THRILLER: The Galilee Plot: (International Biological Terror, The Mossad, and... A Self-contended Couple) (11 page)

“I thank you for that
endorsement,” she responded. She executed a dancer’s twirl in the narrow space
of the room, and  to my surprise stopped in front of me and proceeded to
say: “Obviously you want to fuck me – and I’m no less keen on the idea. As I’m
sure you know, the Nordic race is drawn by a fatal attraction towards the
inferior races, the Asiatics, the degenerate Semitic race of the Middle East.
You can do this in whatever way appeals to you.” And so saying, she began to
strip.

She had an athletic,
well-developed body: solid thighs, a typically Teutonic arse, that managed to
be broad and pert at the same time – utterly irresistible (the way a Panzer
tank is irresistible), and a bust that scythed the air with every movement.

“Come on, let’s not
pretend,” she cajoled me in a perky tone. “What I really like is when people
call me filthy names and shout obscenities at me. I’m sure you know those kinds
of words, in any language you like. Amin used to call me a name, in Arabic,
that he refused to translate –
sharmuta
– and he combined it with German
words, saying I was
Die grosste schmutzigste Sharmuta in der ganze Welt
.
You’d be doing me a real favour if you could enlighten me. Do you know any
Arabic?”

“The basics,” I replied.

“And this word?”

“Yes, my knowledge extends
that far.”

“So what does it mean?”

“Whore. So the whole of
that phrase means, The biggest and filthiest whore in all the world,” I
explained.

She moved closer to me and
started undressing me the way you undress a baby.

“What I don’t get,” she
commented, “is why you’re being so resistant. I’m not a  cannibal or
anything like that, so why are you opposed to this? Don’t you fancy me? And if
Amin’s right and I’m a whore, you can have the best sex ever, as the English
call it – and all free of charge. You still haven’t answered my question, why
you’re resisting. You’re not a virgin, I can tell the difference between
virgins and non-virgins, and it doesn’t look like you’ve got syphilis, clap or
Aids…”

“I’m married,” I retorted.

“And you’re afraid of your
wife?” she laughed.

“I respect her,” I
amended.

“After you’ve been with
me, you’ll respect her all the more, and she’ll respect me too. The way my
sister Hilde has respected me, ever since I did it with her husband.
Incidentally, it made him feel great and he cursed me with all the English
curses he knows, and there’s plenty of them, plus some German ones he’d picked
up, and Arabic of course. And that’s a sure sign that he got full satisfaction,
better than anything he’s known in the past or is likely to know in the future.
And now, you can curse me in your language, in classical Hebrew, the language
of the Scriptures.”

“There aren’t many curses
there,” I replied.

“What a dismal language!”
she declared categorically. “Go on, make a start!” she demanded, the kind of
demand that’s not easily evaded.

“Stinking bitch!” – I
offered, and was immediately asked to translate it. The translation merited
some textual analysis:

“Bitch yes, stinking – no!
Surely you know the Germans are the cleanest race on earth. Three showers a day
with special soaps, as you’ll see soon enough… I love the pungent smell of a
real man. It sets my whole being in a spin, floods me with hormones, an
unstoppable flow. Got any more?”

“Stupid bloody Nazi!”

“That’s a good one,” she
declared, “you’re getting the idea.”

Underwear fell. I was led with
unreasonable force to the bed. “Let’s go!” she urged me. I found myself
spread-eagled on the double bed with her gigantic body entwining around mine in
every conceivable and inconceivable posture, all positions without exception,
some of them surprising and some of them ominous.

“I haven’t had enough of
your curses yet.”

“Arse-licker!” I gasped.

“Outstanding!” she moaned.

After the first round,
came the second. And then – the warriors’ rest, or I should say, the
woman-warrior’s rest.

“You’re better than him!”
– she pointed downstairs with her thumb.

“You’re not!” I retorted.

“Who am I not better
than?”

“My wife!”

“You look like someone
who’s stepped out of a long and mind-numbingly boring romantic poem from the
eighteenth century! At least you’ve made me experience something I wouldn’t
have believed existed.”

“You and me both,” I
responded illogically.

“I’m glad to hear it! And
what have you experienced?” she demanded to know, in typical style.

