by Y. I. Latz
“No.”
“Classified army documents? Photos?”
“No. I already told you. I’m a cook.”
“I see photos of missile boats.”
“I’m a Navy cook.”
“On the missile boat flotilla?”
“Submarines.”
“Why don’t I see photos of submarines?”
He was right.
I froze—
I waited for the cops to leave. On their way out, one of them told me, “We’ll report this to Navy Field Security, anyway.”
After they cleared out, I hurried back to our living room. I stood facing our possessions, which were strewn all over. I examined them, appalled, as if they were my spilled-out guts. Some of the framed photos were hanging in their usual spots, while others were spread out on the carpet and the couches.
Several of them were missing.
The submarines—
The picture grew clearer.
How had I not realized immediately.
The American!
Peter.
◊◊◊
The next day, at the Navy’s Field Security Bureau in HaKirya base in Tel Aviv. They left me hanging in the hallway for three hours. When they finally invited me in, it was late in the afternoon and my nerves were already shot.
The meeting had been scheduled over the phone the previous evening. They sounded irate. Threatened they wouldn’t be leaving any more messages and that if I did not show up voluntarily, they would be “employing all legal and disciplinary measures at their disposal, including arrest and withholding the compensation package following my layoff.”
I thought they intended to interrogate me about the affair of the Navy mole, as they had done to many before me at the base, or about the mysterious home invasion, which the police officer had said he would report to them.
I prepared my answers.
I was wrong.
Two officers, both lieutenant colonels, were waiting for me in a narrow office. “Did you recently give a media interview?” they asked.
“No way.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Not even to American TV?”
“Oh. That. About a dog. It was nothing.”
“Then you admit you were interviewed?”
“‘Interviewed’ is overstating it. I answered a few questions.”
They placed a signed document on the table.
“Is that your signature at the bottom?”
Although I recognized my signature immediately, I examined it attentively, as if it had been forged.
“Yes,” I finally said.
“What is this document?”
“A confidentiality agreement.”
“And the signature?”
“Mine.”
“Despite committing to confidentiality and signing the agreement, you admit to having been interviewed.”
“About a dog!”
“You speak good English, right?”
I nodded.
They produced a laptop from a military-style backpack. A video played on the screen, featuring two newscasters on an American TV network. One of the officers fast-forwarded. The screen showed familiar houses, surrounded by paths and trees. My kibbutz. Next came a parade of assorted kibbutz members of various ages. I knew all of them personally. All of them had been interviewed.
I wondered when all this could have taken place.
They talked Hebrew, but had been dubbed in English. Talking about me. Each of them contributed a sentence, or half a sentence. Much of their statements had clearly been edited out. The way they portrayed me made me cringe in my seat until I was as tiny as a dot:
I played a senior role in the Navy’s submarine fleet—
I was a personal friend of the deputy director of the Mossad—
I was a senior operative in Israeli intelligence, and often went abroad on covert missions in hostile countries, masquerading as a cook—
I was the true target of the terrorist attack in Mombasa—
It was thanks to my heroism that the Mombasa terror attack claimed only a handful of victims—
The officers paused the movie.
“What do you say about that?”
“It’s a pile of nonsense by people who talk faster than they think,” I said sanctimoniously.
“Why would they say what they’re saying here?”
“Have you ever lived on a kibbutz?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Once you do, you’ll get it.”
They quoted from the page in their hands.
“Do you play a senior role in the submarine unit?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Are you a senior operative in Israeli intelligence who often goes abroad on covert missions in hostile countries, masquerading as a cook?”
“Hilarious.”
“Were you the true target of the terrorist attack in Mombasa?”
“Come on, really.”
“Was it thanks to your heroism that the Mombasa terror attack claimed only a handful of victims?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
They weren’t.
“Are you planning to leave the country soon?”
“No. Why?”
“Will you let us know in advance if you intend to do so?”
“Obviously. No doubt about it. Can I go?”
“No,” they replied seriously. “We’re done with you for now. But they aren’t.”
They took off.
I was surprised.
They left me all alone. I was flooded by every conceivable bad thought.
A few minutes later, two women in their forties came in. By now, it was nighttime. Women?
“We’re investigators with the General Security Service,” they said, placing a pile of binders and a laptop on the table between us. “Do you want coffee? Tea? To use the bathroom?”
I looked at them in wonderment. They didn’t look like investigators, and definitely not like Shin Bet. They took chocolate wafers out of their bags, as well as a tin of simple instant coffee.
