Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (26 page)

“Of course, we may even have to cancel
or make changes in the plan, depending on the answers they come back with,”
Abigail replied.

“So what have we achieved?  You cancel
and change plans at a flick of a finger and without a thought!”  Miriam gazed
around at the rest of the group, seeking support for her remarks.

“Miriam, earlier you were against the
attack.  What’s changed?”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“And,
what if they return with results that forecast danger or impenetrable security measures?”

“We can always change the time or the
location,” she said.  “The main thing is to cause damage, don’t you think?”

From the silence that reigned, Abigail could
tell that her ideas did not have their support.

“Listen, I have no problem if you go
back to operating the way you have up till now; I just wanted you to return
safe and sound and not suffer casualties every time you attack.”

She leaned back and was silent.

“Who is going to check it out?” Mullah asked,
but no one replied.

“I understand,” Abigail said.  “Do as
you wish.”

“Where did you leave the bomb?” Miriam
asked in with strained reserve and even Abigail noticed her hostility.

“I left it under the palm tree, there in
the yard at the back.  It’s covered with some gray fabric.”  She said and
suddenly remembered that the bomb had been set to explode at one minute before
eleven o’clock that night and she spoke out loud:

“With regard to the time of the
explosion, the timer is set to…”

“Yes, leave it like that.” Ibrahim stopped
her, “don’t change a thing.”

“Hey, but it’s likely to explode while
you…”

“You fixed it correctly, don‘t change the
appointed time.”

Abigail stared at him, finding it
difficult to understand why, but Ibrahim insisted that she leave it as she had
set it.  She continued looking at him and wondered whether she shouldn’t go and
change it without his agreement.  The people around them got up to leave and
Abigail signaled to Mullah.  He turned his wheelchair towards the door and she
pushed it along the way to their apartment.  She realized she hadn’t succeeded
in endearing herself to the people of the village today.

When everyone had left, Tommy glanced at
Ibrahim.  He tapped his watch in a signal to Bassam and raised his right fist
and three fingers on his left hand.  This was to say:  ‘the meeting will be at
eight o’clock in the usual place.'  Tommy signaled for nine because he wanted
to arrive closer to the time of the explosion.

When Mullah and Abigail entered their
apartment, she curled up into the armchair and feared to tell him how anxious
she was.  In her opinion, every possible mistake had been made.  Had she known
of the meeting between the three, she may possibly have intervened and
prevented the inevitable disaster.

The three met at their usual place,
close to the waterfall at the entrance to the village.

Ibrahim arrived first.  He was supported
by a metal crutch he had practiced using till he could almost run. He had even adopted
and quick and quiet way of walking.  In one hand, he held a package wrapped in
cloth, exactly as Abigail had left it under the palm tree in the yard.  The
other two arrived a few minutes behind him, moving at a fast limp.

“I called for a cab.  It will be waiting
for us below in twenty-five minutes.” Reneh, the youngest of the three,
announced. 

Reneh had been shot in his knee and he
no longer had use of it as a joint.  It remained stiffly straightened out even
when he walked.  Very often, especially when he was in a hurry, he preferred to
hop on his healthy leg instead of dragging the stiff one.

“Let’s plan on catching the last cable
car that comes back here at eleven o’clock.”

“Otherwise, we can stay below all night
and wait till six in the morning to return with the first cars,” Ibrahim suggested.

“Wait, it’s five minutes to nine now. 
Is there any chance we can arrive before the cable car closes?”  Reneh asked,
but Tommy was more realistic.

“No, I don’t believe we can make it.  We
will have to get there, plant the bomb and rush back in less than two hours.”

At this point, no one remembered that
the timer attached to the detonator was set at for 10:59, about two hours
ahead.

“Why not?  Come, let’s be optimistic
because we only have to plant the bomb and get away, right?” Ibrahim remarked.
“If we hurry and we’re lucky, the cable car will be waiting at the upper station
now.”

The walk to the cable car station took
ten minutes but the station was empty when they got there and the three of them
looked at the deserted rails that descended down the steep incline of the
mountain.

“Oh hell! That’s all we needed,” Reneh stormed. 
“Can we make it?”

He limped restlessly in all directions,
muttering to himself in anger.  Four minutes later an empty car arrived and the
three of them hurriedly climbed in and sighed with relief when they saw the
taxi awaiting them with its engine idling.

“What timing,” the driver remarked, “I
just arrived.”

“At 9:35 they drew up in front of the
building with the “Ministry of Labor” signpost.

“Wait for us here and don’t turn the
engine off.  We promise to return in a few minutes.” Tommy announced and the
driver nodded in agreement and pocketed the bill he had just received.

The cab driver crossed his hands and put
them behind his head, as he relaxed and made himself comfortable. If he had
known the purpose of the mission or what the three were planning to do, he
would have been horrified and would have escaped with lightning speed.

