Caddie throws her feet over the edge of the bed, walks to the window and stares blindly at the sky for several minutes. She rubs her own arms. Then she forces herself to focus on the street below. Anya is at the corner, standing motionless as though listening to an inner sound. Crazy street prophet Anya is their own neighborhood victim of Jerusalem Syndrome, that psychosis that attacks dozens each year. Some wrap themselves in white hotel sheets and wander the Judean Desert; others rally to the banks of the River Jordan believing themselves to be John the Baptist, or squat in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher waiting to give bloody birth to the infant Jesus. Unless they become aggressive or suicidal, they are usually ignored by the authorities. As is Anya.
As always, Anya wears an ankle-length dress with wide sleeves that intermittently slip up to reveal a tattoo of Venus on her right forearm. Her streaming blond hair is so snarled Caddie longs to shear it off. The neighbors say she’s in her midtwenties; sometimes Caddie believes it and other times she can’t imagine Anya is younger than fifty. Where she sleeps, how she gets her food, Caddie has no idea.
Some days Anya seems almost as normal as any stroller. Occasionally, in a rush of off-kilter intimacy, she links arms with Caddie on the street and asks after her in a friendly, concerned matter. But on most days she is full of mutterings about Christ, or Woden, a Bronze Age Norse god she has fixated on. She often stops at an intersection and preaches about visions, her own and others’, the gift she says she’s been given “in compensation.” People never listen to the prophets of their own time; that seems to be her main theme. She sermonizes in such a friendly way that she usually draws a good-natured crowd.
The story is that Anya—perhaps a little high-strung and overly religious, but basically an ordinary newlywed then—was touring Israel with her young husband and her mother. Anya’s husband was driving, her mother in the front by his side, Anya in the back. An eighteen-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, traveling in the opposite direction on the Acre-Karmiel highway in the Galilee, lost control of his car. It traversed the centerline and rammed head-on into the rental driven by Anya’s husband. In three minutes, three, including the Ethiopian, were dead.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Anya, “miraculously unscathed,” as an Israeli newspaper would report, had dragged the bodies of her husband and her mother from their car. Both heads rested on her lap. With the fingers of one hand, she combed her mother’s hair. Her face was lit by the flames from the teenager’s burning, overturned car. The horn on the rental car was stuck, and when they finally got it off, instead of silence, they heard her moaning: deep, monotonous, inhuman.
Anya traveled with the bodies to the hospital and remained mute for a week. When she finally spoke, it was to say she would not return to Sweden or cash in on her hefty inheritance. She became, instead, wandering Anya of Jerusalem, Anya of visions, Anya of the street. It was in a way, now that Caddie thinks of it, Anya’s revenge.
Caddie remembers that the day before she and Marcus went to Lebanon, they ran into Anya near the corner. When she saw them, she clamped both hands over her eyes and began to howl, an eerie sound that came from somewhere deep. Then she turned and fled. Caddie and Marcus both shrugged it off. Psychotic episode, probably. A shame. Nothing more.
Now, though, Caddie wonders: Could Anya have had a premonition? Some vision that might hold a clue about who is responsible for what happened to Marcus, and what she, Caddie, should do about it? She starts to struggle into her jeans, tugging at the zipper, rushing so she can get downstairs before Anya moves on.
Then she halts, and plants cool fingers in the hollows of her closed eyelids. What next? She’ll be looking for signs in the damned stars. What has happened to that practicality she always prided herself on? And to think she used to believe she had ideal traits to be a journalist.
Well, she still has. Some. She’s curious. Has a precise memory for dialogue and faces. A facility for grasping on-the-ground politics. Gifted with foreign languages. And she looks the part, with clipped hair and utilitarian wardrobe.
But she has handicaps now. Sweet Jesus, does she ever have handicaps.
Outside the window, a breeze shakes the trees as if giving them a scolding. She moves to the bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror. She runs a finger along the ashy skin under each eye. Then she sits on the toilet seat to pull on her boots, concentrating on yanking the shoelaces tight.
