Operation Bethlehem, page 8
“Our friend here, ‘Eran,’ doesn’t understand Hebrew,” Abu Suleiman jeered.
“Oh! Is that so?” he answered in fluent Hebrew. “You know, it’s interesting. For some reason our guests here suddenly forget or don’t understand all sorts of things. He’ll get over it, you’ll see.” He waved his hand dismissively and left.
“Convinced?” Abu Suleiman asked. He crushed the cigarette butt in a disposable cup on the table. “I understand you’re confused and don’t know what to believe. But you can relax. There are no Palestinians here.”
Daniel glared at him. There was no end to the conspiracies, he thought and realized he didn’t have too many options left; the fingerprints they took confirmed his identity. Abu Suleiman was not a traitor and wasn’t anyone’s informant. The Israel Security Agency had arrested him, impersonating Palestinian Security, and there was a reason he called him Eran.
“When you came into the room, I didn’t know what to think. The truth is that I still don’t know,” Daniel replied, speaking in Hebrew for the first time in a month. His French accent sounded especially heavy to him.
Abu Suleiman lit another cigarette, took a deep puff, and exhaled. “What in the hell are you doing in Bethlehem?”
Daniel took a moment to consider his response. If he told the truth no one would believe him. “I already told you,” he said finally.
Abu Suleiman took a loud sip of coffee and sneered at him. “I think you don’t understand just how bad your situation is! Even the Prime Minister has been briefed on your arrest. A former Mossad field agent who is now spying for someone else... that hasn’t happened in a very long time. So please spare me the stories.”
Spy? For someone else? The possibility that his actions would be interpreted that way had crossed his mind in the past, but the enormous gap between such an accusation and the truth drove the thought out of his mind every time it popped up. “You must be crazy! You think I’m spying for someone else?”
“If anyone’s crazy it must be you!” Abu Suleiman laughed. “Tell me, ‘Eran,’ so I won’t confuse you with all these names; what do you want me to call you? Your bosses must have given you a new name.”
The accusation infuriated him. “Call me Daniel!” he shouted, “That’s who I am! That’s who I’ve always been! And you can stop with your Arabic nickname already. Enough!”
“My name is Shlomo,” Abu Suleiman said. He appreciated that Daniel was truly insulted.
“I feel a lot of anger toward the Office,” Daniel took a deep breath. “They betrayed me. But I would never betray my country! Never!”
Shlomo raised his eyebrows, deepening the wrinkles in his forehead. “The Office betrayed you? What are you talking about? You executed two innocent men in the middle of an operation, endangering your entire team. It was a miracle that we didn’t get entangled in a scandal with Sweden. They betrayed you? What did you want them to do? Give you a medal? You should be thankful they kicked you out and didn’t put you in jail!”
Daniel got even angrier. “Listen, Shlomo! I see you know all the details. I have nothing to say to you. Do what you want with me! You don’t understand anything, just like you didn’t understand back then! Traitor. Spy. Terrorist. Whatever. Because you all know everything, right? So why all the questions if you don’t like my answers?”
Shlomo chose his words carefully. “Look, Daniel. I’m objective. I’m not part of the Office, you know that already,” he said softly. “Put yourself in my shoes and think logically how this looks from this side. You’re angry at the Office, you left the country and all of a sudden you appear in Bethlehem with a fake identity. What do you want us to think? If the answer is more complex, please, explain it to me. You can be sure that everyone will be happy to hear that there’s been a mistake. Our biggest nightmare is discovering that a former field agent has become a double agent. The very thought makes me shudder.”
Daniel listened in silence.
“I have a lot of respect for you from way back, since that exercise in the desert. I’m going now and we’ll continue in the morning. I’ll make sure you’re given food and allowed to shower and sleep. Rest, son, and we’ll talk tomorrow.” Shlomo didn’t wait for a response. He stood, gripped the back of Daniel’s neck for a moment, and left the room.
