by Y. I. Latz
Neta retreated into herself. She wouldn’t stop complaining. She was angry at me and, after a while, almost stopped speaking. She hadn’t had time to pack all her possessions and also remembered she had loaned her new hairdryer to an Irish backpacker and hadn’t gotten it back, and that her expensive new sneakers had been airing out in the balcony of Ilan’s House in Medellín.
Smadar was scowling as well. She didn’t mention the accusations Ilan had hurled at me last night. But I knew they were still running through her mind.
Later, when we sat at one of the fancier restaurants in the airport, waiting for our flight to take off, Neta suddenly asked, “Dad, do we have enough money?” as she examined the menu. “The prices here are a thousand times more expensive than they are on the street.”
“Your dad has enough money to buy us a private plane,” Smadar commented.
My eyebrows shot up in an expression of surprise. This was new—
The sun rose beyond the massive glass wall, blinding us. The planes progressed slowly in an endless line toward the runway. We could not hear the sounds of their engines. Neta repeated her question. Smadar stared at me.
“Not enough for a private plane, but enough for a breakfast fit for kings,” I replied with a note of generosity.
An older waiter who spoke reasonable English with an amusing local accent helped us pick our orders from the menu offerings. He patiently described the ingredients in each dish to us.
I recommended that Neta begin with an arepa, a flat cornmeal pancake filled with egg and cheese.
For Smadar, I ordered platanos, a giant grilled banana filled with cheese.
I ordered a tamal for myself, explaining to them that this was a banana leaf containing a mixture of chicken and beef. The leaf was coated with cornmeal dough and spices, and steam-cooked, like dim sum.
Our hunger was insatiable.
Neta was still having problems with the menu. I ordered a dish of rice with vegetables and chicken strips for her, called arroz con pollo.
I also asked the waiter to bring us bandeja paisa: fried eggs, rice, baked beans, pork strips, ground beef, chorizo, dried pork, fried plantains and chunks of avocado.
All this was accompanied by chilled mugs of Aguila and Poker, local beer brands, and it was not even 9:00 a.m. yet.
◊◊◊
The meal progressed in silence. Every policeman or uniformed employee made us jumpy. Once we were done eating, Neta turned to me. “Dad, I wanted to ask you. How much did you actually pay that fucking Brit to get the fucking Colombians off our backs?”
“I didn’t,” I replied.
“Nothing?”
“Zero.”
“I don’t believe you. He helped us for free? Why?”
“He totally did.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Is he a cook?”
“No.”
“Does he work on submarines like you?”
“No.”
“Is he Jewish?”
“No.”
“Then is he…your secret English son?” she snickered.
“No!”
“Was his dad a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“But your accents are really similar.”
“That’s how it is with all Brits.”
“I don’t understand. Why should he help us for free? That obnoxious Ilan wanted thirty thousand dollars.”
“Uhm. He was doing me a favor.”
“Doing you a favor or returning a favor?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
I examined her question. Which answer would be closer to the truth?
“Do you owe him a favor now?” she continued with her questions.
“Something like that.”
“Money?”
“I already told you no.”
“What, then? Kubbeh soup? Schnitzel with special spices? One of your famous fish filled with pine nuts?”
“You’re just babbling.”
“If it’s not money and it’s not good food, what favor could you possibly do for that full-of-himself Brit?” my daughter wisely asked.
A moment later, she added theatrically, covering her mouth with her hand, “Oh, God! I know what it is!”
Smadar and I looked at her apprehensively. “What is it?”
“You’re smuggling drugs!”
I waved my hand dismissively.
Our daughter turned to Smadar. “Mom, why are you just sitting there? Do you know the answer?”
Smadar examined me at length. Her clever eyes invaded my armor, tore off my camouflage and roamed uninterrupted through my body, and mainly through my mind.
“No,” she finally answered, in a tone that I identified as ironic and jocular, although her face remained serious. “This really is a mystery. Why would a strange Englishman who doesn’t even look Jewish want to help us?”
“Why don’t you ask him, and that way you’ll know?” Neta asked her, her gaze bouncing between the two of us.
She then added, “I know why. You two aren’t talking.”
“What do you mean ‘we’re not talking’?” I queried.
“Not talking means not talking. You and Mom aren’t talking.”
“We talk all the time. What kind of nonsense is this?”
“Since the three of us met up in Medellín, the two of you haven’t talked to each other even once. I mean a real conversation, the way you used to talk, and I was so jealous of you for having that. Not ‘have you seen my razor’ type conversations, or ‘pass the salt.’ A real conversation! Face-to-face! Each of you talking to the other! Like a real couple! Like my mom and dad! No, no, no. You haven’t talked face-to-face even once. I’m such a dummy. Now that I think about it, you talked through me and you talked right through me. But not in a direct way, in each other’s faces. You. You. You. You two are so weird.”