In a minute and a half, Ibrahim reached
the entrance and waited for his friends, who were limping towards him from
behind.  A sleepy guard looked at them and yawned.  Nothing was going on in the
building at this time of day and the sidewalk was deserted.  A lone car drove
down the road and disappeared round the bend.  A lamp post shed a hazy light that
lent a somber atmosphere to the street.  It was cold and Tommy wrapped his coat
tightly around his body.

“Go and chat with the guard and distract
him,” Ibrahim whispered to Tommy, who took a deep breath and approached the
guard.  He made an effort to make his limp more pronounced and the guard turned
his gaze to him and stared at him questioningly.

“Listen, I think someone behind the
building is trying to climb in through a window.  Come, let’s go there
together.”

The guard stood up immediately and
joined him but after a few steps stopped and stared at him.

“How?  That’s impossible. This building
doesn’t have windows in the back, just flat walls.”

“Ah,” Tommy did not get confused, “if
so, let’s go and check out what the man is up to.”

At that moment, the guard noticed the
two entering the door he had just moved away from and shouted at them:

“Hey, you there, you can’t come in! 
Where do you think you’re going?!”

The two of them stopped for a second and
looked at the screaming guard.  Ibrahim regained his cool and ran forward,
entered the building and began climbing the stairs.  The guard chased after
him, skipping up the stairs, caught and pulled him by his clothes.  Ibrahim
turned round and hit the guard with his metal crutch and threw the bomb that
was wrapped in cloth ahead of him up the stairs.  It hit the banister, rolled
down the stairs and exploded thunderously just a few feet away from the two antagonists.

 Flames broke out, shrapnel flew around
and all that remained of the people was a silver metal stick that flew into the
wall and stood out like a toothpick in a canapé.  The wall split from
the force of the explosion and pieces of it fell onto the street and hit the
waiting taxi. The impact burst out in waves and rolled the cab across the
street.   The trunks of trees planted on the sidewalk split to reveal the pale
wood inside.

The next minute police car sirens were
heard.  Cars filled with curious people driving by stopped as they gazed into
the crater in the street and the charred remains of the taxi in the hole, left
by the blast in the wall of the building.

That same night reports of the explosion
reached the village, but it was everyone’s silence that rang in Abigail’s ears.

No one spoke, no one remarked on it and
no one criticized.  But, Abigail felt as if the lost souls of the three
casualties weighed on her shoulders and actually, the glances, which were not
directed at her, seemed to blame her for their deaths.

She didn’t even try to remind anyone
that she had attempted to persuade them to change the hour of the explosion
because she, too, was unable to shake off her sense of guilt.
 
Now she thought that she should not have given in.  She should have insisted on
changing the time.  What she didn’t know was that the explosion took place at
9:38, over an hour before the appointed time, only because Ibrahim had thrown it
on his way up the stairs of the building.

Abigail wondered what to do all night
and in the early hours of the morning, she slung her bag, in which she had
packed her belongings the day before, on her shoulder and quietly left.

Lying in bed, Mullah heard her going to
the door, heard it shut behind her and knew that she had gone away.  He did not
get up to stop her because he couldn’t make up his mind what he thought about
the matter.

*
* *

The days passed, six months went by
without Karma, and Abigail also believed that he would not return.

She realized that his activities had
moved to another region.  In spite of knowing that this was the nature of their
work, she found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that they would never
meet again.
She was plagued with curiosity to know where he was
and she wondered who she could turn to without exposing herself to questions.

She lay awake at night, dreaming of him,
weaving plans around him but waking up to the reality of his absence in the
morning. She soothed herself with the belief that as the days went by, her love
would die.  There would be an end to her yearning, and the sharp pain in her
chest would go away, but that was not what happened.

Almost every day she led groups on tours
and on those days, when she returned to her room, exhausted, she would huddle
up alone.   She thought about the man, who had suddenly appeared in her life one
day, made her fall in love with him and then, disappeared.
 
She began losing interest in the tours and found it difficult to get up in the
mornings.  She started malingering and imagining she was ill and took pity on
herself.

A day earlier, she decided that she
would stay in her room and not go touring so she went downstairs to call.

“Hello, Naima speaking.  I’m tired and I
would like to rest and take some time off.”

Abigail heard a sigh on the other end of
the line and she didn’t bother to find out whether the response was in
agreement or rejected her request and she hung up.  She looked at the place as
if for the first time and suddenly wondered what she was doing in such a forlorn
setting.  What she really yearned for was a place where strangers didn’t mill
around, somewhere that belonged only to her.

“Madam, your monthly page has arrived,” Emir
announced and his mustache trembled above the false smile that he forced on his
lips.

