Who Killed Daniel Pearl (8 page)

I had to look behind the martyred face to find the other, real face— not
Pearl's
face,
Danny's
.

I wanted so desperately to understand who the real Danny was that they had targeted, then killed.

To think of Daniel Pearl as alive.

God, according to the prophets who had given both of us some nourishment, is not the God of the dead but, first and foremost, the God of the living.

There's the splendid child, unexpectedly blond, whose room I had found so touching when I visited it in Los Angeles.

There's the football-playing child, kneeling next to the ball with his big orange socks, hair still blond and long, the face of a little prince, fresh as a daisy, posing for the photo and maybe stifling laughter—only his eyes are smiling, but what a smile!

There's the best friend, the stories of kids on Mulholland Drive, children's clubs, school outings, long intervals under the trees, endless summers, coconut cream pie after violin lessons, a happy life.

And very soon there's the music fanatic—photos of him playing violin, guitar, mandolin piano, drums. Group photos in Bombay. Another group in the Berkshires, a typical '80s rock band. Another splendid black and white photo: age eighteen or twenty, in tux and bow tie, hair cut short à la Tom Cruise, looking out at the audience, a restrained grin—he has just drawn the bow over the strings to play his last note. I can hear the applause, he is about to take a bow, he's happy. Favorite hobbies? asks the Stanford college application. “Sports and music, windsurfing and violin . . . ” What was your relationship? I asked Gill. “Music, girls, but mainly music. There were a bunch of us and music was the link. Rock, pop, but also at fifteen an Isaac Stern concert, or Stephane Grappelli, or Miles Davis.” The delight of Judea, a musician himself, when he discovered that his little boy had perfect pitch! Praise the Lord for this miracle! Thank you for this gift!

Here's the good friend, again—his generosity with colleagues. The headline he makes up for one. The catchy phrase he gives another. His kindness to the youngest reporters. The controlled insolence with his elders. His loyalty to the newspaper, there's only one, it's
the
newspaper, his, and too bad that it also belongs to the Dow Jones Company, which isn't exactly his cup of tea. When the
New York Times
, right before his departure for London in 1998, tried to lure him away with the kind of offer that makes you think twice, particularly in America, he turned it down, saying “I am not a mercenary. I like the
Journal
and I like my friends. I'm staying.”

Too good to be true? A pious cliché? Fortunately he's there to correct that impression. He's present in his answers to the questions on the Stanford application—modest, teasing, above all not taking himself too seriously. He calls himself “lazy” in his deliberate, very readable cursive, the letters distinct and sometimes almost separated—the still somewhat childish writing of a man who must have been told a hundred times “Be more careful! I can't read your writing!” My problem is that I am “lazy,” he writes, and sometimes, “fortunately not often,” I feel “contempt for humanity.” Sometimes, too, “petty frustrations” drive me to “generalized pessimism.”

There's the charmer. There, too, we have to watch out for the too-good-to-be-true. But the charm and magnetism were real. There are stories, in Paris and London, of women who were captivated. He was funny. He had an irresistible imagination. He could make up a song for a girl he liked in ten minutes. He was capable, also, like Solal, of giving himself an hour to seduce her, and succeeding. Danny, his mother would insist— suddenly very much the “Jewish mother,” oh-so-proud of her little boy who had become a ladies' man—had two reasons to be a success with young women. And not just women, in fact. He was charm personified— everybody, male or female, came under his spell. First of all, said Ruth, he was interested in them. He looked at them as if at that moment nothing more important existed in the world. Secondly, he had been loved as a child—he was beloved and he knew it. Nothing better than love to create an adult who feels comfortable in his skin . . . a charmer.

