Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (4 page)

            “You’ve
forgotten about the assassin. Do you think he didn’t know where you lived?”

            “But he believes
I was killed,” Abigail insisted.

            “Rania, the apartment of the
hostage
,
is now no less important that the assassinated hostage.  It is
an additional source of information about those who sent the assassin after
her.”

Later in the evening, San arrived, asked
her to sit down, and Abigail was attentive.  He sat beside Barak since the plan
today was to set out the details of her mission.

“In the coming period
you will learn Persian and become a deeply religious Muslim woman.”

“Me? A Muslim woman in
long robes and head covering?”

Abigail burst out
laughing and the two long dimples in her dark cheeks, deepened.  She didn’t
notice how Barak stared at her
,
and she also had no idea how deeply in
love he was with her.  Barak had disclosed his feelings to San, although it was
clear that it would be impossible to realize the relationship, especially after
the attempt on her life.  Now, when he knew he would have to part with her for
years, his heart ached.

            ”Yes, Rania, that’s how your
life will be.  Of course, a suitable cover story will be created for you.”

She was silent as she waited to hear
what would follow.

            “You won’t
receive your assignments from us but through an operator.”

            “What if I
need to transmit information or consult with you?”

            “You will
not transmit anything.” He stated and lowered his voice to almost a whisper.

            “You won’t
report to anyone.  And, if someone asks you to answer back to him, I suggest
you get away from him very quickly.”

            “I
understand.  But situations arise…”

            “Rania, you
are about to start operating wholly independently.  The decisions you make and
the way you perform will be yours.”

            “That’s
just fine and dandy. How will you know here if I succeed?”

            “Don’t worry, we will know. 
When reports come in of a mushroom cloud rising over one of the reactors or
computers crashing countrywide – we will be satisfied.”

He grew silent and
stared at her, as he noticed the grave expression she wore and added:

            “Rest
assured that we rely on you.”

Tears glistened in her
eyes as she quietly asked.

            “What if I
get caught or if someone discovers me?” She choked up and Barak felt the urge
to go and hug her but quickly overcame it.  He lowered his gaze in order not to
reveal his feelings for her and glanced at San.

            “There was
once a TV series called “Mission Impossible,” San told her.”  In each segment, they
warn the agent: ‘If you get caught or disappear the State will not acknowledge
you and will not protect you,' End of quote.”

All
were silent and Abigail pursed her lips.  She was quite clear about what she faced.
For some time, she sensed her life had changed from the one that had ended abruptly
with two shots and a headstone with her name on it.

* * *

A room in the house on Hagilgal
Street was assigned to Abigail and Aisha when Abigail returned the following
morning.

They had barely
exchanged words when they met the day before.  Abigail covertly studied the
figure wrapped from head to toe in black and wondered whether she would be able
to dress like her. 

When they prepared for bed later that
night after getting a bit better acquainted, she asked her hesitantly in
Arabic:

            “Where do
you come from?  I mean to ask how you got to us.”

Aisha smiled.  She undressed slowly
without answering.  She got into bed and covered herself with a blanket
,
and Abigail presumed that she hadn‘t understood her question.  In the morning
,
Aisha sat up in bed and spoke, answering the question Abigail had asked many
hours earlier.

            “I was born
in the Zagros Mountains almost forty-one years ago.”

            “Where are
the Zagros Mountains?”

            “In Iran,” she replied and
stared ahead into space as if hallucinating.  She paused for a moment and then
continued talking as if to herself.

            “We lived
near a stream that was a tributary of the Tigris River,” Abigail was excited.

            “Wow, how beautiful!  I’ve
always dreamed of living near a river, in the mountains.  It must be wonderful,
right?”

Aisha glanced at her
sharply and didn‘t appear to share Abigail’s enthusiasm.

            “I
recall
it was a very hard life.  It was bitterly cold in winter,” she sighed,

“My brother died there, in the snow.”

            “How?  What happened to him?”

            “We were
holed up in the house for many days because of the winter.  It was unusually
cold that year.  My mother sent my brother, Roshan, out to fetch food or make
contact with someone down below in the villages but, he never returned.”  She
paused for a moment.

            “They found him, frozen to
death, in the snow and brought him home.”

Abigail was silent. 
She didn’t know what to say.  After a moment, she wondered out loud:

            “Where were your neighbors?”