Daniel trembled. The touch of Shlomo’s warm, comforting hand overwhelmed him, and despite his suspicions, he couldn’t hold back the emotion. It felt just like so long ago, when he went with his grandfather on digs in Israel, a young boy in a group of students, digging, sifting dirt or removing the layers of time from shards of pottery with a small brush. Suddenly he would feel his grandfather’s hand gripping the back of his neck, and then he’d kiss his head and say, “Bravo, mon chéri!”
Daniel quickly ate the dinner that the guard brought him. This time he also got hot coffee. He was not handcuffed again, and the young guards escorted him to a different room. Now he realized that he was in a house that had been converted into an interrogation facility. The three of them climbed the stairs and entered a room that was empty except for a simple bed with a metal frame, a mattress, pillow, and blanket. The windows were covered with thick sheet metal, the walls were white, with holes where the wall sockets should be. The daylight bulb on the ceiling was protected by a metal cage. Adjacent to the sparse bedroom, through a doorless opening with just a frame, Daniel saw a shower stall and toilet.
“There are clean clothes for you in there,” said one of the security guards. “Go shower and bring us the clothes you’re wearing now.”
Daniel didn’t respond. He entered the bathroom, got undressed, wrapped a towel around his hips and brought them the pile of clothes, with his shoes on top. The guards left the room and slammed the heavy door behind them. Daniel looked around him and saw two security cameras at opposite corners of the room. He saw another camera in the bathroom at an angle that enabled some measure of privacy. He got into the shower, shut his eyes and stood under the hot water that came directly out of the curved pipe – there was no shower head. He let the water rinse away the past 24 hours. He felt unsettled. The questions hovering in his mind since his arrest remained unanswered. He preferred to put his thoughts aside and surrender to the hot water and smell of cheap soap.
Five minutes later the stream of water suddenly stopped. Daniel got the message and reminded himself where he was. No free lunch, he thought. Everything was calculated, and everything had a purpose. He dried off with the scratchy towel, which softened as it absorbed the drops of water on his body. He put on the clothes he’d been given, faded underwear and a shiny brown, synthetic tracksuit. Before going to bed he searched the walls for the light switch and realized that there wasn’t one, but as soon as he lay down on the thin mattress and covered himself with the rough blanket, the light went out.
Daniel lay on his back, hands behind his head, and stared at the dark ceiling. It was silent. The sheets were clean, but they had no fragrance. To his surprise, he missed the smell of the sheets from his apartment in Bethlehem, not his apartment in Paris. He wondered what time it was. Was it the middle of the night already? Early or late evening? Once again, he assessed his situation: he was in no immediate danger, and no one would torture him or cause him pain. His identity had been revealed and there was no need to pretend. That was the positive side. The only issue on the agenda was to clear himself of suspicion. Daniel understood why they thought he was a spy, and also knew that they wouldn’t believe him if he told them what he was looking for at the psychiatric hospital. His cover story would be easier for them to swallow, and that’s what he would tell them. And yet, there was a problem: how to continue what he’d started in Bethlehem. They’d never let him go back there.
This last realization disturbed him more than his own fate. His personal quest was his only hope of returning to a meaningful life. He still didn’t know how he was going to do it but was determined not to let anyone take away his hope – which had only increased with Ibrahim’s revelations.
5
A long, irritating buzzing sound woke him up. When he opened his eyes the ceiling light was casting a gloomy shadow on the white walls. One of the guards from the day before came in carrying a tray with breakfast. “Eat quickly and get ready,” he ordered. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to take you downstairs.”
Daniel sat on the bed, the tray on his knees. He didn’t usually eat breakfast so soon after getting up, but he took the pita bread and stuffed it with the cold hardboiled egg and slices of cucumber and tomato, flattened it into a sandwich, and alternated bites with sips of tea from a plastic cup. As he’d expected, the two guards came in the minute he finished eating; the cameras didn’t miss a thing. He put on thick socks and rubber slippers that were part of his new wardrobe and was led to the familiar interrogation room. Outside the door he saw a small digital screen at eye level. He was ushered into the empty room. He walked around and did some stretches. A glance at his feet in the rubber-soled slippers reminded him of the patients at the psychiatric hospital. There was a buzzing sound and the door opened.
