been discovered by now and the car reported missing.
He watched a handful of Palestinians approach the checkpoint on foot where they were questioned, asked to show identification and searched before being allowed through into Jerusalem. The checkpoint was his only option but Zhilev’s concern was not so much the device he was carrying. The young soldiers would hardly be suspicious of a block of wood even if it did appear to be a little bizarre. The obvious cover story would be that the wood was a souvenir from the Holy Land. His problem was identification; his passport had no entry stamp in it. He did not know if the carriage of identification was mandatory for tourists, and whether or not they would ask him to present it. He was beginning to feel apprehensive. Considering all he had gone through to get this far, the checkpoint could turn out to be the most difficult obstacle. All it needed was one vigilant young soldier to demand proof of official entry into the country and he might find himself locked up and waiting for an immigration officer to arrive and interrogate him. The justifiably paranoid Israelis would undoubtedly make a closer inspection of his belongings in that event and the game would be up.
As he mulled over the problem he watched a taxi drive through the checkpoint from the Jerusalem side and, since it was leaving the city, continue without being stopped. Zhilev watched as it came to a stop a short distance down the road and a Palestinian, wearing the black-and-white patterned kaffiyeh headdress of his tribe, climbed out of the back seat dragging several large bags with him.
Zhilev’s mind raced through the possible scenarios as he studied the dented vehicle with its cracked windscreen, wondering if it would turn around and head back into the city. Inspired more by intuition than any firm plan he quickly opened his bag on the passenger seat and took out a bottle of water, unscrewed the top, dug his passport out of his pocket and carefully poured water down one edge of it, partially wetting the pages. He put the bottle down and opened the passport to check the effect. A good portion of each page had been soaked causing the fine anti-forgery patterns to run. He found the page that contained his UK entry stamp and carefully rubbed moisture over it until it became smudged and illegible. His aim was simple and surprisingly desperate considering his planning so far but the momentum was taking him along and having decided to go for it, he chose to ignore the obvious risks. If the soldier asked for his ID Zhilev would offer the passport with the explanation that it accidentally got wet in his bag and he was heading through Jerusalem on his way to Tel Aviv and the Russian embassy to have it renewed. Not completely satisfied with the plan but committed, he climbed out of the car as he watched the taxi pull away and turn in the road to join the back of the line of cars entering the city. Zhilev shouldered his pack and headed briskly up the hill. The taxi was three cars from the checkpoint as he approached it from the back, opened the rear door and climbed in.
The driver, a large, unshaven, gruff-looking man in a sweat-stained t-shirt with a cigarette in his mouth, turned to look at him and said something in Hebrew which Zhilev did not understand.
‘Jerusalem, old city,’ Zhilev said, expecting that was the answer to the question.
The driver said something else but when his passenger did not reply he realised it was because he was not being understood.
‘English?’ the driver asked in a harsh accent.
‘A little,’ Zhilev said.
The driver studied his passenger a moment before removing his cigarette to smile, revealing a bad set of brown teeth that still had food in between them from his last meal. ‘
Zhilev looked at the man again who was deeply tanned with black hair. Now that he was speaking in Zhilev’s native tongue and asking him if he was Russian, it was suddenly obvious the driver was neither Arab or Israeli.
‘
The man was pleased to have a fellow country-man in his cab and began to rattle on as if they were old friends.
‘Where are you from?’ he said in Russian. ‘I’m Moscovite.’
‘Latvia,’ Zhilev said. It was pointless saying otherwise because of his accent.
The taxi driver nodded although his smile waned as his eyes checked out Zhilev more closely. Zhilev suspected a hint of discrimination in the man’s look but ignored it. In his younger days, he would have baited anyone who acted derisively regarding his so-called impure Russian blood. More than one fellow Spetsnaz had suffered crushing blows from his massive fists for making disparaging remarks about his nationality, but this was not the time or place.
A slam on the bonnet startled both of them and they looked up to see an Israeli soldier in full combats and carrying a Canadian M16. There were no other cars in front of them and the soldier had obviously become frustrated with his attempts to wave the taxi forward to his cubicle.
As the driver wound down his window, the young soldier began to complain but the driver, obviously the short-tempered type and not remotely intimidated, interrupted heatedly in what appeared to Zhilev to be an offensive tone.The car behind honked its horn and the taxi driver immediately switched his attention to that driver, shouting back from inside the car. Zhilev looked behind to see an irate Israeli family packed inside a small car with the man at the wheel gesticulating abusively. The soldier banged the roof again to get the driver’s attention, which he got in the form of further abuse. The young soldier was becoming increasingly agitated and pulled open the door, raising his voice and demanding something of the driver. The driver climbed out of the taxi, obeying the soldier, but without interrupting his own vitriolic dialogue.They walked to the back of the car and the driver opened the boot. A moment later, he slammed it back down but the catch did not operate and the boot bounced open. The driver then proceeded to take out his anger on it, repeatedly slamming it shut until the catch finally hooked. He returned to his door continuing his verbiage as if in chorus with the soldier and climbed back into the car. It seemed he was talking more to himself than the soldier as he slammed his door shut hard enough to rattle the glass, put the engine into gear, revved it far too high and jerked away out of the checkpoint and up the hill.
Zhilev remained silent in the back, revelling in his good fortune. He had been completely ignored in the heat of the exchange. It occurred to him he might have been overly concerned in the first place. Whatever, he was through the checkpoint and on his way into Jerusalem.
‘Goddamned soldiers,’ the driver continued in Russian. ‘It makes my blood boil to be talked to like that by a twelve-year-old with a gun. I hate the Israelis. I hate the fucking Arabs too. Where did you say you were going?’
‘The old city.’
‘Hmmph . . . Fucking Israel,’ he went on.‘My stupid father and mother came here thirty years ago. They lied about being Jews. Russia was a shit hole. Now Israel is a shit hole and I’m stuck here. I have cousins in Russia who are rich.They make ten times, a hundred times more money than I can earn all my life in this shit hole. The economy is fucked. No one comes because of fucking war. Shit hole . . .You a tourist, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘First tourist I’ve had in a week. How’s a man supposed to keep a wife and children alive?’
The driver went on for a while, castigating the Israelis and Arabs, pausing only to hurl abuse at other cars which impeded his selfish, aggressive driving as he made his way through the colourless city that appeared to be built of either concrete or stone.
‘I’m going to get into prostitution,’ the driver announced.‘I’ve been saying it for years but I’m going to do it soon. What do you do?’
‘I’m a postman,’ Zhilev said.
The driver glanced at him in his rear-view mirror. ‘Postman? How can you live as a postman, even in Latvia?’
Zhilev didn’t answer.
‘These Jews are horny people. Especially the Hasidic. There is no law against slavery here. They bring in whores by the truck load. The Hasidic is so ugly he has to pay for his pussy, and he likes his pussy. Fucky, fucky, fucky all the time. And most of the women come from Russia and Eastern Europe. I have contacts. I could open a whorehouse with the best pussy from Russia and clean up. Soon, I tell you . . . You live in Latvia?’
Zhilev didn’t answer and the driver glanced at him again.
‘Why don’t you make some money and round up some women when you get back home and send them to
