The Covenant (23 page)

Elise heard herself pleading, straining again with the effort. She watched herself lose control and weep, feeling her eyes well anew.

It had been so hard, so hard. The effort to compose herself had been extreme.

She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining thousands of candles stretching from Maine to Abu Dhabi, churches, convents, synagogues, mosques… Candles that would light the way home for Jon and liana. Candles that would banish the darkness of human souls bent on evil and destruction. Candles of mercy and kindness flickering tenderly in the dark hours ahead.

“Darling, such a good job you did. Anyone with half a heart will try to help them… .” Leah comforted her.

“Do you think so?” she said, wiping her eyes.

“I do. You spoke so well, Elise. So well… Come take a rest now…” “Wait…” Elise stared at the screen. This wasn’t the end of the report, she realized, shocked.

She watched the wind in the hills blowing through the blond hair of Julia Greenberg as she introduced the mother of a suicide bomber.

“What! She never told me…!”

“Turn it off, Elise…” Leah begged her, alarmed.

Neither woman moved. Both of them sat transfixed, listening.

What powerful poison had been poured into this simple Arab woman’s
head that had succeeded in killing her most basic human instinct, the love of a mother for her own child? Leah wondered.

“They are saying it’s justified. The kidnapping, the murder, it’s justified…” Elise panted.

“Don’t go overboard. Normal people are not so stupid. This woman is a monster. Everyone will see that, what monsters they are, how they devour their own children…” But then the screen switched to the children’s ward of a Palestinian hospital.

“. . .
the pain and suffering of children is not limited to any one side…”

“NO!” Elise screamed. “NO, NO! NO!” She got off the bed and went to the screen, shaking the television. “She’s telling them to kill my baby, to kill liana! She’s telling the whole world it’s all right, it’s justified, it’s fair…” Elise wept, hysterical.

“Elise!” Leah cried, terrified, trying to stop her. Elise shrugged her off. Leah ran out into the hallway. “Please, somebody help me!” she screamed.

The television was on its side, its screen shattered. Elise lay beside it.

“Elise! My God!” Leah screamed.

“Bubbee… I”
It was a panicked scream of wrenching, horrible pain.

It was then she saw it: the bright red that dampened Elise’s nightgown, quickly widening into a puddle on the floor.

“Bubbee
”, Elise screamed, “what’s happening to me!? The baby. My baby!” She wept. The room was full of doctors.

Chapter Twenty-one

Prime Minister’s Office, Jerusalem
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
9:00
P.M.

T
HE AREA AROUND
the prime minister’s office, a large complex full of tall, nondescript office buildings near the Israel Museum and Hebrew University, was packed. Police and army vehicles patrolled the roads, cordoning off streets and checking ID for blocks around. Milos had no choice but to park on the sidewalk and hope that the traffic tickets wouldn’t catch up with him until he was safely back in Krakow.

He found Julia almost immediately. She was interviewing a woman who was part of a dozen or so people holding up hand-lettered signs that read:
STOP THE OCCUPATION NOW! THE IDF ARE WAR CRIMINALS, JUSTICE FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
, and
SETTLERS
=
OBSTACLES TO PEACE
. They wore sandals and the cotton rags favored by backpackers who stock up on clothes in the street markets of Goa.

He shook his head. “Why aren’t they protesting the terrorist attacks? Don’t they understand that their country is at war? And why are you filming them? Twelve people is hardly international news…?”

“Even if there was only one, I’d interview him and report it. I’m telling you, they are the only ones in this country that give me any hope.”

“They aren’t doves, Julia. They’re ostriches.”

“Excuse me, Milos, I’ve got work to do,” she said coolly, turning her attention to her cameraman, her face suddenly closed.

He suddenly regretted ever having touched her. “See you later.”

She nodded, pursing her lips, not bothering to turn around and look at
him. Enough was enough, she thought, annoyed. He wasn’t exactly a boyfriend, now, was he? She was the sailor, and he was just the equivalent of the proverbial girl in every port. But his criticism still rankled. It fed into the guilt she felt about callously producing the goods she knew her network wanted. One day, she comforted herself, I’ll be Christiane Amanpour. I’ll be the one who sets the agenda for the network. I’ll have presidents on the phone apologizing to me. I’ll start righteous wars against oppressors. I’ll save the weak, champion the poor Third World against the fat cats of corporate America and Europe. But not if I get fired. First and foremost, I have to keep my job.

“No, don’t pull back,” she told the cameraman. “Get in as close as you can. We don’t need to show how many of them there are. I’ll give you the voice-over in a minute.” She picked up her microphone and looked into the camera: “Here in the government complex that houses the prime minister’s office, Israelis demonstrate against the brutal tactics of their own government. Some would call them traitors. Others, remarkable young people who are the voice of dissent that is so seldom acknowledged in a country that sees the daily destruction of Palestinian homes and hopes…”

She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Julia?”

“Sean. What is it? I’m in the middle here.”

“They are starting the news conference now. You’d better head inside.”

Reluctantly, she turned off her microphone. She’d finish the voice-over later.

The room was filled with expectant reporters, heavy cameras, and microphones of various sizes and shapes. A low buzz of excitement rippled through the crowd. There were hundreds of journalists, only a handful local. Security was extremely tight, with armed soldiers lining the walls, wearing headsets and carrying automatic weapons. Suddenly, the prime minister entered the room, a portly, silver-haired former general. He looked alert and serious.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We have called you together to issue an official statement: We, the government of the State of Israel, have done everything in our power to investigate the brutal kidnapping of Dr. Jonathan Margulies and his five-year-old daughter, liana. According to military intelligence, they are being held by terrorists, members of the military
wing of the terrorist organization Hamas, who call themselves Izzedine al-Qassam. The brutality and ruthlessness of these men are well known. Our sources tell us that the doctor and his daughter are being held in Palestinian-controlled areas, which are, according to the Oslo Accords signed by President Arafat, under the full security control of the Palestinian Authority.

