by Y. I. Latz
Two forty-five in the afternoon. He shows up, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. He’s not alone. Nachmias, head of the Shin Bet, is with him.
“Done,” they tell me. Their expressions are sour, as if they’ve just told me the exact opposite. “An agreement for a three-way deal has been reached. Let’s get going, okay?”
They’re waiting for my decree.
Each of them grabs one of my arms. They intend to drag me in opposite directions.
Quickly, I realize why—
I’m the X factor. The one I choose to accompany will get all the glory, and consequently, the much-desired role as well.
“Nachmias,” I address the head of the Shin Bet pleasantly.
Singer’s face darkens.
“Sorry, Nachmias,” I tell the head of the Shin Bet. “From here on, I’m only going with Singer.”
◊◊◊
“Where are we going?” I ask the grateful Singer a moment later.
“To the airport, that’s where.”
“But first we have to make a quick stop in Nahariya,” I say.
“Nahariya? Now? Why Nahariya, of all places?”
I take a paper bag out of my backpack. “I have a debt to pay.”
He suspiciously reads the letters, once golden.
H. Stern—
◊◊◊
Eight hours later.
Ben Gurion Airport, 11:45 p.m.
My heartache is immense. So immense that every breath hurts as if I’ve swallowed a fireball.
We wait. I attempt to move beyond my painful impressions of the trip to Nahariya for the meeting-that-never-was with my wife.
Singer picks up on my inner turmoil. My old friend is also the only one who understands it.
He puts his arm around my shoulder. “I told you. These things happen. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
The hours go by. She has still not been brought here. Singer updates me. The state attorney and the judge still have to sign the pertinent documents. The minister of defense is sending out some signals of changing his mind, as well.
Singer and I stand shoulder to shoulder opposite the glass wall, gazing out at the activity in the airport.
Singer receives frequent reports over the phone, and immediately updates me: She’s been loaded up, she’s on her way, she’s on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, she’s just outside the airport, she’s here, she has been taken on the plane directly from the ambulance.
I move too sharply.
He grabs my arm. His security detail quickly surrounds me.
“You haven’t forgotten, I hope,” he says, unyielding.
“Send a flight attendant from the ground crew to take her photo with her phone,” I tell him. “After I’m sure she’s actually on the plane, we can continue.”
He grimaces, reluctant, but does as I ask.
A flustered flight attendant approaches us two minutes later, holding her phone.
I stare at the image curiously.
It’s a little dim, but there’s no doubt about it.
It’s her—
I gaze at it for a long time. He urges me to get going.
“Follow me,” I say.
I start striding quickly toward a jet bridge on the other end of the bustling terminal, with Singer and ten of his men following me in one long column.
There, at the entrance to the jet bridge, in front of the curious eyes of El Al Flight 001 to New York, I whisper in Singer’s ear.
His eyes gape wide open.
He lies down on the floor and pulls himself under a row of seats, like a car mechanic in a repair shop.
He lingers—
For a moment, I think I have the wrong row.
After several attempts, he manages to dislodge a heavy envelope, wrapped in a duty-free shopping bag, from the concealed part of one of the seat bottoms. Using a simple kitchen knife urgently fetched by one of his men from an adjacent restaurant, he tears the envelope and peers inside.
Several long moments go by before a smile dawns upon his face.
He extracts a cell phone and a camera from the envelope, waving them at me.
He’s as happy as a child—
In his hands, he holds the most up-to-date encryption devices used by the American CIA.
“You goddamn motherfucker,” he says to me, still not rising from the floor. “You know what the worst part is? How come I didn’t think of it myself?”
At that exact moment, someone comes running in our direction. It’s Nachmias, the head of the Shin Bet who almost became head of the Mossad.
He sees what Singer is holding and realizes what any child in his place would have figured out: this ship has sailed.
◊◊◊
Five minutes later.
I’m about to be swallowed by the jet bridge that will lead me to the British Airways plane.
Singer is standing next to me.
I gesture at his phone. “Can I call Smadar?”
“Why would you? You’ve already gone to visit her in Nahariya. Have you already forgotten what you saw?”
“I have to.”
“That’s an unequivocal no! This deal is top secret. Call her tomorrow from London.”
“I just want to call her. Not to talk to her.”
He scrutinizes this remark. Hands me one of his cell phones.
I dial—
Smadar answers immediately. As if she’s been waiting for this call.
She doesn’t say a word—
She whistles—
I join in.
Meaning, I try to join in.
While her whistling is clear, sharp, melodious, mine is no more than discordant sounds.
It’s impossible to whistle as the tears are falling.
