by Rose Fox
“Allow me to speak openly to you. Something apparently happened to me here that I was unaware of.” She grew silent again.
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“I’m pregnant and it’s important that I know who the father is. I was drunk and don’t remember who came here with me.”
This time, the young man laughed out loud and Abigail shrank back in her seat in embarrassment. He seemed amused, but noticed her embarrassment and quietened down.
“The truth is that I do have an idea who my partner was, but I need to confirm it. He was also drunk.”
Abigail found herself switching between both languages, English and Arabic.
“And how exactly do I fit into your picture?”
“The surveillance cameras. Perhaps they caught us in the lobby?”
“I understand, my dear Bedouin lady. But, since this is no easy task, I’m not sure we will be able to oblige,” he said and leaned back.
Abigail rummaged in her handbag, pulled out several banknotes, which she placed on the table and, with her hand still resting on them, said, “of course, you’re right. I’d forgotten how much work is involved in doing a thorough job of checking through the films.”
Later, as they sat watching the pictures being screened, Abigail blushed and was grateful for the darkness in the room.
Judge Ayalon appeared in the pictures, looking wild, his shirt unbuttoned and pulling Abigail’s hand as he hurried her along. His other hand embraced and fondled her; his mouth was open as he sang drunkenly. She held her shoes in one hand as she trailed after him, barefoot, her long hair loosened and swinging around her face.
It was difficult to look at the pictures. She never believed she would find herself in such a situation, but that was unimportant compared to the conclusive evidence she now held in her hands that he had made love to her and spent that fateful night with her.
When she returned home, she slept for a long time to recover.
The next morning, the doorbell ringing startled her. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was ten past eight. She opened the door as she gathered her unkempt hair from the night before in a ribbon. A policeman stood in the doorway and read aloud from a page in his hand.
“Miss Abigail Ben-Nun?”
“Yes, what happened?” she asked, not fully awake yet and trying to read from the page in the policeman’s hand. Suddenly she realized who the figure in the doorway was.
“Officer?!’ she burst out in surprise.
“Yes, may I come in?” he asked and entered without waiting for a reply, then, began walking and looking around the apartment.
“Come in, come in, why not?” she said following him as he wandered through the rooms.
“I suppose you’re looking for something or, perhaps, someone? Officer, are you willing to tell me what you’re looking for, Sir? May I assume you have a search warrant or something of the kind?”
The policeman walked back and placed the document on the kitchen table. Abigail went to the front door, glanced again at the stairwell to check if the policeman had come alone and then closed the door.
“Madam, you could cooperate with me and simply tell me if you have recorded tapes of visitors to this apartment,” he said “because the material that’s important to us is from the beginning of May, meaning from about a month ago.”
“Certainly, no problem, you will get everything, just ask,” She stated and he looked at her expectantly, “but perhaps you could first tell me who signed the search warrant and why I have to report on visitors to my apartment?”
Instead of answering her, the police officer asked, “You’re Bedouin, aren’t you?”
“That’s what they say,” she responded.
“I know. My partner is Druze. Wait, I think he’s Druze or, perhaps, he’s also Bedouin, but there’s no difference, is there?” he continued babbling. “Tell me, your family, those Bedouins, do they come here to visit you?
“Sure, without question! They come here every week and always on Sabbath eve. We light candles and bless the Challah.”
His face reddened, he scratched his chin and appeared to be thinking how to respond. He wasn’t at all amused and continued:
“I’ve heard they were involved in that case of the murdered cab driver, right?"
Abigail was getting furious.
“Ah, I forgot to tell you that not only are they involved in the murder and took part in it, but, as their Bedouin sister, I also inherited the same characteristics.” She noticed that he wasn’t even listening to what she was saying.
“The truth is that you’re all the same to me, but I’m not prejudiced. On the contrary, I think Bedouins are also human beings, only they don’t think quite like me. Do you know what I mean?”
He continued chattering away as he moved books on the cupboard shelves. Suddenly he caught on to what she had said earlier and spun round.
“What’s that you said about your family and the characteristics you inherited from them? Wait, do you realize you’re threatening a police officer in the course of his duties?” He straightened up, stood to attention and added, “It was quite clear, I know. Only a snake changes its skin. A Bedouin is always a Bedouin.”
“Really?! She laughed, “So how did you have the courage to come here alone? Weren’t you frightened?”
“Now don’t get carried away, Madam Bedouin, I was told that there would be no problem with you. They said you’re Okay and that I’d be fine on my own,” he said quickly but glanced at her nevertheless.
When he left she went about clarifying who had requested the search and within two minutes was told that the search warrant had been issued at the request of Justice Ayalon.
She arrived at Advocate Levy’s office.
“Now, it seems I really do need you. I need you desperately,” she said.
“I already understood that from the tone of your voice when you called. What’s it about?”