There are, again, the photos. They're the photos that I have spread out in front of me on the floor of my Los Angeles hotel room. They emanate a vibration and power that suddenly almost frightens me. Here's Danny all by himself, a close-up, with those sparkling, trusting eyes behind his glasses—“the jewel of the eye, truthful and laughing,” says the poet. Here's Danny standing with his parents, the good son, the good boy, with a look of infinite tenderness. Danny with a beard, in profile, in front of a window looking out towards the sea; it has rained, the sky is a powdery blue. Danny from the back, in a shaft of light that isolates him. Danny wearing a T-shirt, his eyes bright, a gentle smile, casually elegant, a handsome chiseled face—he looks like a young Arthur Miller. Danny with Mariane, orange T-shirt over beige pants: they're walking in the streets of a big city, maybe Milan, Turin or simply Paris, the arcades of the Palais-Royal. They're young, they look happy, I can hear them breathing, I can make out their animated voices and their laughter, I see the looks they exchange, I feel their light breath. Danny as a baby. Danny as a child, by the sea. Danny as a teen, holding a baseball bat, good as gold, an ironic stillness. Or with his sisters, at the prow of a white boat, a pontoon, glowing warm twilight, a seagull above their heads. With his sister again, in the garden at home, the end of a California afternoon, a light wind, sunshine, teasing her as two friends look on in amusement. Or in another garden, bathed in heat, light breeze, with his violin, reading a Bach score that his friend Gill is holding up for him. Danny with his 92-year-old grandmother Tova, who lives in Tel Aviv, looking at him in ecstasy while he smiles; he adored her. Danny on assignment, in what seems to be an Arab street—his hair has grown and he's wearing a ponytail and all is right with his world.

There's a wedding photo. He's standing in front of a fence, a photographer in the background, friends. Mariane's shoulders are bare. Orange taffeta skirt. Chiffon scarf. A bouquet of flowers in her hand. A perfect silhouette. Her delicate, exposed neck. I can imagine a Chopin prelude or a mazurka as background music. She's radiant. He's dressed up. Slightly artificial. Beige suit, a little stiff. Freshly cut short hair. He's holding her hand. In his eyes, a confident questioning, a tender glow, the youthful pride of happiness achieved. Not the slightest hint that could prompt someone to say later, “There, it was written, the tragedy was lurking beneath the enchanted image.” Not even, in their eyes, that slight hesitation, the distance between me and myself that usually testifies to the possibility of misfortune, or, simply, worry. No. They were absolutly present. Joy and beatitude. I have seen few faces, in my lifetime, so fulfilled. It seems to me that few people know they are happy when they're happy, and Pearl was one of the few. (And yet, it's coming back to me, what Ruth confided yesterday as we parted—the day right before or right after his wedding, when he told her that it was too much happiness. Exactly—too much good luck, and he hoped that one day he wouldn't have to pay for so much luck . . . Did he really say that? Did she really tell me he said that? Or am I dreaming? Or did I misunderstand? I don't know any more. Too many photos, yes. There are so many I get dizzy and maybe I'm talking nonsense . . . )

There's the journalist. I have in front of me the commemorative anthology published by his newspaper,
At Home in the World
. His whole life, that title
.
The inner password, the motto of this tireless globetrotter, as interested in the fate of a Stradivarius as he is in the mystery of Iranian Coca-Cola bottles, in the problems inherent in calculating dates for Ramadan and in the quarrel between Yemenites and Ethiopians on the origins of the Queen of Sheba. Unusual columns. Intrepid reporting. The guy who demolishes NATO's pronouncements on the Kosovo situation in the Eastern establishment's favorite newspaper. The one who, when the White House orders the bombing of a chemical factory in Sudan because it believes that it isn't a chemical factory, but rather a clandestine laboratory making weapons for biological warfare, is the first to go look and shout, “No, it really was a chemical factory. America has committed a tragic error.” An assignment in Qom. The rock music trend in Teheran. The battle for generic drugs, particularly for AIDS patients. Al-Qaida's involvement in diamond trafficking in Tanzania . . . Daniel Pearl, contrary to what has often been said, was not a war correspondent. “You have to be in practice to cover a war,” he'd say. “I'm not in practice. That's why I didn't want to go to Afghanistan and preferred to go to Pakistan.” But you can sense the very good, the very great, journalist. You sense the passionate explorer, tirelessly striding through far-away lands, the love of human beings and the world—you sense the news addict who lives his assignments, body and soul.

