Many times the scene had been enacted; the directions given, the orders made clear, and then the waiting for the cipher cable, the telex, the radio message, always the same men in the room, the same frustration.
Abruptly the Prime Minister curtailed the meeting. Nothing to be gained from further dallying, talking round a situation they no longer directly influenced. The delegation of the Histradut had been waiting more than twenty minutes in the anteroom outside his office. He should not delay them longer. The problems of the trades unions would be with him long after the affair of the taking of the Ilyushin to Stansted was forgotten.
That he should have closed and refastened the door Isaac knew. He should have shut them in again, barricaded the gate, prepared his defences. But he could not bring himself to return to the bright hole through which the sunlight dazzled, nervous of the danger there. Yet it was weakness not to go to the big lever, plunge it downwards the semicircle of its locking mechanism, it was a weakening of his will that he recognized but felt unable to correct. Not many hours since he had slept, four perhaps and not much more, but the passing of time had been concentrated and had ravaged both his strength and his thinking ability – the escape of the teacher, the killing of the Italian, the death of his friend. Great and cataclysmic events, all far beyond any previous experience he had had, each diluting the importance of the other, till they had taken a toll that he would not have believed possible.
You should have fastened the door, Isaac, if you mean to fight on. The door must be bolted and locked, Isaac. Their entry point. Through there that they will come with machine- guns and rifles.
They'll be laughing, unable to believe their luck, a door actually left open… But the tiredness swept over him, overwhelming, compulsive. If he could only close his eyes… A dreamless sleep, without the desperate fear of watching and waiting, and hoping…
But the door must be open for one o'clock. Right, Isaac? That was when you told the man Charlie to be watching and waiting if there was no petrol. He allowed himself a slow smile as he remembered the fever in the voice of the Englishman, the anxiety that he sought to suppress. It brought a quiet grin to the side of Isaac's mouth. That was why the door should be left open: so that they could see it, and count the minutes that passed on their watches.
Strange not seeing David ait the far end of the aisle, not following his bowed silhouette the length of the aircraft as he had hovered in the cockpit. Had made an abscess in their group, his going. And what for? What for, any of it? The policeman back in Kiev, the captain in his cockpit seat, the passenger (misshapen on the tarmac – didn't even know their names. So what for? The path that David had led them to, the road that he had shown them. A road that was safe and secure with the darkened shadows of esoape, no blocks, no armed men, no uniformed sentries, David had told them of Babi Yar, and of Potma and Perm, lectured them on the diet of seventy-five grams of black bread a day and cabbage soup with which to wash it down, harangued them on the young men of their faith who languished in the cells, the injustices, the cruelties, the interrogations. A blow for freedom, David had promised. And where was freedom? Not here, not in this stinking cell, with these animals to be watched and guarded and shepherded. You ran well, David, ran early, and you left us, left us to face the wrath you had brought down. But what if there can be no survival for the fighter, what if he is made for martyrdom? Isaac seemed to laugh to himself, and there was the slow, gentle, smiling shake of his head. Not what you came for, Isaac. Not why you bought the tickets – just to purchase a grave plot. Good enough for David, but not for Isaac. Rambling, you fool, deep in your self-pity. Wonder what they'd said that morning in the lecture hall as they gathered for the first class of the day, the ones he studied with. Would they know now where was the one who always sat in the fifth row, three seats in from the door, the one with the spidery writing, good at practical and poor at theory, who asked no questions and took the 'B' marks, and who was quiet and had nothing to say in the canteen queue at morning break? Would they know? And if they did what would they say? Those who liked him, what would they say if they had stood beside him at ten and watched his finger tighten on the trigger bar, seen the disintegration of a man's skull, the way he wiped the spattered bone and brain tissue from his arm? Would they have embraced him, or have cowered beyond his reach?
His hands gripped the narrow barrel of the gun. Hurting yourself, Isaac, wounding yourself.
But you have to decide now, cannot stall and pass the parcel any longer. Have to close the door if you are going to fight them, Isaac. It's your guts that are fleeing you, draining through the open door, spilling out, splashing on the tarmac, ripening the time f o r surrender.
Time to move. Isaac pulled himself up from the floor, holding on to the trolley for leverage. So bloody tired, his legs. And the baby still crying. No one trying to stop the little bugger's fury, letting it scream and yowl as if to batter at him personally. And all of them watching for his reaction to the noise, waiting for him to burst into p r o t e s t… or to capitulate and ask for milk to be sent. They would not wait much longer, but for now the bastards could wait. Even the American was quiet now, the one with the homilies to Rebecca, and the arrogance; should have chosen him, not the little frightened man he had dragged to the doorway: should have been the American. Not that it would have changed anything, only given greater satisfaction.
Down the aisle again, Isaac. Cat in a cage, with a circumscribed path inside the bars. Down the carpet, eyes to the right, eyes to the left, and watch them all squirm, look away, try to hide. He reached Rebecca, and his arm was round her shoulder, not with emotion, more to offer a faint degree of comfort.
They should not have brought her. It chilled him to think what would happen to Rebecca.
Perhaps he was strong enough to face the bullets- perhaps. But the girl, never. Without the muscle, without the mind. They should not have allowed her to come. Late in the day for that thought, though. In their eyes she'll be as culpable as the men, would be judged with equality, the same fate. What a screw-up! And how f a r from where it had started, and what had it started for?
A heap of cretins sitting in their excreta, that Babi Yar should be remembered. Babi where? Babi bloody Yar. Isaac laughed to himself, this time out loud.
Rebecca said, 'What you said to the man, Isaac, did you mean that? It is close to one o'clock, do we kill one more then? Do we have to?'
' If we believe that we are going to Israel, then we must kill another, and another till we have the fuel.' His voice was steady, and without anxiety.
'Are we going to Israel, Isaac?'
'Questions, always questions!'
'But now there must be answers, Isaac. David is dead, the Italian, the captain too. There have to be answers.'
'What do you want to hear me say?'
' I have to know what you think. I have the right to know what you will do. Are we going to Israel?'
'And you? What do you think? Do you believe we will fly from here?'
'Don't play with me, Isaac. Not now. We have been here too long for games. We have to have honesty now.'
'So, what do I have to say for you? Do I crawl to you and beg for your forgiveness?' He spat the words at her, and the hate was there again, the loathing not for her but the great sponge that hemmed in on them that they could kick against, but not hurt, not inflict pain. 'Do you want me to plead to you to forgive me and to forget where I have taken you? Of course we will not see Israel
… There, it is the first time that I have said it… I'll say it again for you only louder, so that all these pigs can hear me
… we will not see Israel. We will never see Israel We are like the herd of our people, the masses of the camps and the prison cells. No better than them, no worse than them. We are as ineffective as they are. We will never see Israel. You wanted me to say it, and I have satisfied you. It was for nothing, Rebecca. Nothing.'
'So there will be no more killing?' A small voice, almost a whisper, flattened by the enormity of what she had drawn from him. She pushed the hair back from his forehead, a quick movement of the hand so that he barely felt the texture of her fingers against his skin.
'No more of the passengers will die.' The smile regained, promising the girl a present, something she would like and be pleased to accept.
'Who else, who else other than the passengers? The soldiers, if they come… who else?'
'They will send us back, Rebecca. Remember when you and David talked to them, when he was defeated, when he wanted to end it, and they could not answer you. Remember that: they could not answer the question you asked them. They want to send us back. You understand that, you know what that means. It is not the way I can accept, Rebecca, and you could not go alone.
