kid, a poet in the making.”
Masada groaned.
“I’d like to send you this one.” Ness pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Someone at the kibbutz gave it to me. Your brother wrote about missing his mom.”
“What do you want?” Masada swallowed hard. Srulie had recited the poem aloud in the dining hall during a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of their parents’ death. Miss Feldman, the kibbutz’s general secretary, had confiscated it because of the concluding, unpatriotic line:
The camera focused on the colonel’s face. The skin had creased and weathered, yet his jaw was still square and stubborn, his expression still calm, radiating confidence. It was the same face she had once caressed and kissed with the wholeheartedness of first love.
Colonel Ness looked down at the paper. “This morning I read this to my grandkids at breakfast. Your brother would have become another Agnon.”
Masada was determined not to cry. “You didn’t arrange this high-tech showoff just to recite childish poetry.”
“True.” Up close, his eyes had remained as blue as the Mediterranean on a sunny day. “That disaster wasn’t only my fault. We were soldiers, sworn to follow orders.”
“You were the commander. You failed to act.” Masada’s voice trembled. “You practically killed him.”
“And you practically killed the others!” Ness shut his eyes, breathing deeply. “If not for your crazy attack, the Arab wouldn’t have thrown the grenade. But you’re right. In hindsight, I should have acted despite the orders, and then even Srulie would have survived.”
“Your only hindsight was covering your ass. You’re worse than those two Arabs. They sacrificed themselves for an idea, but you only thought of career and reputation. I despise you.”
“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:
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.”
“
“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?”
