by Y. I. Latz
As I arrived on deck, I noticed that the cross was no longer around my neck. When had they had time to remove it?
The stunning Rock of Gibraltar, illuminated in an array of colors to breathtaking effect, was the last sight I saw as a free man.
* * *
10 Chabad is a Jewish-Orthodox movement known for its outreach program directed at Jews outside of Israel.
Part Five
─ ◊ ─
Chapter Thirty
Back to the Month of August, Current Time
Tel Aviv, eight months later.
District Court.
The judge has yet to enter. This has never happened before with him. It is now nearly an hour since the hearing was set to begin. He is meticulous and a stickler, and the closed hearings in his office always begin precisely on time.
My attorney is glowing. He sees this unexpected delay as another good sign. He has confidently and repeatedly been claiming to me that in light of the meager evidence found against me thus far, the charges “don’t hold water” and I will soon be released. He crinkles his nose, emits sniffing sounds, and whispers to me, “I smell something major cooking here. In a moment, your nightmare will be over and you can go home to your wife and kid.”
He is celebrating his victory, surrounded by journalists and admiring female interns. Every once in a while, he emerges from their midst, stations himself close to me, claps me on the back ostentatiously and hovers over me, his mouth on my ear. To a casual observer, he appears to be giving me last-minute advice. However, he is not uttering any meaningful words. All this is only meant as a photo-op to further elevate his reputation.
I grimace uncontrollably. His breath smells bad. Truly awful. But I play along. He deserves it. Who else could have removed the noose that had been wrapped around my neck?
He then hurries back toward the cameras once more. Again and again, he comes out with strident declarations that I, too, can hear: not only will I soon be released, but I will also be rewarded with generous financial compensation for the terrible injustice done to me.
“What have we come to? It’s inconceivable that the country would shake off its responsibility for eight and a half months of false imprisonment endured by a reputable citizen, after it has accused this man of severe crimes with no justification whatsoever.”
It’s been a strange morning. For the first time in many months, I could be anyone. I’m surrounded by regular people in regular clothes. For once, I’m dressed like they are.
My guards are being lax. When I asked to go to the bathroom, only one security guard accompanied me. I took my time in there. When I came out, he was nowhere to be seen. I could have been gone in two or three steps. I won’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind.
I’m overcome by bleakness—
I don’t share the optimism my lawyer has been disseminating.
At this time, I’m thinking about something else.
Where is my wife?
I don’t take my eyes off the door to the court. Every time it opens, I tense up with anticipation. The appointed hour has come and gone long ago, and still there’s no sign of her.
She promised!
After twenty-five years together and despite everything that has happened, I expect more from my wife, even though officially she’s my ex-wife now. Doesn’t she want to share the happiest moment of my life?
The unfairness of her behavior floods me with anger. I recall what I thought I’d already forgotten: all the additional times in which she’d treated me abominably. I choose to ignore my own nastiness toward her. Enough is enough! I’d already rooted around quite sufficiently in those incidents in the eight and a half months in which I was buried underground like a mole-rat.
Singer is nowhere in sight, either. His absence is more understandable to me.
In his position—
And yet I’m disappointed. I had been hopeful.
◊◊◊
It’s hot. It took a while before the air conditioning was turned on. It cannot cool down the court’s chambers. Many of the people around me are dripping with sweat even at this early hour.
Not me. I’m shaking. But not because I’m cold. I’m never cold. The tumult around me increases. The hall is full of photographers, journalists, attorneys and curious onlookers—as well as some well-known chefs. Although the charges leveled against me are serious, I don’t see reprimand or criticism reflecting in their eyes. Only surprise and mostly sympathy. More than anything else, they want a close-up look at the hero of the affair that’s been riveting the country for the last few days.
Me—
I recognize plenty of familiar faces in the audience filling the courtroom, including kibbutz members who gave up a day of work and took the time to travel all the way from our kibbutz in the north, as well as all the interns and the clerks from my attorney’s law office.
For eight months, the hearings have been conducted behind closed doors and under a heavy cover of secrecy, with a series of severe suppression orders keeping the media silent.
None of them had known where I had disappeared to this entire time. My wife stuck to the story on which we’d agreed: I was with “my” submarines, somewhere abroad.
Only two or three days ago had the release of my name and photograph been authorized, along with some select details of the charges against me, as well as, of course, the fact of my arrest.
What a bombshell—
Therefore, their current excitement makes sense. Mostly, they want to take selfies with me as a memento, and have been doing so ceaselessly with their smartphones. I comply with their requests, shrugging. I no longer bother to get up from the wooden bench, and as the wait time lengthens, my rare smiles gradually decrease even more.
The reporters are excited as well. They buzz around me like bees. So far, military censorship has allowed them to refer to me by only one nickname, “X From X Unit.”
