The Distance Between Us (8 page)

She laughed when he said that, and he chuckled himself. And Caddie thought of her own first time, with an Indiana farm boy. Arnie was his name, a muscled D-student. He’d whispered that his parents weren’t home and described a plush living room couch with lacy pillows, but she’d led him to a cornfield, where she’d pulled him from sight between the rows. And there in the dirt, she’d learned two important facts. That her dreams, unlike those of her neighbors, were made of grit instead of lace. And that anticipation is nearly always sweeter than realization.

Then Jon was in the middle of saying what had happened with the girl afterward, how she didn’t show up to meet him as they’d planned and how he looked for her, when a government spokesman called to tell them of a news conference and Caddie dashed to cover it and the topic never came up again.

Now she clears her throat and he looks up and his face turns self-conscious. He tries to refold the newspaper and some pages flutter to the floor. He rises stiffly. “Caddie, I’m so—”

“I know,” she interrupts.

“I can’t believe . . .”

She nods. Oh, to get through this part.

“Well. You look great,” he says, as though she’s come back from some vacation. He says it even though he’s unable to
meet her eyes. “You’ve always been tough. But,” he spreads his arms, “should you really be . . .? I mean, Mike told me you weren’t to . . .” He trails off, his gaze wandering from her feet to her right cheek and then back to her feet again.

She steps into the office. “I’m ready to work, Jon. I
have
to work, in fact. But I’d like to keep it between us. It’ll only be features. Unless, of course,” she takes a deep breath, “a breaking story tumbles into my lap.”

He laughs. “You’re something. I don’t know if I could . . . but
you
. . . you don’t change. Okay, between us.” He pats her on the shoulder and shoots a look of admiration in her general direction. It comes from a great distance, that look, a long lack of understanding, but it’s what she’s going to have to live with.

Besides, it’s probably as much intimacy as she can handle right now. “Isn’t the Foreign Ministry presser about to start?” she asks.

He nods. “I better get going. You’ll be here when I get back, then?”

“Unless I think of somewhere else to go.”

When Jon has left, she still feels crowded, as though someone else is sucking up the air and filling the space, as though she must keep her elbows compressed to her waist and avoid expansive movements. She opens the top drawer of her desk. A stale smell escapes. She stares at a pile of notes for an economic feature she was planning to write, before. She slams the desk shut, and with her foot she shoves the stack of newspapers
she has to go through—two weeks’ worth. She flips on her computer.
Leap in
. But to what?

She logs online, reads a couple pieces of e-mail, deletes the rest. Then she goes to a search engine and types in a few words.
Beirut. Assassin.
Up pops a list of books and movies and websites on the history of the Crusaders. She tries another search.
Beirut. Kill-for-hire
. No hits at all. What did she expect? E-mail contacts and a price list?

Down the hall, a phone rings, and a gravelly voice answers. It’s Pete, a photographer in his midfifties. “How many are there?” he grumbles into the phone.

Hearing him, she has an inspiration. She waits until he has hung up before walking down to his office. As soon as he sees her, he opens his arms, thick and covered with white-blond hair, and pulls her in. He smells of shaving cream, a sign that he hasn’t been out working yet.

“What a shooter he was,” Pete says. “Away from work, he was such a jokester—I never trusted a word he said. But taking pictures, he was—”

Caddie nods.

“You?”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure? Because if—”

She waves a hand to cut him off. “Listen, I need a favor.”

He gestures for her to sit and leans toward her.

“Let me know, will you, when you hear of clashes anywhere.”

“I always let you know,” Pete says.

“No, I mean
anything
. Big
or
little.”

His stare is suspicious. Photographers have to get to the violence or they’ve got nothing, empty negatives, a black hole, but experienced reporters wait until there’s a body pile. Even then, they weigh what else is happening. After all, they can always look at the footage or photos later to fill out their copy. “What for?” Pete says. “You’re not a hardware-sniffer.”

“It’ll get me up and running again.”

He stretches his legs. “Most of these aren’t stories,” he says. “They’re fender-benders. I dash by with my helmet and flak jacket, shoot a roll or two, and then I’m gone. No point for you.”

