The Marsh Angel Page 5

  Yes, he smiled.

  She punched a few keys in her panel, found the recording, took off her headset, and handed it to Tamir. Her hand fleetingly touched his hand. It was much warmer than his. He put the headset on which was warm as well, practically blazing, and listened. Indeed, she wrote down exactly what was said. It sounded clear. He thanked her, and lingered around for a moment, absorbed in thought.

  So, what? she asked, did they start bringing their women up there?

  He looked at her in silence. Her lips were magnificent. He recalled the full, chiseled lips of Egyptian women depicted in ancient papyrus paintings he had adored in his childhood.

  Maybe it’s Lebanese women from Baalbek, she suggested.

  You should’ve been an analyst, he smiled.

  You think I would’ve been good at it? her eyes lit up.

  I think so, why not… he floundered. She must have interpreted that as hesitation on his part, as the spark in her eye dimmed at once. He wanted to keep that spark alive, that verdant flicker, dancing over the heavy muddy lake water. If they’re bringing their women with them, he said, they wouldn’t ask for just one female set, and if these were Lebanese women they were fooling around with, they certainly wouldn’t ask their headquarters in al-Mazra‘a for hygiene products for them. No, this has to be something else.

  What could it be? she asked.

  Maybe, he said, there’s a woman up there.

  Of course there’s a woman up there! She reproved, disappointed.

  No, I mean a woman that’s part of the unit itself.

  Like a secretary, or a quartermaster, or a cleaner?

  Maybe… he said. And maybe… maybe someone operational.

  What?! You mean like a combatant? With them??

  Why not?

  She deliberated a bit. The whole idea seemed to make her uncomfortable. It doesn’t make sense, she finally determined.

  Why?

  Well, you know, Arabs…

  You know, he said, these organizations, Habash’s Popular Front, Hawatmeh’s Democratic Front, they’re all secular organizations. It’s part of their ideology. They talk about a secular democratic state, sometimes even a Marxist state. They loathe the conservatism of traditional Arab societies and want to found something completely new. Even Jibril’s organization— which is more pragmatic, loyal to the Syrians and less ideological— is secular and opposes conservatism.

  That’s exactly your problem, she muttered in what sounded to Tamir like suppressed anger.

  What problem? Whose?

  You guys, the intelligence analysts. You use all these fancy words to talk about these organizations—Marxist, pragmatic— but you don’t realize that behind all these slogans, they’re still Arabs. You think you know all about Arabs, but you don’t know anything.

  You mean, that they’re conservative? Traditional?

  Yes.

  Tamir walked away, his mind racing.

  On Sunday morning, he used the encrypted red phone, the amethyst, to call the head of the Jibril unit in Department 195 at headquarters, and told him about the dispatch. He wanted to consult the unit head about the annotations he needed to make on the matter, and to hear his opinion in general. The unit head, a guy named Eli Nissenbaum, said it’s hard to say, and that he would need to see it pop up a couple of more times before he could determine with any kind of certainty if the organization added a woman to the unit. Even if they did, he said, chances are she’s not an actual pilot, because it’s unlikely they would so quickly promote a woman to such a sensitive role in what is considered the organization’s elite unit. We should keep tabs on it, he added, but either way it’s nothing more than a nice little storm in a tea-pot, since this unit hasn’t done a single thing since it was established. A storm in a pot of sweet, Arab tea, he added, delighting in his pun.

  His assessment made more sense than some fantasy about a woman-combatant appearing out of thin air. Still, Tamir asked Nissenbaum if he knew of any female operative in the organization that fitted the profile.

  You’re asking the right questions, Nissenbaum expressed his appreciation. Perhaps you should replace me here. I’ve kind of grown sick of them, and I’ll be discharging soon… I can’t think of anyone right off the top of my head, but I’ll think about it. Anyway, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother too much over such trifles. You have more important things to do, don’t you? I hear there’s an attack on an outpost in your sector almost every night… Honestly? Doesn’t sound like fun. Sounds exhausting.