She rose from her chair and walked several steps away. Then turned around and returned to us, her steps rapid.
Her expression was unyielding. “Are you getting divorced or what?”
“No way!” I called out loudly.
“Way,” my wife said quietly.
◊◊◊
We had two hours left before we boarded the flight to London. Smadar and Neta went on a shopping spree among the duty-free stores, while I sat by myself in a dimly lit pub, staring vaguely at a TV screen showing soundless horse races.
An hour later, a British newspaper landed on my table with a thud. It was the Daily Mail. I raised my eyes in surprise. Smadar was standing above me. She was holding more English-language newspapers. They, too, were tossed on my table.
Neta was standing behind her, hostility in her eyes.
The main picture used was the same one in all the papers. An Asian-looking woman sitting up in a hospital bed. She was not smiling and had clearly been photographed unwillingly. Various medical tubes were attached to her body. So far, she looked like a normal patient. And yet there was a difference. Two, actually. And to make sure the readers did not miss them, they were circled in red.
Her right hand and her right foot were cuffed to the iron bed.
My eyes returned to the woman’s face.
Shin…?
The main headlines were nearly identical in the various newspapers.
“American Spy Exposed in Jerusalem”
The short reports were similar as well.
“The Israeli Shin Bet has revealed for publication that for the last month, they have had an American CIA agent in custody. She is suspected of committing a series of violations threatening Israeli national security. The exact nature of the offenses has not been revealed.
“The woman is Professor Shin Il Jong, a familiar figure in the a
cademic scene, from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The basis for the accusations leveled against her was not specified. Professor Shin Il Jong is under treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. She sustained severe injuries about a month ago during an incident of rioting in East Jerusalem, when the vehicle she was riding in was attacked by masked militants.
“Intelligence sources in Washington responded by saying the professor did not and does not have any connection to American intelligence agencies, and that her baseless arrest was a desperate act of vindictiveness by the Israeli government, in response to the apprehension of two Mossad agents at the Naval Academy in Maryland.
“The American Harvard professor’s arrest has further strained the relationship between the two previously allied countries, currently at an unprecedented low point.
“It was also reported that Professor Shin Il Jong was not alone in the vehicle. The Shin Bet and the Israeli police are searching for her companion on the ride, male or female, who escaped from the scene after the terror attack, leaving the professor alone in the burning vehicle.
“Although the Shin Bet claims that security cameras posted in the area documented the accomplice as he or she fled the scene, the photo has yet to be published.”
Neta’s eyes were red. “I don’t understand. What kind of person would leave his friend burning and run off?”
“A terribly scared person,” Smadar answered in my place.
◊◊◊
The Departures lounge. Soon we’ll be swallowed by the jet bridge, which will lead us to the plane to London and from there to Israel.
The three of us were waiting in plastic chairs in one of the last rows. Neta was tucked in between the two of us. I examined the people around us. I had a bad feeling. My tall friend Joe was nowhere to be seen, but he was here in spirit. Or so, at least, my gut was signaling me. It didn’t bode well.
Neta turned to me. “You have a good heart, Dad.”
“Why?”
“The dog. You saved him.”
She hugged me.
I was surprised. My body was flooded by waves of warmth. I couldn’t remember the last time my beloved girl had hugged me. I tried to hug her back. I couldn’t. The seats were narrow and the rows tightly packed.
Tears were clogging my throat. It was a good thing I didn’t have to say anything.
She went on. “I downloaded the story they did on you on American TV to my laptop. Way to go.”
“Anyone else in my situation would have done the same thing.”
“No, Dad, not anyone. There aren’t a lot of people in the world who would risk their lives to save a dog.”
“How about you?”
“I would, and maybe Mom too—and that’s it.”
“Three is something.”
“Your English is so good in the video. I’d forgotten what a sexy British accent you have. You know what I was thinking? I never really understood why you left England for Israel.”
“How could you not? You wrote a long ‘Family Roots’ paper on me. You’ve heard this story a thousand times.”
“Tell me again.”
“It’s long.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Another time.”
“I’ll tell it for him,” Smadar intervened. “Your father was born fifty years ago in London. As a child, he didn’t really like our country.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was, how to put this, a kind of leftist. He thought we were a conquering people. That Gaza and the West Bank didn’t belong to us. That we were treating the Palestinians like the Nazis treated us.”
“That can’t be! Dad?! He thought we?! Were?! Nazis?! Dad’s that left-wing?”
“He took part in anti-Israeli demonstrations. In one of them, when he was twelve or thirteen, he even put on an Arab keffiyeh and told a BBC reporter that his name was Ahmad. You get it? To express his sympathy for the poor Palestinians, supposedly.”
Neta started to laugh. “I don’t believe it!”
“Ask him.”
“If he hated Israel, why did he immigrate here and join the Naval Commando?”
