by Rose Fox
During the days of lying in the sand, Adam had developed special senses. The smallest thing that smelled different from the moldy smell that pervaded the cave taught him what was happening around him. He sniffed the air like an animal living in its burrow in the ground.
He lay in the sand for many hours and when the pain in his leg stopped torturing him, he examined every millimeter around him. He gazed at the sand wall and scanned for places where it was more indented, more compact and where the dust was more crumbly. If he noticed a change in the color of the grains of sand, he immediately thought of the possibility of it being a point where rain water filtered through and tried to calculate at what depth he was located. He didn’t know that rain was a very rare occurrence in this region.
Again the sharp pain began tearing at the Adam’s brain. He felt how it rose up from his leg, penetrated his heart and struck his brain. He had no idea of the condition his leg was in and hadn’t even seen the wound, but the pains were severe and unrelenting. It got so bad sometimes that his consciousness was clouded. Adam had already learned to identify these moments and even waited for loss of consciousness to lessen his suffering.
He was thirsty all the time and had stopped paying attention to the constant hunger that engulfed his body.
He leaned to the left, facing the entrance. He had not been able to lean to the right for many days because of the terrible pain in his leg.
Suddenly, straight lines of light flashed across the passages facing him and Adam inhaled noisily and sniffed the air. He could smell straw and a field and even detected the smell of heat, realizing that it was daylight outside and that the grass up there was dry. He heard the noise of grains of sand being trampled on, which informed him that someone was approaching in his direction.
A shadow fell over him and grew shorter till it disappeared and was replaced by two pairs of legs. The trousers were brown and the shoes were covered in mud. The mud exuded the aroma of warm straw. The people, who entered, spoke in Arabic and one knelt down beside him and gazed at his wounded leg with great interest.
Adam noticed how the man’s face and lips moved in a grimace of revulsion. He extended his arm towards the leg and Adam attempted to recoil, but was unable to move at all. The man did not touch his leg, only looked at it and gave instructions.
The legs beside him left the hollow and returned a minute later. A metal box was laid on the sand and the man crouched and rummaged about in it. Suddenly a large syringe appeared in his hand and Adam was surprised when the needle penetrated his flesh. The stabbing pain was terrible and was so strong that Adam cried out like an animal being slaughtered. The waves of pain that rose from his thigh suddenly struck Adam and he fainted.
Now again, his clouded senses provided relief from feeling the pain of the invasive treatment of his wounds. He didn’t feel the burning of the disinfectant, nor did he feel the application of the brace to hold the broken bones together as it pressed them back in place, followed afterwards by the closing of the flaps of flesh and torn skin over them.
In the minutes that followed, the man sutured his wound along the whole length of his thigh, from his groin to a centimeter above his knee. Adam did not feel the suturing along two long seams that ran separately down to his knee and it would be a very long time before he would see them.
* * *
Chapter Twenty Three
At five in the afternoon, the familiar beeps and sounds introducing the news broadcast were heard. Many Israelis were glued to the TV sets when the ‘Breaking News’ title appeared on the screen. The newscaster’s face bore a grim expression as she announced dramatically:
“Now, we cross over to the Knesset, where the Prime Minister, Mr. Dov Adoni, will make a special announcement.”
Several hours earlier, a car with darkened windows pulled up and parked at the back entrance to the Prime Minister’s private residence. A man in civilian clothing got out of it and slipped quietly into the house. There, they sat for a long time, secretly planning what they were going to reveal to the public and how they would word the message that two agents had been kidnapped while on a secret mission in Russia.
The Prime Minister went to the podium and fiddled with his glasses for a long while. He tried to remain composed and put on a firm countenance.
“My fellow Israelis,” Dov began and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, “I am not a bearer of glad tidings today.”
He lowered his gaze to the page that lay in front of him and continued,
“This is a difficult moment for us. Two innocent tourists from our country were abducted today and taken hostage.” He waited a few seconds and then fixed his gaze on the camera, as if trying to penetrate the screen and reach out to his viewers.
“They were touring the expanses of Russia when they were abducted and handed over to the Shi’ite organization, the military wing of Abbas, which has been holding them since yesterday.”
He moved the page, suddenly crumpled it in his left hand and abruptly threw it behind him in restrained anger and his eyes saddened as he continued speaking.
“Together, we will now view a statement from Hamdallah, the leader of the murderous organization, "Walid-el-Allah”.
A smug individual appeared on the screen. He seemed to be in high spirits. His chubby cheeks were rosy pink and shiny and he wore a dark turban on his head. He made no effort to conceal his laughter and his shoulders rocked back and forth. He appeared to be enjoying his finest hour and the high point of his life. He let out a chuckle and smiled mockingly.
“You know, we really didn’t have to make much of an effort. They walked straight into our hands.” He made a sign with two fingers of a man walking,
“Here, this is how they fell into our hands and all we had to do was pick them up,” and he chuckled again and added, “I assure you that the package they travelled such a long way for will be very helpful to us in the future.”
