I Am Not a Traitor: A psychological thriller about an army veteran with a huge secret
Page 14
“We have enough money!” I said irately.
“I know.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“That is the problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I said I know we have money. You didn’t ask me how I knew.”
“How you knew what?”
“That we have money.”
“Are you asking where our money comes from?”
“No. Yes. I’m asking why you aren’t asking how I know that we have money.”
“How do you know?”
“You tell me.”
“We both work.”
“Both of us together don’t bring home more than three to four thousand dollars net. We have one daughter, two cars, you only wear designer clothes and insist that I do the same, we travel abroad every year. Not only do we not have an overdraft at the bank, but we have savings, and our house is equipped with the best of everything. The members of the kibbutz are talking. Which indicates that my question is legitimate. Do you agree? Where does the money come from?”
“Usually, people complain about the opposite.”
“I’m not ‘people.’ I’m your wife.”
She was holding a stack of papers in her hand, and a large gray business envelope. She dropped one of the pages, which fell at my feet. I didn’t need to pick it up to know what it was. The envelope bore the logo of a British bank. Like other, similar envelopes, it had been haphazardly hidden on a shelf behind some heavy books. They’d been there for years now, and she’d never noticed them.
“Do you have a bank account in the States I don’t know about?” she asked.
I stared at her blankly.
I had my reasons.
I knew that a new complication, just as bad as the others, was about to descend upon me.
“That’s what it says,” she noted, waving one of the bank printouts.
I continued to stare.
At this hour, I couldn’t think clearly and react with outrage.
In fact, I didn’t have the energy to react at all.
“You’re not looking at me,” she complained.
“I’m listening.”
“Do you have a private, secret bank account in the United States?” she asked, the threat audible in her voice.
“No,” I chose to deny mindlessly.
I was well aware that denial is a villain’s refuge.
“Liar.”
She’d never spoken to me that way before.
“So what’s this? Huh?!” She shoved a pile of official documents in my lap.
Good lord!
She kept one of them for herself, waving it in front of my eyes and pointing at the address listed at the bottom. “You can read it yourself. Jersey.”
I didn’t need to read it.
I knew—
My wife had discovered a secret that I had done a good job of keeping for thirty years.
◊◊◊
“It’s not the United States,” I corrected her. How idiotic of me. As if that was the issue.
“What are you babbling about? New Jersey isn’t in the United States?”
“It’s Jersey.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s an island between France and England.”
“I’ve never heard of an island like that. Be careful. I hope, for your sake, this isn’t one of your many stories. Wait, don’t you dare disappear. I’m Googling it.”
She left, and then returned.
“You’re right. It’s an island. Have you ever been there?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I know about it?”
“I was in the area during one of our submarine missions.”
“You got off the submarine and went straight to the bank?”
“You know it’s not like that,” I chuckled without smiling.
“Well, what’s the deal?”
“What do you mean?”
“The money. Where does it come from?”
I stayed quiet. I had to reply quickly. But what would I say? Over the years, I’d memorized preconceived answers for most emergencies like this. But she had never asked, and I had kept the answers to myself.
“Are you smuggling merchandise?”
“What?!”
“You’re actually a kind of seaman, after all. When I was a kid, there were stores and stalls in downtown Haifa that sold merchandise smuggled by seamen. Jeans, Ray-Ban sunglasses, windbreakers. Are you one of them?”
“You know I’m not!”
“Drugs?”
“How dare you?”
“Your heavy British accent is coming back again.”
“I don’t! Have! Any! Heavy! British! Accent!”
“Listen for yourself.”
“Noooooo!”
“You’re scared. What are you so scared of?”
“I’m. Not.”
“Never mind that, then. Let’s go back to the money. It didn’t appear all by itself and it also doesn’t grow on trees. Where did it come from?”
My mind finally grew clearer, my fatigue evaporating. There was no point in continuing to deny it all. I could see she was determined to drill down and uncover the truth.
But what “truth” would satisfy her without risking our marriage, and perhaps my life?
“The money is from my parents in London,” I replied slowly, coming up with my answer in real time. “You know that my parents have given us money every once in a while.”
“I know they sent us checks by mail directly to the kibbutz, twice a year, just before Jewish New Year and Passover, and always small sums. It was never more than a thousand pounds. Since when have they been transferring money to your private account in New Jersey?”
“Not New Jersey, but the island of Jersey.”
The fingernails of my one hand embedded themselves in the other. I had to take care not to get the answers wrong. Every word was crucial. Who would have thought that, of all people, my wife would end up being the one to discover my secret? And all due to my carelessness and excessive confidence.