            “People live alone in the
mountains.  I don’t remember meeting any friends.  We lived in isolation, and
mother hated being alone.  Now, I realize that was the reason she sent me to
Hormuz, near our Gulf. And she married me off to Ali, just so that I wouldn’t
live a hard life like hers in the mountains.”

Abigail compared
Aisha’s life with her life in the desert encampment in the Negev.

            “We had two
sons.”

            “How old are they?”  Abigail
inquired.

Instead of answering, Aisha got up and
disappeared into the bathroom.  Abigail regretted asking her because she
understood that she had touched on a sensitive point.  She heard water running
and when Aisha returned she did not continue relating her story.

            “Please
pass me the blouse on the chair and my galabiya,” she requested and pointed to
her dark-colored dress.  She got dressed
,
and a few minutes later they
left the apartment.

 “We will spend our time together
wherever you wish, Rania.  You give the lead; I will observe you and you – me.”

They wandered around together in the
streets, window-shopped and ate lunch at a restaurant.  Abigail watched her new
friend, saw her taste in clothes and watched how she walked in the street, how
she ate and listened to the way she spoke.  Aisha entered a store Abigail did
not know of in one of the alleys and came out holding a large shopping bag.

            “This is a black dress,” she
announced and Abigail assumed she had purchased clothes for herself and didn’t
ask any questions.

They returned to the
apartment in the evening and once more, after undressing, Aisha sat down in her
nightdress and took up her story from exactly where she had left off in the
morning.

            “My husband, Ali, was almost
never at home and when our son turned ten, he took him away with him.”

It was clear to Abigail that it was
painful for her to talk about it.  And she raised her arm to stop her, but
Aisha didn’t notice her gesture and continued talking, enhancing the story with
words in Persian.

            “From the day that Ali
joined his father, his boyhood ended, he grew up and matured too quickly.”

Aisha draped a scarf around her head,
covered her long silken hair and gathered it at the nape of her neck.

            “It’s a hijab,” she
explained, “I cannot be without it.”

Abigail stared at her and began
wondering about her strange behavior, almost questioning her sanity.  She
wanted to ask her something to better understand her behavior and noticed that
Aisha was staring at her.

            “Aisha, what are your sons
doing now?  Where are they?”

Aisha continued talking
without addressing Abigail’s questions.

            “Razeh, the younger one,
also joined Ali, his brother and the three of them would disappear from the
house for hours.”

Aisha was not listening to anything
now.  Her gaze was distant as she stared out into space and fastened the scarf
under her neck, straightened out the tassels that adorned its sides and
continued her story.

            “For
almost three years the three of them went out each day and returned home late
at night.”

            “Where
did they go?” Abigail asked.

Aisha
absentmindedly loosened the scarf she had just finished tying and her face grew
flushed.

Just then, Abigail’s ring squeezed her
finger, and the color of the stone grew darker.  A shudder ran down Aisha’s
back, and she drew in her breath noisily and continued speaking.

            “One night,
I heard knocking on the door and I went down to open it.  It was winter and the
snowflakes falling outside covered the two figures standing at the entrance.”

She wiped the flow of
tears from her black eyes with the edge of her hijab tied under her chin.

            “They
pushed me aside, dragged them out of their beds and led them to a vehicle parked
outside.”

She burst out sobbing.

            “Even now, I remember the
smoke the car left in its trail.”

Abigail did not dare
say a word or try and stop her, and also understood she wouldn’t be able to.

            “I was left alone and cried
endlessly.  A week later they came to fetch me.”

Abigail put her arm on
her shoulder and drew her close.  For now, she did not try to stop her because
she was curious to hear what had happened.  Aisha wept quietly and sniffed.

            “They brought me to a large
square surrounded by the Basij Militia and our Revolutionary Guards.  Many
people gathered there.”  She sighed and rocked back and forth as if in prayer.

            “An hour later, a car
arrived and they got out.  They were tied together with their arms behind
them.”

Abigail raised a hand
to her lips, understanding that what was to follow was frightening.

            “My sons, Ali,
and Razeh looked at me.  They saw me!”  She was almost screaming,

“I’m sure of that and I
did not cry – out of respect for them.”

            “Did they kill them?! 
Why?”  Abigail burst out and clapped her hand over her mouth.