Abigail took the folded page from him
and it was the first time she glanced at the numbers recorded on it.  It
reported her salary for the tours she led.

Sums of money she paid no attention to
had accumulated in her bank account. Now, she wondered whether she had enough
to purchase an apartment instead of living in a pension, even though someone
was financing that.

An unappetizing smell of cooking arose
from the dining hall but, her stomach had begun to rumble. Abigail went down
the five steps into the dining room and looked around the tables covered with
red and white checkered plastic tablecloths.
  She selected a table
by the wall and waited. Two men sat at an adjacent table and held brown food in
their fingers.  She recognized it as being kibbeh again, the regular dish that
their cook specialized in.  One of the diners responded to her glance and
Abigail immediately lowered her eyes.

She absentmindedly bit into a thick
slice of bread from the bread basket and ran her fingers over the plastic
cloth.  Her fingers left a smooth trail in the layers of fat on it that smelled
like a dirty dishrag.  Suddenly she changed her mind, got up and left the
dining room.  She was about to go up to her room, then turned to the desk and
called in to say that she had changed her mind and wished to cancel her leave
and take out a group tomorrow.  The person on the line responded
enthusiastically.

“Oh, Naima, you’re saving the day.”

“Really?!” she laughed, suddenly feeling
that someone was relating to her personally.

“What happened?  Did someone resign or
leave you in the lurch?”

“Lutfi can’t lead the tour to the south
and…”

“Why Lutfi, of all people?!”

“Look, the man just got married.  That’s
right; it’s difficult to replace a guide like him but, now that you…”

“Did you say he got married?!”

She recalled the dark-skinned guide she
had shared impressions and itineraries with and from whom she had learned so
much and asked:

“Tell me the destination of the tour he
gave up to get married.”

“Oh, it’s a thrilling three-day trip to
the foothills of the Caucasus.  The tourists are from the Middle East, just tailor-made
for you!  Only you could take this on and do as good a job as our bridegroom.”

 “Hmm… to the slopes of the Caucasus? 
With pleasure,” she exclaimed as she was already revising her knowledge of the
beautiful mountainous terrain of Southern Iran in her memory.  A thought
flashed through her mind that the trip there might offer her an incredible
opportunity to look for accommodation that would suit her concept of “home”.

At six o’clock in the morning, everyone
had gathered at the regular meeting point at the cable car station. 

The group included women clothed in galabiyas
and hijabs alongside bare-headed women wearing jeans.  They conversed in Arabic
and English and, to her amazement, she heard some of them talking Hebrew. 
Abigail strained her ear to hear the language that had been an integral part of
her life and was so familiar to her that it hurt.

The first two days passed uneventfully
and they slept in the hostels booked by their office.  On the third day, the
tour was almost over and the sun was about to set. Abigail heard the familiar
laughter of a woman and, a pair of arms grabbed her from behind and embraced
her tightly.

“Hi, Naima!! How did you get here?” and her
laughter pealed out like ringing bells.

Abigail turned round and looked at the
jubilant woman and remembered meeting her when she flew to Iran, almost a year
ago.  She was the young wife of the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Israel.  She
even recalled the sad story of her baby that died but, as hard as she tried,
she could not remember her name.

“Wow! We met for four or five hours on
our flight.  How did you remember me?!” she exclaimed, trying all the while to
recall her name.

“You have no idea how much you
influenced me!” the woman said, “I thought over the things you said for many
days after the flight.  Besides, how can anyone forget someone like you?”

“Is that so?!”

“Yes, and especially with eyes like
yours!” she laughed.

“I told my husband about us,” and she
whispered: “Not everything we spoke about.”

She pulled her over to a dark-skinned
man, whose mustache gave him the appearance of a playboy.  Abigail was
embarrassed because the man had been staring at her from a distance for several
minutes.
 
Now, when he came towards her with his arm extended and shook her hand, she
modestly lowered her eyes.

“Hello, I’m Karim.  Oh, I have heard so
much about you from Alice, my wife. I thank you for encouraging her.”  He held
Abigail’s arms with both palms of his hands and when she tried to free herself,
he increased the pressure.  He did not hurt her but signaled something with his
grip that caused Abigail’s cheeks to burn with embarrassment.

Where are you going after this tour?” Alice
asked.  Karim smiled and added: “In short, where do you live?” Finally, he let
go of her arm.  Alice embraced Abigail’s shoulders and moved away from the
group with her.

“Listen, why don’t you come and live in
our neighborhood, in Azerbaijan, ha?”  She looked at her and added:  “I think
we will both have a lot to gain from it.”

“Let’s see,” Abigail said evasively. 
She was having second thoughts about her husband, the Ambassador and was a
little wary of his effusive attention.  Her doubts were reflected in her facial
expression.