“Good morning.” Shlomo entered the room. He was perfectly shaved with every gray hair in place, in gray dress pants and a blue button-down shirt. “Please,” he nodded toward the chair and sat down, holding a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” Daniel replied, his face impassive.
“I hope you slept well. It’s going to be a long day and we have a lot of work to do,” the interrogator said, sipping his coffee.
“Yes, I slept,” Daniel responded in a strong voice, “but today doesn’t have to be long and tedious. I get your suspicions, but you can relax. I’m on my own mission. I’m no one’s spy, and it’s absurd you would even think that. Do whatever you have to do and ask whatever you need to be sure. I started something in Bethlehem, and I want to finish it. You know what, I don’t just want to, I have to! Otherwise, my life will never get back on track. So, get on with your investigation, clear me of this ridiculous accusation and let me be. I didn’t commit a crime.”
Shlomo looked at Daniel’s blank face, but he was clearly listening closely to the words he was speaking in Hebrew, now with no trace of an accent. Daniel looked sharp and calm, yet his body language showed his agitation. “I’m glad,” he said. “As I told you yesterday, we all hope that you come out of this clean.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“At the heart of the matter! What made you decide to go to Bethlehem under a fake identity and ‘volunteer,’” he said with air quotes, “at that psychiatric hospital?”
Daniel took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “When I returned to France, I was at a low point in my life. A very low point. I had to do something bold, different, that would get me back on track; to believe in myself again.”
“Wait a minute. Back up a bit.” Shlomo sat up in his chair. “Why so low? Because of Sweden?”
Daniel nodded.
“What happened there?”
Like every other time he recalled that night, Daniel’s heart stuttered. He knew what Shlomo was looking for. “I guess you already know.”
“I know what others chose to tell me. But I want to hear it from you.”
Daniel’s eyes scanned the floor. He looked up at Shlomo and scratched the stubble on his cheeks. “I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I did the right thing.”
“You still think that today?”
“I have no regrets. I couldn’t stand there and do nothing. If I hadn’t gone up to them, I would never have been able to forgive myself.”
“Forgive yourself for what? I don’t understand.”
“For not doing anything!” Daniel explained. “What should I do when I see two lowlifes grab a young woman, a girl, and call her a ‘dirty bitch’? I knew that they were going to rape her. How could I just stand there and not do a thing?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Shlomo questioned. “Why was it your business? You’re in the middle of an operation. It’s not like you’re in Israel, on the boardwalk in Tel Aviv, and you suddenly see an attempted rape and decide to get involved.”
Daniel knew that Shlomo was right, but at the foundation of his actions were deeper motives that he didn’t want to share with anyone, especially not a stranger. “What’s the difference? If I was witness to something like that in Israel and I’d got involved, I’d be applauded. I’d even be expected to get involved.”
“Daniel, even in that final exercise, you failed at that same situation. You saw a woman in trouble, and you lost it.”
He remembered Yael’s smiling face as she came up to him. “Those are two completely different things. It’s not about a woman in trouble.”
“You shot two unarmed, innocent people, and killed them! And that’s before we talk about all the others you endangered. A field agent doesn’t let emotions affect his actions. Maybe you shouldn’t have been recruited from the start.”
“That’s how you see it and there’s nothing I can do about it. I saw something completely different.”
“What did you see?”
“I already told you. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. I didn’t plan to shoot them. I thought they would run away, but their pride wouldn’t let them. When they moved to attack me, I had no choice.”
Shlomo considered what Daniel said. “But you could have just wounded them.”
“And really endanger the team? You know the police would have investigated them because they were immigrants.”
Shlomo got up and left the room. He came back with a pitcher of water and two glasses. He filled one and offered it to Daniel.
