"I didn't get anything for nothing either."
"Yes?" His voice grew hoarse. "How many funerals have you attended? How many parents have you paid condolence visits to? And what would you say to those parents? 'I'd be prepared to negotiate for peace, but some stupid officer decided that we should fight...?' Here," he struck his forehead, "a whole cemetery has accumulated, dozens of boys whose lives could have been bargained for, maybe even successfully. The whole way from the border to this village is full of mountains, roads, strategic junctions, key points. What do you think they're called? Beit A-Din Junction? Sil village? The Beaufort? No, they're called Uri and Hezi and Motti and Shai and Zvika and Yossi and Ron. Friends, officers, soldiers. Don't you think we owe them something?" Angrily, he picked the papers up from his desk, fitted his beret on top of his knitted skullcap and left the room.
"Why do you annoy him?" Scheckler said in a low voice, "he's a terrific fellow really..."
"And you," I touched the insignia on his wrist. "What's happened to you? Have you left business and gone straight?"
"It's my chance," he answered, embarrassed. "Till now I was in the army's asshole..."
“Where do I sleep?" I interrupted him.
He opened the door in silence, let me go through it in front of him and led me, as on that first day, along the long carpeted corridor, which was now muddy and slippery. In the courtyard, tents had been pitched in straight, dense rows. Numbers had been painted in whitewash on the flap of each. In tent number thirty-seven the flaps had been rolled up, exposing four bare camp-beds.
"So that you don't feel underprivileged," he said suddenly, "everyone sleeps like this, the captain too."
Maybe, then, the Athenaeum is the target of the planned explosion? The thought went through my mind. I threw my rucksack onto one of the beds, beside a pile of blankets.
"Who else is in this tent?"
"No one," he gave me a benevolent smile, "just you."
I turned my back on him and fiddled with the buckles of my rucksack. His shadow continued to hover over me. I turned round.
"Have you been told to guard me?"
His voice oozed appeasement. "I only wanted to say: you'd better not take any risks; since you left there have been changes..."
I sat down on the bed. "So I see," with my hand I gestured toward the bustle of activity around us.
"I'm talking about her,” he breathed. "Something's happening there. The vegetables in the garden are drying out, the dogs wander about freely and she spends most of her time in the church..."
***
I spent the following hours idly, dozing off every now and again. I tried to think, to plan, even to fall asleep. But it was all in vain. Snatches of dreams were lost in the dust and noise. Together with the suspicions and apprehensions I had brought with me from Tel Aviv, everything moved into a general nightmare, a kind of journey of chastisement, which aroused a great wave of anxiety and depression within me.
If I had hoped to slip away under cover of darkness, that was also foiled when, towards dusk, huge projector lights were switched on up on the roof of the Athenaeum. A flood of light fell across the garden, along the paths of patrolling guards, who walked in pairs along the fences and the wall. One floodlight wandered over the nearby streets. I measured its route on my watch. Forty seconds of light each minute. Even if I managed to slip through a part of the fence which had not yet been blocked, there was no doubt that I would be discovered on the street.
In a nearby house a light suddenly went on at a window. Inside I could see two women, maybe a mother and daughter, folding an enormous sheet. Their movements were coordinated, suffused with the careless confidence of total belongingness to one another and, together, to that place. A tremendous envy suddenly engulfed me - confidence and belongingness. All my limbs ached with a kind of communal erosion. The sharp pain of an old cavity pierced one of my molar teeth.
Then the movement of one of the floodlights lost its way and lingered in the middle of the street. Tiny figures could be seen, bent under bulky bundles: children carrying pillows. A little further on several women trod with rolled-up bedding on their heads. Men were carrying suitcases on their shoulders. The loudspeaker at the center of the encampment issued measured orders. From the tents around me armed paratroops went quickly out to the fence.
"What's happening?" I stopped one of them. "Where are those people going?"
"To sleep somewhere else. It's dangerous to be our neighbors."
"But everything's quiet..."
He waved his hand dismissively. "They always know beforehand. When we were in Sidon they began to move to other places early in June. The trouble began right after..."
For a moment I remained standing and watching the parade, proceeding with restrained urgency, like the evacuation of a forest before an earthquake or a fire. Then I examined the movement of the floodlights again and the density with which the soldiers were posted along the fences.
"Do not approach the fence," the loudspeaker instructed the marchers. I knew that here was my chance.
I returned to the tent and pushed my rucksack under the bed. After that, with blankets on my arms, I slipped out to a corner of the garden. In the interval between two rounds of the searchlight I threw the blankets over the wall. I waited for another four or five rounds, then carefully jumped over, onto the strip of bare ground between the wall and the street. When the next group of itinerants passed I placed the blankets on my head and joined them.
The Athenaeum looked like an enchanted spaceship, scattering light from a nucleus enclosed in darkness. Along the fence, the faces of the soldiers were in shadow; they talked among themselves in subdued voices. Those around me were silent. Somewhere, in a cellar of my memory, sprung a forgotten recollection of a similar walk. A film, maybe a book. Beneath their bundles, children squinted at me, women peeped with downcast eyelids, the men ignored me.
