The Covenant (42 page)

Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem
Saturday, May 11, 2002
9:30
A.M.

“E
XCUSE ME, NURSE
, but I’ve been waiting since yesterday. Can you tell me if Julia Greenberg is out of the recovery room yet?”

“Are you family?”

“No.” Milos shook his head, hesitating before he chose the word that would describe his relationship to Julia Greenberg. “I’m a colleague. A reporter.”

“The BCN people were here a half hour ago. I told them I’d call them if there was any change.”

“I’m not with BCN.”

“No reporters are allowed in, I’m sorry.”

“No, no… you don’t understand. She is my friend… my girlfriend.” The nurse looked him over curiously. “She’s very badly injured. I don’t know if she’s up to having visitors…”

“Please! I won’t stay long. But I have to see her. Please. She’s got no one.” He touched her arm. “And can you please tell me what happened to her?”

The nurse hesitated. “She lost her right arm, from the elbow down. Her hearing is impaired. Her corneas are scratched. And she had some of the nails removed from her kidney and liver…”

“Some?” he said, reeling in shock from the recitation of injuries. “Why not all?”

She shook her head. “Some are too dangerous to touch. It was a sixhour
operation. She’s just regained consciousness. She’s in terrible pain… but she’s on a morphine drip…”

“Oh God!”

The nurse eyed him sympathetically. “You say you are her boyfriend?” Unlike the other victims, who had been surrounded by family and friends, Julia Greenberg had had no one, aside from a few middle-aged men from her office, who, frankly, seemed anxious to go. “You say you’ve been waiting for hours?”

He nodded. “Since I heard.”

“Room three-twenty-four,” she finally relented, “but you can only stay ten minutes.”

He stood at the threshold, looking through to the bed beyond. Steeling himself, he walked inside. Bandages covered her right arm. Her skull was also bandaged, and several deep gashes trailed across her face. Her eyes were black and blue, her lips cracked and her yellow hair—of which she was so fond, he thought—singed black. It was horrible.

The most terrible thing about terrorism, the thing that people fond of saying “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” didn’t get, was that even siding with the terrorists gave you no immunity. The terrorist never knew his victims, and didn’t give a damn. When you sided with them, you were taking sides against yourself.

What am I doing here? he asked himself. He had no idea what he had hoped to accomplish. All he knew for certain was that he had no choice. He was a human being, and she was a human being. And she was a victim of the most antihuman act that existed. However briefly they had known each other, their lives were now connected, the way the lives of all good people who hate the shedding of innocent blood are connected to all whose blood is shed without reason. By this act of horror, the terrorist had made their connection permanent.

“Julia?” he whispered, standing over her. He could see her eyes move back and forth rapidly. “It’s me, Milos.”

He heard what sounded like a groan rise from her lips, and she tried to lift herself up.

“No. Don’t.” He touched her shoulder gently.

She whispered something he couldn’t make out. He brought his ear to her lips.

”Where…”

He leaned closer “Where…? Where… are you? Is that it? You’re in Hadassah Hospital. You’ve just had an operation…”

She shook her head. He listened again.

“Where were you?” she whispered.

He knew exactly what she was talking about. It was time to tell the truth. “I was picking up my grandmother from the airport. She and Elise Margulies’s grandmother Leah are friends. They met in Auschwitz.”

He saw two large tears roll down her scarred cheeks.

“Oh Julia, my poor Julia.” He took her left hand in his, caressing the fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”

She didn’t try to move her hand away.

Chapter Thirty-nine

El Khadav, Southern Hebron Hills
Saturday, May 11, 2002
11:00
A.M.

T
HE CHILDREN OF
El Khadav moved quickly out of the way as the familiar black Mercedes, known to all as the vehicle of Marwan Bahama, entered the village, followed by an entourage of other Hamas vehicles. The children would never have suspected that the men inside, who now drew their
kaffiyehs
more closely around their faces, were members of the most elite commando unit in the Israeli Defense Forces: the General Staff Reconnaisance Unit, better known as Sayeret Matkal, meaning “the chief of staff’s boys.”

Nearby, Israeli air force choppers equipped with sophisticated listening devices hovered in the sky, tracking all telephone conversations and keeping in direct contact with the men of the Sayeret at all times. In one of them sat Colonel Amos. He had had four hours’ sleep after receiving information from a Shin Bet informer in El Khadav about the whereabouts of Dr. Jonathan Margulies.

Lieutenant Yigael Glickson, the commander, had already been supplied with a complete map of the interior of the Bahama home by Shin Bet informers who included Hamas members, PLO rivals, Bahama’s neighbors and many others who had good reason to hate him.

The fifteen men jumped out quickly from their cars. Two took positions on the roof of the house, and another four secured all possible exits. It was Glickson himself that broke down the door and entered, his machine gun already cocked, his finger on the trigger.

He looked around and saw a room full of frightened children and old women. For a split second, he hesitated.

That was all Bahama’s brother needed.

The volley of gunfire in the ensuing battle shook the house, echoing deep in the olive orchards that covered the nearby hills and valleys.

Jon threw himself on the floor, trying to cover his head. The door to his room burst open and the young boy ran in.

“Lie down behind me, Mohammad. They won’t hurt you!” Jon beckoned the child. It was only when the boy raised his hand and pointed it at him that Jon noticed the gun. “Allah is great!” the boy screamed, pulling the trigger, as the soldiers’ gunfire tore into his young flesh, piercing his heart.

Jon felt the bullet slam into his body, and the ooze of blood as the soldiers lifted him onto a stretcher. He turned his head to the side, looking down on the young body of the boy, which lay stretched out, faceup, his eyes staring into space, all curiosity and intelligence forever extinguished. Jon felt the darkness envelop him, spreading over his eyes even before he closed them. And then he saw it, coming toward him, a hurtling beam of light that gathered the darkness into its embrace, catching and holding it, keeping it penned.

