by Y. I. Latz
She started to scream. Her screams were clearly audible, but they did not infiltrate my paralysis. I continued to grip the wheel.
She beat me with her fists, scratched and slapped me.
I didn’t move.
“You son of a biiiiitch!” she continued to scream, her nails embedding themselves deep in my arm. “You crazy son of a bitch!”
Rioters of various ages stopped some distance away from us. They were holding burning torches in their hands.
Suddenly, she changed her approach. She burst out in tears. “Please. I beg you. Go. Go. Go.”
The militants were as surprised as she was that I hadn’t quickly started the car and taken off. They merely shook their fists at us, calling out “Allahu akbar,” and “Itbach al yahud,” but they dared come no closer.
Perhaps they were wary of a bitter surprise.
Shin let go of me. Weeping. She cried quietly, almost soundlessly.
An especially large rock shattered the back windshield. Shards of glass scattered inside. Through the broken window, a burning torch was thrown in, followed by a Molotov cocktail. The back seat caught on fire. It had been thirty years since I last saw a Molotov cocktail from up close.
But I knew it was about to explode.
I opened the door next to me and leaped out.
The moment I landed on the road, the back seat ignited fully and the flames got higher.
Shin remained sitting in the jeep.
I couldn’t understand why she didn’t follow me now that the way out was clear.
I heard explosions. I dove into a drainage ditch full of filth. The calls of “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” grew louder around me. From afar, I heard the wailing of police sirens.
The rioters were not impressed. They didn’t come closer to the jeep, but continued to shower it with anything they could get their hands on, including wooden beams and iron poles.
I counted internally.
One—
Two—
Three—
I jumped up from the ditch back toward the jeep, from which a thick plume of smoke was rising.
I found Shin sitting in her seat in a pose identical to the one in which I had left her. Her forehead and chin were bleeding. Due to the smoke and darkness, I couldn’t determine whether her eyes were open or closed.
But she was breathing. I was certain of that. I grabbed hold of her arms and tried to pull her out. I couldn’t. She was still wearing her seat belt. I unbuckled it. The smoke got in my eyes and my mouth. I choked. My eyes were teary. I tried again. I noticed that her right foot was snagged, I couldn’t see on what. I tried to move her chair back. I couldn’t find the latch. I was engulfed by heat and smoke.
I wheezed.
An explosion echoed all around me.
I fell and rolled back out of the jeep. The wheezing wouldn’t stop even for a moment. I tried to fill my lungs with air.
I panicked—
For a moment, I thought I couldn’t breathe.
I remembered—
Her cell phone!
The entire correspondence between us was on it.
Including the India fabrication—
And the camera!
We’d taken selfies in compromising positions.
Come on!
I went back.
Out of my mind.
The fear of the information concealed in her possessions overcame the fear inspired by the masked militants.
I found the camera in her purse. She was holding the phone. This, too, was an easy task. Her hold was limp. One yank and I had it.
I leaped out. Gulped the air in.
The jeep was illuminated by flames.
I peered inside. Shin’s head was slumped to the left. She looked at me. Appeared to be tracking my actions. The expression in her dark eyes was easy to identify, if only because it had never been there before.
Pleading—
Her neck glittered. Some object was glowing at me in the fire burning all around.
My God.
It was the gift I’d given her.
H. Stern—
I went back in. Ignoring the diabolical flames, the exploding sparks, the cries urging murder.
I strove toward my destination.
I was blocked.
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me—
She fought me. Wouldn’t let me remove the necklace from her neck. She was half unconscious, but she wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t remove the earrings from her ears, either. The wobble of her head played in my favor. I managed to extract the earrings. I quickly tucked them into my pocket.
There was still the matter of the necklace—
Suddenly, she took hold of my arm. It was an iron grip. I couldn’t break free.
I was taken by surprise—
With her final resources, she was preventing me from ripping the necklace off her neck. I had one last option.
I raised her other arm and brought it to my mouth.
I bit into it.
As hard as I could.
A proper mouthful—
I was truly “eating” the living flesh.
Her flesh.
◊◊◊
She let out a long yelp. Let go of me. One tug—and I was holding the necklace. The momentum made me lose my balance. My head hit the inner doorframe. A sharp pain spread through my body. I had no time to think about it. My head was spinning.
When I raised myself to my knees in the smoke-filled jeep, I burned myself by touching a piece of molten metal. I screamed in pain and surprise. I forced my way out, tripped, rolled on the asphalt and only came to a stop in the drainage ditch.
At that moment, the jeep went up in flames. Sparks were flying everywhere.
From inside, I heard a scream—
It was the mother of all screams—
I didn’t hear the attackers’ voices. But I did hear the siren of a police jeep. It rolled up behind us. The rioters began to flee in every direction.