            “They
accused them of treason and read out their sentence after finding them guilty
of espionage… and I knew nothing.” She said in a rather loud voice.

            “They let me
go home, but I couldn’t.”

            “So, where
did you go?”

            “I wandered
aimlessly, to wherever the winds would lead me.  I remember that I ate the fruit
I picked from trees in people’s yards.  I also recall that I reached the shores
of the Caspian Sea.” 

Suddenly she grew
silent and turned to look at Abigail.

            “You’re a
good listener,”  She said as she sniffed and laughed with tears in her eyes.

            ”Oh,
Aisha.”

            “I have never talked or told
anyone about it.”

Abigail kept quiet.  She was curious to
know how Aisha came to be serving in the ‘Mossad’ or when people reached her on
the shore of the Caspian Sea, but Aisha stopped telling the story.  She took
off the black galabiya and the expression of suffering, which had covered her
face a minute earlier, disappeared.   Once again
,
a warning sign entered
Abigail’s mind whether the whole sad affair was just a cover story.  She
glanced at the stone in her ring and saw it had become almost transparent
again, indicating a decrease in energy and, perhaps, the credibility of the
story.

            “They said that we would
spend a few days together,” Aisha said.  “You will learn my habits, see how I
dress and how I behave,” she explained but, it was hard for Abigail to shake
off the story she had just heard.

Aisha switched off the light and Abigail
continued lying awake, thinking about Aisha’s sad story.  When she had almost
fallen asleep, the light was turned on and Aisha, sat up, put her feet down on
the floor and looked at Abigail.

            “Are you awake? Haven’t you
fallen asleep yet?” She whispered and, without waiting for a response, she
crawled into Abigail’s bed, pushed her feet under the blanket and cuddled up to
her.

            “You’re shaking,”
Abigail remarked.

            “Yes.”

Abigail moved to make
room for her but, she was reluctant and had reservations about her, which Aisha
could sense.

            “You are probably wondering
how they rescued me, aren’t you.  No, don’t answer me, I can tell.”

Abigail was silent.

            “Of course
they helped me,” she said and sat up in bed. “They supported me and did
everything to make me want to continue living and they gave meaning to my
life.”

            “They?  Who are they?”
Abigail inquired.

Aisha got out of bed
and went to sit on a chair.

            “I heard of
a small village in the Tatra Mountains on the border of Iran and Azerbaijan.” 
She stared at Abigail and hesitated whether to continue speaking.

            “Although
the village was in Azerbaijan, the people were different from the Azeris.”

            “Azeris?”

            “Yes, the native population
of Azerbaijan.  I knew that almost all the inhabitants of the village had been
harmed or hurt by the regime’s soldiers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. 
There were many sick and wounded.”

Now, Abigail understood
that, at last, she heard something in Aisha’s story that was verifiable
,
and she asked at once:

            “How long
did you live in that village?  Tell me about it.”

It seemed that her
memories of the place were good ones because this time she answered willingly.

            “Oh, that
village.  I lived there for many days, a great many, and life there was good. 
I felt that they loved me.  I have to tell you that the tragic stories they
told me only served to strengthen me.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes,
almost every evening I heard a story that made life worthwhile.”

Then, she lowered her
voice,

            “Swear that
you will never tell anyone this story about the village.”

            “I swear,”
Abigail promised, crossing her heart with two fingers, as she whispered, ‘for
now’ to qualify her oath.

            “Good, I
trust you,” Aisha accepted.

            “There were
some who were lame, some without legs and others who were just crazy.  Some
could not free themselves from the shock of the annihilation of their families
or the horrors they had seen and remained confused and insane.  In short, they
were all broken in body and soul, all of them.  Many died during the time I
spent there.”

            “Did many
not survive?”

            “Yes. 
There was a time when I was amazed how easily they died.”

Abigail tried to
imagine how such a village conducted its daily life when the connection between
the people, who dwelled there, was their disability and their difficulties.

            “Where
exactly is that village located and what is its name?”

            “It has no
name.  You can reach it on a hidden trail on the left of a large lake. This
lake is trapped in a hollow on the lower slopes of the Tatra Mountains.  Rania,
you have no idea how astonishing the lake is.”

“Ah, can you see the
trail when you reach the lake?”