“Don’t…” he tried to say.

The soldiers were shouting in all directions. The helicopter engine and propellers roared in his ears, swallowing his words. Suddenly, he felt human breath on his face, a mouth close to his ears. Someone was leaning over him. “What?”

“Don’t…” he begged.

“Don’t what?” the medic asked.

“Don’t let it out.”

And then, he was silent.

Sitting at his desk waiting for word, General Nagar heard the ringing of his private line. He hesitated for a moment before picking it up, listened, then slammed his fist down on his desk.

When Elise saw him and Colonel Amos standing there at the entrance to her hospital room together with Dr. Gabbay and a nurse who was holding an injection, she already knew.

“NO!” Her screams resounded throughout the floor, where new mothers
sat eating their second Sabbath meal of the day; they echoed in the nursery, where the babies lay dozing in their cribs.

The general bent over her bed, quietly telling her the details.

“We did everything we could, Elise. Everything,” General Nagar said wearily. “Colonel Amos was in both operations. He can give you details.”

She looked at the tall, young colonel. His uniform was wrinkled and dusted with black ash. His eyes had aged. She put her arms around him, sobbing quietly, her tears wetting his shirt. She felt the young, strong bones, breathed in the scents of battle…

How many times had she leaned on Jon like this, she thought, as he came walking up the path, home on leave after days of reserve duty, unwashed, sleep-deprived, his only thought to hurry home to her and liana the moment they let him out? How many times had she breathed in that gritty scent of gunpowder mixed with a young man’s sweat? She listened to his strong heartbeat, felt the warmth that rose from his skin. Soon his mother would hug him, his sister, his girlfriend or wife. They would have him back this time, alive… this tall, handsome young man they loved. She was glad for them.

She pulled back, gaining control. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Who else did you lose?”

“We lost two in the safe house when it exploded, three if you count our informer Ismael… And in the second house the commander, Yigael Glickson, was badly wounded. He’s being operated on now.”

“God watch over him,” Elise murmured, thinking of the other mothers, other wives in mourning. “And liana?” Elise suddenly remembered with a rising hysteria. “What happened to liana?”

The general shrugged. He hated to say this, hated it. “We don’t know. She wasn’t there with your husband in the second house. And the safe house…” He hesitated, seeking courage, this general, to tell this to a mother: “The safe house was totally destroyed. It will take us days to sift through the rubble…”

“NO!”

“Please, Mrs. Margulies. Elise,” Colonel Amos said soothingly. “liana wasn’t with your husband. But chances are she wasn’t in the safe house either. We just don’t know. She’s vanished. One of Bahama’s brothers and his sister are still alive, also badly wounded. As soon as we can, we will interrogate them to find out what they know.”

”So, there is still a chance that my baby…?”

The colonel looked down at the floor, while the general lifted his hands, spreading his palms upward in a gesture he remembered from his pious mother when she said blessings over the Sabbath candles.

There was a knock on the door.

“General…”

“What is it? I didn’t want to be disturbed…”

“General. There is a woman outside. An Arab woman who calls herself Fatima…” The soldier whispered into the general’s ear.

“Let her in!” Elise cried. “I know her…”

“By all means, let her in.” Nagar nodded, a strange look passing over his features as Fatima walked into the room, a large basket of grapes on her head. “I brought you something, for you and for the doctor,” she said, lowering the basket and lifting off the cover. Two legs emerged, and then the rest of the body slipped out, almost like a breech birth, Elise would tell people later. Elise watched the small back, the loose, flexible limbs as the child turned around and ran into her arms.
“Ima!”

“liana, liana, liana,” Elise wept, holding the child in her arms, and then looking beyond into the old Arab woman’s stern, wrinkled face, which was filled with pain, and love, and pride of accomplishment.

God did not work alone, Elise suddenly understood. He needed human goodness, human compassion to answer yes to prayers. Sometimes He found it, and sometimes He didn’t.

“It was you! In the room with her! You who she was smiling at, when she lifted her arms to be held.”

Fatima nodded. “I am ashamed to say this, Mrs. Doctor Jon. But Marwan Bahama is my nephew, child of my sister. When they needed a woman to care for the child, she called me. I could not say anything, because the Hamas would kill me and my children. But when I was there, Dr. Jon begged me to take the child away, to hide her. I was very afraid. He was my nephew, but he was evil, a beast. Even his own mother was afraid of him. But as a true Muslim, I could not see the death of an innocent child, or a man who has done only good. It was very late. The men were tired, they slept. They didn’t think to check my basket as I left. In the morning, I knew they would come for me. So I hid with her in a cave in the hills. I took care of her like my own. Here, look. You will see, no harm has come
to her. Please, Mrs. Doctor Jon. Forgive me. Forgive my people.” Her proud, straight back and beautiful posture seemed suddenly to bend, as if under a great weight. “Have your soldiers freed Dr. Jon?”

Elise gathered the child in her arms and carried her over to Fatima. “Dr. Jon is dead,” she whispered. She felt the child’s arms tighten around her neck, heard the great intake of breath and then the sob. She hugged her. “Your nephews have also been killed, and your sister. I’m so sorry, Fatima. So sorry.”

The two women, their souls seared and dissolved by shock waves of grief and loss, rocked together in a desperate embrace. The Arab woman’s ululation of mourning mingled with the Jewish woman’s heartrending cries of grief.

Arab and Jew, the tears were the same tears. The broken heart, the grief, the mourning, both the same, General Nagar suddenly thought. He wondered, for the first time, if the world would not be a better place if it was in the hands of women like these instead of men.