I swiftly took off in the opposite direction. My backpack on my back. My open wounds stung with every step. I didn’t care. At the end of the alley, I started running. The slope was an engine supporting me. With its help, I was soaring on the wings of eagles.
I had no thoughts in my head except one.
To reach her apartment before the police did.
To remove the last piece of incriminating evidence against me.
Her laptop—
I forgot all about the Hemingway book I had bought for her.
I would pay the price for that.
* * *
7 PLO, or the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was founded in 1964 with the purpose of the “liberation of Palestine” through armed struggle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I’m In the Crosshairs
That same night, 2:00 a.m., my rented room on Sheinkin.
My wife and our daughter called. Their nerves were frayed, but they were also elated. They had news. They were living in a backpackers’ guesthouse, owned by an ex-Israeli. He was familiar with their story, and claimed he could ensure Neta’s release by bribing various elements. He had done it before, with major success, to help countless Israeli travelers who had gotten into various kinds of trouble.
His asking price: thirty thousand dollars.
They rejected my claim that this was an excessive sum for such a minor offense. Both of them screamed at me together, demanding I obtain the money from the kibbutz as a loan and transfer it to them as soon as possible.
They extracted a promise from me.
◊◊◊
Four days had passed since the jeep incident in Jerusalem. My anxiety was unrelenting.
The media coverage was laconic:
“A foreign citizen was very severely wounded as a result of a Molotov cocktail thrown at her vehicle in Mt. Scopus and was admitted to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Police are looking into the circumstances of the case.”
I was worried for her well-being and worried about myself. I feared the moment she would recoup and talk about my role in her serious injury.
I repressed the distress my daughter and wife were experiencing in Colombia.
Three days later, another brief story appeared.
“Police investigators are currently looking into a lead indicating the foreign citizen who was severely wounded as a result of a Molotov cocktail tossed at her vehicle in Mt. Scopus was robbed after the event.”
A call came on Wednesday.
Shin’s husband called me. That was how the man on the phone identified himself.
I hadn’t known that she was married—
He told me he had arrived from the States especially in order to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit, bringing their two daughters with him. He asked to meet me.
His reasoning made sense. Shin was in grave condition, sedated and on life support. I was her closest friend, as she had told him in the emails she sent to the States and as her good friend Jennifer the journalist had also told him. He and their daughters would like to hear about the last days preceding her grievous injury.
My anxiety deepened even further.
I tried to evade his request.
He insisted. His calls became more frequent and more oppressive.
Finally, I relented.
We made an appointment to meet in the lobby of Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv.
I was surprised by his appearance. A white American man, tall and fat. A true mountain of a man. In contrast, his daughters were slim and dark eyed, resembling their mother.
They did not arrive alone.
They were accompanied by someone else who had not been mentioned over the phone. He introduced himself. Peter from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.
They listened with unreadable expressions as I showered her with compliments. I painted a glowing picture, as if that would obscure my relationship with her, taking care to suppress any suspicious details. They seemed grateful and did not harass me with questions. The stress I was under began to dissipate. I realized I had been worrying in vain. This was an innocent meeting, concealing nothing. My suspicions had been baseless.
But then—
A moment before I said goodbye to them, Peter from the embassy signaled the father and his daughters to walk toward the exit, while he took hold of my arm. He nodded at me to indicate he wanted to allow the father and his daughters to move out of hearing range.
He let go of me.
“You don’t happen to know what Professor Shin did with three important items that have been missing from her effects since she was injured, and which were not found in her apartment or among the remains of the burned-out jeep—a cell phone, a camera, and a laptop?”
I quickly shrugged, as if saying, how am I connected to all that?
“You were there with her,” he stated simply.
“Where?!”
“In Jerusalem. In the jeep.”
“No!”
“I didn’t want to tell her husband,” he said. “You know what men are like. Why should I put bad thoughts in his head, especially considering the state she’s in?”
“I wasn’t there!” I insisted on denying.
He examined me, seeming to assess my answer. “About the missing possessions of our mutual friend. Sometimes you should think twice before giving one bad answer.”
I turned to leave.
He followed me.
“Your daughter got in trouble in Colombia,” he said.
I stopped. Turned to him. My expression querying.
“Professor Shin Il Jong told me about it before she was injured,” he said. “We’re old friends. I’m sure she told you she has a good friend in Colombia who could help you. Another professor like her, who works in our embassy in Bogota and is especially well connected in the local government.”
He continued, “You’re not an American citizen, and neither is your daughter, or your wife. What made you think the U.S. government should be helping you?”
“Professor Shin promised,” I mumbled, unsure where he was going with this.
He went on. “Just like the Israeli Embassy in Nepal or Mumbai wouldn’t intervene on behalf of a young American who might get in trouble over there.”