“Therefore, the government of Israel will hold Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority entirely responsible for the fate of Dr. Margulies and his daughter. We ask that President Arafat fulfill his obligations.”

He put down the paper and took off his glasses. “I will answer a few questions.”

“Ata be emet choshave sh’Arafat yanif eztbah? Kavod Rosh HaMemshala,Ata to choshav sh’e MedinatYisrael mafkira et baneha?”

“What was that? What was the question?” Julia asked in a panic. They wouldn’t let Ismael in, and so she was without a translator. A local reporter took pity on her: “He asked: ‘Do you really think that Arafat will lift a finger? Don’t you think that the State of Israel is simply abandoning its citizens?’ “ the reporter whispered.

“What the hell does that mean?” she muttered.

“It means the politicians are holding back the army from doing its job. You foreign reporters just don’t get it, do you? If the IRA was kidnapping little British kids and doctors, and Tony Blair said that the British government wasn’t responsible for them; that the head of the Sinn Fein was responsible…”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Julia hissed, moving away. Her luck. Probably some right-wing fanatic from the
ferusalem Post
. . . She took her compact and looked into the mirror, running her fingers through her hair. She was up next.

The reporter from the
Guardian
cleared his throat: “Mr. Prime Minister, by your own words you admit that Mr. Arafat isn’t involved in the kidnapping. Yet you are holding him responsible. Will the Israeli government use this as an excuse to invade Palestinian territory and break the Oslo Accords if you are unhappy with Mr. Arafat’s response?”

Damn! That was
exactly
what she was going to ask… She didn’t listen to the answer, trying desperately to come up with something original.

She moved up to the microphone.

”Julia Greenberg, BCN News. Mr. Prime Minister, I’d like to ask you if you’ve considered meeting the demands of the Hamas for the release of Dr. Margulies and his daughter, and if not, isn’t it really the Israeli government that is responsible for endangering their safety?”

She saw the face of the prime minister of Israel color. Gotcha! she thought, repressing a smile. She didn’t bother listening to that answer either, looking around the room for Milos. But he was nowhere to be found.

Milos stood in the street, holding the cell phone to his ear. He hoped Julia hadn’t seen him answer it. She’d no doubt wonder at its sudden resurrection. The simple truth was, despite the press credentials from
Zycie
, arranged by a friend who worked there, he wasn’t actually working for anyone. He could have told her he was a freelancer, but they were bottom-feeders in the journalistic food chain, completely lacking in any prestige.

“Hello?”

“Milos-cha,
wnuk!”

“Babcia?”

“How are you?”

“Don’t ask. It isn’t good,
Babcia.”

“Listen to me. I got a call from Leah. Her granddaughter, Elise…”

His heart sank. “Tell me.”

“They had to deliver her baby.”

“What?! When?”

“An hour ago.”

“What happened?”

“Her placenta detached. There was hemorrhaging. They had to deliver by emergency cesarean.”

“My God! Do they know why?”

“It happened right after she watched that story on BCN… We saw it here in Poland. It was terrible, how they twisted everything… terrible…”

“I know, I know,” he whispered. “I told the reporter.”

“No—!
She’s
the girl? That one?”

He felt his jaw tighten, and his fingers curl into a ball. “Yes.
Babcia
, is it a boy or a girl?”

“A little boy… They don’t know if this baby… he’s so tiny. She had six weeks to go. If something happens to her little girl now… For the love of God, Milos, you’ve got to do something! It never ends, it never ends…”

“I’m on the track of some important information about the tapes. Maybe it will have something to do with where the doctor is being held. I’ll go see Elise.” He stopped, listening helplessly, his breathing labored, thinking:
unforgivable.
“Don’t cry,
Babcia…!
I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

He felt his insides churn with a sickening feeling of having overeaten something foul-tasting and full of harmful bacteria. He looked toward the lighted windows of the prime minister’s office, where the press conference was still going on: preening, self-important western journalists who’d given up their sacred trust to become cheerleaders for trendy causes, the way communist journalists had once been cheerleaders for the government. He could not forgive them. They were depriving the free world of its most valuable weapon in condemning and exposing the worst human scourge since Nazism: the targeting and murder of civilians to achieve political and religious ends. He threw down his cigarette and crushed it under his heel in disgust.

He had not wanted to come. He was happily making educational videos on French culture for Polish television, drinking wine in little bistros along the Champs Elysees, when the phone call from his
babcia
came. It was a request from Mrs. Gold, Esther, the woman who had done so much for his family—including paying for his entire education. He could hardly say no. Besides, he had met Elise, years ago. He had come out of courtesy and obligation, without any illusion about really being able to help. He’d expected to spend a few days, politely express regrets he couldn’t have been more helpful, then head back to Paris and saner pastures. Now, suddenly, he understood that by some accident of fate, he had stumbled on some really important information. It was almost frightening.

He walked along the sidewalk, weaving between the security guards, searching. There it was, across the street, the Honda Accord. Behind the tinted glass, he made out Ismael’s dark head. He tapped on the window. It rolled down.

“So, stuck waiting out here, eh?” He offered him a pack of cigarettes.

Ismael smiled, accepting the package and looking it over. “Polish?”