David Baddiel - The Death of Eli Gold

He enrolled on al-jinan because, when he hears the jihadis speak, something in him stirs. He likes the fierce commitment to God; he likes the language, the poetry of rage, purged of all the trivial inflections of modernity; and he likes the belief in – no, the knowledge of – destiny. To know absolutely both the nature and the quality of destiny – to know what role God has chosen for you and exactly how heroic that role is – that is what he would want for himself. He watches some of the videos that suicide bombers make before they embark on their missions, and he sees in their eyes no sway, no diversion, and it inspires him, even as he knows that the Jesus-less path they have chosen is wrong. He sees how only revenge inspires true religiosity.

And, of course, like him, they are fundamentalists. That is why he calls Eli Gold The Great Satan. It is sort of a joke – a joke he tells only himself – but it is a joke with a purpose. It inspires him to hate him more; to remind him of what the writer stands for; and also to help him to think like the jihadis do, about destiny.

He opens the Dell lid: the square light of the screen shines in the dimness of the room, a hot, white beacon showing him the way. He is not on al-jinan. He is looking, for perhaps the hundredth, or the two hundredth, time at the transcript on www.unsolved.com. Unsolved has a lot of these transcripts which purport to relate to unsolved crimes. The one he reads, over and over again, is an interview between Police Commissioner Raymond Webb and The Great Satan. The interview took place on 15 June 1993. His third and index fingers caress the mouse tracking pad expertly, bringing the transcript into plain view:

RW: So, Mr Gold, I’m sorry to have to make you do this …

EG: How sorry are you exactly? Not sorry enough to not want to bring me down here at a time of deep personal grief.

[inaudible]

EG: Yes, well … how long will this take?

RW: Not long, sir. We just need to go over some of the facts.

EG: Facts …

RW: Sir?

EG: May I have some coffee?

RW: Er … yes, I guess.

[inaudible]

RW: Showing Mr Gold case document R45/100 … do you recognize this?

EG: Yes.

RW: Mrs Gold showed it to you before she took the pills …?

EG: Yes.

RW: And then sealed it in this … showing Mr Gold case document R45/101 … envelope?

EG: Well, I didn’t watch her lick the glue.

[pause]

RW: What did you make of it?

EG: What did I make of it? For fuck’s sake, Commissioner …

RW: Webb.

EG: … Webb, it wasn’t a seminar …

RW: But she had been one of your students. When you met.

[pause]

EG: I really don’t see –

RW: ‘I have no desire left for life. Surrender is preferable to despair. I go, to the soft quiet land: and I thank my love for leading me there.’

[pause]

RW: Are you OK?

EG: I shall be.

RW: Sorry to … I know it’s upsetting.

EG: It’s beautiful. I think.

RW: Yes. Yes, it is. But –

EG: Yes?

RW: I thank my love for leading me there . What did she mean by that?

[pause]

EG: You are asking a question of the dead, Commissioner.

RW: No, Mr Gold, with the greatest respect, I’m asking it of the living. Because you, of course, despite also writing a suicide note, are still alive.

He hears some shuffling in the corridor outside of his room. It could be the cleaner, a Filipino woman, who has tried to get into his room to clean six or seven times over the course of the last two days, or it could be the man next door, who caused him to wake up in terror last night with the sound of what seemed to be nails scratching against the other side of the wall. He shuts the lid of the Dell as if caught looking at something he should not be.

Chapter 3

I didn’t want to go in and see Daddy today. Aristotle is definitely missing me. When I sit in my bed at night reading my story, he comes and sits on my chest, right up by my face. I can feel his whiskers tickling my nose. And then he purrs, really loudly, much louder than he normally does, like he’s like so, so happy that I’m there. Then he usually goes away, but this morning he was still there in the morning! I told Jada this and she said he probably went away during the night and came back just before I woke up but I think he was there all night, ’cos I felt this big weight on my chest where he’d been sitting, and like I said before he’s gotten really fat while we’ve been at the hospital every day so it was really something, like even after I got up it was like he was still sitting there, or like his ghost was still sitting there or whatever.

Also Jada has got the DVD of Marmaduke and she wanted to come round after school and have a movie night. She said she’d bring popcorn and everything. So after Noda had done serving us our breakfast, I asked her – Mommy – that is.

‘Mommy? Can I stay home today?’ I said.

She didn’t say anything at first, just carried on cutting up her eggwhite omelette into little slices, like she likes to. I don’t know why she likes to do that. It’s like what people do for a baby who can’t cut stuff himself yet. I hate it when she does that.

‘Mom?’ I said, ’cos I wasn’t sure she’d even heard. But then she put her knife and fork down.

‘Yes, darling,’ she said, in that voice she has which means she’s cross with me but won’t admit it, ‘I heard you. I’m just wondering why you don’t want to come to the hospital with me.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to come to the hospital! I just asked if I could stay home!’

‘Well, staying at home means you won’t come to the hospital. Doesn’t it?’

I took a drink of water. I only drink mineral water. I like Volvic, Evian, and a fizzy one from Europe called San Pellegrino. This one was Evian.

‘Yes,’ I said, when I put my cup down, which has a picture of Aristotle on it – I mean the real Greek guy, not my cat! Mommy bought it for me when we went to the Metropolitan Museum, ‘but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to come. It just means I just want to stay at home today more .’

Mommy got out of her chair and came and crouched down really near me, so that her eyes were the same height as my eyes. Her eyes, which are greeny-brown, were all watery, and the white bits had little lines of red in them, those kind of tiny strings of red you get in your eyes when you rub them a lot. Mom took hold of my hand.

‘Colette … I really think you should come …’ she said. With her other hand, she brushed my fringe, kind of like she was brushing it out of my eyes, but it was never in my eyes. This made me shiver a bit. I could feel lots of stuff inside me that I wanted to say. I could feel it wanting to come out like I was going to throw up, like the words were food or maybe something that wasn’t food that I shouldn’t have eaten, like when Jada told me she once swallowed an earbud.

‘But it’s so boring in the hospital! They don’t have anything for me to do there, and the TV is just on CNN all the time, and the only toys they have are for babies! And no one who’s my age ever comes there and I have to meet lots of creepy people like that fat guy Harvey – and he’s like my brother and I haven’t even met him before!’

I didn’t think I was screaming or anything when I said this, although I knew it must have been quite loud, because Noda came out of the kitchen making that face that she makes when she thinks something’s wrong, but Mom just shook her head and did a little wave of her hand, and she went back in again.

‘Colette. Firstly, could you not raise your voice to me like that? And secondly, could you not talk in that stupid way you’ve just learnt off the TV?’