircraft engines.

  In the lounge Raquel was dancing with an Israeli with brown muscular arms and a lot of hair curling from the open neck of his grey woollen shirt. He had both arms round Raquel’s waist. Bartlett was perturbed by a tremor of jealousy. On the wall Moshe Dayan in oils, elfin-eared and black-patched, smiled approvingly at his young lions at play.

  The group in which Raquel had left Bartlett was discussing the behaviour of extreme orthodox Jews. During the week a gang of them had wrecked the apartment of a Jewish pathologist from the United States who had carried out post-mortems in a hospital in Israel.

  A bouncy, aggressive girl said: ‘They are crazy people. They have no feeling for Israel. They should have all power taken from them.’ She cut herself a large portion of cheese and stuck it in her mouth. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Bartlett said. ‘Of course they should.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

  ‘I don’t know much about the ins and outs of the Jewish religion.’

  ‘You’re American?’

  ‘No, British.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, as if that explained his ignorance. ‘My brother was killed by the British. Just after the last world war. He was trying to smuggle immigrants into Israel. You know – Exodus and all that.’

  ‘I’ve read the book,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘I don’t hold any of this against you,’ she said. ‘We like the British.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘We learned a lot from you.’

  ‘So did everyone,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘Have you heard the news tonight?’

  ‘About the Egyptian commando raid?’

  She nodded. ‘Don’t you worry, my friend. For every Israeli soldier killed three Egyptians will die.’ She sipped rapidly at her glass of fizzy orange. ‘I promise you.’ Her voice broke with emotion.

  Bartlett felt very English and unemotional and inadequate. ‘I’m sure you will,’ he said.

  ‘But it doesn’t matter to you, of course.’

  ‘It does,’ he said. ‘But not as much as it matters to you.’

  ‘Are you pro-Arab?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘A lot of people in Britain are.’

  ‘A minority.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve read.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what you’ve read.’

  Raquel returned with her hairy-chested partner. He had a friendly white smile and shook hands as if he were gripping a bucking machine gun. ‘This is my very good friend Elisha,’ Raquel said. ‘He was a colonel in the Army. Now he paints. Those are some of his paintings on the wall.’ She pointed at a series of cubist patterns surrounding Moshe Dayan. ‘What do you think of them, Thomas?’

  ‘It was, he reflected, the first time she had called him by his first name. It also occurred to him that she was trying to make Elisha jealous. ‘They’re very … virile,’ he said.

  Elisha said: ‘What do you do, Mr Bartlett?’

  ‘I’m a geologist,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘That must be very interesting,’ Elisha said. Bartlett knew from experience that this observation was often the end of the conversation. He nodded and reached for the whisky bottle on a table on the terrace. The need for a second drink made him feel decadent amongst so much cheese and mineral water.

  Another young man with very curly hair and curly sideburns joined them, serious and unspeaking.

  Raquel said: ‘This is Shlomo. He is a poet. He only speaks when the words come to him.’ Her voice became confidential. ‘If he does not like you he will leave.’

  ‘And if I don’t like him?’

  Raquel smiled suddenly. ‘Let’s dance,’ she said. ‘They’re playing an oldie.’

  Not so old, he thought. Fly Me to the Moon. He remembered dancing
it once with his wife on their wedding anniversary in Churchills. Before he had realised the truth. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ he said.

  ‘Who, Shlomo?’

  ‘No, Elisha.’

  Her cheek was against his. ‘He was once,’ she said. ‘We were on the same Kibbutz together. But you can get some very false relationships in the Kibbutzen. People are thrown together whether they like it or not.’

  ‘And you didn’t like it?’

  ‘I didn’t mind it,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t love him. But that was a long time ago.’

  He wanted to ask her if she had slept with him. But the question would be masochistic – and impertinent.

  Around them couples nestled close together. Kissing, fondling, hardly moving. Watched by the one bright-painted eye of Moshe Dayan.

  Raquel followed his gaze. ‘A great man,’ she said.

  Bartlett nodded.

  ‘Every girl has a photograph of him on their wall. They love him, you see.’

  The music changed and the aggressive girl with the agitated breasts began to dance beside them with Shlomo the poet. Shlomo moved his arms vaguely but didn’t speak.

  ‘Let’s go back on the terrace,’ Bartlett said.

  All the cheese had gone but the whisky bottle was still half full. Bartlett poured some more in his glass.

  Raquel said: ‘You drink too much.’

  ‘Not really,’ Bartlett said. ‘But I don’t feel too sure of myself here tonight.’

  ‘You don’t like my friends,’ Raquel said dramatically.

  ‘I don’t dislike them. It’s just that they’re all much younger than me.’

  ‘You sound like an old man and you’re not. I think your wife has made you feel older than you are. What is she like?’

  ‘I told you once – she’s beautiful.’

  ‘That tells me nothing. What sort of beauty is it? I should think she is blonde and very pale. Not the full-blooded beauty of an Israeli girl.’

  ‘I thought,’ Bartlett said, ‘that you wanted to talk about soil irrigation and the geology of the Negev.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘So we will talk about soil irrigation. But not at a party. Am I right already in my description of your wife?’