Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

‘You know my father would be happy if what you call the “peace process” fell to pieces. He called it the “war process”.’

‘Yes. But he wouldn’t be happy to see his wife dead and maybe his son, too, would he, no matter how much you disagreed?’

‘You think my life is in danger? And you care about that?’

‘Not really. But you should.’

‘Look, the danger to me doesn’t matter. I don’t care about it. What I care about is finding the people who did this.’

She exhaled. ‘Good. Well you can start by telling me what you know.’

For the second time in two days she was back on the West Bank, though now her guide was a man who called it Judea and Samaria, even if the phrase seemed to come wrapped in fairly large quotation marks. Uri Guttman pointed out of the window, just as Sergeant Lee had done, though he was not indicating this or that site of Palestinian suffering, but the landmarks of the Old Testament.

‘Down that road is Hebron, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three patriarchs, are all buried. And the matriarchs too: Sarah, who was married to Abraham; Rebecca, wife of Isaac, and Leah, second wife of Jacob.’

‘I know my Bible, Uri.’

‘You are a Christian, no? A Catholic?’ He separated each syllable: Cath-o-lic .

‘I was born and raised that way, that’s right.’

‘What, and you are not a Catholic now? I thought it was like being a Jew. Once you are, you are.’

‘Something like that,’ Maggie said quietly, wiping the moisture from her window.

‘There are many Christian sites around here too. This is the Holy Land, remember.’

‘“Never to be surrendered”.’

‘Are you quoting my father?’

‘Not only him.’

The guided tour was interrupted only once, when Uri turned on the radio news. The latest word was desperately bleak. Hizbullah had launched a rocket bombardment from Lebanon, breaking their own long-held ceasefire. Israeli civilians in the north were cowering in bomb shelters and Yaakov Yariv was under pressure to hit back, pressure from his own supporters. If he was about to make peace, they said, he had to prove he was no soft touch. Maggie had discussed this with Davis on the phone that morning: Hizbullah did nothing without the backing of Iran. If they were attacking now, it was because Tehran expected a regional war. And soon.

They had driven around and then above Ramallah and were now pulling into Psagot, a Jewish settlement perched on a hill that loomed over the Palestinian city. Maggie was struck by the simplicity of it all. It was almost medieval. Fortresses on hilltops, as if packed with archers ready to rain arrows down on the enemy below. It made her think of France or England, or Ireland, for that matter. The castles were either gone or in ruins now but only a few centuries ago the European countryside would have looked much like this, too: a battleground, with every mountaintop and hillside a strategic prize to be seized or feared.

The road was winding and steep, but eventually they came to a boom gate. Uri slowed down, giving enough time for the guard on duty to emerge from his sentry box, decide that this car was Israeli and therefore legitimate and wave him on. The guard was middle-aged and paunchy, wearing ill-fitting jeans and a plain T-shirt under a green soldier’s anorak. Slung over his shoulder was an M16 rifle, its butt bound with black gaffer tape. Maggie couldn’t decide if the casualness of the scene made it more or less sinister.

Once out of the car, she tried to get her bearings. At first glance these Jewish settlements really did look like American suburbs transplanted into the middle of dusty Arabia, the houses complete with their trademark red roofs and grass lawns. At the end of one street a group of teenage girls were playing basketball, though they were all wearing denim skirts long enough to cover their ankles.

She looked further, keen to take in Ramallah from this vantage point, but her view was blocked. Only then did she notice the thick concrete wall that bordered one side of Psagot, shutting out entirely any sight of the city below.

Uri caught her gaze. ‘It’s ugly, no?’

‘You’re not kidding.’

‘They had to build it a few years back to stop the sniper fire from Ramallah. Every day there would be bullets landing here.’

‘And did it work?’

‘Ask the girls who can play basketball in the street now.’

On closer inspection, Maggie could see that if this was an American suburb, it was one of the more down-at-heel variety. The housing units were basic and the central administrative building, into which Uri was leading her now, was a drab affair. The place was surprisingly empty. As Uri waited for a secretary to appear at the front desk, he explained that everyone was either at demonstrations in Jerusalem or in the human chain.

Eventually, a woman appeared and instantly gave Uri a long look of deep sympathy, her eyes damp. It was becoming clear that, whatever views he held personally, Uri Guttman was the grieving son of settler aristocracy: word about his mother’s death had spread, following an announcement on the radio that morning. With no appointment, she gestured for him to come into the office of the man who Uri had explained was not just the head of Psagot but of the entire settlements council of the West Bank.

The second Uri was through the door, Akiva Shapira was on his feet, striding over to welcome the younger man. Big and bearded, he immediately placed his hand on Uri’s head and uttered what Maggie took to be some kind of prayer of condolence. ‘ HaMakom y’nachem oscha b’soch sh’ar aveilei Tzion v’Yerushalayim .’ His eyes were closed as he said the words.

‘Akiva, this is my friend Maggie Costello. She is from Ireland, but she is here with the American team for the peace talks. She is helping me.’

Maggie offered a hand, but Shapira had already turned around, heading back to his desk. Whether he was avoiding a handshake on political grounds, because she was a servant of an American administration despised for imposing surrender on Israel, or on religious grounds, because she was a woman, she couldn’t tell.

‘You’re both welcome,’ he said breathing heavily, as he squeezed himself back into his seat. The first surprise: a New York accent. ‘By rights I should be the one doing the visiting. You have suffered the most profound loss, Uri, and you know you have the wishes of all the people of Eretz Yisroel, the whole land of Israel.’

Maggie understood the translation was for her benefit, as was perhaps the phrase itself. That ‘whole’ was not lost on her.

‘I need to talk to you about my father.’

‘Of course.’

‘As you know he was very agitated in the last days of his life, frantic.’

‘He was desperate to see Yariv. To tell him what madness he was committing, but this so-called Prime Minister of ours wouldn’t see him.’

‘Is that what he wanted to say? That the peace talks were “madness”?’

‘What else? He thought this was sane, giving up the very heart of our land? Are you serious?’

Maggie knew that this, too, was for her sake. Shapira was barely looking at Uri.

‘He knew that this was an act of a people who have lost their collective minds. A re-run of the great Jewish mistake. From Pharaoh to Hitler himself, the clever Jew has always reckoned he can make the wolf go away. And what is this Jewish secret weapon? I’ll tell you, Uri. It is surrender! That’s right! That is the great genius of the Jews, the nation of Marx and Freud and Einstein. Surrender! And now Yariv is trying the same trick. We give the enemy what he wants, without a fight, and we’ll call it peace. It is surrender, no more and no less. Am I wrong, Miss Costello?’