JON IS ALERADY THERE when Caddie gets to the office. She should have expected him, yet she’d hoped to slip in unseen. She needs some time alone to warm up the seat again. Her office—too grand a term for this hovel—is cramped, grad-student style, with file cabinets, a bookshelf, her PC, a laptop, two phones with separate lines, an extra foldout chair. It’s infinitely worse when a second person is added to the mix. The slightest movement becomes a process of negotiation. Marcus, cameras swinging around his neck, never more than poked his head in: Let’s go to your place, or mine.
The only plus is its location, in a building where the AP, Reuters and a couple other foreign news organizations are based. Since Caddie works on her own, proximity serves as an early warning for breaking stories.
Jon hunches over her desk, so engrossed in the International Herald Tribune that he is oblivious to his surroundings. He’s tall, thin and neat in a corduroy jacket, his clean-shaven face as soft-looking as a boy’s. He mouths something to himself. Based in Cairo with useable Arabic, he struggles with Hebrew. He works at it conscientiously whenever he’s in town. He told her once it was insulting if he didn’t at least try to speak the language of the people he was interviewing. She’d laughed and replied that his greatest charm, an overabundance of earnestness, was also a damned embarrassment.
Diligent, plodding even, Jon will be doing this until the day he dies. A perpetual Jerusalem fill-in, industrious, sweetly sincere and burnout-proof. She remembers three days after Yitzhak Rabin was shot, when they’d been working around the clock. He came back from Kapulsky’s with a box of doughnuts and a thermos of coffee, and for a few minutes they shared that intense undercurrent of camaraderie that can grow during a break in a big story. Often followed, she’s noticed, by the need to spill something personal. Something to do with life, not death.
Jon, in the foldout chair in front of the laptop, began talking between bites about his first time. Which, as it turned out, had been in a car not five minutes from the prime minister’s office, a little farther down Balfour Street. He’d been sixteen, visiting Israel with his parents, and the girl was fifteen, a rebel from an Orthodox family. Her collarbone obsessed him; he found it beautiful. It happened on a Thursday right before Yom Kippur. It had been sweet and touching and everything a first time should be, even for a boy. Certainly for a boy like him, he said, shy and awkward still.
She laughed when he said that, and he chuckled himself. And Caddie thought of her own first time, with an Indiana farm boy. Arnie was his name, a muscled D-student. He’d whispered that his parents weren’t home and described a plush living room couch with lacy pillows, but she’d led him to a cornfield, where she’d pulled him from sight between the rows. And there in the dirt, she’d learned two important facts. That her dreams, unlike those of her neighbors, were made of grit instead of lace. And that anticipation is nearly always sweeter than realization.
Then Jon was in the middle of saying what had happened with the girl afterward, how she didn’t show up to meet him as they’d planned and how he looked for her, when a government spokesman called to tell them of a news conference and Caddie dashed to cover it and the topic never came up again.
Now she clears her throat and he looks up and his face turns self-conscious. He tries to refold the newspaper and some pages flutter to the floor. He rises stiffly. “Caddie, I’m so—”
“I know,” she interrupts.
“I can’t believe . . .”
She nods. Oh, to get through this part.
“Well. You look great,” he says, as though she’s come back from some vaca
tion. He says it even though he’s unable to meet her eyes. “You’ve always been tough. But,” he spreads his arms, “should you really be . . .? I mean, Mike told me you weren’t to . . .” He trails off, his gaze wandering from her feet to her right cheek and then back to her feet again.
She steps into the office. “I’m ready to work, Jon. I have to work, in fact. But I’d like to keep it between us. It’ll only be features. Unless, of course,” she takes a deep breath, “a breaking story tumbles into my lap.”
He laughs. “You’re something. I don’t know if I could . . . but you . . . you don’t change. Okay, between us.” He pats her on the shoulder and shoots a look of admiration in her general direction. It comes from a great distance, that look, a long lack of understanding, but it’s what she’s going to have to live with.
