The English Teacher (6 page)

“A long time after this, when we were already friends, she told me at that moment I sounded exactly like her father, who used to call her to his room and check what she was reading with that critical, dismissive look, and tell her she could read what she liked but he at her age had already read . . . and he would reel off a whole list, just like the required reading list that she received when she arrived at university.

“‘Are you nervous?' I asked after we finished checking the luggage. Rachel stretched out her legs in the jeans and looked at me. ‘What have I to be nervous about?' she said. ‘I'm going to look into prospects for work, the opportunity to earn a little money.' ‘And the journey? How are you financing it? And where do your parents live? And who can be contacted if we need to ask questions about you?' She knew all the answers, but she knew something else. That I would be here when she came back. That I would wait for her to call on reaching the hotel, and I would never sit behind a desk, embalmed in a suit, far from her.

“‘No, I'm not afraid,' she added, ‘I just want everything to be done right. I already want to be on the way back.' I looked at her hands, clasped around her knees, at the delicate bracelet on her right arm, the thin and bony wrist. Tomorrow she'll be like a pilot flying
solo for the first time, except that the pilot goes out for about twenty minutes, and she'll be there for many weeks before she sees me again. Up to this point I had been close to her in all the exercises. I waited for her on the other side of the border, played the part of her friend when she was interviewed at the language school in Rome, and it was only when she went to the enemy's embassy to apply for a visa that I stayed behind and waited for her in a nearby café.

“I felt the tension gripping me too, the feeling that I was putting her under pressure. ‘Come on,' I said, and made an effort not to hold her hand. ‘Let's go and eat. We'll take a break. We can talk over a meal, nothing is running away, and anyway the shops are closed. What you haven't bought you probably don't need.' Rachel put on her shoes and moved toward the door as if obeying an order. She was tall, and slim, and she knew this made the right impression on me. The short and straight coiffure framed her face and gave it the forceful look that I wanted to see, and I admit I couldn't stop my eyes wandering over her, and I hoped I wasn't annoying her. I'm twenty years older than her, and even back then I had a small paunch and a respectable bald patch.

“She stood by the door with her back to me, and I thought, Despite all the time we have spent together I know too little about her, and even with all the training and the preparations I'm not sure it will all go according to plan. Just a few months ago I told headquarters she wasn't ready, she didn't know the assignment, was incapable of telling her life history without mistakes and she would stumble the moment she arrived at enemy territory, and tomorrow she's going to board a plane, fasten her seat belt, look around her, and when the plane takes off on its way to the capital city she'll know she's alone. She'll know she's going to a place where those who are caught are hanged. If she falls, only God can lift her up.

“I led her to the corner table. Rachel sat facing the door, as she had been taught, so she could see anyone coming in, and she put on her gloomy expression, the look that says: I'm here because you asked me to come, because you told me to go out with you. I knew it, that look, she used it several times in the course of training, and it grieved me each time. I thought perhaps I was forcing myself upon her; perhaps I was deviating from what's allowed between a case officer and his operative. With a man the situation is clear. You go out with him, socialize with him, and the conversation never digresses from the subject of the operation that he's responsible for. With her it was different, and it looked that way too. There were other couples in the restaurant, and some of the men were much older than the women they were with. I was afraid that to them it was clear I was spending money on this young woman before taking her to a hotel, and I wondered what she thought of me and what I was to her besides her case officer. You know what I wanted? I wanted her to see in me a father's authority, and someone she could turn to as to a mother. I also hoped she might be secretly in love with me. Of course I wanted her, but I knew where the boundary was. I don't suppose she guessed what I was thinking about. Rachel was an operative just starting out. She had known me for several months and we had spent many hours together, but I never spoke about myself, nor did I ask her what she thought of me. I was an experienced professional, and I knew I was preparing her for her first time, her baptism of fire, solo, and she needed to be treated like a war machine.

“The waiter came over and she turned and addressed him in her deep and warm voice. I said to her, like a judge in a talent contest, that her voice, ringing out with a perfect British accent, was a weapon, something inspiring confidence and generating the sense that it is directed wholly toward the listener.