“No,” I replied impatiently. “Let’s just keep going and get this over with quickly.”
“Not that quickly,” they commented, as if talking to themselves. “Are you a friend of Professor Shin Il Jong?”
I chose to stick to the facts.
“Sort of.”
“How did you two meet?”
I described the part that Jennifer, the American reporter, had played in introducing us.
“How did Professor Shin Il Jong know that you work for the Israeli Navy’s submarine fleet?”
“She didn’t.”
“But you told her.”
“Her friend, the American journalist, was the one who told her.”
“Did you tell her what you do for the Navy?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A cook.”
“Did she ask you whom you feed?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
“Soldiers.”
“Which soldiers?”
“Hungry ones.”
“Don’t be a smartass. Try a different answer.”
“Enlisted men and officers, regular forces and reserve forces.”
“You’re being a smartass again.”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Where do the soldiers you feed serve?”
“On the submarines.”
“Good. We see that you can get it right when you want to. You didn’t report your meeting to the Navy’s security officer.”
“I had nothing to report.”
“Y
ou should have reported the meeting.”
“I meet lots of people.”
“Not all of them are CIA agents, we imagine. Or maybe you’d rather pretend you’re surprised?”
CIA—
The explicit use of this acronym made a shiver run through me.
They whispered among themselves.
“That was the introduction. Now let’s move on to the main part,” they said, giving me an unpleasant shock. “Your mother tongue is English, right? Can you translate this document into simple Hebrew for us?”
They handed me a photocopied document. It looked officially and authentically American.
I translated out loud,
One of the women quickly pulled the document out of my hands, as if she was afraid I would misuse it somehow.
My lips were dry. I didn’t dare moisten them with my tongue.
She addressed me. “Any idea what this is about?”
I had to think—
Quickly!
How could someone in my position think, quickly or otherwise—
I chose denial. “No.”
“Try again?”
Both of them had grown serious. There was no trace of the light-hearted atmosphere that had prevailed a moment earlier. “We’ll help you out. You seem like a nice guy. Was this a kind of private joke with your Korean girlfriend? You wanted to impress her? You whipped this story out of your ass?”
“No.”
“Just admit it, and let’s get this over with. We’re all tired.”
“No.”
“We have kids at home. We still have to get up early and make them sandwiches. You know what it’s like with kids. So what’s the big deal if you admit that you told her a pointless joke?”
“No.”
“Let’s agree on a hypothetical case. She asked you for information, you told her a joke. Don’t get all jumpy! We agreed it was a hypothetical case. The main question is, why would you make up a joke for her, anyway? What did you get in return? Laid?”
“No!”
“This isn’t North Korea. Getting laid is still not a crime over here.”
“No!”
“Oral sex?”
“No!”
“Why do you keep denying and denying and denying? Just between us? They don’t sound good, these denials of yours. You’re a man, and a man has needs. What’s the problem with admitting you were hankering for a good blow job?”
“No! No! No!” I barricaded myself in my answer.
“At the moment, luckily for you, she’s mortally wounded. But don’t worry. She’ll bounce back and start telling tales. Let’s agree you got a blow job. It’s not a violation of national security to receive oral sex from a Korean whore.”
“I didn’t!” I roared.
“Don’t you dare raise your voice at us!”
I shut up.
“Let’s go on, okay? That night you drove to Mt. Scopus. You run into some rioters. Your vehicle starts to go up in flames. You manage to get yourself out. Find shelter behind a stone fence. Security cameras in the area document how you waited a few minutes and then went back to the burning car, this time approaching the door on her side. Do you confirm this much?”
Shit. There were security cameras there—
“You ignored the fire and the shouts of ‘Allahu akbar’ from the rabble—bravely, I should add—but instead of rescuing your Korean whore from the burning jeep, you took out her purse and something else. Why didn’t you get her out of there?”
“Her leg was caught in something. I decided to get the purse out first.”
“Why was it so urgent to get her purse out? Someone’s on fire and you’re messing with their bag?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“And then you kneel down behind the stone fence, watching the burning car while your Korean whore is inside.”
“The flames wouldn’t let me approach.”
“The security camera footage clearly shows you had enough time to try and get her out of there. The flames were close, but you weren’t in any danger. You preferred to run off.”
“I was scared.”
“You left her there to burn.”
“I didn’t think about what I was doing. I was scared that the Arabs would kill me.”