Besides, it’s probably as much intimacy as she can handle right now. “Isn’t the Foreign Ministry presser about to start?” she asks.
He nods. “I better get going. You’ll be here when I get back, then?”
“Unless I think of somewhere else to go.”
When Jon has left, she still feels crowded, as though someone else is sucking up the air and filling the space, as though she must keep her elbows compressed to her waist and avoid expansive movements. She opens the top drawer of her desk. A stale smell escapes. She stares at a pile of notes for an economic feature she was planning to write, before. She slams the desk shut, and with her foot she shoves the stack of newspapers she has to go through—two weeks’ worth. She flips on her computer. Leap in. But to what?
She logs online, reads a couple pieces of e-mail, deletes the rest. Then she goes to a search engine and types in a few words. Beirut. Assassin. Up pops a list of books and movies and websites on the history of the Crusaders. She tries another search. Beirut. Kill-for-hire. No hits at all. What did she expect? E-mail contacts and a price list?
Down the hall, a phone rings, and a gravelly voice answers. It’s Pete, a photographer in his midfifties. “How many are there?” he grumbles into the phone.
Hearing him, she has an inspiration. She waits until he has hung up before walking down to his office. As soon as he sees her, he opens his arms, thick and covered with white-blond hair, and pulls her in. He smells of shaving cream, a sign that he hasn’t been out working yet.
“What a shooter he was,” Pete says. “Away from work, he was such a jokester—I never trusted a word he said. But taking pictures, he was—”
Caddie nods.
“You?”
“I’m okay.”
“You sure? Because if—”
She waves a hand to cut him off. “Listen, I need a favor.”
He gestures for her to sit and leans toward her.
“Let me know, will you, when you hear of clashes anywhere.”
“I always let you know,” Pete says.
“No, I mean anything. Big or little.”
His stare is suspicious. Photographers have to get to the violence or they’ve got nothing, empty negatives, a black hole, but experienced reporters wait until there’s a body pile. Even then, they weigh what else is happening. After all, they can always look at the footage or photos later to fill out their copy. “What for?” Pete says. “You’re not a hardware-sniffer.”
“It’ll get me up and running again.”
He stretches his legs. “Most of these aren’t stories,” he says. “They’re fender-benders. I dash by with my helmet and flak jacket, shoot a roll or two, and then I’m gone. No point for you.”
“I’m talking a long-term project,” she begins improvising, and then gives it up. She rises, walks toward the door and pauses. “Let me worry about what I take from it.”
He studies her a minute. “Something calmer might be your best bet for now.”
“Shit, Pete.”
He shrugs. “Okay, okay. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
She nods and leaves. Calmer, hell. What does Pete know? She can handle it; she can handle anything. Sure, maybe sometimes a few details get to her. The expressions and postures of the dead: the uncanny grins, the unnatural sprawls. The distinctive smell of blood and entrails: thick, swampy and sordid like a secret that should never have been revealed. Sometimes she gags. But then she holds her breath and keeps going. She is a stranger to easy astonishment. She can step over bloody ground for a quote, analyze a wound for its deadliness. Identify weapons and stay unfazed when they are waved in her face. She keeps her eyes on the basics: it’s a story. Stories stale quickly; each one has to have an angle. She slips in, gets what she needs and moves out, fast. A visitor.
Still, once back in her office, she reaches into her drawer and pulls out a list she keeps of feature ideas. She examines it a moment, then crumbles it and tosses it into the trashcan. None of it interests her. But what, what? She kicks the trashcan.
And then it occurs to her: Moshe. Of course. Moshe is the perfect way to sink into a feature with a hard edge. A West Bank settler leader linked to the movement’s radicals and, at the same time, articulate enough. She’s been developing him for more than a year now.
She calls him at his office. “I’d like to come out,” she says. “Spend a night. Get a feel for what’s happening there.”
