Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

When comprehension hit Al, he started moaning again.

“Be quiet.” Silver placed his thumb on the piston. “Or I’ll press it in.” When Al froze, the professor brought his face close to the Jew’s fearful, confused eyes. “Do you want to know how Masada found out about the bribe?”

He actually nodded, which made Silver laugh.

“I put a little camera in your van, got Mahoney on video, and gave it to Masada.”

Al’s eyes jutted between the syringe and Silver’s face.

“I’ll tell you another secret.”

Al tried to scoot down in the bed, as if he could dislodge the tube from his neck, but the handcuffs stopped him.

“I am Abu Faddah, a Palestinian.”

Suddenly not moving, Al stared at him.

“You, my ugly friend,” Silver pinched Al’s cheek, “you helped me destroy the friendship between Israel and America.”

Al jolted wildly, his arms pulling on the handcuffs in short, fierce jabs that caused the bed to move away from the wall. The beeping on the monitor sped up.

Silver pressed down the piston, emptying the air into the IV line. “Say hello to Allah for me.”

A chain of elongated bubbles traveled down the transparent tube. Al’s eyes tried to follow the bubbles, which disappeared in his neck. His struggle turned into frenzied body twists, but a moment later he froze. His body arched over the bed, and his face turned dark crimson.

The heart monitor stopped beeping, letting out a solid, continuous tone. Al’s body slumped, his eyes gaping at Silver.

It took only seconds to tear off the tape from Al’s mouth, pull out the syringe, and go into the bathroom. He tossed the syringe into the wall-mounted box with the red crossbones and dumped the tape into the toilet bowl, followed by the rubber gloves. He unzipped his pants just when voices sounded in the room.

He urinated, whistling the tune from Friday night’s service. When he heard the first defibrillator pop, he flushed the toilet and opened the door.

A nurse clasped Al’s wrist. Another held the two contact plates above his exposed chest.

“Pardon me, young ladies.” Silver tugged on his zipper. “My plumbing isn’t what it used to be.” He paused, feigning shock. “What’s wrong with Al?”

Elizabeth could not stop caressing her belly in front of the tall mirror in her bedroom. She turned left, then right. How big was it going to get?

“My fellow Palestinians,” she addressed her reflection, “family and friends. It is with humble pride that I stand before you today to accept this award.” She paused for the applause. “While my work must remain secret, our national future is for the whole world to admire. The Zionists will soon be brought to their knees, and all of Palestine shall be free.”

She glanced at the photo of her father and the professor, which she had taped onto the corner of the mirror, and imagined Father smiling through moist eyes. “I thank Allah,” she continued, “for the opportunity to serve Palestine, to build a just and free society on our land.”

Her eyes shut, Elizabeth imagined the tricolor flags flapping in the gentle breeze along the dusty main road of the camp. She listened to the cheering crowd, the band breaking into the Palestinian national anthem, her father’s hand resting on her shoulder.

Masada listened as the doctor informed her that the MRI of her head showed no internal bleeding. The severe bruises left by Al Zonshine’s beating would heal, but there was still a risk of a clot travelling through her blood to her lungs or brain. They would keep her for observation for a few days.

She managed to shower herself and hoped the trickle of vaginal bleeding would stop before it was noticed by the nurses. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing what had happened with Al. They would ask prodding questions, examine her private parts, and fill out reports that would make their circuitous way to the media. It was a risk she would not take.

Professor Silver came to visit, bearing flowers and chocolate. He sat by her bed, held her hand, and told a funny story about a Jewish man who tried to learn how to water-ski while wearing his prayer shawl and yarmulke. After sharing a brick of chocolate, they discussed Al’s death. According to hospital gossip, his heart had given up. “Better that way,” Silver said, “Such a tortured soul.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Masada said. “My mind keeps racing through what happened.”

He patted her hand. “I’ll ask them to give you something.”

After consulting with the physician on call, the nurse gave Masada two sleeping pills.

Silver closed the door, dimmed the lights, and adjusted her bed. “Now old Levy will watch over you. Good night, now.”

For the first time since Al’s attack, Masada began to calm down. He made her feel like a little girl tucked in for the night by her daddy. She closed her eyes, and he kissed her forehead. “Sweet dreams, meidaleh.”

Professor Silver waited until close to midnight. The hallway traffic had quieted, and Masada was snoring lightly. He stood over her and listened to the rhythm of her breathing. She was sound asleep.

He cracked the door and peeked outside. All was quiet, the nurses’ TV throwing blue haze on the walls.

Back at Masada’s side, he pulled out the second syringe he had bought earlier, tore the wrapping, affixed the needle, and uncapped it.

Unlike Al’s central line, which was thicker and fed drugs straight to his heart, Masada had a thin tube that traveled from the IV bag above the bed down to her arm. It would require a larger amount of air, which would have to travel all the way to her lungs and heart, in order to kill her. And because she didn’t have Al’s heart condition, her sudden death would be harder to explain. On the plus side, however, she was not attached to a heart monitor, so her death would likely remain unnoticed for hours, long after he would have departed through the stairway on the opposite end of the hallway.

Holding up the syringe in the dim light, Silver pulled the piston all the way back, filling the syringe with air. The blotch forced him to tilt his head to see the point of the needle as he tried to stick it into the thin IV tube. He missed, stabbing his finger.

“Ouch!” He sucked on his finger for a moment, trying to calm down.

As he held the tube to try again, Masada stirred. He feared she would feel the bubbles travel through her blood vessels. Would she wake up with sudden pain? Would she open her eyes for the last time and see him standing over her with the incriminating syringe? Would she scream? Just in case, he prepared a strip of tape to stick over her mouth.

But there was something in Masada’s face he had not seen before-a calmness that softened the contours of her mouth almost to the point of a smile. He bent closer and gently caressed her dark hair, clearing it from her bruised forehead. His hand lingered, and he watched her, enjoying the beauty endowed by her unusual state of peacefulness.

Shaking his head, Silver ordered himself to concentrate. He held the IV tube between a finger and a thumb, staring at it from the corner of his eye, and carefully brought the point of the needle to the tube. He felt the needle touch the tube and pushed it in, relieved.

His gaze was drawn back to Masada’s face. Framed by her dark hair, she seemed pale, angelic. He placed his thumb on the pump, ready to inject a syringe-full of air into her veins, and looked away from her face, up at the ceiling, where he aimed the blotch at the dimmed nightlight to remind himself that this woman’s life stood between him and a cure.