“I’m talking a long-term project,” she begins improvising, and then gives it up. She rises, walks toward the door and pauses. “Let me worry about what I take from it.”

He studies her a minute. “Something calmer might be your best bet for now.”

“Shit, Pete.”

He shrugs. “Okay, okay. I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks.”

She nods and leaves. Calmer, hell. What does Pete know? She can handle it; she can handle anything. Sure, maybe sometimes a few details get to her. The expressions and postures of the dead: the uncanny grins, the unnatural sprawls. The distinctive smell of blood and entrails: thick, swampy and sordid like a secret that should never have been revealed. Sometimes she gags. But then she holds her breath and keeps going. She is a stranger to easy astonishment. She can step over
bloody ground for a quote, analyze a wound for its deadliness. Identify weapons and stay unfazed when they are waved in her face. She keeps her eyes on the basics: it’s a
story.
Stories stale quickly; each one has to have an angle. She slips in, gets what she needs and moves out, fast. A visitor.

Still, once back in her office, she reaches into her drawer and pulls out a list she keeps of feature ideas. She examines it a moment, then crumbles it and tosses it into the trashcan. None of it interests her. But what, what? She kicks the trashcan.

And then it occurs to her: Moshe. Of course. Moshe is the perfect way to sink into a feature with a hard edge. A West Bank settler leader linked to the movement’s radicals and, at the same time, articulate enough. She’s been developing him for more than a year now.

She calls him at his office. “I’d like to come out,” she says. “Spend a night. Get a feel for what’s happening there.”

“The only thing happening is that we’re trying to raise good, productive children in a community of values,” Moshe says, his voice thick. He always talks through his nose. If she didn’t know, she’d think he had a cold.

“Great, then,” she says. “I’ll write about that.”

“Having values doesn’t make us extremists.”

She imagines him playing idly with the gun he probably keeps in his desk drawer. “Of course not,” she says.

She hears the door open. For a moment she doesn’t recognize the man standing there. Then she realizes he’s the silk tie. The out-of-place would-be poet with the Russian accent and black eyes.

“Foreign journalists have a hard time appreciating us,” Moshe is saying, using an old line. “They draw rash conclusions.”

“I have some flexibility in my schedule right now,” Caddie says. “Sometime in the next week would be perfect.”

“Well—” Moshe hesitates. “I’ll get back to you.”

“If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll give you a buzz,” she says, and hangs up.

She’s not completely surprised to see the man from the Gaza hospital. Men often view female foreign correspondents as an odd breed, independent but lonely and ripe for the picking, women who took their jobs at least partly for the chance to have sex in exotic countries. These men are likely to track her down weeks, even months, after an interview, full of half-winks and anticipatory grins. Wanting her without any idea who she is: the ultimate insult.

If you happened upon a nude woman walking down the street
, she imagines asking,
would you avert your gaze or slow down to stare?
He is, she decides, the staring sort.

“Yes?” she says after a moment, keeping recognition from her voice.

He stands at a distance and reaches, stork-like, to hand her a piece of paper. “The list of medicines they need.” He turns to go.

At second glance he doesn’t seem the predator type. He doesn’t have the swagger, the extra helping of phony confidence. “Wait a sec,” Caddie says. “Where’d you get this?” She shakes the paper without looking at it.

He speaks over his shoulder. “You’ll see they lack very basic supplies.”

“How’d you know I was asking about this?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

She shakes the paper again. “What if it isn’t legit?” He looks puzzled. “Legitimate,” she says. “For real.”

He shrugs, giving her his back as he pushes open the door. “Check it.”

“Wait.” Finally, something in her command stops him. “A simple question. What’s your name?”

“Goronsky. Alexander Goronsky.”

He says it oddly, each syllable placed heavily as though he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. As though if he ever knew how to smile, he’s long ago forgotten. Darkness beneath a tightly controlled surface.

“Goronsky,” she says. “All right. There’s a start. Now why don’t we go have a cup of coffee and talk a little more about this list of yours?”