Like a trader, displaying his goods at the market, he continued boasting about the two captives.
“We won’t disclose whether they are alive or dead and you will never know. I warn the Zionists lest they try anything and I suggest they avoid sending in the Red Cross to try and find out how they are.”
The man leaned in closer to the camera and laughed, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth. Honey dripped from his lips as he shared whispered secrets with the viewers.
“In the meantime, I will hint that they both may still be alive” and, all at once, the image disappeared from the screen.
The Prime Minister appeared before the camera again.
“We are richly experienced in everything concerning this mass murderer and his evil organization.” He beat his fist on the podium.
“I declare here and now that we are not going to give in to extortion and threats and we will continue standing fast and firm. With God’s help, we will get through this trying time and see them walking among us again.”
He bent his left arm on the podium, leaned on it and his eyes narrowed to thin slits as he said dramatically, “the two people who have fallen into the hands of the Shi’ite organization are his Honor, the District Court Judge, Justice Adam Ayalon and Advocate Abigail Ben-Nun.”
* * *
Leila sat almost all day in the black tent, erect like a statue and leaning on pillows placed behind her back as she sat fixed to the television, listening to interviews. She heard the commentators and tightly hugged Arlene, her granddaughter. Leila did not cry, she did not say a word; she just held the child to her heart.
The child tried to free herself from her grandmother’s embrace, distancing her small head from her and looking into her face. She tried to understand why she was pressing her so hard that she hurt her but she didn’t ask her anything. She squirmed and freed herself from her grandmother and ran straight to her games. Hamdi, the yellow dog, ran into the tent, sniffed around and Arlene ran to him, trying to catch his tail. Hamdi was the son of the old Canaan bitch, which roamed around the
tents when her mother, Naima, was born.
The morning before, Iman, one of her daughters arrived with her two children, in order to be close to her mother at this time and now Leila heard the voice of Adel, her eldest son, coming from the men’s tent. She hadn’t seen Adel for many days and understood that he, like his sister, had come to the tribe to console her.
A strong, sharp sound escaped from Leila's throat. She cried soundlessly and rocked back and forth in her grief. The sound of her crying was heard by her husband, Yosef, and he hurried to her tent. Leila raised her eyes to glance at him. He knelt on his knees beside her and shook her shoulders gently. He looked into her smoldering eyes that looked like two wells flooded with sorrow.
“Hey, my beloved, get up, woman, God forbids this.” He spoke to her tenderly and caressed her cheek with his finger.
“We are forbidden to mourn someone, who is still alive.”
Yosef raised her chin and tried to meet her gaze. “Naima is alive and you’re sitting as if you are in mourning. Get up and let’s put our heads together and think how to endure this period we have to live through. Cheer up, my wife!”
Leila lowered her gaze and spoke hoarsely.
“Where did Naima go? How did she get to them?”
“Leila, she was on an assignment, a very important one in the service of the country.”
“Why there? She has a small child,” she said without meeting his gaze.
Yosef did not reply because he didn’t know what to say to her. He saw the tortured expression his wife looked at him with, an expression that pierced and tore at his soul.
The sounds of an approaching car were heard outside and a cloud of dust came in through the opening in the tent. Yosef stood at the entrance and saw that Adel had arrived from the men’s tent and joined him. Facing them was an army vehicle that was moving slowly till it stopped in front of them. The two of them waited, curious to see who had come to visit the tribe.
Two people got out of the vehicle, a man in civilian clothes followed by a uniformed officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on his shoulders. They approached, extending their arms to shake hands. A cameraman got out of the back door of the vehicle with a camera on his shoulder. He had begun shooting from inside the car, making an effort to record every second of Life in the Bedouin Tents realizing it would be famous in the days to come and that the footage he was shooting would become a hot commodity. Adel opened the flap to the entrance to the men’s tent and invited the three of them in.
The merriment of children came from outside accompanied by scolding from Iman as she tried to calm her children. They were racing around with Arlene, the daughter of the abducted woman and their whoops of excitement somewhat softened the prevailing distress. Then she went over to the dying fire to place a small finjan on a wire grill over the embers. A minute later, the aroma of coffee rose in the air and she removed the vessel, placed it on a round tray in the middle of a circle of tiny cups.
Leila heard the voices and smelled the scent of the coffee and, unusually for her, left her large tent and entered the men’s tent. She sat down on the mat and leaned against a huge cushion. Her long scarf slipped a bit and revealed her dark hair, shot with touches of gray that looked like silver threads. Embarrassed, she hurriedly straightened the scarf to hide them. The visitors looked admiringly at the impressive stature of the mother of the woman who had been captured by the Shi’ite organization and because of whom; the whole country was in an uproar.