With each step away from the Athenaeum another nerve in my attachment to it was severed. Shafts of white light searched in circles along the path, reflecting in the brown eyes of the marchers. That country became a matter of color: brown was the prevailing shade. And now the brown people, who had been identical to one another, became familiar figures. I recognized the shoemaker in whose shop I had tried to buy glue, the garage attendant and some of those who had been sitting in the café. From the inhabited, safe houses at the top of the street we were watched with brown compassion. A lorry laden with brown earth moved aside for us, a brown bicycle sped across the road.
The market square was empty. Remnants of vegetables and refuse lay around the church steps. I pushed open the heavy wooden door of the church. Inside was the usual smell of incense and old furniture. A row of candles sent a soft glow onto the marble ledge at the foot of the altar. A dark figure leaned over them. The gust of wind I brought in with me made the flames dance. The figure put out its hands to shield them, but did not turn round. Silently, I walked along the aisle. The high ceiling amplified even the faint sound of my trouser legs as they brushed against one another. The figure hunched its shoulders beneath a black shawl. I went forward until I passed the front row of pews, then I stopped.
She turned her head to the side, then her body. Her face was sallow and serious. Around her eyes were lines of tiredness and sorrow. I took a few steps back and sat down in a pew, which responded with a creak.
"Go away," she said.
I stood up and took a step towards her.
"Please, go."
"I must talk to you."
She shook her head. Among the candles, I now saw, was one of the photographs of Anton which had stood on the mantelpiece. For a long moment my thoughts whirled haphazardly.
Then I asked in a low voice, "How? When?"
"Don't pretend innocence."
Bewildered and rebuked, I tried to reconstruct my offenses.
"They found his suitcase, two days after you disappeared." Her voice splintered into light echoes which flowed between the columns. "Mi
chel saw you digging in the wadi. He had to wait two days, until the curfew ended. Then he went down and got it out of there."
I retraced my steps and sat down in the pew. The light of the candles shimmered in Anton's paper eyes, giving them a doubting brightness. I tried to remember. What the hell had that suitcase looked like? Something small and rectangular, made of yellow cardboard.
"I haven't seen it since the arrest..."
"You'd better go," she said in a tired voice. "Michel has sworn to kill you."
In other circumstances I might have consoled myself with the fact that he had abandoned the idea of hurting her. Now I was overcome by a powerless fury. Was it to protect me from revenge that lay behind the ban on my leaving the Athenaeum or was it the fear that I would investigate, find out, fight back and convince...?
I wondered who had made the exchange. Scheckler? Was that the explanation for his sudden, sympathetic participation? I recalled his face, hesitant and concerned, as he told me about what was happening in the house at the top of the mountain. The amazement in his voice had been too genuine for such a scheming man. Who was left? Perhaps the priest. His house was isolated and stood right on the edge of the wadi. It was not inconceivable that he had slipped out at some stage during the curfew and substituted the suitcase for the kitbag. And perhaps that had been his role from the outset, his part in the scheme. Was that why he had preferred not to make contact with me, telling me that he had no connection with us?
My knees suddenly trembled as I realized how many people I would have to convince of my innocence. How would I do it? How should I begin?
"From the suitcase alone you can't conclude..."
"There were dark stains, presumably blood, on it."
"Or paint, the blood of an animal, ink, iodine..." I breathed deeply. "I'm still not sure that he's dead."
She remained silent.
I got up and knelt down beside her. She moved her body away immediately, but her scented fragrance wafted among the pictures of saints like something wanton.
"I didn't put the suitcase there. I put something else there..." How could I explain to her without breaking all the rules? "If the suitcase is the sign of his death and I didn't put it there, someone is trying to make you think that he's dead..."
Behind the grief in her eyes was a positive flicker which grew stronger as she asked simply, "Who?"
“I don't know."
"The people here loved him and have no interest in you." She gave me a searching look. "And your people..."
I swallowed.
One of the candles went out. She took another from a wooden box and stood it in the pool of hot wax produced by its predecessor. I touched her hand.
"I've got to see that suitcase. Something's happening, developing all the time and closing in on me..."
She pulled her hand away and looked straight at me. "I have no desire to help you."
I looked away.
"I have no regrets about us. I was a full partner and will probably also pay the price. But you did not give what you promised to give, and the moment I began to trust, you disappeared, and then the suitcase turned up..."
Now I wanted her more than ever. In her words, the mess sounded so organized, incriminating and hopeless, a dress rehearsal for what I could expect from the person who had arranged it all. But there was also a more familiar look in her eyes, which combined with all the longing accumulated in Tel Aviv and the spell which rejection cast on me.
"Why shouldn't I think that you killed Anton on the way to the detention camp?"
For a while I thought about a reply which would be no less organized than her straightforward logic.
In the end, all I could say was, "I couldn't have done it."
"I assume that in your profession you have already done everything."
"That's true," I confessed. "All the same, sooner or later you'll have to trust me. I'm your only chance to know that he's not dead."
Her face conveyed doubt, but also a glimmer of hope. We could hear a fresh series of broadcast commands from the Athenaeum. Were they perhaps looking for me?
