Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

“Still, after all these years?” He sighed, passing a hand through his white curls. “If you knew all the facts-”

“That won’t bring Srulie back.”

“You have not been the only one to suffer.” The camera descended to the paper with Srulie’s poem, resting on the wool blanket that covered the colonel’s lap. “I didn’t know they sent you to jail. I was in the hospital, dealing with my own loss. When I found out, I pressed for pardon.”

“How gracious. Why didn’t you wait outside when they released me, with red flowers and a mandolin?”

“Listen,” he said, “we both paid a terrible price. You should not have grabbed my megaphone, and I should have ignored the orders and attacked, which I would have done if I’d thought for one minute that Srulie was in danger.”

“If. If. If. It’s too late for excuses.”

“Always full of passion. That’s why I loved you.”

For a moment, Masada saw him in her mind as he had been, bright and confident, the ultimate sabra.

He smiled sadly. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“It wasn’t bad,” she said, “for a married father of two to screw a young babe in uniform.”

That shut him up.

“How do I get this thing off?” Masada pushed on the bottom of the helmet.

“In all these years,” he said quietly, “not a day passes that I don’t think of you. Not a single day that I don’t miss my beautiful-”

“Take it off!”

Colonel Ness leaned forward, his face filling the screen. “When you saw him crushed, you were crushed too. That night, you lost not only a brother. You lost your love for your country and for yourself. That’s the heaviest burden on my conscience.”

Masada’s eyes welled up. For a moment, she wanted to believe him.

“I’ve dreamt often that time rolled back, that I gave the order to attack, that we killed those two Arabs. In my dream, Srulie didn’t die, you didn’t attack the Arabs, the grenade didn’t go off, the other kids didn’t die, my legs didn’t separate from my body, and you didn’t run away to the other side of the world. In my dream I can walk, even run. And you and I? We’re happy. Together.”

She breathed deeply, exhaled. “And your wife and kids? Are they also happy in your dream?”

He sat back, his face turned away from the camera.

“Stop dreaming about me,” she said. “It makes me feel dirty.”

The camera left him and focused on the gravestone:

Israel (“Srulie”) El-Tal

Son of Miriam and Shlomo

Murdered 19.8.82

Seventeen at his death

God Avenge His Blood

Masada hoped the camera would linger. The grave had withered over the years, the stone no longer smooth, no longer white, no longer alone. There were many other graves under the shade of mature trees. Only the blue sky was the same, and the mountain towering over the kibbutz.

The camera returned to Colonel Ness. “What’s happening now is bigger than us. If you think I haven’t suffered enough, then chop off my arms too. But don’t punish the State of Israel for my sins.”

“Don’t compliment yourself. Your sins play no role in my life. Not anymore.”

“What would Srulie think of your efforts to destroy the homeland he loved?”

“Israel is destroying itself through infighting and lousy decisions. I’m just a writer.”

“ Just a writer? You’ve sent two Arizona governors to jail and a senator to his grave. I’ve followed your career, read your work, watched your victories-”

“You’ve read my stuff?”

He shrugged. “I have people for that.”

In a flash she realized he was still in the game-the commander, staging a raid on a target, attacking with scripted maneuvers designed to weaken her defenses and bring about capitulation. “Then your people might have already told you that I didn’t seek the story. A source gave me a lead, and I followed it.”

“Just like that, out of the blue? You believe in coincidences?”

“Sometimes.” Masada’s back was drenched with sweat, and her scalp was itching under the helmet. “Anyway, it’s done.”

“It’s only starting. Senator Mitchum, the new chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, just announced proposed new legislation-The Fair Aid Act. It would suspend all military aid to Israel pending Senate investigation of Mahoney’s death. Mitchum dared anyone to oppose him, implying that they were on the take too. Our people in Washington are desperate. No one is taking their calls.”

“Pay more bribes.”

“Once it passed the committee, a full Senate vote will take place very soon, then a protracted investigation, unless our friends on the Hill can point to new evidence that Mahoney wasn’t bribed by Israel.”

“Fabricate something.”

“We would,” Colonel Ness said, “but it’s got to come from you. Have you checked your source thoroughly?”

“I’m not going to turn on my own source just to satisfy a crippled Israeli manipulator.”

After a pause, Ness said, “You should enroll in an anger-management seminar.” He pushed his wheelchair, and the camera followed him between rows of graves. “I’m asking you to save the Jewish state.”

“How melodramatic. Israel will survive without American aid.”

“This aid suspension would mean a reversal in American support for Israel, a devastating change of the relationship with our only ally. All I’m asking is that you dig up further, right where your first lead came from.”

“Forget it. I won’t risk my credibility for you people.”

“You people?” He swiveled his wheelchair, facing the camera. Behind him, the hill side was covered with the red roofs of Kibbutz Ben-Yair. The camera opened up, letting the view widen until it showed the tomato fields in the valley below and a green tractor raising a cloud of dust into the clear sky. Above, Mount Masada cut a square block in a skyline. “Your credibility is more important than your homeland?”

“My homeland is America.”

“You’re an Israeli first!”

“Not anymore.”

His face was red. “You’ll go down in history as the woman who brought down the Jewish state.”

“Do we need a Jewish state? Or a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu state?”

“We have a state. It’s alive, and millions of Jews live there.”

“Jews flourished for two thousand years without a state-maybe because they didn’t have a state.”

“Jews died for two thousand years-pogroms, stake-burnings, mass expulsions, crusades, inquisition, a Holocaust.” Ness’s voice was rising. “America alone stands with us against an anti-Semitic world. But the people of the United States would turn against us if they believe that we paid Mahoney to rig up legislation that would force American boys to fight for Israel.”

“The truth will set you free.” Masada inserted her hand through the open eye shield, grabbed the miniature screen, and pulled hard, ripping it from the helmet. A series of screeching sounds came through the earphones.

The woman rider said, “She’s off video feed.”

“Masada!” Colonel Ness’s voice came through the static noise. “Listen to me!”

She found the buckle, released the helmet strap, and took it off, throwing it at the rocks.

The biker picked it up. “He says he’s not done speaking with you.”

Masada walked up the rest of the crevice and stepped into the open. Something glistened on the ground by her foot. It was a snakeskin, long, scaly, and brittle. She picked up the skin and threw it at Ness’s agent. “Tell him he can slither back into his hole.”

“He says he doesn’t want to destroy you.”

A realization came to her with a burst of anger. “And don’t touch my car again!”