The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

uniform. She somehow made military clothes seem civilian, like she had extricated them from their context. She wore black Dr. Martens boots with an orange seam, and a medium-sized amber stone dangled from her neck. She had wheat-colored braids and chestnut eyes. Based on her looks, Tamir decided she was of Hungarian descent. There were plenty of girls with similar hair color in Sufit. None of them knew Hungarian, but they had mastered imitating the Hungarian-accented Hebrew of their grandparents.

I don’t think I’ll get bored here, Tamir said to Keren, allowing his eyes to rest momentarily on her wheat braids.

Only Moti, the department head, looked like he was cut from a different cloth. His dress uniform was finely pressed and kempt, and he was clean shaven; he expressed himself in a way that seemed to oscillate between the tortuous excess of military speech and the mellifluent and articulate academic style of his coworkers in the department— ultimately being neither here nor there. His back was unnaturally erect, almost strenuously so; every couple of seconds, his hand reached up to fix his shirt collar like some conditioned reflex, lightly brushing against his platoon-commander pin and then straightening his rank insignias, his fingers dwelling ever so slightly over the reddish relief of his chief-captain insignia. He was fair-skinned with watery blue eyes. His shoulders were broad, but there was something slack, almost flaccid about him despite his rigidity. Moti’s insistence on employing military jargon made his briefing more labored and much less to the point than the other briefings Tamir had heard that day. In fact, the only thing Tamir learned from Moti was that if an attack were to take place in central Israel— that is, the geographic sector headquarters was responsible for— the department would send out a vehicle called the Mole. In such a case, Moti explained, the vehicle— equipped to scan frequencies and listen to operational communications by the attacking force— would be under the command of one of the unit-heads. Tamir said he thought the name was a bit ironic.

Ironic how? Moti asked.

Because moles are blind.

That’s just it, said Eli Nissenbaum, who had just walked into the department head’s office to place something on his table. We are blind, and thus our hearing is augmented, like the mole’s. But what do I know? I don’t even know what a mole looks like. Does a mole have good hearing?

Eli Nissenbaum was bearded, bespectacled, and slightly slouched. Despite his uniform, he managed to look like a clerk in a low-level government office. The folder-laden shelf above his head looked like a natural and adequate backdrop for him. He told Tamir that he has already started studying Law and Political Science at Tel-Aviv University, and recommended that Tamir started studying during his final year there, as well. The work will be second nature to you by then, you won’t have any problem taking on other stuff at the same time, and you should take advantage of the fact you’re already in Tel-Aviv, he said.

Don’t you want to take a break? Travel South America, or India, or something? Tamir asked.

Nah, that’s not for me, Nissenbaum casually dismissed the suggestion. Too hot. I prefer air-conditioned rooms.

He gestured towards a file cabinet packed with files and booklets and told Tamir he has to go over all of it. It’s documentation of everything we know about the organization. But the most important part of the unit is this, he exclaimed jubilantly and pointed at a tray next to the computer on his desk. The tray holds the summaries of all communications regarding the organization picked up in the different bases scattered around the northern border and sent here via the unit’s internal mailing system. You, as the unit head, go over the summaries and classify them according to their subject. At the same time, you document everything with any intelligence importance. And this is the Hall of Documentation, Nissenbaum announced and slid open a couple of huge drawers from the large metal card cabinet behind the desk. Inside the drawers were rows and rows of index cards arranged in impeccable order. The cards were indexed alphabetically according to different topics, such as armament, communications, deployment, political, seaborne, vehicle, and more. Nissenbaum glanced at the enormous card cabinet, and Tamir thought he detected a glimmer of moisture in his eyes. If there’s anything I’ll truly miss about this place, he said, it’s this. I started this card cabinet practically from scratch. It’s my life’s work… he stared silently at the cabinet for a moment. Anyway, you’re going to have to really go over this cabinet, know it like the back of your hand. I’m certain that by the time your stint here ends, you’ll have filled another card cabinet like this.

Tamir nodded. Nice poster, he said, and gestured over to the wall behind the unit-head’s chair. On the wall hung a large photo of the organization’s emblem: a united Palestine depicted in green, overlain with two crossed rifles, and the slogan: Sacrifice, Return, Liberation.

Yes, well, Nissenbaum smiled, after all, it’s our flag, isn’t it?

c. Bourgeois Intelligence

During his second day on the job, Tamir visited Department 143, where he found three people completely immersed in their computer stations. He approached one of them, a soldier with an alert countenance whose uniform shirt was buttoned all the way to the top, and asked him about a question that was referred to them a while back regarding a prominent Iranian functionary operating in Lebanon who had lost an eye in the Iran-Iraq War. The soldier gave Tamir a measured look and said that yes, they think they know who it is, although it hasn’t been confirmed. Tamir waited. The soldier waited as well, as if weighing the matter in his head. Remind me please, who are you? he said finally.

Department 195, Jibril unit.

Wasn’t that someone else?

I replaced him. Life’s dynamic, Tamir said.

Yes… the soldier seemed displeased.

So, are you going to tell me who it is?

Yes, he said, and