“The only thing happening is that we’re trying to raise good, productive children in a community of values,” Moshe says, his voice thick. He always talks through his nose. If she didn’t know, she’d think he had a cold.
“Great, then,” she says. “I’ll write about that.”
“Having values doesn’t make us extremists.”
She imagines him playing idly with the gun he probably keeps in his desk drawer. “Of course not,” she says.
She hears the door open. For a moment she doesn’t recognize the man standing there. Then she realizes he’s the silk tie. The out-of-place would-be poet with the Russian accent and black eyes.
“Foreign journalists have a hard time appreciating us,” Moshe is saying, using an old line. “They draw rash conclusions.”
“I have some flexibility in my schedule right now,” Caddie says. “Sometime in the next week would be perfect.”
“Well—” Moshe hesitates. “I’ll get back to you.”
“If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll give you a buzz,” she says, and hangs up.
She’s not completely surprised to see the man from the Gaza hospital. Men often view female foreign correspondents as an odd breed, independent but lonely and ripe for the picking, women who took their jobs at least partly for the chance to have sex in exotic countries. These men are likely to track her down weeks, even months, after an interview, full of half-winks and anticipatory grins. Wanting her without any idea who she is: the ultimate insult.
If you happened upon a nude woman walking down the street, she imagines asking, would you avert your gaze or slow down to stare? He is, she decides, the staring sort.
“Yes?” she says after a moment, keeping recognition from her voice.
He stands at a distance and reaches, stork-like, to hand her a piece of paper. “The list of medicines they need.” He turns to go.
At second glance he doesn’t seem the predator type. He doesn’t have the swagger, the extra helping of phony confidence. “Wait a sec,” Caddie says. “Where’d you get this?” She shakes the paper without looking at it.
He speaks over his shoulder. “You’ll see they lack very basic supplies.”
“How’d you know I was asking about this?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
She shakes the paper again. “What if it isn’t legit?” He looks puzzled. “Legitimate,” she says. “For real.”
He shrugs, giving her his back as he pushes open the door. “Check it.”
“Wait.” Finally, something in her command stops him. “A simple question. What’s your name?”
“Goronsky. Alexander Goronsky.”
He says it oddly, each syllable placed heavily as though he doesn�
��t care what anyone thinks of him. As though if he ever knew how to smile, he’s long ago forgotten. Darkness beneath a tightly controlled surface.
“Goronsky,” she says. “All right. There’s a start. Now why don’t we go have a cup of coffee and talk a little more about this list of yours?”
It’s a rash invitation that startles even her. But if he is either surprised or pleased by her boldness, he doesn’t show it. He stares at her, nods and waits silently, looking out the window, for her to close up the office.
ON THE STREET he stays a step or two ahead, leading the way from west Jerusalem into the eastern part of the city, Salaheddin Street. He walks with head half-tucked, shoulders sucked in, feet gliding cat-like, as though he were prepared to slip through a sidewalk crack at the first sign of danger. He hesitates before the open door of Silwadi Café. Arabic music blares from a cassette player. A waiter sweeps past with a steaming tray bearing the scent of roasted peppers and sweet coffee. She expects Goronsky to ask if his choice is okay, but instead he moves unhesitatingly into the café’s single room and sits at a table. After a moment, she follows.
They wait for their order silently, Goronsky looking around the room as though sizing it up. Small talk, though Caddie is usually good at it, sticks in her throat these days.
“So how did you get this information? And why?” she manages after their coffee arrives.
“It was something I could do.” His face is bland.
“But how? Who are you?”
He straightens. He lays his hands on the table, each movement deliberate. She likes his long fingers. “Psychology professor,” he says, failing to meet her gaze. “I’m on sabbatical from Moscow State University, doing research at Hebrew University.” The way he speaks, so stiffly, conjures up an image of those words typed on a page. She can picture him practicing reciting them.
“Research on what?”
The Distance Between Us Page 6
