Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

‘Well, what could he find out?’

‘I don’t know, Hushash, but we need to try. Don’t you think?’

Fahmi and I continued working through the afternoon. Once I’d filled out the test forms, we drank coffee and chatted for an hour in the dining area. His Hebrew wasn’t bad and improved as he loosened up: I liked him. He told me about his grandfather, and how he used to ride a white horse through the hills of Samaria. So I told him about Duchi’s grandfather, who was in the patrol that bumped into Izz ad-Din al-Qassam himself in 1935.

‘You know who Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was, right?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘God,’ I said, ‘it used to be like cowboys and Indians around here,’ which made him laugh.

It was Sunday evening in a deserted Bar BaraBush: Fahmi, Bar and me at the bar. Fahmi was running his finger down an almost empty pint glass of beer and telling us more about his grandfather, also named Fahmi.

‘You know where Beit Machsir is?’ Neither of us did. ‘These days the Jews call it Beit-Meir. Above Bab al-Wad,’ he said.

‘Yeah. We know all about Bab al-Wad,’ I said.

‘He was a teacher who got involved with operations against the British during the thirties. With the Jews he was actually OK, but he hated the British. Because the whole thing was their fault. He killed three British soldiers. But they caught him and put him in the prison in Acre.’

A couple of girls came in who were so good looking they stopped the conversation. One of them approached Noam behind the bar and asked for a couple of Orgasms. Three heads turned towards her: she was already waiting for us with a smile. Short brown bob, apple cheeks, sweet little pout, a total babe. Torture. She flicked her attention back to Noam, already busily fulfilling her needs, and Fahmi sighed and continued. ‘They sentenced him to be hanged. He sat in the prison in Acre and waited for the end. He had to wear these red overalls you wore if you were to be hanged. One day they told him his last day had come. They led him from his cell to the gallows and asked him if he had a last wish. What do you think he asked for?’

‘What was it?’

Fahmi pointed to his nearly empty glass.

‘His last wish was a beer. The first time in his life. We Muslims aren’t allowed alcohol, you know? So he says: one time, I will try it. They bring him a glass of beer, just like this, and he starts drinking.’ Fahmi broke off and concentrated on his own beer. He seemed to be following a train of thought somewhere else. Bar and I drank quietly.

‘Well?’ said Noam, from behind the bar. ‘What happened after the beer? Did they hang him?’

‘No, they didn’t,’ Fahmi said, coming back to us. ‘In the middle of his beer, a miracle happened. An Englishman rode up on a horse and told him he was free to go. They let him finish the beer, made him take off his red overalls and set him free.’

‘You serious?’ asked Bar.

‘Totally serious.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘He never knew till the day he died. No one explained, not then, not ever. He thought it was probably a mistake. They’d mixed him up with someone else. But he never knew who or why.’

Bar and I chuckled, and Noam too, his pointed sideburns seeming to smile more widely as he laughed.

‘Maybe it was the beer,’ I said.

‘That’s what he always said. So after that he drank beer all the time. Everyone in our family does. And he also stopped hating the British. He never got into any trouble again for the rest of his life.’

‘Thanks to the beer, huh?’

‘Thanks to the beer. If someone is angry, he needs beer. That way there are no problems. I’m going to take a piss.’

‘Complete and total horseshit,’ Bar said when he was gone.

‘Well, maybe…he sounded kind of honest to me.’

‘Yeah, well. I just hope he’s not going to bullshit us about Tamer Sarsur.’

Tamer Sarsur. I’d almost forgotten why Fahmi was sitting with us in Bar BaraBush. It had been Bar’s idea to invite him to Tel Aviv. Fahmi had been nervous initially, worrying about the Jews’ attitude. I told him that he’d be with us, and that I’d take him back to Kafr Qasim afterwards, which seemed to do the trick. And after his first ever beer in Tel Aviv he relaxed and started telling his grandfather stories.

When Fahmi came back from the Gents, Bar started in on Sarsur. Did he know a Tamer Sarsur in his village?

‘Sarsur? There are many Sarsurs in Kafr Qasim. It’s a big family there. But I don’t know a Tamer.’

‘Or Amin?’

He frowned and thought. ‘No, sorry. Why?’

‘Tamer and Amin are brothers. They live in Tel Aviv, in Weizmann Street. Amin runs a fruit-and-veg place. Tamer’s a nurse in Ichilov. The hospital. We need to find out about him.’

‘Well, what do you want to know?’

There was a silence. Bar looked at me. I said, ‘Come on, tell him. What harm can it do?’ So he briefly detailed the story of Guetta and the attack, Shuli and the Palm (Bar asked Fahmi whether he knew what a PalmPilot was, which made us laugh) and Warshawski and Tamer and Amin.

‘We’re trying to understand the connection between Tamer, Warshawski and Guetta. You could ask around in Kafr Qasim. Ask about Tamer. Maybe you’ll find something, maybe you won’t. That’s all. I’m not saying you will. I’m just saying it’s worth trying. You don’t have to. Maybe the two of us could come over and sniff around one day.’

‘Are you crazy?’ That was me.

‘But why are you doing this?’ Fahmi asked bewilderedly.

‘I promised Shuli I’d find out what Guetta was doing in Tel Aviv that day.’

Fahmi stared at me. ‘But this Shuli is dead.’

‘It happened after we got going. Her death wasn’t in the plan. But we started this thing and we want to finish it.’

He drained the dregs of his beer. ‘Don’t go to Kafr Qasim. You won’t get anything. You know Arabic?’ We shook our heads. ‘So what are you going to do, walk into the mosque and ask about Tamer Sarsur in Hebrew?’

There was nothing to say to that.

‘OK. I will ask. I’ll try. Yalla ,’ he said, getting up and pulling out the notes he’d earned that day in Time’s Arrow, ‘are you taking me home?’

‘Put them away, I’m paying,’ I said, and pulled out my wallet.

During the whole long day I spent with the Croc, I told myself time and time again: he’s your target. Get close, but don’t get attached. Create opportunities, not obstacles.

The work had been easy and the money was good, but he paid for me everywhere. He paid for lunch, for my hamburger in the evening, for my beer, like I was a refugee who needed feeding, like a charity case who has to say thank you very much for every shekel spent on him. I got annoyed and started telling them stories about Grandfather that I just pulled straight out of my arse.

Tel Aviv, I had to admit, was full of beautiful women. The bar, they said, was empty because it was Sunday. I ought to come again at the weekend and then I’d see. And I thought that the next time I’d be there the place would be full of pretty girls, and maybe I could send some of the beautiful women of Tel Aviv to hell along with the Croc.

But I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t a shahid. I didn’t have that fearlessness, that certainty of will. And how would I do it, if not as a shahid? I’d killed the enemy before, but only from a distance: I’d made plans, made bombs, opened fire from the ridge above the road. I was a follower of instructions. I followed my brother, and my grandfather, and my conscience — I was not a man with a knife in a crowded bar. I tried to tell them that on the phone but they just thought I needed strengthening in my belief in the cause, and started lecturing me about Allah and the Holy Land. It didn’t do any good. And that evening in Tel Aviv only worsened my fears: the security guards, the suspicion and the staring, the unbearable feeling of being totally alone, as if I were a dead man already, a spectre spurned by the living.