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

the winds of the sea. He thought it would be a bit odd to die in this church. The sound of the organ intensified, but there was a strange gaiety to it now. So, this is how it ends, he thought. This is it.

All of a sudden, her fingers relaxed their grip, remaining softly on his neck like a tender caress.

Dallal, he whispered, gulping sweet oxygen.

She leaned back to her wooden bench. Her beret had fallen to the ground, her hair scattered and covered her face. It was streaked with thin silver rays. Leave Sa’ira alone, she said, a faint trace of pleading in her voice.

Did you drag her into this?

No one can drag Sa’ira into anything. She wanted to do it. It was important to her.

I see.

Will you help me?

He looked at her. When I was standing there, he said, when the Ultralight landed, I was waiting for Polnochi.

Who’s Polnochi?

A beautiful Russian princess who descends from the skies and rescues young dreamy children.

She looked at him as if she were reevaluating him. He tried to decipher her expression. What was he seeing? Grace and truth? Unyielding justice? Tenderness and mercy? Ground water? Stones of chaos? What was he seeing?

We’ve been here for too long, she said, her voice expressing a renewed matter-of-factness. You should know that’s dangerous. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go off the radar again, but who knows, maybe we’ll see each other again. And maybe not. Perhaps it’s best for the both of us that we don’t. Bekhatrak, she voiced the lovely Arabic expression— With your permission, I’ll leave. She got up.

Wait, he rose to his feet.

What?

You have to give me something.

I don’t have to anything.

You’re going to change all of your phone numbers, I know, but you have to give me a number, something.

Why?

Because I’m your only hope at the moment.

She hesitated. Finally, she reached into her small, simple handbag and pulled out a pen and notepad. She opened the notepad, and scribbled something down; she hesitated momentarily, glanced at Tamir, and scribbled another thing down. She ripped the piece of paper and handed it to him. He took the paper and stared at her. She turned her back and left.

Tamir was left standing alone, immersed in the dying sounds of the organ. He reached up to touch his neck. A drop of blood smeared on his hand, a result of Dallal’s nails piercing his skin. The burning sensation was gentle and pleasant, very pleasant. He stood there for a couple of seconds, in a daze, and then, suddenly remembering, raised the note he held in his hands to his eyes. She had jotted a phone number down. It was a Viennese landline. On the left corner of the page he saw the unmistakable emblem of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command. At the bottom of the page, she wrote in the poised Arabic cursive of a diligent schoolgirl:

Perhaps one day we’ll meet on the banks of the Na‘aman.

Dallal

r. Cremeschnitte

What happened to your neck? Yaki asked, observing him suspiciously.

I went to Milena.

No shit… Well, no one said you can’t have a good time.

Yes. I needed to blow off some steam.

It’s pretty depressive at the moment, isn’t it? Yaki moaned. The girl’s gone… But there’s a limit to how depressed one can feel in Vienna. Look around you, how can you be down in a place where all the girls wear pink skirts? They sat in a branch of the pastry shop Aida, opposite the opera house. The furnishing was pink, matching the waitress’ uniforms. Actually, Tamir thought, one certainly can be depressed in a place like this. Yaki had an apricot strudel and Tamir had a cremeschnitte. Cremeschnitte is the type of pastry that sends you back home, he thought, even if you’ve never really had a home.

I don’t understand how she slipped us, Yaki said. We saw her get in the cab, but the cab was empty when it reached the apartment. That can only mean she knew she was being followed. What I would like to know is, how did she know? Common sense says she was on to one of our people, but these are highly professional individuals. To do so, she’d have to be really, really good herself. Or, someone could’ve tipped her off… There are plenty of possibilities. Syrian intelligence? Iranian? Someone else? Is anyone else tracking her? We actually looked into that, but couldn’t find anything.

She probably has quite a lot of experience herself after all these years, Tamir proposed with a mouthful of cremeschnitte, his eyes lowered.

I guess, Yaki snarled skeptically, his eyes fixed on Tamir. I wanna kill someone, he mumbled, lazily chewing his pastry.

It really is frustrating, Tamir said, dodging Yaki’s gaze.

You sound a bit off today, Yaki assessed.

Maybe I’m coming down with something, Tamir replied. In fact, marching through the cold streets the night before with nothing but his blazer did indeed exact a toll on him.

Anyway, Musa laid into me today. He was livid. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack. He said I screwed up big time. Let’s just say, I’m not expecting to get promoted anytime soon.

That sucks.

You really do sound off today. Anyway, your place at five, conference call with Musa.

This cremeschnitte, it’s like… like I missed it without knowing I was missing it.

Are you a yekke?

No.

Then how… Never mind, it doesn’t matter.

No.

s. Direct Order

Musa’s disgruntled face peered from Tamir’s laptop screen. The curtains were drawn and the light in the room was dim. Outside, the wind bellowed over the streets of the 8th district, sounding like sighs. There is something restless here, Tamir thought, uncomforting.

I take it you haven’t found her, then, Musa said. What about her phone?

No signal, Yaki said. She must have flushed it down the toilet when she realized she was being tracked.

Or thrown it to the Danube, Tamir said, earning him a bewildered look by Yaki.

No activity in the apartment? Musa asked.

Nothing. She never went back.

Alright, we