“She nodded her head with a movement that seemed to me a gesture of gratitude, and took a sip from the glass of wine that she allowed herself. It was a moment in which she seemed to condescend and to accept what was due her, like a queen responding to her subjects. And I was convinced again that for women this is easier. Easier for them to gain trust, easier to play the dependent card, ask for and receive help, and be thought of as innocent. But what good will this do her if she is caught, if she falls into their hands? For women it is also more dangerous. At the end of the day this is a man's world, and if she is jailed, she will be at the mercy of men, and men only.

“I spoke to break the tension, I spoke to infuse in her, and in me too, a bit more confidence. I went over everything we had done together, over the language school in Rome where she had worked for a month, and how easily she was accepted, and how she succeeded in convincing everyone of her Canadian identity, despite her British accent and although some of the other teachers were themselves Canadian. I reminded her of her fine achievement in obtaining the references that they were happy to provide for the language school in the Arab city, and of the trip we took together through Europe. I tried to convince her that crossing the border from Turkey into Greece was more difficult than getting into an Arab country, and I got a smile out of her when I reminded her how the joke she told the Greek customs officer, about bird food, persuaded him not to confiscate the sack of Turkish coffee that she brought with her, thereby missing the imitation plastic explosives that we had planted in the sack. Then I talked about the beautiful places we had visited, and insisted that suffering is not obligatory. On the contrary, the job should be enjoyed and done happily. She's young, beautiful, and free, and she's traveling for fun, and to earn some money. ‘You'll stroll around the markets, see all the beautiful mosques, and you'll get to visit the most famous ancient
sites. Everything as it was in training. Just don't make a pass at anyone, and don't let anyone make a pass at you,' I added with a smile.

“I saw the anger in her face. ‘And if I were a man, would you say the same thing to me? Don't make a pass at any girls, don't smile at any women in the street? Why can a man get away with it? What are you afraid of, that I'll fall in a trap?' She took a gulp of wine and I wondered what was coming next. ‘Tell me the truth,' she said, and I knew she wasn't looking for an answer. ‘Have you ever asked one of your male operatives what he does when he finds he can't restrain himself any longer, or is it just me you dare ask, as if I'm made from different flesh and blood, as if with me it's allowed? In this respect too you're just like my father. He also warned me about boys, they're only after one thing.' She was incensed, and her fingers clutched the wine glass so tightly I was afraid she was going to break it. I didn't say anything. I had nothing to say, except to ask for her forgiveness. She went on talking and reminded me of all the things we allow ourselves to say about women. Then we were quiet. There are silences that draw people closer together, because you don't feel the need to say anything, and there are silences that drive people further apart, when you know that you have nothing more to say to each other.

“And then she told me not to worry. ‘It's going to be all right. I'm leaving tomorrow, and you'll see, everything is going to work out the way we planned. I also know they will try their luck with me, and this time it won't be like in training, when you had men pretending to fancy me. This time it will be for real, and I'll know how to deal with them. Every girl knows that things depend on her, and you'll see that I won't mix business and pleasure. I know my business.'”

“A
ND I
N FACT, THERE WAS A
good-looking man sitting next to her on the plane, but he didn't say he knew her from somewhere, and he took no interest in the book she was reading. Rachel was ready to respond to him with a noncommittal nod of the head, and she told me later she was almost disappointed when that was unnecessary. But she was glad he understood from her body language that she wasn't interested. ‘Eye contact is the name of the game,' she told me, and said she managed to contract herself into her seat and not meet his look even when she passed him the tray of food. She knew this was the right thing and she shouldn't make any contact with him, as one question leads to another and there's no knowing where it will end. Her story was ready, down to the smallest detail. All was prepared and backed up by paperwork and telephone contacts that we were ready to respond to at any time. And yet she had something to hide and there was no reason to volunteer information to a stranger who she might run into again. ‘Not everyone talks to their neighbors on a flight,' I
told her before one exercise. ‘They're not all sociable, charming, making contact, and exchanging business cards. You're better off keeping to yourself.'”