“What does it depend on and why are you
hesitant?”

Abigail let out quietly:

“I was involved with a man, who left and
went away,” and was surprised at her unusual openness.   She had surrendered to
the warmth that Alice showered on her.  It had been many years since Abigail
had enjoyed the close friendship of a woman and she mused on the extent to
which she had missed what Alice was offering her.

“How long have you been alone?  When did
this man leave?”

“Oh, about eight months ago.”

“Ah, I understand then that the
relationship really is over,”  she remarked, and could not understand why a
shiver passed through Abigail’s body.  Alice suspected that this was not the
only reason, so she wrapped her arm under Abigail’s forearm and walked to one
side with her.

“Tell me, Naima. Is it a matter of
money?  If it is, the problem can easily be solved.”  She whispered as if
sharing a secret.

“No, no, I really am looking for a place
to live,” Abigail replied and lowered her voice.  “The truth is that I would
prefer to live in the mountains and not in a large city.”

“Great!  There is no place better than
these beautiful Caucuses.  We live here, too,” Alice enthused and also lowered
her voice.

“Then I have a special offer for you. 
I, myself, will look for a home for you and we can go and see it, together.  What
do you think, ah?”  Abigail laughed.  She didn‘t notice that this, perhaps, was
the first time in a very long time that she had laughed and she gazed at Alice, 
who seemed willing to do anything to have her close by.

Suddenly she remembered that the two of
them would almost never be at home because of their position and she asked:

“When do you intend returning to your
post at the Embassy?  I understand that you will be leaving Azerbaijan again.”

“Oh, that’s right, but we will have
enough time.  At present, we‘re home on leave for three weeks. We will go back to
the Middle East for another year or two and that will be that. This period of
our lives will come to an end.” She immediately summed things up:

“So, it’s decided, right?  Are we
looking for an apartment in the Caucuses?”   Abigail pursed her lips and heard
with delight how Alice whispered excitedly:

“You can be sure that no one will be
happier than me to live near a friend like you!”

When a few weeks went by and Abigail did
not hear from her, she believed that it had all just been idle talk.  She had
almost forgotten about it when one day the phone rang and she heard Alice’s
voice.

“Hey, Naima, it’s been a while and in
the meantime I have found several apartments that I think you will like.”

“Oh, Alice, I see that you are taking
the matter seriously.”

“Yes, of course.  It’s Sunday tomorrow
and you are free and have no tours, right?”  She asked and continued at once:

“A taxi will pick you up and bring you
to us.”

Alice had three addresses prepared for
her, but already at the first one, Abigail delayed and appeared to be very
impressed with what she saw.  Indeed, the place needed refurbishing but the
yard was breathtaking.  It was bordered with bushes that needed trimming, yet surrounded
the whole area.  Large tiles had been laid in a wide arc and led from the
gateless entrance to wooden steps that went up to a verandah in front of the
house.  It looked like a patio, shaded by the roof that was pulled over it in a
soft arc like a pagoda.

Abigail leaned her arms on the wooden
railing and looked into the distance, at the densely forested slopes of the
mountains, enjoying the light breeze that crept in under the verandah roof.
 
Some rebellious curls, peeping out from under her
hijab, waved softly in the wind and tickled her skin.

“The Caspian Sea is there in the East,
behind those tall mountains,” she heard Alice’s voice behind her and Abigail
nodded. 

“Come, Naima, it’s almost noon, we
should look at the other places I have prepared for you.”  But, Abigail smiled,
still leaning on the wooden railing, and declared:

“This is it, I like it, and I will make
my home here.”

The meeting with the owner was arranged
for the same day.

A small figure of a woman came to the
house.  She was clad in black and her eyes peeped through the strip of black
netting.  They shook hands and Abigail heard her name, which was announced in a
weak voice:

“Hanin.”

Karim approached them.

“Ladies, Could I, perhaps, help you make
a deal?” he suggested.

Abigail was not interested in having
someone take over the negotiations and she heard him intervene:

“Hanin was widowed a few months ago and
I, as an Ambassador of Azerbaijan, am familiar with bureaucracy and am able to
open doors with greater ease. What do you say?” He said to Abigail and winked
at her.  He was certain he would be able to get a better deal.

“Thank you, Karim, I believe that you
are uniquely placed to help, but let me try.  Trust me, there is a good chance
that we will work it out.”

She immediately turned to ask her
gently:

“Where are you living now, Hanin?”

“Oh, for lack of choice, I have returned
to our clan in the Azeri town of Wan.  What could I do?  It isn’t easy to bring
up children on one’s own.”

The woman glanced around to see where
Karim had gotten to and, as he was not in sight, she raised her veil and
revealed her face.  She didn’t look old, but her face was as wrinkled as
parchment and Abigail wondered how she had aged so much before her time.