“The Teutonic Kriemhilde
or Brunnhilde, not the Wagnerian ones – but the real thing.”

“And I’ve experienced King
Solomon, not the Biblical one, but the real thing,” she responded
appropriately, and added: “The time has come to replenish our unromantic
systems with the million calories we have burnt up!”

And so we did. We
showered, dressed, ate sandwiches, drank vermouth and  stood steadily on
our feet. It was then that she surprised me with a sudden outburst:

“You,” she jabbed a
menacing finger at me, “are nothing other than the rusty relic of total
misunderstanding of the times we are living in!”

“Could you elucidate
that?” I demanded.

“Open your ears wide and
listen. Our age is the inverted age. The age that came before was the age of
the way to eternal life and the blueprint was simple and clear: don’t lie,
don’t fornicate, don’t pursue gain, don’t complain. And it didn’t work –
because human beings are designed to lie, to fornicate, to pursue gain and pity
themselves, and it doesn’t matter what anyone says. In the inverted age, man
lies, fornicates, pursues gain and finds legitimate satisfaction in self-pity,
and has two claims to make: one, he can’t abide by the above-mentioned rules,
and the other, he doesn’t believe in eternal life and doesn’t want it anyway.
He is addicted and dependent, utterly and willingly dependent, on his
anatomical body, and he’s not prepared under any circumstances to forgo its
transient delights.”

“The former age is over
and gone and it left a lot of scars. Mankind is fed up with scars. Our age
lives the moment, the only thing that it’s left with after the bitter
disappointments it has absorbed. People are killed suddenly, innocent people.
You and your compatriots should know this better than most. Come on, let’s live
the fleeting moment, and leave eternity to the self-righteous. In our age we
know how to squeeze out the last atom of sensual pleasure. The inverted age is
the cannibal age, and humanity enjoys being cannibal, it wants to be cannibal.
It’s capable of this and knows it. It has shaken off the dumb Freudianism of
Jewish guilt.”

“What guilt are you
talking about, and for what?” I interjected.

“For the Crucifixion!”

 I had no answer to
this.

“To make your job easier
you can do whatever you like with me, even kill me and rip out my guts or
sacrifice them to the idols. I’m making you an offer of incomparable generosity
and magnitude: be a cannibal, true saint of our age, the inverted age that is.”

“You’re saying the
weirdest things and they are nothing more than the snapshot of a situation,
without any hope, without inspiration, without truth.”

“I heard of a Turk, who
claimed that the world is wallowing in blood because of women who aren’t
getting sexual satisfaction, and this loads the air with hostility and poison
and bitterness – a convenient, logical and reliable springboard for disputes,
quarrels, wars and cruelty for its own sake… there’s more than a grain of truth
in this… so please do me a favour, kind Sir,” – turning to me – “and give
satisfaction to this volcano of hormones, and you’ll be making your modest contribution
to the salvation of the world! You are most cordially invited,” she saw fit to
stress.

“Thankyou. I have some
questions to ask you.”

“Ask, and I shall answer
to the best of my ability and beyond.”

“How can you answer beyond
your ability?” I asked, not inclined to allow any evasion.

“If you discover what’s
hidden behind the question and go further and deeper. I’m sure all your
questions have to do with Amin.”

“So that’s an example of
going further and deeper!” I declared.

“Go on then, ask.”

“What does he talk about?
Has he been agitated lately?”

“He’s more agitated than
any other time since I’ve known him. And all his conversations revolve around
one single axis – the destruction of the Jews. My learned brother-in-law
asserts that God has put into his hands the clean, sophisticated and purely
scientific means of bringing about the end, once and for all, of Jews and of
Judaism, without any harm resulting from this to anyone who isn’t Jewish. When
he said this I couldn’t resist suggesting, in all seriousness, he should go and
consult a shrink, immediately if not sooner, preferably a shrink with a sound
reputation, and I was prepared to pay the costs of consultation and psychiatric
treatment, the best that’s available in Germany.”

“And how did he react?” I
interjected, wanting to save time and bring her back to the main issue.

“You could have no idea!
Do you want three guesses?”

“OK, but not just now. I’m
agog with curiosity, more so than anything I’ve known since I was ten years
old, and I want to hear the facts. So, how did he react to your frank
comments?”