Ehud made sure that Joe was still listening to him. “I told her your story. I didn't tell her it was you who made that mistake, or that I was using you as an example.” Joe didn't smile, and Ehud continued: “‘Once upon a time, one of our operatives was flying to an Arab country, which for him was like a normal business trip, routine even. He found himself sitting beside a businessman like himself, and a conversation developed and business cards were exchanged when the plane landed. The operative went on to his hotel and forgot all about the man and the business card he left with him. The next morning the police arrived and interrogated him for hours. It turned out that the other guy was smuggling cigarettes, and when they arrested him they found the card in his pocket.'” Joe admitted that this was one of the mistakes he had made, and Ehud told him that Rachel had absorbed this lesson with ease, with ease that perhaps even disappointed her, because she too would have wanted to be friendly and liked.

“I think Rachel had a painful sense that people who were not in the Office felt that she could be doing more, that she wasn't striving hard enough and did not assert herself enough. She was talented and gifted, but she was too adept at concealing these qualities. She had a lovely face with fine features but she was somehow hard to remember, to inscribe in the memory and say: This is a woman I want to see again. She wasn't pleased when the instructors in the course told her they considered her looks an asset. ‘Please don't be offended,' the Unit commander said in the final briefing. ‘We see you as a weapon, and it's better for us and better for you that it's a concealed weapon. Under your facade of normality, and behind the pretty face, one among thousands like it, an operative is hiding, an operative who has completed
her course with distinction and is capable of fulfilling whatever assignment is entrusted to her.' She also thought we were happy she had broken up with Oren, and didn't say he was the one who initiated the separation. To console her I told her that most operatives abandon their girlfriends after training, and she at once, in her typical way, told me it pained her to find herself in a group she didn't want to be a part of.

“‘That's what you need,' she told me, ‘someone like me, who doesn't have a boyfriend, who takes the world seriously.'

“‘Actually, not just that . . .' I responded, and was trying to say something that would balance the picture, but she continued: ‘I know I'm not funny and not charming, and perhaps that's what makes me suitable, because men don't start up with me.'

“She was right, of course. And there was something else, something I said to the Unit commander before I fell in love with her, and after he said goodbye to her and wished her success. I said to him, ‘Rachel will be a good operative, but she can't be coddled. She needs to be like a wrestler climbing into the ring—lean and hungry.' And that is exactly what she was.”

E
HUD DIDN'T SIT IN THE
ROW
behind her on the plane, nor did he peer at her through the mostly opaque window of one of the vehicles waiting on the tarmac. The Unit's war room was unmanned the day she went deep into enemy territory, bearing a new identity, the image of a carefree young English teacher starting out on her way. There was no point holding a squadron of helicopters on alert for a rescue mission, because Rachel's commanders knew that if something went wrong, not even a military intervention would help. They had told Rachel this, and it was clear to her that now everything depended on
her. It was her decision, when she could go ahead with the operation and when it was better to stop and say: This is too dangerous.

There was no turning back. The plane landed and she needed to get up from her seat and move toward her destination. Around her there was a strange and menacing silence. Her neighbor in the next seat said something that sounded like goodbye, and someone standing in front of her in the queue for the exit chattered with his friend in Arabic. The flight attendant said something to her, and outside was the din of jet engines, but it all sounded far away, and she was alone in the world, in her own almost-silent movie. “Enough,” she said to herself aloud, and walked to the door of the plane.

Rachel shielded her eyes with her free hand and held her handbag firmly, as if someone might snatch it. The sun beat down fiercely despite the early hour of the morning, and the heat outside wrapped around her like an extra layer of clothing. She walked slowly down the steps and inadvertently exposed her thigh. “Everything has to be planned,” Ehud told her in one of the briefings. “Just as you don't go out on a date in clothes you've yanked out of the closet, that's the way it has to be over the border, at the first encounter with your adversary, the one who's looking for a reason to take you aside and ask a few more questions.” They chose a simple blouse with a high collar, to emphasize her long neck and focus attention on her face, and a skirt with pockets, to accommodate passport and purse. But it's impossible to think of everything, because now the light breeze forced her to use her hand to keep her skirt in place, and she drew the attention of the mechanic, who was looking up.