“How much money is in that account?” she asked, interrogating.
“I don’t exactly know.”
“Is it pounds? Euros?”
“Euros.”
“A thousand? Five thousand? Ten thousand?”
“I don’t know.”
“More or less?”
“More.”
“How much more?”
“I told you, I don’t exactly know.”
“You expect me to believe you have a foreign currency account in Jersey or New Jersey—I really don’t care which one it is—and you don’t know how much money is in there? And after all these years together, you also don’t think you should share this information with your wife?”
“I don’t know! I don’t! Know! I dooooooon’t! Knoooooow!”
“It says 987,000 euro here. I can read, you know. At first I panicked. I thought it was a negative balance. That, God forbid, you owe a million euro. Then I read it again. Very carefully this time. I get it. You have close to a million euro there. A million! For heaven’s sake, how does a cook like you have a million euro on the side?! That’s more than a million dollars! I remember your parents. They were crazy about our Neta. If they had even a tenth of that sum, they’d give it to her directly, and not put it in some shady account of yours in a shady bank on a shady island without me, your beloved wife, knowing a thing about it.”
For the first time, the chirp of crickets reached my ears.
She continued. “Therefore, I’m repeating the question. This time, try to focus and answer me in your Israeli accent and not your heavy British one. If it’s not drugs and smuggled jeans, where did all that money come from?”
<
br /> I had to placate her.
Quickly!
But how would I come up with an explanation that would satisfy her? All of this did have an explanation. It was somewhat twisted, but it was time she heard it. She was my wife. She was right. She deserved to know.
My face was burning like a hot flame. “Where are you off to?” she asked, her voice even harsher than it had been thus far. “I’m not done with you yet.”
I was breathing heavily—
“You still insist that your parents were the ones who deposited the money?”
“Yes,” I replied stupidly.
“That’s your final answer?” she asked, like the detectives in the police procedurals on TV.
“Yes.”
“Before your parents passed away, they told me the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
She let out a sigh of despair. “I don’t have the energy to deal with you. Do you intend to keep playing these games?”
I didn’t answer. I went into the house. She followed me.
She resumed speaking. “They told me they’d never deposited money in your account. In fact, you were the one who was regularly depositing money in their account—thousands of pounds every year—and demanding that they use it freely for their needs, such as medical care and so on.”
I had to think—
Quickly—
“You know what the most absurd thing I found out was?” she continued. “Your father told me you asked them to buy the gifts they gave their granddaughter twice a year with the money you transferred regularly into their account.”
My mind was empty of any possible replies—
She yawned tiredly. “I assume you’re not going to give me a reasonable explanation.”
I let out a series of coughs.
The coughing was real. The air wasn’t entering my lungs.
I was leaping from foot to foot in an attempt to inhale.
My wife stood across from me, watching my behavior, perplexed. What did she think, that this was another one of my tricks? A dirty thought flashed through my mind. Could she be awaiting my death?
Finally, she came to her senses and slapped me on the back. I threw up. I fell to my knees in the middle of the kitchen and threw up.
A terrible smell began to engulf me.
My clothes were filthy.
My head was hanging down like a dog’s head.
Paradoxically, it was actually there and then that my mind grew clearer than it had been for many days.
I knew what I had to do.
The time had come to tell her my story.
My decision cheered me up.
I opened my mouth.
Instead of emitting any sound, a new stream of vomit erupted from me.
I resumed standing at her feet on all fours like a dog. The only thing lacking was the bark.
Chapter Fifteen
A Sign of Life from Neta
We didn’t have time to sleep much.
The ringing of the phone woke us up at dawn.
Smadar was the first to reach it. She listened for a moment and then let out a scream of joy.
Our Neta had been located in Colombia.
“Rescue Ralph” had been the one to pull it off. It turned out that Neta had sustained minor injuries in a car accident, and had spent the last few days in a hospital in the city of Medellín in north Colombia.
Ralph gave us the hospital’s name: Hospital Marco Fidel Suárez. He also noted the name of the ward, the bed number, the ward’s phone number and the name of the nurse in charge, who he said would be happy to call our Neta to the phone.
Her cell phone was constantly turned off for some reason, he mentioned.
Smadar showered him with thanks and compliments of the kind she hadn’t bestowed on me for years now.
We hurried to go online. Where was Medellín? We checked the time difference, but decided to ignore it. We called the phone number we were given. It was evening in Colombia.
The nurse at the hospital in Medellín didn’t speak English, but she understood what we wanted. She hurried to call Neta over. During the next two minutes, we were tearing out our hair anxiously.