“I have a little problem.” She said and put the tiny tape on his desk. Avi took the cassette and put it on his small tape recorder and a mixture of indistinguishable voices was heard. Suddenly, Abigail’s voice was clearly heard.
“Leave me alone, you’re hurting me. Ayalon, what do you think you’re doing?!Get out of here! Will it have to take calling the police to get rid of you?!”
Afterwards, her cry was heard.
“You’re drunk, you’re drunk again! The same situation is repeating itself. Get out of my house and my life. You’ve done enough damage!”
Her words were screamed hysterically, followed by an Ayalon’s response.
“… Apparently that’s the same whorish behavior and drunkenness that you displayed that night at the club.”
In the background the sounds of furniture being moved are heard, shouts, Abigail screams and the door opening and closing.
There was silence in the office and Abigail shivered.
“I want to understand something. Have you already reported or informed the police of this incident? You’re aware, Madam Advocate, that this is a case of assault.” He pointed to the tape-recorder.
“No, I didn’t want to involve the police. But, for your information, the police came to call on me yesterday evening and its representative conducted a search of my home. I was forced to listen to the enlightened policeman’s learned opinion with regard to my Bedouin origin.”
She twisted a piece of paper between her fingers and stared at him.
“Avi, tell me, what should I do?”
“Listen, if you ask me to act, then that’s a declaration of war,” and she was silent.
“Forgive me, but I don’t know how to attack and gently and respectfully defend at one and the same time. I see two possible situations here. You can either give up and put the whole matter aside or go after him and prosecute. But then, you have to go full force ahead until the bitter end."
He brought the tape recorder closer to her, pointed at it and added,
“Just so you know; thi
s makes me really angry. I don’t understand how a situation like this came about because this is not a proper way for an Israeli judge to behave.”
He waited again, leaned forward and tried to meet her eyes. She said quietly.
“Draw up a document and I will sign. Continue and do whatever it takes.”
“Now, I want to understand you. Please define what you would consider a success in this case."
* * *
Her infant daughter was born on January tenth at ten minutes to ten o’clock at night. She was a large dark-skinned little girl weighing 2.900 kilos. The birth was three weeks premature.
Abigail did not hesitate for a second over the name and called her Arlene, after the principal of ‘The Home’. That was the only way she could honor the devotion shown by Arlene, who had given her unlimited warmth and love and the special treatment she needed so much in her childhood and adolescent years. It was also a way of thanking the woman, who was in fact responsible for almost everything she had achieved.
Now, she had to consider the dilemma she had put off dealing with in the last months of her pregnancy. Abigail thought about whether she should register Adam’s name as their daughter’s father. She laughed and told the nurse at the hospital of her dilemma and she advised Abigail to register his name in her birth certificate.
“Why? What connection is there to him after his estrangement from me?”
“Listen, when your daughter grows up, it will be important to her to know her roots. And besides that, you could keep the document a secret forever.”
It poured with rain all morning, when she came home two days later with the baby in her arms.
After the birth, Abigail went through a difficult time. She could find no solace. At night she was woken by Arlene’s crying and somehow she imagined that danger lurked everywhere. Every night it was the same. She cried and rocked the baby in her arms, trying to suppress her thoughts. Then she decided to prepare an escape in order to calm herself. She packed clothes for herself and little Arlene and put them in a valise which she tucked away under the baby’s cradle. Each time her heart started racing with anxiety she would peep at the valise she had packed away under the cradle and, somehow, that would calm her down.
The days of nursing her daughter evoked yearning for her family in the desert. She had no photographs of any of them and it bothered her that the image of her father, who had been killed in the desert sands, might fade and disappear. A few days later she purchased canvas and paints.
She sketched a pencil image of her father and decided to try and transfer it on to the canvas.
She worked on the portrait for more than a month and, in all that time, she felt it was still incomplete.
Arlene was two and a half months old. Her eyes were sky blue, not shot with green like her mother’s. Her hair was dark brown, unlike her mother’s. The smile and two dimples in her cheeks melted Abigail’s heart and the child was her whole world for that moment.
She was about to take her out for a walk when the phone rang.
“Abigail? Barak here, can you make time for us?”
“Ah…” she hesitated. “What’s it about?” She was playing innocent, knowing that he was interested in her getting back to work.
“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” he said.
“I’ve really taken time out from my usual life. I’m different. I’m not my old self anymore.”
There was a pause.
“I understand. If you find yourself pining for action, you know where to find me,” he offered.
She called up Judge Anton.
“Listen, Abigail, I’m willing to meet you with pleasure, but it’s almost impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m thousands of kilometers away; you’ll have to be patient if you don’t want to talk on the phone.”
“When do you think, we’ll be able to meet?”
“Hey, Abigail, is everything alright? What’s the big secret?”
“When you come, we’ll meet and talk about it.”
“How’s the heiress?”
“Wonderful. She smiles with two dimples like her mother, only she isn’t blonde.”