“Thanks,” Daniel said after drinking it all.
“Do you hate Arabs?”
Daniel lifted his eyebrows. He was surprised by the question. “What do you mean by Arabs? When I was a child, I only knew the immigrants in France, and I was afraid of them. But when I got older, I understood that ‘Arabs’ is something much more complex than what I was familiar with. When I came to Israel and served in the army, I got to know more of those you call Arabs: Palestinians and Arab Israelis, and of course Druze and Bedouins – brothers in arms that I met in different places. And in Office operations I also encountered Arabs of all kinds, each one had his own story. So no, I don’t hate them and I’m not afraid of them anymore.”
“I hear a ‘but,’” Shlomo said.
“But... I know them, I know what to watch for and how to act with them, and even more so now I’ve actually lived among them for a month already. Just like everywhere else there are all kinds. I don’t have to teach you about Palestinians.”
“I was afraid that I was going to hear politics.”
“That doesn’t really interest me,” Daniel replied. “But in general, I’m pretty sure that there will never be a love story with them. There will only be quiet when there’s a mutual interest, when both sides have had enough of the conflict.”
“And what does that have to do with Bethlehem?”
“Like they must have told you, they decided that I couldn’t stay in the Office, so –”
“So, they threw you out, you were going to say.”
“Fired, dismissed, thrown out – take your pick,” Daniel retorted. “I have nothing to say about it and it’s not something I dwell on anymore.”
“But you must have been angry.”
Daniel looked at Shlomo and laughed.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I would have expected you to be a bit more subtle. You’re looking for reasons for revenge?”
“Listen, son, I go home at the end of the day and you’re the one staying here. I don’t need to be subtle or play word games. I’m being as direct as possible.”
“Of course, I was angry. Who wasn’t I angry at? At myself, at God, that stupid Swedish girl wandering around at night...”
“And?”
“And in the end, I was the one who pulled the trigger, no one else. I’m responsible enough to understand that. But I think that the Office came to hasty conclusions and things could have been different.”
“So, you just went back to France?”
“It wasn’t as simple as you make it out to be, but that was the end result,” Daniel replied, his chest tight. “You have to understand, Shlomo, this is the only place that felt like home. When I’d hear Israelis fantasize about living abroad and complaining about Israel, it drove me crazy. They’re crazy. I was born in France but always felt like a foreigner. Let me tell you something; when I was around fourteen, living in France, I went to Poland with a delegation of Jewish children from the community. To the camps. They showed us everything and told us about the horrors done to our people.”
“I was on one of those delegations with the agency,” Shlomo nodded, a blank look in his eyes as if recalling that visit.
“And I,” Daniel continued, “I felt ashamed... I couldn’t understand it all, you know? I thought that something was wrong with me. On the last day, we visited Birkenau. I stood there with the guide, right at the entrance where the trains would come in, and the guide was talking to us, explaining, and then I heard the sound of marching. Everything went silent. No one spoke. Only the sound of marching, coming closer. Stomp, stomp, stomp. My heart was beating with the rhythm, and I was afraid. I think I even heard a trumpet... that echo, I’ll never forget it. I was shaking like a leaf, like at any minute the Germans were going to come. We were all looking at the gate, and then suddenly we saw a long line of soldiers. Israel Defense Forces officers in dress uniform and wearing berets, marching in step. An old man with a flat cap on his head was leading them. They passed by us, right by me, and I watched them, hypnotized, shaking, as if I were in another world. I looked into the old man’s eyes, so blue, so deep, I don’t know how to describe it, but his gaze looked like he was holding back tears. His eyes held both despair and hope, sadness and joy, and even though his back was hunched, he held his head high. Suddenly, the soldiers stopped. The old man turned to them, and they all saluted him. And he started to cry.” Daniel leaned forward, “Shlomo, that day something changed in me. I knew exactly where I had to live and what I had to do for my people. Even though I was just a boy.”