Una Notte a Napoli—
◊◊◊
The ground crew flight attendant urges me forward once more.
“Hold on a minute!” Singer berates her.
He turns to me. “You owe me an answer.”
I look at him, uncomprehending.
“How did you actually spy on the chief of general staff, the Navy commander, and all of the fleet’s senior officers, when you were—pardon me—just a cook?”
“Cameras and microphones,” I answer without a second thought.
“Obviously, but how? You supplied your London with long transcripts of conversations recorded in the private homes of all these officers. We checked. You were never in their homes, or even in their offices.”
I try to reply, but he interrupts me. “We figured out that the common denominator was the food deliveries you sent to their homes. Since you didn’t deliver your food personally, we suspected the food packaging. Don’t think we didn’t tear them apart. You made us rummage through garbage cans. Nothing! Zero! Nada! No tiny microphones and no nothing. So how did you do it, then?”
I hear the plea in my old friend’s voice.
My chest swells with pleasure. “Did you check the decorative wine bottle carrying case made of logs that stands in the living room of every single one of their homes, a personal gift from Navy HQ to IDF’s dedicated officers, every year on Jewish New Year?”
The expression of appreciation exhibited by the future head of the Mossad is worth more to me than any commendation I’ll ever receive from my Queen—
The British Airways flight attendant loses any remaining patience she still possesses.
This time, it’s my turn to tell her, “Hold on a minute.”
I immerse myself in writing a farewell letter to my daughter. The tiny notepad is on my knee.
Neta, Netushka, my Neta, Netali, my dearest girl, my goalie—
I write and cross out, write and cross out. Which of all these openings wi
ll I keep?
I leave them all.
“Don’t be angry, my girl,” I continue—
“Don’t be angry, my girl,” I conclude the brief letter.
And add, having a hard time parting from the notepad, as if I’m in a scene from a movie, “By the time you read this letter, I’ll be gone. You know what I’ll miss most? Our soccer games together. Remember how we’d take off, just the two of us, and I’d kick you the ball while you guarded the goal? You were a wonderful goalie. Your scratched-up knees were a testimony to that fact. I know you didn’t always have fun. But you saw that I did…”
The flight attendant is grumbling—
Singer stations himself between me and her—
“…I’m not a traitor. Not when it comes to my homeland, in any case. This is the nation that single-handedly opposed Nazi Germany and saved the entire world from a global holocaust.”
“Don’t you feel bad about abandoning us?” Singer asks after I hand him the pages I’ve torn out of my notepad.
“I’m actually glad to be taking off right now,” I reply, forcing myself to smile. “Your summer gets on my nerves, anyway.”
I extend my hand to him.
My hand is left hovering in mid-air, unmet.
My former best friend has his boundaries.
“See you in Jerusalem next year,” he comments wearily.
“Only if God saves the Queen,” I reply without batting an eyelash and disappear into the jet bridge leading into the British Airways plane.
At the doorway, the English flight attendant looks me over and offers me the Hebrew paper Yedioth Ahronoth. I signal to her that I’m actually interested in the other paper she is holding.
The London Times—
I carry it to my seat in the first rows.
Business Class.
The seat next to me is already taken.
“What took you so long?” Shin asks me, resting her head on my shoulder.
I touch her arm affectionately. She lets out a suppressed cry. “Hey, that still hurts,” she whispers to me, and I quickly apologize.
Before sitting down, I search my backpack and produce a paper bag, once elegant and now tattered, and place it on her knees.
Shin touches it with wonder, stroking her hand softly along the letters adorning its front as if they were a baby’s cheek.
H. Stern—
She falls asleep before the plane even accelerates on the runway, holding the bag in her hand and allowing me to immerse myself in the sports section.
I have a raging curiosity: what the hell is going on with my Tottenham—
A flight attendant is hovering above me. “Are you Mr. Henry Stein?” She hands me a duty-free bag. “Your friend, someone named Singer, asked me to give this to you.”
I open it suspiciously. Inside I find a hastily scribbled note and four food items: hummus, tahini, a bag of Turkish coffee and another bag of Bamba, Israel’s most popular snack.
The note is only a few words long: “A memento from the country to which you are ‘not a traitor.’”
“Which tea would you like, sir?” the flight attendant asks me in English, in an oh-so-familiar accent. “We have a large variety.”
I peer out the window for the last time. The sights are so familiar: Highway 4 with its snaking trail of headlights and taillights…Holon…Bat Yam…the coastline…
I have a hard time answering and a hard time breathing.
A sharp pain tears through my heart.
I try to console myself—
It’s true that after thirty years, I’m forced to abandon my country, but I am going back home.
To my homeland.