It’s a rash invitation that startles even her. But if he is either surprised or pleased by her boldness, he doesn’t show it. He stares at her, nods and waits silently, looking out the window, for her to close up the office.

O
N THE STREET
he stays a step or two ahead, leading the way from west Jerusalem into the eastern part of the city, Salaheddin Street. He walks with head half-tucked, shoulders sucked in, feet gliding cat-like, as though he were prepared to slip
through a sidewalk crack at the first sign of danger. He hesitates before the open door of Silwadi Café. Arabic music blares from a cassette player. A waiter sweeps past with a steaming tray bearing the scent of roasted peppers and sweet coffee. She expects Goronsky to ask if his choice is okay, but instead he moves unhesitatingly into the café’s single room and sits at a table. After a moment, she follows.

They wait for their order silently, Goronsky looking around the room as though sizing it up. Small talk, though Caddie is usually good at it, sticks in her throat these days.

“So how did you get this information? And why?” she manages after their coffee arrives.

“It was something I could do.” His face is bland.

“But how? Who are you?”

He straightens. He lays his hands on the table, each movement deliberate. She likes his long fingers. “Psychology professor,” he says, failing to meet her gaze. “I’m on sabbatical from Moscow State University, doing research at Hebrew University.” The way he speaks, so stiffly, conjures up an image of those words typed on a page. She can picture him practicing reciting them.

“Research on what?”

“Extremism,” he says.

She smiles. “Sounds like a perfect cover.”

He takes a lingering drink of coffee. “Did you ever call to find out what happened to that child?” he asks.

“What child?”

“The little girl in the hospital.” His gaze is appraising, if not judgmental.

“You know—?” Caddie breaks off. “It was a story,” she says. “It was about medical shortages, not one child.”

“So it’s only the story you cared about.”

She looks away, stung by the sudden intrusion. Is it only the story? It seems to her now that that was precisely the question in the girl’s eyes. She thinks of the girl’s limp body vanishing into the sheets; she hears again that moan emerging as if from a cavern. It mixes with a memory of another moan.
From Marcus? No, he’d been silent. Sven? Or maybe me.

She is, she realizes, stirring her coffee endlessly, her spoon making round after round in her cup. She stops herself, meets his stare. “What were
you
doing at the hospital that day?”

“Waiting for the director,” he says.

“What for?”

“He is a political leader. I need him for my study.”

She shakes her head and smiles. “Okay, let’s say for a moment that you are doing a study. How did you find out so much about me? And why bother?”

“All I found out was what you were there for and where your office is located. I can do far better with basic observational skills if I have more time. And more interest,” he adds pointedly. He nods toward the man behind the bar. “Take, for instance, Farid Silwadi, the owner of this place. His first love is music, but he can’t pursue it full-time because of family responsibilities. His father is dead. He is the oldest son and is
supporting his sister-in-law and her young child while his brother, their father, is in jail. He would love to sell this restaurant, but he can’t, not anytime soon.”

Caddie is intrigued in spite of herself, but she doesn’t want him to see that. “So?” She shrugs. “One lazy afternoon, he told you his life story.”

“Not until after I guessed the basic outline. See the sheet music lying on the bar? In the back he has an
oud
. If you come here directly before the dinner hour, you can hear him practicing. He’s not bad. He wants to join a group that performs at parties for the faithful returning from the hajj.”

“And the family details?”

“Again, simple logistics. He wears no ring, yet he works like a slave. Too hard for a man unattached. So it has to be that his father is dead and he has some other weight upon him besides a wife or children of his own. A woman alone is always the responsibility of her husband’s family—her father-in-law if he is living, the oldest brother if he is not. That’s how I figured it out, and then I confirmed it. I imagine Silwadi will sell this place a week after his brother gets out of jail.”

She grins. “Not bad.”

He immodestly nods. “It’s a matter of focus, of combining observable moments. No trick to it.”

They sip their coffee silently.

“Now your turn. Tell me something,” he says. “Tell me about the look I saw on your face the other day in the hospital.”