  The next few days went by uneventfully. Tamir used them to catch up on his reading. At the start of his apprenticeship period, Harel had told Tamir that he needed to get up to speed as quickly as possible. ‘Up to speed’, in this sense, mainly meant reading everything that was directed to them by the unit’s internal computer system, which was linked to the Military Intelligence Directorate Research Department (MID-RD)7 and several other units and institutions, including the Mossad, the Shin-Beit,8 and Unit 5049 operating in South Lebanon. There were quite a lot of dispatches forwarded to them, and he never got around to reading them all. Now that he had a few quiet days, Tamir did not even consider spending them leisurely walking around the parameter of the base, or reading the book he had brought with him from home which lay forsaken in the bottom of his bag, a sad monument to the life he had left behind, or the life he could have been leading. Instead, he sat at his small desk and read incoming communications. He read Shin-Beit summaries, research evaluations of the Syrian branch of the Military Intelligence Directorate, source-interrogation summaries by Unit 504, Foreign Ministry reports, and endless reports by the Mossad about information delivered by their sources in Lebanon and around the world, which pertained in one way or another to the Lebanese arena.

  Almost all of these sources were low-grade, untrustworthy sources. Harel instructed Tamir not waste his time reading those, and simply skip them. It was good advice, but Tamir always found himself reading these materials not through the lens of an incisive and focused intelligence analyst trying to extract the most value out of the raw materials, but rather as one reads a story— a story not limited merely to the competing factions, false heroes, and endless bloodletting of the Lebanese scene, but one which encompasses the full spectrum of the Israeli intelligence apparatus, ever-present in every corner of the earth, all-seeing but never seen. He recalled something that he had heard in a lecture in the kibbutz once. The lecturer talked about spirits and demons; according to the Talmud, demons fly around the world, the lecturer said, right to the very edges of the heavens where they eavesdrop behind the curtain, that is, listen in on the angels conversing in God’s chamber. Tamir sat there, at his little desk, and thought to himself— we are those demons. We fly around the world and listen in behind the curtain, and we do it without ever having to leave our little desks in the belly of the earth.

  He sighed and got up from his desk. Every bone in his body ached from sitting for so long. At this rate I’ll wither and die before I ever leave Kidonit, he thought to himself. He suddenly felt an urge to go outside, to escape the clutches of the bunker’s constant air-conditioned frost. The temperature at the bunker was set taking into consideration the expensive computer systems, without giving a thought to the people who operated them; thus, everyone walked around the bunker wearing sweaters and jackets, even in mid-August. Tamir left the bunker and turned towards the fence. Pleasant sunrays rested on the surrounding pine forest. Tamir was almost surprised to see the sun, as the endless days spent in the bunker had made it into nothing more than a distant memory. Not far away below him, on the narrow dirt road winding between the pines, a beat-up white sedan floundered its way up. He stood and watched it. The car stopped, and a bearded man in a white shirt and a purple-white knitted yarmulke emerged. Tzadik, he called over to Tamir, are you coming to pray?

  Are you talking to me? Tamir asked, even though there was no one t
here but the two of them.

  Yeah, you, tzadik, you and only you. Are you coming to venerate the holy grave?

  Which saint is it? Tamir inquired.

  Our master and teacher, Rabbi Rabbah Bar Bar Hana, his grace protect us.

  Is that really his name? Tamir asked in wonder.

  Yes, tzadik. Why, what’s wrong with that name? So, are you coming? You should. You will be blessed with great salvations if you do. He grants salvations with a snap of his fingers. Believe me.

  Tamir knew that most of these saints weren’t historical figures at all, but he had no intention of hashing it out with the man standing below him, down the mountain. On the other hand, he couldn’t just leave it at that. I can’t leave the base, he said. And besides, I’m kind of an atheist.

  You’re what?

  Never mind. Listen, your dead rabbi… What’s his specialty?