However, some of them had gotten clever, and in recent days, referred to me by more poetic descriptions:
“The Submarine Spy”—
“The Chef Who Cooked Up a Royal Mess”—
“The Cook Who Knew Too Much”—
The unknown exceeds the known when it comes to my case. The missing puzzle pieces are replaced with a frenetic array of rumors. In order to add substance to their stories, the journalists dig into my past and harass anyone who knows me. My unique background has been thoroughly explored.
What a story.
◊◊◊
Surprisingly, the serious charges and the probing publications do not seem to affect the sweeping sympathy surrounding me. The atmosphere and the smiles are reminiscent of a birthday party. Most of them are treating me as if I’m innocent, and about to be released. It’s only a matter of time.
The optimism is based on the state attorney’s tentative stance. They are no longer automatically supporting the Shin Bet. The judge, too, has exhibited more sympathy toward me than toward my interrogators. During the previous hearing, still conducted behind closed doors, he scolded them and warned them that next time, he would no longer agree to detain me any longer unless he was provided with actual proof in regard to my offenses.
“Proof,” he emphasized. “Not theories or speculations.”
My lawyer interpreted this to mean that he, too, had come to the conclusion that arresting a Jewish citizen for eight months without a trial, under suspicion of committing security-related offenses, was quite enough, and in fact was entirely too much.
I have one very important factor playing in my favor.
The motive—
What had been my motive to do what they claimed I had done? Even the most hardcore of my interrogators have not found a good reason for the deeds that they attribute to me.
They agree I’m not greedy, and despite the existence of a mysterious and i
nexplicable foreign bank account they’ve discovered under my name, I continue to live in the same modest apartment in the kibbutz.
My political views are quite mainstream, with a slight leftist tendency.
I don’t feel critical, angry or vengeful in regard to my country.
My mental state is fine, and I have not exhibited extreme mental tendencies of any kind.
To make a long story short, I was a cook and have remained a cook.
Furthermore, the judge forced them to admit begrudgingly that they concurred that I fit the definition of a patriot as well as “salt of the earth.”
And yet they would not withdraw their claims against me. Well, then, who the hell was I? They swore to find the answer to this question.
◊◊◊
Another hour goes by.
Still no sign of the judge.
Another hour or two, and I’ll be a free man.
The long wait floods me with bad thoughts. In order to shake free of them, I try to hold on to the things that have proved quite encouraging so far.
For example—
After all this, I’ll be allowed to collect the personal items I had accumulated during my long stay in prison. I would pack them up in two massive travel suitcases and two shoulder bags. In a gigantic plastic bag, I would place the new and carefully folded clothes I had asked her to bring me from our home. Not all of them were new. One item I’d requested was my lucky shirt.
My eyes close.
This fatigue. It assaults me in waves. I fight it, but it wins. As if I was drugged. Could it be? Why would they do that? When did they have time?
No!
I can’t give up. I must hang on to other things that have already been proven to lift my spirits.
For a moment, they seem stale—
Halabi, Omar, Nassaradin and Shafik, my four regular Druze guards in my isolated cell, will bid me farewell with a long handshake. They will emphasize to me that they believed I was innocent from the first moment.
The wisdom of hindsight.
As a farewell gift, I’ll leave them the kitchenware I was allowed to keep in my cell and my recipe notebook.
I’m still debating about the book. On the one hand, they won’t read it. On the other hand, they had learned to understand my sense of deep connection to it, and will be able to appreciate the extent of my gesture and of what I had relinquished.
Montauk by Max Frisch.
This is ridiculous. I know. What do they have to do with the world of a dead Swiss author? The tale of his real-life journey with a younger American woman to a lighthouse at the end of Long Island was my companion for many nights in the rat’s nest. Years ago, I’d journeyed there in his footsteps. During the long nights in my isolated cell, I made that journey again.
Road 27A—
I mentally roamed through the sprawling shopping malls along that road, ate a stack of heartburn-inducing pancakes and burgers served to me by older waitresses who were mostly named Ruth. I stopped by the side of the road to take a leak in the middle of nowhere, not knowing that a local traffic cop had decided to hide his speed trap in that exact location. I inquired about the price of rentals in real-estate offices in the Hamptons, without being truly serious about it, and the conversations soon moved on to my occupation as a cook and to a series of recipes I left in my wake. On my way back, I got waylaid by an ocean of dark roads and had a hard time making it back to the home of my worried friends in Queens. No trivial matter in that pre-GPS era.
I smile—
I’m thinking about what else I would do. Checking the time. Wondering what is still delaying the judge.
My fatigue evaporates. My eyes scan the moderately sized hall yet again, registering the curious gazes fixed upon me, seeking but not finding.
She promised to be here!
It feels as if I’ve been left on my own. Could it be? It’s a fact! None of my guards are sitting next to me, and there’s no trace of the leg chains and handcuffs in which I was brought here.
Odd. No one said anything about this to me. When did they have time to take off?