“With three simple words,”
Erika conceded.

“And those words were?” I
prompted her.

“You are right!”

I wasn’t satisfied with
this. I waited and Erika didn’t disappoint.

“A few days ago,” she continued,
controlling her impulses, “Amin went on to say: Now I have to plan, in all
seriousness, bearing in mind the presence of that accursed race in all corners
of the world, to ensure that my bacterium gets there, and does its job.

 You’ll need millions
to do that, I told him. That’s where you’re wrong, he said, Not millions –
billions, and I’ve got them!

“That’s all I can tell you
up to now… if there’s any more to come, you’ll hear it from me. An
insignificant payment for the fuck that you were so opposed to. You know my
address and you’ve got my phone number. I don’t know anything about you… maybe
it’s better that way. You can come looking for me. Once a week at least.” She
smiled a broad, bright, surprising smile.

“Thankyou very much,
Erika!” I thanked her wholeheartedly.

I left the apartment. I
returned later that evening, and asked a favour, with all the courtesy which
the English language affords:

“Erika, I’d like to meet
Amin.”

“Is it urgent?” she asked,
with all the solemn dignity she was capable of.

“Urgent!” I confirmed in a
tone which almost scaled the heights of German brusqueness.

“I’ll go down at once and
find out for you. Is it OK to tell him you’re here?”

“It’s OK.”

She returned about an hour
later, agitated to the roots of her flaxen hair.

“He came close to bursting
into tears! He says he’s dying to meet you as soon as possible. Something else
he mentioned, like an afterthought – he reckons he owes you his life. It seems
there’s a grain of truth in it.”

“More than a grain of
truth!” I thought it appropriate to stress, remembering Shmulik’s words: “I’ll
make sure he gets to hear of it.” Half an hour later I was invited into the downstairs
flat. A spacious flat. I was ushered into the sitting-room. There were a number
of broad, deep-seated armchairs, some with foot-stools, upholstered in
provocative and repellent purple velvet, like blood and perhaps fire too. A
long and heavy table, highly polished, a grand piano in the eastern corner. A
jumble of photographs and pictures, mounted on dark green card. A grandiose
salon indeed! There were paintings too: some classical prints and also examples
of work by the leading artists of the Twentieth Century – the century we were
all glad to see the back of. The pregnant Hilde, very like her unruly sister,
and just as capable of being unruly herself, were she not inhibited by her
swollen belly – sat in the western corner, furthest from the piano. I was
invited to sit in one of the armchairs, which to my surprise proved to be very
comfortable. Amin appeared out of nowhere, clicked his heels, German officer
style, held out a familiar, bony hand, which I shook with genuine warmth, and
sat down facing me in  a matching chair. I scrutinised him, with
curiosity. He had hardly changed. His face had grown thin and his big sad eyes
protruded. We both sank into the soft upholstery, fit to dispel any troublesome
thought. Hilde disappeared somewhere, evidently to a concealed kitchen,
re-appearing a few moments later pulling a tea-trolley, its two shelves laden
to overflowing with cakes, sandwiches, thinly-sliced bread, saucers of butter
and various kinds of jam. The drinks on offer were mineral water, coffee and
tea. Amin apologised for not serving alcohol, in accordance with his religious
obligations, but said he could offer me a can of beer or a glass of wine or
brandy if I chose, although – and here he smiled a smile devoid of any pretence
– to the best of his knowledge, I was not an outstanding aficionado of hard
liquor, of any kind or strength.

“Your memory isn’t failing
you,” I confirmed.

“Not yet,” he rejoined, as
if to take some of the gloss away from my compliment.

I drank a little tea, with
its warming and encouraging influence, which I needed so much. I took a dry,
unostentatious biscuit. He poured himself coffee, and took some of the same
biscuits.

“A proper English high
tea!” he declared, feeling the need to say something.

“The English and their customs!”
I responded, for the same reason.

“Take their customs away,
and they wouldn’t be English any more!” he concluded.

“We admire them so much,”
I continued in the same vein.

“It’s better and nicer
that way,” Amin chimed in. I sipped more of my tea. I held the cup in both
hands, to warm them, as a way of overcoming my embarrassment, an effort which
proved eminently successful.