“You heard the emergency vehicle sirens. You didn’t wait for them. You took her purse and ran off.”
“I was scared.”
“A few months earlier, you’d risked your life to save a wounded dog crawling through a busy intersection—which wasn’t even yours. And yet you left the Korean whore whom you were madly in love with to burn alive?”
“She… I… I didn’t…”
“I’m not morally judging you. I’m just fine with her burning. Too bad she didn’t die, considering the serious way she compromised national security. My question is a simple one: what’s with this burning desire—pardon the pun—to save her purse and run off with it?”
“It was an intuitive action.”
“No, no, no. Someone like you doesn’t act on intuition, but rather thinks things out. It’s a twisted line of thought—but it is fully thought out. What was in her bag?”
“Nothing important.”
“Was her phone there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Her laptop? Camera? Money?”
“I! Don’t! Know!”
“Meaning you didn’t open it?”
“No.”
“Liar!” She slammed her fist down on the table. It shook, and I shook along with it.
◊◊◊
One of them left. She returned a few minutes later with two cups of instant coffee. “I couldn’t find any milk,” she apologized.
Both of them dipped their chocolate wafers in the coffee. “Yummy,” one of them said.
“Fattening,” her friend responded, sighing.
They didn’t offer me any. It was late. My hunger was bothering me. So was my bladder. I asked to step out. “Soon,” one of them said matter-of-factly. I didn’t dare protest.
Once they were done eating, they wiped their lips and resumed.
“You behaved like a thief with something to hide, not like the survivor of a hostile terrorist action.”
“I already told you, I was scared.”
“You could have gone home, to your kibbutz. Your car was already parked there, after all.”
“I wanted to wash my face and calm down.”
“This entire time, you didn’t call the police or emergency services to ask how your Korean whore was doing.”
“I heard the sirens. They didn’t need me.”
“The security cameras at the dorms intercepted you entering the area, and immediately turning toward the staircase leading to her apartment. Did you have a key?”
Security cameras at the dorms—
“No,” I replied.
“Well then?”
“She would hide the keys in the breaker box.”
“How original. What did you do in the apartment?”
“I showered.”
“You showered? Your girlfriend’s on fire and you’re showering?”
“I was sure she’d manage to get herself out, or else the rescue team would do it for her, and she’d soon show up at the apartment too.”
“Meaning you waited for her there.”
“You could say that, yes.”
“Could you also say you didn’t?”
“No! No! I did wait for her.”
“But with all your concern and affection for the Korean whore, you didn’t give her a chance to get to the apartment. After eight minutes and forty seconds, you got out of there.”
“I thought it wasn’t a good idea. I decided to go home after all.”
“Rather than going
to the hospital to see how she was doing?”
“I understood that if she wasn’t arriving, she was wounded.”
“Earlier you were sure she’d follow you back.”
I didn’t reply.
“Did you take anything from the Korean whore’s apartment?”
“Nothing.”
“No object that belonged to her? An object that someone is very mad at you for taking?”
“No!”
“Someone who works at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, for example?”
“No! No! No!”
“In other words, you’re lying to us again.”
◊◊◊
They huddled together for a long time outside the room.
My bladder was threatening to explode. I wondered whether I could simply get up and go to the restroom. Had they arrived on their own? I hadn’t seen any security personnel around. But appearances could be deceiving. I’d already learned that.
They returned. Placed a blank sheet of paper in front of me and handed me a pen. “Can you write down a few words?”
“Which ones?”
“We’ll dictate to you.”
“I still don’t understand which words or why.”
“What do you care? It doesn’t hurt. Just a few words and that’s it.”
My mind was churning—
This was a handwriting analysis—
For what purpose? My office at the army base kitchen was full of internal documents in my handwriting.
I saw no danger in their request.
They dictated to me.
“Your body… A thousand kisses… You’re the best…”
The phrasing sounded familiar to me. I stopped writing.
They urged me to continue, kept dictating to me.
“With love… Love you… Soulmates…”
It was as clear as the sun!
I felt I’d been snared.
Hemingway—
They snatched the sheet of paper from me.
With slightly different phrasing and word order, this was the dedication I’d written in the book I’d bought as a gift for Shin, which had been left on the table in her apartment.
They sighed. Got up. Stretched. “That’s enough for now. Make sure you’re available, right? Tomorrow at ten in the morning be back here, okay? And by the way, do you happen to have your passport on you?”