“You can’t help that, she’s the product of another parent too, right? A combination of two?”
“Agreed. Bye for now.”
Abigail added clothes for Arlene to the suitcase that always accompanied her on her trips and business ventures and decided that she would move the child to grow up somewhere else. She intended leaving her with her childhood tribe. She left early in the morning before the heat began and traveled south, not letting anyone know of her plans.
They noticed her car from a distance and when she got out she was received with welcoming cheers of joy. Leila met her three-month old granddaughter for the first time and she was passed round among the women, who had gathered around them.
Abigail felt at home again and was happy that her baby daughter could see, smell and hear the sounds and voices of her roots.
Abigail spent three days with her mother and family in the tent encampment, transferring responsibility for little Arlene to them before she left.
“How long are you going away for?” Her sister Latifah asked her and Abigail shrugged her shoulders and continued arranging her bag.
“I really don’t know,” she said and immediately added: “Come, give your sister a little hug.”
That evening, on the plane, she heard the announcement in Hebrew and French.
“In another ten minutes, we will be landing on French soil. Please fasten your seatbelt.”
It was April and a cold wind was blowing. No one was waiting for her, but she knew very well where she was going. She asked the cab driver to take her to the hotel that was written on a page and on the way she called Justice Anton and he told her:
“I had to leave. Take a room and make your arrangements. I will contact you when I return tomorrow.”
In the morning the house phone rang and the clerk asked her to go down to the lobby where she was awaited. Abigail went down to the lobby and waited and then she noticed the figure of Judge Stolov outside through the window facing the street. He beckoned to her and she went outside to him on the sidewalk.
It was cold, everything was gray and it was clear that it was going to rain. She looked skywards with apprehension, then linked arms with him and talked as they walked ahead.
“Don’t worry, it’s always gray and overcast here but I don’t think it will rain today. Come, let’s walk down the road a little and talk. This way no one will see us or overhear our conversation.”
She looked around, wondering where to begin.
“I received a hint with regard to my recruitment to the Mossad," she said quietly and Anton was silent.
“What’s the matter? Why are you silent?” Abigail asked and stared ahead, pensively. She immediately thought aloud.
“Is it so dangerous?”
Anton nodded and mumbled, “look, you ought to think it over before you agree. Many of us are involved in this. Leave it, don’t get involved.”
“What do you mean by ‘many of us’? Are you trying to say, for example, that Justice Ayalon is also involved?”
Anton pursed his lips as a sign of silence.
“No names, please. And yes, many names are involved and it’s possible you know some of them. The question is what it’s worth you.”
“Are you warning me or protecting me?”
“Both. Don’t insist.” He said and when he saw her disappointment, added, “don’t misunderstand me. If you join, we’ll be able to use you, but I want you to be aware of the risks. It’s not just an adventure.”
Abigail didn’t know what to decide and heard him say:
“You’re a new young mother and you have a child to raise.”
Abigail laughed as she said with confidence:
“Arlene’s in a safe place, the safest possible place. I’ve sent her far away from everything.”
“Really
? Okay, then I have a question for you. How far is she from the place where your father and her grandfather fell?”
Abigail swallowed hard.
Three hours later she was on a plane back to Israel.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Abigail had left Arlene at the tent encampment and Leila was like a mother to her now. She cared for her granddaughter as if she was her own child.
Abigail came to visit and lay on the braided rope hammock. Her hand rested behind her head as she gazed at her six-month old baby daughter. She was crawling now on the mat in her grandmother’s tent as she played with a tiny wooden sprig that a warm breeze had blown inside. Her dark hair had been trained into ringlets and her large pale eyes sparkled with curiosity as she looked around her.
Two hours later, Abigail was on her way as she hurried to a court hearing with Gil Ayalon, the soldier she had brought back to Israel, the nephew of Adam, the Judge. The progress of his trial was very important to her and she still had not freed herself from the belief that, through him, she would be able to connect what she would hear there with the death of her father in the grenade explosion in the desert.
On her way to court, she stopped at her home in Tel Aviv to pick up her mail. She found a note for an item of registered mail from the court and she went to pick it up at the post office on Esther Hamalka Street. She opened it and read:
Ms. Abigail Ben-Nun,
You are hereby summoned to family court at 16 King David Street in Tel Aviv.
The hearing will be held on Thursday, August second at 11:00am in Room 32, in the presence of the Registrar, Mr. Nissim Bar-Adon.
Abigail was furious when she realized how she had been deceived and she tried not to tear it up. Now, she was angry at herself for failing to foresee the steps that Justice Ayalon would take. It had been hinted to her that he was working against her, but she presumed that he was scared by her assault complaint or that she might apply for recognition of his paternity of her daughter. Suddenly, she understood that the date of the hearing was that day and she regretted having gone to the post office. Clearly, she could not avoid the hearing as she had signed receipt of notification for it.