“That’s a good question. Something happened to his family there. Something terrible, I think. Truly horrible. So horrible that he had to leave it all behind and take off for Israel. And that’s how he arrived at our kibbutz’s boarding school.”
“Truly horrible?? What happened there, Mom?”
“I’m through with my part.”
“Mom!! What ‘truly horrible’ thing happened in Dad’s family?”
“You’ll have to ask your dad directly about the rest. He’s sitting here, right here, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Dad, what do you say?”
I didn’t say. I was whistling. I was sitting next to my wife and daughter in Bogota’s international airport and whistling.
I was thinking—
Here we were waiting hours for a departing flight to London, risking the possibility that the local police might wake up, while afterward we would be waiting many more hours for our connecting flight to Israel. It was the longest, most illogical connection. If Joe had wanted to be nice to us, he would have purchased tickets to some other destination in Europe, such as Madrid, Paris, or Frankfurt, all of which would have provided a much shorter connection to Israel.
There was one possible explanation for this—
He wanted to make sure we would arrive in London. Why?
A shiver ran through me.
I started whistling harder.
“Dad, what are you whistling?”
I whistled even harder. I put my all into it. Sometimes my whistling broke, sometimes it creaked, sometimes there was nothing but air coming out of my lips, but I never stopped, even for a moment.
Una Notte a Napoli—
Another whistle rang out. Smadar. Joining me to whistle the same tune. Her whistle was nearly inaudible.
Neta was looking at us. “You’re both so funny. Dad, what is this?! Tears? Are you crying, Dad? Mom, Dad’s crying! Mom, why is Dad crying?”
Smadar answered her softly, slowly and emphatically, as if speaking to a toddler. “You still don’t get it, Netali? Your dad isn’t boarding the flight to London with us.”
Part Four
─ ◊ ─
Chapter Twenty-Six
Europe, a Month Later
The hunt for me had lasted for four consecutive weeks now. I was in the crosshairs of the most ferocious intelligence agency in the world: the American CIA.
In a world as devoid of secrets as ours was, two additional intelligence agencies were sitting on the fence, waiting for developments in my case: the Israeli Mossad and the British MI6.
All three of them coveted the three ultra-secret and super-sensitive items in my possession, which belonged to the American intelligence agency: camera, cell phone, and laptop. I’d already conveyed the laptop to MI6 as “payment” for bringing about Neta’s release from her detainment in Colombia. The other two items were still in my possession. They were my X factor, no less than that. As long as I held on to these two items, they wouldn’t dare harm me physically.
On the other hand, I couldn’t toy with them forever.
This entire time, I felt as if I were in a bad dream. I refused to believe that what was happening to me was indeed going on. I had a hard time grasping just how serious the situation truly was.
In the meantime, I was roaming through Europe. I knew they were capable of anything. I traveled from country to country, using trains and buses, wearing a cap with a bill and carrying around the backpack that contained all my possessions.
The hunt was not visible on the streets and was not mentioned in the media, but to me, nothing was more tangible.
Joe, the stuffy Brit from MI
6, was revealed to be an efficient character who was true to his word. He took care to respond to each of my discreet communications via the Web and updated me regarding my situation in his dry phrasing. He reported to me that the CIA had left no stone unturned in its search for me. This report depressed me even more. It dealt a death blow to the last remnants of optimism I still retained. With the subtlest of humor, he also warned me to be cautious of my “friends,” including friends “like him.”
Just the way Singer had warned me a while ago.
It was a brotherhood of masters of deception.
◊◊◊
Paris—
I whiled the time away by compulsively surfing Israeli news sites. Two topics were dominating the headlines, and I avidly read every word posted about them:
The Annapolis court’s refusal to release the Israeli officer and his wife on bail until the date of their trial—
And the fierce battle over the role of the next head of the Mossad—
◊◊◊
Singer. Where are you, Singer?
The deputy commander of the Mossad continued to ignore the many text messages I sent him. That ingrate. After all, I was the one who had set his meteoric career in motion.
I swore—
At the first opportunity, I would expose the great lie of his life.
I stared at the cracked mirror hanging crookedly in the bathroom of my run-down hotel. I was debating whether to shave off ten days’ worth of stubble. It obscured my profile, but also made me itch constantly.
My eyes were fixed upon the mirror.
The bearded man reflected there fixed his eyes upon me in return.
I was appalled.
Was this me?
◊◊◊
Bordeaux, in western France—
The fear. Oh, the fear. I’d already learned that they might emerge at any time, out of nowhere, and be anything, anyone, a man reading a newspaper, a woman with a baby, a couple embracing on a street corner.
The nights were bad, but the mornings were worse. I wasn’t used to waking up to an aimless day. My desperation increased. I took care not to delve into tortuous thoughts, but these thoughts proved to be stronger than I was.
◊◊◊