To her left the porters were already at work unloading baggage, and she resisted the impulse to check that her suitcase was there. There was nothing in it to incriminate her and even its loss wouldn't jeopardize the operation. But a suitcase that disappeared would cause
unnecessary complications, and another encounter with the airport authorities, who would want to see her flight ticket and know which hotel she was going to. She bought the suitcase with Ehud and he helped her twist the hinges. “From now on you can open the case in two ways, the normal way and your way. You'll be able to tell if anyone has opened it. And even that doesn't mean they suspect you,” he said, and went on to explain, although he saw her patience wearing thin. “The case can be opened accidentally, or by airport security, and the porters may simply do some pilfering, but better to know this and be alert.”

Up to now everything has gone all right, she told herself, exactly the same as at any other airport. And yet everything felt different. The fear was real, and the price of failure would be terrible. This wasn't a case of another exercise, or crossing a border in Europe. Her teeth chattered despite the heat and she clenched her jaws to hide the tremor. Rachel took the last step and set foot on the searing tarmac to what seemed to her like a trap she was about to fall into, and she was sure that at any moment she would be approached by a tough-looking man in a safari suit who would ask her to enter one of the vehicles that were parked beside the bus, as in the exercise at Ben Gurion Airport.

A few more paces. She restrained the impulse to look around her, avoiding eye contact with the armed police and security men who stood and scrutinized the passengers. Someone touched her elbow, and she ignored him. If it's a cop, by now he would have told her to come with him; if it's a passenger walking behind her, this isn't the time to look at him angrily. When she almost reached the door of the shuttle bus to the terminal, which seemed to her a point of refuge, it closed and the full vehicle moved off and left her to wait for the next one, exposed to the inquisitive looks around her. She stood with the others and didn't dare wipe the sweat from her brow. A middle-aged
lady who stood beside her said to her in English this was the way things were here, and they needed to wait until the bus had unloaded its passengers, and then it would return for the rest of them. Rachel nodded, didn't answer, and was glad that in training they acted out a similar scenario in which a passenger latched on to her before passport control, engaged her in conversation, and eventually asked her to help drag her heavy bag through customs. Her refusal earned high marks from the instructors, who were watching her through peepholes. Even the “passenger,” an experienced reservist operative, praised her, and told her she was the first candidate to show herself both affable and determined, not falling into the trap that awaited her, when the bag was opened and found to be full of drugs.

The bus returned in a cloud of dust and they boarded. A policeman stood near them, and to Rachel it seemed he was looking at her with a quizzical eye. Except for her and a middle-aged passenger, all the others were talking among themselves, and most of them were Arabs. She was aware of being looked at and pressed her legs together under her skirt. The cop took one step forward. The woman who stood behind her whispered a few words but Rachel didn't hear what she said. A drop of sweat sparkled on her upper lip and she wondered if the cop thought this was suspicious. The bus set off with a jolt. The cop raised his hand and clutched the metal bar above him, and she saw the stain of sweat under his armpit and the fat and hairy midriff that was exposed. Her apprehension eased.

T
HE WOMAN WHO
GOT ON THE
bus with her stood behind her in the line for passport control. “How long will you be here?” she asked. “For a few days,” said Rachel, not turning around, thereby indicating to the
stranger that there was no point in asking more questions. The line moved on one pace and she heard the woman huffing. Maybe she isn't satisfied with my response. Fuck her. It isn't my problem. She stood on the yellow line and waited until the tall man standing in front of her moved ahead. She kept the passport in her pocket. No point in getting it out too soon. Why should this woman know that despite the British accent she's a Canadian citizen? Why should she see her new and empty passport?

Her turn came. She walked the three ominous paces to the passport control booth, peered at the pleasant-looking official, and handed over her passport. “Nothing happens, it's exactly like the exercises, and you need to be ready and believe in yourself,” Ehud said to her last evening, in an attempt to instill a little more confidence in her. “There's no one who isn't a bit anxious at passport control. That's how it is when somebody offers his identity papers for inspection. When the officer looks up at you, look back at him and remember you have nothing to hide. This is your passport. This is your trip. This is the work you're looking for. For every question you have an answer.” “True,” she said to him, and added what Ehud also knew was the difference—the knowledge of the real reason for her coming, and at the end of the day the capital city isn't Jerusalem, and it's no longer a test.