  What’s the matter with you, soldier, why would you say something like that? Who raised you? You’re a Jew, aren’t you? Show some respect to gedolei olam.

  Okay, Tamir said, and felt a tinge of remorse. So, what does he…? What do people usually ask of him?

  Everything— sons, health, wealth, marriage…

  Oh, marriage?

  Yes. Why, is there anyone that’s caught your eye?

  Something like that. Would you ask him for me?

  With pleasure, soldier, anything to proliferate the marriage of Israel! It’s a mitzvah. God willing, you will put up a chuppah and kiddushin10 and be blessed with God-fearing male sons. What are the virgin’s and her mother’s names?

  I don’t know her mother’s name…

  Well, we’ll try without then. God willing, it’ll still work.

  Her name is Ophira.

  Is that a Jewish name?

  Yes. It’s biblical, isn’t it?

  Is it? Never heard of it. We give kosher names, like Hannah, Rebecca, Rachel… The man nodded his head a couple more times, mumbling under his breath as if he were deliberating a complicated matter with himself, before finally gesturing with his head towards Tamir, either to say goodbye or to reprimand him. He got in his car and sped away leaving behind a cloud of dust, without confirming whether or not he was going to bring the matter of Tamir’s marriage before the departed saint. Tamir stood there for some time, as the bright sky slowly dimmed, making way for the dark canvas over which the lights of the giant antenna field will glimmer, sparkling and shimmering like a swarm of fireflies.

  b. Stay Low

  The next couple of days passed by quietly. Suspiciously quiet, Tamir thought to himself. He felt it appropriate to make an unusual annotation calling attention to the prolonged silence over the Hezbollah and Front/Jibril networks. That annotation prompted a flurry of calls from Department 195 at headquarters, the Syria and Lebanon branch of the MID-RD and Northern Command, asking what was the meaning of his message, what exactly was going on, and how they should interpret it. He told all of them the same thing— that nothing was going on, and that that was the problem, since the volume of communications passing through these networks was usually substantially bigger. This is an uncharacteristic silence. These are operational networks— messy, hectic networks usually congested with endless jabber by operatives, which is what makes this so weird. The head of Department 195 admonished him, telling him that next time he gets the idea to issue such an ominous message and get the whole army up on its feet, he’d better consult his supervising officer first. In general, the IAO should be the one issuing messages like these, not you, and even he had better consult me before he does something like that! His voice thundered over the amethyst telephone.

  Tamir tried to control the slight quiver in his voice and explain that his supervising officer is at home.

  So what? Doesn’t he have a phone there?? The department head raged. You can call people at their homes at any hour, I’m sure he explained that to you. And anyway, it has to pass through me first, and I have a phone in my house as well! You’re new, so I’ll chalk it down as a rookie’s error, but that’s the first and last time I cut you any sort of slack, do you hear me? I’m keeping my eye on you. You know, if we issued messages like these every time that networks go a bit quiet, we’d wear out the system completely and no one would give a damn about what we say. So get your act together!

  Y-Yes sir, Tamir mumbled, even though Harel had told him that there’s no need for such formalities. Only with a head-of-sector and above, give or take, he said. Tamir trudged his way back to his desk. Several new summaries concerning routine radio checks awaited him there. He looked at them gloomily. The department head was probably right, and he just got worked up over nothing, panicking a system that was tightly-wound as it was. He got up to fix himself a coffee. He’ll have one more coffee, read a few incoming dispatches and dubious reports from untrustworthy Mossad and Unit 504 sources, relaying what one PLO/Abu Musa operative had to say about another PLO operative in some café around Shatila refugee camp— a cheap substitute for good bedtime reading— and retire to his room.

