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

slightly offended. Just because he’s been out of the game for so long, doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the rules.

It’s best you simply come in.

You need to try a little harder, Tamir replied.

A pronounced silence registered from the other side of the electromagnetic range. Tamir felt he could hear the wheels turning inside the mind of the man whose real name clearly wasn’t Assaf, as he deliberated what to say.

The stint has been spotted again, the man finally said, in a very soft voice, as if trying to both utter the words and repress them at the same time.

Tamir held his breath. It took him a few seconds to steady the quiver which gripped his throat. He didn’t want his voice to quiver, that’s for sure, but he mainly failed to fathom— where had this quiver come from, after all these years? It belonged to a different era, to a different person. What does this have anything to do with him? He cast his eyes of the scene around him— the dusty public benches, the tortured grass, the mindless, glazed look in the eyes of students.

I can come in tomorrow afternoon, he said. Despite his best efforts, his voice still quivered. He didn’t know whether the person he was speaking with had noticed.

Today would be better.

That serious?

Yes.

I’m at the college right now. I have a meeting. I can leave afterwards.

Can’t you blow it off?

Tamir pondered the possibility. The head of the department would be incensed. He liked that idea. Yes, I guess so, he replied.

Great. I’m texting you a number. Call when you reach Highway 20, and we’ll upload a GPS map to your phone with instructions.

Is that how things work now?

Things work in all sorts of ways. See you later.

He shoved the phone into his pocket. The college campus was succumbing to the implacable southern fall. Ponderous, parched lawns stretched from where he was standing all the way to the main building which blocked his line of sight, its faded white concrete façade furrowed into squares like a bar of white chocolate. He couldn’t stand white chocolate. He turned his back on the building and made his way to the parking lot, where his green Opel Corsa awaited him. He recalled a recurring dream he had had a few years earlier: he is walking on the outskirts of a foreign city, on the edges of the desert. He doesn’t recognize the city, nor the desert. The only thing he recognizes is his trusty Corsa, but he doesn’t understand why its familiar green is pervaded by reddish spots. He gets in the car, turns on the engine, and soars to the heavens.

It’s been years since he last had that dream.

b. He Has to Know

Highway 20 was congested, as always. The green Corsa inched its way through traffic. A news anchor over the radio informed of Hezbollah fire towards an IDF force around Har Dov. Sheba‘a Farms, Tamir recalled, they call Har Dov Sheba‘a Farms. The minister of defense was interviewed and declared that Israel will not tolerate repeated aggression by Hezbollah towards its forces. We will not be dragged to another war of attrition, he asserted. The prime minister announced that the cabinet will convene over the coming days to make some decisions. We do not for a moment forget that Hezbollah is merely an Iranian proxy, he said. Anyone complicit in the attack of IDF soldiers and citizens of northern Israel will have a price to pay. There is a growing understanding within the cabinet, the minister of interior and member of the political-security cabinet said, that striking the client is no longer sufficient. The patron needs to be dealt with.

That’s a pretty blatant threat, Tamir thought to himself. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he heard such blunt speech. What, they’re going to launch an attack on Iran because Hezbollah fired at Har Dov? That makes no sense. Who’s the minister of interior now, anyway? Someone from Shas?22 He’s a cabinet member…? his thoughts wandered.

He was in no rush, making no effort to change lanes to gain an extra yard. He was curious, yes, and even felt a certain fire in his belly, despite trying to deny it, but that did not make him rush. It was as if he had known all along that at some point, this day would come, that it was waiting for him, that everything which preceded this moment was nothing but a protracted, enforced hiatus. So, is that what you are? he asked himself, a foolish romantic, a child stuck in a fantasy, failing to realize he’s actually just stuck on Highway 20, no more and no less, that life is Highway 20 and you’re stuck inside, crawling along the quotidian, depressing traffic, towards a predetermined end?

The Prime Minister Office’s map directed him to some address in Nahalat Yitzhak. He edged his way at the last minute to take the exit at HaShalom and turned right, followed the instructions, and parked under a multistory building built of dark glass and gray marble. The building looked fairly standard, gloomy to an extent, sealed and impassive. A message flashed on the screen of his phone: Shomron & Sharoni Communications Services, floor 8, ring the bell. He went in, nodding his head towards the apathic security guard in the lobby who didn’t even raise his eyes from his newspaper. Tamir’s eyes spied the headline which screamed from the cover page in bold red and black letters:

DARING NAVY OPERATION

CARGO SHIP MORGANA SEIZED IN OPEN SEA

He had heard something about it on the radio whilst sitting in traffic. The ship apparently attempted to transport weapons from Iran to the Gaza Strip.

Tamir went up to the eighth floor and turned into the hallway, passing by a law firm and an artist management agency. A gray-haired, green-spectacled woman emerged from the agency. Being an author in this country, she mumbled to herself in anger, but loud enough for Tamir to hear, I’d be better off drinking bleach. They