"There isn't a lot of time," I said, looking around for a place to hide. "Could you go bring me the suitcase now?"
She pondered. "No," she said eventually. "We'll meet here tomorrow. At this time."
"It might be too late."
She did not reply, but her face said everything. I remembered the meeting in the ruin, and then when we had first met. If I could live the last month over again, I thought as I walked across the shafts of light and darkness between the pews, would I have done it all the same?
***
Someone who has acquired a facility for booby-trapping cigarette packets, sweet boxes, doors, cars and even beds and deckchairs, cannot believe that he contains some quality to defeat evil. It is sufficient for him to hope that he will manage an arrangement with it. But nothing seemed possible before dawn and without my seeing the suitcase. I collected the blankets from where I had left them, between the pillars of the colonnade and crept along the walls of the houses, heading toward the mountain. The road was empty. Nor were patrols to be seen. I skirted the steel bridge and Michel's bulrushes across the wadi. Beside the ruin, the barrels marking the perimeter were turned over and the coil of barbed-wire was out of position. I put everything back in place, like closing a door behind me, and jumped over the remains of the gravel path, careful not to touch the ground. Somewhere in the dark territory around me were landmines. I could almost feel the slipperiness of the gelignite with my fingertips, smell the acridity of the cordite, sense the springiness of the detonating mechanism. Their presence gave me confidence. They were dormant demons to which I had occasionally granted a flash of life. It was only fair that this time they should protect me, their sleepy trainer.
I spread the blankets in a hollow carved into a stone platform, a grave or maybe an ancient altar. A moment later I fell asleep, embracing the noises of the night and the gentle movement of the clouds.
The next thing I saw was the barrel of a rifle.
Maybe because it had become repetitious, almost routine, I was not alarmed. Another time, despair would have protected me from panic. This time it was a sense of urgency which alerted me and almost simultaneously I noticed that the moon had sunk, that morning was not far off.
I wondered whether there were any bullets left or whether he had used up the entire magazine during my absence. And either because he guessed what I had in mind or had been reading only a particular kind of book from the doctor's bookcase, he said with pathos, "I saved the last bullet for you."
People who tend to pathos are also easily drawn by drama.
"Don't move," I improvised calmly and authoritatively.
He froze. In an instant his false maturity dissolved. "Why?" he asked.
"Because you're standing on a mine."
He looked down for a brief moment during which I threw a blanket over him, pushed the rifle barrel aside and began to run along the path. Behind me I heard him struggle with the blanket. A tracer bullet from his rifle came past, vanishing into the sky like a glow-worm.
"Don't worry!" he shouted after me. "I've got more bullets!"
I did not wait. I leaped over the coiled wire and ran down the path. In the sandy square of the clinic I stopped to look back. Perhaps because of his mother, I felt a concern for him, the kind one feels for an unruly child, always getting into trouble. What if he stepped on a mine? Supposing he was crawling around there, in the growing light, feeling his way across the ground, looking for the way out?
But after a moment he appeared, limbs flailing, panting and waving the gun. I leaped down to the wadi and ran along the side, so as not to stand out against the skyline. He came after me, experienced but too excited. He set off a small avalanche of stones with each step.
On the metal bridge, a couple of guards were talking loudly. The road gave off a heat that mingled with the smell of soft tar. Crouching, I crossed to the other side, leaving Michel s
omewhere behind me. I moved among patient, curly sheep industriously nibbling the stiff leaves of the wild plants. They had probably escaped from some pen or other. Only after advancing among them for a few minutes did I realize that they would make a terrible row.
It was too late to retreat. A ram suddenly reared and bleated plaintively. Around him there was a prolonged chorus of assent, transmitting the news in every direction, until all of them, down to the last baby lamb, had joined in the lamentation. There was movement on the bridge. Somebody shouted. A burst of bullets cut through what remained of the night. I could see figures moving carefully down the slope, rifles in their hands.
The sheep began a frenzied stampede. Some of them plunged over the abyss. I wondered where Michel was hiding. His familiarity with the terrain offset all my knowledge and experience. There was nowhere to escape. Dawn broke suddenly, as if a huge lid had been removed. I was left standing in the middle of the area which the sheep had abandoned, and I waited.
"Irfa Idak. Hands up!" the soldiers shouted as they approached.
I raised my hands silently.
The first to arrive searched my body and my clothes. Those who followed knocked me to the ground and asked some questions in Arabic.
"I'm an Israeli," I tried to explain. "I belong to your unit..."
"He even knows Hebrew," said a bearded soldier. "If you're an Israeli, where's your uniform and what are you doing in no man's land?"
He slapped me with a rough hand and ordered me to wait. Someone was appointed to guard me. The other soldiers conferred at a distance, their eyes on me. They were reservists, in faded and ill-fitting uniforms, their bodies heavy, their paunches protruding.
The guard shouted to them, "Don't leave me alone. What if he's got a knife?"
A bit later, at about seven, they gave me a kick and ordered me up. The bearded one, his mouth full of half-chewed bread and army margarine, removed the belt from my trousers and tied my hands behind my back with it. Then I was marched among them through the awakening streets.
The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance (Suspense and Political Mystery Book 1) Page 20
