That is, it is bad news with some bite.
In sharing the terrible news—a revelation for which the guard is in no way at fault—the guard will also be forced to share what he would call some fashlot, and what the prisoner would call “mitigating factors,” that would color the story and reflect poorly on the guard, the prisoner’s trusted—and only—friend. It might rightly jeopardize a relationship they’ve both treasured, in what they both understood to be a very Stockholm-syndrome kind of way, a relationship Prisoner Z liked to call “Patty Hearstish,” a reference the guard had been compelled to look up.
In his own defense, as relates to the complication he hasn’t yet copped to, the guard has only been trying to protect Prisoner Z this whole time. It was the very literal definition of his job; his title was the action itself. He’s been guarding Prisoner Z in more ways than the prisoner could understand.
How, oh how, had it come to this! The guard recalls the first time he sat down in front of his three plastic-shelled deep-backed monitors—glowing; his own little triptych set up in front of him, with which to observe his secret ward. The screens were set up with one dead center, the other two touching and tilted in toward him a hair, each offering a different singular monochromatic perspective from which to watch the exact same nothingness going on in the cell. The way those monitors were angled, and feeling his own face lit in that blue-gray light, it reminded him of the way his mother used to hold a silver cardboard reflector under her chin to catch the sun by the sea, his mother, who would plop down in a beach chair and roll up her sleeves but still wore her modest skirt and her sandals buckled tight around her stockings.
It was she who had, way back in 2002, done him the favor of trapping him in this miserable bind. He’d screened her calls to his mobile and only answered the house phone—that is, her phone, the one his mother paid for—when she’d kept on yelling over the answering machine that she’d refused to abandon, though he’d begged her to switch to voice mail like everyone else.
It wasn’t during a 90210 rerun that she’d rung him, but right in the middle of a show he couldn’t bear to have interrupted. He was busy playing along at home with the British version of The Weakest Link, at which he was quite excellent, only ever stumped by the super-easy throwaway questions, distinctly British in nature, making him feel bitterly that—in the unfairness of geography and the misfortune of having been born into the armpit of the Levant—he was inevitably doomed to fail.
He felt this same dumb luck during his other favorite show, the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Not a million shekels either, but a million British pounds—a windfall with which a person could really live a life. How was one supposed to study the things passively absorbed from being? Those simple offhand questions weren’t about knowledge at all. They were freebies tossed in, gifts for those blessed to be born in a certain place at a certain time. And still, he made an effort to study up.
He had spent a lot of time in the army reading, trying to better himself and find a way to claw his way up in the broader world. His plan had been to get himself far away from Israel as soon as he could. You know what they used to say to each other back then? “Last one out, remember to turn off the lights.” The guard had dreamed of ending up in London or Manchester, and, even if it was Birmingham, he’d make do. Then he’d get on one of those shows, where they’d tease him about his accent, and then he’d surprise them all by winning himself enough for a nice little nest egg to cushion his brand-new British life.
When his mother got him on the phone that morning, she wouldn’t stop talking, even while the guard begged her to hold on, please, until they’d fucked up the chain of answers. He’d be happy to talk to her while they voted someone off.
“You’ll end up in prison, one way or the other,” is what his mother said, ignoring him. “I figure this at least puts you on the right side of the door. This way, at least you’ll be able to come home on the weekends.”
“It’s Israel. We let the murderers come home on weekends. You could kill a dozen people and they’d let you out to dance at your kid’s wedding. No sale.”
“This is a special job,” she said. “Top secret. You’ll be a shushuist. You’ll have a fancy résumé for the rest of your life. And the prime minister is asking. The General—it comes from him.”
“The General is asking? For me?”
“For you alone. So you can imagine it must be a real emergency if he wants me to turn to you. It’s something he can’t go outside the circle for—and I really shouldn’t even be talking about it on the phone.”
“If anyone’s tapping your phone, it’s him or his fascists.”
“Or the Russians,” she said. “Or the Americans or French or your beloved Brits. Anyway, it doesn’t matter even if they are listening. I haven’t said anything wrong. Nothing at all.”
“You’re doing it again,” he said. “You’re talking for the transcripts. I hate when you fake talk for whatever country’s spooks are eavesdropping.”
“Okay,” she said. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I do that. I have a very strange job.”
“You do.”
“And now I have a strange job for my son. It will pay nice. And it can’t be hard.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the General thinks you’re an idiot. He smiles when I tell stories about you, but I can tell, he thinks you’re a fool. If it were complicated he wouldn’t trust you. It’s that you’re loyal and can keep your mouth shut, is what he’s after.”
“Nobody keeps a secret better.”
“Also, he doesn’t think you’ll ever find a girlfriend to whisper it to, even if you wanted.”
“He said that, or you’re saying?”
“Who is ‘he’? ‘He’ we’re already done with. Don’t ever, after this, even think his name in relation to the work.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me not even to think it, yes?”
“I’m really hanging up now.”
“Do! It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t win.”
“What?”
“If you were on the show, you’d lose. That’s why people watch. On the couch, at home with a beer resting on their bellies, everyone knows all the answers. It’s different under scrutiny. You don’t have what it takes to handle the pressure.”