I kept silent. Examining the situation. Searching for the best way to proceed.
He beat me to it. “But I’m curious. On a personal level. Why do you think I’m the person to go to?”
I play the innocent. “You work at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. Shin’s friend works at the American Embassy in Bogota.”
He leaned in toward my ear, talking slowly, his southern accent growing more prominent. “Professor Shin and her husband are eminent citizens in the U.S. Her severe injuries are a source of pain for all of us: for her, her family members, the American people as a whole—and me personally. I knew her. It’s always harder when you know someone.”
My mind was roiling—
He grabbed my arm in a vise-like grip. A casual observer would have thought we were having an innocent, friendly conversation. “I’ll tell you what, my good friend,” he said. “I recommend you look through your things again. You might have put her possessions in your bag, maybe by mistake, maybe absent-mindedly. Under those circumstances, I would have done the exact same thing. Look again. Okay? Maybe in your home? Maybe at the military kitchen? Huh? Look again?”
His grip was hurting me. There was a threat inherent in it. I couldn’t apply counterforce without it being interpreted as an insult.
He continued. “Those possessions are important to her family. They’re worthless to anyone else. I can promise you that if you ultimately manage to find what’s so important to her family, I will personally make every effort to act on your daughter’s behalf in Colombia, and bring her back home, safe and sound.”
“And if I can’t find them?” I asked.
“I’m sure you will,” he said confidently. He let go of my arm and looked directly into my eyes. “I have a strong feeling you’ll find them now.”
◊◊◊
The following morning.
I spent that night as well in my rented room in Tel Aviv. Smadar’s father woke me with a phone call at a quarter to six. He was calling from the kibbutz, frightened.
“Your house is a complete mess. As if there’s been an earthquake,” he told me. “There was a break-in. What is the world coming to? A break-in in a kibbutz. I suggest you get here as quickly as possible.”
I went into the kitchen. I was surprised to see Mali there. She was never awake at these hours. Her eyes were red. The laptop was open in front of her. She pointed at the screen.
“The Israeli consul in Mumbai was murdered tonight in the course of an attempted robbery of his home. The two robbers managed to escape. The investigation revealed they had not had time to take anything.”
His name was mentioned later in the story. It sounded familiar. For a moment, I didn’t know why.
I was overcome by a wave of heat—
Humi Levine.
◊◊◊
I arrived at our home in the north two hours later.
It was indeed in a state of utter chaos. There was no drawer or shelf whose contents hadn’t been tossed to the floor, including in Neta’s room and in the kitchen.
I found three police officers and about half of the kibbutz members in my house. Word had spread quickly. Break-ins are a rare matter in our kibbutz. They had come to observe this wonder from up close.
The senior police officer sat me down in the kitchen. “We haven’t had this kind of break-in in our district for many y
ears now,” he said, opening his laptop. “Not just in a kibbutz like yours, but in the entire district, including the major cities in the area. The bastards did a thorough job. If you ask me, these are professionals, and they’re not from around here. They didn’t just happen to break into your house. They were looking for something specific. Maybe a safe, maybe jewelry, maybe money. Now we come to my questions. Do you have any security cameras in the house? A secret safe? Special jewelry? Money? A personal weapon?”
“No!”
“Are you sure? What’s your profession?”
“Cook. A citizen employed by the military.”
“Just so you know. If you’re not open with me, I can’t note what was stolen in my report, and you won’t be able to submit a claim to the insurance company.”
“We don’t keep a safe, special jewelry or money in the house.”
“Computers?”
“I had my laptop with me; the two desktops are still where they usually are. They didn’t even touch the TV sets.”
“Where’s your wife?”
“With our daughter in South America.” I told him a half-truth.
“Could you at least speculate what they wanted to steal? They were after something, after all.”
He accompanied me on a walk through the house. Skipped with me over clothes, blankets, winter coats, toys.
The house looked as if it had been bombed. The entire contents of the storage space had been tossed onto the bathroom floor. I found objects I hadn’t seen for years. All of Smadar’s jewelry was in the bedroom. Apparently, nothing was missing.
“That’s weird,” the policeman said again and again. “They turned their nose at stealing simple jewelry like this. These are snobby thieves. What exactly were they expecting to find in the house of a cook who lives on a kibbutz?”
Another cop who had been collecting fingerprints arrived to whisper something in his ear.
“Weird,” ‘my’ cop repeated. “We couldn’t find even a single fingerprint. Did I not tell you these guys were Grade A professionals?”
He gazed at me, waiting for confirmation, then continued. “Do you have enemies? Has someone been threatening you? Do you owe anyone money? Any new conflicts in your life? Do you have another theory? A suspicion? Any kind of lead? Is there anyone in particular you want us to question?”
