The Pure (13 page)

After the assassination of Anne-Marie, he had made an appointment to see Yigal. To share his burden of guilt. To seek reassurance that his first hit had been justified. Instead, he was ordered, in no uncertain terms, not to ‘become a man who thinks too much’, or he ‘wouldn’t be around very long’. This memory, which marked the first step on his journey to disillusionment, caused everything to come back to him in a rapid succession of images, voices, memories: the drug smuggling, the arms deals, the money laundering, the corruption, the sex, the assassinations, the double-deals, the disregard for life, the money, the coldness of the money. The advancement of Israel at all costs. As if awakening from a slumber, he had gradually become a man who thinks too much. And some years later, after Operation Cinnamon, he had finally made the decision to escape. Too late.

Ram Shalev. The picture of him in the garden, his wife, his two children. Trees, blue sky, button-down shirt. Uzi had known him a little, and he had always come across as a decent man. One of the few, perhaps, who had been drawn to politics for the right reasons – it wasn’t impossible. Killed because he had found out that his government was scheming to bomb a fictional target in Iran, just to inject some patriotic vigour into the country before the election. Killed by Operation Cinnamon, killed – among others – by Uzi. Killed by his own countrymen; killed by the very people who were supposed to protect him.

At three thirty exactly, Gal knocked on the door of the shed. The felt-tip heart had been washed off; when Uzi asked her about it she pretended not to have heard him. She drove a purple Volkswagen Beetle. Her parents, she said, had bought it for her when she turned seventeen. They drove away, ignoring the stares of the crowd of girls clustered around the bus stop.

‘So what are you doing in England?’ she asked him, eyes on the road. Her hand was resting on the gear stick and he fought the urge to cup it with his own. He looked out of the window at the grey autumn sky, which stretched dismally above them.

‘You know,’ he said at length. ‘I just needed to get out of Israel.’

‘I never want to leave when I’m there,’ she replied, ‘I love it.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s our land.’ There was no irony in her voice. He looked at her; there was no irony in her expression either.

‘What about England?’ he said.

‘England’s my country, not my land.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘I don’t need to tell you that. You were in the army, right?’

‘I was.’

‘So.’ She stopped talking to concentrate on negotiating a roundabout. They were silent for a while. He wondered what she would say if she knew that the people who govern her land were going to attack Iran on false pretences, and would kill anyone who stood in their way, even fellow Israelis. That he was planning to stop them.

She turned on the radio. ‘I’m joining the IDF once I finish school,’ she said over the music.

‘The army?’

‘Like I said, it’s our land,’ she said. ‘The only democracy in the Middle East. Our home. Our people.’

‘Good for you,’ he said darkly.

‘Come on,’ she said, giving him a brief, disgusted look. ‘What were you fighting for?’

Uzi had no idea how to answer that question. He continued to look out of the window. She was from a different world, this girl, a different time. She reminded him, somehow, of the sea; of his parents, his sun-drenched childhood, the beach. With this girl he could have stayed up all night playing guitar, discussing which army unit they wanted to join. They could have drunk beer and gone to parties, swum naked in the ocean. She could have watched him fooling around with his friends in the Negev desert, doing stunts and jumps on dirt bikes. They could have hiked in the mountains, explored the ancient, biblical ravines, lain on their stomachs on the earth and fired M16s on target ranges. He looked at her again, silhouetted against the greyness of London, and was torn between an impulse to make love to her and extinguish her life with his hands.

‘Can you imagine what it’s like to kill?’ he said.

She didn’t take her eyes off the road. ‘That would depend who you were killing and why.’

‘There’s only ever one victim, and only ever one motive.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Think about it.’

She gave him a sidelong look. ‘This is getting heavy,’ she said suddenly.

‘It was you who made it heavy.’

There was a pause.

‘Have you heard of Esther Cailingold?’ said Gal suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘Esther Cailingold. A British schoolteacher. She fought in the War of Independence in 1948. At the age of twenty-three she was killed in the defence of Jerusalem.’

‘Your point is?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m doing a project on her at school.’

‘OK, OK. Turn right here. I live there on the corner.’

‘Nice neighbourhood.’

‘I’ve seen worse.’