“I can’t stand it anymore,” Smadar mumbled.
We heard Neta’s voice. It was different than we expected, cold and alienated. She was surprised to hear from us. She didn’t sound enthusiastic. Said she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Almost angry at us for getting her out of bed. She spoke laconically. Reluctantly told us what had happened. She had “just” been injured in a minor traffic accident and was “only” suffering from a mild head injury. The worst was already behind her. In a few more days, she would be discharged from the hospital and continue on her trip. And actually, she complained, how had we found out about it, and who had already “snitched”? She hadn’t wanted to worry us, and now, in light of our hysterical reaction, she was certain she’d been right.
Smadar wept. Both in joy and due to our daughter’s cold reaction. She wouldn’t end the conversation before she had extracted a promise from Neta that from now on, she would remain in daily contact with us, using any method she chose.
Neta promised. I knew this was a promise written on sand.
“When are you being discharged from the hospital? Where are you going next?” we asked several times before receiving an answer.
We understood why she was in no hurry to answer, and her reply, even when it did come, was mumbled half-heartedly and in a confused manner.
A new sort of anxiety flooded us—
The police had confiscated her passport, and in fact, she was prohibited from leaving the confines of the hospital.
◊◊◊
Dawn rose.
The submarines!
I burst into the living room. I wanted to take the many photos of the vessels off the walls before the American TV reporter arrived.
Smadar prevented me from doing so. “Stop being so hysterical,” she berated me, annoyed. “No one except you is interested in submarines. Leave them where they are. I won’t let you leave stains on my walls when important guests are on their way!”
Two hours later, our home became an improvised television studio. At least ten technicians and photographers were moving around with their equipment. The interview site changed numerous times until the members of the technical crew selected the garden behind the house, in a shady corner between the lemon tree and the loquat tree.
The interview itself began only around noon. I tried to avoid it. I explained to Smadar that I was not permitted to be interviewed without authorization in advance from the fleet commanders, from field security personnel and from IDF’s Spokesperson Unit.
“You’re a cook, right?” she fixed her gaze upon me. I wasn’t sure if she was asking seriously or joking.
“All of a sudden you don’t know that I’m a cook?”
“Well, then, I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“I’m the chef for the Israeli Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet!”
“Calm down, okay? No one’s interested in your nuclear submarines, and if you don’t keep bringing them up in every single conversation, no one will notice them, either. All we want to do is provide an example of a noble Israeli. What could be wrong with that?”
What could be wrong with that…?
My wife meant well. I knew that. But if anyone knew that good intentions could bring on fatal results, it was certainly me.
◊◊◊
The TV reporter arrived separately from the technical crew. She was driving a red Suzuki Jeep on her own. A polished, plump blonde around our age, with an incredibly friendly attitude.
“I’m Jennifer Stewart,” she introduced herself directly. “Or just ‘Jennifer’ for short, but definitely not ‘Jenny.’”
“That’s Margaret, and this is Johnson, the dog you two saved,” she explained. “Her tragic death in a traffic accident has been breaking news over the last few hours in the States. She was a wonderful poet who wrote wonderful poems.”
I recognized her. The woman in the photo was the dead diplomat. A younger version of the elderly woman I had seen during her last moments in the smashed car. And the dog was indeed “our” Johnson.
Our guest made herself at home. She took off her high heels and remained in her nylon stockings. Only once she was done did she ask, “Is that okay?”
“Of course,” my wife said pleasantly, charmed by the guest.
A moment later, she whispered to me, “She’s lo-ve-ly! Don’t you think?”
Jennifer walked around our living room as if she were an old friend. She peered at the pictures on the wall, examining a few of them closely.
I followed her like a shadow. I was as tense as could be. There was no mistaking the expression on my face. Hostility, good and proper.
To my relief, she skipped over the submarines, displaying no interest in them. She lingered over a photo of our daughter that was taken a few years ago at a national park. “Is she yours? What a cutie. Why don’t I see her brothers or sisters here? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. What is she up to these days?”
Smadar hurried to reply. “She’s on a trip in South America. She was just injured in a car accident. Nothing serious, much to our relief. We’ve located her in a hospital and talked to her.”
“Young people bounce back so quickly,” Jennifer responded. “Unlike us. But why do you look sad?”
Smadar replied honestly. “Jennifer—I can call you Jennifer, right? You work for an American global TV network. Do you have any representatives in Colombia? I mean, reporters with connections to the regime who might help?”
“Help with what?”
“Our daughter. The police over there took her passport. It’s unclear why. And our daughter is also prohibited from leaving the hospital. We don’t have an explanation for that, either.”