Of course, if I look back, I can see whether they’re around.
But my eyes are closing.
I’m not asleep. I’m only surrendering to my internal monologue this way. What’s wrong with that?
Savoring it—
I know exactly what my first step as a free man will be, in a minute or two.
“Little Bucharest”—
I’ll insist on going to Mishu’s Romanian restaurant in downtown Haifa, despite the hassle of veering off the direct path to our home in the north.
They’ll get it. Of course they will.
Sour ciorbă soup—
(Make it a double!)
P’tcha, calves’ foot jelly—
(With mustard, homemade horseradish and garlic sauce.)
Pickled herring—
(With a handsome stack of thinly chopped purple onion.)
Lightly seared hot peppers—
Tiny pickled purple eggplants, thinly chopped—
(With simple freshly baked bread, partially cut into thick slices.)
Ten greasy little kebabs—
(Maybe a dozen. Or even fourteen. My lust for food is endless right now.)
Real homemade steaming-hot french fries—
(A generous serving.)
A chilly frozen beer on tap—
(Two or three mugs, a pint each)—
Bavarian cream with sweet syrup, the kind no restaurant in Israel offers anymore—
I sigh. Noisily. I’m appalled. I’ve already learned to suppress my emotions. Openness is the last thing I want to exhibit.
That is why the most sharp-eyed viewers watching the newscast on TV a few hours later will see, as I sit on the defendants’ bench in the District Court, accused of various severe charges pertaining to national security, how my tongue darts out of my mouth to moisten my lips, again and again and again.
Some viewers will interpret this as a gesture of protest against the Israeli legal system, while to others it will be further proof of my insensitivity and my treacherous nature.
None of them will consider even for a moment that it was gluttony, pure and simple.
◊◊◊
Something has happened—
New sounds invade my mind.
I quickly open my eyes.
There are no smiles around me. The whispers become a commotion. The journalists leave urgently, their cell phones stuck to their heads.
But I’m not paying attention to them. Because, at that exact moment, I spot her. Her! My Smadar. She crosses the threshold. I leap to my feet and wave to her happily. She doesn’t wave back. In fact, she doesn’t respond in any way and takes only one step inside the room. She stands at the edge of the courtroom, near the door, her back against the doorframe. Her eyes are fixed on me. They are hollow. Puffy. Surrounded by dark shadows. She’s quite far away from me but I can see something there.
When she covers her mouth with her hand and leaves it there, I understand.
Endless terror. That’s what her eyes reflect.
I still don’t understand why—
The judge comes in a moment later.
In another moment, I’ll understand.
“The suspect is despicable and his deeds are abhorrent,” he begins.
◊◊◊
It’s hard for me to focus on what he’s saying. Who is he referring to? He has a pointy, goatish beard that I always picture as covering a mocking little smile. But his voice is soft, even pleasant.
I make an effort to listen—
In some inexplicable manner, I can take in the full severity of what the judge is accusing me of only after I notice my lawyer’s behavior.
He is sitting motionless. His
mouth is half open. His lower lip is quivering. His chest is puffing up and emptying like a bellows. There is a stupid smile frozen on his face, a pathetic remnant of the victorious smiles he was directing everywhere until a moment ago.
I’ve learned to read the signs. He’s feeling the pressure. The judge continues to read his decision. He is comparing my actions to those of the most heinous traitors. He mentions the spies Mordechai Vanunu and Nahum Manbar11 by name, and assesses my sentence will be equivalent to theirs in its severity, and therefore, his decree contradicts every early prediction.
“To be remanded in custody until sentencing.”
A gang of prison guards and security personnel leaps out at me out of nowhere, surrounding me from every direction. They’re holding handcuffs and iron chains.
Singer!!
Where are you, Singer?!
You son of a bitch!
You promised!
◊◊◊
But the deputy director of the Mossad is not around.
He’s the ace up my sleeve, my emergency exit, my insurance policy. An old friend who owes his life and his freedom to me, and soon will have me to thank for his new career high, as well.
I try to protest. The judge is already on his way out. My hands and feet are shackled. The doors open. The reporters assail me. Microphones are shoved at my mouth. Their previous sympathetic expressions have been replaced with a steely bloodlust.
As if their faces are masks, which they change constantly.
They pepper me with a thousand questions simultaneously.
My mouth opens and closes like a fish’s. “I. Am. Not. A. Traitor,” I mumble. One of the security guards covers my mouth with a coarse hand as I’m already being dragged away. I remember one fleeting thought from that moment with an unparalleled vividness:
Who’s the idiot who determined you can’t die twice?
* * *
11 Mordechai Vanunu was accused of revealing details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British press, and spent eighteen years in an Israeli prison, eleven of them in solitary confinement. Nahum Manbar was an Israeli businessman who was involved in arms trade with Iran, and served more than fourteen years in prison.