Was Danny careless? It's been said. During my year of investigation, I kept meeting people in Karachi, Madrid, Washington, who told me: “rash risks . . . was warned . . . didn't want to listen . . . what a pity . . . ” One step away, particularly in Pakistan, from lapsing into the hateful: “got what he deserved . . . sad but true . . . too bad for him . . . that's the way it is.” It was the opposite, of course. A good assessment of risks. A healthy fear of the country and the lunatics who disfigure it—proved by his e-mails to his parents. He didn't have protection, granted, but who did, at the time? What journalist prior to “The Daniel Pearl Affair” walked around with one of those armed escorts in orange or blue caps who protect Pakistani bigwigs? Even now there aren't many. I was offered one, during one of my trips. But what I immediately realized is that first, it's the kind of precaution that mostly serves to attract the attention of those who wish you harm; and second, that a retired cop getting ten dollars an hour isn't very motivated, in case of trouble, to take a bullet for you. I repeat, Pearl was not a war correspondent. He had not a trace of fascination for this garbage, the violence of men against men. Caution, he would say, is a dimension of courage.

And another thing. Did you know that it was he, Daniel Pearl, who in 1998, three years before “The Pearl Affair,” volunteered to compile for the
Wall Street Journal
a sort of journalistic handbook on security issues? He had thought of everything. The
Journal
used it to brief its reporters. Except for one subject, only one, which he left out: kidnapping! What to do if you were kidnapped! The specialists are categorical. They all say there's one absolute rule, which is don't try to escape. Never. But there you have it. It was the only rule he didn't know. It was the only situation he hadn't considered. He had anticipated everything, except what you're supposed to do if you get kidnapped. What irony! What a coincidence! As is the dream that Ruth had on 23 January, at the same time as the kidnapping. Danny, haggard, disheveled, appearing to her at the bottom of a dead-end street. “What's wrong, darling? What's going on?” “Nothing. They just made me drink water. Lots of water. It's nothing.” But he looks so awful. So pale and so awful. Ruth wakes up in a sweat, and goes directly to her e-mail: “Danny, are you all right? Please answer immediately!”

More about carelessness. The theory that he was being manipulated by American intelligence. Who told me that? It doesn't matter. The reasoning is as follows: A
Wall Street Journal
colleague buys a used computer at the Kabul market, right after the American war and the flight of the Taliban. He boots it up. He discovers to his amazement that the hard drive contains a quantity of strange information that smells of al-Qaida. He gives it to the
Journal
. Who pass it on to the American intelligence services. And they, once they've processed the information, come back to the newspaper in the hope—it's classic—that one or several journalists can help them confirm or disprove their preliminary conclusions. It's possible, of course. Everything, absolutely everything, is possible in such a strange story. As for the theory that Danny was in touch with the intelligence agencies, why not? What would be wrong with that? Shouldn't a good journalist, in the search for the truth, look for information anywhere he might find it? Shouldn't he follow up on every lead, make use of anything he can? Turn over every stone? Will I be accused of being a secret agent when I go to New Delhi to ask Indian intelligence what they know about his death? A CIA agent when I go to Washington, check on the investigation, glean there, too, a few clues, scraps of truth, maybe some evidence? The one thing I know is that Danny was a seasoned journalist. Street-smart. He never let himself be taken in by authorities, small-time crooks or spies. The one thing I could never imagine is that he would cross that yellow line between those who love truth and the agents or even militants of any given cause.

There is the Jew who had always thought if he had a son he would have him circumcised and who in 1998 wrote to his mother: “I will pass on to my children all the Jewish tradition I know, and with your help, maybe a little bit more.” How Jewish? I asked Ruth and Judea. Jewish. Faithful to that part of his memory. Because to him being Jewish was a way of having a memory. Yom Kippur. The High Holidays. Friday night dinner when he was home in Los Angeles. This other conversation with his mother, or maybe it was the same one, I don't remember, when he asked, “If I married outside of my faith, what would you say?”

He was thinking about Mariane, remembers Ruth. He loved her so much! She made him so happy! And he was so sure that they had the real faith, the two of them, which was the faith of the heart! And that bar mitzvah photo at the Wailing Wall,
kippa
, prayer shawl, holding the Torah, bigger than he is, that pure light flashing from his eyes.