  He started fixing his coffee in the corner kitchenette, when he saw Ophira coming over from the reception room. Her casual strut was both invigorating and soothing at the same time. Her light-colored pants stretched tightly over her lower body. Her skin was as dark as her pants were light; Tamir sought to conjure up a line to capture that contrast, but words failed him. There were no poetic sentences nor epigrams left in him, just radio checks and bits of information about Druze force deployment in the Chouf Mountains from the last intelligence survey he read. A few translators and transcribers, including a translator named Mika, raised their heads from their desks and delightedly followed Ophira with their eyes as she purposefully strode from the reception room to the HTA intelligence analysis desk. Her movement was sober and determined, yet gentle and pacifying. Tamir tore his eyes away from her hips and fixed them on her eyes. He thought he noticed a certain urgency in them. When she saw he wasn’t at his desk she looked around. All the heads promptly dropped back to their desks, as if caught in the act. When she spotted him in the kitchenette, she approached him.

  I wanted you to see this, she said as she handed him a summary she was holding.

  He thought he sensed a trace of a grudge from their previous conversation, but it was concealed under a blanket of matter-of-fact professionalism. He seized the opportunity and gazed into her eyes, briefly reveling in reflections of lightnings piercing through the night sky, casting a somber light on the heavy, muddy earth, and then promptly took the summary from her hand. He was called into immediate attention when he saw it was the Front/Jibril network, which wasn’t usually active this late.

  (conversation)

  a: A/U, BB

  b: ?

  a: Is everything ready?

  b: Yes.

  (Bad reception, unintelligible speech)

  Tamir looked at her with grave seriousness and asked if she didn’t recognize the second speaker by his voice. No, she said, it’s an unfamiliar station. The frequency wasn’t the network’s usual frequency, either, it was picked up in a scan, but she recognized the voice of the speaker from the airborne unit in Baalbek. She said she’s spent so many months monitoring the network, that she has no doubt it’s him. Tamir said that he trusts her. He asked her to send it to be transcribed immediately, went over to his desk, and reached over to the communications device called Old Faithful which was used to send urgent dispatches to a predefined group of recipients. He hesitated for a moment. The licking he took from the head of Department 195 was still rang in his ears. He also recalled that Harel once told him it’s better to wait until you’re absolutely certain before springing the system into action, and that it’s better to wait for the transcription first. He even considered calling Harel at home to consult him, but ultimately decided to follow his gut feeling. He quickly typed in ‘initial report’ and relayed the details of the summary. He st
ressed that it was subject to change after transcription, and that it mostly likely involved operatives of the Front’s airborne unit. After sending the report, he picked up the SB phone, relayed the frequency noted in the summary, and requested that the other station be pinpointed. He noted that there’s a good chance it’s a mobile station.

  A few seconds later, the phones on his desk started furiously ringing in unison. Northern Command called, as well as headquarters, and other units. They all asked for more details and he replied to all of them that he didn’t have any at the moment, and that he’d let them know as soon as he had something to report. At the same time, summaries were landing on his desk with increasing frequency. The Hezbollah networks came alive with a torrent of radio checks. He reported an increased volume of communication and requested more pinpoints. The pinpoints started coming in and were, as usual, practically useless in an operational sense, but they divulged that the center of activity was a small area directly south-east of Marj Ayyun. The pinpoints were transmitted to the entire system, prompting a further onslaught of tense phone calls, since this area was disconcertingly close to Astra, Balut, and Gladiola—Israeli outposts, rather than the South Lebanon Army outposts usually targeted by Hezbollah.

  Tamir got up from his seat and went over to the transcription station. There was only one transcriber there, Sasson the Legend. It was said that Sasson’s so good, that he could even transcribe a burp, if it were burped in a Syrian dialect. Tamir could see that Sasson was working on something. He carefully leaned over his shoulder, and saw that it was a long dialogue. It was clearly something for the Syrianists, not for him. He tapped Sasson’s shoulder as delicately as he possibly could. Sasson straightened his hunched, skinny back, clad in a shiny dress uniform shirt, and cast a cloudy gaze over at Tamir, like he was surprised at his very existence, unsure where to place him. He removed the headset from his head.