Uzi instructed Gal to stop the car a block away from his flat, where a gang of hooded teenagers were eating out of cardboard boxes. A swirl of grimy leaves fluttered across the bonnet. ‘I’m not getting out,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait for you here. With the windows closed.’

‘Have you heard of Arik?’ said Uzi, opening the door.

‘Who?’

‘Ariel Sharon.’

‘Of course I have. Think I’m stupid?’

‘In 1982 he was found guilty of allowing thousands of Palestinian civilians to be massacred. A government report called for him to be dismissed from his post, that he should never hold public office again.’

‘You mean Ariel Sharon who later became prime minister?’

‘No, Ariel Sharon the peace activist,’ he said drily.

‘Look, Daniel. I don’t know what you’re trying to say to me.’

‘Nor do I, kid. But I do know what you’re trying to say to me.’

He went up to the apartment alone and got the dope. With the eighth in his fingers, he crouched on the floor, his eyes screwed tightly shut, dissolving himself into the blackness. Then he rose and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, examining the shadow of bristles across his chin, the lines etched around his mouth, across his forehead, the eyes that could devour the world. He ran the water and splashed his face again and again. Then he checked the cyst on his shoulder. It was sore today. I am starting to forget who I am, he thought. He dried himself with a towel and went downstairs to the street.

‘What took you so long?’ she said.

Without a word, Uzi got into the car and tossed the eighth on to the dashboard. Gal handed him a twenty-pound note and he pocketed it. But he didn’t move.

‘Er, hello?’ said Gal. ‘This is where we go our separate ways.’

‘You said your parents are away in Israel, right?’

‘Yes,’ Gal said slowly.

‘We’ll go to your place, then. Watch a movie or something.’

Gal paused, then smiled, then laughed, then started the engine. ‘You army guys are all the same,’ she said casually. ‘I love it.’ She turned up the music loud.

‘Drink?’

‘What have you got?’

‘My dad always has beer in the fridge. And there’s wine in the rack, whisky, gin . . .’

‘One of your dad’s beers would be fine.’

‘OK. Do you want a yellow one or a brown one?’

‘A what?’

‘Look, there are two colours.’

‘Oh. A lager. The yellow one.’

The house, on the outskirts of Golders Green, was just as he had expected. Large, comfortable, lived-in: spacious garden overgrown around the edges, oversized television facing a well-used sofa; half-read magazines, Post-it notes on the mirrors, piles of paperwork and books. He followed Gal up several flights of stairs to the loft extension, which smelled of new carpets. As they walked up the stairs, his face was at the level of her hips.

‘You’re good at that,’ she said as he rolled the spliff. ‘A pro.’

‘Practice,’ he said, and lit up. She opened the skylight and turned on a desk lamp. Her phone rang, and she turned it off. Then she put on some music and lay sideways on the bed. He joined her; their legs touched. He sent smoke rings up to the ceiling.

‘So you’re seventeen,’ he said.

‘How old are you?’

‘A little older.’

‘Old enough to be my father?’

‘A young father perhaps.’

‘Wife?’

‘If I had one, would I be here?’

‘Come on, Daniel. I’m not stupid.’

‘No wife. Not that you have to worry about it.’

They smoked.

‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Gal, breaking a comfortable silence.

‘What is?’

‘I can see you’re hurting, Daniel. I can see you’ve been through a lot. That’s a sacrifice, you know. You’ve given a part of yourself for your country. Your hurt is a gift to your people. It’s wonderful. I mean it. It’s heroic.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I don’t need to. Our land depends on people like you accepting burdens that almost destroy you. I’ll bet lots of your friends gave their lives, but you continue to give. You give till it hurts for your country. People like you are the real heroes, the quiet heroes of our people.’

Uzi tried to laugh but no sound would come. He looked over at the person beside him, her unlined face, her clear eyes looking into his, her lips which could smile forever without losing their joy. She didn’t look real. She sucked on the spliff and little threads of smoke traced the contours of her face. He thought of a word. Then it passed from his mind without a trace. He got up.