“So,” I began, “you’ve
done what you threatened to do!”

“And you have to believe
me,” he countered with some warmth, “I’m very sorry for this!”

I could not restrain my
professional curiosity – even if I had wanted to – and without any diplomatic
preambles, I demanded brusquely:

“Who did you get the
Rickettsias from?”

It seemed he sensed the
turmoil inside me and evidently, despite his regret which was apparently
sincere, clear and emphatic – he was proud of his achievement.

“From the university lab.”

“They don’t just give away
lethal micro-organisms. That’s strictly and absolutely forbidden.”

“I still got the stuff.”

“How?” I controlled myself
in an effort not to risk losing the information, which interested me very much.

“Through Miss Davenport.”

“The laboratory
superintendent?” – it was more of a statement than a question.

This was an elderly
spinster, who managed the laboratories at the University of Columbia, a
perfectionist and a pedant who could reduce strong men to tears, acutely
conscious of the weight of responsibility laid on her narrow shoulders and the
salary she earned. A lady with a distinguished family pedigree, dating back to
the legendary Mayflower.

“How did you do that?” I
pressed him, although I sensed he was just as eager to share his stunning
scientific achievements as I was to hear about them.

“I made love to her.”

“But she’s over sixty!” I
marvelled. “And you know,” I couldn’t resist adding, “if this ever comes to
light she’ll be dismissed, in disgrace and without entitlement to any pension.”

“It won’t come to light,”
he declared firmly and added, “I’m not going to tell, and neither are you!”

“That’s right,” I confirmed.

“What is right anyway?” –
he poured out his bitterness.

“Right, is what leads the
wrongdoer to full repentance.”

“And who is the judge of
what is right?” he fired another bullet.

“Only God.”

“In other words,” he persisted
– “mankind has neither the right nor the ability to form a just judgment.”

“Absolutely so, and in all
circumstances!” was the categorical answer.

“And why is that?”

“Because you will find no
human being who has not sinned, has not committed some offence, from a white
lie to violent murder, in his imagination or in reality, which amount to the
same thing.”  

“How is the justice of God
attained?”

“By not interfering with
His business and His activities.”

“And how is that done?”

“By earning the privilege
of believing in Him, adhering to Him, trusting in Him.”

“In other words – the one
who believes in Him, adheres to Him and trusts in Him, has nothing to fear or
to complain about!”

“Exactly,” I concurred.

“From which it follows, that
every dispute between neighbours, relatives and peoples, even our two peoples,
will come to its full and comprehensive resolution, in direct proportion to
faith, adherence and trust in God.”

“Which are directly
opposed to hatred, vengefulness and arrogance.”

“So what we have to do, is
dispel hatred, vengefulness and arrogance!”

“That is the truth,” I
responded emphatically.

I returned to the topic
that interested me.

“How did you keep the
Rickettsia?” – my curiosity was overflowing.

“It went through a process
of adaptation.”

“You mean, you don’t
depend any more on Rocky Mountain deer…”

He completed the sentence
for me:

“But on the stray dogs of
New York City.”

“You’ve been working
hard,” I declared.

“I had outstanding
assistants.”

“Half a dozen elderly New
York virgins?”

“Perish the thought!” he
protested, “A full dozen young Arabs, studying in higher education institutions
across the USA. They all studied life sciences or medicine. They answered the
call. They left the lecture-hall bench and moved to a house that I rented. We
opened what amounted to boarding kennels, and they helped with the work which
wasn’t free of serious danger, the risk of death. They knew this and worked
tirelessly, with commendable enthusiasm. Soon, the dogs started dying of Rocky
Mountain fever, suffering terribly. It was a shocking spectacle. We had to
ensure that the ticks, causing the sickness and death of the dogs, could be
transferred to new dogs.”

“How did you do this?”

“We enabled uninfected
dogs to come into the closest possible contact with infected or dead dogs. And
we were entirely successful.”

 “Those bastard ticks
did the job for you!” I declared.

“That’s true, of course.
Ticks, as you know, sense the warmth of the victim approaching and attach themselves
to it in any way possible. We buried scores of dogs.