Leila bowed her head, tense and alertly waiting to hear what the guests had to say. She didn’t look at them and it was clear that they had come to inform her officially that her daughter, Naima, had been taken hostage by the enemy. Not a single tear was visible because she had decided to restrain herself and not reveal her pain to anyone. Leila did not want to share, what she believed was her personal sorrow, with anyone. She had been raised to control herself and hold back her emotions and believed that this would help her cope with the very difficult situation that had befallen her. The man spoke and the more his words pained her, the straighter she sat and raised her sorrowful face, an image which was captured by the lens of the television cameraman.
On that very same day a military vehicle also arrived at Frishman Street in Tel Aviv and three people exited, this time, accompanied by Sivan Mazala, the TV commentator.
They had arrived at the home of the imprisoned judge, Adam Ayalon and Sally, who was still his wife, received them at her home. Instead of the mat, spread out on the sand they walked on the floor of granite tiles touched with pink marble. They were invited to sit on light-colored leather sofas.
None of them mentioned and, perhaps, none of them knew yet that the judge had not been in contact with Sally for almost a year and, of course, no one mentioned that the judge, Ayalon, had been seeing the captured advocate. Meanwhile, the existence of Arlene, the little daughter of Judge Ayalon and Advocate Ben-Nun, was not mentioned and there was doubt whether his wife even knew of her existence.
The truth of it was that Sally Ayalon was stunned by the startling news of Adam’s capture by a terrorist organization. She wanted to scream when she understood how he had run his life over a period of many years as she grasped that she had no involvement in her husband’s secret life. Now, in the company of the people facing her, she pursed her lips, frustrated by the fact that these people were more involved in Adam’s life than she was.
The two men officially informed her of Adam’s captivity and she turned her rage and humiliation on them as she hurled words of wrath and anger.
“This country sends people to their death,” she declared, “it’s a system that doesn’t know how to instruct its emissaries and leads our country to shame and stupidity.”
“Should we be ashamed?” asked Sivan as she brought the microphone closer to the angry woman’s mouth.
“Of course, they scorn and mock us in the eyes of the world. Did you see how that man Hamdallah ridicules us? How he describes the way they fell into their waiting hands?"
“Right, but was anything else to be expected from him?”
“No, it happened because Adam was not trained as he should have been! They send people on secret missions and then just…”
“Yes, tell us what you know about the assignment he was sent on?” Sivan asked and turned the microphone over to the weeping woman.
“Now really, you certainly don’t expect me to give you details. Believe me they are not just tourists,” Sally exclaimed. She held the microphone close to her lips and continued:
“Of course, he wasn’t alone.”
“Who could have been with him, then?” the correspondent asked.
“His partner was the judge they buried recently, don’t you remember?!” she waved her hand in the air,
“And I’d like to remark that I’m surprised they didn’t hold his body for ransom. After all they have no shame, dead or alive.” She released the microphone and leaned back limply.
“I understand your anger and your loss. The whole nation supports you and that will give you strength,” Sivan said.
Sally pummeled her hankie and brought it to her eyes and the camera flashed and snapped her at that moment.
That day, the picture of the tearful and angry wife appeared side by side with that of the upright and restrained Bedouin mother.
Two days later the ransom demand came.
The confident and mocking voice of Sheikh Hamdallah was heard in almost every Israeli home.
“You have no idea how highly I value the fact that the country from which the two spies came, is prepared to pay any price for its prisoners,” as a joyous smile spread over his face.
“Clearly, Israel is developing its nuclear strength, which is why it sent two of its emissaries to us. They, my friends, have a price on their heads, a very high price, dead or alive.”
He paused and stretched his lips into a semblance of a smile, before he continued speaking.
“The account is simple. One thousand fi
ve hundred of our prisoners in exchange for each of the hostages and the names of our heroes will be announced in the near future.”
“That’s a strange price,” said the commentator Yacov Ha’elion. He mumbled something like,
“Did I hear that right?” but out loud, he summed up,
“Three thousand prisoners in exchange for our people and that is only the beginning.”
The very next day, an article by Haim Shanun appeared in the press regarding the ransom demands. It began with a list of prisoners that he had obtained using his own methods. The camera scanned the list of names and in the background; he recited them at enormous speed in order to get them all in so that he began sounding like the Chipmunks or like a peddler calling his wares.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the country’s wholesale market opens today!” Then he added in his deep voice,
“Here’s an example of the price we have to pay for our hostages.”
Images of burnt, charred stores appeared on the screen. Ambulances were scattered alongside, their doors wide open to take in the many wounded people lying in the street. The dead were also lying in the road. In the corner of the photographs, the image of the terrorist bomber appeared.
“This is Ziad Mahloul, one of many prisoners of the state asking to be released. To remind you, Ziad planted the bomb at the ‘Zbarro’ restaurant in Jerusalem, causing an explosion that killed a dozen adults and seven children. Ziad was captured a week after the attack in an operation that cost the life of Major Ron Dankner,” the reporter announced.
The charred chassis of a bus appeared on the screen. Its left side was torn open and the blood stained, burnt skeletons of seats stuck out. Emergency personnel were bending down to pick up body parts blown out of the bus.
Haim spoke again against the background of this grim sight.