In the bathroom, he looked out of the window at the sky. It was dark and starless above, and an orange light from the streetlamps was glowing. Of course he was married, technically at least. You had to be married to be a Katsa. This was one of the most glaring ironies of the organisation. Sex in the Office was free and rampant: secretaries, Katsas, wives of Katsas, agents, technicians, translators, audio specialists. The sexual connections went back and forth, web after web, trophy after trophy. But so long as you were married, it was all right. If you were married, you were less vulnerable to bribes. That was the official line.

He took out his Glock – he carried it everywhere now – and aimed it at the bathroom door. He imagined killing the girl, walking calmly into her room and shooting her the way he’d been taught, six times in the body followed by a single shot to the temple. He knew exactly what he would do then, how he would set up the murder scene, remove fingerprints, make a swift and anonymous escape, avoid witnesses, evade detection and capture. It would be easy – an easy thing to do. It would be simple.

‘Uzi.’

‘You again.’

‘This is dangerous, Uzi. You’re losing your grip.’

‘Maybe I am. But a voice in my head isn’t helping.’

‘You’re better than this.’

‘Than what?’

‘Stay focused. Remember who you are.’

Uzi opened up the Glock and emptied all the bullets into his hand. Then he placed them in the pocket of his jacket – he was still wearing his jacket – and concealed his gun again. Weird, he thought. Weird what things can do to a man.

He left the bathroom and saw Gal sitting on the end of her bed, her back to him, hunched over her computer. Facebook. Her neck – something about her neck. So tender. He suddenly felt as if a hole was opening in the centre of his chest, and he was filled with an overwhelming feeling of affection for the girl, love streaming out of him. She was only a little older than Noam, he guessed; Noam his son, Noam who he knew he would no longer be able to recognise. He walked quietly up behind her and stretched out his hand. It hovered just above her shoulder for a second, two seconds, three, four, and then dropped back down to his side. He sat down heavily on the bed, and she yelped with alarm.

‘Shit, you scared me, Daniel.’

‘What am I doing here?’

‘What?’

‘What the fuck am I doing here? What am I doing?’

‘Take it easy.’ She finished what she was doing, slid over next to him and put her arm across his shoulders. ‘Like I said, you’re hurting. I’ve seen it before. You’re carrying a burden. Plus you’re stoned.’ She took his calloused hands in both of hers and began to kiss them, slowly, each finger, each joint, one by one. He stared at her, this girl, this child, kissing his hand. He stared at her and did not know what to feel.

His phone went off. He pulled his hand away and answered it. Gal drew back and lit a cigarette.

‘Hello?’ he said, moving out of earshot.

‘Tommy?’

‘Squeal? Is that you?’

‘Tommy, listen to me.’

‘Speak up, I can hardly hear you.’

‘There are people in your apartment. I can hear them.’

‘What? Which people?’

The line went dead.

Uzi stopped the taxi two blocks from his building and stepped into the clammy chill of the autumn darkness. It was a normal night, like any other. The buses groaning through the streets, the graffiti on the bus stops, the people, drunk, veering across pavements. He approached his apartment on foot, sticking to the shadows. From the outside, nothing looked out of the ordinary. No lights were on, there was no sign of disturbance. He phoned Squeal again, and still there was no answer. He cracked his knuckles and put an unlit cigarette between his lips. All his senses were alert.

The only way to approach his flat was up the main stairs and through the front door. That was why he had chosen it. It was easy to escape from the window, being only on the second floor, but difficult to break into from the outside. He walked up to the entrance of his building and slipped in as a neighbour went out. The foyer had a motion-sensitive light which cast a faltering neon glow over the stairwell. He found the fusebox under the stairs; when the lights went out, he disabled them so that his arrival would go unnoticed. Then, in the dark, he loaded his Glock and stowed it in his jacket pocket. As quietly as he could, he ascended, chewing his unlit cigarette.

Uzi’s mind felt clear and alert, and his breathing was barely audible. A white-hot rage was brewing in him, streamlining his focus, giving him strength. On the first floor he could smell home cooking, and hear the clatter of pans, the alternating rhythm of voices. He was about to go up to the floor above when there was a noise from below. The click of a door. The wind? He took his Glock out of his pocket and listened. For a few seconds, nothing. Then the sound of somebody creeping up the stairs towards him.