“The next stage was the
most repellent and dangerous. We had to transfer infected ticks to plastic
containers, with air supply, and on to the main testing station, meaning of
course, the village of Hasda in Galilee. And here the most decisive phase took
place: adaptation of Rickettsia on the basis of Jewish D.N.A.”

“You must have needed
massive quantities of Jewish blood!” I commented with a certain sense of pride.

“True,” Amin concurred –
“and where was I going to find it if not in the place with the world’s highest
concentration of Jews, in Israel.”

“Stocks of blood in
Israel’s hospitals,” I offered a superficial guess.

“Bull’s-eye!” Amin
commended my superficiality, and continued:

“The transfer was smooth.
In Israel the dogs were distributed, free, to the Jewish families and also to
the Arab families in Hasda.”

“In both Judaism and
Islam, the dog is considered an unclean creature.”

“The rumour was spread,
that progress and unity demanded the rearing of dogs and their treatment with
the appropriate degree of respect. It was hinted to the Arabs that love of
their homeland required this, it was a form of holy war, the Jihad. The Jews,
seeing themselves as equals to the Arabs in every respect, could not conceive
the possibility of lagging behind the Arabs, with their understanding of dogs.
The ticks, doing what comes naturally, also passed on to human beings, the ones
tending the dogs, infected them with Rickettsias and the results were
publicised in the media… not in an appropriately scientific form of course” –
he could not conceal a sense of professional pride.

“How many ‘passages’ did
it take to reach dependence?” I asked.

“Nine to twelve,” the
answer came.

“Did you use a liquid or
solid medium?”

“Exclusively liquid,” he
replied, “although I would have preferred to work with solids. The way I did it
was time consuming, caused a lot of complications and raised all kinds of
question-marks. But I had no choice.”

“Did you have control
checks?” I returned to the subject, barely daring to hope that the experiment
had not been properly conducted, such that the results on the ground would be
discredited and the whole murderous theory invalidated.

“Arab blood donated free
of charge, European blood – at full market price.”

“The Europeans didn’t ask
what was the purpose of the research?”

“All they asked for was
payment in dollars and within twenty-four hours.”

“You’re talking about
hospitals in the European capitals?”

“Berlin, Paris, Rome – the
best hospitals,” he replied briefly, a reply that embarrassed him too, though
it hardly amounted to a trauma.

“The results?” I demanded
to know and he wasn’t slow to inform me:

“Without Jewish blood –
the Rickettsias die, disintegrate and disappear.”

“Bingo!” I couldn’t resist
saying, “Fantastic!”

“It’s pure
micro-biological science.”

“An impressive piece of
work,” I couldn’t help but tell the truth.

“I won’t be a candidate
for the Nobel Peace Prize,” he retorted reluctantly, “and you have to believe
me, I greatly regret all this and I apologise most sincerely.”

I gave him a keen look.
His brown, almost swarthy eyes, his face, so Arab in all its sharp lines, made
him the epitome of the proud and pure-bred son of the Arab race, warrior and
enthusiast, the conqueror who doesn’t know how to treat those he has conquered
and how to hold on to his conquests, the religious fanatic, bowing devoutly
five times a day in the direction of Mecca, praising his God and thanking Him
for the very air he breathes. Since I said nothing, Amin took the opportunity
to back up his words and clarify them to some extent.

“We never had the
suffering of any human being on our conscience, irrespective of race or
nationality. In fact, I believed the conscience was a Jewish-western invention,
with its roots in flawed personality, misunderstanding of responsibility and
absence of faith. And then suddenly something crops up, devil or angel, I still
don’t know which, and hits me in the chest, right here in the chest, where my
heart’s supposed to be. A physical blow, and this heart starts missing beats or
the opposite, working double time and racing like a runaway horse, without a
rider. And I wish I could turn the wheel backwards, but God has imposed on us
the ineluctable rule that the wheel cannot be reversed once it is rolling down
the slope, so we must learn to be more cautious in the future. I should say, so
we must learn to guard against arrogance. Suddenly I began to understand the
world of
Subhan Ismo!
” He glanced at me quickly to see if the benediction
was familiar to me, and went on to say, “I saw the pictures in the paper. The
children who died of the plague. On TV they screened horrific images of the
dying and for the first time in my life, this was not a nice experience for
me!”